friendfeed: social glue filling the cracks of your web life.

Fragmented online life? This may help. friendfeed is the biggest of a new type of internet service, the social aggregator.

The problem friendfeed solves is: people have multiple sites, services and blogs and they need one place where this stream of content can be consolidated. If RSS feeds take all the new content from your fav blogs, then friendfeed takes all the content from your social life and presents it in a steady stream. This is called lifestreaming.

People can subscribe to your feed on the site or add it as an RSS subscription. There is even a cool Facebook App that allows all your new content to appear on your profile.

friendfeed currently supports 35 services and they’re always adding more.

• Del.icio.us
• Facebook, LinkedIn
• YouTube, Flickr
• Digg, Mixx, Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• Twitter
• Google Reader (RSS shared items)

You can also add your blogs so whenever you post it will put it in the stream. Alternatively you can just put some text and/or link into the stream. The communication doesn’t go just one way either. You can post directly to Twitter.

This is a great example of internet entrepreneurship in action. It was founded by several former Google employees to fulfill a real need that is becoming ever more useful as we move online.

Another player stepping onto the field is socialthing. Their concept is similar but so far only has support for 6 services. socialthing looks like the younger but prettier brother of friendfeed. It is still in private beta but drop me a comment here, I have a few invites to hand out.

The battle between friendfeed and socialthing is just gearing up but no matter the outcome, we win

Further reading:

FriendFeed Vs. SocialThing! on ReadWriteWeb

Bret Taylor & Paul Buchheit - Co-Founders, FriendFeed (Podcast) by Sean Ammirati (ReadWriteTalk)

FriendFeed API: Extend and improve FriendFeed on FriendFeed blog

Popularity: 12% [?]

FeedBurning

Feedburner is a web 2.0 news feed management system. Founded in 2004, Feedburner provides tools to bloggers, podcasters, and other web masters to provide unique RSS feeds. Google purchased Feedburner in 2007 for 100 million, and subsequently eliminated the fees on many of Feedburners pay programs. An interview with Dick Costolo, prompted him for advice for bloggers and entrepreneurs. For bloggers he advised writing frequently and for entrepreneurs to not take the advice of others. Costolo noted that, “There are fifty reasons not to start a company, and when you start it, there are fifty reasons not to continue to pursue it when you run into the first spot of trouble…You have to focus solely on what you want to accomplish and ignore everything else.” I think that’s the type of entrepreneurial spirit that succeeds in the web. That’s the news for feedburner, plain and simple.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Plaxo Connections

Mr. Sean Parker has done quite well for himself. This man takes credit for co-founding Napster and also founding Plaxo which is an online address book, networking tool, and communication facilator. The innovative element of this free service is it’s ability to automatically update all contact information which means you can ditch those old, torn up paper address organizers and rolladexes! Plaxo users are able to connect with their friends, family, or business acquaintences. When a user edits their personal contact information, the changes automatically appear in all address books of people that they are connected to. Plaxo makes it simple to join their network. It’s a free service and promts the user to import their contacts from their existing email upon registering. This service had great additions in 2007. Within two short months, Plaxo introduced the public beta of a new version of its service, called Plaxo 3.0 which emphasizes automated, multi-way sync. Weeks later, Plaxo Plus was introduced which is a social networking service that allows the sharing of content from multiple sources. This is a very user-friendly service that welcomes members and has been growing rapidly in memberships and partnerships.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Craigslist vs eBay?..

I personally think that craigslist is much easier to use than eBay. I experience craigslist sell tool, because I had to sell a lots of staff for my boss, and I have found that listing my items through craigslist have gave better results. One of the features that I like in craigslist is that you can post or list your items within your state, which makes more sense fore me. With this feature the customer can find an item within the distance that he or she is willing to travel, and that’s one of the things that eBay does not offer to the customer. Another advantage of using craigslist is that sellers do not have to pay a fee to post the item, however, this has a downfall because craigslist does not offer protection for buyers of sellers. But unlike eBay the costumer has the option to go and pick up the item the same day. In my own experience this have not been a problem yet, and is easier for me to list something on craigslist without worrying to pay a fee, which is good because I am a college student who does not have much money. I think this two selling engines offer the costumer different tools to sell or buy, but in my opinion I will pick craigslist, because offers you a free service and amazing bargains.

Popularity: 6% [?]

PageOnce - your internet, your way.

Pageonce defines itself as the first “personal internet assistant.” Everytime people go to their computers, they generally start out by checking a myriad of different sites. (The weather, stock prices, facebook, checking accounts, and the most recent political news, for example). Pageonce tries to simplify this process by allowing the user to see all those things on their initial homepage.

Pageonce uses “fetchone” technology to allow the user to auto log-in to sites without having to always type in a username and password and it makes all relevant information avaiable in one place. They say, “Think of the possibilities. You could log on to one website, and simultaneously view your Wells Fargo checking account balance, see when Citibank expects your next credit card payment, view movies rentals from Netflix, know how many minutes are left on your Verizon Wireless plan, and respond to a message on Facebook.”

I’m not exactly sure how it works however I think they’re just starting out because in order to sign up, you give your email and then they email you promising to be back in touch in coming weeks. They have all the same security as other websites, like banking sites and other sites which hold your account information, so that you can be just as safe on pageonce as you are anywhere else.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Making the world a better place one video at a time?

Well perhaps not quite; Youtube is, however, opening the doors for the transfer of valuable and helpful information. A series of “educational” videos were posted in the past year on how to deal with children with autism and other special cases. Youtube can also prove to be helpful with news clips, political videos, and even medical information. It would provide doctors and other professionals the opportunity to post “how to” videos in order to better serve patients and customers. Youtube could also significantly help many companies with new products that are struggling through the “early adoption” phase. A video on how to work innovative technology could answer questions and help customers understand how to use new products.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Craigslist.org vs. ebaY.com

Both of these websites can be used to sell possessions on-line, but the important question is which one is better to use for the seller of goods? The reason most people sell items on the Internet is because it is often easier than selling something to a consignment store and there are more opportunities to find people who will demand your product, raising the price, and generating more profit to the seller. People want to sell their items on a website that is either free or doesn’t cost them a lot of time to sell something. E-bay.com allows your item for sale to be viewed by millions of people everyday. You can decide how long to leave the item up for sale and transaction costs are relatively easy because once an item is sold all you need to do is collect the money from the buyer and ship them the item. If you have a lot of items to sell you can open an E-bay store but this costs money. If money is tight craigslist.org seems to be a wiser choice. You can open up a free account anytime. After you have an account you simply enter in what geographic location you are from and categorize what your item falls under. While you may have to do a little more marketing with your ad, it is worth it in the long run. You can post your classified ad URL in the bottom of your emails, message boards, or pass it along in your email lists to friends and family. Also if your item is near enough to somebody, they might even come pick up the item without you having to take care of shipping responsibilities. Craigslist.org is thus becoming more locally centered while E-bay is more international.

Popularity: 7% [?]

YouTube Roundup: Our thoughts on YouTube

These last 2 weeks our class has blogged on YouTube. Here is what we came up with…

1. Hunter told us how to use YouTube to promote a business in: YouTube: How to sell yourself
2. Liam confessed to never rating a video in: YouTube: One Big Nerdy Group-Hug
3. Francisco on: YouTube making the Job Search more efficient…
4. Evolution of YouTube: history of the world’s fasting growing website! by Gadsbyjm1
5. Pestobaugh showed us how YouTube has changed our world in: Welcome to the YouTube Effect
6. YouTube - “recreations” wileyjb1 wrote about frustration with duplicate content
7. Shipleyl1 says, open a new site more focused on credible news in: The changing face of YouTube
8. YouTube as a marketing avenue? in YouTube- The Future of Marketing by moyerjl1
9. E-Zekiel.tv - Christian YouTube? by fullair
10. A YouTube Economy by bigpapahornyak
11. Our new form of entertainment in: YouTube News by Eric D’Epagnier

Popularity: 8% [?]

YouTube News

I was thinking of something to write about youtube, and thought I would just google ‘youtube news’ to see what articles were written about the site. The first thing I got back was a result about news on youtube, which got me thinking. Youtube somehow grew into a cultural phenomenon. Going back in time, we see people sitting around telling stories. Then there was radio, instead of sitting and listening to a physical person, they listened to a voice on a box. After that, television. Now we get to have the story visualized for us. No longer do we even think about what the characters look like - everything is completely given to us. This promotes laziness, and some have even said television has been a large detriment to society. I think youtube might start to move our culture away from the effortlessness of TV. Instead of everything being provided, the guy on his couch at 3am is the one with the material. It is entertainment by the people, not just for them. It will be interesting to see where the trend set by youtube takes us, and if Web 2.0 does in fact help and not hinder the evolution of entertainment in today’s society.

Popularity: 6% [?]

A Youtube Economy

Youtube has created a mass economy that makes use of the internet through social networking. Users can post and view videos and comment on them as well. Youtube is following the vast popularity that has grown with Facebook and Myspace. Businesses are also getting in on the popularity of Youtube. They are taking full advantage of being able to use free content to create revenue from advertising. In this new Youtube era companies need to learn ways to be able to generate revenue through internet content. Being able to advertise on a site like Youtube can help users to spread that content through social networking.

Popularity: 6% [?]