Crenk

If you’re looking at either spreading the “good word” or hearing some messages of praise and encouragement, turn no further then Gospelr. This Twitter-clone application brings together all the positivity and encouragement of the Christian faith to those who seek it out.

It was just a matter of time before something like this happened. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially since it was established due to the perceived harshness of Twitter conversation. Gospelr looks to focus on connecting people for motivation and to share their faith with one another. No longer do you have to pay for missionaries to reach the far parts of the world or into the homes of people, now you can do it all online, and Gospelr looks to work that angle.

Because it’s based on Twitter’s API, integration into Tweetdeck and various other apps that play well with Twitter. An interesting addition to the Gospelr homepage is that the site will refresh for you, keeping you current at all times with the latest messages to hit the network.

If you need to hear the Word, be uplifted or encouraged by those strong in their faith, then check out Gospelr. While your there, check out the cool RSS button, now that’s creative!

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

While going through the RSS feeds this morning, I saw a great write-up on CNET about the interface redesign on Twitter.  Great in that, it’s well written and covers all the positive points, but it seems that Twitter has pushed more emphasis on making their web app look pretty as opposed to actually stable.

Here’s a summery of what is new and changed:

• Smaller tabs that were on top of the timeline to the right sidebar, where they can occupy more space, making them larger clicking targets. They also moved the following/followers/updates stats to the top of the page and made them larger, so now I can really see how deflated my follower numbers are.
• The most important change, in terms of functionality is the addition of AJAX to the “Home” and “@Replies” pages. Their new implementation allows you to refresh the items in your timeline without having to reload the whole page.
• New design customizer with this release, which allows you to change the colors on your Twitter profile with the help of a color wheel.

Great, new ways to make it look pretty, but still barely works properly.  I’ve been using Twitter on and off for a year now (follow me at twitter.com/mikepanic) and while I did manage to crack 12,000 text messages by subscribing to some major news outlets and having them sent SMS to my cell phone, most of what I’ve found is that it’s just noise, even from people I know in real life.  For more than 3 months now I haven’t had tweets coming into my cell, I’m very happy about this and do not miss it one bit.  I also rarely go to the official Twitter site, rather I use Twitterific on my Mac to read and update tweets.

What is most frustrating, outside of the noise and constant “read my new blog post” tweets that I myself am guilty of sending is the lack of stability.  The service seems to be going down, still, several times a month.  How can I stand behind and love an app just because it’s pretty looking when it isn’t stable?

A couple of days ago we ran through the top 5 social networking sites everyone should join, so now with the help from Royal Pingdom, we are going to show you where most users of these sites are located (as well as some other social networking sites).

MySpace

Countries with highest interest in MySpace:

1. United States
2. Puerto Rico
3. Australia
4. United Kingdom
5. Malaysia

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for MySpace here.

Facebook

Countries with highest interest in Facebook:

1. Turkey
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. South Africa
5. Colombia

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for Facebook here.

Hi5

Countries with highest interest in hi5:

1. Peru
2. Portugal
3. El Salvador
4. Dominican Republic
5. Costa Rica

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for Hi5 here.

Friendster

Countries with highest interest in Friendster:

1. Philippines
2. Malaysia
3. Indonesia
4. Singapore
5. Myanmar

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for Friendster here.

LinkedIn

Countries with highest interest in LinkedIn:

1. India
2. Netherlands
3. Denmark
4. Belgium
5. United States

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for LinkedIn here.

Orkut

Countries with highest interest in Orkut:

1. Brazil
2. Paraguay
3. India
4. Pakistan
5. Portugal

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for Orkut here.

Last.fm

Countries with highest interest in Last.fm:

1. Finland
2. Croatia
3. Estonia
4. Czech Republic
5. Norway

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for Last.fm here.

LiveJournal

Countries with highest interest in LiveJournal:

1. Singapore
2. Russia
3. Belarus
4. United States
5. Philippines

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for LiveJournal here.

Xanga

Countries with highest interest in Xanga:

1. Hong Kong
2. United States
3. Singapore
4. Malaysia
5. Philippines

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for Xanga here.

Bebo

Countries with highest interest in Bebo:

1. Ireland
2. New Zealand
3. United Kingdom
4. Fiji
5. Australia

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for Bebo here.

Imeem

Countries with highest interest in Imeem:

1. Philippines
2. Thailand
3. Malaysia
4. Singapore
5. Jamaica

Dig deeper into Google’s search statistics for Imeem here.

Twitter

Countries with highest interest in Twitter:

1. Japan
2. Taiwan
3. United States
4. Singapore
5. Hong Kong

While at the SummerMash party in Austin last week, I was introduced to a breakthrough site that had just launched in beta the week prior, MySites. A MySites representative spoke with me briefly to highlight some of the amazing features his site offers.

Some might say that MySites tries to be too much, but I think they execute their offerings very well. Let’s take a look at the Virtual Desktop aspect first.

MySites does a great job of storing up to 10GB of items, to include photos, movies, and music. While it can’t necessarily import files from Flickr, iTunes, or any other site, you can personally upload your own files. With 10GB of space available you can set up your virtual desktop with more than enough to keep it functional. The files are stored in folders that you have to double click to open, just like your real desktop. You have access to the full customization of MySites which makes it a great addition to the usual items you can place on there like calendars, emails, sites, etc.

The flipside of MySites is the Social Networking aspect. MySites fully intends for you to share your content with friends and across as many sites as possible. With the ability to add buddies and designate which files can be accessible, it’s sure to be a great place to gather to share all of your uploaded files. Seeking others with similar interests is also possible, and is encouraged to fully extend your network via MySites.

As of last week MySites could not connect to any currently existing social network site, but again the site is in beta. I was assured that future offerings would be made available as the site is built out.

Twitter seems to be taking over the Internet tubes and picking up more steam as of late.  I still can’t really explain what it is to my non-tech friends, but surmise to say, if you are a blogger or an Internet tech-head, you probably use and abuse twitter.

Lately, I’ve actually been really into twitter and have been following people left and right; in return I’m getting followed.  The trouble, in my eyes, is that twitter’s search tool for finding relevant people is far from good.

Welcome to Summize.  It allows you to search, in real time, people’s tweets.  This is really cool if you are looking to meet people who tweet on topics that you are into.  I actually found out about Summize from someone who started to follow me, based on thinks I tweet about.

It’s a fast, simple site that allows you to meet and follow all kinds of new and creative people on twitter.  I’d also like to throw out an invite for everyone to follow me at, http://twitter.com/mikepanic.

Yesterday I was sent a very interesting link and it lead me to BuddyFetch. BuddyFetch is a unique search engine that allows users to search for fellow IM, social networking and even online dating users. The itself is very simple to use and has a nice layout, but im still not too sure if it is actually worth using. The user inputs some keywords into the search tool and then a list of people appears below. From the search results you can find out their gender, age, location and which network they are on.

BuddyFetch is search some of the largest social networks out there such as, Myspace, Bebo, Hi5, Meetup, Youtube, Friendster, Facebook, PlentyofFish and more.

The idea is a very simple one, but quite effective. I cant say im the type of person who is desperate enough to spend even 10 min on this tool to try to find a  date, but you never know it might even find you a date!

Orkutis rolling out a new design this morning, starting with a select number of users. It’s a much-needed change to the previously ugly social network that became unintentionally popular in Brazil. Apart from Brazilians does anyone else actually use Orkut? It is so surprising that Google, the leaders in many markets have never really tried to make an impact on the social networking aspect of the internet!