Who Likes Mufins when You Can’t Share?
Posted by Kristen Nicole on November 20th, 2008 3:50 PM
Mufin, the music search and recommendation engine that suggests music based on an algorithmic analysis of music, has launched its public beta today. Of course, the biggest point of interest is the lack of human editing when it comes to Mufin’s recommendations, setting it apart from the likes of Last.fm and Pandora. Even though many systems such as web search queries have been after the all mighty algorithm that works as well as (if not better than) a human, none have really come close to replacing the human element.
Granted, Mufin’s recommendations do work rather well. Perhaps this is because matching music can be more readily turned into a mathematical representation than say a search query for the best restaurants in Union Square. But Mufin seems to lack the human touch in its entirety. There’s no tweaking you can do for the recommendations Mufin offers, indicating how well of a match a song really is. And the social implications on Mufin’s main site are minimal, limited to a top playlist of songs that have been viewed, searched or played by others.
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A Clash of Idealists and “Realists” Becomes Apparent
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 20th, 2008 2:44 PM
There’s been something bubbling in D.C. for the past year or two and more recently, it’s become boiling hot: the convergence of the technology crowds from around the area. It’s something that I’ve been pushing for at least two years and a number of other people have been supporting as well. Something that has increasingly become apparent is that there are simply people that get it and those that don’t.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...comScore Can’t Keep Up with Changing SocNet Ads
Posted by Kristen Nicole on November 20th, 2008 12:11 PM
Yesterday Nick mentioned on All Facebook that Facebook has modified ad formats throughout the social network yet again, now displaying three ads, up from two per page. This was just the latest in a string of changes made to Facebook ad display options, which has also included video ads on the homepage. But who’s keeping track? comScore is trying.
According to Red Herring, comScore is under-counting ad traffic on Facebook because of the constant modifications made to the ad formats. For instance, counting display ads and not content-laden marketing ploys could mean that a portion of advertising methods aren’t being efficiently included in reports reflecting Facebook’s potential to deliver ads to users.
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(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...In a World of 99 Cent Millionaires
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 19th, 2008 3:05 PM
Over the past few years there has been a tremendous shift toward open platforms and now there are limitless tools to connect with your friends, increase your productivity, and waste your time. Facebook was a tremendous catalyst for this but now there are millions of applications on the web, some useful, some not, most of which now provide developer APIs. For those of you not aware of what APIs are, they enable developers to quickly integrate their own features directly into another service or build upon existing application functionality.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Smule’s Ocarina Soothes the Soul
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 19th, 2008 9:00 AM
I have been holding off on buying the Ocarina application the iPhone despite it’s rise to the number one application as I couldn’t get myself to spend the 99 cents for an unknown application. After seeing Mike Arrington’s post on it this afternoon, I had to download it. The application is spectacular in that it enables users to play any song in any tone and has all of the features of a standard wind instrument (aside of course the lack of a place for air to exit to increase reverberations).
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...GlamApps Validates BuddyMedia’s Appvertisement Model
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 18th, 2008 7:13 PM
Today, Glam media announced the launch of GlamApps a service for advertisers to generate interactive content that publishers can leverage to generate revenue. The service also leverages OpenSocial, expanding the service to one of the largest blog networks on the web. Rather than have publishers create their own interactive tools, advertisers are encouraged to build their own services which bloggers can embed and then the advertiser can display ads on.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Will Boxee’s Social Stance Make it Stick?
Posted by Kristen Nicole on November 18th, 2008 4:05 PM
Boxee, the media center solution that aggregates your content as well as content from across various web and other media services, has raised $4 million in its first round of financing, led by Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. While the concept of Boxee isn’t entirely new, the fresh stance of near-total media aggregation coupled with multiple social networking interfaces makes Boxee an enticing new product in this growing marketplace.
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(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...Multiply Gets $5 Million and a $100 Million Valuation
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 17th, 2008 6:52 PM
ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation has purchased $5 million in stock in the social networking company Multiply ABS-CBN News. The purchase gives the social networking company a $100 million valuation, a far cry from the $15 billion valuation that Facebook obtained earlier this year when Microsoft invested in the company.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Social Graph Marketing Deems You Guilty By Association
Posted by Kristen Nicole on November 17th, 2008 4:42 PM
The holiday shopping season is upon us, and online advertisers may be considering better use of social networks for more effective advertising this year. According to AdvertisingAge, a number of advertising tactics have been developing over the years that take advantage of one’s personal network of friends and associates, both offline and online. Yahoo, for example, has targeted the friends of Yahoo Fantasy players with Fantasy ads, and found an increase of quality click-throughs and uptake as a result. So this begs the question; can socially graphed advertisements predict what online consumers will buy?
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(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...Zynga Live Poker Jumps to Number One in Games
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 17th, 2008 1:47 PM
Last week I posted about Zynga’s Live Poker application. Within days the application has jumped to become the number one free application on the phone and number 8 overall. Social Gaming Network, a competitor of Zynga, experienced similar success on the iPhone with the launch of a could Wii-like games but their success appeared to come at the expense of their social application network.
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