Lypp, a
Vancouver-based mobile startup, launched recently to offer Blackberry users (and soon other devices) a way to bypass long distance charges in Canada and the US. With Lypp calls are initiated using Instant Messaging but work with your existing phone number.
Continue reading "Lypp: Helps Avoid Long Distance Charges" »
I recall getting online for the first time and how exciting it was to be on the World Wide Web. I am sure many people have similar stories of your first encounters with the WWW. This video of Nick Thune performing his acoustic rendition of his love story "Instant Messenger" live on The Tonight Show which talks about his first online experience. It may make you LOL. ;)
Photo of the Week: This photo was taken by Brian Solis of bub.blicio.us at the TechCrunch event in Menlo Park, California on Friday evening (Suits Suck tee shirt photo explained in first story below).
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.29.07
TechCrunch 9 & A Funny "Suit"?
I was in attendance
for the event on Friday evening at August Capital in Menlo Park and had a great time. There were loads of interesting web 2.0-fabulous guests in attendance. Thanks to Mike Arrington, Heather Harde and the rest of the TechCrunch crew for a wonderful evening. The guest (who I won't name publicly) wearing the "Suits Suck" tee shirt (shown above) said he was a
Google employee in the marketing department and made me laugh. As I sipped on some Stormhoek white wine, he asked me and Nick Gonzalez, also a TechCrunch contributor, "what Mike Arrington looks like?" because he
was looking to connect with him at the party. After both Nick and I took our best cracks at explaining what Mike Arrington looks like he left us to continue on his mission. So let me re-cap, the guy shows up
wearing a colorful "Suits Suck" tee, works at Google in the marketing
department, attends the TechCrunch party looking to connect with Mike Arrington but
doesn't know what he looks like. Doh! Solid strategy, I wonder if he is a "suit" himself in disguise? You be the judge. ;)
Fichey: New Web Discovery Player
Fichey is a little player that float on top of the page and lets you navigate and discover new sites and links from the Web. Display search results from : Del.icio.us, Digg, Downfly, Reddit and StumbleUpon.
The many paths of personalization
Greg Linden explains at some point, the only way to further improve the quality of search results will be to show different people different search results based on what they think is relevant.
At that point, we have personalized search. Showing different results to different people based on what you know of their interests is personalized search.
Social Network Exhaustion (or Facebook Bankruptcy Redux)
Jason Calacanis gives up on Facebook and tries to rationalize by saying: "Facebook
is a multilevel marketing platform where you agree to pay attention to
people's gestures in the hopes that those people will pay-attention to
your gestures in the future. It's a gesture bank."
Video Review: Mini Moo Cards
CenterNetworks offers a video review of MOO and its print 2.0 ways.
Dear Podtech: I’m Not Your VP Marketing
Mike Arrington explains that Podtech is on the right track by focusing
on aggregating third party content under its Flash player and
advertising network and moving away from the highly-competitive content
creation game.
The new Particls Sidebar
The new Particls Sidebar launched to offer a personalized, streaming view of everything that matters to you online.
First Look: AideRSS Feed Filtering
AideRSS, which launches today, is a new type of RSS filtering service that uses a proprietary system called PostRank to determine the best posts on each blog.
iRazoo Latest to Launch Human-Powered Search Engine
A new social search engine that is looking to promote human-powered recommendations the foundation of its service.
Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations and Long Term Traffic
Ed Kohler of Technology Evangelist explains why truncated feeds offer a pretty terrible user experience thus killing conversations and long term traffic.
Top 5 Chat/IM Apps for the iPhone
Before the iPhone, swarms of Blackberry and Windows Mobile users accessed instant messengers through a variety of different downloadable clients and websites. The iPhone, however, forces developers to create something that’s usable in the browser. Rev2.org takes a look at the options.
While online video upload sites have become
extremely popular in the web 2.0 movement, it appears that live
streaming video seems to be catching on fast. UStream.tv
offers users the ability to create their own live web channel with live
chat functionality. Streaming video is by no means a new concept but
the UStream.tv platform does make it easy for anyone with a web camera
to become a real-life Truman Show like Justin.tv.
When I asked UStream.tv CEO Chris Yeh about their product he had this to offer:
“Our story is simple. We're bringing live internet video to everyone. By removing the barriers to broadcasting, we allow the creativity of our users to flourish. While many experiments will fail, UStream.tv is the test tube that will help build the future of media.”
Over the past week I have experienced the trend first hand as several people I encountered were using UStream.tv to bring streaming reality broadcasts to the web. At the Web 2.0 Expo I was interviewed by Jeremiah Oywang live via UStream, I also ran into Justin.tv at a couple of different events and Sarah Meyers, Lindsay Docherty and Brian Solis even got into the Justin.tv act. Blog veterans Robert Scoble and Chris Pirrillo are also getting into the act and leveraging UStream.tv to produce live broadcasts.
In attempting to watch UStream.tv I have experienced some poor video quality issues but I figure they will subside with time. I think that we are only at the beginning of what streaming web tv has to offer and UStream.tv is a vaulable part of the evolution process. Check out the end of my chat with Jeremiah Oywang in the hallway of the Web 2.0 Expo below to see the video quality I was referring to - it is a little choppy but still could be effective.
Twitter has been the talk of the blogosphere and tech community for the last few weeks. Twitter has taken a simple idea and technology to create an easy to use and somewhat addictive product thus turning it into a growing phenomenon.
I finally gave in and reviewed Twitter two weeks ago along with a number of other bloggers. Robert Scoble even convinced Mike Arrington of TechCrunch to start using Twitter today. Upon setting up Twitter I opted to not get Twitter updates on my mobile phone. This week while in Silicon Valley, I decided to configure my profile to turn mobile updates on thinking I would stay better connected and to see just how disruptive it might be. Since turning them on, I have received hundreds of messages from all my Twitter friends.
A few things that I learned while using Twitter:
1.) Twitter can be a great connector - Twitter can be an excellent connector as I now feel I have more personal insight into all of my Twitter friend's as they offer short, usually personal, stream of conscience updates.
2.) Twitter can cause information overload - Twitter can produce lots of messages! It can be a slight distraction if you find yourself compelled to read every message that comes your way.
3.) Twitter could cost you - Twitter's SMS/text messaging update options could cost you on your mobile bill so be sure to check you mobile plan to make sure you can handle a lot more incoming text messages.
4.) Twitter is great for events - SXSW Interactive and the more recent VON conference are great examples of events that Twitter can enhance the experience as Twitter members can all Twitter the event.
5.) Twitter could be used as an alarm clock - If you have the Twitter mobile updates on you can configure some sleep hours where mobile updates are not sent. I found that doing this was a good idea. Interestingly, the time you set to resume mobile updates doubles as a wake-up call as the updates start flowing in.
6.) You can watch Twitter - Steve Rubel pointed out Twittervision which plots Twitter updates from around the globe on a map (as shown below). It could suck you in for a large chunk of time - so proceed with caution if you are short on time. Twittervision makes it easy to "people watch" and potentially meet new Twitter friends.
What has Twitter taught you?
Photo Attribution: Ed Kohler via Flickr.
Me.dium offers an innovative and compelling application that blends real-time web attention-data with instant messenger social networking capabilities.
Similar to MyBlogLog, you can see when others are visiting a particular site you might be visiting, the major difference is that you can see what sites others around the web are visiting too. Me.dium offers social network capabilities allowing users to connect with other Me.dium users you encounter via instant messenger (shown in the left pane of the screen-shot to the left).
Me.dium requires that you download a browser extension or to be able to interact with others. Me.dium incorporates social interactivity which could act as a discovery mechanism. Me.dium also creates a browsing profile for each of its users and then acts as social matchmaker by connecting users with similar browsing profiles. Stowe Boyd made the following comparisons:
"This is very similar to the Eyebees concept that a client of mine was working on years ago, or other similar ideas, like lluna. However, the design of Me.dium -- embedding this navigator in the sidebar -- is truly great."
I first encountered Me.dium at the TechCrunch 8 event (early November 2006) as they demonstrated their latest creation and they have been busy perfecting the experience every since.
At first sight I thought Me.dium offered a unique community feel however I also instantly thought about potential invasion of web browsing privacy. However, I particularly liked the way that Me.dium handles turning on and off the tracking capabilities they refer to as "sharing" thus putting my privacy concerns at ease. 
The Me.dium Firefox extension places a "sharing" on/off toggle in the upper right corner of the browser (shown to the right).
The latest version was showcased at the most recent 2007 DEMO conference - watch the Me.dium demo here. Or if clicking the demo link is too much work you could just watch below as Kimbal Musk, Me.dium CEO, demos the product on the Scoble Show.
Bottom-line: Me.dium offers users a unique interactive experience while visiting any web site which could lead to discovery of new friends and web sites.
AIM Share launched today to offer you the ability to share your favorite Somewhat Frank blog posts links or interesting stories as an alert to your entire AOL Instant Messenger buddy list. This could come in handy if you are big on sharing. Rather than clogging your friends email just ping them a link all at once via AIM Share. 
AIM Share offers a bookmarklet that can be added to your browser toolbar so users have easy access to the share feature from any webpage. Users can also add additional site updates into their buddy alerts by updating AIM Buddy Network settings.
Jason Calacanis who recently departed AOL had this to say of AIM Share:
"AIM Share is like AIM + Delicious.com = CRAZY DELICIOUS!"
Interesting analogy - simple yet sweet. I definitely think AIM Share could be a useful tool for both personal and professional use.
Startup Mixology: Tech Cocktail's Guide To Building, Growing & Celebrating Startup Success by Frank Gruber
