Founder and Editor of Crenk. Im CEO of Insomnia Ltd which owns and operates RouteNote (Digital Music Distributor), Adphilia (Site Representation Firm) and Black and White Music (Music Recording Studio).
Previously here on Crenk we have discussed the Top CPM advertising networks, but in the current economic climate we have seen a lot of changes of late. I wanted to introduce our sister site called Adphilia. Adphilia is a site representation firm that is focused on providing premium CPM based advertising. At the moment there are also a lot of changes at Adphilia, we are always looking for Technology and Gaming related sites to add to our network, but we are also about to launch an entirely new platform which we hope will help many sites automate the buying and selling process.
The new Adphilia platform that is scheduled to launch in the next few weeks will be focused around fixed placements with the following features:
Publishers will be able to choose their own ad sizes and prices and dates they would like to run campaigns
Advertisers will have access to over 100 million people per month
The entire process will be automated and publishers can withdraw their earnings in the same way a bank works
The process is completely transparent so Advertisers can see their stats and ROIs, while Publishers can see and control all ads on their site
Also launching a VIP program which will be focused around CPM based advertising
Look for the new platform to be launch on the 1st of October.
In the meantime we are always looking for technology and gaming based sites interested in premium CPM advertising. Just leave a comment or drop us an email for more information.
YourTour is a new fully personalised trip creator. YourTour was just launched at Techcrunch 50 yesterday and it has been getting some great press so far. YourTour has launched in France (and Florida in demo), with other countries and US regions to follow very soon.
Based on a powerful algorithm, the YourTour engine computes and compares millions of trip combinations to deliver a customized trip proposal in a matter of seconds. YourTour is already partnered with leading travel companies such as Booking.com (hotels provider) and Lonely Planet (attractions provider).
The site itself is very easy to use and has a very slick and simple user interface. The user just simply needs to add the region they wanting to visit and then select their dates, once thats done then YourTour will create a great tour for you with activities, hotels and more in the region you specified. YourTour is a great way to receive some interesting ideas for your next trip and what activities are big in the region you are traveling too.
When YourTour provides accommodation ideas it would be great if they also provide a lot of different options, and this could also be helpful with activities. There could a list option which allows the user to see what are the best activities in that region and prices, as well as possible hotels depending upon your budget. YourTour still has a lot to do but it is a great starting platform.
Opera Mini has just released some great new features which will improve the best browser for Blackberry, Nokia, HTC and other Java enabled mobile phones.
Opera yesterday announced a new version of their Opera Mini which includes tabs so you can open multiple web pages in the same browser simultaneously. The new tab feature is optimised for touch screen phones.
Opera Mini adds a new “Open in Mini” option to your BlackBerry email client so you open hyperlinks in email messages in either Opera Mini or the default BlackBerry browser. In my limited testing, this feature works only with plain text emails.
Other new features in Opera Mini 5 that lot of you may find useful are copy-paste and a built-in password manager so you don’t have to type your logins and passwords over and over again. The passwords are saved on your phone itself.
Opera Mini 5 is still in beta but the good part is that you can install it alongside your existing installation of Opera Mini 4. To download Opera Mini 5, visit m.opera.com/next from your mobile phone browser and download the Opera Mini 5 installer specific to your phone.
Popscreen is a new video bookmarking service that has just launched into private beta. Here at Crenk we have been lucky enough to test Popscreen for the past few months and we are really excited about their private beta launch and what they are providing.
PopScreen is a quick and simple way to bookmark your favorite tv shows, movies, webcasts, news clips, music and viral videos from hundreds of online sources in one location.
Crenk has been lucky enough to receive 250 Private Invites for people interested in trying out the service. If you want to check it out then head over to the Signup page and use the Invite Code: crenk
LG has just had its first stab at a smartphone and it is even running on Googles Android operating system, its call the GW620. Previously we have profiled lots of Android based phones on Crenk, such as the HTC Tattoo and even the G2.The GW620 combines a physical QWERTY keyboard and a touchscreen so that it appeals to both the business and consumer markets.
The screen measures three inches, and though LG doesn’t say this in its official press release, word on the street is that this phone has a 5-megapixel camera. Not shabby. We don’t have any other details yet, except that the GW620 will launch in “select European markets” — definitely including Germany — sometime in the fourth quarter of this year.
Stagevu is a new site in which im not too sure how long it will be around, so make sure you check it out before it is completely gone. Stagevu is a basic service that allows users from all over the world to search and watch movies, movie trailers, tv shows and more, all for free and without having to download any software.
Stagevu to me seems completely illegal and im sure the site will get shut down eventually, but in the meantime it is completely legal for users to use the service. Most of the movies on the service do seem like they have been filmed illegally in China by handycam, but if you keep looking you are bound to find a good version of the movie you are looking for.
Here at Crenk we have previously talked a lot about sites like Movie Watch List and Trailer Reviews in which seem to offer a similar service and have been around a lot longer, so we will see how long Stagevu can stick it out.
Here at Crenk we were lucky enough to get our hands on the Luna Voyager from XtremeMac.The Luna Voyager is a compact, full-featured alarm clock and personal audio system for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Features include:
Wake to iPhone, iPod or buzzer
Compact design perfect for home or travel
Easy-to-read display with brightness control
Set clock automatically from iPhone
AC power with battery backup for alarm
Line-in jack for connecting iPod shuffle and other devices
Charges iPhone/iPod while docked
Custom speakers ideal for personal listening
Im a really big fan of the design of the Luna Voyager however for my personal needs im not too sure where an iPhone specific alarm clock fits into it. I already have a very basic alarm clock right next to my bed and it seems as though the alarm clock can pretty much do exactly the same things as the iPhone itself. The key difference is that the Luna Voyager has much better speakers and it is great for someone who travels a lot, apart from that another key difference is that the Luna Voyager is $79.95 from the Apple store, when I could potentially just get an iPhone app that does the same thing for $0.99 via the app store.
There are so many places on the net where you can now see the biggest and best links via Twitter. Today we came across a new site that has high hopes, TweetPortal. TweetPortal does exactly what is says in the tin and show the most popular tweets via channels (business, sport, etc).
TweetPortal is great for quickly seeing what is happening in each area via Twitter, but it still has a lot of work to do to be more efficient than the likes of Tweetmeme.
So what does TweetPortal need to improve? Well here are my thoughts:
Design – the overall site design isnt great, plus it is actually quite hard to get a good overall look at what is happening in the world via the home page. More tweets need to shown on the home page in a different format, cause the basic boxes dont really work.
Advertising – Im really not a huge fan of dirty Google adsense ads that ad nothing at all to the design and at the same time seem to cheapen the site quality.
Channels – there is a great list of channels, however when checking out the channels it still only breaks down into a very limited number of smaller channels.
TweetPortal really has a huge amount to do to become a Tweetmeme competitor let alone a key destination for news via Twitter. It will be interesting to see if they take our advice on board and really try to improve the quality and options within their service.
I was lucky enough to receive an invite to Yahoo’s new product Meme. Meme is a micro-blogging service from Yahoo that works in a very similar way to Twitter. You may now ask, whats the difference?
Yahoo Meme is very fast and stable
Yahoo Meme makes it very easy to post Video, Music and Photos straight into your stream
Yahoo Meme has really focused on making it easy to re-post items you like, with just 1 click (Viral focused)
We have joined just to test out the service and even after testing im pretty sure im going to keep using the account, because it is just so simple and easy to use. If you want to follow Crenk on Yahoo Meme our url is: http://meme.yahoo.com/crenk/
So you may be wondering why doesnt everyone just move over to this service from Twitter, well basically its because of the amount of users using Twitter. Additionally its the community of developers who have helped Twitter grow at the rate they have.
What Yahoo Meme really needs to develop:
Yahoo Meme needs its own URL and identity away from the Yahoo.com domain. It would be good to see this as a standalone service
Ability to resize pictures and videos down so that a lot more streams can be seen in the same window (problem with media in the stream)
Yahoo Meme is currently in private beta, so to mark its launch we can offer a lucky 5 people into the system. All you have to do is comment on this post and let us know why you want to use the service so badly!
Most people im sure would probably agree that Apple’s iTunes software isnt a lightweight application. I was wanting to put together a great list of free alternatives to iTunes that are actually worth checking out.
Foobar 2000 – A digital music management program for Windows users. It works with Windows 2000,Windows Vists, Windows XP and Windows XP 64 bit edition. To use this program you will need 32 MB of RAM and a display with at least an 800 X 600 resolution. This program is compatible with MP1-4, MPC, AAC, WAV, SND, WMA, Ogg Valis, WavPack, AIFF, CDDA, FIAC/Ogs FLAC and AU. It also supports full Unicode and Replay Gain. Other great features include third party development potential and keyboard shortcut that are fully customizable.
Froddle Pod – Froddle is not as feature rich as iTunes but it provides access to the main features that iPod owners need: It can copy music and videos from and to an iPod which is definitely the main feature that any iTunes alternative should support. The software can also backup and restore all data that is stored on an iPod. Another feature is music normalization for all or selected music on the iPod.
Songbird – Built on the Firefox platform and works with iPods and other media players. In addition to many great features, Songbird has a plenty of add-ons, and because it’s open source, clever programmers will be adding more as time goes on.
YamiPod An interesting iTunes alternative, because you don’t have to install it on your computer at all. Just copy it to your iPod’s hard disk and then you can manage your songs from any computer running Mac OS X, Windows or Linux.
Winamp – Sometimes called the grandfather of Windows music players, Winamp is a full featured music manager, with integrated iPod support and will even play iTunes protected files if QuickTime is installed.
Amarok – A great iTunes alternative for Linux and Unix users. It works with a wide variety of portable music players including: iPod, Creative Zen players, iRiver iFP and T players, Nomad players, generic MTP players and generic USB players. Some of the features that this program has that you are going to love include: album covers, wikipedia integration, last.fm integration, superior visual effects, lyrics support and music tracking capabilities.
Banshee – Linux users are going to enjoy what Banshee has to offer. This free download allows you to do everything that you want to do with your digital music. You can import music, organize music, play it back, share it and rip it on a CD. This is a great program for people who love their music and who want to actively manage it.
Cog – Most people using Mac OSX feel that iTunes is the best option because it was designed for this platform. However, Cog is worth a look for Mac users, because it addresses many of the limitations that iTunes has. It can be used with the following file types: Ogg vorbis, Monkeys Audio, MP3, Wavpack, Apple Lossless, FLAC, Musepack, AAC and WAV/AIFF. Some of the features that make it a worthy alternative to iTunes include: gapless playback, auto updating, preferences, Growl support, global hot keys, seeking, feedback forms, last.fm support, and smart shuffle.
Personal finance tools are currently very popular, especially with the rise of Mint in the USA lately. Green Sherpa is another such personal finance tool that has just been released.
Green Sherpa features include:
Uses a check-register format to track your transactions.
Automatically categorizes your spending.
Allows users to edit transactions and categories as needed.
Supports split transactions and bank reconciliation.
Allows users to set and track financial goals.
The key feature that other sites liked about Green Sherpa was its ability to project cash flows.
With Green Sherpa, budgets are a thing of the past, literally. Budgets only represent an AVERAGE, or IDEAL, month. In reality, cash flow is more fluid than that. Green Sherpa’s Cash Flow Projection feature allows you to create a forecast of future cash flow based not only on your historical spending but, more importantly, on your future PROJECTED expenses and income. This feature lets you enter one-time anticipated expenses, or create more complex structures such as bi-weekly or bi-monthly schedules.
Green Sherpa however works on a subscription model rather than a free model like most of its competitors. Green Sherpa has a 14 day trial and then $7.95 per month ($5.95 per month if you sign up for a year at a time).
