This Explains Everything

Social-networking impacts search

Social-networking impacts search: "Google, as ever, was at the forefront of this online revolution when it introduced Orkut in January 2004 on an invitation-only basis. Since then it has seen its growth pale alongside other brands, possibly because it doesn't include blogging or video and requires users to use Google Accounts to sign in."

Blogger should be the main non-search product at Google with everything else from video to social networking built into and around it. Some of us have known this for a long time.

Podcast Player

Ray whipped up a flash widget for every podcast on Odeo. You can get the code at the bottom of any podcast page.

Desktop/Web Hybrid Applications

Gcal.app is a Google Calendar Client: "Gcal.app is a Google Calendar client for Mac OSX Tiger - a very minimalistic (WebKit-based) browser, that only displays Google Calendar. Nothing else. It’s meant to be as distraction-free as possible, allowing you to focus on tasks and events."

It might not seem that fancy but this little desktop/web hybrid application is good stuff. Plus, these hybrids can be made for pretty much any one of your favorite web applications. They can also be modified and extended to make the original web app better or different. Neat.

Xanga Desktop Client

Way back in 1999 before Xanga.com launched we built a client called XangaSync for grabbing all your bookmarks and putting them on the web, del.icio.us style. We worked on that too long and then never launched it. But nowadays those crazy Xanga kids can rock out a photo uploader just for an excuse to blog something. Okay, maybe it was a little work, but still. Nice!

p.s.

This morning I came across a singularly disturbing post on the myspace tubes:

p.s. my celebrity crush would have to be Kevin Rose. It used to be Biz Stone, but then he got older and kinda fat.

Zing! Had I been aware of the possibility that even one myspace teen could consider me a celebrity I might not have let things get this out of hand.

The good news is that I've joined a fitness club as of two weeks ago and the Biz Stone machine is beginning to burn through it's stores. Kevin Rose, let this be a lesson to you young man—anniversary or not, put down the beer and walk away from the cake.

Valleywag and The Case of The Accidental Arrington Email

We met with TechCrunch's Mike Arrington in his Menlo Park office this afternoon and he told us about this Gmail auto-fill incident. I've fired off emails to the wrong person because of that feature too but to accidentally email Valleywag!? That is unfortunate.

Drive Blog

This new show from FOX has a blog: Drive. I've only seen really rough cuts of the opening shot for the pilot but I can tell you just from that this show is going to something worth checking out.

Testing Hellodeo on MacBook

She'd Use Hellodeo

If only she could think of something to say.

WWWal-Mart

Wal-Mart Tries to Be MySpace. Seriously: "It's a quasi-social-networking site for teens designed to allow them to 'express their individuality,' yet it screens all content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids users to e-mail one another. Oh, and it calls users 'hubsters' -- a twist on hipsters that proves just how painfully uncool it is to try to be cool. "

If they hadn't tried so hard to market this to teens and they didn't really labor over the details this wal-mart site could actually have had a shot at being ironicly popular.

Hellodeo How-To

Robin Good has posted a solid how-to for hellodeo along with a couple of great tidbits of feedback for us. Nice!

Hellodeo

We made a few tweaks to Hellodeo today so now it can handle real usage. This guy seems to like it and even has some good ideas for features.


Got a web cam? Say hellodeo.

Adam's Idea

Adam Rugel: "I’ll bet people would go nuts for something risqué. Stuff that occupies the middle ground between pro and homegrown, and covers subject matter you can't find on TV. Keep production costs low by shooting dozens of short segments per session. And since the aesthetic is rough, you could pull it off with a two-man crew."

Odeo Video Hellodeo

Update: Hellodeo is pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty beta. We have to make it so it can handle many more connections and then it will be a good time. Come back Monday!

A Friday launch for Hellodeo, another Odeo side project this time involving your webcam and some embeddable flash code. I posted more about Hellodeo at the Odeo blog. Here's Shellen trying it out:

Senator Ted Stevens Mashup

powered by ODEO
It's a series of tubes! OMG this mashup of Senator Ted Stevens talking about how the internet is made out of tangled up enormous tubes is funny.

Let There Be Twttr

Twttr is a new mobile service that helps groups of friends bounce random thoughts around with SMS. When we showed it to Jason Goldman (product manager of Blogger) he called it "present tense blogging." That's a great way to describe it. It's fun to use because it strips social blogging down to it's essence and makes it immediate.

Jack Dorsey is one of Odeo's brightest stars so when he told us about this idea that has been haunting him for six years we had to listen. It's not even remotely related to audio but it's an awesome idea so we told him to go for it. Jack put this thing together very quickly but it took a few months to get a short code.

Anywhoo, there are two ways to use twttr: on the phone and on the web. The phone part is entirely text based like an adventure game. In addition to posting to 40404 you can "follow biz" "nudge jack" or "get noah" and other stuff. On the web you can browse through your timeline, post, and do lots of other stuff. I find myself switching between the two interfaces when it suits me. It's good stuff.

4 Minute Shows for Phones

Entourage hits the very small screen: "Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. cell phone service, said Wednesday that cable channel HBO has produced a special mobile miniseries based on the popular show "Entourage" that extends the story beyond what is shown on television."

The four minute episodes will follow a seperate storyline about Johnny Drama and won't distract from the regular series. I really hope I can watch the shows somehow--even if it's not on my phone. Ideally, I could get it on my TiVo.

Fetching

LiveJournal employee number three is now Dogster employee number nine. Also, Dogster is hiring for a Director of Marketing.

Playing with Odeo

Last night we launched a different interface to Odeo we're calling playjax because it uses ajax to make listening to audio on the web faster and more fun. It doesn't yet have all the features of Odeo but you can use it to pop around millions of audio files and star the ones you like. Put some headphones on and giver'er a go.

Pet Food for Thought

John of Dogster has put up a very thoughtful post about The 4 Aspects of Passion-centric Web Communities. Proving yet again that the crew at Dogster, Inc. is a very sharp bunch. Also, I love the blog badge!

Odeo: You Spin Me Round

Wow, I've been playing this haunting remake of You Spin Me Round over and over again this evening. It's really good and it's from MeFi music which is a collabrative music section of Metafilter which I am subscribed to on Odeo.

One Red Paperclip Guy Gets House!

A year ago, this guy decided he was going to start with a red paperclip and keep trading up until he got a house. Well, One Red Paperclip guy got his house! The town of Kipling, Saskatchewan traded it for the movie role and they are going to hold American Idol style auditions to fill the role. Here is the offer he received.

Kyle, the Town of Kipling, Saskatchewan wants you to complete your quest for a house. The Mayor and Town Council with the support of the employees and residents of the Town of Kipling have a revised offer for you. We know you will say Yes!

1. As a new resident to our community you will receive a Community Welcome Package containing local information and promotions from local businesses.
2. The Kipling Chamber of Commerce will give you $200 in Kipling Cash. This Cash can be spent at any local Chamber of Commerce business.
3. You will be given a Key to the Town of Kipling
4. You will become Honorary Mayor of Kipling for One Day.
5. You will be named an Honorary Lifelong Citizen of the Town of Kipling
6. The day we make the trade will be decreed One Red Paperclip Day by our Town Council and everyone will be encouraged to wear a red paperclip in honor of your achievements.
7. Will build the world’s largest red paperclip in dedication to you and your “one red paperclip project”
8. Most importantly to allow you to complete your quest…We will trade to you a house. The house was built in the 1920’s and has been recently renovated. It is locate at 503 Main Street Kipling, SK Canada. It is approximately 1100 square feet on two floors. There are three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, kitchen, living room and dinning room. It has white vinyl siding, a new roof and eaves troughs that have been put on in the last few years. We will be sending you pictures of the house as soon as we have had time to touch up the paint.

Kyle MacDonald, do you accept our offer of one house in Kipling for one role in Corbin Bernsen’s movie “Donna on Demand”?

Amazing!

Rocket Redux

New Rocketboom Girl Chosen I never watched Rocketboom before but I might start if this fetching, smart, and funny english VJ anchors. News delivered in an english accent is much better.

The O'Reilly Tarsier is Kinky?

The Tarsier of O'Reilly logo fame is looking for some daytime action. Which is extra funny because those little guys are mostly nocturnal.

Listen To This

Odeo: DIY Web Production with Ted Rheingold of Dogster. Ted had a panel last March at SXSW where he talked about making something happen with limited resources and having fun doing it. Smart chap, that Ted.

Wow, That's A Generous Offer

Advice and an Offer for Amanda Congdon - The Jason Calacanis Weblog: "So, my offer to you is do your daily report for Netscape and we'll pay you whatever you need to get paid AND you can own all of the rights to your video forever (just give us like a six month exclusive window on Netscape). We will set you up with our kick-ass studios, get you an office, and I've got a full-time video editor at your disposal (i.e. they can go with you anywhere). Also, we'll set up a travel budget so you can go cover whatever stories you want."

Penny Scandel

Citizens for Retiring the Penny wants the US to stop making pennies because it costs 1.4 cents to make a penny. The zinc industry is lobbying to keep the penny alive because they sell $30 million of penny zinc to the government every year like clockwork. I think I could live without pennies.

And They're Off!

Space Shuttle Lifts Off on NASA's First Independence Day Launch: "NASA Administrator Michael Griffin overruled the agency's safety chief and a top engineer, saying the risk from falling insulating foam was too small to justify delaying NASA's long- term launch schedule." Having the administrator overrule the safety cheif is not exactly how I would like to blast off into space. Nevertheless, they're up there now.