Internet

Ben Kauffman, entrepreneur and founder of mophie and Kluster, has struck again.  Quirky.com is somewhat of a  follow through on Ben’s original mental concept of Kluster.  Kluster was originally meant to be a platform where ideas and inventors collaborated with designers, engineers, creative namers, etc on product ideas.  Kluster quickly morphed into an online collaboration platform and their software is now used by many for such collaboration.  Kluster’s NameThis.com has seen moderate success for both business owners seeking to name their product or business.

Quirky.com takes a few elements of both of the Kluster platforms and combines them into one stunning product development service.  Quirky.com’s main purpose is to address the common inventor’s conundrum.  People have ideas, but lack the capital and perhaps innovative improvements and feedback needed to bring that product to the market.  For $99 [click to continue...]

It seems like this week, and last, have been big on the search engines.  For the sake of continuity, what do you say we keep the search engine ball rolling with Spezify.com?

Spezify is the product of two Swedish startupists Felix af Ekenstam and Per Persson.  These two nordic masterminds have extensive experience in developting digital products and decided to venture into the realm of compilation with their Spezify project.  Spezify is a relatively new project.  It opened for private beta in April of 2009 and made its official launch for public use on June 15.

Spezify is a “search engine” which displays its results by scraping content by any and all websites relevant to the query.  Essentially, Spezify launches a bunch of “mini-searches” through [click to continue...]

Susan Boyle completely owned the Twitter Top 10 trends list once again on Sunday.  Susan Boyle is still a trending topic, but she is now at about number eight and will most likely fall off the map at the mercy of a few sporting events yet to happen this week.  Twitter trends are a great way to find out what the majority of twitter users are talking about, but the trends are only temporary.  It would be nice if someone developed a twitter app to track the most consistently tweeted words or phrases.

If someone were to develop such an app and perform the analytics I am almost convinced that, excluding all articles and pronouns, the “f”-word would be near the top of the list – if not at the top.  Now, the f-bomb is no Susan Boyle, but [click to continue...]

Websites as desktop applications are becoming and increasingly popular trend as WiFi and mobile internet increase their reach and user base.  Rather than connect to the internet and direct the browser to a specific website, the user can experience the website as a regular computer program.  Many times desktop versions allow users to broaden their experience through increased or new features.  I have chosen 5 websites of the tens of millions out there that I believe to be better experienced as a desktop application rather than through their actual website.  Feel free to add your favorites in the comment section.

eBay. The popular auction website’s desktop app allows for more targeted searches so that shoppers can find what they really want.  eBay’s desktop app also [click to continue...]

Sometimes people ask funny questions. Has anybody ever asked you which ring tone is the best one out there? Obviously, this is the kind of thing that no two people can completely agree on. Even finding a short list that matches your best friend’s could be a super challenge. So how do you decide what kind of ring tone you want to hear whenever someone calls you up and hits you with a text message? Truth be known, the decision is kind of a hard one for most people to make, since there is just such a huge volume of different options available to you.

On the one hand, you have a massive library of songs to choose from. Every kind of song that has been released over the past ten years or so has been made into a ring tone. And in a lot of cases, you can actually download a song and make it into a ring tone if you so desire. And if songs just are not your thing, you have millions and millions of options when it comes to different kinds of sound effects and spoken words. You can get Jenna Jameson to entice you to pick up, or you can get Stewie from Family Guy laughing with ever increasing hysteria — and a whole lot more possibilities.

Another question you will have to think through as far as the best ringtone goes is, how much are you willing to pay for it? Not all ring tones are created equal, and Free ringtones are not necessarily any worse than the kinds that you will have to pay for. As you go through all of the choices at your disposal, you will doubtless come across a whole bunch of ring tones that sound awesome. In the end, you may just need to pick a winner out of a hat.

I was listening to a friend talk a week ago about how much he hated online social networking.  I asked if he wouldn’t mind writing down his thoughts so that I could publish them here.  He gladly obliged, and so here they are for you to read.  Feel free to openly agree or disagree, I look forward to the discussion that follows.

It used to be that the term “social networking” was defined as the activity of social interaction in a personal and intimate setting.  Social networking played a big part one getting where they wanted to go, and getting what they wanted to get.  Social networking was a valuable time where people interacted and got to know each other on a more personal level.

Social Networking has a new face now.  Say social networking in public and 9.9 out of 10 people’s minds will immediately shoot off in the direction of the internet and popular sites like MySpace, FaceBook, bebo, Hi5 – the list really is endless.   Due to these new trends and fads, social networking has turned into an informal and sloppy system of constant communication.  Intimate and personal interaction has been traded for whole lives being exposed online.  Rather than using social networking as a way to promote oneself, we have all seen the stories of how “social networking” has ruined people’s reputations and lives.  Personal meetings have been traded for [click to continue...]

Niche social network baron Matt Heaton (creator of ActiveRain) is back with a niche social network for amateur athletes and sports teams. Born from a Heaton’s own personal experience as an amateur athlete looking for more interaction with others, Timu.com seeks to solve the problems and inadequacies of the other larger social networks in relation to how they deal with amateur athletes and sports teams.

In Thier Own Words.

Timu is a social networking platform specifically built to solve the communications problems encountered by athletes, sports teams and their fans.

Timu seems to take the notion that simplicity is excellence.  Thier social network offering is easily navigable and not in the least bit overwhelming to the newcomer.  For the interested bystander, a public news stream is available broadcasting the latest [click to continue...]

A number of websites make use of incentive programs to entice members to join and participate.  Gather.com shells out points redeemable for giftcards, as do MyPoints, Scour.com, KiwiBox and FreeRide.com.  Websites like BigCrumbs, FatWallet, bing.com/cashback, and Dubli Shopping all offer percentage rebates and cash back for shopping, and still other websites bring in members by allowing them to earn entries into daily and monthly jackpot drawings (i.e. iWon.com).  It is no secret that people love to get something for nothing as this is the primary motivating factor in bringing in new membership, but one has to wonder why websites offer incentives in the first place.  Surely they wouldn’t do it just as a kind service.  These websites primary goal is to make money, so why give it away?

Differentiation. Each business strives to have a point of [click to continue...]

In 2007, Technorati announced that the blogosphere was growing at a rate of 120,000 new blogs per day.  Every 1.4 seconds, a new blog is created.  Many of these new bloggers are hoping to ride the wave that has made many bloggers some part time money.  Others began blogging as a way to let off some steam.  An even smaller contingent decided to blog about their lives, in hopes that someone, somewhere will read.  Whatever the reason, bloggers integrate certain technologies with their lifestyle as they make their blog entries each day.  I have outlined the most popular and essential ones below. [click to continue...]