Category: The Internet

Qloud's Music Search and iTunes Plugin Launches

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We launched Qloud yesterday and it’s been a crazy ride.  The response to the idea and the site has been positive.   We were first reported (here) about by a popular technology blog called GigaOm which had a good review by their journalist Liz Gannes.  Then we were reviewed by a very popular social networking site called Mashable (here) which got into all the features of our site and nailed what our idea is. One quote from them:

It’s a neat service that looks incredibly slick, although the interface takes a lot of getting used to – I constantly forget to clear my old search before conducting a new one. That said, I’m verging on the side of liking Qloud: it’s still rough, but the intention is there.

Oh yeah!  These two reviews caused us to be featured on Digg (here) which drove a ton of users to our site last night causing our servers to go down twice.  All the users commenting and contacting us caused me to stay up pretty late.  Which is a great problem to have.

Today was another story.  Due to the interest yesterday, we were then listed on the del.icio.us site’s Hot List.  And the popular blog LifeHacker featured us as the Download of the Day.  These drove another drove of users from all around the world to Qloud.

On our Qloud blog we have a MeeboMe widget which allows us to talk to our users in real time and while all are encouraging, we’re definitely having some technical difficulties with the plugin.  They should be fixed soon, but it’s great to get real feedback from real users.

If you haven’t tried it, please  and register (sorry – only Windows for now) and let me know what you think.  Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Why Google Buying YouTube Is A Good Idea

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Yesterday, someone sent me an email about the Google/YouTube deal with the note “seems like an absurd amount of money.” Well, i think it was a good deal for Google. Here’s why:

  1. YouTube has critical mass which is VERY hard to get
  2. YouTube (like Google Video) is a complete browser-based system which fits in with google’s long-term scheme of providing a browser suite (mail, calendar, tv, etc.) on low cost computers to undercut Windows and Apple and dominate the world.
  3. 10% of all google traffic goes to youTube and they are the number 2 destination people go to (#1 is MySpace). Earlier Google did a strategic deal with MySpace so now the top 2 places people go to from Google are to google-friend sites
  4. This further underscores that the actual technology is no longer the most important asset in the web 2.0 world. Revver, JumpCut and even AOL Video have better technologies but YouTube has users and users are what matter. TagWorld, CyWorld, Bebo, Faces.com, and Multiply are all better than MySpace in that they look better, they have more and better features but MySpace has critical mass
  5. Page views equal cash and YouTube has a lot of them. Because they haven’t fully monetized them yet doesn’t mean they won’t. They needed a partner with an ad serving system and relationships with advertisers – Google’s the best at both. In fact, Scoble was wondering what it would have been like if Microsoft had bought YouTube – and it all comes back to who has the relationships with the advertisers. Google’s #1 business is advertising and now they added a major piece of page inventory and now dominate web video inventory too (YouTube is 48% of all web video).
  6. 1.5 Billion is a good price in my mind. People said 1/2 a billion was too much for MySpace. Less than a year later, MySpace got $900 million from Google so it could power the search on the site. There’s clearly money to be made here and 1.5 B isn’t too much in my mind.

What do you think?

New to MySpace? Use Good Etiquette

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A lot of people i know are jumping on the MySpace train. I read a useful article (here) that lists some simple rules that will help you get and keep friends. Some of my favorites are:

 

• Another thing that might strike a chord with paranoid MySpacers is the mythical MySpace tracker. To put it simply, MySpace trackers don’t exist yet. Don’t be scared if you look at someone’s profile hourly. They can’t tell.

• Writing a comment to everyone on your list is a nice sentiment, but when using that pretense to just get comments back, it’s lame. You know who you are.

• Ladies, if a creepy guy you’ve never met adds you and he has nothing but half-dressed girls on his page, don’t add him back.

• Reading and commenting on blogs is a serious sign of affection. It proves the person cares about your inner thoughts. Don’t ignore these.

• Never under any circumstance devote your entire MySpace to random girlfriend/boyfriends. “Michael is the reason I get up in the morning — this week.”

• Having 500 friends and 20 comments is a mental sign for everyone to not like you. Add people you know. Be as popular as you are — or aren’t.

• Never respond to a private message with a public comment. That’s rude.

• Mirror pictures are ideal. Any picture taken by oneself deserves credit. It’s an art form. Comment on these with something more than “I think you’re hot.”

• Comments consisting of less than eight words are a waste of time.

• No one important will read your personal 100-question survey.

Obviously, these are just the tip of the iceberg. But, if you’re new, it’s worth jumping in (although i know plenty of people who spend way too much time there). If you’re an old hat, i just hope you don’t have an all black page with pink fonts. Ugh!

Like Movies and Want to Waste Some Time?

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It’s Friday and you know what that means – new movie releases! To honor the day, i’m going to post about some movie sites i’ve seen recently

The DoublerDouble Features!

To my parents: “I learned it from watching you!”My parents showed me how you can maximize the value of your$7 movie ticket by going to multiple shows back-to-back. We’d walk out of one and ask “so what next?” The accidental doubler is great, but over the years, we’ve begun to actually plan our lineup is before hitting the theater. You can imagine my happiness when i found the Double Feature Finder online which takes this to the next level. Check it out here. It lets you choose your theater and then it will sort through the times and lineup your double-feature. As they say on the site, “never sneak into movies again”

Dark Movie Finder

This is an interesting little online game which is also a clever little ad for M&M’sDark Movies new dark chocolage candies. In the game, there’s a large painting and in it there are 50 movie titles from a “dark” film hidden (there are also little M&M guys). Each movie title is represented by a visual riddle. To play you scroll around the painting until you figure out a visual clue, double-click, type your guess and so on. For example, the picture to the left shows Blade and Silence of the Lambs. Some of the other movies in the picture are: The Birds, The Fly, Invisible man, Wicker Man, Candyman, and so on. Enjoy and feel free to post what movies you found in there in the comments.  (game is here)
Online Movie Quiz

This is just a classic time waster. The site is a movie quiz which poses 20 questions to you. Each question has 4 pictures from a movie which don’t reveal any plot or major characters. You then have to guess from a list of 10 movies which film it is (here). I found that if i was familiar with the movie, i could usually get it right. If i wasn’t, i could usually guess correctly 75% of the time. But 100% of the time, i was pretty sure my time was being wasted and my life was becoming more and more worthless.

iPhone Is On Its Way

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This is the guy that Apple sued because he always get it right.  So this is probably the real deal:

Apple iPhone to be Cingular-exclusive at launch
By Ryan Katz, Senior Editor

September 26, 2006 – Apple and Cingular have signed an agreement that will make the US’ largest cell phone provider the exclusive carrier of Apple’s forthcoming phone, sources report. Apple’s iPhone remains on track for an early 2007 release.

As previously reported, Apple’s phone will feature a candy-bar design with a 2.2-inch display and 3 megapixel camera. Robust iTunes and iSync support will also be delivered with the phone.

Apple’s exclusive contract with Cingular is said to be good for the first six months, sources report, meaning other providers will be able to sell the phone in the second-half of 2007. Cingular had an exclusive on the Motorola ROKR—the first phone to feature iTunes—when it launched last year.

Sources say Apple is in talks with providers in other parts of the world on exclusive deals, but are short on specifics. O2 had the exclusive on the ROKR in Europe, however, suggesting that provider may again be tapped to launch Apple’s phone.

Meanwhile, insiders say Apple is internally estimating that shipments of the iPhone will top a staggering 25 million in 2007 alone. Motorola’s RAZR, by contrast, has sold more than 50 million units since its launch in late 2004. Apple is betting a phone with Apple’s iconic design, elegant interface, and iPod-matching functionality will be a strong draw for users who currently carry both devices on them.

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0609cingulariphone.html

Paris Hilton, Blogs and Being Derivative

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Nice Belt ClipI read an interesting post last week about why Paris Hilton is such a successful celebrity (here). The reasoning being is that she’s one big walking hyperlink. Meaning, all she does is constantly point the reader/viewing/listener to something else. She endorses, name-drops, evangelizes, and critiques other things. Look at the example of her recent DUI arrest:

“I had one margarita (and) was starving because I had not eaten all day,” she said. “Maybe I was speeding a little bit and I got pulled over. I was just really hungry and I wanted to have an In-N-Out Burger.”

On record, in the press, she’s aligning herself with the (awesome) burger chain In-N-Out. Sure, as a celebrity she doesn’t carry any weight alone, but because she attaches herself to other items and things, she’s becomes interesting and (perhaps) relevant.

What made this perspective intriguing is that this is to what’s happening in the blogosphere. Many blogs in and of themselves aren’t that interesting, but it’s what they point to and reference that provide the value. Look at this post by the sports blog Deadspin – it’s just a list of links to other posts. You track through enough blogs and eventually you get to something with substance.

Another good post which addressed this was MalcolmGladwell Gladwell’s which talked about the derivative nature of blogs and media at large. He argues that:

We need derivative media sources (blogs) to help us make sense of what we learn from primary sources.

There’s plenty of interesting and original material out there and blogs by their nature will reflect, expand, and enhance that. Paris Hilton, in my mind, is then a necessary piece of our world. Of course, she doesn’t’ do it well, but the definitely are some celebrities and blogs that do it well and are just as enjoyable as any primary content.

MySpace Rolls Out "The Black Carpet"

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Apparently Black is the new Red. MySpace continues to crush the online world. In addition to being the #1 most visited site on the entire internet, they now are going after movie screens. Today, they launched a service called “The Black Carpet,” which allows MySpacers to see advanced screenings of movies in Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and 20 U.S. cities (including DC!).

The Black Carpet

All you need to do is add the Black Carpet profile to your friends list and you’ll receive notices on how to get access to movies previews at local theaters. The first movie being promoted is (the hysterical looking) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. If you haven’t seen the trailer, here it is: (and here’s the Borat MySpace page).

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Fq_fzdEk0r8]

This is, of course, permission based marketing and social networks are the perfect place to accomplish it. Bands connecting with their fans on MySpace and Bebo was just the beginning, now MySpace allows you to add brands to your friends list such as Adidas Soccer or Nike Women. Meanwhile, Facebook is creating corporate groups, like the Apple Students group which gives away free iTunes tracks. It will only get worse as more corporation get wise to this whole “internet” and “social networking” thing.

I actually love the idea of allowing interested fans to preview a film prior to its release as these viewers are the ones who will evangelize and spread positive buzz both locally and within the blogosphere. Personally, i think the studios and MySpace could go even farther by using the online audience to provide user reviews and comments at various stages and improve the test screening process. Until then, i’ll be happy with my advanced screen tickets courtesy of The Black Carpet. Rock.

If you are totally clueless about MySpace, go check it out and feel free to add me as a friend. I’m at myspace.com/pescatello/

Trade Your Books

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A new social networks launched this week focused the sending and receiving of books.

bookmooch.jpg

BookMooch is a new social site for exchanging used books. The service is essentially a cross between eBay and a social network. You can browse books and members and build a network of friends.

I got excited about this because i love the CD swapping site Lala which i use every so often. It’s a great way to get new CD’s that you’d never want to buy (I wrote about it here). If you haven’t checked it out – you should. Similar to Lala, BookMooch requires you create 2 lists – one that’s an inventory of the books you’re willing to trade, and another “wishlist” of the books you want to get from others. Unlike Lala, this site isn’t that slick, doesn’t provide very much information about the books or the community, nor does it populate your profile very well. It would also be nice to have a better way to aggregate reviews and comments about a book. I need a little more IMDB-ness here. And, in general this site seems half-baked. They could use a few more month of graphic design and polish.

They do have a point system which is a great way to regulate swapping. You earn points in 3 ways: 1) for adding books to your inventory, 2) giving your books away and 3) leaving feedback for the sender after you receive a book. You use up points when you receive books, and you can also give your points away to charity. What’s more, there’s a BookMooch toolbar to use when you’re browsing Amazon – it lets you see when a book is available on BookMooch and add books to your wishlist. To avoid the freeloaders out there, you have to give away at least one book for every five you receive.

If you want to get going on either site, feel free to add me as a friend. My username is “pescatello”

Google Apps Launches. What Now?

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The first step towards the Google PC are there which i commented on here and here with yesterday’s announcement of the Google Apps.  The next step is for them to announce the low cost PC – which may not happen for a while.

Second, there’s a very interesting post from Chris Anderson about what this could mean.  We don’t want Google to simply replicate MS’s Office suite, but rather we want them to create a similar product that incorporates the new trends happening today – such as easily embedding of apps and collaborating.  Embedding a piece of a word doc into a page or embedding a spreadsheet component would be great.  Putting big-time applications into a browser opens up a variety of new options.

164189895_1e19c6c258_o.jpg

So, the first punch has been thrown. Now the fun begins….