A recent site called PleaseRobMe.com has highlighted the risk of sharing your locations for the most paranoid of the bunch. It stands to reason that anyone can know anything about you if they really wanted to, with or without Foursquare. Though the site appears to be a joke, the seriousness in which someone’s property could truly be in jeopardy is something that is not easily overlooked.

Illegal? Does this site incite people to do harm to another? Some say that if you choose to share your location you deserve what happens, but that seems a very narrow minded point of view.

So tell me, where do you stand? Do you use geo-locating services? Do sites like PleaseRobMe.com exist as a wake up call or as a way to incite theft?

• Foursquare Fans Check-in via Desktop with FoursquareX – January 17, 2010
• Social Networking with 6rounds Expands Online Community – November 4, 2009
• 10 Twitter Hashtags to Live a More Frugal and Sustainable Life – October 27, 2011
• JP Morgan Didnt Invest in Twitter – March 3, 2011
• How to Handle Several Twitter Accounts – September 19, 2010

Is Foursquare the Perfect Crime? originally appeared on: Crenk
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Most recently users have been looking for a rich desktop experience, something that Foursquare does not offer on their site. They offer options to change settings and such, but not a way to claim your location. Now that has changed thanks to a small development company that’s created FoursquareX. The desktop application, for Mac only, is an OSX based application that allows you to check-in but also allows you to see where your friends are based on an interactive map. Reading deeper into the way this application works, users will be happy to know that it offers the following beneficial features:

• app runs in the background, sending you notifications when updates and check-ins are made
• appears to use a Google map app and overlays your friends icons to show their location
• if you’re looking to meet new people, you’ll be notified when people check-in whether you know them or not, giving you the chance to say “hi”.

Take a look if you’re a Foursquare fan and let us know what you think. So far I’m happy with it, and hope to see some type of port to the actual Foursquare app on the mobile because I can see this becoming a fully functional aspect of the mobile app.

• Is Foursquare the Perfect Crime? – February 19, 2010
• Plurk Still Fuming Over Microsoft Rip-off – December 20, 2009
• Godtube / Tangle: God Is On The Internet – January 9, 2010
• Seesmic’s Acquistion of Ping.fm Secures Future Goals – January 5, 2010
• Smarter, More Direct Crowdsourcing? – December 29, 2009

Foursquare Fans Check-in via Desktop with FoursquareX originally appeared on: Crenk
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We help unite the Body of Christ by allowing you to connect with other Christians, Share the Gospel & grow in your relationships – All for the glory of Jesus Christ.

The site is essentially a Christian themed media channel, with boards for Christian music, user submitted videos about Christianity and discussing religion in general (supposedly allowing comment from both Christians and Atheists, but you’ve got to ask yourself which right minded moderate atheist is going to be hanging out on a God-themed social networking website), profile pages for Christians, a Christian version of Flickr, where you can post your photos for Christians to look at… Basically, an ugly version of Facebook, with added Christ. Oh, and they’ve got a store, http://www.christiangiver.com/ where you can buy lots of nice Heaven Approved products.

They monitor and approve all content before it is allowed to go live, “tangle differentiates itself from other social networks by monitoring and approving all content before it goes live on the site, which works to provide a safe and secure online experience.” [quote from their Wikipedia entry] – this may indeed help stop arguments getting out of hand, and 4chan style trolling, but it doesn’t seem to me that it would be conducive to free and open debate, and some of the things they approve seem like the usual old right wing conservative scaremongering, or lonely crackpots spouting religious diatribes. Still, we have to give marks for effort; at least they’re trying to stay engaged in discussion.

I find it a little disturbing when people try to put the seal of divine approval on essentially commercial things; this site doesn’t flaunt it’s Holiness in your face, and seems quite laid back and open, so perhaps I should be more open minded in turn, but who regulates these things? Seemingly anyone could purport to be speaking for a religious community or market you any old product with the name of a deity in their mouth, and have nothing to substantiate the support of that religion, or to differentiate their product from the next online service/coffee maker/radio alarm clock. Ultimately, religious bodies are so diverse that no one voice speaks for them all, but there are a lot of faces and voices on Tangle, and if you like your society with a whiff of pews and incense, then this might be the place for you – personally I don’t know why the God-fearing can’t just mingle with the rest of us sinners online – it seems a little insular.

• Foursquare Fans Check-in via Desktop with FoursquareX – January 17, 2010
• Plurk Still Fuming Over Microsoft Rip-off – December 20, 2009
• First Google+ TV Advertising: Sharing, but like real life – November 25, 2011
• Larry Pages Doesnt Even Use Google Plus – September 19, 2011
• Diglo: Social Network for File Sharing and Media Hosting – July 31, 2011

Godtube / Tangle: God Is On The Internet originally appeared on: Crenk
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Seesmic acquires Ping.fm

One million posts a day you say? Very possible now that Seesmic has acquired Ping.fm. Personally it was a shock, I’m not privy to Silicon Valley chatter, but I think for most Seesmic Desktop users, this will offer a bevy of updating options. At last count there were over 50 sites that Ping.fm updated, and now Seesmic Desktop will harness this power. But this is just the top of iceberg. With some further API development and plug-in updates, this positions Seesmic closer to their goal of one million posts a day for 2010.

A huge congrats goes out to Loic Le Meur who not only acquired the application, but also the founding talent behind it, Adam Duffy and Sean McCollough who are now joining the Seesmic team full time. With talent like this in an already powerful application any other future goals seem like a no brainer when it comes to possibility of achieving. According to TechCrunch, Ping.fm boasts approximately 500,000 users with approximately 200,000 updates a day.

I’m interested to see how this plays out in the battle for social media supremacy. Currently Tweetdeck, which seemed to vie for the position of social media go-to app, will be left in the dust once Seesmic integrates the updating power of Ping.fm. Currently Tweetdeck updates, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn, a far cry from the 50 that Ping.fm reaches. Personally I’m a Tweetdeck user, but this acquisition could make me change my desktop app of choice.

• MySpace Assures imeem Users, Playlists Are Safe – December 22, 2009
• How to Handle Several Twitter Accounts – September 19, 2010
• Is Foursquare the Perfect Crime? – February 19, 2010
• Foursquare Fans Check-in via Desktop with FoursquareX – January 17, 2010
• Personal Search for Your Twitter Contacts – December 31, 2009

Seesmic’s Acquistion of Ping.fm Secures Future Goals originally appeared on: Crenk
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Bitly.tv offers up a unique way of ranking videos.

There’s a lot of video search engines out there, there’s also a lot of sites that rank the videos that you should be watching. YouTube is probably one of the biggest ones know, and probably the most searched. Not everything on YouTube is worth viewing, but then again, everyone has their taste. That being said, Bitly.tv is one of those experiments that came out of no where for me.

Does the name sounds familiar?

If you’re used to using URL shorteners, Bit.ly is probably the most popular of them. Their addition of Bitly.tv is a nice compliment to their already existing lineup.

Bitly.tv uses a unique proprietary algorithm, called “bitrank”, that informs users of the videos the world is watching. The ranking is based on several factors including the number of times your bit.ly link was clicked on, the number of times the link was retweeted or shared on social networks, also including the number of times the same video has been bit.ly’d by other users. While the filters keep out porn and other inappropriate content, it’s an almost pure social way these videos are shared.

The site is very nondescript, giving the content straight away. The videos are in multiple windows you just go through the gallery of videos that are the most shared at that moment. The database is constantly updating and new video are being added to the stream as online communities are sharing them. What I like the most is that while I’m watching the videos the right side bar is keeping track of real time conversations regarding the video you’re watching so that you can see what others think. It’s definitely something experimental, but I’ll keep my eye on it, as it’s selections that my internet peers think are worth watching, why not give it a look?

• Social Networking with 6rounds Expands Online Community – November 4, 2009
• Real Life Time Crisis with Andy Whitfield – September 12, 2011
• Hulu Tops the World of Online Streaming Video Ads for March 2011 – April 15, 2011
• How to Upload MP3 files to YouTube – October 24, 2010
• Looxcie Could Be the Future of Digital Cameras – September 20, 2010

Viral Videos Have New Home on Bitly.tv originally appeared on: Crenk
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A more direct method to crowdsource.

More people are turning to the internet for their answers to questions like “why does this hurt?” to “what’s for dinner?”. Web and mobile apps are becoming the go to for much of our information, but all the information on the internet had to have been put there by someone. The disconnect to relationships comes when you simply read a blog post, listen to a podcast, or watch a vidcast, rather than interact with them directly. Would things be different if we could connect with someone in real time who was thinking the same thing you were, at the same time, or feeling the same way you do? Chances are we’re looking for someone to relate to us in some way and the “Anybody Out There” web app is a great way to get that conversation started.

Crowdsourcing information to questions has never been more direct. Sure you can use Twitter, but that’s like casting out a line and hoping for a bite. Did the person who respond qualify as the best ranked person to respond, or was it just someone in your thousands of followers. What the “Anybody Out There” app strives to do is using its language algorithm to calculate the best people to talk to depending on your question or topic. These recommendations are fed to you and it’s up to you to make the direct point of contact.

The app offers nothing more than a qualified connection, it’s the user experience that I find most interesting. So next time you want to cast your question or topic of discussion into the internet either, check out “Anybody Out There” and see if anyone is ready to talk about your thoughts and ideas.

• Social Networking with 6rounds Expands Online Community – November 4, 2009
• Is Foursquare the Perfect Crime? – February 19, 2010
• Foursquare Fans Check-in via Desktop with FoursquareX – January 17, 2010
• Seesmic’s Acquistion of Ping.fm Secures Future Goals – January 5, 2010
• Linkedin iPhone Update Offers More Functionality – December 29, 2009

Smarter, More Direct Crowdsourcing? originally appeared on: Crenk
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imeem playlists moving to MySpace Music

were nowhere to be found. MySpace’s acquisition is not responsible for imeem going away, as the suffering company would have surely gone the way of the dinosaur on its own, but rather, shutting off the API killed a lot of apps, desktop and mobile alike. The impact was felt the world over as no word was even given, no warning, not even an explanation was made at the time of this event.

Recently MySpace has done right with the imeem community by assuring them that their playlists are fine, and are simply being ported over to MySpace music playlists. While I’m not entirely sure of MySpace’s music porting capabilities, I’d have to assume this is not an overnight process. Nevertheless, MySpace’s imeem acknowledgement provides some comfort to avid imeem users, but little those that have already migrated to other platforms. The service’s dedicated fans were the most spurned by this transition in ownership, and perhaps MySpace’s assurance comes too little too late.

In the announcement MySpace encourages users to use the existing music service provided by said company while the transition is taking place. It states it has the largest licensed digital catalog of music, hoping to lighten the blow even more, but for some of us, MySpace is not a site we thought of when we thought of music. Will the acquisition of imeem, will this change? Should be interesting to see the response once the imeem playlists have been brought over.

• Myspace Music Testing out Social Network Aggregation Tool – April 4, 2011
• Seesmic’s Acquistion of Ping.fm Secures Future Goals – January 5, 2010
• MySpace Music Launches – September 26, 2008
• History of Social Media – November 19, 2010
• How to Handle Several Twitter Accounts – September 19, 2010

MySpace Assures imeem Users, Playlists Are Safe originally appeared on: Crenk
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Nsyght is a social search engine.

o not just offer up social search possibilities, but also offer up some great discovery methods for new content. When I first discovered Nsyght, it reminded me of an earlier company I reviewed called Worio which was a discovery search engine that had a lot of great social community aspects.

Nsyght offers social search via information based on the following networks: Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Flickr, Last.fm, Vimeo and Delicious. The unique aspect of gathering information from all of these sites is that users can create a social graph which is the true strength of this social search. The social graph is information pulled from all of your friends on the above listed networks, whether they are signed up with Nsyght or not, but because it’s information revolving around you, it’s graphed.

The graphs are definitely amazing, informational, at the very least interesting to view. Being able to distill information is a powerful resource as more and more data is being collected online and going through it can be extremely difficult. The recommendation engine is extremely powerful since it’s not just important to know who you know already, but who also might be in your line of interest to connect with.

Nsyght has some powerful legs to move on, and users that create their own profiles are going to get lots of information. I’m interested to see how this network plays out.

• Social Networking with 6rounds Expands Online Community – November 4, 2009
• Is Foursquare the Perfect Crime? – February 19, 2010
• Twitter De-stablizing Celebrity Presence – January 30, 2010
• Foursquare Fans Check-in via Desktop with FoursquareX – January 17, 2010
• Seesmic’s Acquistion of Ping.fm Secures Future Goals – January 5, 2010

Nsyght Offers Real Time Social Searches originally appeared on: Crenk
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Plurk weighs legal action against Microsoft.

e going out of style. API’s had opened up and similar social networks sprang up, each offering their unique twist to the game, with names that followed the web2.0 trend of dropping vowels. Some others were truly unique, Plurk is a

good example. Now admittedly I am not a fan of Plurk, never found a use for it, never liked the way conversations were held, but it had its following and it did what it did well.

The fact that Plurk was one of those forgotten social networks that not many people talk about, I found it interesting when they popped up in the press again, this time butting heads with computer giant Microsoft on what is a case of blatant theft of code to produce a network called MSN Juku, for their China based customers. Reported on TechCrunch, Mashable, and a few other tech sites, Microsoft quickly pulled the plug on the launch of MSN Juku and blamed the third-party vendor as the culprit for this incident.

Issuing an apology, Microsoft wanted to smooth things over with Plurk, saying that the product is no longer on the market and that swift action was taking with the third-party vendor. Plurk does not seem satisfied with that apology, though they noted that they were aware of it. It seems like Plurk is now considering all options available to them, to include legal action.

Now, in my opinion, Plurk has fallen off the face of the earth, I hadn’t heard of them in a very long time. Publicity like this is pushing them into the forefront again, with new eyes migrating over to their services to check them out. I’m not one to speculate…okay I will, but methinks that publicity like this would work to Plurk’s advantage and keeping this situation going can only mean good things.

Should be interesting to see if Plurk’s user base grows from this, naturally I don’t expect numbers to be shared, but is any press good press? In this case, perhaps yes.

Are you a fan of Plurk? If so, what do you like, if not, why did you leave? Leave your comments below!

• Foursquare Fans Check-in via Desktop with FoursquareX – January 17, 2010
• Is Foursquare the Perfect Crime? – February 19, 2010
• Godtube / Tangle: God Is On The Internet – January 9, 2010
• Seesmic’s Acquistion of Ping.fm Secures Future Goals – January 5, 2010
• Smarter, More Direct Crowdsourcing? – December 29, 2009

Plurk Still Fuming Over Microsoft Rip-off originally appeared on: Crenk
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Apple devices come with a native recording device, and even social networkslike Utterli have functioned as a way to capture audio and share it, but none have been as easy as and intuitive as Audio Boo for the iPhone and the iTouch is. The application takes voice recording to a whole new level with a press of a button. Before you know it, you just might start audio recording a whole lot more than you think.

Audio Boo is both a desktop and mobile app. The desktop app allows you to configure your account, asking you where you’d like your “Boo’s” to post. You can choose from a variety of social networks but it’s also stored in the audio stream for others to interact with and comment on.

With a mic you can simply press record and share your message. When done, you stop the recording and then input a message you want attached to the recording, this message is what is seen when the Boo is posted to your accounts. You’re also able to tag it with keywords for easier finding not just for you but for your listening audience.

Audio Boo is free and easy to use for both the iPhone and the iTouch so get the mobile app, configure on the desktop app and get your recordings started.

• Zemanta Levels Blogger Playing Field – December 8, 2009
• Publish Your Content On Your Mobile – December 1, 2009
• Regator Tracks Blogosphere Social Mentions – November 30, 2009
• Is Foursquare the Perfect Crime? – February 19, 2010
• Foursquare Fans Check-in via Desktop with FoursquareX – January 17, 2010

Audio Blog with Audio Boo on iPhone originally appeared on: Crenk
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There has long been uncertainty on the exact process that it takes to get an application passed the Apple powers that be. Their ability to simply turn down an application from the approval process seems to be loosely defined, or undefined depending on how you see it. So it begs to question how one developer was able to get over 1,000 apps into the Apple store without raising any flags. (Molinker apps)

All eyes were directed to Chinese mobile app developer Molinker when a friend of a writer from the iPhoneography photoblog saw these obviously poorly done apps scoring very high in the user rating systems. Very few of the reviews offered a one or two star rating and it was a cause for concern. So highly were these apps thought of that Apple even selected one of the apps for the Staff Pick of the Week. This alone brings to mind questions on whether the apps are really selected by the staff or if there’s some undefined parameters that make an app “pick of the week”, as undefined as the process to get approved.

To raise alarms, two letters were sent to Apple’s marketing head, Phil Schiller, who by the second letter acknowledged that there was some misappropriation by the company Molinker within the Apple iTunes App store. The return letter simply stated that the developer had been ousted and that “gaming” of the system would not be tolerated. Not only was the developer ousted, but so were the 1,000+ apps affiliated with this developer (approx. 1% of apple’s app store).

So how does the app store move forward without even so much as making this example known to all other developers. Misappropriations such as exchanging unlock codes for positive reviews can still run rampant, and what if the misappropriation is not as easily defined the next as it was this time?

• Diacarta Offers Unique Scheduling Mobile App – August 8, 2010
• Intro to New Apps Thanks to AppGiveaway – June 28, 2009
• Why Mobile Apps Need Cloud Support – June 29, 2011
• App Inventor for Android – July 12, 2010
• Square Announces iPad Apps and Future Releases – May 30, 2010

Mobile App Developer Ousted by Apple originally appeared on: Crenk
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Social networks as they exist depend on the number of friends you start off with and thus you expand your network based on your existing network and grow from there. For many, not having an online presence makes it heard to start a social network when there is no online network to utilize to start. For many this can be frustrating and for many becomes the reason why they do not adopt the social scene. What if there was simply a network that didn’t rely on existing friendships and paired you with new people based on your profile to participate in unique shared experiences?

• Web App Buffers Timely Online Communication – November 6, 2009
• Social Media Revolution – September 6, 2009
• 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

Social Networking with 6rounds Expands Online Community originally appeared on: Crenk
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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.

• Audio Blog with Audio Boo on iPhone – December 15, 2009
• Zemanta Levels Blogger Playing Field – December 8, 2009
• AOL Consolidating Blog Brands into 20 Power Brands! – July 4, 2011
• WWDC 2011 By Numbers – June 7, 2011
• Pingdom API Has Gone Public: Track Your Sites From Anywhere – March 22, 2011

Zemanta Launches Public API originally appeared on: Crenk
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