Digital Interactif

All U C - The new 'TV-Links'

It's been a few months since UK authorities shut down the website TV-Links.co.uk for hosting pirated content via embedded video players from websites such as Chinese Todou.  I, along with many others, was a big fan of TV-Links and I have never found a suitable replacement.  I tried finding content myself on Todou a couple times but it proved problematic. The trouble with Todou, as you'll quickly notice, is that it's in Chinese and very difficult to navigate. 

That's where alluc.org steps in! (Thanks for the tip Tom)

'All U C' is a German website hosted just north of Hamburg.  Though not as pretty as TV-Links, 'All U C' provides interesting functionality such as voting on which versions of a movie are the best quality.  You can also comment on the specific versions, which users appear to be doing quite often. 

Essentially, 'All U C' trolls Chinese websites, such as Todou, and directs users off of the 'All U C' site and onto the Todou site to watch the videos.  I am not 100% on the legal issues that brought down TV-Links, but I suspect that 'All U C' may be playing by the rules since it directs the users completely off of it's site.  Also, 'All U C' provides the following disclaimer before you watch the video:

Disclaimer

The author is not responsible for any contents linked or referred to from his pages - If any damage occurs by the use of information presented there, only the author of the respective pages might be liable, not the one who has linked to these pages.
Allfg.org and Alluc.org doesn't host any content

All Allfg.org/Alluc.org does is linking to content that was uploaded to popular Online Video hosting sites like dailymmotion.com/Youtube. All youtube/dailymotion users signed a contract with the sites when they set up their accounts wich forces them not to upload illegal content. By clicking on any Links to videos while surfing on Allfg.org you leave Allfg.org, Allfg.org cant take the responsibility for any content hosted on other sites.

If in the past couple of months you've found other suitable alternatives to TV-Links, drop a line in the comments section below.

Procruiting - Recruiting 3.0?

Dean Whitney has an interesting post about how recruiters advertise job opportunities on social networks such as Facebook and LinkdIn.  The Internet's affect on the recruiting process is beginning to come to light, but we still have a lot to learn about employee/employer behavior in a recruiting 2.0 environment. Nevermind the old story about employers "googling" prospective candidates - today, we face a world in which candidates are "facebooking" a prospective employer's employees to see what type of people work there. 

I recently came across a great example of how the Internet can affect the recruiting process at WebInno XIV.  Oncero, a Boston-based Internet start-up, operates a social network geared towards connecting employers with qualified job seekers through the trusted contacts shared by the users.  Essentially, employees post their company's open positions on the site and Oncero tracks how the positions are shared within the community.  When a position is filled, all the Oncero members involved in a the referral process receive a fraction of the employee referral bonus offered by the employer.

How it works:

1. my company has a $2,000 referral bonus and I post a job opening for a Marketing Associate position on Oncero.
2. Oncero-user "Bob", who is already happily employed, spots my posted job opening and sends it to his unemployed friend "Sam". 
3. "Sam" applies for the Marketing Associate position through Oncero and gets it! 
4. 90 days after "Sam" is hired, I receive $2,000 referral bonus, a percentage of which goes to "Bob" because he helped locate "Sam". 

Oncero is an outstanding idea because it brings the benefits of social networking and word-of-mouth/viral marketing to the recruiting process and then injects it with steroids by offering a monetary incentive to take action. 

Oncero is currently invitation-only.  If you would like an invite, leave a comment below and I will send you one.

Hulu let the dogs out!

Pardon the pun but I couldn't help myself. 

I received my invitation to Hulu's website last night and I am very impressed. Hulu is a video site that has signed content deals with major studios(MGM, Sony), television networks(NBC, Fox), and 15 Cable Channels(such as FX, SciFi, USA). 

Unlike Joost, Hulu actually has shows that I want to watch!  Hulu features full length episodes of TV series such as The Office, Arrested Development, Family Guy, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, SNL, Chuck, The A-Team, Airwolf, Scrubs, and the movies Blue Brothers and Conan the Barbarian among others.

Hulu creates new channels of distribution for TV Shows.  The best feature I have come across so far is that the site allows you to embed the videos on your own site.  Not only can you embed full episodes, but you can also create customized clips from shows and embed them as well.  It is very easy to create a clip. 

FAMILY GUY CLIP: This joke from Family Guy about Ringo Star is hilarious:

FULL OFFICE EPISODE: And it you have the time, watch the most recent episode of The Office (word has it that until the writers strike is over, there will be no more new episodes of The Office):

Advertising revenue generated from this content will strengthen the arguments underlying the Writers Strike.  It blows my mind that the studios would open up this site while negotiating with the Writers Union over online advertising profit made from television content posted online.  Though the ads in these shows are minimal, they go wherever the clips go.  eCRM for each video likely runs $40 - $120 for sponsorship.  Therefore, if a given video receives 100,000 views, Hulu stands to generate, at a minimum, $4,000 in ad revenue from sponsorship deals.  Considering that these videos can now go anywhere on the web, this estimate may be too low.  Regardless, this revenue source will grow at a near exponential rate in the next couple of years and this definitely supports the Writers on strike in Hollywood right now. 

Facebook App - Flog

Thanks to George Jenkins I came across the Facebook application Flog.

The Flog idea is interesting because it is targeting the niche of people who have their own blogs.  Essentially the widget provides your Facebook profile with an RSS feed of your blog and automatically displays new posts within a contained box.  Currently the display is rudimentary but the Flog team has stated that they are working on incorporating images, video, and flash into the RSS feed.  According to the app's stats, the application is currently on 551 profiles.  Here's a summary of it's features:

• Automatic For Everyone: Your Flog can be synchronized to your Blog automatically, regardless of your blogging platform.
• Flogroll: Browse the Flogosphere. Read recent posts, or peruse at random! Enjoy great content from other Floggers.
• News Feed Integration: Your friends are alerted whenever you post new content to your blog!
• Customization: Choose how your posts are displayed, down to the number of characters

I added this application to my Facebook page the other day and I think it may have messed up my RSS feed.  I've noticed that my feed on Google Reader is now abbreviated and does not display the entire post.  I find this extremely annoying and I really hope it's not an unintended consequence of adding the Flog app.  Proceed at your own RISK!   

NMDA - New Media Douchebags Anonymous

In between one of the sessions at Boston Podcamp 2007, Blogger Scott Monty showed the video "New Media Douchebag" on his computer to me and Blogger Lori Magno.  Lori, who runs her own personal blog, online jewelry store, and contributes to the Digital Hive, introduced me to Scott who runs a popular and insightful blog on social media marketing.  

 

After watching the video I sadly thought to myself, "wow, I'm a new media douchebag."  But then I looked around the room, realized I was at a conference for Podcasters and Bloggers and felt much better as I realized almost everyone has a little "new media douchebag" in them.

Blogstonians come together at Blogtoberfest

This past Thursday, I had the fortune of attending the 2nd Annual Blogtoberfest held in the basement of the Pour House on Boylston Street. 

I met some great bloggers, both professional and casual.  Eileen keeps up Divine Comedy of Errors a funny observational and anecdotal blog.  John Petit of the Bostonist keeps his site going with the help of a team of enthusiastic contributors and editors.  The Bostonist is part of a larger network of Gothist blogs and it is supported by the Gothist's ad-network. 

I was pretty excited to meet Adam from Universal Hub, an aggregator of local news and opinion.  Adam was the first person to ever link to Digital Interactif online and it was great to get a chance to speak with him, especially about his ninja-like Feed Demon skills.

Another highlight of the event was meeting Wade Rush, one of the three editors of the local business blog Xconomy.  Wade has made a career in Journalism and has brought the same professionalism and dedication to the Xcomony blog.  Whereas the Boston Business Journal will typically rewrite press releases, Xconomy preforms the traditional leg work that is the core of serious journalism (conducting interviews, fact checking, ect) while posting new articles throughout the day.   

I also had the opportunity to speak with Michael Krigsman who runs Project Failures, a blog that examines why IT projects fail and many of the issues surrounding successful implementation of IT software.  Michael's blog was recently acquired by ZDnet so I suggest checking it out. 

George Jenkins keeps up a blog on identity theft.  I've been following George's blog since he began it this past summer and he provides thought provoking and informed comment on issues/news pertaining to identity theft. 

Another great blogger at the event was Ryan Barrett who keeps up her Cheap Thrills blog.  Ryan posts on an eclectic mix of consumer products and events in the Boston area.  Ryan clearly has a flair for writing and I was surprised to find out that she was one of the creative minds behind the ever popular, though currently on DL, BarFrog. 

This event was awesome and I look forward to the one!      
    

Wiffiti brings the Interactivity to your Hompage

The above is a Wiffiti screen that exists in the digital realm and can be updated via text messages. 

The website lists all the publically viewable Wiffiti screens and each screen is geo-tagged on a Google map.  Though texting a SMS message to an online message board is nothing innovative in of itself(twitter has allowed this for a while), Wiffiti creates a visually pleasing application that could be displayed on a large LCD screen in a bar, cafe, sports venue, ect.   

For instance, since the application records when messages are put up on the screen itself, this type of device could be used in conjunction with quiz nights at bars.  Instead of long, drawn out rounds at quiz night, the Wiffiti screen could serve as the official judge of who texted the correct answer to a given question.   Not only would this save people time by speeding up rounds at quiz nights, but it would also solve the problem of cheaters who use the long rounds to call/text their friends for answers to questions. 

Go ahead and leave a message, its very easy: Text @DIGITAL to 25622.  Wait to receive back a text from 25622.  Then text your message and it will appear on the board.  Very easy! 

Wiffiti is a product of Boston-based Locamoda.
 

Free Internet Traffic Statistics

If you haven't taken an interest in web analytics yet, there are two websites that may provide a spark for you:  Compete and Alexa. 

Compete
Compete provides a free service that allows you to compare the traffic numbers of different websites.  Essentially the service tracks the behavior of 2,000,000 Internet unique users, runs their behavior through an algorithm, and offers up it's estimate of a site's traffic.   It works pretty similarly to Nielson ratings.  (So, uh, if you are one of the people Compete is tracking...please come back.  Often.) 

A cool feature of Compete is that it allows you to get an idea of a typical user's behavior on various sites.   For instance, thanks to Compete,  you can gather stats on Facebook such as: Ave. Time on Site(14:08 minutes), Ave Pages viewed per Visit(44..3 pages), unique visitors per month(26.2 million people). 

Alexa
Alexa also provides traffic data on websites but it focuses more on a site's traffic rank than user interaction.  It is always good to compare Alexa stats against Compete, and vice versa, to give yourself a range for stats because neither site is perfect.  For instance, whereas Compete states that users visit 44.3 pages on Facebook, Alexa says that users visit only 31 pages per visit.  This 13 page difference is quite significant and therefore you should utilize both sites if ever using the services for a competitive analysis. 

The best feature of Alexa, in my opinion, is the "Sites Linking In" section.  This will show all registered sites that are linking back to the site.  Essentially, the more websites that link to your site, the better your site will do in search engine rankings and quality rankings. 

These two websites are great but there are still a lot of services/features that have yet to be developed, such as a company that provides free insights into RSS feed readership for various blogs/websites.  That would rock.   

 

Car Pooling via the Internet

Last week I went to the Massachusetts-based Web Innovators Group conference.  One of the companies presenting was GoLoco, a Car-Sharing service that connects you with friends and strangers in an attempt to save both the environment and your money.  GoLoco was founded by Robin Chase, co-founder of ZipCar, and it is based out of Cambridge, MA.   

I am pretty skeptical of GoLoco's business plan itself.  They have successfully established a presence on Facebook with a Facebook App but their plan for monetizing the service is weak because it is limited to a niche of people that can't build up the courage to ask people for money. 

Their monetization plan is to charge a 10% transaction fee when users pay each other through their Facebook Application via PayPal account.  The rationale is that friends typically don't ask friends to chip in $2.46 for a ride to the NH State Liquor store, and when they do ask, the normal response is "yeah, I'll get you back later" because it's such a small, inconsequential amount of money.

The potential situation arising from friends using the GoLoco service to pay each other is pretty awkward:

Driver: Hey dude, mind tossing me some gas money for the ride to Walmart?
Friend 1: Sure no prob man, is it cool if I get you back later? 
Driver: Errr, that's not gonna work.  I'd like you to sign into GoLoco and pay me through paypal real quick if you could.
Friend 1: Sure, no problem.  Dick...

This situation would be even better if there were even more people involved.  Yes there are people that are early adopters out there and it might seem cool to pay each other online, but who in their right mind would do so if it meant that some random company, GoLoco, got 10% of money rightfully owed to the driver. 

The cool thing about the service is that it calculates how much money the trip will cost for gas and tolls and therefore it provides you with a concrete amount of money to ask for.  I like the service but I am not convinced by their plan to make money off of it.  For more info on GoLoco, check out this New York Times article.

GoLoco is not alone in the market for Car Sharing via the Internet.  Ride Amigos is a similar service and it currently operates in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.  This company does not to seem to be aiming to make a profit on the service but instead is more interested in making a positive impact on the environment, or at least that's their marketing spin.  Unlike GoLoco, this service doesn't provide a mean to exchange money and it does not have a Facebook widget.  But it is noteworthy all the same.  For more info, check out this TreeHugger post.   

As for you Europeans out there, I came across the German website Mitfahrzentrale which translates into "agency for arranged lifts" (thanks Babelfish).   When I used this website last year it only had a German version and I was still able to navigate it which just goes to show how easy and straight forward the service is.  Thankfully though the site now allows you to translate it to English .  It appears this site is used mainly within Germany still.  I like the social networking functionality of the site and it's great how the homepage shows which cities are most actively using the service.   

So go sign up for GoLoco, add the Facebook widget to you profile, and go on n' get your carpool on.

 

Out-Foxed by a Techie

Smokin Joe links to a Fox News report on Internet hackers, take a look:

Considering that Fox News Network has been outed by Wikiscanner as hacking Al Franken's Wikipedia entry, the above video is too funny/sad/hypocritical(?).   Regardless, I can only shake my head and laugh. 

The Boston Globe wrote a great article on Wikiscanner and it's creator Virgil Griffith.  Griffith's creation allows people to scan Wikipedia edits based on IP addresses and has cast a welcomed spotlight on the Wiki-craze.  Essentially, it allows a person to see what edits people have made using computers at CIA/FBI/FoxNews/Diebold/ect buildings.  With the spotlight cast upon Wikipedia's editors/contributors, there is a great wealth of information to be analyzed pertaining to how Wiki's are being used to distort/promote truth on the Internet. 

Give it a go and find the next public relations implosion before it hits the press!