Diggnation is being retired by Revision3. Diggnation is just a fun show in which Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht talk about cool stories from Digg.com.

After 340 episodes Diggnation will end even though it seems to be among its five most watched shows, according to the The New York Times.

Goodbye Diggnation.. it was fun!

My blog post on @Revision3 about the retirement of @Diggnation: http://t.co/qaiRkWBv

October 3, 2011 7:42 pm via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

@dlprager

David Prager

• Rose Leaving Diggnation for fforward? – June 16, 2010
• Kevin Rose Leaves Digg to Pursue Other Startups – March 21, 2011
• Pownce-ing On The Opposition – December 23, 2008
• The First 45 Years of Star Trek – September 9, 2011
• What Font Does Google Use in their Logo: Fonts of Leading Internet Brands – March 8, 2011

Revision3 Ends Diggnation originally appeared on: Crenk
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We haven’t reported about Digg since its ill-fated redesign and since then things seem to have gone from bad to worse. There are lots of reports this morning that Founder Kevin Rose has departed Digg and will only stay on its board of directors.

There has been a mass exodus at Digg since its redesign and this has really pushed Reddit into a great position in social news.

Has Digg become completely obsolete?

• Front Page of Digg Impossible? Try HYPick For Better Results – February 3, 2009
• Revision3 Ends Diggnation – October 4, 2011
• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010
• Social Media Demographics – July 9, 2010
• Rose Leaving Diggnation for fforward? – June 16, 2010

Kevin Rose Leaves Digg to Pursue Other Startups originally appeared on: Crenk
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Have you ever wondered where what font some of your favourite internet brands use in their logo’s? Well HongKiat has let the world know. Logos such as Google, Yahoo, NewsGator, Skype, Digg, Twitter and more. You can now find out which fonts they use and then download and use that font.

• Twitter Now Selling Text Ads – May 3, 2011
• Google Adsense Rich Media Twitter Advertising Has Started – March 25, 2011
• Google is Offering $4 Billion Dollars to Buy Twitter? – November 20, 2010
• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010
• Free Black Icons Set for Social Media and Twitter – September 12, 2010

What Font Does Google Use in their Logo: Fonts of Leading Internet Brands originally appeared on: Crenk
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Click on the image to get the full view.

• Social Media Demographics – July 9, 2010
• Free Black Icons Set for Social Media and Twitter – September 12, 2010
• Facebook Connect Battles For Your Information – December 1, 2008
• Where Would We Be Without Facebook? – April 29, 2011
• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010

History of Social Media originally appeared on: Crenk
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The most common use of providing visitors an easy way to share our website is adding links in our home page to all of the networks; certainly a more effective is using a sidebar in our website with a permanent and visible links. ShareSideBar creates for us the necessary code ready to be added in our website.

We can choose if we want the sidebar on the right or left side of the page, and the social networks we would like to use in the sidebar. This web app is completely free and does not require any registration.

• Save your Photos, Videos and Documents in one Place with PhotoRem – November 7, 2010
• Free Black Icons Set for Social Media and Twitter – September 12, 2010
• Social Media Demographics – July 9, 2010
• Create a Screencast and Share it in Twitter – November 7, 2010
• How to Handle Several Twitter Accounts – September 19, 2010

How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

The social media icons are provided by BlackSmith and you can find for Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, digg, Reddit, Delicious, etc. Download the entire set from here.

And the black set for Twitter, provided by iconhive, is definitely my favorite ones; which are available for Windows and Mac. Download from here for the Windows version; and this link for Mac.

• 150 Social Media Icons for Free – September 19, 2010
• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010
• Free Social Media Icons – August 29, 2010
• Generate your Twitter-like Logo for Free – December 5, 2010
• Microsoft offers Free Harry Potter Theme – December 5, 2010

Free Black Icons Set for Social Media and Twitter originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010
• History of Social Media – November 19, 2010
• Free Black Icons Set for Social Media and Twitter – September 12, 2010
• Social Networking Site for Collectors – June 29, 2009
• Front Page of Digg Impossible? Try HYPick For Better Results – February 3, 2009

Social Media Demographics originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

fforward is the new show hosted by Kevin Rose.

It was reported earlier this week that Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg, and co-host for the massively popular show, Diggnation, would be stepping down after five years of instigating laughs, on air pranks, and general fandom news based around his site. What is to become of Diggnation is apparently up in the air as c0-host Alex Albrecht is still attached to the project, but for Rose, it’s time to move on.

Rose, who is trading in his five years with Diggnation for greener pastures and new opportunities has already announced a new show, titled ffwoard (pronounced “forward”). Thus far Revision3 will be the home for the new show and in a change to what Rose is familiar with, the show will be recorded and aired LIVE.

According to sources, fforward claims to be a tech/geek culture show where Rose will be able to interact live with fans, and there are many, along with having rotating guest hosts, how-to’s, and product demos. There’s no doubt that thus far Rose has a huge following, the question is whether they will transfer their allegiance to a new show.

Only time will tell, but one this is for sure, travel time for both Alex (based in L.A.) and Rose (based in San Francisco) will be greatly reduced. Are you amped for fforward? Get in on the launch announcements by visiting the site and signing up.

• Revision3 Ends Diggnation – October 4, 2011
• Kevin Rose Leaves Digg to Pursue Other Startups – March 21, 2011
• Pownce-ing On The Opposition – December 23, 2008
• What Font Does Google Use in their Logo: Fonts of Leading Internet Brands – March 8, 2011
• History of Social Media – November 19, 2010

Rose Leaving Diggnation for fforward? originally appeared on: Crenk
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Likebutton.me provides us the “like traffic” from our friends in Facebook, and monitor what does people like. The site also uses some default columns like CNN, YouTube, TechCrunch, WallStreen Journal, NY Times, MTV, Hulu, Engadget, etc.; and showing us which of our friends recently liked it some content about it.

The system reminds you of something? Digg maybe?

What if Facebook’s “Like” feature replaces Digg and other similar sites? What do you think?

• Crenk Like Button Added to See What Our Community Likes – February 11, 2011
• History of Social Media – November 19, 2010
• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010
• Free Black Icons Set for Social Media and Twitter – September 12, 2010
• Social Media Demographics – July 9, 2010

Facebook Like: See What do you Friends Like with Likebutton.me originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Twitter on the other hand has become a social media promotion tool and a social network – a devilish combination. Because of this, Twitter passed Digg’s traffic rating back in March and is continuing to climb despite periods of stagnation in terms of traffic. Digg however, is falling. Since September, a 15% drop in traffic is indicated by the ComScore graph above and we haven’t even seen the results for December yet.

As the war between Facebook and Twitter calms down could we be now seeing Digg trying to take on Twitter in a no-holds-barred?

• Free Black Icons Set for Social Media and Twitter – September 12, 2010
• Social Media Demographics – July 9, 2010
• Facebook Reaches Quarter of a Billion – July 16, 2009
• 10 Twitter Hashtags to Live a More Frugal and Sustainable Life – October 27, 2011
• Hachi Shows You How To Meet New People – April 27, 2011

Digg’s Traffic Slump originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Now Digg are launching a new trends experiment which will follow in the footsteps of Twitter. However it’s not just a carbon copy.

The trends feature will display stories that people are digging fast but only recently. The idea is to catch big stories in their initial phases before they hit mainstream media.

Here is what the official Digg blog reads about the new experiment:

Because there’s so much that happens beneath the surface of Digg, we’ve been working on new ways to expose the most interesting stories to more people. Today we’re launching a new homepage voting experiment called Digg Trends which will surface certain highly active stories as they’re trending to Digg’s homepage so people can vote on whether or not they feel the story actually belongs there.

How does it work? Digg Trends identifies and highlights upcoming stories that have a high volume of activity (think Diggs, comments, favorites, shares, etc.). When we detect a new trending story, it will appear on the homepage for ten minutes. Based on the Digg and bury activity in those ten minutes the story will either become popular or not. To make it easy to follow the action, we’ve setup a Twitter account to tweet out when a new Digg Trend is up for voting on the homepage. Here’s an example of what a Digg Trend might look like:

The goal of Digg Trends is to put high activity stories in front of the community quickly and to present a fun new way for people to express whether they like the story or not. We only show the most basic information for each story so as to ensure that voting is as unbiased as possible.

• History of Social Media – November 19, 2010
• Free Black Icons Set for Social Media and Twitter – September 12, 2010
• Social Media Demographics – July 9, 2010
• Twitter: Local Trends Go Live! – January 27, 2010
• Foursquare Fans Check-in via Desktop with FoursquareX – January 17, 2010

Digg Launches Trends. See What Are The Hot Topics on Digg originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Reddit is currently leading with three apps to make the mobile experience much more enjoyable. One of theirs is an official app from the Reddit creators themselves. Will Digg be releasing an official app soon?

I’ve taken the liberty to do a review of the three Reddit apps and Digg app that are in the iTune App Store. I am in no way associated with any of these apps, know any of the owners, or am promoting any of them in any fashion. This is merely a review from an avid Reddit and Digg user with a love for social news and social media.

Shovel – Digg App

Author: Scott Fitzhugh

Price: Free

Ratings: 147 Reviews – (at the time of writing)

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/d5yqhu

iTunes Description:

Shovel is an app that provides top stories from the social news website Digg.com in a native application. Browse the front page stories, or delve deeper into an array of topics and subtopics of interest.

Personal Review:

Shovel is a great application for viewing Digg.com content easily on the iPhone. Overall, the design and interface is pretty clean and simple. It gives you a variety of topics and listings to select to view so you can access all of the content on Digg.com. You can view:

• Popular Stories
• Top Stories
• Movers & Shakers
• Brand New Stories

All listings are applicable to any category or sub-category in Digg.com. If you select a Digg story you can then scroll down the commentary to see what people are saying, who’s replied, how many votes each comment has received, etc. After that, you can click further to view the story live on the Web. Which is nice about it is that it doesn’t load Safari as a separate app to view the content so there’s no back-and-forth between the apps.

Unfortunately, what you cannot participate in digging, burying, or commenting through this application. The developer disclaims, “Now we’ve gotten the message loud and clear that the one thing that would turn this 3.5 star app (currently 3 stars) into a 5 star one is the interactivity of the original Digg site. You guys (and gals) want to be able to Digg, comment, and bury, and who can blame you? Right now, however, there is no way to do this using the legitimate Digg APIs, and quite frankly, it makes us sad. I’ve been trying to court the help of Digg in making this app all that it can be, and if you want to help that along, you should drop them a line yourselves requesting the same!”

Another drawback is that you cannot personalize this application because there is no way to login. Therefore you can’t weed out content you don’t want to see, view your account profile, see your friend’s submissions, etc.

In doing some research the Shovel app used to be named “Diggerific”. Apparently, they have changed the name of it and redid the UI just a bit as you can tell from the video review of Diggerific below:

Overview

Pros

• Easy to use
• Clean interface
• Ability to access all Digg content

Cons

• Free of charge
• Can’t Digg, comment, or bury content
• No Digg account profile/community features or functionality

iReddit

Author: CondeNet

Price: $1.99

Ratings: 41 Reviews (at the time of writing)

Feedback Contact: http://getsatisfaction.com/reddit/products/reddit_ireddit

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/ce6tt2

iTunes Description:

The official Reddit iPhone app. Never be bored again. With this app, you’ll only be a tap (or shake) away from the most interesting stuff on the web.

All of your favorite Reddit functionality is here: view the hottest, newest, top, and most controversial stories of the moment, explore, individual subreddits, vote, comment, share, and save links for later. The entire commenting system has been optimized for the iPhone app so you won’t have any trouble contributing to an epic pun thread.

Save time by never having to reload the Reddit homepage. You can even use handy next/previous navigation to move between websites without going back to the main list. And those sites work in portrait and widescreen modes too.

It’s never been easier to be entertained. Just shake your iPhone to enter “serendipity mode” where you’ll be served a random, interesting site. Pro-tip: Turn on “play sound on shake” for a special treat with every jostle — the iPhone is an elegant phone for a more sophisticated age.

And if you’re feeling the economic downturn (what are you doing with an iPhone?) there’s a tree, ad-supported version to come.

Personal Review:

The Official Reddit application is pretty cool. You can input your username and password so that you can vote and comment on stories. Initially, you come to the Reddit homepage. Along the top you can choose between “Hot”, “New”, “Top”, and “Controversial” stories. When selecting a story, there is an overlay on the footer that allows you to upvote/downvote the story, go to the comments section of the story, save the story, and email the link.

Three subreddits will fit on the bottom bar overlay that you can quickly navigate to. You can edit the subreddits with the ones you want to use the most, but you only have a small selection of subreddit’s to swap out with. Those subreddits are:

• Programming
• Funny
• Science
• Tech
• World News
• Entertainment
• Business
• Comics
• Gaming
• Best Of
• Economics
• Cappuccino

It is the most expensive application but I feel it’s the cleanest and easiest to use. Unfortunately, you can’t browse all subreddits and there’s no search function. Nor is there a function to view your account’s saves, karma points, submissions, comments, etc.

I would recommend this app to anyone looking to quickly and easily view Reddit news, vote, and participate in the more popular subreddits. The free Reddit app doesn’t allow for this.

Overview

Pros

• Easily vote on stories from the actual story page
• Save links to view/read later
• Comment participation
• Customization of footer subreddits

Cons

• Most expensive Reddit app
• Not a wide-range of subreddits to customize on your footer
• Can’t browse all subreddits
• No search functionality
• No personal account status functionality

Open Source Reddit

Author: Joseph Pintozzi

Price: Free

Ratings: 10 Reviews (at the time of writing)

Feedback Contact: reddit@pintozzi.com

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/cpjzvj

iTunes Description:

The Reddit application allows users to view the stories from www.reddit.com without having to deal with loading massive webpages. It displays the stories in a nice table view, providing details about each submission, and allows the user to easily view the submitted content. The ability to vote on a submission is currently being added.

Personal Review:

This app is very bare bones with very limited functionality. If you’re looking to vote on stories or participate in the comments this app isn’t for you. If you’re just looking to read “Hot” news from a select few subreddits then this is a good app for the cost of nothing. The included subreddits to choose from are:

• reddit.com
• bacon
• politics
• pics
• WTF
• funny
• technology
• programming

The nice thing about it is that it’s open source and the developer leaves it open for people to add on what they want to it. Hopefully, in the future, this will be a great application for Reddit.

Overview

Pros

• Open Source
• Free

Cons

• No commenting
• No voting
• Can’t browse all subreddits
• No search functionality
• No personal account status functionality

Satellite Reddit

Author: 3Cube Technologies

Price: $0.99

Ratings: 8 Reviews – (at the time of writing)

Feedback Contact: satellite@3cubetechnologies.com or http://twitter.com/3cube

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/cx8eec

iTunes Description:

Satellite 2.0 is now available and brings a host of improvement to the mobile Reddit experience.

Change in this version includes:

• Greatly improved performance
• New, Controversial, and Top views are available for all subreddits
• An overlay displaying the full article title and comments count shows while loading an article
• The subreddit list is reorderable
• A beautiful new icon and splash screen have been added
• New lower pricing.

Satellite is a full-featured client for Reddit.com, a social link aggregation site. With Satellite, you can browse links appearing on the front page or drill down into the Subreddits you are subscribed to. When viewing an article you can vote the link up or down, save it to your Reddit account, or share the link with others. With the click of a button, you can shift into commenting mode to browse comments or post your own back to the Reddit page about the link. The interface provides a substantially more streamlined experience over the mobile Reddit site and incorprates the unique capabilities of the iPhone to make your day to day Reddit’ing much more fun.

Additional Satellite features include:

• Shake the app at any time to explore random content from Reddit
• Next/previous buttons are available at the screen edges to move through content without returning to list view
• Full portrait/landscape modes, including upside down. Great for handing the phone across the dinner table to share your discoveries!
• Returns to the content you were browsing at start-up. Pick up right where you left off when that call came in.
• Highly addictive content discovery available anywhere, at any time!

Personal Review:

This app is definitely worth the 99 cents. After entering in your login information you can view ALL of your subscribed subreddits. It also gives you an option to edit your subreddits for your account. After selecting a subreddit you can choose between “Hot”, “New”, “Controversial”, and “Top” categories in the footer bar. Once selecting a story, it takes you to the story and overlays the story title, submitter, and point count. At the bottom footer you can choose to vote, go to comments, save the link, or email the link. Again though, there’s no search feature with this app either.

This app is a lot like the official iReddit app except it’s more personalized. You can also view your saved Reddits on your account to follow up on how your saves and submissions are doing.

Overview

Pros

• Personalized
• Nice User-Interface
• Good functionality for voting and commenting
• All Reddit content accessible through this app

Cons

• Isn’t free
• Can’t see your karma points
• No search functionality

• Web Strategist Jeremiah Owyang’s Mobile App – December 1, 2009
• 26 New And Awesome Web Apps You Probably Don’t Know About – March 3, 2009
• Crenk Interviews… Zentact – January 7, 2009
• AutoCAD for iPad, iPhone and Mac OS – September 27, 2010
• iTouch Acting as Gateway Drug to iPhone – December 8, 2009

iPhone App Reviews for Social Media News originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

HYPick Logo

stories on the front page time and time again. Users that try their hardest to get their stories on the front page fail more often than not, leaving many to wonder if the site is truly leveraging the wisdom of the crowds or if the system is being gamed.

I won’t get into that discussion, you can find plenty of content on that if you search. What I do want to focus on is an alternative to the Digg’s, Reddits, and other supposed community news sites. Enter HYPick, from the creative mind of social media strategist, Oren Todoros. His vision of truly representing the wide swath of internet users is visualized with this social news site that heavily encourages it’s users to HYPE their favorite stories and articles.

On HYPick there’s no specialized voting system, or fancy magic attached to stories, it’s purely at the  mercy of the community. Articles with the most activity are ranked higher. So as users come and go, read and comment, links and pass on, the article gains momentum as something the community feels should be read by others.

No good vote, bad vote system, just real people participation!

There is no doubt that the passions of the community will have a voice. Many would call this a level playing field, that will remain to be seen. For now the HYPick community is alive and well and already gaining momentum.

The Purpose

Putting power into the hands of the users has been what most community news sites have been after. Accomplishment is iffy at best, but no one can deny the current reign of those sites that have dominated this arena for several years. HYPick’s unique approach will truly test the vision that Oren and his team have put together.

In order to make HYPick the next attractive playground for user submitted news stories, they have integrated two HYPick specialized widgets for their users.

The first:

HYPick Reader

The reader widget which can be placed on the right side of your site. It provides easy access for your readers to see what is being ranked and spoken about on HYPick, but also gives you the ability to quickly jump to the post of interest.

I can even appreciate how the posts can also show imagery when they appear on this list. HYPick did a great job with this widget ensuring that users of their service will always have instant connectivity to the happenings in the community. Detail wise I’m not too sure if there are limitations to the articles listed on this widget, whether they are selected as highly ranked posts rated by the community, or if any post that is put to the community is automatically listed here. Still, HYPick wants to make sure that the community is always involved.

Of note the widget is customizeable to a point, but again, it shows HYPicks dedication to the opinion of its readers!

The second HYPick add-on is this:

HYPick Website Button

In it’s continued effort to ensure that readers and users alike are constantly connected to the community, you can integrate the HYPick icon onto your site, similar to what Digg and Reddit due with their icons. This will notify readers that your post can be placed on the community site for involvement by all. The icon is set up to be unobtrusive yet functional in its duty.

Overall the entire system seems pretty sound. It’s a new playing in the user submitted news community, but it also provides a platform for those that are frustrated about their lack of appearance on the front page of some of the major players. Now I can’t personally vouch for these individuals, I don’t know what their content is, but HYPick seems to be an open forum for a wide variety of possibilities in the news community. I look forward to seeing what this player can do!

• Social Media Demographics – July 9, 2010
• Kevin Rose Leaves Digg to Pursue Other Startups – March 21, 2011
• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010
• Mixx Acquired by UberMedia: Redditors Rejoice – April 20, 2011
• History of Social Media – November 19, 2010

Front Page of Digg Impossible? Try HYPick For Better Results originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

It was a week ago today, that Pownce lost it’s bounce. Co-founders Leah Culver and Mike Malone took their team with them to work with the company that acquired Pownce, Six Apart, on a new micro-blogging platform called Motion.

Pownce launched with wild-acclaim, supported by the founder of Digg, Kevin Rose, it seemed to have all the necessary features to put it toe to toe with Twitter, photo and video sharing, status updates and a delightful interface. It just never really took off, despite being more stable than Twitter.

What does this mean for other micro-blogging sites?

Twitter, the biggest micro-blogging site thus far, recently shook off a $500 million offer from Facebook. And rightly so. As pointed out by Cnet’s Rafe Needleman, “…when it comes to business philosophies, the companies do not mesh. And I’m not just talking about the well-reported SMS expense that Facebook would take on if it integrated Twitter. More than that, Twitter’s stated revenue plans don’t work for Facebook.”

Twitter, one imagines, see themselves as fighting in the same field as Facebook, but on the other side of the fence. They are competitors, but not competitive.

The likes of Tumblr and YouAre are the main rivals to Twitter’s crown. How will these guys possibly stand up to fight with a company that can brush off a bid of half a billion dollars?

The key thing is to offer user friendly tools, such as sharing photos and videos, which Twitter just doesn’t do at the moment, unless you’re a fan of the tinyurl. Secondly it’s important to make it easy to sign up (box ticked) and to make it easy to encourage your friends to sign up and be a part of the action.

My problem with a lot of the newer micro-blogging services is that they’re falling into the trap of being too customisable. Look at Facebook’s wide ranging apps – how many are actually useful in our day to day lives and make a difference to the way we communicate? Very few. Similarly with Bebo and Myspace – the integration of new and exciting things to put on your page is exciting for a moment, but nothing more.

If Twitter is to be ousted, or at least equalled, competitors will need to find niches that they can cling on to and exploit. I see Tumblr as being a brilliant way to share photos for example – the message boxes are just large enough for a high definition image to be shown clearly, but not at a size that will set your PC into meltdown.

It is this specialisation that will see each service acquire a following and then grow as that group develops a culture unique to them. All these different cultures will eventually begin to intermingle as users being to find each service useful for different things and then telling their friends to join them on xyz.

It comes down to talent in the end however. Six Apart will have known all along that they were really just after the Pownce team, and not their name or platform. The biggest challenge facing all of the micro-blogging services will be to hold onto their key staff, thinkers and doers alike.

Social Networking, at the moment, is a philosophy that is becoming increasingly tangible, but not ingrained in mainstream culture as Facebook currently is, yet.

• Facebook Connect Battles For Your Information – December 1, 2008
• Revision3 Ends Diggnation – October 4, 2011
• Kevin Rose Leaves Digg to Pursue Other Startups – March 21, 2011
• What Font Does Google Use in their Logo: Fonts of Leading Internet Brands – March 8, 2011
• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010

Pownce-ing On The Opposition originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

In recent months the number of social networks has grown exponentially. At the beginning of this boom there were obvious leaders in the market, networks like MySpace and Facebook come to mind. In that time there have been a lot of networks looking for their place online, attracting niche groups from within the online community. Other networks were developed that had entirely different purposes, but still remained under the guise of a social media tool such as Twitter, Yelp, and Digg to name a few.

Everyone can see that at some point all this development will culminate a scenario where thousands of networks will be fighting for the dominant number of users, the smaller networks either dying out or being bought out. We saw this in a recent purchase of Pownce by SixApart, whose plans are to disable the service, but acquire the users via another service that will undoubtedly be under the sole development of SixApart. Users are given the option to transfer their data, but ultimately there is an example of services being absorbed by larger offerings due to the over abundance and saturation of the market.

Facebook Connect is now becoming the new battleground for social networks. The face of the war for users is changing, and MySpace and Facebook are battling for dominance. Luckily for users, we will ultimately benefit, and the winner is yet to be determined.

Facebook, In It to Win It

Facebook Connect was announced mid-summer with an expected launch of 24 partners on board. The concept was to create a portal by which users of Facebook could sign on and using their profiles, access data on other social networks, all without leaving the Facebook platform. By allowing users to port their profile data to third-party Web sites, several opportunities become available to the user.

• You can leverage your identity across the web in trust environments for ease of use
• Take your friends across various networks ensuring trusted social context anywhere you go
• The piece of mind knowing that the privacy settings you set on Facebook will go with you as you cross the boundaries into other networks
• Actions you make on partner sites will be shared with your friends on Facebook, keeping them in the know about what you like, what you’re doing, and what you find interesting

The idea of the project is to create a deeper, enriching experience using Facebook as the anchor for all your social media experiences.

What’s In It For Partner Sites?

The curious thing anyone would ask is why the networks would come together in such a way that their services rely on large sites like Facebook? For starters, the instinct to survive as to be at the top of the list. Networks are competing for users, all of them hoping to break out and be the leader in their respective niche. Secondly, by partnering you ensure that the millions of users that Facebook states they have will eventually bleed over onto the partnering network.

For example, by utilizing Facebook Connect a user and sign in and perhaps read about Digg. Wanting to be a part of the Digg community the user only has to select the partner and the profile data will port over to the Digg profile creation page instantly making it easier for the user to begin their Digg experience. The benefit is obvious ease of use, but also new users, and the power of link backs which gives the social sites their traction. By sharing contact lists, you increase the power of the network and Facebook benefits by being the hub for all of your social media access.

Currently MySpace is also fighting is also in the fight for your time, your identity and your data on the social networks, but Facebook has come out of the gate with very powerful alliances.

I’m curious to see the outcome of this online competition from two of the largest social community sites on the net today.

• Social Media Demographics – July 9, 2010
• Social Networking Site for Collectors – June 29, 2009
• Pownce-ing On The Opposition – December 23, 2008
• History of Social Media – November 19, 2010
• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010

Facebook Connect Battles For Your Information originally appeared on: Crenk
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In a surprising side venture, Gary Vaynerchuck known for his outrageous and popular Wine Library TV show, along with his brothers and Digg partner Joe Stump, have developed an amazing t-shirt search engine.

PleaseDressMe delves deep into the online world for hip and popular t-shirts from such places as Threadless and BustedTees. This venture is sure to gain in popularity, not just cause of the names attached to the project, but because of the popularity of slogan shirts.

The interface is no-nonsense, and while it’s still new, provides sufficient options for your search. Don’t know what you want? No problem, PleaseDressMe offers searches based on keywords, t-shirt colors, tags, and even price. A great way to encounter your own taste and at the same time be introduced to other shirts you did not know existed.

I would definitely keep an eye out on this site because it’s sure to explode with options in the coming months!

• Revision3 Ends Diggnation – October 4, 2011
• Kevin Rose Leaves Digg to Pursue Other Startups – March 21, 2011
• What Font Does Google Use in their Logo: Fonts of Leading Internet Brands – March 8, 2011
• History of Social Media – November 19, 2010
• Electronic Spy Camera Shirt – November 7, 2010

Let Gary V. Pick Your Tee originally appeared on: Crenk
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There is famous and there is infamous, and StumbleUpon (SU) can make you both. In a recent event, Darren Rowse of Problogger got a first hand look at what SU did to make him infamous.

Darren has been a big supporter of SU, thus using it very heavily to rate sites across the net. In return for his dedicated support of others sites, a great number of his readership returns the support by stumbling his articles, creating a supportive community. Yesterday, he was notified that StumbleUpon had not just blocked, but banned him for abuse.

This misunderstanding hit the media networks in approximately an hour and a half the entire situation was resolved thanks to dedicated fans, but more importantly a customer friendly, transparent company willing to be open on the errors they make.

While many feel that SU was in the wrong, I find that measuring a business by how it admits and handles its errors is more important than assigning blame. SU did a fantastic and prompt job responding to Darren and Problogger was reestablished.

What is StumbleUpon?

StumbleUpon, similar to Digg, allows you to vote for sites, increasing the popularity based on user support. Once a site has been stumbled, a chain reaction through the social network is viral, and many sites see an increase in traffic.

A toolbar installs into the browser header once downloaded. This allows them to “stumble” a site, a basic “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” If you “thumbs up” a site, you are allowed to provide a brief description of the site and your rating. If a site has already been stumbled then you’ve simply boosted the sites rating, which affects the frequency in the rotation of random sites that SU will display. StumbleUpon is heavily monitored for abuse to provide a level playing field for all sites involved.

I for one enjoy and fully support StumbleUpon, and encourage you to explore the application and while ranking sites is always enjoyable, clicking the “stumble” button can take you to sites you may never have found otherwise.

Photo Credit, tris

• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010
• Social Media Demographics – July 9, 2010
• Digg Launches Trends. See What Are The Hot Topics on Digg – November 5, 2009
• Front Page of Digg Impossible? Try HYPick For Better Results – February 3, 2009
• Facebook Connect Battles For Your Information – December 1, 2008

StumbleUpon Can Make You Famous originally appeared on: Crenk
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