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?
6Rounds is the answer and the unique network is sure to make a splash in the world of social engagement.
The network itself is designed to be a fully interactive experience incorporating the best of micro-messaging and video networks. There’s now a space for those not interested in hosting entire video shows, or who lack friends to build on a social profile on Facebook or Twitter.
6Rounds functions as a completely unique and diverse network that no user will get the same experience from their engagement. The network allows users to come together in a “live” setting where they will be challenged with “using a combination of webcams, real-time games, social activities and media engagements, we present a wide range of opportunities: from watching videos, playing real-time games, listening to music, Facebooking and Youtubing, to shopping together and beyond,” says the site.This sound a little like speed dating with the entertainment provided, and none of the relationship awkwardness attached. I can see how this would be appealing to both veteran and new entry supporters of social engagement.
The network is free and looks to combine the best of social networking, instant messaging, and video content to create an ever changing user experience.
Ah the profile pic. Is there really anything else in the world that can cause us to hold the camera at several different angles until it’s just right – making sure to delete all the ‘bad’ ones of course. With our profile pics we weave a web of lies about who we are, what we look like and what our personality is like. Well, people who are a bit obsessive do.
Samsung have released this cool zombie-vampire-monster thingy video that show just how misleading a profile pic can be. Enjoy!
Today I came across a very interesting new video news site, which aims to provide news from not just one source but as many as possible. Newsy is the video news service that introduces a topic and then goes through relevant sources to find the best opinions from around the web.
Newsy covers topics such as world news, business news, technology, environment and more. The format of each show is simple, the introduce a basic topic and then search the web for the leading views on that specific topic for the day. Thus, it is kind of a news video aggregator, as it provides the leading sources in one simple place.
Im sure Newsy will become quite a popular site, simply because of how easy it is to see the latest news from multiple sources in one place. However, most users want to see a large number of headings in one simple place and normally the easiest way to do this is text, because there is still a limitation to how much you can fit into a view.
Cisco Systems has announced today that its buying Norway’s Tandberg video communications business for $3 billion.
The deal should enhance Cisco’s own TelePresence business where it sells room-sized video conferencing systems that make you feel like you’re talking to people in the same room. These systems costs hundreds of thousands of dollars each but executives feel they can use them to save on travel costs. Tandberg is one of the chief rivals in the business and it makes specialized software for managing the conferencing systems and managing the connections between them.
This new deal is going to put a lot of pressure on Hewlett-Packard who have a very strong video conferencing business with their Halo product. In theory, video conferencing creates a lot of Internet traffic, which in turn helps Cisco’s core business of selling networking gear.
Cisco has bought 40 companies over the past five years, according to the New York Times. In the past week, merger mania has erupted, with Dell buying Perot Systems for $3.9 billion and Xerox buying ACS for $6.4 billion.
Popscreen is a new video bookmarking service that has just launched into private beta. Here at Crenk we have been lucky enough to test Popscreen for the past few months and we are really excited about their private beta launch and what they are providing.
PopScreen is a quick and simple way to bookmark your favorite tv shows, movies, webcasts, news clips, music and viral videos from hundreds of online sources in one location.
Crenk has been lucky enough to receive 250 Private Invites for people interested in trying out the service. If you want to check it out then head over to the Signup page and use the Invite Code: crenk
Getting fed up with MegaVideo’s 72 minute limit? YouTube, Limewire or MetaCafe not cutting it for quality, speed or selection? Then maybe it’s time to look else where –perhaps Blinkbox?
Blinkbox is a new start-up that streams movies and TV programs straight to your computer for your enjoyment. I was sceptical at first. It seems like every site you click on these days you’re offered great streamed films when what you get is actually a load of junk with Japanese subtitles streamed to you from a server in South Korea at an appalling speed – so much so you could probably fly to Korea, buy the thing on DVD and fly home again before the streaming video is finished ‘buffering’.
Blinkbox streams you high quality video that only takes a few seconds to load. For example, I watched Bronson which was only released on DVD a week or so ago. However, it’s all above board and as such you’ll be expected to pay. Bronson set me back £9.99 which is cheaper than the DVD. Other films can cost you al little as £3.
The selection could be better in terms of films from before 2007 but for recent releases you’ll be spoiled for choice.
Because Blinkbox was so easy and of such good quality, I didn’t really mind paying the charges to avoid the bad quality you get with free versions. However, if you’re tight on the old purse strings maybe Blinkbox isn’t for you.
VidPay is an online service that allows users to advertise their websites or services on the internet through videos. Here’s a quick rundown of how it works. Basically, you sign up and upload an advertisement video to the site. You select your target audience (i.e. age, gender, nationality, interests, hobbies) and select a daily budget for your advertising campaign. Then you’re up and running.
Your video will appear as a featured video on websites and the more people that watch it the more you pay VidPay for promoting your site until your daily budget is reached at which your point your video is removed until the following day.
I don’t think that this is anything special or useful. There are better and more effective ways of promoting a website such as through networking, social media and SEO. Paying a company to put your video on the internet no matter who they’re showing it to, seems silly. Could you not simply do the same thing on YouTube leaving a link at the end of the video whilst having the added bonus of a channel page and user comments etc.. ?
Another drawback that limits the effectiveness is that the videos you pay to have plastered on the net are restricted to only being featured on Metacafe sites. All in all, if your advertising budget is big and you can’t be bothered to do an hour a week on Youtube, Twitter etc… or indeed on any of their affiliate programs such as this one, then by all means visit VidPay.
There have been a lot of people reporting about the Pirate Bay’s new video site, Techcrunch UK, Mashable and Boy Genius, but the story was broken by the leading site in the Torrent space, TorrentFreak.
The basics of the story are as follows, the Pirate Bay team has continued developing its video streaming site – which will open up to the public within 5 years. On The Video Bay users can share video clips without having to worry about getting them taken offline due to copyright violations, true Pirate Bay-style.
The Pirate Bay team themselves announced about 2 years ago that they were working on a video streaming site, but we had no idea when we would actually see something. Pirate Bay Spokesman Peter Sunde agreed that it might take a while before the site goes live and told us that “it will be done when it’s done, in the future, in like a year or five.”
For a long time YouTube has been the king of the video search. There have been numerous other video sites, and like the rest, they all fall short in their ability to really attract a wide audience onto their site. Recently I was made aware of Clipta Video Search, in what appears to offer a better interface than YouTube and offering more diverse results.
Clipta also offers distinct categories to make it easier to find videos with less of a chance that a mislabeled video would be placed under any given category. The community on here appears to be active and there is definitely some control behind the scenes to offer the users a better experience. While it may not rank as high as YouTube for your video searches, give it a try!
Video conferencing used to be a tech heavy, equipment demanding effort that was unheard of for the common person at home. Nowadays with the bevy of online tools available, video conference is accessible to just about anyone with a desktop/laptop and a webcam. TinyChat helps to facilitate such an opportunity by allowing several people to join a video chat room at once, much like a group IM, only this time you can see everyone!
TinyChat recently did a massive update that propels this online application into the forefront of the video chat options. This past weekend they released not just an updated product, but a new site that really highlights their offerings and the creativity of the team behind it. Looking under the hood first, here’s what we find with the update:
New design for main page / Chat pages
“On Focus” Support will alert you of new messages via flashing title and a sound (optional) if the tab or window doesnt have focus.
More intuitive private messaging system
Ability to join a chat with pidgin / Trillian / Any Jabber client – We also have a IRC -> Jabber Proxy in place
Tons of bug fixes, Scalability tweaks and other stuff you wont notice.
Proper Embed system allowing you to make a room to host on your site
Moderation system, so you can kick and ban bad users
This most certainly makes the service that much more attractive to the already booming user base it has established. Their understanding of the social space is also helping them develop strong ties to their expanding community, listening to the request being made by their supporters. Already in the plans for the next update are things such as country flags associated with the user, private messages via command, recording playback, and the ability to boot people from the chat that are not participating effectively.
There is no doubt that TinyChat is going to experience continued growth and their site welcomes its users and new members alike to interact with them. This easy and free to use application is a must have for anyone who continues to have group chat via IM, and does not want to pay for an account with Skype. With the added benefit of embedding it into your site and sharing it across various social networks, this is definitely an option for the vid-curious.
Have you ever been looking for easy ways to download some of the best YouTube videos? Well here is the answer and it seems even easier than other solutions, YouTube AVI.
YouTube AVI is a very simple video converter in which converts YouTube videos into .avi files. It is as easy as adding in the URL to YouTube AVI and then hitting go. Once it loads it then converts the file to a download url in which you can just right click and save as. When testing out the service it only took less than a minute to convert the files and then they are ready to download.
Getting fed up with MegaVideo’s 72 minute limit? YouTube, Limewire or MetaCafe not cutting it for quality, speed or selection? Then maybe it’s time to look else where –perhaps 
