Thursday, August 16, 2007

Yappd Launches, Calls Itself “Twitter With Pictures”

Here’s a me-too service that won’t last long. Yappd, a Twitter clone, launched today. In their email to us they describe themselves as “Twitter with picture messaging,” and that pretty much sums it up. It is a service that allows you to quickly tell the world what you are up to. You can add content via their website, email or sms.

So while we debate whether Kevin Rose’s Pownce, another recent entrant to this space, is different enough from Twitter to become successful, yet another hopeful young gun enters the space with little to differentiate itself except the addition of a photo to your status messages.

Unless Yappd has a brilliant marketing strategy up their sleeve, I don’t expect them to get much traction. I do like the photo feature, though. Hopefully Twitter will add it soon.

My Yappd account is here. Don’t even think about adding me.

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MySpace, A Place For (prescription painkillers and heroin) Junkies

The drugs of choice for the MySpace generation: prescription painkillers (oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine and methadone) and heroin. So says Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals, the company behind a new drug addiction area of MySpace called Addiction411.

The site says it was developed to educate the public about dependence on opioids and provide “user-friendly” information on the dangers of drugs and how recreational use can turn to addiction. “The availability of this site comes at a perfect time considering the rate of prescription painkiller abuse has seen a drastic spike in recent years, particularly among the demographic of teens and young adults (16 – 25 years old) that utilize MySpace.”

What this really is: advertising revenue for MySpace and a marketing site for Suboxone and Subutex, two drugs that help fight painkiller addiction. Most of the links on the site forward on to TurnToHelp.com, another marketing site for Reckitt Benckiser.

If MySpace wants to be serious about addressing the issues facing its users, they should put up a non-sponsored resource. The function of Addiction411 is to sell more drugs, not necessarily to help users.

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Use TokBox To Set Up Instant Video Chat

TokBox is a new site that we just heard about moments ago. It’s completely live but appears to have been flying under the radar until now.

It allows you to set up a video chat channel in seconds. It instantly and accurately detected the camera and microphone on my Mac laptop after registration. At that point, I was prompted to invite someone to the chat via email, or send them to my user page on the site. They click on the link and can participate even without registration. The controls are simple - set volume, mute or kill camera. If the person is not there, you can leave a video message. That’s all there is to it.

If you enable browser popups you can pull the video chat out of the browser and go to other websites or applications without disrupting the conversation. The chat box can also be embedded on another website.

TokBox is also a basic social network - you can add friends who’ve registered to call them more easily. You can also tag yourself, suggesting that the site will try to find people with similar interests and put them together. That also suggests the site may be used for online dating, which is a big venture capitalist-pleaser.

While there are plenty of video chat products out there on the market, including Skype, most of them require at least some software download to the computer. Something about the simplicity of TokBox, which is entirely a web application, suggests it might get very popular very fast.

Update:

Ryan Merket whipped up a Facebook application that integrates the TokBox chat player.

Update2: Check out competitor YouCams as well.

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Facebook + iPhone = UltraCool

A pairing of the two most hyped tech products of the year: Facebook released what is arguably the single best iPhone-customized website to date at iphone.facebook.com. Like the Netvibes iPhone site which launched late yesterday, it isn’t much to look at in a normal browser. But open that thing up in an iPhone and you’ve got a very usable site.

The site uses javascript to avoid page refreshes, although there is still some lag in moving around the site (this is an iPhone issue). The main navigation tabs - Home, Profile, Friends and Inbox - are at the top of the site. Click on any person and see their profile, wall or photos via a horizontally scrolling interface.

Overall I’d give this a top rating except for the occasional javascript error that crashed it out. Given that this hasn’t officially launched yet, I’d actually expect more bugs than I was able to find.

I have not seen a better iPhone website than this one. If you have, let me know. A lot of startups are going to look to this as the gold standard. At least for now.

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Kongregate Closes $5 Million Series A For Casual Gaming

Casual gaming community Kongregate has closed a $5 million series A round led by Greylock today. This is on top of a $1 million angel round they raised from Reid Hoffman, Joe Kraus, Jeff Clavier and Richard Wolpert, among others. The casual gaming category consists of all those addictive online flash games that often distract you during your downtime (remember desktop tower defense?). James Slavet of Greylock pegs the casual game market at $500 million and expects it to grow even larger.

Compared to the incumbents like Miniclip, Kongregate is modeling itself after Xbox Live. They have built a gamer social network around the games, where gamers can gain ranking, earn awards, and collect trading cards (used in another game). Developers are encouraged to upload games to the site through “game of the week” contests and a revenue share of the ads that are displayed next to the games as they are played (25%-50% depending on exclusivity).

Kongregate plans on putting the lions share of the cash towards site development. As part of that, Kongregate will be financing 8 to 9 developers to create premium games for about $20-$80,000 each. Each of the games will have a free version with an optional paid upgrade to a full version. In exchange for a limited time exclusive distribution agreement, developers will get the majority of that income. Development times are expected to take 2 to 6 months. Kongregate also plans on monetizing through game specific sponsorships (once they hire an advertising manager). They’ve taken a large round considering their burn rate is $80,000 a month for a team of 9.

Since launching last October, Kongregate has gone through some significant growth. The site has grown to 800,000 uniques last month (300K May, 50K March), with 60,000 registered users. Those visitors can choose from a library of 1,400 games and play for an overage of 38 minutes on the site.

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Monday, August 13, 2007

Daughter's mustard allergy has mother on guard

Emily Evans-Corkery, 3, is allergic to mustard, once developing hives as big as golf balls. (PATRICIA McDONNELL FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE) By John Guilfoil, Globe Correspondent | August 12, 2007 BRAINTREE -- Carol Evans knew her daughter had a peanut ...
Cashews shown to cause trigger more allergic reactions ABC7Chicago.com
all 17 news articles »


http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn

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Sunday, August 12, 2007

Seahawks Notebook: Lineman catches on quickly

By CLARE FARNSWORTH SAN DIEGO -- So when does Rob Sims start getting reps with the wide receivers in training camp practices? The second-year left guard lived the fantasy of every offensive lineman Sunday night, when he caught a Matt Hasselbeck pass ...
MMQB: Seahawks 24, Chargers 16 Seahawks.net
Seahawks get past Chargers 24-16 Houston Chronicle
Long Beach Press-Telegram - Lawrence Journal World - SBR Forum - Rocky Mountain News
all 197 news articles »


http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn

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Qwest Names Edward A Mueller Chairman And CEO

The Denver provider of telecom systems said Mueller succeeds Richard Notebaert, who said in June he would retire. The company said Mueller has more than 34 years of telecommunications industry experience, including tenures as CEO of Ameritech and ...
Edward A. Mueller Named New Qwest CEO Forbes
Qwest Communications names Edward Mueller CEO Reuters
Wall Street Journal - InfoBolsa - KJCT8.com - RTT News
all 29 news articles » Q - WSM


http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn

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3 Killed in Mo. Church Shooting

By MARCUS KABEL 08.13.07, 12:01 AM ET A gunman opened fire in the sanctuary of a southwest Missouri church Sunday, killing a pastor and two worshippers and wounding several others, authorities said.
Three Shot Dead In Missouri Church Springdale Morning News
Official: Gunman kills three, including pastor, at Missouri church CNN International
St. Louis Post-Dispatch - KFVS - eFluxMedia (press release) - FOX News
all 672 news articles »



http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn

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Nokia Publishes Access Code For Mosh Private Beta

If you are going to have a private beta, it may be a good idea not to publish the access code to the site on your forums. But that is exactly what Nokia did with their new Mosh service.

If you want to see what Nokia Mosh is all about, just type “ALLACCESS” into the box on the landing page. You can then register for the service.

Mosh is actually a great idea, albeit not great enough to counter the iPhone tidal wave that is coming. It’s a portal that can be accessed from a normal computer or a Nokia mobile device where users upload and share content - applications, games, images, etc. These are then downloaded to the mobile device.

Coincidentally, Yahoo is also working on a new service with the working name “Mosh.”

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Google Closes Video Marketplace; Users Out Of Luck

Google ignominiously shut down its video marketplace today via an email to us and everyone else who’s ever tried the service. The product, announced in January 2006 at CES by Larry Page, was an answer to iTunes’ sales of television shows. It was largely forgotten afterwards and if sales were occuring, we didn’t hear much about it.

The email to users, which is copied below, also lets them know that any videos they’ve purchased will no longer be viewable. Money spent on videos is not being refunded, either. Users get a sixty day credit on their Google Checkout account instead. That should spur sales of their new overflow storage product, at least. I just wish I could use it on ebay. heh

It’s a mistake not to fully refund every dollar in video purchases. Users are going to be hesitant to try out Google services in the future if they can’t believe that something they are buying is really theirs to keep.

Hello,

As a valued Google user, we’re contacting you with some important information about the videos you’ve purchased or rented from Google Video. In an effort to improve all Google services, we will no longer offer theability to buy or rent vi deos for download from Google Video, ending the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program. This change will be effective August 15, 2007.

To fully account for the video purchases you made before July 18, 2007, we are providing you with a Google Checkout bonus for $5.00. Your bonus expires in 60 days, and you can use it at the stores listed here: http://www.google.com/checkout/signupwelcome.html. The minimum purchase amount must be equal to or greater than your bonus amount, before shipping and tax.

After August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos.

If you have further questions or requests, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

The Google Video Team

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Is Glam A Sham?

which is mostly an ad network but also owns a group of sites focused on women, is actively attempting to raise $200 million in a private round of financing. The company previously raised $18.5 million in December 2006.

The company has hired Allen & Company to represent them in the transaction, and has been distributing a private placement document to potential investors. They’ve actually distributed it a little too liberally - we have a copy and have embedded it at the bottom of this post.

Glam has driven revenue aggressively and say they’ll get to $21 million this year, and $150 million next year. Losses this year are expected to be around $3.7 million.

But the company is driving that revenue by selling ads for partner websites, not on their own page views. A minimal amount of research into their business shows that the company is an ad network, not a content site.

In the private placement document, Glam describes itself in the first sentence as “Glam Media is a Web 2.0 distributed media company that is number one in reach for women as reported by comScore Media Metrix.” I believe this is a perversion of the term “Web 2.0″ (see below - any company this deep in SEO shenanigans is very Web 1.0 focused) and the company certainly is not the largest womens site on the Internet. While revenue growth looks good, Glam isn’t really a content site. They’re little more than an ad network that is claiming the traffic for all of its partners to make it look like a huge womens destination site.

Traffic Nonsense

A cornerstone of the company’s argument for raising such a large round is their tremendous growth over the last twelve months. They boast of faster growth than MySpace, and claim to be the no. 1 womens website on the Internet with 19.1 million unique monthly users:

Glam Media has grown from 782,000 unique users in June 2006, to 19.1 million unique users in June 2007. By way of comparison, MySpace grew from 1.6 to 15.6 million unique users the year prior to its acquisition by News Corporation in July 2005. Glam has been ranked as the highest in traffic growth in the Top Web 100 web properties by comScore Media Metrix for the past 6 months. By May 2007, the Company had reached #1 ranking (in terms of traffic) in the women’s category, per comScore Media Metrix, within only 20 months after launch, beating iVillage/NBC which has held the top position for over nine years. Glam continues to be the #1 ranked website in the women’s category with a 23% lead ahead of iVillage/NBC, 85% ahead of AOL Living and 185% ahead of all CondeNast websites combined.

The problem is that it’s all complete nonsense. The growth in comscore numbers has nothing to do with more traffic coming to Glam’s websites. Rather, Glam sells advertising for a number of very large partners (see list of some of the largest to the right) and is able to claim credit at Comscore for their user numbers. So the comscore numbers for sites such as MyYearbook, Kaboodle (recently acquired) and Meez, among dozens of others, are being used to support the 19 million unique visitor number.

Glam also owns a number of pure SEO sites like free-beauty-tips.com, celebrity-hairstyles.org and others. These sites drive a lot of traffic from search engine queries and pump up the Comscore numbers dramatically, but provide, as far as I can tell, absolutely no original content.

In fact, the numbers are so inflated that Glam.com, the main website owned by the company, brings in just 654,000 unique monthly visitors, or about 3.4% of the 19 million the company claims.

We’ve uploaded June Comscore numbers for the entire Glam network that shows where these 19 million users are really coming from - other sites. See Glam’s Comscore breakdown here.

There is no way that this site can in good conscience claim the user numbers that they do in the private placement document. Comscore has long been criticized for allowing companies to “steal” the traffic of others to make themselves look much bigger than they really are. This is a perfect example of how that kind information could be used to mislead the public and potential investors. Glam is an advertising network, and runs a very good SEO operation, but they are not the no. 1 destination site on the Internet for women.


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