Mashable! |
| Iterend vs. Technorati vs. Google Blog Search (Blog Search Fight) Posted: 09 Oct 2008 03:14 AM PDT
Technorati has been king of the hill for a long time when it comes to blog search but as happens with all monarchies, they’ve grown complacent and stopped innovating which has opened the door for other potential heirs to the throne.Enter iterend and Google Blog Search which recently hit the streets. The initial reviews of Google’s foray into the blog search arena has been mostly positive.
Before checking the results of the showdown, here’s a little bit about iterend which presents a busy home page with a flood of recent phrases as tags along with the top stories in the past twenty four hours. At the top of the page is their search bar which you can adjust to search for a different time frame such as the last hour, last week, anytime, etc. Here are some other features of note. - All articles are linked to structured wikipedia information, which makes it possible to search by categories. - Search results are clustered and you can search on sentence level, post level or blog level. - Next to the search results, relevant phrases and categories are displayed, so you are able to restrict your search or get an overview over the information you are looking for. - You can search for related posts to a given topic, url or cluster The Test Results MP4 / Subscribe for Free! As you’ll see in the screencast, the old dog Technorati still seemed to provide the best and fastest results when searching for the same exact keywords. We used a post from Mashable for this video just to show how different the search results were for all three search engines. In most cases, Technorati provided the most recent blog posts. While Google’s Blog Search impressed with its sheer extensiveness, Technorati seemed to include far less unseemly characters in its search results. Both Google Blog Search and Iterend appeared to include far more spammers, sploggers and other things you usually find hiding under a rock. Over all, Technorati is still the top dog for blog search while Google’s Blog Search and Iterend are worthy challengers that will surely improve with time. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Google Maps: Now Officially Gorgeous Posted: 09 Oct 2008 01:49 AM PDT
Google, however, will receive imagery in 50-centimeter resolution because of a government restriction and the fact that it’s not the only customer who benefits from GeoEye-1. They’re sharing it with National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; which collects and analyses geospatial data in support of national security. Translated, that means they get the really good stuff. Real spies probably have their own, even more advanced satellites, though. Speaking to Wired, Mark Brender, GeoEye’s vice president of communications and marketing, said that GeoEye-1 is
The important fact is that GeoEye-1 is up and running, collecting imagery for Google Maps which will soon start looking like the image below. Time for a new round of mapspotting!
--- Bumpy Map Mashups with Google Terrain |
| How Technology Can Help Aleviate Economic Fears Posted: 08 Oct 2008 07:48 PM PDT
Earlier today, Aaron Brazell over at Technosailor invoked his fellow technology bloggers to speak up and become leaders through what he sees as “the darkest hour in our recent history.”
He’s right in one sense. I’m not convinced that these are necessarily our darkest hours, but the real crisis may be one of confidence, rather than purely economic in nature. Here’s the problem - and I never thought I’d say this as a former precocious youth myself - the dominant ‘Kids’ like Mark Zuckerberg, running a multi-billion dollar company. Kids’ like Corvida and Alana Taylor, which do bang up jobs blogging with the big boys. ‘Kids’ like my boss, Pete Cashmore. Obviously, with that list of folks in the category of people I’m talking about today, you know I’m not meaning to speak ill of a whole age-group of people (or the incredibly gifted and talented guy who signs my paycheck). But the majority of the pundits, bloggers, and businessmen have no perspective or frame of reference for our current troubled times. None of them have survived an economic downturn before. Most of them were still in high school during the original tech bust. Many of them were toddlers during the the market crashes in the 80’s (if they were yet born). That in and of itself says wonders about the economic times we live in, but it also means that when they see the market take a down-turn like it did this week, they freak out. They say things like
I’ve intentionally left out people’s names on these actual quotes, because you’d recognize the people involved, and this isn’t about calling folks out. The truth is that everything I’ve quoted above lacks ‘historical’ perspective. In 2002, that was bad for not just those of us in technology, but everyone. At the time, I was living in Dallas, and I had been an “independent contractor” for almost a year and half. I put that in quotes because that was the preferred politically correct nomenclature for “unemployed” at the time. Before I and 699 other co-workers were laid off, I had been a coder at Nokia, and was instrumental in writing the standards and specifications for the mobile phone ringtone. Over the next year or so, I scraped by with doing website design and networking gigs
On that day, my roomate and I opened up the Dallas Morning News, and on the front page was a fellow standing in the middle of I-35, the highway most famous for being the opening scene of Office Space, holding up a sign that said “have MCSE, will work for food.” Here was someone who had a Microsoft System’s Engineering certification, probably who made $50-60k before he was laid off. If he was in a position anything like mine, he was facing the real threat of starvation, not to mention the loss of a newly built house through missed mortgage payments, and no real work in site (technical in nature or not). Here we are today, though, with an economy that despite the problems in the real estate and investment banking sectors, still employs about 94% of us. Relative to the total size of the US workforce, the recent layoffs have been very minor. Overall unemployment figures are only very slightly off from where they should be for a healthy economy. Moreover, we live in an age that thanks to the advancements in technology in the last five years or so, allows us to be entrepreneurial much more readily than ever before. Yes, Steven and I love to crankily talk about how useless much of the crap in the Web 2.0 world is, but thanks to tools and concepts like eBay, Google Docs, co-working, social networking, cloud computing and Mechanical Turk - anyone who’s able to afford a laptop has the market capitalisation to open up a whole functioning office.
A while back, I read an account of a single mom who, despite being an employed, skilled and degreed worker had to take her family to a soup kitchen. I found the article via Chris Brogan’s link blog. He shared it because it was a heart-wrenching tale that pulled at struck home for most of the intellectual workers who read his linkblog. The story was introduced with the following opening paragraph:
When I re-shared the story, this is what I had to say:
That’s the point I’m driving at, today. Anyone who has the capability to read this has an economic responsibility amidst all this bad news. We have a responsibility to be encouraging to our fellow social media denizens (and our real life compatriots). We all have the tools at our disposal to carry ourselves through whatever economic crisises come our way. In the two years prior to working for Mashable, I had made it a goal of mine to work full time as an independent journalist in the New Media sector. During that time period, I met my then soon-to-be-wife I had to make a lot of sacrifices to make ends meet. During that time period, I wound up selling off my very sizable comic book collection (via eBay), and about three quarters of the computers and video rendering machines I’d built over the years (via Craigslist), as well as eating up almost all of the savings I’d accrued over the previous three years. At the end of the day, though, I’d accomplished my goals through resourcefulness, hard work and technology. This isn’t me patting myself on the back or fishing for praise. If you read this blog regularly, you know how to find and use these tools for your own goals, yourself. I hesitate to use the concept made popular by John F. Kennedy for fear of reprisal by linguistic purists, but it is said that the Chinese Kanji for crisis can be broken down to two other elements: danger and opportunity. No, what this is instead is me saying you, the reader, exercise your capability in the face of economic adversity (no matter what form it ends up taking) to survive this and perhaps even prosper. It’s less important for those of us in sectors outside investment banking to pay minute attention to every movement of the stock market than it is stay nimble, practical, resourceful and to keep an eye out for opportunity. Is that, after all, not the goal of all the great tools and services we talk about daily on these pages? You have the ability and the resources. It will be OK. --- There’s Still Good Green Left In GOOG |
| Digg’s Recent Bans and the Limits of Crowdsourcing Posted: 08 Oct 2008 02:36 PM PDT
Shortly afterwards, Digg announced that it had raised $28.7 million in a new round of venture funding. And in the last few days, Digg jettisoned more members of its community with another fresh round of bannings, again including many high profile users. A separate Digg blog post patiently re-iterated Digg's justifications for these actions. A palpable level of online controversy has ensued as banned users have cried foul, while other users have applauded Digg's actions. For anyone who is actively involved in online community-building, whether through a blog, a website, or a social network, examining the events of the past few weeks quickly reveals several important lessons about how Digg has handled the establishment and growth of its community. But perhaps more importantly, the way that Digg has gutted user morale and shown itself willing to cast off those that have been so crucial to its success also reveals the limits of its core crowdsourcing model. Building a Flawed System Kevin Rose demos Digg in 2004 Before we can get into all of that, let's take a moment and revisit the past. Recall that Digg launched in December of 2004. At the time, Digg was regarded as a direct competitor to Slashdot due to its focus on tech stories. In a 2006 interview with ZDNet, Digg founder Rose proclaimed the site's raison d'etre, saying:
At a time when the idea of Web 2.0 was just beginning to take hold and millennials were chafing under the constraints of receiving their news through the mainstream media, Digg offered the promise of news that was determined for the people, by the people. The fundamental assumption behind the site was similar to that of any crowdsourcing model: The wisdom of the masses will provide news stories that are more relevant, interesting, or informative than anything chosen by a select few. Unfortunately, things haven't quite worked out that way. In order to understand why, it's important to know the difference between Digg's website (i.e. the nuts and bolts of how it functions) vs. Digg's business (i.e. as a potentially money-making Silicon Valley startup). Both of these elements play important but distinct roles that led to the unmaking of Digg's purported mission.
For those who are unfamiliar, Digg's basic website functionality was as follows: Users found links they wanted to share from across the Internet and submitted them to Digg, where they were automatically entered into an "Upcoming Section." Users could vote or "digg" up stories if they enjoyed them and if they received enough diggs, based on Digg's proprietary algorithm, the story would be promoted to the front page. In theory, the Upcoming Section could be a thriving area of the site, where stories were discussed and voted upon, but as the site grew larger and the rate of submissions accelerated, it quickly became useless to check this section, due to the sheer volume of information (As of October 2008, roughly 10,000 to 15,000 stories are submitted to Digg per day. That is about one story every 7-10 seconds). But Digg also had other features as well. Specifically, it allowed you to 1) Have your own profile page, and 2) Follow people by making them your "Friend." Initially, profile pages displayed user stats, such as the number of stories submitted and the percentage of those stories promoted to front page (later, they would also display personal information such as photos and links to other social networking sites). Making someone a "Friend" allowed users to follow that person's actions, including stories submitted and dugg. Users quickly realized that one way to get diggs for their submitted stories was to make someone your Friend and consistently digg that person's stories. Reciprocal diggs would usually follow. Using this process to find interesting stories, and to find online friends who would digg your own stories, was considerably easier than wading through the morass of thousands of stories submitted daily in the Upcoming Section. As a result of all of these elements, the system favored stories submitted by users who had a combination of the following attributes:
Users who had these attributes naturally saw a large percentage of their stories get promoted to the front page. This was what led to the concept of "top users" or "power users," a notion that was, in some ways, antithetical to the idea of democracy (and that's completely leaving out the fact that the site needs editors to supplement the efforts of its users). Why should a really fascinating or interesting story have a higher chance of getting promoted to the front page if it was submitted by a top user than a newcomer? Indeed, today still, a story submitted by a top user will instantly garner a significant number of diggs from followers, often regardless of the story's quality. While Digg's algorithm was theoretically supposed to correct for this, page after page of front page stories submitted by the same few individuals demonstrated that Digg was not doing its stated job very well. At one point, Digg's top 100 users were responsible for over 50% of Digg's front page stories. This was Digg's fundamental problem, although it didn't have to be: It was an attribute shared by many other Web 2.0 companies. Only a small fraction of the total number of users contributed substantially to the site. According to recent Quantcast statistics, 1% of the Digg's users are contributing 32% of the site's visits. But this is no different than a company like Wikipedia, which clocks in billions of pageviews every month, yet whose articles and infrastructure are mostly maintained by a few thousand enthusiasts. While Wikipedia and similar sites have found ways to recognize and reward their active participants, Digg, as we'll see, has constantly tried to shake the image that it is controlled by a select few.
From the business end, Digg has acted in ways to consistently grow its page views and expand its audience in the three and half years since its founding. About a year ago, Digg changed its interface to make friends' stories significantly less accessible and to require more clickthroughs, a move that was widely decried by power users and which inadvertently led to the script situation that it is currently caught up in. In a stunning analysis by ReadWriteWeb, the site also began dramatically expanding the variety of its front-page topics, focusing less and less on technology as the years went on (in other words, while the proportion of tech stories to all stories submitted remained roughly the same, the proportion of tech stories promoted to the front page went down dramatically). The implications of this were more troubling: Digg was actively manipulating the distribution of front page stories. Combined, these moves showed that Digg was becoming ever-more conscious of its need to appease investors as time went on. Despite a lucrative ad deal with Microsoft in 2007, social networks like Digg remained (and still remain) notoriously difficult to create a business model around. Digg has also struggled to contain the influence of its top users throughout its existence. Far from acknowledging their contributions, Digg has constantly denied their key role its growth. On an episode of Diggnation, Rose even claimed that he didn't know who the top users were, saying, "I don't pay attention to who might be considered a top Digger, or who's not." In early 2007, Digg stopped hosting a public list recognizing users that were getting the most front page stories. According to Digg, this move was to prevent them from being harassed, although the list has since moved elsewhere with few complaints of any such trouble. More recently, Digg has shown its independence by banning dozens of high-activity users, allegedly due to script use. Some of the scripts employed actually allowed users to digg their friend's stories more easily, giving Digg pre-2008 levels of functionality. Digg's recent actions are objectionable and suspect for a number of reasons. First of all, several of the banned users have complained there was no warning given and that the decision was irreversible. But most importantly, while many relative new users were swept up in the mix, top users such as "CosmicDebris" and several others were also eliminated. These users have helped Digg to deliver dozens of millions of page views and clicks to sites across the Internet. It is not an exaggeration to say that they have helped to make Digg the popular site that it is today. For Digg to cast off these users like so much dead weight, rather than work with them constructively, is an indictment of Digg's recklessness with its devoted community. It has also brought to light the tension between Digg and those users that have climbed their way to the top by learning Digg's system. As a result, several other top users have expressed fear that their accounts, which they have poured hundreds of hours of time into, will be next on the chopping block. Recent events have given hints about Digg's upcoming trajectory. This past summer, Digg rolled out its Recommendation Engine, allowing users a new way to find interesting stories and taking some focus and dependency off of its top users. In July, Google allegedly and mysteriously walked away from a deal to buy Digg, amidst longstanding rumors that the cofounders have been intent on a sale. And earlier this month, Digg recently reported a new round of venture funding and declared it would be expanding worldwide. Put all of these together and you get the picture of an organization that is trying to establish it is not dependent on the efforts of a few dedicated and unpaid volunteers (i.e. its top users) to keep its website interesting and thriving. But what has it sacrificed in its attempt to prove this? Lessons Learned The way that Digg has handled its growth reveals important lessons, both for competing social news sites and for social media companies looking to build thriving communities: True Democratization of News is Difficult – Rose and his crew are undoubtedly a talented group of programmers, but even their Digg algorithm has had compensating for the flaws inherent in Digg's system. In the years following its creation, Digg became less a democracy and more a republic, with a select few users responsible for the majority of front page stories. The Web is still struggling to come up with a news model that can efficiently crowdsource its editorial process, although sites that automate the process (e.g. Techmeme) or sites that rely on editors (e.g. Fark, Slashdot) are at least more transparent with their advantages and failings. Recognition is a Key Motivator – Social networks typically have a tangible way for users to track their notoriety. MySpace has "Friends," Youtube has "Number of Times Viewed," and Twitter has "Followers." Digg has "Stories Made Popular." Top users often pointed to this number with pride, a reminder of the thrill of seeing one's submission spread to thousands of eager readers. Digg, however, has done nothing to acknowledge their contributions and with its recent bannings, it has indicated it doesn't believe it needs them at all. While Digg's growth may not be adversely affected by the accounts gone missing, it seems that when Time named "You" the Person of the Year in 2006, they were actually on to something more meta than originally thought: People like being recognized for contributions and the potential for Internet fame that may follow. Social networks that have gone on to insanely high valuations or become profit-making ventures have recognized this fundamental fact of Web 2.0. Digg has not. Communities Require Nurturing – The way that Digg has treated it users has not been with the committed touch of a benign leader, but of a dictator that assumes its actions (or lack thereof) will be consistently met with the assent of its followers. Its town halls have been little more than PR exercises, and user-requested features like the Recommendation Engine have taken years to roll out, while others (e.g. forums) have yet to be implemented at all. A comparison between Digg and Mixx quickly shows that while the former's traffic still trounces the latter's, Mixx's founders and employees have been open about how they are fostering the growth of their website. Anecdotal comparisons between, say, "The Drill Down" podcast (which covers tech news as well as social news sites like Digg) and Mixx's unofficial podcast, "Social Blend," starkly contrast how each company has dealt with its fanbase. While Digg and its policies are frequently an object of criticism on "The Drill Down," "Social Blend's" contributors typically have nothing but kind things to say about their digital overlords. Conclusions Kevin Rose recently claimed that his primary goal in the most recent round of bannings was to enforce the TOS and make the site easier to use. According to Rose, the bannings are only a response to people trying to subvert the system:
If Digg's management responds to this article they will undoubtedly re-iterate this and say that they are simply trying to protect the community (e.g. by enforcing the TOS equally). For the moment, let's put aside whether or not it's plausible that a few hundred people using the alleged scripts can significantly affect Digg's formidable servers. What I have tried to establish is that Digg is giving you an incomplete story. To prove to its investors that its democratization model is functional, Digg has decided that it has a vested interest in getting rid of its top users. In its misguided efforts, it has destroyed the community that it sought to create. While antagonizing and banning its most active contributors may be expedient, Digg will only ensure a new group of followers will similarly rise up over time, forcing the exact same measures down the line. This will continue until Digg solves the fundamental issue with its site: That those that are most committed will always have the most control. Digg may continue to grow in traffic and size, but with every controversial move like the recent banning measures, it will irritate a continually growing contingent of its most ardent supporters. Unless Digg can find a way to embrace its fans rather than eliminate them, it will find its brand promise as the leader of news democratization fading fast. [Disclosure: I am Digg user whose account has not been banned…yet.] David Chen is a writer/blogger/podcaster based in Boston, MA. You can e-mail him at davechensemail (at) gmail (dot) com, or follow him on Twitter. --- Digg Adds New Features to API |
| Change.org Launches Social Action Blog Network Posted: 08 Oct 2008 01:42 PM PDT
Each “Cause” section is staffed by a writer both passionate and knowledgeable about the topic. I took a few minutes to read some of the blogs and found myself both inspired and educated by this fledgling network. Topics I am already passionate about, like Women’s Rights and Animal Rights, provided me with concrete ideas of how to help effect change. Topics I’m less knowledgeable about, like Immigration and Fair Trade, provided me with useful information. Change.org has partnered with many organizations from each Cause area. These partnerships enable Change.org to included proactive ways their readers can help on each blog. You’ll see links, ideas, places to donate money, and calls for action as you navigate through each site. I love how easy Change.org has made participation. By combining the calls to action with solid information on each cause, it picks up where Social Vibe leaves off.  I can see Change.org becoming a social action site for the more mature crowd who want knowledge before they get involved, and who want to do more than passively sponsor causes through corporate donor widgets.The other aspect of Change.org that I liked is the community it is building around each cause in its blog network. By joining, you can share information and action ideas with others who are passionate about the same causes you are. In the interest of moving social action from an online only activity to an offline one, effecting real world change, this lets you tap into a much wider network to find support for your activities and ideas. This new social action blog network comes at the perfect time. The internet is incredibly receptive to the idea of sharing knowledge and giving back right now. Tapping into that desire for collective good is a positive thing, and Change.org may have found the right way to do just that. From the CEO, Ben Rattray:
I’m excited to see what I can learn from all of the cause channels on Change.org, and who I can meet in each community. I’m very interested in learning more about each writer as well to see how I can help further their cause. I had the privilege of doing just that with Jen Nedeau, Women’s Rights Cause writer for Change.org, and already ideas are brewing to do things like keep girls in school on a path to careers in technology and new media. With so many other Causes to get involved with, this year could shape up for one in which real change on a national or global scale happens through online and offline collaboration. --- Announcing Blog Action Day 2008 |
| Yahoo Launches Web Analytics Beta Posted: 08 Oct 2008 01:24 PM PDT
As you might expect, Yahoo Web Analytics includes integration with other Yahoo products. For example, you can analyze the effectiveness of Yahoo search marketing campaigns and track how well individual products within your e-commerce shop are trending. The product will naturally be compared to Google Analytics, the free offering from Google that has similar integration with AdWords. While it may be late to the party, Yahoo Web Analytics is apparently a big upgrade for Yahoo Small Business customers. Mashable contributor Sean Aune is a user of the service, and sent along the following screenshot as an example of what the service's rather archaic reporting looks like today:  If nothing else, if you look at the screenshot below of the new service, it would seem that Yahoo Web Analytics has just received a long overdue upgrade:  Yahoo plans to roll out the service gradually to its Small Business Customers through the end of the year and expand the offering to other users in 2009. --- Yahoo Acquires Analytics Company IndexTools |
| CarZen Takes the Tedium Out of Car Shopping (The Startup Review) - Invites Posted: 08 Oct 2008 01:18 PM PDT
Company Name20-Word DescriptionCarZen is a new car research and buying site that provides the most simple and personalized experience anywhere. CEO’s PitchCarZen is the most efficient and powerful car search tool on the Web that provides the most simple and personalized experience. We are focused on delivering content better and faster and pain-free experiences that empower consumers to make better car-related decisions. CarZen is auto enlightenment. Visit www.carzen.com. Mashable’s TakeThe news of automotive woe has been made abundantly clear over the past few seasons. GM, Ford, Chrysler and others have all experienced drops of one degree or another. All are cutting output. The financial crisis that has reached global proportions is also naturally impacting consumer decisions. This doesn't necessarily mean cars won't be purchased. They will. Only, there is ever more prominence being given to the matter of what cars will be bought up. And that's where CarZen comes in.
The choices available to consumers in the auto market is pretty immense, which the consumer largely enjoys. But it also means that doing one's due diligence in researching an appropriate vehicle isn't a five-minute exercise. People pore over data for hours, even days, visiting and revisiting websites of auto manufacturers and review sites and fiddling with brochures and debating things like utility and aesthetics. What CarZen aims to do is eliminate much of the scavenger hunt. The way in which CarZen functions is, in a word, elegant. Not only are the layout and colorway friendly, but as you traverse its various pieces, it's clear that quite a bit of thought has gone into its creation. Attention to detail has definitely been paid. Graphical transitions don't crowd out the data, but they do seem to add an extra bit of weight to the whole project. It's like the proverbial car door test. Does it open and close with a secure thunk, or is it a little rattly, for lack of a better word? CarZen displays quality throughout.
You may think it's not social enough, that it's more about aggregation of statistics than collective critique. And for the most part, this is true, at least for the time being. But given the parameters set by CarZen's creators from the outset, I find it to be a really pleasing creation. It's no real replacement for an amalgam of AutoBlog, Top Gear, Fifth Gear, Edmunds and the rest, but it definitely has its place among the mix. It makes car searching a smidge easier, and if you're torn between makes and models, price points, sizes, and styles, CarZen makes the shopper's role less hectic. If that sounds like something you could use, then by all means do. I doubt you'll be disappointed. To get your invite, go to the CarZen homepage and enter your email address, and CarZen will follow up with your username and password. Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials |
| Last.fm Brings Back Part of the Album Jacket With Song Lyrics Posted: 08 Oct 2008 11:25 AM PDT
However, a concern for listeners may be the position given to lyrics relative to other features. For instance, if you visit an artist's main page on Last.fm, you'll find biographical information, a music player, followed by recommended material as well as sections home to videos, albums, top tracks, and the comment roll. A link for lyrics isn't evident. Neither is it visible with a specific album page in view. Users are required to drill down to an individual song page to see a lyrical preview (if it exists). One more click will bring you to the full transcript. Despite this structural makeup, Last.fm's deal with LyricFind - launched for U.S.- and Canada-based listeners first, to be followed by more places "in the near future" - is worthwhile if only to give visitors an impression of a complete experience. The site has worked to do so with audio and video. Lyrics simply help to finish the picture. For the time being, Last.fm does not display advertising beside each full lyric, but just as with real estate elsewhere in its archives, it will invite advertisers and sponsors to make themselves seen alongside text provided to users. This will involve "the ability to skin the entire page."
--- Myplaylist Launches a Lyrics Service |
| 35+ Online Shopping Cart Solutions for Your Business Posted: 08 Oct 2008 10:08 AM PDT
Does your company already use a shopping cart solution? Tell us about your experience with it in the comments. Hosted Carts
AAcart.com - Offers three levels of pricing plans that come with hosting included. Also offers customized solutions and design. eCrater.com - A free online store builder that also allows you to enter your products into their marketplace for free, while also entering them into the Google Product Search. Etsy.com - An online store builder and marketplace that restricts itself to products that you make. This include all sorts of arts & crafts, buttons, clothes and so on. GoEmerchant.com - GoEmerchant offers both fully hosted options and the ability to just add buttons to your already existing site. Merchandizer.com - Merchandizer offers hosted packages from extremely basic all the way up to your own fully dedicated hosting. Also offers design and logo services if you need them. NetworkSolutions.com - The well-known domain registration company also offers online storefront hosting and setup. SmallBusiness.Yahoo.com - While Yahoo offers you the ability to use their shopping cart on a site you build yourself, their wizard powered store is by far their most popular product. It offers you pre-built templates for the look, but uses their own brand of HTML, which makes hiring a designer for a unique look almost a necessity. StoreFront.net - Focuses on customized solutions that vary by store size, hosting needs and so on. Stores.eBay.com - eBay stopped being just an auction site a long time ago and offers you the chance to set up your own storefront on their popular site. Free Self-Hosted Carts
CubeCart - CubeCart offers version 3 of their software for free, but charges for version 4 after a free 30 day trial. Offers bulk upload, inventory management, shipping modules and everything else you would expect from a fully operational online store. Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software - A fairly new free shopping cart that puts a heavy emphasis on not having to know how to code, run databases or anything else. IdeaCart - A free cart still in its Alpha phase, features fraud detection, newsletter support and more. JadaSite - JadaSite is a bit unusual in that it’s Java based, as well as fully integrated with a content management system. Magento - Launched in 2008, Magento is one the newest open source shopping carts on the market. OpenCart - An open source PHP shopping cart. It’s been a while since it has been updated, but everything appears to still be up and running. osCommerce - One of the best known shopping carts out there, this open source cart enjoys a large community of plugin creators. It has been quite a while since their last major release, v2.2 RC 2a, but they are in active development of version 3.0, which promises some major administration upgrades. PrestaShop - An extremely new open source shopping cart that already seems fairly full-featured, and promises more to come with an area for expansion modules to be opened in the near future. Quick.Cart.Lite - Quick.Cart.Lite is the free version of the Quick.Cart software and will allow you to build a simple online store. Offers two more robust levels of the same program with more features. Satchmo - Built on the Django framework, Satchmo offers highly customizable shop building with a long list of built in features such as Google Analytics incorporation, PDF invoice generation and more. Ubercart - Ubercart is a full-featured shopping cart that also integrates with a Drupal site so that you can build a community around your store or featured products. VirtueMart - A shopping cart built specifically for integration with the Joomla! and Mambo content management system. Zen Cart - Zen Cart is an off branch of osCommerce that comes with several of the most popular modules built into it. Purchasable Self-Hosted Carts
1ShoppingCart - 1ShoppingCart offers you the ability to add “Buy Now” buttons to your already existing site, while offering you many of the features you expect from complete shopping carts. Actinic - Actinic offers multiple shopping cart solutions based on your budget. Packages range from $499 to $3499 depending on your needs. CS-Cart - Gives you full access to the source code so that you can customize your online store as you see fit. Makes heavy use of AJAX to reduce server load as customers change only a portion of a product’s page. Interspire - Offers three versions of their software, all with numerous addons. However, if your store is of any substantial size (over 500 different items), you have no choice but to go for the ultimate $1800 version. JShop Server - A UK-focused online shopping cart system with all of the usual bells and whistles. JustAddCommerce - A “buy button” system that will work with HTML editors such as Dreamweaver and Frontpage to add an online store to any site. Lite Commerce - A direct competitor to X-Cart, they have a lower initial price, but charge for numerous add-ons for extra functions. Miva Merchant - One of the oldest purchasable shopping carts seeing as it has existed since 1995. Offers QuickBooks sync, all of the usual bells and whistles, and the company offers unique designs. ShopSite - ShopSite offers a free starter version, but it is extremely limited. Paid versions range from $495 to $1295, and they also offer hosting if needed. VP-ASP - VP-ASP offers three levels of their shopping cart software, all of which include 12 free months of updates in their purchase price. In addition to US shipping, offers options for Australian and Canadian post shipping. WebMasterCart - Cart has been around since 1998 and has been continually upgraded. Offers licenses for 1 site for $199 or unlimited domains for $995. Price is a one time licensing fee with 1 year of updates. X-Cart - X-Cart offers both single merchant installations and versions capable of handling multiple merchants checking out through the same shopping cart. Offers numerous payment and shipping module integrations. WordPress Shopping Carts
eShop - Gives you the ability to add a PayPal powered store to your site. Allows one item per post or page. Quick Shop - A shopping cart for your WordPress blog’s sidebar. WP e-Commerce - A popular shopping cart option for WordPress blogs which makes it easy to sell things like ebooks, mp3s, clothing, crafts and more. YAK for WordPress - A simple shopping cart for WordPress that turns posts and pages into product codes and the item description. --- UnCluttr: Amazon Without the Clutter |
| GoodReads Adds Status Updates to Answer the Question: What Page Are You On? Posted: 08 Oct 2008 09:01 AM PDT
Status updates will be displayed throughout GoodReads, which in turn serves as both a way to read microreviews and also discover other people who are reading the same things as you. For instance, each book's page will feature recent status updates from members, with the homepage featuring a Facebook News Feed-like display showing recent activities of your GoodReads friends, including their latest status updates. GoodReads has been on a healthy growth trajectory since launching in early 2007. The site now has more than 1.5 million users who have added more than 30 million books – up significantly from the 5 million books users had added around this time last year. Unique visitors are also up sharply according to data from Compete:  So are microreviews likely to be the next big little thing on niche social networks? The GoodReads integration certainly makes a lot of sense, and given the number of Tweets declaring that "Tropic Thunder was hilarious!" or "the new Zune is sooooo cool" (ok I made that one up) there would certainly seem to be an opportunity to increase engagement by adding targeted status update features. --- GoodReads Hits 5 Million Books & Launches Interactive Widget |
| Reframe It Takes Social Bookmarking and Puts it in Context Posted: 08 Oct 2008 09:00 AM PDT
The old copy-paste thing might do the trick, or you might direct friends to search for a particular phrase via a browser's built-in finder utility. But if the process becomes routine and cumbersome, you might prefer a browser plugin or extension to take as much tedium out of the process as possible. That's where Reframe It comes into play. Reframe It can perhaps best be described as a hybrid. One part Delicious, another part Awesome Highlighter, plus some commentary, arranged in a way that essentially pays homage to your run-of-the-mill word processor.
It does take a bit of a leap to get involved with. An extension is needed (options are available for Firefox and Internet Explorer users), and you'll have to convince anyone not registered with the service who you intend to share material with to sign up as well. (Gmail imports and quick invitations are both possible.) Once you complete these steps, however, the outcome is pretty remarkable. The concept is like that of Bubble Comment in that your objective is typically to direct the recipient of a message in one fashion or another. Except that Reframe It is entirely text-based, and is exclusive to members.
The only gripe I can muster with the Reframe It service is the fact that the plugin, fixed to the right-hand margin of your browser, shows no quick way to minimize the software from view. You're required to click a button labeled 'Margin' and from the drop-down menu choose 'close margin.' If you're in no rush, this isn't such an annoyance. But do it once, twice, ten times or more and you'll recognize this as the unnecessary two-step that it is. (Here's a tip: When the margin is expanded, place your cursor on the leftmost edge of the plugin, click and drag it to the right of the screen.) You'll also have to take a positive approach to the presence of a vertical blue bar in your browser (which seems to slow down Firefox's performance by a very slight amount), but that's pretty much a make or break point for prospective users. If you don't mind it, all will be well. If not, then… not. As a Web service plus utility, Reframe It is a commendable piece of work. You'll need a few minutes to familiarize yourself with it, and you'll have to appreciate the way it lives within Firefox and IE. But once you do, its value becomes quite clear and in fact grows the more it is used. --- Twenty People Save 20% at SF NewTech |
| Discover New Music through Sound Analysis With Mufin (20 Invites) Posted: 08 Oct 2008 08:00 AM PDT
Utilizing technology developed in part by the same folks who created the MP3 format, Mufin analyzes more than 40 different characteristics of every song in its system to recommend similar tracks. So is the machine better at recommending songs than your friends? Let's take a look: How it works:Similar to other music discovery services, Mufin starts by asking you to input the name of a favorite track or artist. After getting a list of songs that match your query, you can click on "similar tracks" for each title, which is where Mufin's secret sauce kicks in. For each song's similar tracks, you can see the percentage match, based on the characteristics that the service looks at, which include tempo, rhythm structure, and which instruments are used.  From there, you can play 30-second previews and continue drilling down by clicking the similar tracks link on any title. If you find something you like, you can add it to a playlist. There is also a link next to each track to buy it via iTunes. Mufin plans to incorporate Amazon purchases by the time it launches publicly next month. Social networking apps:Mufin is also building applications for MySpace and Facebook. These apps offer the same functionality as the website, with a few social twists incorporating your friends’ lists from the social networks. On MySpace, when searching for music, you can add songs to your "discoveries," which in turn can be displayed in a profile widget. Additionally, you can send any song you find to your friends with a Greeting Card feature.  How well does it work?Overall, I found the recommendations on Mufin to be quite good for my admittedly unadventurous taste in music. What makes the service interesting is that because it is based on sound analysis and not wisdom of friends/crowds, when you enter in the name of a popular artist, many of the recommended tracks that come back are from complete unknowns. This offers a stark contrast to the "people who like this also liked that" model, where popular artists have a huge advantage. Mufin plans to exploit this further, allowing any artist to upload their music when the service launches publicly. In turn, that means if an unknown artist sounds similar (according to the algorithm) to a hugely popular band, they may have a much better chance of being discovered than on other services. The biggest weakness for Mufin right now would be that it is only offering 30 second previews of songs, at a time when many competitors like imeem, iLike, and MySpace are offering at least some form of full track streaming. The company is working on deals with the record labels, but consumers will increasingly expect free music from discovery services, so for Mufin to truly be competitive, it may need to sign some contracts before its technology can shine to its full potential. Try it out:Mufin is in very private beta right now, but we do have a few invites for the first 20 people to go here. If you get in, let us know how good you find the recommendations. --- Last.fm and Pandora - Music Discovery Services |
| Yahoo Launches Impressive Calendar Beta Posted: 08 Oct 2008 04:59 AM PDT
Looks-wise, it's safe to say Yahoo's engineers were inspired at least in part by Apple's iCal program. The layouts for both are quite similar. Performance, meanwhile, is pretty much on par with most any other top-tier Web-based calendaring service. You're able to make edits with very little time involved. Only when switching between ‘Day,’ ‘Week,’ and ‘Month’ views is where you'll notice lag, if any. Otherwise, peppy it is.
All things considered, there isn't much within the new Yahoo Calendar that hasn't been achieved by its predecessor or its competitors. Functionally speaking, it's very ordinary. You might prefer one service or another for the way it behaves in response to user input, or because it is integral to the experience provided by a particular brand. If you like Yahoo Mail, you may tend towards its Calendar service. Or, if you enjoy Google's Gmail client, its Calendar might be your preference. But if you're curious as to the Yahoo Calendar Beta's measurements next to Google Calendar, it's really an either/or type of circumstance. Both are easy to use. Both are efficient with data presentation and management, and sport similar drag-and-drop functions. Just as users would expect, really. My time spent with Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail service is pretty much a non-factor, so I can't compare the three so thoroughly as some readers may wish, but I'm confident in pegging this new Yahoo item as qualitatively very good. Among the best, I gather. Of course, there are some differences to consider. For one, Google Calendar allows additions either through specific keyword arrangements (i.e., 2pm lunch), or through title entries followed by specific detail edits made within the application's event manager. If you've learned the ways of Google Calendar, you might be quick with keywords, and the ability to cycle through various calendar views through simple touches of the 'D', 'W', 'M', and 'A' keys helps hasten things a bit. But if you have not been schooled in the art of such functions, or any others that reside within the Google's framework, it's no special creature.
Specify a date within Yahoo Calendar, on the other hand, and the application expands a 24-hour planner into view, where you can choose a time and enter whatever information is necessary. Furthermore, you can hover your cursor over the lower border of an event, and drag it to include whatever frame of day you like. You can't do the same with the topmost border of an event, but you can drag the entire block upward. Strangely, if you click an event to view it in detail, you're shown the default 12:00 a.m. view. You'll have to scroll down to see anything occurring later in the day. This is unfortunate, and needs fixing. Sooner rather than later. My advice to prospective users: position your cursor over the event in the default calendar view and you'll be shown a small bubble in 1-2 seconds' time with essential details. (Clicking on the blue link within that bubble will bring you to an edit page where you can view and add notes and other data.) One aspect Yahoo is touting with this beta is a Flickr connection, which just so happens to be active by default. (You'll notice the checkmark in the list of calendars to the left of the main window.) Of course, this is to tell users of its existence, but the execution of the connection is where I find fault. This is because photos are placed in somewhat random order, and do not blanket the page when the user is in Month view. Only a few images are displayed at any one time, and all are gathered from the Creative Commons class of photos within the Flickr database. And you cannot specify your own library of media to be shown. Not yet, anyhow. Suffice it to say that if you uncheck the Flickr option, it will remain off. In the realm of tech support, Yahoo promises compliance with things like iCalendar and CalDAV, which is good, because the more accepted standards, the more empowered users are. And the company intends to introduce things like Upcoming integration and "other Yahoo properties," as well as "auto-synch with Outlook and (the) iPhone." Interestingly enough, Yahoo, in debuting this release, mentions its placement among webmail and calendaring applications, but states that Yahoo Calendar alone, "sees only a mere 8 million users per month." Which is downright paltry compared to Yahoo Mail's 250 million or so users. Now, I doubt Yahoo will see this new beta increase its own reach within the market by a substantial amount, so I say take it for what it is: a decent step forward. Nothing less, nothing more. --- Yahoo Mail Goes Global, Adds Text Messaging and IM |
Iterend
Remember when we told you about 
Several weeks ago, Digg made online headlines when it 
The Website
The Business
Just in time to participate in Blog Action Day, 
Back in April, 
The Internet radio and on-demand streaming music service 
With the shape of the economy and ever changing gas prices, online shopping may end up growing even faster than some have predicted. If your business hasn’t added an online shopping cart yet, why not? The technology has been around for years now, and there are solutions for just about every skill level: you can do it yourself, outsource the work, pay companies for hosting, or even turn a WordPress blog into a simple shopping cart using plugins. Here are over 35 shopping cart solutions for your business.
If you want to share a webpage with one or more people, you might use a social bookmarking service such as 
The comment options available within Reframe It are fairly noteworthy. You can specify your message as a 'General Comment,' 'Question,' 'Counter Argument,' 'Supporting Argument,' which gives perspective to particularly busy pages. Furthermore, you can specify whether you only wish to share a comment with contacts within a group of users or the entire Reframe It membership. As you might suspect, this is quite useful, particularly if you happen to converse with multiple groups.
Up until now, discovering new music online has been mostly either a social experience through services like iLike and Last.fm, or a function of the wisdom of the crowd determining "most popular tracks" on big music stores like iTunes and Amazon. Today, a new entrant into the space called 
Yahoo has launched a 
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