Social bookmarking site Delicious launched a limited, invite-only preview of version 2.0 of the service this afternoon. The new site can be accessed at preview.delicious.com, although only invited users can actually get in.
The Delicious service (no longer “del.icio.us” and now residing at delicious.com) boasts 3 million registered users and 100 million unique URLs bookmarked.
If you are invited, all of your existing bookmarks are imported to the preview, although any changes you make will be lost when the new service launches - so it’s just for trying out and giving feedback. Del.icio.us is saying that there is no guarantee that the final product will look exactly like the preview, since they are taking user feedback very seriously.
The preview shows a substantially different interface than the current Del.icio.us site, and a number of new features.
Founder Joshua Schachter says this is a complete code-rewrite of Del.icio.us. More details below.
Read the rest of this entry »
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Exclusive: Screen Shots And Feature Overview of Delicious 2.0 Preview
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
AllofMP3 To Rise From The Dead
The owners of the now infamous cut price Russian MP3 retail site AllofMP3 have posted that the site will soon recommence trading.
The announcement follows a Russian court decision August 15 that found AllofMP3’s previous CEO was not guilty of breaching Russian copyright laws, and therefore the AllofMP3 service was legal.
EMI, NBC Universal and Time Warner had led the legal case against AllofMP3, with the US Government previously threatening to escalate the dispute regarding AllofMP3 to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
According to AllofMP3, “The service will be resumed in the foreseeable future.”
Slide Users Adding One Million New Widgets Daily: That’s a Lot Of Widgets
San Francisco based social network widget provider Slide has hit new highs, with reports that they are now serving over one million new widgets daily.
Slide provides widget based photo slideshows that users can embed in a range of social networking sites including MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Friendster.
Slide has impeccable backing, being founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin and funded by Mayfield Fund, Khosla Ventures, BlueRun Ventures and Founders Fund with a rumored round of $20million in November 2006.
Slide’s Facebook apps alone have a combined usage number in excess of 10 million users. comScore reports that Slide was serving 117 million unique visitors a month as of April 2007.
Slide competes directly with services including RockYou, Flektor, and Photobucket.
Farecast Now Provides Data On Fairness Of Hotel Pricing
Seattle based Farecast, a startup that launched about 18 months ago to focus on predicting flight prices and guaranteeing users against increases, just expanded to help people find deals on hotel rooms as well.
The hotels area of the site helps users see prices based on a number of travel search engines (Orbitz, CheapTickets and ReserveTravel). All the results are shown on a map along with price and other basic information.
But the service also looks at each of the hotels to let you know if it’s priced attractively or not. For most hotels, the star rating isn’t enough to tell if the price is too high or low v. local competition. Over the long run market forces even the playing field, but a traveler unfamiliar with a specific hotel can (and often is) overcharged occasionally. Farecast will help you understand if you are getting a deal or not on that specific hotel.
Hotels with good deals are marked in red. Over priced rooms are blue. Click on the image for a larger view of the interface.
This is much different than their flight business, which is based on helping people predict if airfares will likely increase or decrease before the flight date. But travelers looking for a good hotel at the best price possible will find this equally useful.
Monday, August 27, 2007
CrowdStorm Revamps, Seeks Wisdom Of Your Crowd
Social shopping site CrowdStorm
CrowdStorm hopes not only pull content from the web, but also let you take your content with you. You can take your reviews and post them to other blogs, review sites, or online stores. The hope is that CrowdStorm will function as a hub for review content instead of a walled garden.
The more significant change is how it takes advantage of user generated content. CrowdStorm has a new algorithm that ranks user reviews in aggregate and for each user based on the quality of reviews, the similarity between users, and social network relationships. The idea being that similar users closely linked to you have more relevant and trustworthy reviews. The algorithm can also generate a relevant crowd of experts you can ask questions.
It’s very similar to what VibeAgent
Attack Of The Fake Bloggers
Whilst Fake Steve Jobs has gained the most attention in the fake personal blog scene, a number of other fake blogs have been launched this year. Here’s a quick run down of a few that might be worthy of adding to your feed reader…or maybe not.
No list of fake blogs would be complete without the master. Although the blog may have lost its edge since Daniel Lyons was outed as the writer, the site still maintains a strong following and Lyon’s way with words still makes for delicious reading.
I’ve been reading this fake blog longer than most on this list, and I’m yet to unsubscribe. It’s not as well written as its Steve Jobs equivalent, but it has the occasionally side splitting post. Probably the closest of the bunch to being a direct clone of Fake Steve.
A decent read, if it times a little heavy, but in context it works. Fake Larry made a brief guest appearance on Fake Steve a little while back, so it’s not inconceivable that the author is Daniel Lyons as well, or someone else who perhaps works with Lyons.
As the header reads: “Dude, I was the first CEO to even have a blog.” Of course the real Schwartz does maintain his own blog
Unfortunately what could have been the best of the bunch is a let down. Poor context and tries too hard to be funny; the difference between clever satire and stupidity is lost on fake Bill Gates. Some may disagree though.
Moving away from corporate heads, there are a number of other fake blogs out there, here’s a couple
To quote the about page: “Scoble himself is so unintentionally hilarious that this site is superfluous –but hey it will be fun. Fake Scoble is about low hanging fruit. Actually, it’s about the fruit beneath the tree. Obvious jokes are going to be the rule of the day.”
“I outed Fake Steve Jobs. Have you heard of him?” Hit and miss, but has its moments. There must be something ironic though about there being a fake blog for the person who outed the most famous fake blogger of them all.
There is even a blog dedicated to news about fake blogs: I am not Fake Steve
See also our coverage of mass produced fake bloggers from Newsgroper here.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Fear of bloodbath thwarts efforts to rescue hostages
South Korean officials have twice blocked rescue missions to free 21 of their countrymen held by Taleban rebels amid concerns that Afghan military action could spark a bloodbath.
Release of South Korean hostages delayed
Two South Koreans 'to be freed'
http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn
