I’ve been in the social media space now for quite a few years and I meet with at least 5 companies each week who have understood the importance of utilizing social media for their businesses but are still afraid of entering their brands into the new media age.

What are they worried about? Here are the top five concerns that I’ve heard from executives and my response to them:

1) They’re afraid they’ll lose control of their brand and open themselves up to negative feedback.

When you open a business and start marketing your services and exposing your brand to others, people will start talking about your brand. And this is what you wanted right? This is why you exposed them to your brand in the first place. People are going to be talking about your brand no matter what.

The question is:Do you want to be a part of the dialogue or do you want to just play ostrich and ignore what people are saying? If a person is dissatisfied with your services, do you prefer he opens up this discussion in a “I hate <your brand>” group opened up by another hater or do you prefer that he come to your page and post the complaint there allowing you to respond appropriately and even perhaps win him back as a client?

Social media didn’t create the dissatisfied customer – it only allowed him a platform to express his frustration. If you don’t give him the stage to speak, he will do it elsewhere and believe me, it will cause a great deal more damage to your brand if you’re not there to respond and open to criticism.

When we speak of social media, we speak of conversational marketing – listening before selling, opening a dialogue with the user and not just throwing a blinking banner in his face. Brands need to make that switch in their heads and understand that social media is SOCIAL. Many conversations will be positive and you will have these nice messages recorded for everyone to see publicly – your bosses, your investors, your customers and potential customers:

Some conversations may be negative but these conversations should be seen as welcomed opportunities to regain customers. If you utilize social media effectively and are alert to what people are saying about you online, then you can also respond in a timely and intelligent manner. When you’re dazed and confused and too afraid to see what people may be saying about you, that’s when the conversation can get out of control and your branding and positioning can go out the window. Companies who understand social media know that by using social media they are increasing the number of positive responses to their brand and making sure to control and decrease the negative responses by showing people that they actually care about what they have to say.

2) They don’t understand it

Companies fear social media because they don’t understand what to do with it, what to talk about, who to turn to. They often time try to do it in-house without the appropriate guidance, fail miserably and then say that social media doesn’t work. Don’t hire your friend’s son who is very active on Facebook to do your marketing strategy for you. Just like you wouldn’t fix your car in-house or do your PR in-house, neither should you start doing social media on your own without having a social media guru at your side. And when I say guru, I mean someone who has had a good track record in creating successful social media campaigns for other companies in the past. Once you have such a guide at your side and you begin to understand what social media is all about, then you will not be afraid of it anymore and you will start to recognize the infinite number of amazing opportunities that social media will open your brand to.

3) The effectiveness of social media is hard to measure

Since social media is still in it’s diapers, it took a little while for tools tracking the ROI on social media campaigns to emerge, however today we have a suite of different tools that allow companies to track even the most minute details in the effectiveness of their social media campaigns.

Tools like Google Analytics which allow us to track the traffic coming into our site as well as where it’s coming from has existed for years. Google alerts which allow us to see the blog posts and other sites linking back to our site have also existed for a long time. And we are now seeing an influx of services that not only allow you to easily monitor what people are saying about your brand but also see who are the top influencers, opinion leaders in your industry and more. There are numerous services that allow you to see the top influencers on twitter such as: Twitter grader and twitter analytics services such as Twitalyzer . Facebook also provides its own insights to page admins and enables admins to view information regarding the demographics of their fans and also how many interactions, comments, wall posts, etc. were found on the page. The more we learn about social media, the more tools we get to measure it.

Not only are our efforts in the social media realm measurable but social media campaigns also allow us to target specific campaigns to specific niches like no other media today.

4) They’re afraid that employees will be on Facebook and twitter chatting all day.

Facebook today has around 350 million users. If Facebook was a nation, it would be the world’s third most populous after China and India. Your employees are there anyway. Why not utilize the fact that they are there to help your cause? When you need to spread the word on Facebook, why not enable your employees to help you or when you finally open that fan page on Facebook, why not allow your employees to become fans and encourage them to take part in your social media activities. Dell for example, who is well known for their great twitter strategy (a strategy which has earned them $6.5 million to date), has around 200 employees working its twitter account, responding to people.

In addition, not allowing your employees to have access to the vast amount of information that can be found on social networks as well as not enabling them to use these networks as research tools nor to network with people in the industry also puts your company at a great disadvantage to your competitors who do allow their employees (and even encourage them) to use social media tools.

5) Social media is costly.

This last fear is not only something that companies should not fear but it is also not true. If you consider the millions of people that you can reach using social media as opposed to the cost of buying an ad on TV or buying a banner, you’ll see that social media is one of the most cost efficient ways of reaching your target audience today.

To anyone who still thinks social media is a fad, WAKE UP. It’s not. Social media is here and it’s here to stay. If you took a look at the latest report that came out of Davos regarding social networks, you’ll see that Facebook is now the second most popular site on the internet after Google and that according to Nielsen since February 2009 people have been spending more time on social-networking sites than on e-mail, and the lead is getting bigger. The question for your brand is no longer whether to be there or not to be there. The question is WHEN will you be there and the longer you keep your head in the ground, the more you’ll lose touch with what’s happening out there in the real world.

Great Ostrich pic credit: http://blog.karmona.com

Original title and link for this post: The Top Five Reasons Brands Fear Social Media

If we look back at history , we find that long before Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, there was ICQ.

For anyone who doesn’t know, ICQ was created in 1996 and is now wholly owned by AOL. ICQ was THE pioneer of social media and real time updates. It introduced us to instant messaging and a revolutionary new way to communicate with people instantly in real time. ICQ could have been Facebook or Twitter a long time ago.

It’s taken ICQ quite a long time to get back to its status as a social pioneer but now with it’s new client, ICQ is getting back to what it was about all the way from the beginning – a place to interact with your friends everywhere. Everybody Everywhere is after all ICQ’s slogan and being an ICQ veteran myself, I am very excited to announce the launch of the new ICQ 7.

ICQ 7 is a client that brings together all your social interactions from across the Web. Instead of having to open a few different pages and applications to get my friends’ status updates on Facebook, to read tweets of my favorite people and to follow what’s happening on other sites as well such as Youtube, Flickr, Digg and Delicious. ICQ 7 allows me to use one personal communication tool to integrate all my online social activities. I am able to syndicate my updates to all of my social networks with a single click and get status updates & tweets from all my friends in my networks in one single platform.

ICQ 7 enables real-time updates from content sharing sites and top social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Digg and Delicious and will soon announce the integration of local social networks.

Found side by side with the ICQ Contact List, users can find a separate tab of real time feeds and updates from their friends from their various social networks. Users will no longer need to open up a new browser and log in to separate networks that they’re members of each time they want to comment on their friend’s updates. From now on, consider ICQ to be your social networks’ one-stop-shop. No longer will I need to search for content on different platforms – the content finds me. ICQ 7’s interface is also improved with software that is fully compatible with all versions of Microsoft Windows, including Windows 7.

My Status: Status updates I make on ICQ can be automatically posted in my other supported networks as well. I can also easily share pictures and links.

Feeds from Friends: Updates made by user’s friends on leading social networks and content sharing sites appear in real time in the “Feeds from Friends” tab on the contact list. The user can comment on these updates directly from his/her ICQ and the comment will appear also in the relevant social network/site. ICQ users can see updates from all their friends in the various social networks – not just from friends that have ICQ.

My Box: The “My Box” tab on the ICQ Contact List is the place where ICQ users get all notifications of their personal online activity – who commented on my status and in which site, who liked the photos I uploaded, etc.

New User Profile: ICQ 7 presents a more enhanced user profile – both within the client and on the Website. The user profile is the place where users can display who they are by sharing pictures and personal updates on their page. The new user profile is now offered in color schemes that are fully customizable to suit the user’s mood. Additionally, the new user profile allows ICQ users to view their friends’ contact lists and add new people to their own contact list, thereby increasing their circle of friends.

Picture-Sharing Tool: A new, quick and fun application for sharing pictures with friends:

Faster, Lighter: ICQ 7 performance has been vastly improved with installation time reduced by nearly 50% and requested space for installation reduced approximately by 30%.

ICQ 7 offers a Social Messaging client that enables quick and easy communication friends from across networks, ability to view real-time updates from: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Digg and Delicious. ICQ’s Managing Director, Eliav Moshe, says:

“ICQ 7 brings Social Messaging into play, integrating users’ online social world with their personal communication tool. The new version answers users’ needs for a quick and easy communication tool that also helps you be up to date with everything that’s going on in multiple social networks and content sharing sites. With a loyal community of over 42 million users worldwide, we are working on the upcoming integration of local social networks into ICQ 7 as well.”

It is only fitting that the company that was the pioneer of the Web 2.0 era has now integrated this Web 2.0 world into one manageable space in the best possible manner. Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think. In my opinion it offers the best solution we have today for one platform which integrates all my social interactions into one convenient platform.

Become an ICQ fan on Facebook

Check out their Twitter

(Disclosure: Blonde 2.0 is ICQ’s social media firm)

Original title and link for this post: ICQ Launches ICQ 7 – Introduces Social Messaging Across Networks

Starbucks has over 705,000 followers on twitter and over 5,428,000 fans on Facebook. You could say that they’re doing something right on the Web. What is it about Starbucks’s social media strategy that makes it so successful?

Let’s analyze Starbucks social behavior across the Web:

1) Starbucks on twitter - Starbucks engages with customers on twitter, answerING questions, retweets, what people are saying about the brand and creates an open communication channel to speak with the public.

2) Starbucks on Facebook – Starbucks uploads content to their Facebook page such as: Videos, blog posts, photos. The company also invites people to events. Fans have a place to open discussions and comment as many of them do.

3) Starbucks on YouTube -Over 4800 people subscribe to Starbucks YouTube Channel. They upload videos of commercials as well as informational videos explaning the origins of the different coffee blends and some of their charity work videos. They also upload videos showing their history thus enabling people to relate more to the brand. This video showing the beginnings of Starbucks received over 11, 800 views:

Starbucks also allows people to embed its videos anywhere they like on the Web. Many companies don’t allow this because they’re afraid their videos might end up on places they don’t want to be associated with. However, from Starbucks’ experience as well as the experience of other brands (such as Dell), this strategy has proven to only increase the positive exposure of brands that allow embedding and not the opposite.

4) My Starbucks Idea – Starbucks’ own version of a social network where customers are asked to share their ideas on anything related to Starbucks. The site gives users the ability to see what others are suggesting, vote on ideas and check out the results. This site is a brilliant and important aspect of Starbucks social media strategy. Users who are part of this network feel that they have some role in the decision making process of the company and it makes them feel a part of it.

5) Starbucks Blog entitled “Ideas in Action” - This blog is written by various Starbucks employees and talks about what Starbucks is doing with the ideas given by users on the My Starbucks Idea site. The blog keeps customers in the loop and in the know regarding what’s happening with their ideas and increases their sense of loyalty to the brand.

Overall Starbucks’s social media strategy integrates many different elements into the mix and combined together, these elements create a social media plan that works beautifully to create millions of fans for the brand and keep them involved in the brand’s doings. The brand has created a digital dialogue with its customers, enabling people to give their feedback and receive a response back from Starbucks addressing their concerns/comments. Starbucks is showing its customers and potential customers – “hey, we care about what YOU have to say.”

I am certain that if each one of these elements was implemented alone then the strategy would not have been as successful and complete as with the rest of the elements on board. Many brands can learn a great deal from the way that Starbucks conquered the social web. It is really all a matter of priorities. Starbucks put communicating with their customers and potential customers as a top priority. Do you?

Original title and link for this post: The Starbucks Formula for Social Media Success

10. May Google Wave turns out to be a lot more convincing than what I’ve seen so far

9. May people stop giving relevance to terms like Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 and start giving relevance to what those terms mean

8. May advertisers finally admit the fact that that they cannot do without social media playing an integral part in their campaigns

7. May Web entrepreneurs start thinking more about the type of Web tools that people have a need for rather than being so concerned about replicating what’s already a huge success

6. May information on the Web really live up to the dream and starts finding us instead of us needing to search for it

5. May people begin to understand that conversational marketing is about having a dialogue with people and not about who had the best monologue

4. May data portability between various platforms become more simple and efficient

3. May bloggers finally get the respect they deserve from the community

2. May email turn to twitter – each mail cannot be longer than 140 characters (that’s including attachments)

1. May more tools focusing on citizen journalism and real time updating services enable us all to be more aware of what’s happening in the world around us and bring us all closer together

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy 2010. I hope that at least a few wishes in each of our lists come true in the upcoming year.

Image credit: Oliver Widder

Original title and link for this post: My Top 10 Wishes for the Web in 2010

Many B2B companies ask me whether Social Media is right for them. This post is all about why social media and B2B go hand in hand. Social Media is all about conversational marketing and this is why it works so well with B2B strategy.

Social media is not about the masses. It is about reaching your target audience. Listening before selling and hearing before talking. Oftentimes businesses like to measure a social media campaign’s success by the number of followers its Twitter account has or the number of fans its Facebook page has, however, these measures are not necessarily the signs to a well-executed social media campaign.

Social media is all about the few rather than the many. The community you build up is ideally made up of the people who are most interested in your brand. If we apply the 80-20 rule here, we are speaking of the 20% who make up 80% of your business.

B2B strategy, just like B2C strategy is all about networking, conversing with the right people, at the right time. The more in tune you are to things that are happening in your network, the more you increase your chances to be at the right place, at the right time.

According to eMarketer in 2010, these will be the results for online marketing spending:

As you can see, Website spending is forecast to rise 71% and social media spending will increase 60% in the next year.

It is apparent that companies are understanding that they need to: 1) Create a social presence within social networks and 2) Create a Website and/or blog that reflects an active online presence.

As to the reasons most B2B companies are using social networks, emarketer had the following results:

As you can see, companies turn to social networks to show their leadership in their field, to find new potential customers by communicating with the community, to receive customer feedback and give customer service. There’s no better tool these days than twitter to handle real-time customer service issues and many brands do this beautifully, including ComcastCares, Dell, and Starbucks. They also advertise and do market research via social networks.

What about the reasons that companies use social media?

The top reason B2B companies (just like B2C companies) use social media is to generate awareness about their brand. Second top reason is to engage with customers on an on-going daily basis. As you can see, the 3rd top reason that companies use social media is to engage with top influencers on the Web.

Monitoring online conversations and responding to feedback is an extremely important element of social media which only 14% of companies seem to understand.

B2B companies that are not utilizing the social tools they are given today, will find themselves at a major disadvantage to other B2B companies that are using LinkedIn, twitter and other such networks to extend their reach and create better communication between the brand and their customers and potential customers.

Next time you doubt whether social media is right for B2B companies, think about what B2B strategy is all about – it is about the relationships and partnerships you build with your colleagues and there’s no better way to do this today than through social media.

Image credit: StickyMessage

Original title and link for this post: Why B2B Companies Should Be Using Social Media

Yesterday, I attended the Biz Stone press conference hosted by the College of Management here in Israel.

Biz didn’t surprise us with any new acquisitions but mostly talked about the role that twitter has been playing until now and what the future holds for twitter. He did mention that 2010 is the year that twitter will start eyeing acquisitions and making real money.

For everyone who wanted to be there, but couldn’t, don’t say i didn’t think of you…here’s the video (separated into two due to YouTube limitations):

Original title and link for this post: Biz Stone Talks Future of Twitter

Last week Eytan Galai, brother of Yaron Galai (Founder of Quigo that sold to AOL) showed off all the latest that’s been happening over at Outbrain.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Outbrain is a content ratings & recommendations widget that sits on many sites across the web. We use it ourselves at the bottom of our posts.

Recently Outbrain launched its revenue program OutLoud. For just $10 a month, you can submit an interesting article to OutLoud. Outbrain will then take the articles you submitted and recommend them on relevant pages across the thousands of sites using their content recommendation engine, from USA Today, Slate, The Next Web, Fox and Tribune to Golf.com, and the SportingNews.

When I started questioning the high monthly fee, Eytan insisted that I give him any two links I desire which he will then put into the system and let me see the results for myself. Last Wednesday I sent Outbrain the links and they were put into the system on Friday. Once I activated my account online I was able to get into the section called “Advertising Report” – there I found and could follow analytics data such as # of impressions and clicks for each link submitted.

From the start of our activity until now, I must say that the number of impressions has been quite high but the number of clicks significantly lower than I expected it based on the fact that the links were supposed to be directed at a specific audience who enjoyed similar content. As my friend Eze Vidra from VCCafe put it:

“In essence, OutLoud provides a cost-effective way to target sponsored articles to organic content on leading publisher sites and thousands of blogs. In comparison with ‘normal’ PPC advertising, Outloud catches the users in a ‘reading mode’ rather than a ‘researching’ or ’shopping’ mode, which is often the case with SEM promotion.”

Please note that I was told by Outbrain on Sunday that one of my links was not indexed properly so I should be seeing better results pretty soon. Today – Monday I must say I do like the fact that there’s no limitations on how many impressions I can receive for each link submitted.

So who submits links to OutLoud? According to Outbrain:

• The excited marketer wanting to drive word-of-mouth by amplifying positive reviews and articles about their company
• The proud blogger who wants their most brilliant posts to reach a larger audience
• The innovative PR professional trying to find new ways to distribute press releases and earned media
• The social media director, trying to build community by exposing larger audiences to a company blog, or to conversations happening on other sites about their products
• The passionate blog reader who fell in love with an article which perfectly expresses her point-of-view and who wants to make sure others are exposed to it too

The Link/s that are put in the OutLoud system continuously receive more and more impressions. As Outbrain say on their blog:

“At $10, OutLoud is really a no-brainer. If you analyze the opportunity for more than a few minutes, you’ve already spent more than you would by just trying it. Imagine, thousands of people exposed to your chosen content for less than the cost of a beet salad.”

While this is all true, and I think the idea itself is excellent, $10 is still quite a substantial fee for which I still think I deserve a cool feature like knowing which specific blogs my link appeared on and how many clicks it got in each blog.

Despite the lower than expected click through rate I am experiencing at this point I am more than confident in Outbrain’s capability to deliver at the end due to its strong team. Outbrain is turning out to be an innovative thinker in finding ways to monetize itself and at the same time stick to its philosophy of giving more value to readers.

The question is: Will it be able to monetize and at the same time promise completely relevant content all the time? Time will tell. I have a lot of faith in these guys who I believe have gathered quite a substantial amount of information about blogs until now and will continue to grow the number of sites using their content recommendation engine. Such factors will obviously determine the success of OutLoud and its ability to keep even paid links of top quality and relevant to the content at hand.

Original title and link for this post: Outbrain Introduces The Incentives of OutLoud

These days we live in an era of a historian’s wet dream. We are consistently recording history through all our social tools.

Our actions, feelings, thoughts, our everything, constantly being recorded. From where we are eating, to what we are annoyed about, to what it is that makes us tick. Not only are we recording the “big” things but we are recording EVERYTHING. It’s history without hiccups.

Ben Parr wrote an excellent post on Mashable on the topic. “For the first time in human history, the day-to-day interactions between people are being permanently recorded and formatted in easily organizable segments of information.”

Millions of us are publicly recording our daily activities on our twitter feeds for the world to know for the rest of time. All details are recorded from who we were with and what we were doing to when and where. Historians in the future will not need to guess any details. They’ll have all the information right in front of them.They’ll actually probably know more than they care to know. With pictures on Flickr and videos on YouTube and texts on twitter and links on Facebook and top it all of, personal blogs, historians will have all the info they need and more about each and every one of us and our interactions with one another.

I can already see future museums displaying this era as an era of communications galore when everyone (well, almost everyone) was about transparency and openness – kind of like the 60’s but digital – free social love for all. We cannot share enough of our daily doings with one another and we cannot hear enough. We long for the feedback from our surroundings and the immortality of our souls by recording everything we do. We feed on the interactions surrounding us.

It is not a coincidence that today Reality TV is one of the most (if not THE most) popular TV genres. People like to watch other people’s lives. For this same reason social tools are also so popular – people like to see what others are doing and interact with them while they’re doing it. People are looking for ways to connect more with one another no matter what geographical location they’re at. In what other age was it so easy to interact with someone two continents away from you?

We are learning more about each other’s cultures, actions, relating more to one another. Perhaps world peace will be achievable? Perhaps we’ll learn to get along? Social media tools are definitely changing the face of history.

I cannot write such a post of course without mentioning the story of how the U.S. State Department reached out to Twitter and asked them to delay a network upgrade that was scheduled in June 2009 in order to allow Iranians using the service to protest the presidential election that took place on June 12. Twitter moved the upgrade to a later time. Lev Grossman from Time.com writes: “Twitter didn’t start the protests in Iran, nor did it make them possible. But there’s no question that it has emboldened the protesters, reinforced their conviction that they are not alone and engaged populations outside Iran in an emotional, immediate way that was never possible before.”

There is no question that social tools are changing the face of history. The real question is: Are we fully ready for the change and its future consequences? Are we all ready for an era of total transparency?

Picture credit: Andrew Long

Original title and link for this post: An Era of Total Transparency

In my opinion twitter is the best tool we have today to engage with others, spread a message, network, meet other like-minded people, and stay on top of the news, in any industry. The only aspect I’ve always found problematic on twitter was the impossibility of organizing information. This is something that’s changed now with the new twitter lists which allow you to organize people in any sort of list you like.

So how have you been using lists? What sort of names have you been giving your lists?It’s quite interesting to see what lists people have put you under and how you have been “categorized”. With twitter lists, I can put people I am following into specific categories. So for example, I have created lists of “bloggers”, “social media”, “brands”, etc.

Twitter lists are going to change the way we network and socialize. No longer are we going to have a list of journalists’ emails to send a press release to but rather we will have a twitter list of all these journalists with their twitter handles. Patrick Kitano writes in his post entitled Twitter Lists will Organize the social graph: “It takes an individual an hour to build a 200-person Twitter List in comparison to the days / weeks it takes to attain a 200-fan FB page. This will make Twitter Lists the prolific standard for organizing the social graph.”

Each of us is organizing his/her own “following” or rather social graph is basically helping twitter organize its database for them. These lists will become invaluable to us both professionally and socially. However, please note that one twitter account can only create 20 lists and each list can only contain 500 members, so choose your lists carefully and who’s in them even more carefully. Robert Scoble wrote an excellent post describing the limitations, bugs, impact and brilliance of twitter lists.

The feature itself I think is revolutionary. The interface and usability? Well, not as great. So here is my top 10 list of suggestions for improving twitter lists:

10) Include a “Featured Lists’ section each day/week, based on the user’s interests/preferences

9) Ability to invite people to a private list

8 ) Ability to combine lists

7) Ability to search within specific lists

6) “Ability to build lists by search across following/followers and automatic list creation. For example, I could build an instant list of Berkeley real estate agents by searching “Berkeley real estate” across my following, and clicking a presumed button called “Automatic List” (Credit: Patrick Kitano)

5) Allow special features for lists, for example: Being able to send a message to all the members of a particular list

4) Allow the ability to decide which lists will display on your sidebar

3) Allow to easily search for people while adding them to lists

2) Ability to add more than 20 lists (perhaps a premium feature?)

1) Ability to add more than 500 members to a list (another premium feature?)

As Scoble writes, what will be the impact of this brilliant feature? “You’ll follow a lot more people. Why? Because you’ll find someone who has done a really great list, say, of programmers, and you’ll add the whole list. I’ve already done this a LOT and found that Twitter has gotten way more interesting because of it.” Barak Hachamov, founder of My6Sense, a startup that learns users’ behavior over time and prioritizes their information streams for them tells me: This feature is so simple and yet has the potential to have such a huge impact on how people consume and discover real-time information.

I tweeted this week: “It’s no longer about how many followers you have. Now its about how many twitter lists you’re on.” and I stand behind what I said. It doesn’t matter anymore if 100,000 people are following you if you’re not on any one’s list. LindsayT tweeted me saying: “why does this matter? why isn’t the question-how many friends you interact with through this social medium? quality over quantity”. So I answer LindsayT in the most personal of ways: The more lists you’re on, the more you interact with others. People put you on a list because you specifically interact and made yourself a name in that particular category. Twitter lists are the new measurement these days. Twitter lists are awesome. We will soon enough ask ourselves how we ever lived without them.

Original title and link for this post: The Brilliance of Twitter Lists and Suggestions for Improvement

Xsights is a new start-up company that has just come out with its Light iPhone app which enables its users to bring print to life. Xsights makes it possible to transform static printed items that can be captured through the cell phone’s camera into an interactive multimedia experience.

Xsights empowers its users and lets them add a creative, personal touch to their printed items. While using Xsights’ advanced technology, users have the ability to take any printed object and connect it with links of their choice. With Xsights Light app, these printed images become a door to endless opportunities of content. Users can “attach” a YouTube trailer, a 3D view of a specific street via Google Maps, a Wikipedia page, a Facebook or Twitter profile or any other link to invitations, greeting cards, photos, maps or business cards.

In addition, with Xsights, users can now also view movie trailers of the top 100 movies showing in US theaters currently by taking pictures of any of the digital images in the “More Things to Capture” section on Xsights website: http://xsights-services.com/Movies.aspx

All of the images that appear in Xsights’ “More Things to Capture” section are already uploaded to their servers, therefore users can take a picture of any of these movie posters, games or logos when they appear in magazines, wall posters, bus stops or anywhere else outside, take a picture and view their relevant clips moments later.

“See it. Capture it. Bring it to life!” is Xsights’ slogan. The Xsights solution enables users to take a picture of any pre-defined object and receive immediate relevant and interactive online data. Xsights inspires its users to imagine a future world where soon everything they see around them will be considered “clickable” from landmarks, wall posters, street signs, ads, theater listings in magazines to book covers or billboards. Clicking on the item with their mobile phone’s camera will allow users to receive additional layers of information and open up doors to endless interactive content. The technology that Xsights specializes in is known as Augmented Reality. Welcome to the world of tomorrow.

Key differentiators of Xsights when compared to its competitors: Only the Xsights application can identify minute objects – even a small icon or text. In addition, Xsights also works in any condition – even if the printed item is wet or crumpled.

Xsights has just launched its iPhone app and will soon launch its BlackBerry version. Other selected J2ME handsets will also get Xsights soon.

Download the Xsights Light application from the iTunes Apple Store here: http://appsto.re/xsightslight.

Want to create your own interactive message? Watch the video below to learn how:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I2cborRBPo[/youtube]

(Disclosure: Xsights is a Blonde 2.0 client)

Original title and link for this post: Xsights New iPhone App Brings Print to Life

In today’s world where we have an option of which search engine to use, we find ourselves perplexed regarding the question: Is Google the best that search can be? Even for those of us who consider ourselves to be Web savvy, finding the right search term can often be tricky. And once we get the search results, we must screen through an abundance of information in order to find one or two truly desired results.

To understand a little more about the world of search, let’s go through our time machine, and check back on how search started…

Excite was one of the most recognized brands on the net when the “dotcom portals” boomed in the 1990’s. Excite was founded as Architext in 1994 by six Stanford undergrad students who had the clever idea of using statistical analysis of word relationships to make searching more efficient. After years of signing exclusive distribution agreements with companies like Netscape, Microsoft and Apple, Excite went public in 1996. In 2003, Excite Italia (the operator of Excite Europe) took control of the Excite portals in most of Europe, and was later acquired by Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com).

In October 2007, the GoAdv Group – a pan-European media company, announced the completion of its acquisition of the Excite Europe group of companies while IAC Search and Media acquired Excite in the US. Today, Excite offers a variety of services, including search, web-based email, instant messaging, stock quotes and customizable user homepage – with content that is collated from over 100 different sources.

Going back a few years in time, a small search engine named Google was started by a couple of Stanford University students in January 1996, who hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page. The domain google.com was registered in September 1997,and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. in September 1998. Since 2001, Google has acquired several companies, mainly focusing on small start-ups. In 2006, Google bought the online video site, YouTube.

The entry of Google marked a major milestone in the history of search engines, as it used a “page ranking” system on the basis of number of links to a particular site. Google’s search engine became so popular that it led to origin of the term “Googling,” which means to search for information using Google.

In June 2009, Bing – formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search and MSN Search – became Microsoft’s current web search engine development. Advertised as a “decision engine,” Bing has a catchy “Stop Searching. Start Deciding” slogan made that allows its users to feel in control of their searches. Bing categorizes searches allowing for improved image and video searches along with preview searches, and its “decision engine” associates information on the Web to help its users make better decisions about things like travel reservations, shopping online, your health and more.

In August 2009, only two months after Bing became public online, it gained 9.3 percent of the United States Internet search market causing Google to become somewhat worried about its market share.

Jumping forward to present time, Meaningo, a recent a startup company specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) search applications. In simpler terms, Meaning is a semantic search engine, guiding users to find the exact products they are looking for in a more refined and efficient manner.

Finding the right search term can be a time-consuming process, as many search results have little relevance with their goal findings. Meaningo was designed to increase the effectiveness of online searching, so users searching the Web can successfully find what they’re looking for without much name refining in the search engine.

Meaningo was specifically designed in hopes of overcoming common impediments Web users are faced with when searching for information online. Meaningo provides its users with an easier way of defining, refining and controlling the quality of the search while providing very accurate results even for complex inquiries.

Watch my video below where I interview Meaningo’s Founder & CEO, Dr. Zach Solan, and find out the true meaning of Meaningo:

Original title and link for this post: Finding the Meaning to Meaningo’s Search Engine

SimilarWeb the Firefox add-on that enables users to discover related websites similar to ones they are currently visiting has now made it simpler than ever to find similar content that relates to the user’s interests.

The three new features include Similar Articles, Recent Buzz, and Mini-Mode, which allow the user to further research and organize finding websites and articles that appeal to their interest.

The Similar Articles feature allows users reading an article online, to instantly receive related articles without having to leave the page they are browsing. It’s extremely useful for finding different views about your topic as well in-depth information when doing research.

The Recent Buzz feature brings users the latest buzz on twitter that relates to the topic they’re reading about. When browsing a website or article the user can receive the twitter community’s reaction about that topic.

The third new feature mini-mode will move the sidebar to a minimized designated tab on the left side of the screen. When users want to view similar sites, they simply click on the minimized tab and to expands it back to a normal size tab.

With the launching of these three new features, SimilarWeb has been able bring users all types of similar content relevant to their interests. SimilarWeb may actually substantially decrease users’ dependence on search engines in the future.

SimilarWeb is one of my clients so I’m biased. :-)

Original title and link for this post: SimilarWeb Launches Three New Similar Features

In the years that I’ve been involved in social media, I have heard so many misconceptions and myths about social media that I am certain this article is long overdue. Here is a list of the top five misconceptions regarding social media:

Misconception #1: Social Media is only right for certain brands – Often time people ask me: ” Is social media only right for web services or for “cool” products? The answer is no. Social media is right for every brand as long as the brand is able to find its target audience within a certain platform and converse/interact with it in an effective manner. Of course it may be exciting to do a marketing campaign for Apple than for Charles Schwab but for either one of those brands a targeted social media campaign within social networks and the blogosphere can bring amazing results as far as: Brand awareness, Overall buzz around the brand, traffic, customer loyalty and ultimately revenue.
In fact often time it is the “duller” brands that experience the most growth out of social media campaigns because they experience a more substantial change in popularity between their starting point A and their ending point B than the “cooler” brands. Take for example Mint which is an online personal finance service and was just bought by Intuit for $170 Million. Not the most exciting of startups perhaps and yet Mint is a fine example of a company that did a great job in using social media to maximize the buzz around its brand, making its blog magazine-like with articles about tips for young parents and other interesting content. Mint made their content so interesting in fact that users/blog readers promote the brand on their own.

Misconception #2: Social Media is all about getting traffic and quickly – Social media marketing is a long term process that takes time. Once a brand enters any network such as Facebook or MySpace, it takes time to build that brand’s community. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a community on Facebook. If you want to do social media marketing right and not just spam the hell out of people, you must use conversational marketing to engage them. Conversational marketing is all about conversing with your community. Learning more about their likes and dislikes, listening before speaking and reacting based upon the customers’ feedback.
Whoever thinks that he will open a Facebook page and reach tens of thousands of site visitors on the first day, is dead wrong. Brands that use social media to promote themselves will see a steady growth in traffic to their sites over time as their brand names become more and more viral within the networks – due to the increase in number of fans, number of tweets, exposure in blogs, etc.
Sure there are different ways which will increase the rate of a brand’s virality on the Web. For example, creating strong social incentives for people on your site which will increase their urge to promote your brand is definitely a factor which will heighten the public’s awareness. You can read more about social incentives in this post I had written last year. However, don’t expect to get thousands of visitors to your site before you’ve been able to build 1) A strong loyal online community 2) A strong incentives system to increase brand awareness. Both these goals take time to achieve. From my experience, it usually takes about three months to start seeing effective results when using social media tools.

Misconception #3: “By using social media we will lose control of our Brand’s Image” – Executives (especially in big companies) often think that their employees will go wild and start telling every horror story imaginable regarding their brand because the company will open a Facebook page. So here’s the scoop: People will talk about your brand whether you like it or not. Opening a Facebook page is not going to change it and not opening a Facebook page is not going to make it go away. The question is: Do you want to be a part of that conversation or not? By having a presence in social networks and blogs, you as a brand show your customers and employees that you care about their feedback and that you are there to listen and satisfy their needs.
I’ll give you a real time example: My hosting company is Network Solutions. For a few days my blog wasn’t uploading and I started to get very pissed off. I tweeted “Network Solutions Sucks” and specifically addressed @Shashib – the guy who handles Network Solutions’ social media efforts. A few moments later I received a tweet back from Shashib. He wanted to hear what’s wrong and help me resolve the problem. He promised a Network Solutions agent would call me soon. Within a few moments I received a phone call from an agent who helped me fix the situation and upload my site. At that moment, Network Solutions won my customer loyalty forever (or until the next time they screw up :-)). Real time customer care is something that brands can utilize social media tools for (specifically twitter) like no other marketing tools they have had till now. We’ve already seen amazing examples of customer care from Zappos and Dell. Brands should not be afraid of engaging in honest and transparent conversations with their clients online but rather they should be very afraid of ignoring their customers’ complaints and pretending that everything’s fine when it’s not.

Misconception #4: Social Media Is Just a Fad – I often hear people who say that social networks are just a passing fad. This is what I have to say to them: Social media is an inevitable digital evolution of our desire as humans to communicate with one another. It is a desire that we always had and will always continue to have as long as we are human. I had written about this topic in the past. To say that social media is just a fad is to say that communication is just a fad. Here are a few stats that might help to change the mind of those who are still apprehensive:

1) 2/3 of the global internet population visit social networks and time spent on social networks is growing at 3x the overall internet rate, accounting for ~10% of all internet time.

2) Visiting social sites is now the 4th most popular online activity – ahead of personal email!

Care to change your mind?

Misconception #5: “I don’t need a professional to do social media for me” – Many executives think that they don’t need a professional to help them with their social media activities. They’ll just take a student who has a few hours a week and get him to sit on the social networks and play with their company’s branding. It’s inconceivable to me how on one hand companies can be so cautious regarding beginning to use social media and on the other hand they’ll give the work to a mere student who could ruin their branding in a few hours just to save a few bucks. In order to engage in social media campaigns that are effective and successful, companies should use social media expert services at least in the first few months just to understand the specific rules of each community. One must remember that Facebook, twitter, Mixx, Bebo are all communities with their own set of rules and it is crucial for brands to respect the community’s rules in order to survive. Just like a company wouldn’t take on its PR on its own without consulting with a PR expert first, a company should not delve into social media without consulting with a social media expert. After a few months of training, I believe brands can take the work upon themselves, but they must not forgo the training period as they could do more damage than good for their branding.

These are the top five misconceptions I’ve heard regarding social media although I’ve heard many more. I would be delighted if you guys shared in the comments section some of the misconceptions that you’ve heard.

Photo credit: Gary Hayes and Laurel Papworth

Original title and link for this post: The Top Five Misconceptions About Social Media

Trollim is a competition platform for programmers unlike any other you’ve encountered so far. Trollim assesses the coding level and performance skill set of programmers via one to one or one to many coding Battles no matter where they are in the world. Think of Eminem’s rap battles in the movie 8 mile – but this time not for rappers but for programmers.

Once a user registers to Trollim, he must take a personalized skill test. Once that test is finished, he is allowed to compete in Battles with other programmers. Now he is ready to take his first coding test. Trollim’s testing engine will examine the details the programmer submitted and will show him a piece of broken code related to his skill set. The challenge is to fix the code in the fastest and most efficient manner possible without the use of programming shortcuts. His performance is rated not only against his challenger but other programmers who share a similar skill set.

Companies are able to sponsor the Battles, receive detailed statistics on the programmers and their level of skill. Enterprises will be able to license the platform for internal use thereby enabling these companies to gain a deeper insight into the skill set of their programmers and potential hires.

The rating of the programmer’s skill set is dependent on a set of tests that he takes and is compared to other programmers with the same skill set. Trollim warns cheaters that they “will be caught and locked away in the Trollim Dungeon.”

Just like on twitter, on Trollim the programmer can follow other programmers (Trolls) and they can follow him back. Users can search for other Trolls based upon criteria such as: Country, city, age-group, coding languages, skills and more. The programmer can invite Trolls he follows into a Battle anytime he likes. Trolls can only compete against each other if they share appropriate skill sets (i.e. language, years of experience, etc). Battles are found both on the Battle and Search pages. Users can also find battles using the Troll universe map . Users cannot participate in more than 10 Battles at any given moment.

There’s also something called a Rumble Battle. This battle allows one Troll to fight many Trolls and the parameters for who can participate varies on the Rumble’s sponsor. Battles can be selected by geographical location, age and other parameters set by the sponsor. A Rumble can be created by the Trollim website or by a company sponsoring the Rumble. Trolls who win the Rumble or get high scores receive extra rating points. Some of the Rumbles will also include prizes. The value of the prizes is directly related to the Trolls skill level.

Every Battle is rated and each play receives a score. The score is not solely based upon the winners and losers of the Battle but on many different aspects.While wining could bring many points, losing could take points away. Winning against a higher rated Troll is always better then losing to a lower rated one. All the scores are taken into account when establishing a Troll’s rating in a Rumble Battle and the troll can see how each competition affected his rating. Every skill set is divided into 5 levels and each level has its own set of parameters. The system will move a Troll to a higher level only after he has roven himself worthy of it via the results from the Battles. A Troll has the ability to view their own rating as well as view other Trolls from the same country and age-group.

Trollim allows programmers to show companies their skill set and make themselves attractive candidates for positions in companies they are seeking to work at. Enterprises are able to use the data provided by Trollim to further understand the skills their inhouse programmers currently have and to find new programmers that may have the skill set they are looking for. No other current platform enables both programmers and enterprises to maximize on these programming skills as well as Trollim does.

Disclosure: Trollim is one of my clients but everybody at The Next Web Blog liked their service so we agreed that I would write a review about them.

Original title and link for this post: Best International Startup At TC50: Trollim

Save an Alien, previously a successful Facebook application with over 250,000 users despite no marketing, is an app that lets you save virtual aliens from destruction.

Similar to the virtual pet fad of the 1990s but for the Web 2.0 age, SaveAnAlien lets users take care of aliens whose planet was destroyed in a meteor crash and now are sadly alone floating in space. Users can adopt virtual aliens and help save them from death. Until they do, the aliens will keep floating in space waiting to be adopted.

In an interesting move (I wonder, will this become a trend?), SaveAnAlien has recently moved off Facebook, and is now available as a standalone experience on the SaveAnAlien website. The founders say the move off Facebook was a strategic decision, which enabled them to provide a better experience for the adopters.

In addition, the move opened the door to previously-untapped potential partnerships, like SAA’s recent integration with SkyRock, a leading French social network.

Three months after the launch of the new platform, with no marketing, and even before the SkyRock integration, there are already 40,000 users on the site.

The monetization system built into the platform, based on virtual goods, is already outperforming what was possible for SaveAnAlien in the world of Facebook applications.

So, it seems that the move off of Facebook was the right thing to do for the Alien guys.

“This is just the beginning though, “ said Raz Friedman, CEO and founder. “We are continuously enhancing the experience and adding additional activities like a home and a garden with ‘Space Plants’ for the aliens, activities which have already proven to be very attractive and highly monetizable on other platforms.

SaveAnAlien is a “virtual pet” platform with a unique story line. The original Facebook application took its users on a journey to save the aliens before the meteor hits their planet.

The new SaveAnAlien continues this story line after the meteor hits, and with 10 million aliens floating in space waiting to be rescued, users are finding endless opportunities to adopt new aliens, take care of them and fulfill their every need and whim.

Red 2.0, Aviv, Motti and me at a party

Once you adopt an alien, you can let your friends interact with it by pasting the Alien Widget into your blog, Website, Facebook, and any other place that you can post HTML or Flash code.

“Our users have turned out to be real do gooders,” says Friedman. “We are truly moved by the emotional connection we see between them and their adopted aliens. In fact, many of them take the time to feed tens and even hundreds of aliens or help them find a home. The current saving aliens record belongs to a 16 years old girl from Netherlands, who helped save 164 other aliens.”

Talking with the Save an Alien team is quite an experience. All these guys ever speak about is aliens, feeding, adopting, petting and dressing up.

Clearly they are having fun, and it’s quite amazing when you realize they’re actually generating substantial revenues while doing that.

Hey, before you go, mind petting my alien a bit?

Original title and link for this post: “Save An Alien” Branches Off Facebook and Finds Success

This past weekend, Qype expanded its European presence and launched its Italian site. For anyone who hasn’t heard of Qype before, the site originally launched in 2005 in Germany. Qype now boasts over 350,000 active users, who have contributed over 1 million local reviews. I previously wrote about Qype when I visited them at Seedcamp.

You can now access Qype in the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Brazil and Italy.

Qype lets users discover places based on user generated reviews. Qype provides tips and recommendations about locations, so you know what to expect before you even walk in the door. Qype provides user generated reviews of restaurants, bars, shopping outlets, theaters, movies, clubs, spas, and other venues throughout Europe. Similar to Yelp (which only operates in North America and the United Kingdom), Qype and Yelp both share the UK market. It will be interesting to see which site comes out ahead in England.

Stephen Taylor, CEO of Qype, said “We’re very pleased to announce the arrival of Qype Italy, the tenth market in our growing brood. The launch comes after an overwhelming demand from our growing Italian user base, who will now have access to local reviews and experiences in their own language – and the ability to find Italian reviews for destinations all over the world.”

For Qype Italy, the launch not only provides a useful site for Italian users, but it also brings Qype Radar, the company’s popular mobile application, to the Italian market. Qype Radar is a smart mobile app that lets you find the best places around your location. According to the company, 1 in 4 people with an iPhone in Germany have installed Qype Radar.

Qype Radar has also been featured on the iPhone ads in Germany.

As Qype takes over the Italian market, it seems that they are poised to conquer Europe and keep Yelp out of the European market. I wonder if they’ll succeed.

Original title and link for this post: Qype Launches in Italy

MyHeritage is a social network and software for genealogists. Launched in 2005, MyHeritage has since accumulated 33 million users worldwide. The company helps people build family trees, share them with their relatives and stay in touch with their loved ones. They are the most popular free family tree website according to ProGeneologists.com. Family Tree Builder, their geneology software program, is the most popular free geneology application.

MyHeritage started only as a free software program. With Web 2.0 taking a more dominant role, the company understood that people wanted to share their family tree and therefore it evolved into more of a network where people could collaboratively build and share their family trees, photos, receive birthday notifications, plan family events, or even send gifts to their loved ones.

The site has unique free genealogy tools such as Smart Matches which compare any person in your tree with the whole database and show the user other people researching the same ancestors. This can help researchers discover long-lost branches of their family, many generations apart. Some of those stories can be found on their blog. Generations of families have reunited across continents, languages, and cultures.

The most important genealogy product on MyHeritage is a simple piece of software called Family Tree Builder, which is really easy to use even for those not very experienced in the genealogy world. They also offer a more advanced Premium version for those who are really into genealogy. This week, they have just launched the latest version of Family Tree Builder (currently available for Windows-only).

Family Tree Builder is the most popular free geneology software. With more than 5 million downloads so far, Family Tree Builder is the world’s most popular free genealogy software, allowing seasoned pros and beginners alike to build family trees, research their family history, add photos and videos, and obtain unique Smart Matches™ with other family trees worldwide.

With today’s release, their software just got even more user-friendly. Some of the new features of Family Tree Builder include:

• Maps – Family Tree Builder 4.0 features a new module that shows you all of the places mentioned on your tree. Even more important, perhaps, given changing geographical borders and political boundaries, is a feature that suggests how to improve your data and fix spelling and consistency mistakes in place names. For example, a family tree contributed by many members of an extended family might refer to Dumbrowa, Dabrowa, and Dabrowa Bialystocka, and someone might think that these are all different locations when they refer to the same Polish town, but not the similiar-sounding Dabrowa Gornicka. The maps module is free for all users, with size limitations lifted for Premium and Premium Plus members.
• Photo Albums – Photos and photo sharing are an integral part of MyHeritage. Family Tree Builder lets geneologists organize their photos into albums with simple drag and drop. When you publish your tree to MyHeritage’s website, your photo albums remain intact.
• Slideshow & Screen Saver – Family Tree Builder can display your pictures as a slideshow or screen saver that displays your family photos when your computer is idle. It also integrates with MyHeritage’s tagging and facial recognition features.
• Family Toolbar – An integrated toolbar integrated with MyHeritage.com, the toolbar provides the world’s first Family Chat that lets you chat with family members whenever they are online. It also lets you visit your family site in a single click, get birthday reminders and perform powerful genealogy searches.
• Recovery – When you restore a family tree that was published online, your photos will be recovered.
• Family Tree Builder also includes a new tool that finds family members that are probably deceased but not mentioned as such in your tree.
• Multilanguage support – Family Tree Builder supports over 34 languages, both making it useful for a worldwide audience and also more useful than competing programs as many people’s families span multiple continents and languages over the generations.

“In recent years we’ve seen a growing number of people who want to learn more about their ancestors and where they came from,” said Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage.com. “With the new map module, people can get an appealing visual representation of their family’s life journeys. They can also map the addresses of family members, quickly find all events and photos associated with a particular place and even standardize place names using smart suggestions. This provides a fascinating new perspective for millions of people interested in their family history.”

The new family toolbar provides direct access to family sites on MyHeritage.com, adds powerful genealogy search and features Family Chat – a text, audio and video chat system built specifically for family use. Members also receive useful birthday reminders on the family toolbar without leaving the Web page they are on.

Family Tree Builder’s family tree display is much easier to use than some of the competing commercial software. For example, you can display at least seven generations on a single screen, as well as marital status and other personal information, without the page feeling cramped. In addition, it’s far less resource hogging than the competing Family Tree Maker.

It’s impossible to find free family tree builder software as powerful and user-friendly as Family Tree Builder. In fact, the paid version has more interesting features and a nice simple UI, without the memory hog, of its leading competitors. Family Tree Builder is definately an incredibly useful tool to have in the amateur or professional geneologist’s toolbox.

Original title and link for this post: MyHeritage Releases New Version of Family Tree Builder

Hashtags are becoming a useful way to organize information in today’s information age, when data is spread over a multitude of platforms. It is incredibly time consuming to log into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and every other niche network that you have an account on and update the same information over and over again. However, with the launch of a new hashtag service from Mobypicture, it is getting easier.

Mobypicture uploads all of your mobile pictures to the top platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Picasa, etc.) simultaneously. If you don’t know more about Mobypicture, Ciara Byrne previous wrote about them on TechCrunch. Since her post, Mobypicture has announced their new hashtag service. It enables companies and niche platforms to attach a hashtag to a platform. For example, if this blog would integrate with Mobypicture, using #tnw could mean the posting is also routed to our TNW Facebook group, and other areas in which we have a presence.

Mobypicture is currently working on finding platform partners and is currently focusing on niche publishers. Mobypicture was recently used to promote Gay Pride in Amsterdam. This enabled users to post photos directly to the live broadcast. TV stations then used Mobypicture’s integration on the AT5 news site to report news of the event on their channels. This enabled them to get user-generated content about the event, that would have otherwise gone unreported.

The hashtag integration works with over 200 services, such as Tweetie, Twittelator, Gravity, Twibble, iPhoto2Twitter, Seesmic, and Slandr.

By adding the hashtag of an integrated company or platform, users can just add their hashtag using over 200 applications and it will post throughout their platforms. For example, you can post pictures to your Facebook wall by adding #Fb. By adding the #at5 hashtag, your post is sent to Amsterdam’s AT5 news site, which then displays your post throughout the McDonalds and subways. Mobypicture has also worked on hashtag integration with MTV. They also offer a white label service to allow providers and content partners to use Mobypicture’s technology with their own branding.

Of course, while it’s great that there are over 200 services that users can post their hashtag to, more effort needs to be made in finding content partners in which the content is distributed to. It’s great that there are tons of apps, but there still need to be more niche platforms and content partners in order for the service to reach its full potential.

The company is looking for more niche platforms to partner with and it already has a solid revenue model to generate partnerships. Currently, however, the service is somewhat limited due to the relatively small number of content partners that have joined. Mobypicture has big plans to generate new partnerships, so there is plenty of room for growth and this service will be very exciting when the number of participants and content partners grow.

I also had the pleasure to speak to Mathys of MobyPicture while I was in London last month. Here is his introduction to the service:

Original title and link for this post: Mobypicture Implements New Hashtag Service

If you listen to Google (and these days who doesn’t) speed is everything on the “Web page load times are *the* critical metric” says Marissa Mayer Google’s SVP for search. According to her, the entire basis for Google’s success was their emphasis on extremely fast page loads way back in the dial-up era when the Web loaded line-by-line. Many more companies and Web standards organizations have followed Google’s lead and I don’t think there is an infrastructure issue more crucial to any major Consumer or Business Web service.

Tools like Google’s Web accelerator Toolbar, and AOL’s TopSpeed have been around for a while. Today my friend Yoav Leitersdorf managing partner of YL Ventures informed me of the the announcement of a brand new player in the Field; Israel Based FasterWeb who claim to have a new technology that can make a site perform 2X-10X faster. They have just closed an undisclosed round of funding from YL Ventures and Yoav had this to say “Faster Web has unique and proprietary technology to further optimize web page load times in addition to what has been achieved so far with existing solutions. Every small improvement in performance translates into additional revenues for websites, regardless of business model – advertising, eCommerce, or otherwise. FasterWeb’s exceptional team has the perfect mix of talents and backgrounds to take their brilliant technology everywhere.”

FasterWeb uses 45 different techniques to optimize the web, this is done either on the end of the content provider or the ISP. In other words, the end user won’t have to do a thing to experience the increase in web speed. In addition, FasterWeb will work across all the major web browsers, starting with Internet Explorer and Firefox immediately, and expanding to the rest, including Opera, Chrome and Safari, when it’s ready for its widespread release next year.

FasterWeb was founded by Ofer Gadish, Gil Shai, Ofir Ehrlich and Leonid Fainberg.

Original title and link for this post: FasterWeb Gets Investment – Pushed To Go Faster

Although I just recently returned from Internet Week New York, I’m about to set foot on another exciting, new adventure. From July 5 to July 10, I’ll be traveling around London together with my Geeky friends. aka The Traveling Geeks. The TG’s are a small informal group of technology bloggers and influencers who like to travel to various regions around the world, collaborate with technology innovators and leaders on interesting projects and then share everything with the rest of the world via blogs, videos, podcasts and social networks.

On this trip, we’ll be on the hunt for innovative uses of new technologies in Great Britain, especially by lesser-known companies, and spotlight how those innovations may improve people’s lives. We’ll also compare the thought leadership in Great Britain’s tech industry and compare it with what’s taking place in Silicon Valley. The highlights of our UK agenda include events such as The Traveling Geeks TweetUp in Chelsea, podcast with the Guardian, and The Techcrunch Europa Awards with Mike Butcher. 

This exciting group of jet-setters consists of  myself, JD Lasica (founder of Socialmedia.biz & Socialbrite.org, respected author>Socialbrite.org), Robert Scoble (former blogger for Microsoft, now works for Rackspace’s Building43), Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist),  Sarah Lacy (Editor at Techcrunch, reporter for BusinessWeek and co-host of the Yahoo Tech Ticker show), Tom Foremski (founder of  Siliconvalleywatcher.com), Sky Schuyler (CTO of The Dalai Lama Foundation), Renee Blodgett. (co-founder of TG, founder of We Blog the World www.weblogtheworld.com , marketing consultant and blogger), Jeff Saperstein (co-founder of TG, Author, teacher, consultant).Susan Bratton (co-founder of Personal Life Media), Sarah Austin (founder of Pop17.com), Meghan Asha(co-founder of Nonsociety.com) and Howard Rheingold (teaches at Stanford and UC Berkeley and author of  Tools for Thought, The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs).

Last year the Traveling Geeks came to Israel and I hosted them. This time we are going to be hosted by London locals. Should be very exciting. I’m thrilled to embark on this week long geek fest. I’m sure to meet some very interesting Brits along the way. In fact, if anyone is interested in meeting any of us for interviews, please email me at: press[at]blonde20.com and we’ll try to make it happen!

Photo Credit: bobby13

Original title and link for this post: Traveling Geeks Are Going to London!