Monthly Archives: January 2007
Stalk Fellow Net Users With First “Wi-Fi Social Network,” Whisher
You’re sitting at the Starbuck’s Coffee shop at 120 4th St. in San Francisco using your T-Mobile HotSpot wireless account while sipping on a Caramel Frappucino and typing away on your laptop to find out what time Stomp the Yard is playing at AMC Theaters. All of a sudden an IM comes on your screen from LonelyStarbucksGirl15 that says, “Guess what? I’m sitting right behind you. And I just added you to my Whisher buddy list.” Startled, you say “WTF?,” shut down Windows, and walk away. At least, thats how I would probably respond.
The funny thing is that this actual situation could happen to you, the idea exists, and has been funded. Here is a screen shot of the registration form to get your Whisher chat client up-and-running:
As I was going through the necessary registration steps to set-up the IM client, it asks for quite a bit of personal information such as what street you live on, what your mobile and home phone number is, and what your Skype name is. After ignoring those option forms, I confirmed my profile information.Â
To get started, you enter your name and a welcome message to send other Whisher users on your Wi-Fi. Then you input your location (country, city, zip). And BOOM-You’re online:
This IM client was previewed at the DEMO conference and made its way over from Barcelona, Spain. Yesterday, the company announced that they had received funding from Benchmark Capital Europe and from Swisscom. You can also share files and according to the press release, “direct access to local services and the ability to set up their own micro community networks.”
“WHISHER has a huge advantage in being an Internet business — their Skype-like model gives them tremendous agility over other solutions,” states Klaus Hommels, a partner at Benchmark Capital Europe. “We believe their nimble approach will lower the barrier to entry for people who can benefit from quick wireless access, with the added incentive of building new wireless communities using IM and file sharing.”
“Nimble” it is indeed. Perhaps we’ll see some emoticons built in to Whisher so I can send over the classic AIM icon  
 once a stranger IMs me at a coffee shop.
The technology is pretty sweet, but the concept reminds me of the movie, Enemy of the State.
Categories Whisher
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Why I Think Online Photo Editor, Picnik Is Pretty Cool
There are many software alternatives to Picnik, why would you use the online photo editor? Personally, I believe its a very creative tool to use for those that don’t want to fill up their hard drive with extra software and could be especially useful to photography addicts (such as myself). Its free, fast, and works with Mac, Windows, and Linux. Here’s a look at ways that you can pull in photos for editing:
You can pull photos from your hard drive, from websites, from Yahoo! Image search, Flickr, Flickr Search, or even from a webcam. Because there was a couple sample that were available to play around with, I decided to use those.
Some of the features available for editing photos is Auto-Fix, Rotate, Crop, Exposure, Color burning, Sharpen, and fixing Red Eyes. Here is a screen shot of what the Exposure feature in action.
Before:
After a simple slide of the brightness and contrast ruler:
There are also undo and redo buttons. Picnik also is currently adding Creative Tools such as making images black & white, Sepia, Boost, Soften, Matte, and Vignette. At the bottom right there is also a zoom in and zoom out ruler.
Once you are done editing your photo, you can easily save it to your Flickr account, e-mail the photo, save it to your computer, e-mail the photo to web sites, or print the photo and set the print size through Picnik itself).
The web sites that you can e-mail the photo to includes PhotoBucket, ImageShack, TypePad, CostCo Photos, SnapFish, WalMart Photos, SmugMug, Windows Live Spaces, Kodak EasyShare, LiveJournal, FotoLog, Nakama, PictureTrail, Fotopic, and Flickr. And I believe that the Picnik team is actively adding more.
Picnik is based out of Seattle, WA. I discovered the product through SolutionWatch.com.
Categories Picnik
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Ticket Search Engine, SeatSnapper.com Adds Social Network Today
About 20 days ago, Pulse 2.0 wrote about StubHub being bought out by eBay for $310 million. Today, SeatSnapper had announced that it would be adding a social network to the already existing ticket search engine website. SeatSnapper is owned by StrongTooth, Inc. and has also previously added a business networking and online dating (so you can find a date for the events) feature.
To test out the social network, I registered for the website and began to browse. This is the information that is collected for the social network:
You are also expected to upload a picture. The social network also acts as an extension to SeatSnapper Membership. SeatSnapper Membership includes the dating service and also a Wish List feature. The Wish List feature has users input what events that they would like to attend.
SeatSnapper also has over 2000 built-in interactive seating maps. SeatSnapper utilizes APIs from eBay, Google Base, Google Calendar, and Plaxo.  Users can also invite others by import contacts from various mail clients. Although SeatSnapper is not as large as the TicketMasters, the StubHubs, or some of the other major players yet, it has grown quite a bit on Alexa since the website first appeared on the charts in September 2006.
I’m not sure whether the website has a browse feature built-in for the social network because as soon as I created an account, the only other links I saw when logged in was my mailbox and the ability to view the friends I don’t have, the profile I created, and the photo that I did not upload. I suppose the only way you can add friends is if you know anyone else that has an account (which I don’t) or if you invite them personally. Clearly, the social network needs a little touching up.
Categories SeatSnapper, Strongtooth
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Yodio: A Web Community of Podcasters
The DEMO 2007 Conference has officially began today and many companies are unleashing their new products and services. Yodio is one them that stands out. Yodio is currently in Beta, but the plan is to make the website a community for users to create, publish, and to buy and sell audio recordings. Yodio is able to automatically create podcasts by allowing users to call the toll-free service and sing or upload MP3s through the website. Yodio also allows users to input images with the audio as well to serve as an album cover or representation of the artist.
“Every picture needs a story; a photo plus audio creates a compelling story,” stated Doug Rowan, the CEO of ZoomAlbum. “Photographs by themselves don’t really tell the stories. You need people to tell the stories. Yodio is delivering on this need.” The toll free number is 1-877-MY-YODIO.
“Yodio is to podcasting as Blogger was to blogging — an easy to use Web application that helped define a new application category. Yodio not only provides best-of-breed features that consumers will love to use, but Yodio has delivered a unique platform for easily creating, capturing and distributing rich media content,” stated Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMO.
I registered for an account and began filling out a profile with Yodio and discovered that there is a College Inside Program for students/recent alumni to participate in surveys. This is what the UI looks like:
There’s a 6 step process to participating with Yodio:
1.) Join Yodio and complete profile with phone number
2.) Pick a photo & craft a script
3.) Dial: 1-877-MY-YODIO (699-6346)
4.) Return to myYodio and visit managerecordings
5.) Visit produceyodiocards
6.) Visit yodioboard
To monetize the website, Yodio aims to depend on users to purchase audio from the website and also collect money from audio sponshorship fees. Users can buy yodiocasts through PayPal.
“For a majority of consumers, creating podcasts is too difficult. It requires new hardware, software and time. Also missing is an incentive to record and way for consumers to market and monetize their own content. Yodio is unique, fresh and different. Yodio’s goal is simple: we want everyone to share their cultural experiences, travel tips, business insight or entertainment (music, comedy, etc) in audio form and post it for others to benefit by saving time and money. Everyone can become a ‘citizen journalist’ by sharing their tips with the world. And, to someone, somewhere, those tips are worth a small fee,” stated Clay Loges, Yodio President and CEO.
Categories Yodio
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Wellsphere: A Healthy Lifestyle Community Now in Public Alpha
Wellsphere was created by Ron Gutman and Dave Kashen, two MBA Stanford Business School alumni. Wellsphere is a social network that promotes wellness within the community of users and aims to help members ‘live healthier, happier lives.’ Through the network, Wellsphere aims to provide information regarding people, places, food & dining, and sport centers revolving around the welness theme.
Common uses for the website include finding trainers and instructors. Users also recommend gyms, yoga studios, spas, and other places for physical fitness. Wellsphere also encourages users to list healthy dishes at various restaurants and review sports equipment and apparel.
When creating a profile users fill in About You, Relationship Status, Orientation (Straight or Gay/Lesbian), Body Type, Height/Weight, and City/State. When this is done, users then create wellspheres (goals I want help others achieve and goals I want to achieve). Users also fill in their activities and skill levels for those activities. Once this is done, users can search for activity partners or browse through Local Resources.
Events associated with Wellsphere appear to have a great turnout by looking at pictures on the Wellblog. Wellsphere is growing rapidly and has an active user base, especially in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley. I believe that the idea of the website and its premise will do wonders for the founders. Everyone is seeking ways to become healthier.
Categories Wellsphere
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Pulse 2.0 Now Officially Sphere’d
Pulse 2.0 has grown quite substantially in the last 3 months and has been a source for centralized technology information. I’m a regular reader of GigaOM and I began to notice the sphere widget added to their website. When you click on Sphere, an AJAX pop-up will appear listing other blogs that have recently written about similar topics. This is an amazing way to gather information, so I applied to have our blog posts powered by Sphere too.
Yesterday night, I received an e-mail from Sphere Founder and CEO, Tony Conrad providing us the installation code for the widget and with a letter thanking us for partnering with them. This is great news for Pulse 2.0 readers because now if you’re interested in the topics that we write about, you can easily find more information by clicking on the Sphere It button at the bottom of every blog post. After receiving this e-mail from Mr. Conrad, I gained so much more respect for Sphere since we are being directly contacted by the Founder and would highly recommend Sphere.com for all your blog searching needs.
When comparing Sphere.com to Google Blog Search, it appears that blogs have to be submitted for approval to be included in Sphere whereas Google Blog Search even picks up tons of spam blogs.
Check out a sample of information gathered by Sphere’s widget. In the last post I wrote about LinkedIn vs. Facebook. Check out the results that you get using the Sphere widget:
No spam there. You will notice that the source of the related articles come from credible sources (ZDNet and VH1). Even the TIME Magazine website is Sphere’d. Pulse 2.0 has joined an elite force of web companies that have been officially Sphere’d and we’re definetely proud of that. For more information on Sphere, refer to the Sphere team blog.
Categories Sphere
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The Professional Social Network Debate
The background behind this blog post is that I sparked a fairly interesting debate on TechCrunch. Mike Arrington of TechCrunch linked to a story on MarketWatch which contained a quote by Keith Rabois, LinkedIn’s VP of business development.
“Rabois isn’t afraid of Facebook, however. He thinks Facebook users will graduate to Linkedin because they’ll want a ‘professional’ identity and not one that’s affiliated with a school,” wrote Bambi Francisco of MarketWatch. Facebook users graduating into LinkedIn? Immediately I thought, does Rabois not know that Facebook contain thousands of networks to companies and corporations on top of their schools? I have so many friends that were associated with universities before that just simply switched to a corporation on Facebook.
After doing a little bit more thinking, I began to realize that LinkedIn is a good way to stay in contact with professionals that you may simply communicate with through various blogs or different social events. Facebook is tailored more towards a younger crowd. I have pictures on Facebook where I am standing around a keg at a party and obviously I don’t want professionals to see the lifestyle that I have on Facebook, but I would like them to possibly see my LinkedIn profile.   Nothing wrong with a friendly debate though.
Kudos, TechCrunch readers & MarketWatch. Oh and FYI, LinkedIn is raising another $13 million in funding this week.
Eberts of the Web, Rank A Movie!
Remember the days when cartoon movie critic, Jay Sherman used to tell us “It stinks” to fictitious movies? No? Well below is a sample clip taken from YouTube.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gQKHKmIdGc[/youtube]
RankAMovie.com encourages users to create questions (aka categories) and rank suggested answers based on their own opinion. For example, one user created a question, “Which are the best movies that take place in Michigan, USA [link]?” So far, the only movies added to this category is American Pie and The Virgin Suicides. Clearly, Four Brothers and 8 Mile hasn’t been added to the list yet. Movies are ranked based on voting for a smile or a frown:
This is what the website user interface looks like:
The user interface could definetely use a redesign. I definetely think that this RankAMovie is a great idea, but the website design is just a turn-off. It almost appears to have been designed by an amateur web designer in the 90s.
The actual owner of RankAMovie is unknown, but looking at the copyright information of the page, it appears that it is a Schupie Production based out of Yonkers, NY.
Categories RankAMovie.com
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Definetely Had Some Fun on FunAdvice.com Today
I just got a ping from Jeremy Goodrich about his website, FunAdvice.com. Although the website has been around since March 2003, we haven’t covered it before. The website is a good time-pass as it contains all types of questions ranging from Travel, Shopping, Real Estate, Pets, Music, Food & Dining, Education, Tech, etc.
If I had a Xanga, I’d give FunAdvice.com 50 eProps for the mere fact that this website has been around even before Yahoo! Answers or any other Q&A websites that I know of. The homepage UI looks like this:
Notice that Funny Question post under Answer a Question? It actually is kind of funny:
“If people can put up nude statues everywhere, then why can’t we run around naked?”
FunAdvice has so many random questions and answers which actually makes the site make you want to keep on reading more. The website contains over 26,000 questions according to CNET’s WebWare.com and based on my reading it appears that the site has tapped a vast demographic of users from high schoolers to people in their 50s and 60s.
When I clicked on the Health question, one question that stood out to me was “I’ve been wanting to try Ecstasy for a long time now. Im not really scared but im juss scared what I might do while im on it. What should I Expect when I’m on it??? Is there anyway I could be a little safer while I’m on it. Is there anything I should do before I try it???” by ricka13.
Personally, I wouldn’t use a website like this to ask people questions about taking illegal drugs. Why? Check out this article on The Michigan Daily, “Is this how you want your employer to see you for the first time?” The article is about how the U of M Career Center urges students to avoid putting up incriminating pictures or joining Facebook groups that associate you with participating in illegal activities. University of Michigan “School of Music senior Charlie Klecha said he is not worried about potential employers being turned off by his membership in ‘I smoke entirely too much reefer.’”
Some more facts about FunAdvice: There are professional advisors that can handle questions in a serious manner and there are widgets that you can place on your personal websites. A sample widget is on WebWare.com. Goodrich is a former employee of Yahoo! and had even consulted with Yahoo! about Yahoo! Answers.
Categories FunAdvice.com
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FoxyTunes Is An Amazing Browser Plugin
One essential tool that is needed for a computer is an alarm clock that plays an MP3. As I searched around the web for a free MP3 alarm clock for the past several years, the best software I had found was Banshee Screamer Alarm. Although it is not available anymore on the Internet, I still happen to have the set-up file. One day, I attempted to have Banshee play an M4P file I downloaded from iTunes Music Library, then Banshee stopped working altogether. FoxyTunes is the best alternative to Banshee.
And in case you were wondering, FoxyTunes isn’t just an alarm clock built-in to a browser. The primary purpose of FoxyTunes is so that you don’t have to minimize your Internet browser to switch songs on your media player. With the FoxyTunes toolbar, you can display the song title that is playing, control your media player functions including volume, and even move the toolbar anywhere in the browser.
The media players that FoxyTunes supports include Apollo, foobar, iTunes, J. River, JetAudio, MediaMonkey, MusicMatch, musikcube, Pandora, Quintessential, RealPlayer, Rhapsody, Sonique, The Core, Winamp, Windows Media Player, wxMusik, XBox Media Player, XMPlay, and Yahoo Music Engine. I have a huge music library and find myself toggling between songs a lot. Ultimately, this toolbar will help me save time substantially.
FoxyTunes was created by Alex Sirota. FoxyTunes Planet is an upcoming service that will integrate FoxyTunes services with related music information from sources, Amazon and Wikipedia.
Here is a screen shot of the toolbar in action:
Categories FoxyTunes
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