Latimes.com gets personal with Mixx

 

 

Latimes.com has joined forces with Mixx.com, the social news website, in an online content and co-marketing alliance which puts readers of the nation's largest metropolitan daily newspaper in control of their own personal blend of online news, information, photos and videos. It has also been announced that The Times has taken a small equity stake in Mixx, details of which were not disclosed.

Launched in October, and created and designed by a team of industry veterans with deep Internet, news publishing and online content expertise including former executives from Yahoo!, AOL, USA TODAY and The Associated Press, Mixx allows users to discover personally relevant media and interact within networks of friends, colleagues and people who share their common interests.

Latimes.com readers will now have direct access to Mixx's networking and personalization tools through integrated functionality on story pages. In addition, cross-promotional traffic will be maximized by optimization of Times content for searches from within the Mixx site.

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Future Scanner tracks the future

 

 

Future Scanner, essentially scans the web for the best future-focused content (predictions by experts, discoveries that will impact future events, product prototypes, industry forecasts, useful resources, etc.) and then sorts it by future Year and Category.

When Community members locate these types of cool links, they tag them accordingly and submit them to site via their personal accounts.

Other users then vote on the material they find most interesting or beneficial and the best content ends up being featured on the front page.

Users are also encouraged to link together related scans and resources, so that it becomes easier to find more information on a given topic.

Although Future Scanner is unlikley to become a large business, this is a very fun website with unique content.

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THE FROSTFIRE BUZZ TEST

1. Is this a unique product? 8/10

2. Is this business/product difficult to replicate? 6/10

3. Is this something that can appeal to a large global audience? 6/10

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Trouble at Blognation over unpaid fees

 

 

Techcrunch is reporting that UK based BlogNation network has lost its US editor Oliver Starr. Starr alleges that he and other BlogNation writers have not been paid. The following was taken verbatim from a post at BlogNation since deleted:

AN OPEN LETTER TO SAM SETHI

Please Note: This is an open letter to Sam Sethi, Founder and CEO of Blognation. I have elected to write this letter after having been one of the principal Blognation authors since August of this year. In all that time I have not received the pay promised in my contract nor the reimbursement promised for expenses incurred on behalf of Blognation during this period. I am not alone. Every other Blognation author is in the same unsavory situation.

This open letter details in very broad strokes the reasons why I have lost faith in Sam. It makes specific statements as to the veracity of things Sam has said or written as well as things he has failed to do. I do not say these things lightly. Every statement made in this letter can be backed up with verifiable written material from email correspondence, Skype chats, or SMS messages.

The final paragraphs are obviously my opinion and do not necessarily reflect that of the other bloggers that are still members of the Blognation team. For a more detailed history of this sordid story, one includes a considerable amount of the actual Skype chat dialog as well as many paragraphs from dozens of email messages, please visit my new home on the blogosphere, owstarr.com (http://owstarr.com), my new email will be oliver@remove-this-first-owstarr.com

Lastly, this post is likely to be removed very shortly after I post it so please, make a screen capture, download it to an off-line reader, copy and paste it into a document or repost it on your own blog(really). At the end, this is a cautionary tale and the victims are the people that have worked for months on the content many of you have enjoyed but for which Sam Sethi has yet to (and may never) pay.

Oliver Starr
 

CLICK THE TITLE TO READ THE REST OF THE LETTER 

 

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Flickr launches Picnik photo editing tools

 

 

Flickr has finally rolled out its integration of Picnik photo editing tools, which can be accessed directly from within your Flickr account.

You’ll see on your menu of options, along with “rotate,” “delete,” etc., an option to “edit photo.” Click this and a Picknik editor will pull up.

The Picnik/Flickr collaboration works similarly to other 3rd party services who’ve built additional tools on top of the Flickr API: You’ll need to pass through the step of giving the Picnik service permission to edit and save your photos.

Once you select a photo for editing, it will appear in a Picnik editor that appears within the Flickr UI. All the tools are there–cropping, resizing, color picker, red-eye remover, and the rest. There’s also the Create tool for adding stickers, text, and other graphics and effects to your images.

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Motionbox raises $7M but needs more traction

 

 

Video editing and sharing site Motionbox, which markets primarily to families, has announced the closing of a $7M round of Series B financing led by Constellation Ventures with participation by Canaan Partners and SAS Investors.

 

 

Motionbox makes it easy to upload, organize, enhance, and share your personal videos with family, friends & groups.

Motionbox recently released a premium version of its service that allows you to upload files of any size and enjoy unlimited storage for $30 per year.

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Google announces fastest growing search terms

 

 

Today Google's VP of Search and User Experience Marissa Mayer revealed the “fastest rising U.S. search terms” on the Today Show.

Last year Google described how they came up with the list: “we looked for those searches that were very popular in 2006 but were not as popular in 2005 — the explosive queries, the topics that everyone obsessed over. To come up with this list, we looked at several thousand of 2006’s most popular searches, and ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2005.”

1. iphone
2. webkinz
3. tmz
4. transformers
5. youtube
6. club penguin
7. myspace
8. heroes
9. facebook
10. anna nicole smith

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Online dating for gloves

 

Jennifer Gooch, who is pursuing her master of fine arts degree at Carnegie Mellon University, has started onecoldhand.com, a website that is like an online dating service for lost gloves.

One of her first ones was a moist, lambskin glove that someone had propped up on a ledge on campus. She was worried about taking it at first. What if the owner came back to claim it?

In its place, she left a small rectangular sticker. A drawing of a black glove is scrawled on it and says, "Missing a glove? onecoldhand.com."

Gooch displays the gloves on the wall in her basement art studio at the university. There are 21 so far, each tacked up with push pins. Small yellow Post-it notes and slips of scrap paper hang there, too, chronicling where each was found.

Gooch would love to see One Cold Hand projects sprout up in other cities. She's working with two women in New York to start a similar effort there. They hope to have onecoldhand-nyc.com up and running soon.

Gooch is even talking with local businesses about creating glove dropboxes all over the city where people can leave their fabric finds.

What is amazing about this website is the popularity it has recevied from the press: The New York Times, Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette and Tribune-Review, USA Today, and the original Associated Press article picked up by 128 papers/sites and counting.

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