Social Networking Blog - SociableBlog.com

Socialcast Adds iPhone and Gmail Support

Social Guy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:55:09 +0000

Socialcast, a leading provider of on-demand corporate social networks and micro-blogging solutions, adds two new features include iPhone optimization, a Gmail plugin for Firefox, and Jabber integration, each of which helps users to interact with their employee community via commonly used Web and communication tools.

The iPhone-optimized version of Socialcast allows users to engage in their corporate communities while away from a computer, providing a simple and streamlined user experience and functionality for employees outside of the office.

The Gmail plug-in works with the Firefox browser and once downloaded, provides a sidebar of Socialcast activity inside the user’s inbox. This allows users to open and respond to emails while maintaining complete visibility into happenings of the community. Now you can spice up your Gmail inbox with colors and themes also.

Socialcast Gmail Plugin (beta)

Socialcast’s integration with Jabber gives employees an easy way to update Worklog and Status posts within their community via a community-specific instant messaging bot.

Update Your Status with Jabber (beta)

With the introduction of these new tools, Socialcast continues to enhance a company’s ability to aggregate, organize and broadcast information throughout the enterprise. The Web-based application is free for the first 5 users, and pricing ranges from $1 - $5 per user, per month for additional users.

Open Web Awards - List of Nominees : Voting Round 1

Social Guy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:19:46 +0000

Here is the list of 278 Nominees for Mashable’s 2nd Annual Open Web Awards. Voting Round 1 is from Wednesday 9 am PST till Sunday, November 30th 11:59 pm PST.

The Nominees in each category are -

Mainstream Social Networks :

Embeddable Widgets :

Blog Plugins :

Social News :

Social Networking Applications :

Social Bookmarking :

Search And Social Search :

Sports and Fitness :

Photo Sharing :

Video Sharing :

Start Pages :

Places and Events :

Travel :

Music :

Social Shopping :

Fashion :

Celebrity and Gossip :

Mobile Applications :

Dating and Romance:

Wiki :

Pulitics :

How-To :

Environmental :

Non-Profit Causes :

Online Games :

Niche Social Networks :

You can vote for 1 company in each category per day. Use above widget (see sidebar) for your voting.

Greenwala Social Network, Where People Can Learn to Be Green

Social Guy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:59:30 +0000

Greenwala, the first social network that unites consumers committed to living a more sustainable lifestyle with the brands that offer the products and services that align with their values, launched a public beta version of its online social community today.

Greenwala is a place where people can learn to be green. Greenwala’s flagship product is a social community made up of “greenwalas” - people who share knowledge and help others live a greener lifestyle. Within this community, members can learn to be green, brag about being green and share their actions with their friends, family and community.

Greenwala accomplishes this by :

Getting people talking. Its word-of-mouth network of passionate people partners with brands to create meaningful connections.
Giving members a reason to connect with brands. Greenwala defines brand experiences by creating online campaigns, such as contests and promotions.

“We’re excited about the opportunities to make the world a cleaner, sustainable place, and we’re not alone. We thought there was an opportunity to create a network where people could share that enthusiasm.” said Rajeev Kapur, founder and chief wala, Greenwala.

The founders envisioned Greenwala as a social media and marketing company that provides the ultimate delivery mechanism to showcase green-based products, solutions and ideas for consumers and business owners.

Green Video from Greenwala

Skoobit - Netflix for College Students, But Without the Late Fees

Social Guy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:52:45 +0000

Skoobit, the idea is similar to movie rentals, but without the late fees. Skoobit has developed a textbook rental system that will enable college students to rent textbooks for the months, semesters, or for the year.

Skoobit decided to establish this new way to help college students - Graduate and Undergraduate with the jaw-dropping cost of textbooks. Now college students in a financial squeeze, can pay less for textbooks, and have money left over for more than noodles.

“When I was in college I had to spend hundreds of dollars on books each semester, and every semester I would try to sell them back, but would receive a lot less than I paid for, if I got anything at all,” said Christopher Blythe, creator of Skoobit.

Most students have to pay for college tuition, room and board, transportation, and a large number of other expenses. A good percentage of student income goes towards textbooks that, on average, are never looked at after the semester, or are sold back for a fraction of the original price. So, don’t spend more than necessary for textbooks. Rent instead of own.

College students will be able to rent any textbook for as long as needed with the simple commitment of returning it once they are done using it. It’s an easy procedure.

There are a variety of plans to satisfy the needs of students, such as special summer semester plans for those who only require 3 books at a time. The most popular plan would be a $10.99 a month per book for four months. Shipping and handling is free for receiving as well as returning.

Tatango, What’s the Next Big Thing?

Rebecca Jordan — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:19:28 +0000

Wanted to give you a quick heads-up on the next big thing from Tatango, leader in mobile group communication. On December 2nd, Tatango will be announcing a feature that will put the final nail in their competitors coffins, making services like Yahoo! Groups a thing of the past.

When I asked Derek Johnson, CEO and founder of Tatango about the ‘Next Big Thing’ and he said “hahaha can’t tell you about that right now sorry, going to be big though! engineers are working round the clock to finish”.

Check out their teaser video :

Wait till December 2nd, we’ll be cover it on our blog for sure. So, come back on December 2nd for Tatango’s Next Big Thing.

Open Web Awards - Voting Round 1

Social Guy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:15:07 +0000

2nd Annual Open Web Awards - Voting Round 1 is from Wednesday 9 am PST till Sunday, November 30th 11:59 pm PST. Please nominate your favorite startups in the Mashable Open Web Awards. You can vote for 1 company in each category per day. Use this above widget for your voting.

Yammer - Twitter For Business

Social Guy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:32:47 +0000

Yammer? Twitter? These are some wacky words that are making a big splash in the Internet world these days. In 2009, it’s projected that nearly everyone will be Twittering and most of the business world will at least be dabbling in Yammering.

Yammer is basically being referred to as Twitter for companies. The idea behind Yammer is that people in business will always know what other people in the company are working on. The founder of Yammer is former PayPal COO David O. Sacks. Yammer was launched in September of 2008 and is already gaining a huge following. It seems that people like, short, concise snippets of information.

This new trend in Micro-Messaging is gathering rapid momentum and will make Yammer a big deal in 2009 and beyond. Yammer isn’t as invasive as Instant Messaging and not as labored as email. It’s for something in between which is absolutely perfect for business.

You don’t want someone continuously Instant Messaging you about what they are working on, but you don’t mind if you can check it out at your leisure through Yammer. Upper management can keep track of what everyone is working on and they can let the rest of the company in on the “big picture” of the company. With Yammer, there’s less of a need for meetings because everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

The term “Yammering” is going to become household name for most business so get used to this silly word now. People are going to be Twittering and Yammering their heads off in the years to come.

Taboola Video Recommendation, Secures $4.5 Million in Series B Financing

Social Guy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:14:15 +0000

Personalized video recommendation solution simplifies the video discovery experience, increasing video views and user engagement, which in turn increases video monetization for video publishers.

Isral-based Video recommendation provider, Taboola secures $4.5 million second round of funding led by Evergreen Venture Partners. In this round of funding, Evergreen was joined by a group of strategic Israeli & American angel investors.

Taboola provides a personalized video recommendation solution which addresses the differences between searching for textual information on a search engine and discovering interesting and relevant video. Based on this information analysis, Taboola automatically offers a personalized video list that predicts the best subsequent videos to watch, thereby effectively simplifying the video discovery process.

“I can see that Taboola was responsible for 32% of the video views for more than half of my video catalog, which indicates the importance of a video recommendation solution for video reinvigoration -broadening of the pool of the videos viewed beyond the most popular titles.” said Tim Carter, the leading DIY building authority on the Internet at AsktheBuilder.com

Today, the challenge for video publishers is finding the right video to serve that will engage the user, and figuring out how to monetize video viewing.

Fashion Your Firefox and Customize Your Browsing Experience

Social Guy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:09:13 +0000

Fashion Your Firefox, a new Web application that enables Firefox users to customize their browser based on their interests and online activities. With Fashion Your Firefox, add-ons that fit people’s online lifestyles are organized in easy to discover ways and are available for installation in just a few easy clicks.

Fashion Your Firefox presents add-ons in activity-based categories that make them easy to find and install. Add-ons are tiny pieces of software that add new features or functionality to Firefox, letting people customize their browser to meet their tastes. There are currently more than 1 billion downloads of Firefox add-ons. The best parts about Firefox is the amazing richness of our 5,000-plus free add-ons.

Categories in Fashion Your Firefox include :

Shutterbug : View and share pictures and videos online
Rock Star : Listen to music while surfing, working, emailing or researching online
News Junkie : Get the most up-to-date news and weather
Shopaholic : Shop and take advantage of online deals
Digital Pack Rat : Keep track of favorite sites, bookmarks and blogs
Social Butterfly : Share, bookmark, and e-mail web pages via an array of social networking & bookmarking sites
Finder and Seeker : Find and make information on the Web more relevant
Decorator : Apply browser themes
Executive Assistant : Organize online activities

Mozilla is a global community dedicated to building free, open source products and technologies that improve the online experience for people everywhere.

VideoEgg AdFrames for iPhone

Social Guy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:41:46 +0000

VideoEgg, the video and rich media ad network that guarantees brand engagement, introduced AdFrames for iPhone, a performance-based ad offering that enables advertisers to distribute invitation-based, expandable video or rich media ads to iPhone users.

Nikon and Ubisoft Canada are among the first brands to leverage AdFrames’ mobile distribution as a measurable way to reach highly engaged consumers. Nikon is leveraging the VideoEgg mobile platform to promote their CoolPix and D90 cameras.

VideoEgg will offer mobile distribution across both applications and Web pages on the iPhone, and over time extend to other mobile platforms and devices. The mobile distribution channel is offered as part of VideoEgg’s comprehensive ad platform and will be included as a standard option on all large campaigns. The pricing model is based on cost per engagement (CPE).

With AdFrames for mobile, publishers can now partner with VideoEgg to effectively monetize content across this medium. Launch partners from top application developers and platforms including SGN, Jirbo, FlipSide5, Optime Software and Mobclix will deliver advertisers wide reach across 35 percent of the top 20 most popular free iPhone applications such as GasBag, Hangman, Scribble, iGolf, TouchHockey, Tic Tac Free and MarbleMash.

The growth of 3G networks and emergence of open mobile platforms like Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android are driving the creation of 3rd party applications, with almost 9,000 developed for the 10 million iPhones predicted to be sold this year.

VideoEgg’s expansion of AdFrames into mobile devices allows advertisers to seamlessly extend rich brand experiences across the mobile channel, bringing even more reach to the company’s network of more than 80 million consumers.