Social network and groups

CoRank: Digg-like site shows you the wisdom of your pals

Can we just stop with the new Digg-like sites? Please?

I didn't think so. Here's another new social bookmarking tool, fresh from the Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup last night. It's called coRank, and it just went into public beta this week. It's going to be compared to Digg, and it looks a lot like it on the surface--it even offers an optional Digg-like skin--but at its core, it's based on a very different philosophy.

First, here's what's similar: You can see links that other people like and vote them up or down. … Read more

News Roundup: Unbox for Tivo goes live, Friendster + Google, Web radio deathwatch?

TiVo users get unboxed. TiVo users looking to spend their hard-earned money on digital downloads of movies and TV shows online can now do so without leaving the couch. Last month's announcement of the partnership to bring Amazon's Unbox service to TiVo owners has been fulfilled, and now TiVo users can pick from more than a thousand pieces of content to download straight to their set-top box. ( News.com)

Friendster makes Google its ad, search supplier. Google has unseated Yahoo for advertising supremacy at Friendster, one of the oldest social networks that still has 37 million registered users. … Read more

Roundup: single page aggregators

Single page aggregators, also known as personalized home pages, can be a helpful way to keep tabs on your favorite Web content without having to visit each site. With nearly all of them able to display content from popular Web sites, choosing one comes down personal taste. We've run down some of the most popular aggregators, citing what works and what doesn't.

My.Netscape relaunched today, providing users with an Ajax-driven drag-and-drop interface to add and customize newsfeeds. There are about a hundred premade feeds to choose from. If you want to add a site that's not … Read more

OurChart social network lacks its network

Showtime and various folks behind The L Word have launched OurChart.com, a social networking site for queer women based around a story line of character Alice's web of "hookup" connections linking women through their different relationships. It's like The L Word meets Six Degrees of Separation on MySpace, and just to bring it full circle, the Web site then became a story line.

So is OurChart a useful social network or just a bald-faced marketing ploy? Seemingly rushed to production, the site notably lacks the networking features that the show's characters promote, an immense … Read more

Intuit kills the piggy bank

"Do as I say, not as I do," probably summarizes the financial advice of many parents. Intuit, by contrast, aims for its new, Web-based Quicken Kids & Money to teach young children fiscal discipline while demanding attention from parents in the process. This $99 yearly subscription includes browser-based interfaces for parents and their 5- to 8-year-olds. The time seems ripe for an interactive service like this, given advertisers' colossal efforts to capture the hearts and minds of children along with the wallets of their parents.

Designed for integration into household habits rather than as a babysitting tool, Quicken … Read more

MyPunchBowl adds RSVPs, YouTube integration

MyPunchBowl, the party planning service I covered in January, has added some neat new features, including publicly viewable RSVPs--one of the few things I griped about. The service has also added YouTube integration to let party goers share videos of the event.

Like competitor Evite, MyPunchBowl's new RSVP options let you see who has been invited, along with whether or not they're coming. You can also turn the visibility of the party's guest list on and off at any time, which is a nice touch if people start nagging you about wanting to see who's coming, … Read more

Tagged chatrooms with Lingr

Lingr is a really slick chat service that launched late last year. Lingr lets you create and manage Web chatrooms, combined with some handy technologies to help you keep track of conversations, even when you're not there.

I recently broke down a few of the top apps for chatting, both Web based and software downloads, but Lingr is a straight up chat destination as opposed to a piggy-backing service. Lingr lets you create your own tags for a chat room to make it easily searchable by others. These tags show up in a tag cloud on the front door … Read more

Izimi turns your PC into a server

Sharing files from your PC is nothing new. BitTorrent is all about sharing media files with the world, as Napster was before it. And file sharing products like Pando, eSnips, Titanize, Box.Net, YouBackItUp, and many others make it possible to share other files, or even entire directories and hard drives.

So when the team from Izimi pitched me on their new PC-based file publishing system as "the future of Internet publishing," I didn't really share their wonder.

I did try to find the spark of this product over the weekend. What I found was a tool … Read more

Finding the balance at USAToday.com: News vs. Community

USA Today is the subject of a lot of blogger commentary today due to its new Web site, which features community features like profiles and blog spaces for registered users, the capability for users to vote stories up (but not down), and open comment threads on every story. The paper's Web site also says it will be recruiting readers to send in their news: "We're going to be asking you to send us your photos... [so] you can be part of covering the story."

In addition, USAToday.com has been redesigned and modernized. It's a … Read more

Ning is surprisingly good

I would be wary to predict a mass exodus from currently popular social networks, but after playing around with Ning in the last few days, I'd say it could easily steal users from MySpace. Ning lets you create your very own social network, with custom branding, forums, photos, and videos. Everything is fully integrated and customizable with really slick looking themes that put less focus on individual user profiles, and more of an emphasis on group sharing and communication.

Compared to MySpace and Facebook, you still get to create and manage an extensive personal profile. The main difference is … Read more