Multiply goes 3.0

The social networking site with privicy controls has unveiled its 3.0 version. Here is the changelog:

* Brand-new, super-charged "My Multiply" message board
* All-in-one Ajaxified photo uploader/album editor
* Simplified layout, featuring new navigation links at the top of every page
* Hide messages from your message board
* Streamlined settings page
* "My Network" page, showing you precisely who's whom
* Dragable (and dropable) video page featuring for quick re-ordering
* Even more customizable homepage (hide unwanted boxes!)

Some quick reactions:

- My multyply is much more intuitive than the old explore page.
- Ajax uploader still lack the ability to posts multiple images.
- Home pages are more and more customizable.
- Still lacks embedded videos with just the html code from some vide site.

F1 or Nascar?

Technological advancement is often tested in the battleground of motor races and, eventually, it finds its way into mass consumer market. Being an European I'm a fan of F-1, but I must admit that for sheer entertainment few things beat the appeal of US motor racing competitions. Nascar is a classic, but others innovative formats don' t fall short. Like PINKS, the television show on Speed Channel where two competitors compete several times in a Drag race with their car at stake. F1 or Nascar? The debate goes on. I concede that sometimes F1 can seem too tactical and computer driven. Technological gap between the cars is bigger than in Nascar and some races are unemotionally, complete sweeps from the front-liner. But, I'm still reeling from the Fernando Alonso Vs Schumacher close duel we had this season.

All day marathon of PINKS followed by premiere of PINKS All Out on Speedtv on Nov 23rd:


This post sponsored by Speedtv.com. Drag Racing Clips

Brightcove

Video monetization is the next big thing. With all these youtube videos appering on mainstream TV, there is a lot of money being left behind. Brightcove network has taken the lead and it offers the possibility of adding commercials in the videos in several fashions: pre-roll, post roll, overlays and synced banners appearing next to the video player.

Now we need an ad network that automatically embeds the ads for the users with out-of-the-box ease. The creator should be able to posts these videos, along with the ads, to their prefered video network. Sites need to remove strict TOS that prevent video monetization. After all, most of the youtube videos already include some sort of covert advertisement.

We need professional ad insertion for Internet video to skyrocket and be a real threat to TV traditional dominance.

tags: brightcove, youtube, ads, intenet video

Multiply

Picking up the social networking thread, I have been testing the Multiply environment. It is quite impressing. Content integration is great; forums, blogs audio and video all craftily blended in a single, accessible page.

The ability to create private groups, with content restricted to members, is great. But why call it "groups"? Call it "networks". Other services such as peopleaggregator also incur in this confusion.

The flash video player is great (restrictions are the same as youtube: 100Mb or 10 mins), but it needs an audio player integrated in the page.

The handling of personal messages and answers relies too much on email. Why are all email alerts turn on by default? I thought email was old, and networking was new. Relaying in email for alerts is, definitely, old-fashioned.

tags: social networks, networking, multiply, youtube, communities

New is better?

The dark side of tech-cult is novelty-cult. There is a bunch of old sites that still do the job and just because they don't feature flashy ajax stuff they don't reserve to be swept away in the whirlwind of innovation. Here is a list of old sites that I keep using:

1. BLOGLINES: With all the flashy start-pages out there, for pure RSS reading you can't beat Bloglines' sheer simplicity.

2. IMDB: All the info, all the minute details so you don't have to wait until the end of the credits in the cinema to find out who made that music. They could give it a social networking touch to be in tune with the times. After all, cinema is one of the most talked-about and individual-defining subjects.

3. TECHNORATI: Still the best way to know what's the hype. Other sites are catching up, though. Technorati needs a complete redesign. Why no RSS feed for the MOST POPULAR section?

tags: bloglines, technorati, IMDB

Network of Networks

That's the next logical step in social networks: let users define their own networks, who they invite and who sees its content. It's not utopical that in some years most of the Internet content is locked in private, closely-knot networks of affinities. The snobbish advancement of these future content elites is the uber-closed Asmallworld .

I have been testing some of these meta-networks and there is still room for improvement (most are in beta stage):

1. GOINGON: The ads are too obtrusive, paid service for +5 members. It lacks a decent media player and general integration of its manyfold and customizable service. I like the extra tabs feature that allows user-defined code or URL to be integrate in the page.

2. PEOPLEAGGREGATOR: Confusion between networks and groups, lack of nice media players (this is the key), lack of batch upload of content. Nice interface but still in the works. Charsets other than English get messed up.

More on this on the next post.

tags: social networks, peopleaggregator, goingon, asmallworld

Firefox 2.0 is here

Firefox 2.0 is here. A first look review:

Pros:

- Integrated multi-language spell check.
- Search suggestions.
- Faster browsing.


Cons:

- No major features that weren't available trough extensions.
- Memory-leaks still in place.
- No fully featured RSS reader built-in

tags: Firefox 2.0, browsers