Brandfame to offer Product Placement
2007-09-29 06:42:51
BrandFame (www.brandfame.com) is a meeting-place for advertisers and video publishers, who want to match online video with product placement in an attempt to make money and ruin the internet for everybody.
Ok, let me expand on that negativity, because I wouldn’t be writing about this startup if I didn’t think it was a good idea, it’s just that a part of me wants the web to remain a free and unbiased expressive medium, and the idea that product placement has infiltrated sites like YouTube makes me want to pull out my eyes in protest.
Now I’ve got my moral opposition out of the way, I can try to look at this site objectively. As I’ve said, it is a good idea in principle, as it gives anyone with a video camera the chance to make advertising revenue from their video blogs, and after all, a can of Diet Coke™ in the background is far less intrusive than most advertising methods.
Execution-wise - only time will tell, as the site still looks to be in its early
Read more: Placement
Google introduces interactive ad format
2007-09-19 04:57:58
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the introduction of Google Gadget Ads™, a new interactive ad format
that is currently in an expanded beta with a select group of AdWords™ advertisers worldwide. Gadget ads – non-traditional ad units with interactive, rich media capabilities – not only enable advertisers to target audiences in a flexible and timely manner via regular updates within the ad unit, but also allow users to engage with ad content in a way static ads haven’t facilitated in the past.
Feedback from preliminary beta participants, including brand advertisers such as Pepsi-Cola North America’s Sierra Mist, Intel, Honda, Six Flags and Paramount Vantage, has been overwhelmingly positive. Advertisers are enthusiastic about this fresh marketing solution that empowers them to interact with targeted users through rich, dynamic and engaging content.
Read more: Google
PCNames provides AJAX-powered domain search
2007-09-11 05:37:15
This one’s been a favourite of mine for a while now, so it’s not strictly a ’start-up’, but this site is so useful to web start-ups I just had to give it a mention. Never again will you think of a great domain
only to have it snapped up by some unknown foreigner (probably) as you fumble around for your credit-card.
According to the site, pcNames.com is a free site dedicated to helping users find domains quickly. They have tools for 3-character, dictionary, available, deleted, expired, and pre-release domains, which are updated as you type
But it’s much more than that; you can grab domains just recently expired, or search for variations of domains while glancing at a continuously updating list of available, for sale or expired domains as you type. This has to be the best use of Ajax since… well, since ever.
It’s also a bit of an eye-opener to see just how few decent domains are still available. Unless of course, your company is called vblkugtr2
Read more: AJAX
Google to Present at Citigroup Technology Conference
2007-08-27 05:00:09
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced today that Sundar Pichai, Director of Product Management, and Nicholas Fox, Group Business Product Manager, will participate in a question-and-answer session at the Citigroup
Technology
Conference in New York. The session is scheduled for 4:10 p.m. Eastern Time / 1:10 p.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, September 6, 2007.
An audio webcast is available here.
Read more: Google
, Present
Fliqz offers branded video solution
2007-07-26 04:07:17
With the rapid growth and success of online video
, it was only a matter of time before video providers started to get creative. Fliqz (www.fliqz.com) offers branded video integration for third-party sites, with the benefit of being highly customizable with skins to match any content.
In a nutshell, what they’re offering is the ability to embed streaming video via a toolbar. The Fliqz Quikvid Toolbar provides a simple and intuitive interface that enables users to upload videos from their computers and receive an instant embed code in return. This embed code can then be posted into any of the sites, forums, blogs, wikis, e-commerce or auction sites that permit user-contributed video. Since the toolbar resides in the browser itself, users need never again visit a separate destination for video capabilities.
One of the early adopters to take advantage of fliqz was Friendster, who say..
A customizable, Friendster-branded solution was important to us, and Fliqz gave us ultimate contr
Facebook aquires startup Parakey
2007-07-20 04:21:31
Facebook has announced that it has acquired Parakey, a startup run by Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, co-founders of Mozilla Firefox, an open-source and non-profit web browser. Ross and Hewitt will join Facebook’s team to work on the development of Facebook Platform and the company’s website.
Blake and Joe built the Firefox web browser and then turned to the developer community to build on top of the foundation they’d established, not unlike what we’ve done with Facebook Platform
said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. “The work they’ve done with Firefox and Parakey and their approach to building products fit right in at Facebook.”
Ross and Hewitt are best known as the co-founders of Firefox, which has been downloaded more than 300 million times by people worldwide. Hewitt went on to build popular web development tools such as Firebug. In early 2006, Ross and Hewitt founded Parakey to build a platform bridging the gap between information on the web and the d
Read more: Facebook
FOWA Expo is underway
2007-10-03 09:12:27
The Future of Web Apps Expo ‘07 hits London, with Kevin Rose (Pownce/Digg), Dav Morin (Facebook) and Michael Arrington (Techcrunch) among the guest speakers.
Running from the 3rd to the 5th October, the event features workshops from Yahoo!’s Steve Souders and Six Apart marketing director, Deborah Schultz.
The Expo Pass is only £5, allowing access to the expo floor on the 3rd and 4th. The conference pass is £245 and the conference & workshop pass will set you back £595. Well worth the trip.
The next event will take place in Miami, USA in Febuary 2008. For more details about this event, the speakers and workshops, go to the official site at http://www.futureofwebapps.com/index.html
Podobo - The thinking mans Twitter?
2007-10-03 07:08:00
Podobo (www.podobo.com) is a twitter variant that seems to encourage more philosophical musings than its better known counterpart, and it does this without losing the light and fluffy ‘web 2.0′ aesthetic and social aspects we’ve all come to expect.
Despite it being a one-man operation, podobo seems to achieve the goal of getting users to purge their brain matter into a steady stream of random thoughts from around the world, even incorporating maps into the mix.
Whether or not this will take off amongst the many twitter-alikes, or just be another face in the crowd is anyones guess, but it’s nice and simple, and I thought it deserved a mention.
From the site..
Podobo is about ideas and thoughts. It’s about finding out what people are thinking
and, linking them together.
As with most start-ups mentioned here, the site is still in the early stages of development, so expect to see more features being rolled out as it matures.
In the end, the decidin
Read more: Twitter
WidgetBuck$ makes widgets profitable
2007-10-02 16:42:01
Every blogger loves widgets
, and many also quite like money (that’s why they’re always banging on about it) so what could be better than a widget that makes
money? Until someone finds a way to involve beer in that equation , WidgetBuck$ might just be the answer.
The idea is simple; you embed the widget code into your blog, and it acts as a product feed based on your sites content or a chosen category, you then get paid for clicks and hopefully make billions… hopefully.
The widget itself is fully customisable, and actually looks quite nice, although I wish they’d allow for a slightly smaller size, as it tends to dominate the page. I signed up so you can see the widget but I refuse to put this behemoth into my sidebar until they make it smaller.
Gripes aside, I do really like this idea, and the signup process is quick and easy, so if your blog has a sidebar with plenty of space, give it a try.
Explore your city with Tupalo
2007-10-02 03:44:43
According to its creators, Tupalo is “social mapping for local culture, allowing members to share and review their favorite locations around the world”. Intrigued, I ventured onto the site to do a little exploring for myself…
The service is basically a social network wrapped around Google Maps technology, and it all looks pretty nice, with user reviews and star-ratings for bars, restaraunts and anything else you care to stick on a map. It reminds me of the premise behind MojoPages, except the execution is far more intuitive, and caters for a more global audience.
Austrian based Tupalo.com OG say..
Tupalo is for locals and visitors alike who want to know where the best venues, record stores, vegetarian cafes, salons or fringe fashion boutiques are in their area. We are currently in an open beta, but are continually adding new features and improving the service before our launch in late 2007.
In its current state, there just aren’t enough locations yet to be of a
Get paid for slacking off with Moola
2007-10-01 11:07:12
If you’d rather play games than work like a dog, and make free money (yes free money) then moola.com could be the answer you’ve been looking for. The idea is, moola gives you $0.01 to start off with, and you play games against online opponents, either doubling your money for each win, or losing it all. You never have to risk your own money, and you can cash out at any time.
If you win 30 times, you can cash out a cool $10,737,418.24 - and it’s actually pretty fun trying. I know what you’re thinking, “what’s the catch?” … well there is a catch, you watch a short ad between each game, and answer a related question to proceed, which is a stroke of genius - you get free money for playing games, and it’s all paid for with advertising.
I love a good rant when I’m writing about start-ups, but I have to say… I’ve got nothing… this is one of the most refreshing ideas I’ve come across, and it’s going to
Read more: Moola
Big Changes for Blogrush
2007-10-01 01:42:26
BlogRush is a smart new idea for getting exposure for your blog posts, which are shown via a widget on related sites every time your own widget is loaded. What makes this one stand out from all the others, is that it only drives targetted traffic from similar blogs, using both your chosen category and a content algorithm to make sure only relevant articles appear on your widget, and your blog posts only appear on related sites.
The referral program is pretty good too, meaning that if anyone clicks your widget and grabs one for themselves, your posts show up once for each of their posts too, and so on.
You can even block content from specific URLs or keywords, so you won’t be linking to anything you don’t agree with, or posts from your direct competitors. The service is still in its early stages, and some features are yet to be rolled out, but hopefully this will be another great tool for the bloggers belt.
I just installed the widget here on SE, and I’ve no idea how e
Share your VC pitch with Vator.TV
2007-09-30 20:57:43
This is one I’ve been watching for a while, and despite the slow uptake by entrepreneurs, vator.tv has its fair share of investors just itching to see your start-up pitch in video format.
It’s a great idea, and I’m quite surprised that even with VC’s like The Carlyle Group among their members, we haven’t seen a flood of pitches from start-ups.
My theory is, that nobody wants to share their ideas publicly, which could be a real sticking point for vator - how do you broadcast your ideas without having them swiped by fellow entrepreneurs?
From the site..
Vator.tv is a catalyst for innovation. It is a professional network and marketplace for ideas and businesses. Anyone, across all industries, at any stage, can share ideas, products, services and businesses with the rest of the world, mainly through video.
There’s also some great advice on there, videos from serial entrepreneurs, investors, and even the vator guys themselves, so it’s well worth a
Read more: Share
I return to MyBlogLog, and find…
2007-09-29 20:15:28
I haven’t used MyBlogLog in a few months (previously under another account) as it was starting to turn into a giant SEO tool for bloggers, where only the most dedicated spammers and click-happy users got noticed amongst the mass of faceless self-promotion, and although my last community grew to a reasonable size, the experience was starting to wear a little thin.
So anyway, I returned to create an account for StartupEarth and they’ve changed quite a bit. Now seamlessly integrated with Yahoo! ID accounts, which makes signup not only more secure, but infinitely more annoying (You want my full name, DOB, postcode now? Sheesh.) ..that aside, the ability to ‘game’ the site has been drastically reduced, which can only be a good thing, and the extra profile options are a nice touch.
What has MyBlogLog got to do with startups? Well, any start-up worth knowing probably has a blog. It’s a great way to get a captive audience for your product or service and introduce
Read more: hellip
AjaxWindows tries to take on.. windows?
2007-10-14 23:51:50
As google try to move applications over to the web, it was probably just a matter of time before someone tried to go one further. AjaxWindows (www.ajaxwindows.com) does just that, by offering a full-featured web-based operating system that sits in your browser, and needs no installation (just a plug-in for IE users).
An interesting idea, but why would anyone use it? You need an OS to use it anyway, and I’ve never been keen on storing my every-day files on someone elses web server, but I decided to check it out…
My first reaction was ‘christ it’s slow’.. and it really is painfully slow. Then it seemed to hijack firefox (or at least cause it to stop responding) and my reaction to that was less than polite. So unfortunately I can’t tell you about all the features since I vowed never to return. Not a good start.
When will people learn? A browser is for browsing, not for half-baked, insecure applications that leave you pulling your hair out. I strongly
Read more: tries
Gizfolio matches freelance portfolios with contracts
2007-10-05 05:45:03
UK Start-up Gizfolio (www.gizfolio.com) launched earlier this year with the goal of helping freelance artists, designers, and all creative professionals to get targeted contract work based on individual skills, experience and a portfolio of work.
Unlike many freelance sites, Gizfolio encourages open offers in favour of bids which is a fairer system that prevents the hard work of creative freelancers from being devalued by bidding wars. Basically, if your portfolio is good, you can use the Gizfolio service to get a steady stream of projects without working for peanuts.
The membership seems to be growing steadily, with a nice mix of both experienced pros and amateurs competing for job listings.
It seems to work pretty well for job listers (’buyers’ as Gizfolio calls them) too, as they can handle all the negotiation and hiring/firing direct from the job listing itself, and both buyers and freelancers can engage in group discussion/negotiation before a freelancer is hired.
From
Read more: matches
Explosive start-up growth in 1 step
2007-10-04 12:19:54
Now that’s quite a bold claim! What could you possibly do in a single step to turn a flagging start-up into a money-making sensation?
The answer? Ignore conventional wisdom.
A successful launch is no longer about ‘appearing bigger than you really are’. Turn that on its head, promote yourself and your start-up as exactly that - a small start-up full of fresh ideas and naive charm.
Familiarity = Trust
Let people know who you are, not what you are - the result is that you become the brand itself, which is far more appealing than a manufactured message.
If you really want to grow rapidly, you need to engage people on a human level - be approachable and encourage user interaction. Some of the most successful internet start-ups did just that, and have virtually no corporate image. In fact, many large companies are making themselves look smaller, building personal relationships with users and getting involved at the ground level.
Appear small, think big
If your website look
Read more: Explosive
What YouTube could learn from a start-up
2007-10-18 04:55:39
I know, YouTube
is definitely not a startup, but it used to be - and I wanted to examine the kind of things that can go wrong when you get too big for your boots, and youtube is a classic example of what not to do (if you want to keep your users happy).
I know Youtube has a massive and devoted following, and this article may offend some - but frankly, I don’t care. As a long-time user I have a rant about this site, which might act as a warning to anyone still in the start-up phase who dreams of getting bought out by the likes of Google.
Ever since the Google acquisition, I started to notice little annoyances creep in, such as the almost schizophrenic obsession with changing the page layout to ever more useless and ugly ‘beta’ pages, appalling server speed and frequent time-outs, which pretty much never happened before.
All completely understandable (and forgivable) until I tried to contact support about a problem with the ‘replace audio’ feature. One week
Read more: learn
Pijoo set to storm the blogosphere
2007-11-06 15:07:42
Brand-new web start-up Pijoo (pijo.com) have launched into the blog community with the open beta of their new social networking site for bloggers.
Brought to you by the team behind UK start-up, Gizfolio ltd, Pijoo looks similar to other blog networking services, but adds an easy to navigate layout, super slick (if a little wide) widgets to track your blog visitors, and over-all a very nice feel to the site.
Literally only a few days old, the community looks in urgent need for early adopters, but sign-up is free, so there’s really no reason not to add your blog before it gets over-crowded.
They have a selection of widgets to suit your blog, with more to come as the site grows, although my only peeve with this beutiful site is the size of the widgets, make me a thinner one please!
For the ’serious blogger’, there is an optional sponsor account for a one-off payment of $30 - which I’ll be signing up for, if only to try the extra features, such as detailed statistic
7 Most Evil Websites on Earth
2007-11-11 13:18:02
When you sign up to a web service, do you know who you’re dealing with? A common rant of mine is when a company gets too big, they get…well… a bit evil. Here’s a quick run-down of websites that are going straight to hell…
1. Yahoo! - Search giant Yahoo! have plenty to shout about when it comes to being, well.. just plain evil. Their complicity in the arrest of Chinese blogger, Shi Tao hit the headlines when it was revealed they actively gave personal data to the authorities, who used it to convict and jail him for stating his anti-government opinions online. Is it merely a coincidence that Yahoo! subsequently bought blogging site MyBlogLog for $10M in an attempt to appease bloggers? I think not.
2. Facebook - Recent allegations that Facebook was funded in part, by VC’s with connections to the CIA, NSA and other US government agencies as a giant, socially engineered data-mining tool puts this sinister site at the #2 spot. A conspiracy theory, mayb
Read more: Websites
, Earth
What your startup can learn from Digg
2007-11-14 10:58:12
It doesn’t matter if you’re an absolute beginner, or a seasoned entreprenuer, it’s a fair bet that you can’t help but give at least a passing glance to the success stories that seem to redefine the internet overnight, and think to yourself, “if I could just emulate that magic formula..”
Well, I don’t think there’s such a thing as an overnight success, here’s why… It’s all too easy to look at a hugely popular site like Digg
, and forget all the iterations it went through to get there. Just look at Digg from Dec 2004. Yes, that’s Digg.
So how did Digg get from its humble origins to the where it is today, and how can you apply that to your obscure little startup?
Digg offers something of real value that costs nothing. Getting dugg is like the holy grail for authors, therefore a ‘digg’ has tangible value. It’s a vote of confidence and an endorsement, which translates to more clicks and more readers. T
Read more: learn
Digg for Products? I like, totally review it.
2007-11-13 13:57:53
There are hundreds of Digg
-clones out there, and none of them seem to be any good. iliketotally
loveit reminds me of Digg but to call it a clone would be doing it a disservice, as this one differs enough to be worth a look.
Rather than focus on websites and blog articles, ‘ilike’ allows users to share their favourite products, from books to laptops - as long as it’s “cool, hot or beautiful”.
Much like Digg, this service relies on its users to vote for things they like, totally love - pushing each item toward the front page as it gains popularity.
From the site..
iliketotallyloveit is a service that allows you to submit cool, hot, beautiful stuff, preferable with a link where it may be bought. If enough people agree that it is hot it will get promoted to the front page and thus exposed to a broad audience. This way iliketotallyloveit.com provides a unique way to stay informed about everything beautiful money can buy. Enjoy.
First impressions are good, the s
Read more: Products
, review
Buy your Newborn a website. No, really.
2007-11-13 13:38:37
Well this has to be among the wierdest startups I’ve ever come accross. DaddyIWantWebsite is a service that allows parents to buy a specially tailored website
for their screaming brat (sorry, adorable kid).
Websites comes in 3 packages; Starter - for newborns (oh come on), Pro - for older kids, and Premium - for teenagers.
I don’t want to start off with a negative, but what the hell is a baby going to do with a website? And teens? Somehow I can’t see teenagers bragging to their friends about thier new… “DaddyIWantWebsite” website.
From the site..
No matter what the season or reason, children aren’t as easy to buy for as you may think. Children can actually be rather picky about the gifts they receive and vocal in their opinions - good or bad.
When you are buying a gift for your own child, you don’t want it to be something that will drive you crazy.
What’s wrong with a pokemon? Ok, on the plus side, this is a creative way to sell we
Read more: Newborn
US Department of Defense Open-Source Conference Announced
2007-11-13 12:31:52
Arguably the most secretive agency on the planet, the US DoD has announced the US Department
of Defense
Open IT Conference to be held in Washington DC on the 11-12 December 2007.
Is it just me, or does it strike anyone as counter-intuitive for a government agency to lay its infrastructure out for anyone with a passing knowledge of emerging technologies, while on the other hand using the patriot act (title V) to strip away the rights of US citizens in the name of homeland security?
If this is not the case, then just what is the DoD’s interest in open-source? Deputy Program Executive Officer, Brigadier Nickolas G. Justice says..
Open source software is part of the integrated network fabric which connects and enables our command and control system to work effectively, as people's lives depend on it. When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source.
Politics aside, it does indicate how open source has moved firmly into the mainstream, and is being activel
Read more: Source
Google offers $10M in prizes to Android Developers
2007-11-13 09:47:14
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) have high hopes for their new cellphone operating system, which will use an open-source friendly development framework called ‘android’ to develop mobile applications.
The search giant is offering prizes worth $10m to software developers who embrace the technology and create apps that enhance the OS both aesthetically and functionally.
From CNN Money…
As part of the Android
Developer Challenge, a panel of judges will pick 50 winners from entries received from Jan. 2 through March 3, 2008. Those winners will each get $25,000 and be eligible for ten awards of $100,000 and another ten $275,000 awards.
With the rapid emergence of new smart-phones, this should be ample incentive for more web developers to jump into the cellphone game and change the way people browse the internet, and Google may just be onto a winner with this, although they face stiff competition from established phone giants like Microsoft, Palm and Nokia.
Android itself is no
Read more: Google
, Developers
Exposed: Why tv-links was really shut down
2007-11-20 18:38:52
For those who’s been under a rock for the past few months, the internet was recently awash with angry bloggers and confused web users over the scandalous arrest of tv-links
founder, and the closing of the site for “providing links to copyrighted material”.
Many hundreds of comments included “If linking is illegal, why don’t they shut down youtube, or google?” and rightly so. A link in itself contains no copyrightable material, and the responsibility should be with the server hosting the content. It’s very simple people.
Why indeed don’t they shut down Google, Youtube and many other sites for the same reason? A revelation by the BBC (who were strangely quiet on the tv-links issue) may point to the real reason this site was targetted.
The BBC has launched a new easy-to-use service that lets you access television programmes via your PC. Initially, BBC iPlayer is offering “seven-day catch-up television” – meaning that BBC TV pro
Streakr takes on the mighty StumbleUpon?
2007-11-19 19:36:58
Let me kick off this review by pointing to the ‘?’ in the title, as I do not intend to make the assertion that this fledgeling start-up can compete with the likes of StumbleUpon
(yet), but on first glance at streakr.com, the comparison is inevitable.
Everything, from the toolbar to the site itself just shouts “we want a piece of SU’s meaty pie” and sets about mimicking virtually every aspect of it like there’s no tomorrow, and possibly for this site at least, that may turn out to be true.
You see, I like nothing better than to spot up-and-coming fresh ideas born out of the tea-drenched UK soil, instead of the over funded, often soul-less efforts from silicon valley, but the truth is, streakr has some problems. Problems that would have had me delay this review, had I not found the site from a google ad, which usually tells me the site is ready in the eyes of its founders, and therefore fair game…
Let me start on the positives; The layo
WooMe takes the mystery out of dating
2007-11-23 19:53:33
Online Dating: The last refuge of the socially inept. Ideal for the 35 year old virgin who lives in his mothers basement, making plasticine ladies and getting the boobs “just right” before going online with a photo of Antonio Banderas ripped from Google Images to meet lonely saps of (hopefully) the opposite sex in a last ditch attempt to get some action before hitting the grave.
But no more! Because woome.com takes the mystery out of dating; combining speed-dating with video, in a service that ensures “19 year old Annalise” isn’t actually Barry, the 56 year old sex-pest who’ll do anything with a pulse.
Call me a cynic, but the internet wasn’t meant for dating. Try open the curtains, go outside once in a while. Meet women with no signup fee. Will WooMe change my mind?
Well, not really. For all its attractive layout, and simple design (which is good) - I can’t help thinking “..but it’s a dating site for god sake” which I&
5 Things that will Kill your Startup in 2008
2007-11-21 22:01:00
I don’t mean to be alarmist, but I do love a catchy headline, and nothing beats scaring the crap out of your readers. I enjoy it.
But on a serious note, these dangers are real - and they’re approaching fast, so if you want to avoid the top 5 web startup hazards of 2008, read on.. but don’t have nightmares…
1. Embracing Web 2.0 - Don’t do it. The moment has well and truly gone for web 2.0, which has become a parody of itself this year. If your 2008 startup has gradients, beta buttons, or anything akin to an “oh so super simple ^_^” look to it, prepare to be laughed at, or at the very least, join the legion of slow-starters who missed that shiny, rounded boat.
Oh and by the way, Web 3.0 isn’t going to happen either. Web 3.0 was just a web 2.0 meme.
2. The Worthless Dollar - The US Dollar is widely used online, as even those on foreign soil are quite comfortable with it. Trouble is, the value of the US Dollar has been falling rapidly; peopl
Read more: Startup
Google Takes on Digg
2007-11-29 23:25:37
Google is experimenting with a controversial new feature that could change the way search results are indexed forever. Instead of relying solely on algorithmic methods to determine relevance, they’re injecting a Digg
style voting system, which allows users to remove search results or reorder them as they see fit.
This should be quite worrying for Digg founder, Kevin Rose - who’s massively popular creation could become obsolete if Google decides to implement this sort of feature permanently, and not even Digg could take on the might of Google.
What’s more worrying, is the effect it could have on webmasters the world over, as tailoring search based on the unpredictable whim of the end-user could deal a killer blow to SEO as we know it.
You can predict patterns in traditional search rankings, but for anyone who’s tried to get onto the front page of Digg will know just how temperamental an audience can be when given this kind of freedom (which is no bad thing, exc
Read more: Google
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