Metacafe Equals Video Clips

Tired of YouTube? Looking for another outlet for online family video entertainment? You need to discover the Metacafe, an the video vault of countless clips. Music videos, movie trailers, TV clips, sports highlights and video game news is what you can find here. If you are a gamer, then you’ll love the fact that trailers are broke down by category for the iPhone, PSP, Play Station 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC and DS.

If you are looking for the best spot for exclusive video clips, then checkout Metacafe.
http://www.metacafe.com

Kaneva, The Next Second Life?

Have you heard of Kaneva? According to the website, “it is a whole new way to express yourself and connect with friends online. A digital canvas for creativity and entertainment, Kaneva is the first to integrate social networking, shared media, games and collaborative communities into an immersive 3D virtual world.”

Does this sound familiar? It might because the concept is very close to Second Life. The biggest difference Kaneva has over Second Life is the “Facebook” qualities of social networking. The ability to share, rate and tag items between users which initially Second Life did not exclusively focus on.

http://www.kaneva.com/

Facebook’s changes

A few days ago Facebook announced some changes that will make it “more social”. Your information will no longer be as private as it could be. Facebook is going to be all over the web with these changes. Below is a synopsis that CNN did about Facebook’s recent changes.

Here are the new Facebook features:

• Like buttons – thumbs or thumbs down will be on every item of content. Now your friends’ Facebook photos you are voting on will start showing up all over the web.
• Smiley Faces – When visiting a site, users can give you a smiley face on the site they’ve visited or you’ve visited. This will enable you to share interests across the web. CNN stated, “Facebook says these recommendations and social connections are the basis for the future of the Internet. Boring old hyperlinks are becoming something of the past, the company says.”
• No log-ins – Like buttons or smiley faces will appears on websites whether you are logged in or not. Recommendations from your Facebook friends will automatically show up.
• Toolbars – a new toolbar that you can add at the bottom on your lets you like a page and gives you information what your friends think about the page.

If you don’t want to world to see all your likes and dislikes you will need to check your Facebook privacy settings. You can control the setting, but the default is set to show the world what you and friends like or dislike.

Do you like this changes or dislike these changes? Is this going to stop you from using Facebook?

Full article on CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/21/

Young Adults Care About Online Privacy

A new study from the Social Science Research Network says that young adults do care about online privacy. The survey was based on a 2009 telephone survey of 1,000 Americans 18 and older.  Specially the feedback from Adults aged 18 to 24 revealed the following statistics:

• 82% refused to give out personal information to a business
• 84% believe permission is required before posting a photo or video online
• 40% think companies must face charges if use personal info illegally

The bottom line of the report is that “Researchers suggest that lawmakers and educators should not assume that young adults do not care about privacy and therefore don’t need protections.”

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1589864

Ning Free Service Gone

Ning announced, “We will phase out our free service. Existing free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for premium services, or transition off of Ning. On May 4, 2010, we will share with you all of the details of our new offering, including features and price points, through a series of blog posts, emails, and conference calls. We recognize that there are many active Ning Networks for teachers, small non-profits, and individuals and it’s our goal to have a set of product and pricing options that will make sense for all of them.”

Do you use the Ning service? What do you think of this move? Will other free social networks have to move to this business model? I guess click ads aren’t the best source of revue?

http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/ning-update-rolling-out

Voting Online Making Waves

Did your organization make the best of the city? It seems that ever year around this time, the local news networks start clamoring get your vote for the best pizza, DJ service, newspaper, website, blog, etc… Before the push starts in your city, head to the City Voter and get your service listed on the website. If you are just curious who won last year, search through the cities and find out.

City Voter covers the following cities Albany, Charlotte, Greensboro, Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, Albany ,Chicago, Greenville, Los Angeles, Omaha, San Antonio ,Albuquerque, Cincinnati ,Hartford, Louisville, Orlando ,San Diego ,Amarillo, Cleveland, Honolulu, Memphis, Philadelphia, San Francisco Atlanta, Colorado Springs, Houston, Miami, Phoenix Seattle, Austin, Columbus, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Baltimore, Dallas ,Jackson, Minneapolis, Portland, Tampa, Birmingham, Denver, Jacksonville , Nashville, Providence, Traverse City, Boston, Detroit, Kansas City, New York, Raleigh, Washington, Buffalo, Burton, Lancaster, Norfolk, Sacramento, West Palm Beach, Cedar Rapids and Grand Rapids.

http://cityvoter.com/

Totally Looks Like

Who knew that K$sha looks like John Travolta? If you are looking for some fun today on your lunch hour, check out the site that gives new meaning to “separated at birth”. Scroll through picture galleries and see who you totally look like. Parental advisory is suggested.

http://totallylookslike.com/

Ipod Transfer Music Program

Are you looking to transfer your music from your iPod to your iPhone? Todd Bertsch the other day proposed the question and my immediate thought was to just sync-up each device to iTunes. However after trying it myself, I soon realized that 3rd party software was needed to remedy the situation. Pod to PC was just that tool.

The free version of Pod to PC will transfer 10 songs at a time. However if you have a ton of songs, we recommend that for $20 you purchase the software for seamless usage. I didn’t try transferring videos, but Todd said the videos didn’t transfer with the free version.

http://www.mypodapps.com

AOL’s Lifestream

Looking for a new way to communicate to all your social networking accounts at once? America Online has a new product they are testing called “Lifestream”. There website proclaims that you can, “Unite all of your networks, get all your updates in one place by updating your Facebook, Twitter and MySpace status right from Lifestream.”

AOL Lifestreams joins the ever growing ranks of “update all” websites like Ping.fm and Hellotxt. After using a couple of times, I would recommend using Lifestream for personal use. I do like their browse feature which enables you to search and filter to see what’s most important to you. However if you a business user, the tool lacks a robust developer base creating additional add-ons and proper tracking through analytics.

http://lifestream.aol.com/

Open Thesis

Google has changed the face of writing papers forever. These days plagiarism runs wild because it is so easy to grab content. However teachers now use software based products to scan your work to identify if anything has been plagiarized. The rule in writing papers is that sources are cited properly. The other day I discovered OpenThesis, a free repository of theses, dissertations, and other academic documents. It also features the ability to save searches, alerts, portfolios and organize documents. From what I can see, it is the only free database of of this kind. The information is out there, just use it wisely!

http://www.OpenThesis.org