Twice each month Magnify.net selects its four hottest publishers to spotlight on its home page — providing new visitors and potential publishers with a glimpse at the diverse community of users that are adopting the unique platform to aggregate their videos from all over the web using the Magnify.net video platform.

Hellish Holidays - If you have ever had a bad family holiday dinner, don’t worry, you are not alone. Laura Cohen found herself privately thinking that Thanksgiving was Hellish — and wondered if others felt the same way. Surprise! She was right.

“You always hear about wonderful holiday memories, but I think most people are just better at blocking out reality than I am,” said Cohen.

“Many of my memories involve cranky relatives, burned food, disappointing gifts and traffic jams that go on for days. The preparations are extensive and the pressure to enjoy yourself is intense. What a recipe for disaster!”

Now “Hellish Holidays” is a fast growing website built on the Magnify.net platform. Check out the “Deep Fried Turkey” for a look at just how ugly the holiday can get.

YourHub - Local Newspapers are getting into video in a big way and the Rocky Mountain News in Denver is breaking new ground with its YourHub community initiative. Now YourHub has added community video and turned to Magnify.net to power the video-sharing site.

Skidmore College - Let’s face it, college seems like it was a long time ago, even if you just graduated last year. Now the folks at the Skidmore College Alumni office have decided to invite their community to use video on the Web to stay connected to the college. It’s a great use of the emerging video Web platform for community involvement called, ScopeVideo.

HomeTips by Don Vandervort - If you have ever had to fix a pipe, rewire an outlet, or tile a floor, chances are you have found yourselves waste deep in broken tiles and leaky pipes. Well, no longer! Thanks to Don Vandervort, there is now a comprehensive collection of videos to help you with all of your home repair needs.

Magnify.net, a peer-driven online video discovery and broadcast channel for people, groups and businesses, announced new statistics that point to the growth opportunity for the emerging video curation market.

Magnify.net supports every site with its market-leading free video curation and upload tools and provides free bandwidth and storage to support every customer.

LINKS:

1. http://www.hellishholidays.com/

2. http://yourhub.magnify.net/

3. http://skidmore.magnify.net/

4. http://hometips.magnify.net/

NEW YORK — AdaptiveBlue released its new SmartLinks, which automatically deliver relevant information from the most useful and popular sites on the web right to your blog, allowing readers to discover, explore, connect, and browse smarter without navigating away from your content.

SmartLinks are automatically inserted next to links to supported sites such as Amazon, IMDB, Last.fm, Yahoo! Finance, CitySearch and many more. When visitors click the small SmartLink icon next to the link, they’re given intelligent, contextual shortcuts to related sites and services allowing visitors to discover, explore, connect, and browse smarter.

SmartLinks enhance the value and experience for visitors of Web sites and blogs by intelligently analyzing each link and custom serving additional resources that help them do more with the information they’re reading.

For example, when posting a book review that links to the book, a SmartLink is inserted automatically that, when clicked, instantly provides links to the most relevant information about the book and author at popular sites, allowing visitors to learn more about the subject or even buy it - all without leaving the article. The same process works with everything from music, movies, and people, to stocks, wine, travel, recipes, and electronics.

The Road (click the icon on the left. SmartLinks automatically recognize that this is a link for a book and provides useful resources related to it. The link still takes you to the originally intended destination, but now offer integrated resources incase you’d like to do more.)

Integrating SmartLinks is incredibly easy. AdaptiveBlue provides one-click installs for TypePad and Blogger, a downloadable plugin for Wordpress, or a single line of code to copy and paste into other blog or Web site templates. Auto SmartLinks quick install here.

AdaptiveBlue also announced that the company has hit one million downloads of BlueOrganizer, one of FireFox’s top recommended plugins.

Here’s a pretty interesting live demo.

semantic web web+3.0 web3.0 3.0 adaptiveblue smartlinks link alex+iskold blueorganizer

With $41.6 billion to be spent on online advertising in 2008, Gooruze is a one stop independent information source for the online marketing community

Online marketing is in hyper-drive - keeping up is almost impossible. Gooruze is a NEW professional community where members inspire, share advice and learn. Gooruze provides a one stop source for ranked news and advice for online marketing. Created and rated by the members.

NEWS FACTS:

A new ranked advice and news community which will help online marketers view at a glance ranked news and advice, created and rated by the members.

Gooruze runs on the vibEngine, also the engine behind the successful parenting network http://www.minti.com/

Gooruze is endorsed by a line up of global industry gooruze from far and wide; from the UK to Australia and the US, across all forms of online marketing; digital, direct, social, PR and search.

The Founding Gooruze include; Malcolm Auld, Andy Beal, Drayton Bird, BJ Cook, PPC Kid, Matt Dickman, Matt McGee, Marc Loveridge, Duncan Riley, Brian Solis.

A level playing field - All members have the chance to climb up through the ranks to achieve “gooruze” status by being active contributors and providing valued content to the community.

Having completed a successful closed beta launch it is now ready to open to the public.

Gooruze is celebrating the launch by giving away over $10,000 worth of Google AdWords traffic. 20 x $500 prizes will be awarded to members who are voted worthy by the Founding Gooruze judging panel.

INDUSTRY STATS:

ZenithOptimedia’s forecasts internet advertising expenditure will increase by 85 per cent between 2006 and 2009. Global internet advertising spend is forecast to be $33.7 billion in 2007 and $41.6 billion in 2008.

The Web advertising market in the U.S. will grow 29 percent this year to $21.7 billion and then more than double by 2011, according to eMarketer Inc.

Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers indicate that online advertising spending in the UK increased by 41.3 per cent year-on-year in the first half of 2007. On the back of this growth, the report predicts that online advertising spending in the country could reach £2.75 billion by year end.

QUOTES:

Duncan Riley – TechCrunch & Founding Gooru
“The part of the Gooruze pitch that particularly appealed to me was the notion of making online marketing information accessible. Let’s face it: this isn’t exactly an under-represented vertical, and there are many, many good SEO and general online marketing sites out there. What does lack though is accessible content, particularly for folks who may be starting out or looking to upgrade their knowledge sets. I’m confident that Gooruze will deliver just that and I’m happy to be helping out and helping others.”

Matt Dickman – Techno//Marketer & Founding Gooru
“A very interesting idea in democratizing authority. This is the type of network that has the most potential in my opinion going forward as there needs to be a weight and trust factored into content.”

Andy Beal – Marketing Pilgrim & Founding Gooru
“Gooruze is a unique opportunity to bring together marketers of all levels of experience. Working together in an online community, we can learn from each other and discuss the latest online trends. Forums are useful for threaded conversations, blogs are good for industry news, and social bookmarking sites help us figure out what it is popular. Take those channels, blend them together, and you get Gooruze.”

Brian Solis – FutureWorks PR, PR 2.0 & Founding Gooru
“I’ve gone through my entire career learning lessons the hard way. Gooruze is an incredible resource that brings together the best minds in the global marketing community. It is a one-stop directory for me to not only get insight into all things advertising, marcom, PR, and SEO, but also it allows me to tap into trends and new thinking in order to help me continue to grow as a marketing professional.”

Please contact Jackie Shervington to arrange an interview and/or for additional quotes.

ABOUT GOORUZE

Gooruze has been created to help online marketers better understand best practice online marketing and maximize their dollar spend. Gooruze offers the online marketing community a new easy-to-drive, high performance platform where all members can share, educate, advise and learn - shaping the future of the industry. The Gooruze difference is dedicated, ranked, quality information. The content is created by members who share real experiences and insights in the form of articles and news. The posts are tagged, rated and commented on by the community to deliver quality articles and information.

GOORUZE MEDIA

*If you would like access to high resolution versions of the above images, please contact Jackie Shervington to arrange files.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Clay Cook - Chairman / Co Founder

Jackie Shervington - CEO / Co Founder

+618 9333 8212

Other Voices on the Subject:

Andy Beal

Andy Beard

Small Business SEM

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gooruze social+media marketing social media marketing+2.0 marketing2.0 media2.0 media+2.0 2.0 web+2.0 social+network web socialnetwork resource online marketer advertising pr public+relations publicrelations duncan+riley brian+solis andy+beal pr+2.0 pr2.0 techcrunch matt+dickman minti.com

Graphing Social Patterns Conference Explores the Business and Economy of Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Other Social Networks; Reid Hoffman, Tim O’Reilly to Keynote

SAN JOSE, CA — Oct. 2, 2007 — Graphing Social Patterns, will host Silicon Valley VCs, marketers, and developers as they look to the “Social Graph” for innovation and customers.

Facts:

- Graphing Social Patterns will be held San Jose on October 7-9 at the Holiday Inn, 1740 North First Street in San Jose, Calif.

- The conference is intended for business and marketing executives as well as technical developers.

- Profiles marketing case studies of non-tech businesses experimenting with social networking to reach and acquire new customers.

- Features business and technical education sessions about Facebook, the new developer platform for Facebook applications, and boom of new and popular apps.

- Additional sessions will cover the latest from other social networks; social strategies of Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo; and new social application startups Slide.com, RockYou, SocialMedia, ClearSpring, among others.

- Keynoting the conference are Reid Hoffman, Founder and Chairman of LinkedIn; and Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media and Co-Founder of the Web 2.0 Summit and Web 2.0 Expo conferences.

- Additional speakers include Dave Morin, Senior Platform Manager at Facebook; Mike Arrington, Founder and Editor of TechCrunch; Danny Sullivan, Founder of Search Engine Land and Chief Editor of Third Door Media; and Charlene Li, Vice President and Senior Analyst at Forrester Research.

- The event will feature an all-day-all-night “App-a-thon” coding contest for Facebook app developers, culminating in a live demo “AppNite” presentation of the best apps.

- The event chair and producer is Dave McClure, a Silicon Valley angel investor, blogger, and startup advisor.

- All access pass is $900, two day pass is $700, Day 1 or 2 pass is $400, Sunday workshop passes are $300 each.

- Conference sponsors include Microsoft, Charles River Ventures, and RockYou; media partners include O’Reilly Media, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, FutureWorks, and Inside Facebook.

Quotes:

“At O’Reilly we’ve been monitoring the Web 2.0 movement since 2004, and Facebook Platform is one of the most innovative and exciting technologies to emerge in the past three years” said Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media. “Social networking platforms, and applications based on the social graph, are at the core of what’s driving today’s internet startups and their people-powered web services.”

“For our users, social networking has always been about getting down to business,” said LinkedIn Founder and Chairman Reid Hoffman, an early angel investor in Facebook and also in the recently announced $10M fbFund for Facebook Apps. “We see a lot of value in building applications on our network for business communication and marketing. LinkedIn Jobs and LinkedIn Answers are just a few examples we’ve developed for users on our platform.”
Links:

Conference schedule

Headshots and speaker bios

Event registration

Facebook group for conference

Video interview with Dave McClure at Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategist

del.icio.us Bookmarks

Graphing Social Blog and RSS Feed

About Dave McClure and 500 Hats LLC

Photo Credit: Scott Beale of LaughingSquid

Dave McClure has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over fifteen years as a software developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel investor, blogger, and internet marketing nerd. He is an advisor and investor in several internet startups including Mint, Spock, Mashery, Canopy Financial, and Simply Hired. Dave is the founder and principal of 500 Hats LLC, dedicated to supporting, advising, and educating internet startups and high-tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and the SF Bay Area. For more information, visit http://www.500hats.com.

  ###

Graphing Social Patterns is a registered trademark of 500 Hats LLC. Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, O’Reilly Media, and all other company and product names above are trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

Media Contact:

Richard Edwards
FutureWorks
408-428-0895 Ext. 107
richard at future-works dot com

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Trusted Opinion announced that it will be presenting in the DemoPit at TechCrunch40.

Trusted Opinion is a Social Recommendation Platform that drives consumer confidence and increases sales by generating more trusted, reliable, and personalized recommendations based on the opinions of your network of friends.

Trustworthy results are delivered though patent-pending technology that gives the highest consideration to your friends’ opinions and, to a lesser degree, those of their friends and so on down the chain — reflecting the way people get and value recommendations in the real world. As a result, Trusted Opinion members can make confident choices knowing that they have received quality recommendations from those they trust most.

Since the official launch of its beta site in March 2007, Trusted Opinion has developed a strong following — with more than 250,000 registered members and approximately 3,000 new members added each day. The site is currently focused on movies and television series with plans to add new categories in the near future. The company recently announced an integration with Netflix that provides Netflix customers more relevant movie recommendations and links their movie queues to Trusted Opinion.

More info via the press release.

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trustedopinion recommendation engine recommendation+engine futureworkslabs fwlabs futureworks fwpr futureworkspr social+network social network socialnetwork

Jaiku released a new and better way to browse and manage relationships.

In response to many user requests, they added an easy way to see “followers” in addition to “contacts.”

Users can can now easily reciprocate by adding followers as your contacts with one click.

As part of the redesign, Jaiku added a new feature called “People you might know.” It is a list of newly joined members that people you follow have added as their contacts. This is a streamlined way to find real-life friends to connect with on Jaiku, without having to spend time searching through their friend’s contacts individually.

For more, see Mashable.

Follow us on Twitter and Jaiku

jaiku microblog contacts popular lifestream riverofrelevance

Research toolbox, diigo is going to introduce Webslides for RSS Feeds and Bookmarks at TechCrunch40 next week in San Francisco.

The new Webslides widget is an embeddable player that presents feeds or bookmarks as live web pages in an interactive slideshow format – complete with the full content, pages, links, comments, and ads. It can be sent to friends and colleagues and also placed on websites, blogs and in social networks. Each slide that is displayed actually registers as a page view for the content owner.

Webslides also adds a new layer to the web by allowing any Diigo user to annotate each page on the fly with sticky notes to share thoughts or to highlight important sections. Viewers can also bookmark, tag, share, and clip content from the pages in WebSlides for future reference in their own Diigo online folders.

To create WebSlides, users simply enter a feed or list of bookmarks and add background music or voice narration. By clicking “Play,” the list transforms into a slideshow, bringing Web pages and user comments to life.

For more on the subject, see TechCrunch.

For more on the subject, seeFollow us on Twitter and Jaiku

diigo stickynote highlight layer webslides research research+2.0 highlighter clip clipping

Diigo previewed something very cool at Office 2.0. WebSlides is a browser-based player that displays live Web pages with integrated annotation, sticky notes, and highlights as a portable and interactive slideshow. WebSlides also allow people to record a narration track and also incorporate background music to make the presentation even more engaging.

To experience WebSlides, users simply collect and organize any set of links into a list, and add background music or voice narration. By clicking “Play,” the list transforms into a slideshow bringing Web pages and user comments to life. The player can then be sent to friends and colleagues and also posted on Websites and blogs. Viewers of the slideshow can interact on the slides through highlights and sticky notes directly on each page, without installing any software.

This incredibly easy-to-use web-based software has many potential applications such as:

- Create a guided tour for any website
- Show a list of houses to real estate clients
- Bundle important course resources for students
- Show your favorite places to see when visiting a new city
- Provide a quick briefing, or a simple tutorial or guided tour on any subject

Click here for a demo and a sample video.

Diigo is a powerful, yet incredibly simple to use research tool that allows people to annotate, bookmark, highlight, save, and clip Web content that matters to them, for future reference or to share with others. They can also comment and add sticky notes directly on each web page, which are viewable by other Diigo users when visiting the same pages.

Diigo also created a Webslide for all Office 2.0 sponsors.

More voices on the Diigo Webslides:

Profy

Mashable

DownloadSquad

SocialMedia.biz

Somewhat Frank

diigo webslides research2.0 research+2.0 research 2.0 stickynotes sticky+notes highlighter annotation knowledge workers knowledge+workers clipping clip

Jaiku is rolling out Jabber-based instant messaging capabilities to interact with the service and provide a new way for people to communicate and share content in addition to the existing Web, iPhone, and Nokia Series 60 smart phone clients.

The difference between the Twitter and Jaiku IM functionality is representative of the differences that exist between the services in general. Twitter’s IM client lets users update and read “tweets.” With Jaiku, users can do much more.

By adding jaiku@jaiku.com to Jabber-based IM clients (including Google Talk), the new IM bot introduces the ability to instantly add and read new posts, comments, channel-specific messages, and also receive notifications of inbound responses directly.

Jaiku also lets users choose and receive pre-determined Web feeds from their friends online activities via IM, for example, flickr photos from some contacts, updates from specific blogs, Last.fm recently played tracks from others, etc.

Jaiku is the most versatile microblogging platform available today, allowing anyone to easily post and discover new content in Jaiku’s online community. It goes several steps further than other presence applications by allowing readers to add comments to individual posts and also allowing anyone to create, join and participate in topic related channels.

Jaiku is also a hub for all important online activity. It creates a personal lifestream by fetching the RSS feeds from other personal sources and broadcast it to friends and contacts as it happens, such as when new videos are uploaded on YouTube, business or personal blog posts are published, new social bookmarks are saved, or even collect the status updates from other microblogs and presence apps. Jaiku also recently introduced a Facebook widget for people to send updates directly from their Facebook profile.

Third party developers have also extended Jaiku’s functionality for all major mobile and desktop platforms. Mobile users can access Jaiku via http://m.jaiku.com. The Nokia WidSets mobile widget also powers over 300 phones including Blackberry.

More screen shots available on flickr.

Follow us on Twitter and Jaiku

Other voices on the subject:

TechCrunch

Blognation

901am

bub.blicio.us

Center Networks

Rex Dixon

Techmeme

Technorati Tags: jaiku, twitter, instant+messaging, im, instant, messaging, instantmessaging, microblog, microblogging, lifestream, nokia, pownce

Magnify.net Embraces and Empowers the Future of User-Generated Content – Letting Members Discover and Share Content-Specific Video

Magnify.net is previewing its new Adshare network, a different take on advertising centered around user generated video. The company is rolling out the new programs officially mid September, but the beta program will be open as of today.

Magnify.net, peer-driven online video discovery and broadcast channel for people, groups and businesses, is inviting its site owners to participate in the community-driven beta test of its breakthrough program — the AdShare Network.

Rooted in the company’s core vision of empowering its community members, the new AdShare Network gives site owners complete control over their advertising strategy, including singing up and deploying their own ad inventory. This program lets owners monetize their pages — while balancing the unique needs of their visitors and advertisers.

The company gives its users the tools and resources to discover, review, organize and share content-specific video with like-minded individuals - regardless of where it’s hosted.

Unlike other sites that are warehouses for vast numbers of video, Magnify.Net lets its users tailor their video channel for their own interests and that of their target community.

The Magnify platform searches, sorts, and delivers video based on a site’s unique interests — and allows owners to review and approve only the video that meets their content and quality criteria.

“RC Universe intends to grow the RCUvideos.com platform with Magnify.net as our video solutions provider, said Marc Vigod, Co-Founder of RC Universe. “We believe the growth of video online will continue and we want to go along for the ride together.”

Without a formal launch, Magnify.net already boasts 10,000 video channels built by individuals and small business owners since its beta introduction in January 2007, and has7 million page views in July.

As television continues to lose mindshare to the Internet, web-based advertising is gaining well-deserved focus. According to research firm eMarketer, online ad spending in the U.S. will rise from $16.4 billion, or 5.8% of total U.S. ad spending, in 2006 to $36.5 billion, or 11.3% of total spending by 2011. With its highly curated and content-specific video, Magnify sites offer online advertisers the perfect vehicle for reaching their target audience.

“We see the next 24 months as a critical turning point for ad dollars. By launching the AdShare Network now, we’re giving our users a head start in determining what advertising strategy works best for them, their advertisers, and their visitors,” said Steve Rosenbaum, founder and CEO of the Magnify.Net team. “Each day we see power shifting from Madison Avenue to Main Street — and a new economy is growing up around video-centric communities of content. This means that individuals or small businesses with passion can become the central place for content consumers. And that’s exciting.”

Steve is acknowledged as one of the early innovators in both video journalism and user-generated video. He is they guy behind the early MTV series “UNfiltered,” which many consider the popularization of user-generated video. Magnify.net is his continued effort in that space, and the site is already receiving over 10 millions page views per month.

More on the RCUniverse story here.

Follow us on Twitter and Jaiku

Additional voices on the subject:
InformationWeek

NewTeeVee

Rex Dixon

Center Networks

TechCrunch

VentureBeat

StartupSquad 

online video youtube magnify google ads channel host adshare steve+rosenbaum mtv

Visitors can now grab their favorite SmartLinks feeds with one click and place them on their blog sidebars or social network profile, and also monetize referrals using their personal affiliate ID

AdaptiveBlue, the Smart Browsing Company, rolled out SmartLinks Feeds for books, music, movies, and stocks and also announced that they are now are now viral.

SmartLinks, created in BlueOrganizer, look like ordinary links, but when visitors click the SmartLink icon, they’re given intelligent, contextual shortcuts to related sites and services.

The new SmartLink Feeds now feature a “Grab Me” button that allows anyone to copy a list of favorites and place it on their blog, Web site, and social network profiles. SmartLink Feeds can also be customized in appearance, content and can also plug in their personal affiliate ID to monetize traffic to participating sites.

“Anyone can create SmartLinks feeds with BlueOrganizer and instantly publish stylish lists of their favorite things,” says Alex Iskold, founder and CEO of AdaptiveBlue. “Users can also share these feeds with their friends, allowing them to receive updates every time they bookmark a new entry. Visitors can also interact with the links in ways never before possible, giving them intelligent recommendations based on the context of the link.”

AdaptiveBlue will also publish and update popular SmartLink Feeds for anyone to paste into their own sites including, New York Times Bestsellers, Netflix Top Rentals, Amazon Hot Gadgets, iTunes Top Albums and Wine.com Top Wines.

SmartLink Feeds offer different skins and layouts to tailor and contextualize feeds to match the look and feel of blogs, profiles and Web sites.

Here’s a video demo of Smartlinks.

More by Alex Iskold at the AdaptiveBlue blog.

Follow us on Twitter and Jaiku

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StreetAdvisor Gives People Greater Insight into What It’s Really Like to Live Somewhere

SAN FRANCISCO — StreetAdvisor launched earlier this year as the first site for connecting neighbors and real estate reviews down at the street level – basically the Yelp of everything involving what it’s like to live somewhere.

Homepage
The site has been hugely popular and was applauded for giving homeowners and renters a voice online instead of simply focusing on housing values, sales, etc.

On Wednesday, StreetAdvisor will take it to a whole new level, actually three. Now everyone can share insight about streets and neighborhoods at the street + city and state levels through not just words, but pictures and videos too.

StreetAdvisor.com is an entirely new kind of online real estate community powered by crowd-sourced reviews, photos, and videos. The new StreetAdvisor provides a real-life “insider” view making it the essential guidebook to finding the right street to call home, connecting with neighbors, and discovering new things, documented by the people who have lived there.

Consumers can learn and share vital details about where they live including noise levels, traffic, neighbors, entertainment, and public services, etc., much in the same way people share their experiences with products and travel at popular online shopping and travel sites. It also allows for firsthand recommendations and negative experiences about local businesses, entertainment, services, lifestyle, and back road gems.

City Guide

The new StreetAdvisor enhancements include:

Street, City, State, Country Level Contributions
Now, in addition to street reviews, people can contribute and read content for cities, states, and countries. This extends the community for people to communicate with each other and encourages dialog specific at every level. Each geographic level has its own home page providing a snapshot of reviews, conversations, pictures and videos for people to get a better idea of where to start. And, they can easily zoom up and down between each level for additional insight.

City Board

Enhanced Guidebooks
The new StreetAdvisor features upgraded guidebooks that now include four broader categories with options to create additional topics to help channel content related to the quality of life at each level. The guidebooks also now feature full version history, similar to Wiki’s, providing the ability to see changes and revert to any previous entries.

This specific detail and information gives people everything they need to make better decisions about where they live now or in the future, and how to enjoy it to the fullest.

“StreetCred” Point System
To recognize member contributions, each person earns points the more they participate, achieving a StreetCred rating from 1 to 5. For example, a street review banks 12 points, each video upload is worth 4 points, etc., all contributing to the overall StreetCred status. StreetCred is not only ideal for consumers, but also industry experts and professionals in the real estate, mortgage, city and local services, business and residential services, and entertainment. Active participants who earn a higher ranking can also earn cool prizes.

Local Expert Program
The person with the most amount of StreetCred per city will become the “Local Expert,” which is a great opportunity for residents or service providers to share their expertise with others seeking inside information, shopping, entertainment recommendations, or help with buying and selling homes. Local experts are featured on all the pages within the city.

StreetAdvisor Billboards
StreetAdvisor now offers the ability to secure exclusive “run-of-street” advertising opportunities on a per city basis. “Premium” Billboards provide banner style sponsorships seeded down to all the streets within the city slot with first rights for renewal. “Base” sponsorship’s are similar to Google Adsense, with two slots available per city. Ideal sponsors include real estate agents and mortgage brokers, local service providers, city/local bloggers and media looking to generate leads in a specific city.

The site is currently in public Beta and is initially focusing on the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

Billboards

More StreetAdvisor 2.0 screenshots are here.

Additional coverage here:

Techcrunch

Download Squad

Somewhat Frank

Mashable

Technorati Links:
streetadvisor real+estate real estate web2.0 web+2.0 inman conference web 2.0 reviews

by Brian Solis, originally published over at PR2.0 

The iPhone is gaining traction as not only the must have gadget of the year, but also as an effective tool for mobile professionals. Rather than continue gushing about a device that I am forced to love, I will continue to post new stories when I find new ways to justify its value beyond a killer iPod with phone and Web functionality.

Since Apple has refused to offer an SDK (software development kit), I have been somewhat reluctant to believe that the iPhone was going to have a significant impact in the business community. However, my involvement with the Mobility and Productivity track at the upcoming Office 2.0 Conference has me thinking about new ways to use the iPhone while on the road. If you didn’t read the last post, Ismael Ghalimi is giving away 500 iPhones to attendees of the O2O conference, which makes it the first experiment for next gen mobile office functionality.

All applications on the iPhone, aside from what ships with the device, are designed to run from within the Apple Safari Web browswer, the one and only browser available in the iPhone - sorry Firefox.

I scoured the landscape and tested and qualified the best applications currently available for mobile professionals. I’ll run a top list as frequently as necessary, always with the slant towards mobile marketers.

Recommended iPhone Applications:

Expense View is a pretty cool expense application that also allows you to see graphs on the desktop that chart how you are spending your money. The first time you use it, just ignore the huge pie slice allocated to the purchase of the iPhone itself. It’s an investment right?

Twitter hasn’t truly offered an iPhone specific application yet, but go to m.twitter.com from the Safari browswer and you’ll find that it’s fast and easy enough. Hahlo is also an iPhone styled Twitter application. iTweet is a cool app for expediting tweeting without downloading the entire timeline.

iPhlickr is a stripped down version that simplifies and expedites flickr.

iPhogo takes pictures captured on the iPhone and places them in online albums to share with business associates and friends.

iPhone Digg enhances the Digg experience for your device.

iPhonify bring Google Reader to the iPhone.

iPhone Colony is an online community of iPhone users that you can easily navigate from your phone.

iRovr is basically a mobile mix of Tumblr, Pownce and Twitter for iPhone users. In a sense it’s a portable microblogging platform and community.

JAJAH brings users VoIP capability at a fraction of the traditional price, enabling consumers to make free and low cost telephone calls, locally or internationally.

Kudit’s Words Per Minute helps you improve the speed and accuracy of typing on the virtual keyboard.

BeeJive is a multi-IM client similar to Meebo that integrates Yahoo, MSN, AIM, Jabber, and Google.

iZoho Office, an alternative to Microsoft Office.SoonR Talk, a mobile Skype solution optimized for iPhones.

Meebo, an integrated IM client, centralizes chats with Yahoo, MSN, AIM, Google, and MSN buddies.
iActu is a visually rich and interesting headline aggregator of all top newspapers. It gives you a visual representation of each paper and outlet which is is very cool.

iPhone Application Resources:
iPhone Apps
Top 25 iPhone Apps
Lifehacker’s Top 10

Click here for a funny video from Randi Jayne (sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg) about iPhone mania based on the Pussycat Doll’s Dontcha.

–

Update: iPhoneology reports that more software apps may be on the way.

–

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San Francisco — Ujogo (pronounced “you-joe-go”) announced the public beta of its new, visually engaging online free poker site for U.S. players of all levels. While many online gaming and poker sites exist today, Ujogo is the first to offer the combination of rewards for winning play, a graphically rich environment, educational and training tools to help players improve, and social networking tools to facilitate player interaction.

Co-founded in 2006 by Eric Gonzales, Steven Sheinfield and Doug Sheppard, Ujogo also announced its Series A funding and the acquisition of Gaming Everywhere.

Online poker is one of the most popular games on the Web, attracting over 30 million US adults. 80% of all poker traffic is driven by free games, with players logging over 5 billion hours per year.

Virtually all free online poker today is for play money with absolutely nothing at stake. As a result, most free online poker play does not come close to replicating the competitive thrill of playing for something of value, which makes it unsatisfying for many who want to improve their skills.

Ujogo is making free online poker a much more challenging, competitive and rewarding experience. It provides the thrill of playing at a real-money gambling site, without any of the risk.

Ujogo appeals to experienced and novice players. Player development is key at Ujogo, filling a void that currently exists at most poker sites. Now, players have access to a wide variety of educational and training tools, such as video tips from the pros and statistics that help players analyze their play.

With Ujogo, strong tournament players can earn a wide range of attractive prizes, including gift cards, consumer electronic devices, and even once-in-a-lifetime experiences. All players, regardless of skill level, accumulate Ujogo points while playing. These points can be redeemed at the company store for valuable merchandise.

Ujogo also offers much more than exciting game play. The site offers a rich set of social networking and personalization features, including the ability to create profiles, choose avatars, and search for players with similar interests. In addition, Ujogo has incorporated an interactive area where players can read news feeds, watch training videos, browse user profiles, and review personal statistics during game play.

Prominent poker pros agree that Ujogo stands out as an exciting new entrant in the online poker and games space.

According to John “The Razor” Phan, consistently one of the top pros and #2 Player of the Year in 2005 according to Card Player Magazine, “I’m excited to be working with Ujogo!. Ujogo rewards good play and this site is great for all skill levels to hone and develop better techniques. You can even set up a virtual home game and personalize your user settings—it’s so cool. See you at the tables!”

Susie Isaacs, one of the top female poker players in the world and winner of the World Series of Poker ladies’ championship in 1996 and 1997, adds: “Risk versus reward, that is how I have lived my life in business and in poker. If someone told me that I could play poker online for zero risk but for great reward, I’d say, ’You’re bluffing.’At Ujogo, you can play poker online with no legal concerns and no investment. Ujogo has revolutionized online poker — it’s the ‘nuts’!”

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YourTrumanShow picks up where Jim Carey and the movie left off creating a broadcast network for a new generation of reality TV stars.
The idea here is episodic, real content, as opposed to one-off videos on Youtube or 24/7 lifecasts such as the Justin.tv network or incremental lifecasts on Ustream, Veodia, Kyte, etc. People can now produce, post and share episodes that represent their reality and their creativity – as a series.

YourTrumanShow combines the movie premise, TV guide, critic reviews, broadcast programming, and social networking, to create an entertainment community where people can share their personal life stories, connect with their favorite storytellersand producers and rate and review content as well getting reviewed.

YourTrumanShow.com extends the fiction of life-on-camera into a network of tomorrow’s online reality stars, migrating user-generated content from single videos to multi-episode series. With its innovative V-link interface for visually connecting related storylines, YourTrumanShow.com makes it easy and entertaining for users to find and follow their favorite stories as they develop over time. By submitting their ratings, viewers vote for the best content in each category, collectively choosing the most compelling stories to be highlighted. In doing so, viewers determine which producers get featured on traditional and online media networks.

The programming is as wide and varied as the personalities of the people who create channels on the platform. It is their network to express individual creativity and share original reality episodes, first-hand accounts of events, behind-the-scenes coverage, hobbies, interests and whatever else they fancy. Furthermore, the platform encourages users to connect with other storytellers. As more people capture special moments on video, Your Truman Show empowers them to quickly and easily become producers and broadcasters.

The privately held San Francisco-based company was founded in 2006 by Arturo Artom and Luca Ferrero. They have assembled a global team of technology and media experts in Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Europe.
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HeyCosmo is an online video community, but it’s not another YouTube clone.

Basically, it’s a pretty cool web-cam service based on a social networking platform, enabling live video conversations jointly watching and discussing videos, games, images, text, audio and whatever else they feel like sharing.

Users can create live and “canned” content channels on just about anything.

HeyCosmo’s platform supports up to 10 live web-cam video participants, and up to 50 people can listen, watch, and chat during the session.

At the center of the HeyCosmo experience is a multimedia window that can display just about anything from the web or your desktop. (It’s initially focusing on the Windows platform and will eventually support Mac.)

The company sees three segments for rapid adoption:

–Gaming will include live poker tournaments (with points and winnable prizes) and other community-based activities such as Draft Day Parties, Fantasy League sports, and dance/music/karaoke activities.

–Sharing experiences and content live in one virtual room

–Presenting, how to’s, demonstrations and discussions including cooking demonstrations, training, and enthusiast discussions.

“HeyCosmo has pioneered a new way for people to interact as if they were face-to-face, using a web-based video technology connecting people no matter where they are.” said James H. Im, president and CEO, Arsenal Interactive, Inc. “HeyCosmo represents the evolution of casual games, chat rooms, social networks and video networks by empowering people to interact, communicate and share their favorite things on the web with others around the corner or around the world.”

The magic behind HeyCosmo is a high-quality interactive multimedia engine developed using proprietary video, audio, and multi-party call control technologies. Arsenal’s engineering team consists of industry veterans who have collaborated for the past six years to build proven and scalable multimedia service platforms in collaboration with various industry standard groups and service provider entities. The technology behind HeyCosmo was originally developed by one of the world’s renowned research and development centers, which was further optimized and customized by Arsenal Interactive, Inc. for HeyCosmo.

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With the recent visibility around 2.0 website builders, it’s easy to forget that all Websites are not equal. And all Websites do not serve the same purpose.
There’s Synthasite, Weebly, among others, but none truly provide a bona fide solution for small businesses. Most are really aimed at helping everyday people build Websites…but fall short when it comes to projecting a professional, custom, branded presence on the Web - one that facilitates business on the Web.

Enter SiteKreator.

SiteKreator enables small businesses to instantly design and host elegant, feature-rich and engaging Web sites (template and programming free). And the results are simply stunning.

The company recently introduced its most powerful, customizable, and elegant design platform yet, SiteKreator Aurora.

The new Aurora is a completely brandable platform for designing elaborate, interactive, and customizable business-ready Web sites — all with one-click ease. That means businesses aren’t stuck with trying to make templates resemble their corporate branding palette.

Aurora delivers the ability to instantly create a more effective Web presence through a rich choice of branding options, design themes and color schemes. The result is a unique site that leverages the identity and style of the company, rivaling those produced by professional design agencies and designers.

Aurora offers enhanced capabilities for creating a sophisticated navigation structure that scales from a few pages to a few thousand. It is the first design platform to open a new dimension in building the web site navigation structure by enabling section-specific navigation. This helps businesses define different navigation panels for individual sections, which results in a well-structured, easy to navigate site.

SiteKreator was developed for entrepreneurs, SMBs, and independent professionals who want to leverage next-generation web technologies without investing thousands of dollars or requiring technical or artistic expertise. SiteKreator’s upscale designs help business customers build fully branded and feature-rich sites in as little as 30 minutes, and, are scalable and customizable to grow and adapt for almost every application.

Sites built with SiteKreator attract visitors with an elegant and consistent look and feel. SiteKreator also keeps visitors coming back for more by fostering two-way communication though interactive features such as blogs, Web forms, newsletters, and discussion forums. Web site information can be tiered through multiple content layers by adding members-only areas and registration forms to encourage people to share key information in exchange for access to deeper layers of meaningful content.

Additional Resources:

SiteKreator Demo
SiteKreator launch at DEMOFall 2006
Screenshots
Press Release

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Robert Scoble, Adriana Gascoigne, Jeremiah Owyang, Sarah Meyers

Let me start by stating that this was th first of for parties/events of the evening. First up was Topix.

Atop the St. Regis, an elegant and stylish party awaited the bub.blicio.us crew. Robert Scoble joined us as well. Upon arrival, we were directed to the outdoor deck of the fourth floor. When we stepped out of the elevator, we were greeted by two uniformed staffers who, with their white gloves, opened the doors for us while also handing us a glass of wine (served in gorgeous crystal glasses.)

Dave McClure

The rootop was covered in a clear vinyl tent and appointed with very chic furniture with a full staff of prompt service professionals. For a moment I wasn’t sure if I was back in 1999 attending yet another over-the-top roof party.

Jeremiah Owyang and Yulia from Portland

As Dana Gardner of ZDNet pointed it out, “It’s funny how it took an old media company to throw a party like this.”

I concur, as most 2.0 parties are a bit more reminiscent of frat parties, which are cool too.

Lisa Padilla, Dana Gardner, Ross Mayfield

The bub.blicio.us tv crew was present to capture interviews (post will be up soon).

Several prominent influencers were present including:

• Ross Mayfield
• Christine Herron
• Jeremiah Owyang
• Kathy Johnson
• John Dvorak
• Dave Winer
• Gabe Rivera
• Steve Gilmor
• Jeremy Pepper
• Sarah Meyers
• Valerie Cunnigham
• John Furrier
• Munjal Shah
• Naval Ravikant
• Dan Farber
• Debbie Landa
• Lisa Padilla
• Shay Nowick
• Alison Murdock
• Dave McClure

Shay Nowick and Jeremy Pepper

Valerie Cunningham and crew

Adriana Gascoigne interviews Christine Herron

John Dvorak

Debbie Landa and Alison McNeill

More pictures are available here.

Follow Brian Solis on twitter.

The Justin.tv party celebrating Justin Kan’s 30 days of online broadcasting (aka lifecasting) was very bub.blicio.us. Kudos to Scott Beale for helping to product the event.

Varish served as the elegant backdrop with an diverse, rich set of party goers from a fascinating set of eclectic tech and artistic cultures served as extras on - all live on Justin.tv.

Nick Douglas and Sarah Meyers stepped in as video hosts for the next installment of bub.blicio.us tv. (will post separately soon).

Mike Doeff of Justin.tv Guide

Scott Beale, Primary Tentacle of Laughing Squid

The crowd, Nick Gonzales of TechCrunch on the right

Tariq Krim of Netvibes and Sarah Meyers

Photo Credit: Brian Caldwell

Brian Solis - Photo Credit: Brian Caldwell

Justin Kan, Scott Beale, Nick Douglas, Brian Solis - Photo Credit: Wendy Chavez

Lane Hartwell, Justin Kan, Producer of Justin.tv shooting in the foreground

Lindsay Docherty and Brian Caldwell in action

More photos from Brian Solis‘ Justin.tv photo set are here.