Tracking mentions online is a huge market that has yet to turn any profit. Still, there are a lot of sites out there that track mentions on Twitter, Facebook, various social sites, and a few blog sites as well. Knowing what trending topics are hot and when your name or brand is mentioned is important and becomes a focal point of tracking your web presence.
Regator is both a web app and a mobile app that allows you to keep up with what is happening in the blogosphere without missing a beat. The unique addition of the mobile app ensures that you never miss a mention. They pay app ($1.99) is a functional addition to any mobile media person’s toolbox.
Regator does little to stop you from jumping right in. Search for keywords, browse the web from within Regator, search real time trends, and even set up a blog monitor for specific names and keywords for daily reports when those words are mentioned.
I also found the ability to favorite posts, entire blogs, and/or topics to be useful for when I needed to come back and read up more in depth later.
Regator definitely explores millions of posts thousands of the best sites out there. I found it an interesting tool for media, business, writing, and news professionals. But just about anyone can find a great use to keep up on their specific keyword choices or trending topics.
Mobile media is huge. But you knew that. But what if there was a way to take the tiny screen of your mobile device, and display it up to 60 inches of viewing pleasure? Perhaps you’re checking into a hotel and still don’t like the 32 inch screen they’ve given you. Perhaps what you need is a portable pocket projector.
The Cinemin Swivel Portable Projector created by WowWee has gotten extremely high reviews on many other sites. This pocket projector ($300) utilizes DLP projection technology to give the user that 60 inch experience. The internal battery is rechargeable for up to 2 hours of use, and overs a 90-degree swivel design allowing the user to choose how they wish to see their display.
This little pocket wonder is great for presentations on the go, watching videos at home, in your office, hotel, or anywhere that has a flat surface and you’ve got time to watch something. Now because the internal battery is only 2 hours, perhaps leaving it plugged into the wall for longer use is wise for movies, but otherwise, this little dynamo seems pretty sweet.
The Cinemin can connect to the iPod, iPhone, Flip Video, PSP, digital cameras, portable DVD players, netbooks, and smartphones with video-out functionality. To make this purchase even more attractive, the purchase includes a variety of international plug adapters to ensure that you are always able to access your media.
Web design used to be only for those savvy enough to code and design original graphics. Not to take away from the skill it takes to do good web design, many of us are simply looking for a way to display content: video, photos, and text. We’ve come a long way since the days of Geocities, and are now able to do so much more with the web apps that have been developed for the everyman.
As an audio content creator, I’m always looking for ways to record better audio, whether it’s in my in-home studio or on my mobile as I’m on the go. Too often I find myself with opportunities to record a quick sound byte while attending conventions, meetings, seminars, or running into people across town. I’ve tested a lot of audio equipment out, but to fit my needs the real winner has been Blue Microphones.
The PogoPlug, reviewed earlier this year, is a simple no-fuss NAS solution. PogoPlug offers a lot of bang for the buck, costing only $129.
Features include:
Four USB ports
New address book feature
Gloabl search across all drives
Plus all the PogoPlugs associated with a single account
Here’s the full press release, for your enjoyment:
Second Generation Pogoplug™ Unveiled Today
Next-generation Hardware Design and Software Provide Enhanced Storage, Multimedia and Social Media Capabilities
San Francisco, Calif. – November 20, 2009 – Cloud Engines, Inc. unveiled the second generation of the award winning Pogoplug multimedia sharing device today giving consumers more flexibility to store personal content safely in the home and access, manage, and share it from anywhere on the Internet. The new Pogoplug hardware sports a new design boasting multiple USB ports supporting up to 4 external drives for expanded data capacity. The new Pogoplug also gives users improved sharing capabilities, an easy drag-and-drop interface to create engaging multi-media slide shows, seamless media playback, and enhanced sharing with friends on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
Pogoplug acts like a gateway from your home or office through the Internet. It allows you to access, share and even stream your personal digital media directly to anybody, anywhere in the world. Your content always remains physically in your home or office, making it secure, convenient and available on your terms. Pogoplug is perfect for those individuals with increasingly mobile lifestyles and small businesses in need of simple, inexpensive mobile data access solutions.
“The reaction to the Pogoplug has been incredible. By listening to user feedback and following our own product roadmap, we are bringing a great second-generation product that gives our customers access to a host of new features that both improve the function of the Pogoplug, and add to the fun of using it as well.” said Daniel Putterman, CEO of Cloud Engines, Inc. “We are committed to giving our customers the best way to access their data from anywhere in the world, pushing the envelope with both product quality and design aesthetic. The result is what you see here today.”
NEW HARDWARE
The new Pogoplug design retains the simplicity and ease of use of the original while listening to consumer feedback and adding the ability to directly connect up to 4 external hard drives at once. The resulting product boasts an improved design with greatly improved functionality for users with multiple drives and an increasing need for easy synching and sharing of their digital libraries. This upgrade turns the Pogoplug into an even more prominent feature in the modern digital home or small business.
NEW FEATURES Automatically Synchronize Photos, Videos, Music and Other Selected Content
Users can synchronize their Pogoplug with their PC or Mac to automatically import new content from popular applications such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, and iPhoto. This feature allows Pogoplug owners to “set it and forget it” and always have access to new photos, videos and music from anywhere on the Internet.
Drag-and-Drop Music and Photo Slideshows
Users can easily create and share fun and engaging slideshows using their stored photos, videos and music. Creating a slideshow with Pogoplug is as simple as drag and drop, and sharing these slideshows is just as easy as ever. Once a user’s link is shared and viewed, their slideshow will immediately begin with the photos, videos and music they selected, playing seamlessly in the viewer’s browser.
Easier Sharing with Pogoplug Address Book
Pogoplug Address Book greatly improves the speed and ease of use of sharing with a user’s friends and family. Pogoplug automatically remembers all email addresses entered in a user’s previous shares – even if that share no longer exists – and makes them available in an easy to use address book to make sharing truly one click away.
Global Search Across Multiple Drives and Pogoplugs
With support for multiple drives on a single Pogoplug (and multiple Pogoplugs on the same account) Pogoplug has added “global” search support across all of a user’s Pogoplugs and drives. Search filters are now a distinct feature, allowing users to view all of their photos, videos and music in a single organized view, or to search for a specific file across all Pogoplugs and drives.
Organize Your Music, Photos and Videos
Pogoplug automatically displays music by Album, Artist and Genre, and shows cover art for quick access to a user’s favorite music. Photos are now displayed by photo timeline and videos are only a click away, including the ability to watch a preview in the thumbnail itself.
Play movies directly from my.pogoplug.com, or even to the iPhone
Pogoplug now supports the playback of videos directly from a Pogoplug, with support for the most popular cameras, video cameras and mobile phones. Movies can be shared and viewed directly from the Pogoplug website – or even from an iPhone!
Pricing and Availability
We are currently taking Pre-Orders for Pogoplug at www.pogoplug.com Units will ship before the end of the year – just in time for the Holiday Season. The Pogoplug has a suggested retail price of $129, with no additional service fees.
ABOUT THE POGOPLUG
The Pogoplug is a device that connects up to 4 external hard drives to the Internet. It is designed for consumers who have an external hard drive and have high speed Internet. Consumers can securely access and share all of their content [Files, Photos, and Video] from any Web browser or enabled mobile device with no additional monthly fees. Free your inner drive.
ABOUT CLOUD ENGINES, INC.
Founded in 2007 by experienced entrepreneurs from the digital media and security industries, Cloud Engines is located in San Francisco, California. The company was formed with a mission to change the way personal content is stored and distributed over the Internet. The Cloud Engines philosophy is that by making a product simple, open and affordable, the community will participate in making it better. For more information, please visit our Web site, www.cloudengines.com.
It’s not uncommon for us here at Crenk to come across web applications that do the same thing, the only differences are that some might do it better or worse than another. In this case, the team has come across a very interesting music listening application called TubeRadio.
Once again for the music lover in all of us, this just astounds me. Now it does not have the capability to tap into your own stored music, but as powerful as this search engine is, this could very well replace my Pandora or Last.Fm efforts, even if only for a little while. TubeRadio calls itself the Youtube for music. After you see the video below, you’ll know what I mean.
So what do you think? They search is amazing and very thorough. I’m surprised at how music it can find, and even more so by how seamless the integration of listening and/or watching your music can be. During the video the speaker mentions it being like your personal MTV. Yeah, MTV, from when it used to actually play music.
My experience with TubeRadio has been a good one. I’ve found what I want to listen to, it streams everything smoothly with little problem. In my opinion the only thing really missing is the ability to tap into my own music, but I can overlook that for now since I’m lining up some great music of my own, and of other recommended playlists.
There aren’t very many social media applications yet on the iPhones that are based around social news or social bookmarking. Digg has a an unofficial app which is much improved than the last unofficial app that was in the iTunes App Store which is no longer available. Delicious has quite a few apps that are decent but lack a few important features. Disappointingly, StumbleUpon doesn’t have any applications and neither does Mixx or Yahoo! Buzz.
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 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
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
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.
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.
Following our recent review of Zentact, we spoke to the team behind the service. Read on for insights from Jared Brandt, John Sampson and Eric Marcoullier about their previous work with MyBlogLog, a hint of what’s to come with new service Gnip, and what makes them and their fab social networking tool tick.
What is the Zentact philosophy?
(Jared) We are creating a product that integrates into already existing work flows, helping our users build better relationships. We do this without any BS. (Eric would say the our product will make the baby jesus cry…)
Sharing information with your contacts is something that Mr. Marcoullier seems to be a fan of! What makes Zentact different to other content sharing websites?
(Jared) Social networks are a lot of work for traditionally very little payoff. CRM tools are worse.
(Eric) Zentact aims to flip that on its ear and provide loads of tangible results for little ongoing effort.
(Jared) Typical content sharing websites and apps have focused on the user always remembering whom to share with. We are trying, in effect, to whisper in the user’s ear and suggest whom they can share this with in a meaningful way – we make sure you share what matters. We will be adding more social aspects in the near future as well.
How has the web 2.0 landscape changed since the coneption and subsequent selling of MyBlogLog to now and the work you’re doing with Zentact?
(John) MyBlogLog allowed users to create profiles that traveled with them where they surfed, adding value to both the mybloglog member and website owner. More Web 2.0 apps today are leveraging this concept, be it scripts, widgets, and even in browsers. The value that is created by individual apps and even apps created mashing APIs together is significant.
Some commentators have said that they’d like Facebook integration, in particular to help when tagging – is this something you and the team are looking into?
(Jared) We will be integrating in with Facebook to help with both tagging, tracking last connection and posting to the wall.
Will you be looking to include integration with other social networking services – if so what is the liklihood of this happening before Zentact comes out of Beta?
(Jared) We are in a private beta now and working on launching our public beta. We will likely integrate with other social networking services and other communication platforms before leaving beta. We are also listening to our users – feedback will help lead the way.
What is really exciting you on the web (Zentact aside)?
(Jared) Gnip
(John) Apple app store
I would argue that 2008 has been the year of Twitter and that it will become more mainstream in 2009 – what do you think will be the big social media development in the next 12 months?
(Jared) We think that there will be a big movement towards information – instead of just data. More products will become contextual.
What has been the main challenge for Zentact since you founded the company?
(Jared) Our number one challenge has been to prioritize features since, as a team, we have many features we want to do quickly.
And what has been the achievement that has made you most happy?
(Jared) We have gotten feedback from users ranging for “wow” to “Zentact helped me close a deal”. This feedback is what makes us tick!
What are the next key milestones you’ll be looking to meet?
( Jared) Public beta and our IE version.
What can we expect from Zentact in 2009?
(Jared) A killer product that will seamlessly improve your life.
To try Zentact for yourself, we have a few private invites to test the private beta, which you lucky boys and girls can get here.
Zemanta has long been a favorite addition to my blogging processes. This interesting little addition to the browser builds in the ability include photos, links, and tags for all of your media inserts. By installing Zemanta, I have reduced the time it takes to track down information to include, and by setting up some personal settings I’m sure to find what I need when I need it.
The New
Zemanta has always offered what it thinks you will need in terms of photos and links, but today Zemanta is launching their public API which will now allow users to build a “user suggestion engine.”
Funding for the company has come from Union Square Ventures, Eden Ventures and The Accelerator Group, along with its win at the fist SeedCamp, this announcement has come out of LeWeb in Paris, France. This announcement is sure to increase not only the number of users, but also the dependency that online writers will have on this dynamic tool.
The Future
Zemanta has now opened itself to a huge reception in the world of online content creators. By opening their API, they can approach content creators to leverage their unorganized with the system, and the users are able to access the content for various needs.
In an article by TechCrunch, they state that “usage of the API is free for up to 10.000 API calls per month, and for a subscription fee above that.” So not only has Zemanta found a way to integrate user input, but they also find a way to monetize their efforts for content creators to get organized.
Zemanta has a bright future ahead of it. I have just recently connected with one of the Founders for Zemanta on Twitter @andraz. He’s easily approachable and seems to be keen on connecting with users around the world.
The dictionary, for years, had been the bane of my existence as a kid. I remember when I did not know something I was always told “look it up.” I remember being frustrated tearing through the massive dictionary just to find an answer. As I got older I began to appreciate the dictionary along with its cousin thesaurus. As a communications professional in my adult life, these two, both physical and through various apps, have become the cornerstone of my career as a writer.
We all know dictionaries are not hot properties, and people are not tearing down the house to find new ways to make it better, but in an interesting turn of event, Wordia has done just that. Created by former TV producer Edward Baker, and funded by ex-Bebo employee Michael Birch, Wordia looks to mashup Dictionary, YouTube, and Wikipedia. This hodge podge looks to be more for entertainment rather than serious information, but with Birch’s previous eye for start-up successes, it might have some legs to stand on.
Wordia is the site where everything you get is in video format. Looking up a word will provide you with a video explaining the word, definition, and other vitals you’d need to attain understanding. While there is still text, user generated videos will be attached to the word, and users will be able to rank the videos in term of their favorite, most accurate, and most humorous to name a few options.
This is definitely not your parents dictionary, but I still question whether the videos are necessary as opposed to a major distraction. I look forward to seeing how many users jump on board and the accuracy and reputation the site builds.
tiny screen of your mobile device, and display it up to 60 inches of viewing pleasure? Perhaps you’re checking into a hotel and still don’t like the 32 inch screen they’ve given you. Perhaps what you need is a portable pocket projector.
Web design used to be only for those savvy enough to code and design original graphics. Not to take away from the skill it takes to do good web design, many of us are simply looking for a way to display content: video, photos, and text. We’ve come a long way since the days of Geocities, and are now able to do so much more with the web apps that have been developed for the everyman.
As an audio content creator, I’m always looking for ways to record better audio, whether it’s in my in-home studio or on my mobile as I’m on the go. Too often I find myself with opportunities to record a quick sound byte while attending conventions, meetings, seminars, or running into people across town. I’ve tested a lot of audio equipment out, but to fit my needs the real winner has been 
It’s not uncommon for us here at Crenk to come across web applications that do the same thing, the only differences are that some might do it better or worse than another. In this case, the team has come across a very interesting music listening application called 
(at the time of writing)
Following our recent review of Zentact, we spoke to the team behind the service. Read on for insights from Jared Brandt, John Sampson and Eric Marcoullier about their previous work with MyBlogLog, a hint of what’s to come with new service Gnip, and what makes them and their fab social networking tool tick.
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