Brad on Twitter- bradthomas: getting ready for ben's soccer practice.October 3, 2008 bradthomas
- bradthomas: looks like otah and gross will be out this week against the chiefsOctober 3, 2008 bradthomas
- bradthomas: unexpected thunderstorm, thank goodness its nearly wednesdaySeptember 30, 2008 bradthomas
- bradthomas: back pain and the dentist are not a good combinationSeptember 24, 2008 bradthomas
- bradthomas: Panthers signed LB Donte Curry today. Curry was cut about a week ago, but will replace Dan Connor, who is on the IR with an ACL injury.September 23, 2008 bradthomas
Jun
13
I’m interested in social networking sites not named MySpace.com or Bebo.com — two of the largest on the web right now.
My focus is on some of the lesser-known ones: Virb.com, TagWorld.com, yfly.com and wallop.com.
You can see in the traffic graphs posted below that nearly each one had a huge spike that trailed off into a whimper, which generally means that people weren’t that thrilled with the offerings after their initial visit(s).
3 Months
6 Months
1 Year
TagWorld.com had the highest spike, which occurred around August 2006. Since then, it’s seen a gradual decline and now ranks second of the four profiled, finishing behind Virb.com.
Wallop.com also had a lot of initial buzz and a enjoyed a big traffic spike around the end of September last year, but hasn’t generated much traffic since then. My guess is that people didn’t like the big circle thing in the corner and the bugs that riddled the site. I thought it was a cool concept though, and it was my favorite of the four.
virb.com has actually gone up and has enjoyed a traffic boost since March of this year. Will it be the one to challenge MySpace.com?
Jun
9
The next social networking target: families
Filed Under commentary, cool stuff | 1 Comment
People are starting to figure out social networking is a good way to communicate with one another on the web and that it’s not just for teenagers any more.
There have been quite a few social networking sites to crop up lately that are focused on another segment of society: families.
Families share pictures and news, opinions and recipes. These sites aim to be your “social network” for your family:
MyFamily.com
“FREE family web sites for sharing photos, stories, news, and more.”
FamFridge.com
FamFridge isn’t live yet, but you can sign up to take part in their beta testing.
“FamFridge is a startup company aiming to enhance family communication and connectivity through technology.”
Zooof.com (3 o’s)
“With ZOOOF you can discover, expand and maintain your family ties!
* Choose from 35 languages
* Build a contemporary interactive family tree
* Invite family members to a private environment
* Write your biography and immortalize your family history
* Chat, mail and share!
* Discover the ZOOOF Family levels
* Join for free”
Famiva.com
“Welcome to the premier social network for families, a secure and password-protected place for you and your relatives to connect and collaborate. Work together to build the family tree, visualize the extended family network, share photos and stories, stay current with family events and reminders, explore family maps, and much more. Best of all, Famiva is completely free.”
Amiglia.com
$50.00 per year
“# Family tree with photos that you can blog
# Linked albums of related families
# Personal profiles linked to nuclear family
# Family facebook of your entire family
# Family calendar with birthdays and events
# Maps of geolocated photos
# Easy tagging for people, themes, places
# Easy search for family photos
# Elegant slideshows to view, email and blog
# Music uploads to any slideshow
# Intergrated Skype calling and chats
# Riya import
# Interactive photo-based babies’ games
# Easy mass uploading
# Upload by email or with camera phone
# Import from Flickr or Photoshop Album
# Easy GEDCOM imports at signup
# Video clips support (up to 5MB each)
# Advanced privacy, no spam, no ads
# Backup CDs or DVDs at minimal charge
# Email reminders for family birthdays”
I haven’t tried any of these, but I would like to hear about your experiences if you have used them in the past or are presently using them as your family’s social network.
Mar
11
Another MySpace killer? Virb.com could make a strong run
Filed Under Web development, commentary, cool stuff, tech | Leave a Comment
People are enamored with MySpace.com because it’s a behemoth. The fact is, though, that customizing it is hard, it has limited functionality and it’s owned by FOX (who will undoubtedly commercialize it and take away all the aspects of the site that people like presently).
Enter Virb.com.
Virb is like myspace in that you create an account, blog, upload videos, pictures, etc and connect with your friends. When setting up your profile page, however, they take away all the guesswork by giving either a WYSIWYG interface to change your layout, colors, etc. OR a custom place dedicated for you to input your HTML code to change your layout. They even give you a list of labels to include in your template, so for example, if you want to place a module of your top friends and 5 additional random friends in a div below your blog posts, all you need to do is put in $VIRB_topFriends(+5 Random) and it does that for you. They provide a list of available codes so you don’t have to guess.
If you are a Mr. (or Mrs.) Smartypants, you can even create your own module for inclusion in your pages.
It seems to do everything you’d want MySpace to do, and then some. It seems to be a little stronger in the customization category than Ning.com, which does have some features that I like better than Virb, like the Forum and the RSS integration. However both are more interesting, visually appealing and more user-friendly than MySpace.com.
List of Features from Virb.com:
Follow VIRB° as it continues to grow and new features are added. We’ve got a lot of stuff in the works and of course we can’t tell you EVERYTHING that’s coming, but here’s a glimpse of current and upcoming VIRB° features.
New Stuff
Invite Multiple Friends to a Group Much needed, grow your groups! (3/08)
Embed Your Virb Videos Offsite Widescreen video wherever you want to put it. (3/05)
Coming Soon
Blog Import via RSS feed will save you hours of Copy/Paste.
Expanded Features for Groups …after all Virb is about interaction.
Saving Multiple Profile Styles/Layouts …that last customization was really cool, you might want to use it again.
Not-as-new Stuff
Flickr Photo Feed means that using more than one photo sharing site doesn’t have to be twice as much work.
Multiple Taglines rotated randomly because we know you’ve got more wit than just one line.
Embedding of Approved Media gives you the ability to embed media from trusted sources, starting with Google, YouTube, Vimeo and Odeo.
Top Friends allows you to keep your best friends stuck on your profile… and you can rotate other friends into additional slots randomly.
Save Blog Drafts, then publish them when you’re ready.
Comment Categorization makes it easy to see who’s commented on your profile or media.
Basic Layout Editor gives you the ability to rearrange modules through a drag-and-drop interface.
Batch Edit for Friends allows you to update filters for many friends in one screen.
Announcement Filtering allows you to receive announcements from chosen friends only.
Recent Activity Filtering allows you to be notified of profile updates from chosen friends only.
Tailored Linking between Orgs and Members connects people to the organizations and projects that they’re a part of.
Gradient Removal on Virb Bar increases the flexibility of profile customization. (advanced CSS users only)
Lights Out Button darkens the page while you watch a video.
Remove Customization Button helps you get around messy or ugly profile customization.
Wide-screen Video player adjusts to the dimensions of videos that are uploaded.
VirbTunes for iTunes Tracking shows your friends what music you’ve been listening to and helps you find music.
Recent Activity lets you know when your friends have added new photos, videos or blogs.
Announcements are a quick way of getting a message to all of your friends.
Basic Style Editor is for anyone who isn’t a CSS pro. We like to make things easy!
Advanced HTML/CSS Editing for those of you are the CSS Pros. We like to make things flexible too!
Albums for Photos & Videos to keep things nice and organized.
Relationship Tags for Friends is an easy way to organize your college buddies or work friends… and to cross-reference them if you like.
Batch Edit for Photos simply saves you time keeping your photos organized.
Personal Music Player allows you to create a playlist of your favorite musicians on Virb.
Profile Music Player is another way to let your friends know what you’re listening to and adds a little audio to your profile.
Upcoming Shows lets you know which of your favorite musicians are playing in your area.
Module Nicknames show your creativity by letting you name your modules whatever you like.
Unlimited Personality Tag Sections let you go nuts tagging yourself… unrestricted.
Custom Modules are in case you want to put something in your profile that doesn’t fit anywhere else.
Privacy Settings are important to keeping you safe and surrounded by friends.
I have 14 friend invites left for Virb. Presently you don’t need them, but in the event that you do in the future, if you are interested in obtaining one, just reply to this post and I’ll send you one. You can check out the very basic profile I created HERE. I will be refining and investigating its features for the next few days, at least.
Feb
28
New MySpace, Skype virus threats spotted
User pages at the popular social networking site MySpace are being modified by versions of the Zlob Trojan, which is installing code that overlays its own window on top of the page, F-Secure Corp.’s chief researcher Mikko Hypponen wrote in the company’s security blog.
Zlob tries to download and run malicious software, or malware, from the internet, and looks to change Internet Explorer web browser settings, default search and home pages.
Be careful, myspace users, there is another trojan on the loose.
Jan
23
Watch episodes of 24 online for Free
Filed Under Entertainment and Sports, Internet Videos, TV | Leave a Comment
Check it out — http://creative.myspace.com/VOD/24/index.html
Watch all of the previous episodes of 24 online for free, streaming from MySpace.com and FOX.
UPDATE: 1-1-08 — FOX has pulled the video from the above link, but it still remains a page about 24 the TV show with links and stuff. Now you can watch episodes from season 1 and season 6, plus various other clips free with Hulu.com — Watch 24 on the internet for free with Hulu.com
Aug
19
YFLY.com: A real competitor to Myspace.com?
Filed Under cool stuff, tech | Leave a Comment
Yfly.com, a potential competitor to the internet giant MySpace.com, launched this week. From the Minneapolis StarTribune:
The difference: celebrity and technology. Yfly is touting itself as the official online home of athletes, musicians and Hollywood celebrities. The site has made deals with such stars as singers Nick Lachey and Justin Timberlake, NFL quarterback Matt Leinart and MTV personality Kristin Cavallari.
Yfly will offer fans the opportunity to interact with stars on “certified celebrity” home pages and plans to develop online marketing campaigns around the celebrities. The site is targeting users between ages 13 and 26.
Yfly also is using a new operating platform, Ruby on Rails, that its creators say is superior to MySpace’s technology.
“It allows the users to run more applications and make the site more interactive,” said Dutch Thalhuber, operations director for Space150, the Minneapolis digital-marketing firm that created Yfly and is handling marketing and advertising for the site. “This is the biggest Ruby project on the Web right now.” Upstart site takes on Web giant MySpace
YFly operates using Ruby on Rails, a relatively new open-source framework that’s built for programmers to write code favoring convention over configuration.
Other notable web applications running Ruby are Basecamp (project management), Campfire (group chats), 43Things (goal achievement), Odeo (audio management) and Shopify (e-commerce). Yfly’s creators think that with this superior technology and a focus on authenticated celebrity presences, it can realistically contend with MySpace.com for internet supremecy.
YFly boasts that they are the only site with authentic celebrity profiles and content, boasting the likes of Nick Lachey, Chris Brown, Matt Leinart, The Subways, JJ Redick, Justin Timberlake, Kristin Cavallari and Pharrell Williams. Profiles are viewable to non-members, but to use the features, one has to be a registered member. Yfly is currently open to registration of young adults 13-19 years of age only.
Those worried about security, (especially of impressionable and sometimes un-thinking young adults) will be glad to know that Yfly has already thought about how to best protect you and your information. Internet Security expert Parry Aftab is working with Yfly to make sure everyone stays safe and has fun.
YFly.com is dedicated to making their site fun, innovative and safe for its users. It has the most innovative programs to teach teens safe, secure and responsible technology use. These include “ThinkB4UClick”, “Best Foot Forward” and “Don’t Be Stupid”, as well as public service messaging and announcements designed to teach them to look out for themselves and each other online. But no matter how careful a site is, whenever lots of teens hang out online, it’s inevitable that some things will go wrong. Some teens forget their manners and smart behavior when they’re online. They may do this thinking they can’t be discovered or held accountable. They may think they are invulnerable or not realize the risk involved. Sometimes they don’t think at all.
That’s why YFly.com has a powerful reporting system designed to refer reports from the teens to those in charge, including me. Ultimately it is up to users (even teen users) to act responsibly and not put themselves at risk in cyberspace (and up to parents to protect our children). We will help parents and teens learn how to do that. Expect many more guides coming soon. We’re typing and coding as fast as we can.
technorati tags:myspace.com, yfly.com, celebrities, social-networking, ruby
Aug
1
MySpace.com’s vulnerabilities
Filed Under tech | Leave a Comment
An audit of two popular social-networking sites found a dozen wormable vulnerabilities in less than an hour, a researcher for antivirus firm F-Secure stated on Thursday.
The company performed the research following three high-profile security incidents targeting popular social-networking site MySpace in the last year. Most recently, a banner ad on MySpace compromised almost 1.1 million computers, according to analysts at VeriSign’s security consultancy, iDefense.
Social-networking sites rife with wormable flaws
Not knowing who this user was, I obviously clicked the link (as almost everyone would) to view their profile to see who they were and decide whether or not I would accept them as my friend, not expecting anything bad to happen. But after clicking the link to the profile, I was instantly redirected to a site with explicit pictures which all linked to the same “video” page. I hadn’t expected something like that to happen thinking that MySpace had fixed these kind of issues that had come up previously on the site.
Investigating further, the “video” page was actually just a fake windows media player looking picture that said “Windows Media Player is unable to play movie file.
Please click here to download new version of codec.” I downloaded the file named “mediacodec.exe” expecting full well for it to be malicious. I scanned the file with ClamWin and certainly enough, the file scan gave a “Trojan.Downloader.Zlob-473 FOUND“.
I encountered this very same scenario a few weeks ago. Lovely. I wonder how many people fell for this and didn’t realize it, and have the virus on their computers…
technorati tags:myspace.com, viruses, trojans, vulnerabilities
Aug
1
Wal-mart is like so rad, ok?
um… yeah.
The execs at Wal-Mart have come up with “the Hub” — a myspace-like site geared towards back to school. As far as I remember, that is the most depressing day of the year for kids. Let’s blog about it, or perhaps make some short wal-mart commercials so that we can be laughed at for the rest of our scholastic lives!
Wal-Mart has started the Hub, which bears some of the features of a My-Space-like social network, but appears to be essentially an advertising vehicle that encourages teens to create commercials for the retail chain and post them to the site. The Hub allows users to create pages and videos, somewhat like MySpace. It tells them to express “individuality,” but screens their posts and doesn’t allow them to e-mail each other. The site is running a contest for the best video submissions about how much the submitter likes Wal-Mart (schoolyourway.walmart.com).
Wal-Mart Web site seems to try too hard to be hip
A quick glance at The Hub leaves the impression that social networking is not Wal-Mart’s forte, but rather, hiring a teen focus group is. One member Ashley, whose profile is called “Tap into Fashion,” writes: “Shopping will be my number ONE hobby this fall….I’ll be on the lookout for the latest fashions. From leggings to layers, to boots and flats, big belts, and headbands!”Maybe Ashley really is into fashion, but her language suggests that a career in marketing might be a better fit.
Wal-Mart’s awkward dress-up as MySpace | News.blog | CNET News.com
technorati tags:wal-mart, myspace.com, social-networking, the-hub, lame
Aug
1
Myspace.com losing ground to YouTube.com
Filed Under Internet Videos, Web development, tech | Leave a Comment
One of my favorite new-ish sites, YouTube.com, is quickly gaining ground on one of my not-so-favorite sites, MySpace.com.
YouTube has established itself at the top of the league of the new generation of community websites by becoming even more popular than MySpace, according to research.The video sharing site has taken a 3.9% share of global internet visits a day compared with 3.35% for MySpace, according to internet analysis company Alexa
Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | YouTube overtakes MySpace
According to Nielsen/NetRatings, YouTube’s American user base grew by 297% in the first half of the year.
Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | YouTube overtakes MySpace
YouTube’s reach - the number of users per million that visit a particular site - has increased by 155% in the past three months.In contrast, MySpace’s growth appears to have slowed, increasing by just 9% in the same period.
Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | YouTube overtakes MySpace
However, there is a LOT of crap on YouTube.com, including psuedo-porn, japanese (or otherwise Asian) cartoons and general “Hey look at me for no reason” video. One of the big draws also is people putting copyrighted stuff like movie trailers or leaked snippits on there and you viewing it before it is deleted. It’s almost like a web “happening” — (in the art world, are performances, events, or situations meant to be considered as art — wikipedia ).
I am hoping it will evolve into like an online, on-demand TV station with quality shows (ask a ninja, rocketboom, homestarrunner, etc) aggregated there.
technorati tags: myspace.com, youtube.com, video, traffic,
Aug
1
» YouTube, Digg, MySpace: How much is a non-paying user worth?
Filed Under Web development, cool stuff, tech | Leave a Comment
» YouTube, Digg, MySpace: How much is a non-paying user worth? | Digital Micro-Markets | ZDNet.com
So, how much is a non-paying MySpace user worth?Using very rounded numbers, here is a “quick and dirty” analysis:
MySpace 2005 acquisition price: $580 million
MySpace 2006 “friends” user base: 100 million
MySpace 2006 ad revenues: $200 million
MySpace acquisition price reflects an approximate multiple of $5-$6 per “friend.”
MySpace is currently generating approximately $2 in revenue per “friend.”
The MySpace effort to grow ad revenues since its acquisition by News Corp. last year provides would be bidders for Digg, YouTube…a valuable reference for measuring the financial potential of a large, non-paying base of young Internet users.