Blippy Makes Credit Social

How far can social networking go, how about into your wallet? Blippy makes credit card transactions social. I was reading a recent article about Blippy and I was floored by this next level of social networking.

The website asks, “What are your friends buying?” Register for an account, enter your credit card info (which is not kept on record) and share with the world what you are buying. Your Blippy account is updated with what you just bought. Other Blippy users can comment on your purchase. You can tell Blippy what types of transactions you don’t want to go public. It also has a connection with Facebook and Twitter.

As a by-stander, I think this website is cool. Now I can see what other people are buying and if I see something nice, I might buy the same thing. All I can say is that a recent poll stated 70% of lawyers are using social networking in case proceedings. Use this service at your own risk.

Do you think Blippy is too much information?
http://www.blippy.com

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Geography Now

The stereotype is most U.S. residents are terrible at geography. Now there are new tools and opportunities to educate yourself about geo-science.

Globe.gov
group of students conducting research on soil, atmosphere

earth.goggle.com
free software to explore terrain maps and satellite images of globe

ohioview.org and ameriaview.org - partnership of college to promote use of satellite data

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Big Events Shut Down The Net

The net is still in diapers. Every time a big event happens, the Internet seems to experience lag and major websites just simply shut down. When Michael Jackson’s funeral was held during a weekday in the middle of the afternoon, the world watched the event mostly at work online. This event alone seemed to cause everything online to hick-up.

Think about these facts:

• Amazon just turned 15
• Twitter is a new communication form started in 2006
• iTunes launched in 2001 and now represents half of music industry sales

Can we just admit to ourselves that the Internet is just still just learning to walk? Web 3.0 is approaching, but the fact is it is never too late to get on the web bandwagon and embrace the technology.

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R.I.P. Geocities

Geocities was closed today by Yahoo. I used Geocities to create my first webpage to get my first Internet job back in 1996. Yes, the page was rudimentary and featured a flaming guitar, but it was a building block for later success. I actually think my website address had so many tildes “~” that it was impossible to remember.

Geocities was a true pioneer that now has been surpassed with more powerful user-centric based website creation tools. Rest in peace Geocities.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/10/geocities-closing.html

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Web Soup Rocks!

I am a big fan of E’s The Soup hosted by Joel McHale, but now a spin-off called Web Soup is taking center stage. What’s the basis of the show? A weekly countdown of the top Internet videos from around the globe.

The former host of MTV’s Singled-Out Chris Hardwick gets another shot at reality TV by taking the reigns of the teleprompter at Web Soup. America’s Funnies Videos (AFV) used to ask for your VHS tapes, now there’s a show that scours the net for uploads. Web Soup airs on the G4 network which has limited distribution, but you can watch the top videos online. As I’ve indicated in a recent entry about Facebook privacy, the videos of your loved ones are next?

http://g4tv.com/websoup/index.aspx

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Oh No! Your Parents Just Joined Facebook?

The other day I heard a few talk show hosts insinuating that Facebook has “Jumped The Shark“. I then saw on Doug Craver’s TechBytes and on a few Twitter feeds the website My Parents Joined Facebook referenced. The website insinuates that youth can no longer post everything happening in their lives on Facebook because now their parents will find out about it.

For example, a college student kept asking her father for money to pay for rising book fees. However after dad joined Facebook, became friends with their kid and started reading about her excessive partying, the money was cut off. Then the student “Unfriended” their dad so he couldn’t read her updates any longer. The reality is this trend is rising everyday and this new website, My Parents Joined Facebook says, “this is your chance to get back at them for taking away your public privacy.” The idea is to share the embarrassing messages parents are writing on your Facebook wall in order to fight back.

The reality is everyone should realize that whatever you write as your status, on your wall, or any picture you upload is permanent record online. Even if you delete your account or remove the information later, a search engine, the site hosting the material or another user will be retaining your information. Be careful out there in Internet land!

http://myparentsjoinedfacebook.com/

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Zamzar Online File Converter

The internet is truly powerful and if used the right way, you can produce powerful results. Remember that line from Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Exhibit A is a recent find called Zamzar which is an online file converter that works great.

Do you have a video in mpg format you need convert to avi? Do you have a word document you need converted to a PDF? Whatever file format you need to covert from audio, video, doc or image, Zamzar can do it! The free account does the basic conversion, if you want to store all your files online, rename, increase maximum size limits or establish a secure connection, then you’ll need to upgrade to a paid account.

Free Zamzar account:

• Up to 100 mega-bytes (mb)
• No contract
• No sign-up
• File conversion of image, doc, video and audio

http://www.zamzar.com/

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Get Your Hitwise Search Data

Hitwise recently launched a search marketers haven of data; their website says, “We are leading statistics for an online industry.” If you need statistics for your next presentation about online search, then look no further than Hitwise. What questions are you asking yourself?

Are curious what the top 20 most visited websites are last week or the top industry search terms? How about the Top 20 Websites & Search Engines by volume? Or maybe you want to know what the top 10 most visited search engines were last week? What are the most visited retail sites on the web for last week? What are people searching for and what terms are rising up?Get break downs the top visited banking, real estate, social networking and travel websites at Hitwise. Did you know that believe it or not, Facebook is #1 with MySpace at a close second?

One special highlight of the website is that Hitwise puts a spotlight on the top searched keywords from a featured industry. This week the key term is “Cruises” and you can see the breakdown of the top cruiselines searched along with the top 10 cruise websites.

Hitwise is owned by Experian, so hats off to you for sharing the info. http://www.hitwise.com/resources/data-center.php

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MySpace Jobs

Recently I got an email from MySpace that they’ve added new features to their website. The trend recently is that MySpace has been on the downturn because other social networking platforms like Facebook are gaining popularity. Thus, I wasn’t surprised when I heard that MySpace was trying to stay relevant. So why not add a job board to your website when the economy is down?

The MySpace job portal in my analysis seems to be nothing more than one big refined Google search. The page layout and the actual results for same key terms are similar in Google and MySpace Jobs. The site does however feature a few videos that are strong in helping you land a new job. It also has a tab if you are looking to go back to school, you can search for a higher degree.

MySpace has added a new “Job” feature to their website, but it’s really just repositioning technology from Google. The bottom-line is that as long it’s a benefit for the users, it’s a benefit to the site.

http://jobs.myspace.com/

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Commentary: Stop Over-sized Ghosted TV Promos?

Since I am a social network addict, I don’t watch that much TV anymore, but when I do, I have started to track a trend. Have you noticed the size of the ghosted TV logos? These promos are either getting larger or they are animating out of control. In the past they used to just be a small little logo of the station in the bottom right corner of the screen, now they have become something else.

If you look above, here is an example from TBS of Bill Engvall walking out over the show I am currently watching to promote his show. It always happens right after you return from a commercial break. I am sometimes unsure if this ghosted actor on my screen is part of the scene I am watching or a promo until they magically fade away. Some other examples of these TV promos besides walk-outs are countdowns to the premiere of a big event happening in less than 24 hours.

Are these interruptions getting out of control? Are these other shows that are being promoted much more important then the one I am watching? Can we pay extra to get these logos removed from our TV shows?

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