Wikia Search has launched a new Firefox toolbar which they call Wikia Evolution. Wikia Evolution is available for download and offers an easy to way to add pages to the Wikia Search project. Here's how the Wikia Evolution toolbar works once installed. When you search on Google, Yahoo, etc. or view any Web page, a new set of options will be displayed (see the sample below). The options allow you to add the page to the Wikia Search index instantly and tag the page for the appropriate keywords. There's also a rating option available for each page that is...
Recently launched Tatango provides a one-to-many SMS text messaging service. Tatango reminds me of another startup, Chatterous. With the growing popularity of Twitter and its inability to target groups, services like Tatango and Chatterous could become acquisition targets. Tatango is perfect for getting help from your friends when you are out and about. It could also work well for work teams to make sure everyone is up-to-date on project and meeting status. Here's how it works. You setup your friends mobile phone numbers in Tatango, Then you create a message to send. Tatango then sends out the message via SMS to all members of...
Online document hosting service Docstoc is out with a product update this evening. The update allows anyone who uploads private documents on Docstoc the ability to closely track and monitor usage of the documents. While Docstoc is known for public document sharing, this new set of monitoring tools allows a content creator to more closely track who is viewing the documents, email infomation, and the ability to lock documents for viewing online. This seems much better than emailing around a PDF and potentially having it leave the circle. Users who aren't registered on Docstoc get prompted to enter their...
Networked Insights has announced a partnership with NetShops to create an outdoor-focused community, “The Backyard”. The goal of the partnership and the new social community is to create social intelligence about how users are engaging with the community. Networked Insights will also map the data from The Backyard with third-party social networking sites including MySpace to create a clearer picture of what people are talking about both inside and outside the social community. The real benefit to using the services Networked Insights provides is to offer site visitors better e-commerce choices based on the collected data. Dan Neely, founder and...
Reports are coming in over the past hour that message board service FriendFeed is down. Ouriel in Israel is reporting that he is getting error messages when attempting to access the service. When I attempt to load the FriendFeed site, I don't receive a down message; instead I see a customized "service unavailable" message. PR executive Steve Rubel is reporting the site is down for him in NYC and he is considering taking a sick day so he can monitor the situation. You can track real-time chatter about FriendFeed's down status using Summize. Hey FriendFeed team, where's your status page?...
Cameesa is a recently launched startup that wants to do for fashion what IndieGoGo is doing for movies. Unlike crowdsourcing where you get free labor, crowdfunding is where people "support" an idea and help is move to fruition. Here's how Cameesa works: Artists upload their fashion designs into the Cameesa system Supporters then provide funding to help the fashion design turn into a real product Assuming the product gets fully supported (100%), the fashion becomes an actual item for ordering in the Cameesa system At that point, the artist gets paid, the supporters get paid and buyers can place...
In June 2008, Lending Club filed with the SEC for registration of $600 Million in Member Payment Dependent Notes. Lending Club has been in a "quiet period" since April 2008 while working on the registration. Today the DoughRoller blog was able to gather new information on the SEC registration filing. DoughRoller notes, "In its Amended S-1, LendingClub disclosed that under a new formula, it will also use several other credit markers in calculating interest rates. Specifically, LendingClub will factor in a borrower’s number of open accounts, the number of credit inquiries in the last six months, how much of a...
I stumbled across a new online chat application that brings together people and language translation. MeGlobe calls itself an instant messaging application but I'd argue that they offer a public chat service rather than a traditional IM offering. MeGlobe offers a public directory so you can find other people who speak the language you are interested in. It's great for discovery in that regard. MeGlobe offers real-time translation into: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Greek, Swedish, Arabic, Japanese, Korean and Chinese Traditional and Simplified. Josh Lowensohn reviewed MeGlobe on Webware and compared it to Meebo in that...
Project management software provider Wrike has announced the launch of their enterprise version today. The biggest update in this new version is the ability to reschedule tasks easily by using task dependencies. This allows you to change a top task and all sub-tasks will follow suit. If you've worked with project management software, rescheduling can be a real pain. Wrike's enterprise version offers exporting and importing options into Microsoft Office applications. Wrike is priced at $15 per user with unlimited projects. While Wrike compares themselves to Microsoft Office, I'd suggest a more accurate comparison is with other SaaS/hosted project management tools including...
Quintura is reporting that the founder of Metalloinvest holding and owner of Kommersant publishing house, Alisher Usmanov is seeking a 10-20% stake in Russian search engine Yandex. Based on the current valuation for Yandex of $5 billion, this puts Usmanov's stake at up to $1 billion. Usmanov and his companies have minority stakes in the holding companies for mail.ru and Live Journal. This type of deal could put Usmanov into a strong position with the largest Russian mail provider and the largest Russian search engine. In case you were wondering, Yandex currently has 54% market share in Russian search...
Matt Marshall at VentureBeat is reporting that AOL is closing their Tacoda behavioral targeting division and merging the customers into Advertising.com. Advertising.com is part of AOL's overall Platform-A advertising platform. Marshall has posted an email that AOL sent to Tacoda publishers informing them of the change. One thing I note is that while Marshall notes that publishers will be pushed into Advertising.com, the email also mentions, "Your advertising.com representative...will follow up with you next week to discuss your inventory monetization options moving forward." This looks like there's no guarantee what the publishers will end up with. David Kaplan at...
Below are some of the latest jobs posted on the CenterNetworks Job Board. Subscribe to the CN Jobs feed and get all of the latest Web industry jobs delivered directly to you. Featured Jobs: Senior Web Developer - Digg More Fresh Jobs: Interactive Advertising Sales Regional Director - TheStreet Senior Product Manager, Consumer Internet - Yoomba Manager, Engagement Management - Organic Senior PHP Web Developer - Lounge Lizard Web Developer - MTA Mobile Product Manager - Synacor Business Development Manager - Outbrain Employers - Join other top companies on the CN Job Board. Post your jobs now - $79 for 60 days Partner Links-- Free Online Budgeting...
Here are the Web tech events in NYC for the week of August 3rd. Please submit other events to add to the list below. Check out Alley Reporter and NYTechEvents for more events as well. Tuesday Where are the geeks? - 2pm PHP Community Meeting - 6:30pm NY Tech Meetup - 7pm Wednesday B-to-B Meets Advertising in an Economic Downturn - all morning Digital Identity August Meetup - 6pm NYC Israel Technology - 6:30pm NYC Tech4Good - 7pm Thursday Web2NY Best Practices Conference - all day Social Media Camp: NY - 10am Women 2 NYC Garden Premier - 6:30pm...
Sam Johnston, a member of the Cloud Computing group on Google Groups found a trademark application with serial number 77139082. The application is from Dell and is for the term "cloud computing". The application was made about a year ago. Cloud computing is as general a term these days as mp3 or floppy disk. Would anyone receive a trademark on those terms today? I guess the question is whether the term was as common when Dell initially filed their trademark application. Cyndy Aleo-Carreira from The Industry Standard found that this is not the first time that a company has...
The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Best Buy has entered the vending machine game by powering a machine at the Dallas airport. The machines sell all sorts of electronic items from iPod media players to headphones to digital cameras. The only airport I've seen these vending machines in so far is Atlanta. But I am sure they will be in all airports soon - the profit margins are just too high not to be everywhere. My belief is that these machines would sell at an even better percentage if they provided devices that were already charged. And the ability...
Amazon has announced this morning their acquisition of AbeBooks. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. AbeBooks is a marketplace for used, rare and out-of-print books. AbeBooks reports over 110 million books listed for sale and "tens-of-thousands" of sales every day. Think of AbeBooks in the same way you think of purchasing from a third-party dealer/seller on Amazon's books category. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2008. Amazon and AbeBooks have worked together for years now. AbeBooks began online operations in 1996 and is based in Canada. AbeBooks will continue to function as a...
Earlier this week a new search engine launched to the world. The name of the engine is Cuil (pronounced Cool) and there are great reviews on Search Engine Land and GigaOm. Danny from Search Engine Land notes that Cuil is pushing four main features of the search engine: Big web index, Unique relevance algorithm, Unique results display and Privacy. I've created a short video below to discuss why Cuil is like toilet paper. The bottom line is that when you come out of the gate and immediately challenge the absolute leader, it's a mistake. In addition, Google has absolute...
Commission Junction sent me a note today that they have raised their minimums to get paid. Commission Junction is the largest affiliate management company and I've used the service on some of my Web sites. Currently I am set to receive a check anytime I reach $25. The new minimum to receive a check is $100 and the direct deposit option is $50 to receive payment (I am not sure why I am not on dd). Here are the reasons they shared with regards to the payment change: To streamline our publisher payment process. To offer publishers an incentive to switch...
We covered the new aunt-community SavvyAuntie when it launched earlier this month. SavvyAuntie reminds me of Dogster in that both are very niche in their user demographic but drive very passionate, loyal users. To learn more about SavvyAuntie, I headed over to their headquarters in NYC and met with founder and Auntrepreneur Melanie Notkin. Some of the topics we discussed in the video interview below are: Who is Melanie Notkin What's SavvyAuntie all about What types of content are on SavvyAuntie What are you doing to make sure that members who signed up in the initial press buzz continue to...
