Written on December 23, 2008 – 6:28 pm Andrew Hyde, Startup Enthusiast, Power User of Many Things, Community Organizer
Kirtsy, a ‘digg for chicks’ recently (and still does) have a problem with users submitting porn sites. Sunday, a Twitter account @kirtsynews created quite a stir after it posted some very sexual updates, not aligned with the brand or userbase. Users complained, and blamed twitter for letting ‘brand hijacking’ happen, demanding that the account be suspended. A fan of the site created the account, growing the following to over 4000 users.
The only problem? The links of the account were directly from the Kirtsy RSS feed, and linked to the articles on the site. The only thing the account was guilty of was being exactly what the site was, user submitted links. In this case, a few adult industry website owners posted links to their site, and the bot published them.
So Kirtsy removes the porn, problem solved, right? No, in this digital lynchmob culture, users chose to place the blame on Twitter. The weird thing? It worked. Twitter removed the account for unspecified reasons. The account now reads “Sorry, the account you were headed to has been suspended due to strange activity.”
Yes, republishing an RSS feed is strange.
Couple this with the recent pulling of usernames and you must ask, do you just need a good story and a handful of friends to fake outrage to have a username pulled from twitter? Or would Twitter having a policy and sticking to it work?
I hope you like that post!
The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our 'About' page and subscribe to our RSS feed.
Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!
Written on December 17, 2008 – 10:18 pm Andrew Hyde, Startup Enthusiast, Power User of Many Things, Community Organizer
First Round Capital just send a clear message to startups looking for funding: “If you want to work with us, you have to dance. Dance baby, dance.” Sending a hat tip to Matt, they show all their funded startups doing a tribute.
We wish you all a fine 2009 and hope that you have much to dance about.
Written on December 3, 2008 – 9:55 am Andrew Hyde, Startup Enthusiast, Power User of Many Things, Community Organizer
Just after midnight BrightKite, a location based social network launched out of their private beta into an open registration. In their words:
Brightkite is a location-based social network. In real time you can see where your friends are and what they’re up to. Depending on your privacy settings you can also meet others nearby.
Think of Twitter mashed with Dodgeball with pictures, geotagging and threaded commenting. Yeah, I know, another Twitter like service, but the location and feature set makes this app a stand out.
Location checkins are done attaching you to businesses, cross streets or user defined placemarks. Notifications of nearby friends checking in happen via email, SMS (international too) and via their web interface. Users can directly message each other via the iPhone app or txt message, without exposing phone numbers.
Privacy is always a huge concern with anything dealing with location. BrightKite has some pretty advanced privacy features. You opt into each checkin and opt to share it with trusted friends or the general public.
One of the most interesting features is the BrightKite wall, where places can display all of their recent check ins, photos and notes via fullscreen flash (imagine this at a concert or coffeeshop). Users can check in and join BrightKite via txt message to the wall.
I’ve been using their application for a year now, and have found it to be incredibly compelling. Their developer API is open, and robust (their iPhone app is built on top of this). Here is a demo from their iPhone app, a new version is expected soon:
Disclosure: I’ve known the BrightKite guys from before they were accepted to TechStars, where I work.
Twitpay will then index my tweet in a Twitpay account. They track all the money that has been sent to and from this account with the ability to cash out or donate the money to a TwitPay charity. You can cancel a payment up to 30 minutes after you tweet it out, by sending a direct message to their account. Twitpay charges $.05 for sending amounts over $1 and users will occur the usual PayPal fees. Their FAQ helps quite a bit.
What is unique about Twitpay is that it doesn’t require the user to signup, if you have a twitter account, you are ready to go.
Written on November 18, 2008 – 5:56 am Andrew Hyde, Startup Enthusiast, Power User of Many Things, Community Organizer
Startup tarpipe is aiming to simplify the workflow of posting on social media sites. Their API enables users to do progressive things with their content in single actions. You can upload a photo from an email, have it post to a few such as uploading a photo, announcing this action with a tweet, sending an IM to a friend and send an email (and can do so at the same time). It does this without forcing the user to install a desktop or mobile application.
The big question for me is in how it will be used, and how it will differ from just creating a social media power user megaphone. I can see some people setting it up so that their Twitter, Pownce, away message, Jaiku, Flickr, Friend Feed, Tumblr and Plurk update every time they see fit, which would create an almost embarrassing echo chamber.
They are strong advocates for open source, and with their API can imagine some creative uses. Currently, I see uses that are neat (use IM to update your twitter) to useful (uploading your photos to several places) but don’t see a use of their API that absolutely shines. Yet.
Written on November 12, 2008 – 9:18 pm Andrew Hyde, Startup Enthusiast, Power User of Many Things, Community Organizer
OneRiot , a ’social search engine that finds the pulse of the web’ launched publicly today. The goal of the search engine is to create a realtime digg or reddit, where the most viewed sites on a topic rise to the top of the results. OneRiot is a rebranding of Me.dium.com (archive), which has installed millions of plugins to browsers tracking their viewing habits.
PNG .vs. JPEG (the most popular story on reddit)
OneRiot search: “PNG .vs. JPEG”
The popular comic was nowhere to be found.
The popular terms feature a specific editor made ‘backstory’ to the subject, making it possible to find your answer without clicking through to any other site. For instance a hot topic “OneRiot Launches ” reveals the ‘backstory’
“Backstory: OneRiot is a social search engine that finds the pulse of the web. Find the news, videos and products that people are talking about right now in relation to any search term. Don’t just find information, find the pulse of the web.”
It is just launched, and has some great easter eggs, such as this meta description: <meta content=”Get Tobias/Scott H to fill in this lovely keyword desc” name=”keywords”/>.
It will be exciting to see how the startup refines their results, and if those constantly changing results get indexed in other search engines.
Written on December 23, 2008 – 6:28 pm
Kirtsy, a ‘digg for chicks’ recently (and still does) have a problem with users submitting porn sites. Sunday, a Twitter account @kirtsynews created quite a stir after it posted some very sexual updates, not aligned with the brand or userbase. Users complained, and blamed twitter for letting ‘brand hijacking’ happen, demanding that the account be suspended. A fan of the site created the account, growing the following to over 4000 users.
So Kirtsy removes the porn, problem solved, right? No, in this digital lynchmob culture, users chose to place the blame on Twitter. The weird thing? It worked. Twitter removed the account for unspecified reasons. The account now reads “Sorry, the account you were headed to has been suspended due to strange activity.”
Just after midnight 
Twitpay
Startup 
OneRiot
Email
Facebook
Netlog
Linkedin
Twitter
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
