SOMEWHAT FRANK

AOL Buys Bebo - KickApps Next?, Yahoo Semantic, Flickr Video Coming, Facebook IM Coming, YouTube Goes Hi-Res & SXSW Coverage

Photo of the Week: This photo was taken while recording this Blog Talk Radio episode with Kris "Croncast" Smith and Rox from BeachWalks.tv at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. Photo thanks to Roxanne Darling.

SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits: 03.16.2008

Microsoft Bids On Yahoo, Facebook Numbers Released, OpenSocial or OpenGadget?, No Tipping Point?, DEMO08 & Technology Tomorrow

Photo of the Week: This week I spent time at the DEMO08 conference in Palm Desert, California and I snapped this shot from my hotel room balcony.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 02.03.2008

Facebook Launching Ads Outside The Network?

Facebook has been blanketing the headlines for months now and it has heated up more with Mark Zuckerberg speaking at TechCrunch40 and the Web 2.0 Summit in the past few weeks. Mark recently hinted at an advertising platform launch coming soon and my friend Nick O'Neill of at AllFacebook has been reporting on for the past few weeks. Apparently the Facebook ad platform will not just focus on the Facebook space but will also go outside of the Facebook network and place advertisements on the Web which will place it in direct competition with Google Adsense and other similar services.

YouTube Feature Updates, Embed Joost?, Flickr Goes Global, Me.dium $15 Million, Stalker 2.0, Fat Long Tail, RSS Toolbox, Discover via Megite & Blog Or Die

Photo of the Week: Jen Consalvo recently snapped this photo titled backlight. A little sunshine is a beautiful thing and is good for the soul - this little yellow guy appears to agree.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 06.17.07

YouTube Remixer: Edit Videos Online At YouTube
YouTube has officially launched YouTube Remixer, a new service that allows users to edit their videos from within YouTube itself. Also, YouTube Mobile launched this week.

Discover From Megite
Megite recently launched a discover area which offers users a place to find new things via a tag cloud and other discover links.

Embedded Joost Will Change The Market
Reports that Joost is now talking to hardware vendors about embedding Joost into set-top boxes and televisions will change the market as we know it.

Me.dium Pulls $15 Million in Funding
Boulder, Colorado based Me.dium, the sidebar social network, has received $15 million in second round funding. The round of funding was led by Commonwealth Capital Ventures.

11 web technologies political campaigns should consider
Technology Evangelist points to 11 different technologies political campaign leads should know.

Google Reader losing feeds?
A few people complained this week that Google Reader lost their feeds. I didn't see it, did it happen to you?

CommunityNext July 14th: VIRAL... Catch the Fever!
The Next CommunityNext conference is coming up July 14th - are you signed up?

Stalking 2.0: The Websites that Track Your Every Move (Voluntarily!)
Are you letting people track you online? If so you probably have encountered one of these stalker 2.0 applications.

The Long Tail Is Getting Fatter
It wasn’t that long ago that 100,000 users was considered huge for a Web 2.0 related business. Today a small startup such as SpaceTime can gain those numbers in two weeks. 6 million users three years ago would have seemed an impossible dream, and yet it is very attainable now. This article takes a closer look.

Can You Make A Living Blogging?
Great question and I will have to answer with a resounding 'YES!!!' I have seen bloggers go from nothing to something as little as a six months to a year. It is pretty amazing. However, I have to agree with Nick, we don't all blog for the money...the real benefits of blogging are all the great friendships that come from it.

Schilling's Laws for Perfect Start(up)s
Seth Goldstein talks baseball and startups on Found+READ.

The Ultimate RSS Toolbox - 120+ RSS Resources
Check out this comprehensive post on a number of RSS tools available on the web. You may already know but I think RSS is sexy. ;)

Flickr Goes Global
Flickr opens up its doors to a number of new languages and also there is word this week that Yahoo Photos is going to be closing its doors. I'd say this is a big week for Flickr. I have a feeling Flickr video uploads are coming very soon.

Widgets Going Wild on Facebook, Freewebs & Yourminis

Widgets are hot. Widgets are sexy. Widgets, widgets, widgets. I previously have covered the widget craze but widgets now have a few new promoters.

With the Facebook open platform announcement last week there have been lots of new widgets and applications added to Facebook each day. Personally, I have already added Flickr, Slide and Twitter widgets to my Facebook profile. Nick O'Neill, who helped bring TECH cocktail to DC, decided to launch a new blog called All Facebook which will be covering these widget updates and other Facebook news, so you might want to check it out.

Freewebs, the Silver Springs, Maryland-based company that offers an open web personal publishing platform, has added a Widget Bank to their catalog of website building tools. The Freewebs Widget Bank gives members access to thousands of widgets that can be embedded directly onto a web site. Widgets can be added into Freewebs sites without having to copy, cut or paste code. Widget Bank will constantly update its extensive collection and include games, clocks, RSS feed readers, maps, video players and much more.  Freewebs has created its own widgets but has also reached to third party sites like YouTube, Widgetbox, RockYou, Miniclip, Gizmoz and others.

Yourminis has also taken an interesting approach which I have previously covered but wanted to reiterate. Basically, they are offering widgets that work on your home page, are snaggable for your blog or web site and extendable to your desktop. It is a widget trifecta!

Here are a couple of other blogs that are good widget resources:

Widgify - by Hooman Radfer of the widget marketplace Clearspring
SexyWidget - by Lawrence Coburn of distributed rating RateItAll.com
Widgets Labs - by Derek Anderson
StickiWidgets 

The web is definitely widgetizing. Can you dig it?

TECH cocktail Takes On Washington

A few hours ago, TECH cocktail completed its first event in DC at the popular MCCXXIII bar (1223 Club DC, for the non Roman-numeral types).  The event was packed with hundreds of guests mingling as the place rocked to music, wine, product demos and mingling.  Over 225+ technology enthusiasts, VCs, bloggers and entrepreneurs came and celebrated the evening together. Wine Library TV, AOL, AN Hosting, BuzzXYZ, and Blue Sky Factory helped to sponsor the event - thank you all for your helping getting TECH cocktail going in DC.

It has been over a year since Eric Olson and I secured the TECH cocktail domain name and started firing up for these events. We were pleased to see such a great response in a new city as last night’s event was no different than the Chicago events that have become extremely big in the windy city.  Thank you to local blogger Nick O’Neill who helped plan the event - we couldn't have done it without you.

The event was well attended with a great mix of guests from a number of the local startups. It was great to see Gabe Rivera, techmeme creator, was in town from Silicon Valley and even dropped in. Demos were performed by the following companies:

BuzzXYZ powered by Blogdigger - helps track the buzz online
Clearspring - services for building, deploying and tracking widgets
Sportsvite - online community is bringing sports lovers together for on-the-field fun
PatentMonkey.com - fully search-able US patent text database
Wine Library TV - will be doing wine tasting and showcasing the wine video site

Though I am somewhat biased, TECH cocktail DC 1 went very well and was worth missing the finale of the Office to be there. I look forward to the next TECH Cocktail in DC and wherever else we choose to take it next.

Check out the photos tagged: techcocktaildc1. Special thank you to Raoul Pop for taking this awesome photo set at TcDC1 - this guy can take some pictures!

PollDaddy: The Big Papi of Polls?

Trying to figure out how to get a poll on your blog, myspace page, or other website?  Your search is over. PollDaddy is a great resource for quickly generating a poll to put practically anywhere on the web. PollDaddy is both flexible and free and it can be easily embedded on a page via JavaScript, Flash, direct link, widget or RSS.  One great feature of PollDaddy is that you can customize the style of the poll to match your site's design, using CSS, or select from a number of pre-configured designs.

We all want to get readers input and there is no better way to do it.  Also, thanks to a new feature called “WildFire” you can post your poll to your MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Freewebs, Xanga, or Hi5 account.  So if you want to post polls on the web, head on over to PollDaddy and find out what others are thinking.

Check out the poll below or visit it directly here. If you want to read more about the conferences then check out our previous roundup of solid 2007 web 2.0 and tech conferences.

Editors Note: Thank you to Nick O'Neill who writes a fine blog called TheWebpreneur.com for contributing this article to Somewhat Frank - come back anytime!  Nick is also co-hosting the upcoming Tech Cocktail DC with Frank Gruber & Eric Olson.