Las Vegas Web Design

To-date, Diggnation, the popular internet show staring Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht, has been entertaining the masses courtesy of Revision3, the online TV network that Rose co-founded.

Currently fans of the show can watch online, subscribe podcast-style on iTunes, Miro, or Zune, or grab RSS feeds to watch in their application of choice. If that’s still not enough variety, or you simply don’t want to leave Facebook, then you might enjoy the fact that Revision3 will now be syndicating Diggnation episodes to Facebook.

Leveraging the unlimited reach of the new Facebook Pages, and a partnership with iWidgets for social syndication, Diggnation is poised to expand their audience on Facebook.

Members can start watching the weekly show on Facebook via the Diggnation tab on the fan page. Plus, once you enable Facebook Connect through the Diggnation iWidgets app, you can quickly add the app to your own Wall or Boxes tab, where your Facebook friends can catch the show and opt to add it to their profile as well.

Though we certainly think it’s a smart move on Revision3 and Diggnation’s part to syndicate episodes to Facebook, we’d like to see more sophisticated features that enable users to share particular episodes — not just the app itself — with their Facebook news feed so that friends can like and comment on favorite episodes.

Also, as we noted in yesterday’s piece on the official partnership between Adobe and Facebook, SproutBuilder, an iWidgets competitor, has already integrated the new ActionScript client library for publishing flash content as either a Facebook application or a Facebook Connect Web app. So today’s Diggnation Facebook syndication announcement is likely to be just the first of many for Web shows looking to gain the massive exposure that Facebook can attract through the myriad of built-in sharing options.

This post is part of Mashable’s Facebook Week. To discuss everything Facebook, join our authors and community at Mashable’s Facebook Page.

Reviews: ActionScript , Facebook, Miro

More: continued here

Facebook Chief Financial Officer Gideon Yu is leaving the company, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The WSJ’s sources says that Facebook is now searching for a CFO with “public company experience,” which would set the stage for an IPO of the world’s most popular social network.

Yu joined Facebook in mid-2007, after serving as YouTube’s CFO through the video sharing site’s acquisition by Google. His departure comes after a recent report in BusinessWeek suggested that Facebook was running out of cash and trying to raise an additional $100 million.

In addition to Yu leaving, Facebook seems to have addressed its financial situation today, with a source telling the WSJ that “Facebook’s financials are strong and that the company expects revenue growth of at least 70% in 2009 compared with 2008 revenue - far above the estimates of some outside analysts.”

Such revenue growth - along with the tremendous buzz that surrounds the company - could make Facebook an attractive company to IPO investors, in spite of the current weak economy and stock market. However, most analysts suggest the social network is currently worth far less than the $15 billion valuation that Microsoft bought a small stake at during the height of the Web 2.0 boom (with the Dow also ~14,000).

Nonetheless, a Facebook IPO would be the most exciting market event for Web companies since Google debuted, way back in 2004.

Reviews: Facebook, Google

More: continued here

MySpace and Citysearch are combining forces to launch MySpace Local, which combines CitySearch’s database of local businesses with the MySpace community, allowing users to initially review restaurants, bars, and nightlife spots, with more types of businesses expected to be added soon.

The site seems to be designed much like Yelp, with some MySpace-specific features built in. MySpace Local features “hubs” for large cities in the US, where users can browse specific neighborhoods or drill-down to a specific type of business or cuisine. When reading reviews, users can filter to see reviews from all MySpace users or just those from friends. When a friend reviews a business, that review is pushed live to user’s “Friend Updates” (the MySpace equivalent of the Facebook News Feed).

This is the type of product that only a social network on the scale of MySpace or Facebook could really pull off, but it also highlights the vast differences in strategy for the two sites. For instance, Citysearch has already implemented Facebook Connect on its site, and those reviews are in turn pushed to Facebook’s News Feed. MySpace on the other hand is taking more of a portal approach, looking to have local reviews take place on its own site, generating more page views.

Which strategy is best? MySpace’s seems easier to monetize on the surface (and the program already has a number of sponsors, including Outback), since all of the action happens on its site. But Facebook is all about data, and by knowing which sites you use outside of its walls, they can serve up more relevant advertising in the long-term. Both approaches represent a challenge to sites like Yelp that are essentially standalone.

MySpace Local will start out this week in private beta with selected users in order to seed the site with content, and will be pushed live to everyone next month.

Reviews: Facebook, MySpace, Yelp

More: continued here

Yahoo may be in overhaul with a new CEO and constant chatter about the health of its search business, but they still know how to program interesting and useful applications. Yahoo user interface engineers decided to try something a little different and experimental. The result was Sideline, a Yahoo-built application that runs on desktops via the Adobe AIR platform.

Sideline, announced on the Yahoo user interface blog, is a desktop application that displays real-time mentions of specific keywords, brands, or names. It is capable of custom search groups, advanced queries, and refreshes the application with new mentions automatically. How does it do this? It pulls keyword mentions from Twitter, of course!

The Yahoo Sideline project seems to have grown out of an internal project over at Yahoo, the goal of which was to create a desktop application that utilized Twitter, would be compatible with Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux with minimal work, and didn’t require learning new programming languages. The result was an Adobe AIR application, which allows for the building of apps in Web-specific languages, such as PHP, HTML, and Javascript.

The actual application is simple and replicates much of the functionality of other Web-based Twitter apps, such as monitter. It highlights and tracks keywords, is easy to search, and according to Yahoo, offers “20% more awesomeness.” Sideline seems to be more of a research project for Yahoo rather than building a new major new product or division.

The Yahoo User Interface team also included in its announcement some suggestions for Adobe AIR app development, primarily that developers need to understand their programming environment and debugging tools are absolutely essential. Sideline is open source, so developers are welcome to play around with the code.

The development of Sideline may be Yahoo testing the water of Adobe AIR and Twitter application development. Their test has produced a functional and useful desktop program, and nobody should be surprised if Yahoo releases more robust products based on Twitter and AIR in the future.

Reviews: PHP, Twitter, Yahoo!

More: continued here

Google has announcedGoogle Ventures, a venture capital fund that “seeks to discover and grow great companies” in a “broad range of industries, including consumer Internet, software, hardware, clean-tech, bio-tech and health care.”

The fund has two managing partners: Bill Maris, perhaps best known in tech circles for founding Web hosting company Burlee.com, and Rich Miner, co-founder of mobile platform Android.

As far as the size of the fund goes, actual amounts aren’t disclosed; however, the official site claims that the fund is “able to invest amounts ranging from seed funding to tens of millions of dollars.” In other words, anything goes, and Google probably won’t be cheap if they see a good opportunity. On the other hand, Google has always been somewhat careful, acquisition-wise, so don’t expect Google Ventures to be burning money; as they say, their goal is to “build great companies” but also to generate “long term financial return.”

Reviews: Android, Google

More: continued here

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Texthog

Quick Pitch: Texthog is a super simple service to track your budgets and expenses online. We believe that the easiest way to keep track of what you spend, is to record it in real-time.

Genius Idea: Texthog is a smart finance-tracking system - you send it your financial transactions (via email or text) and it parses that information, tracks it, and categorizes it. The premise is that, by tracking expenses as they happen, you will better be able to understand what you’re spending your money on, where your money has has gone, and how to adjust your budget. This also eliminates the pain of tracking receipts.

Its focus is on the real-time tracking - users are assigned a unique email address to which they can either email or text their transactions. In this example, I have “purchased” a $1000 Galactic Cruiser (from Star Wars fame). I can do this by texting “galactic cruiser, $1000″ to my uniquely assigned email address (most cellular carriers support this) or by emailing that information. Adding multiple line items can only be done via email. Transactions can also be added on the Texthog website.

The website comes with a full array of stats and information, and its reports section is especially strong. You can view transactions over any period of time. These reports can be categorized by different expense types - travel, education, food, etc. There are also custom tags to help categorize expenses. You can also create a specific budget and budget items that work on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. You can also set financial reminders.

The website reminded me a lot about another finance-management website, Mint, which links to your bank accounts and then tracks your finances by importing transactions done via checks or credit cards. Despite the similarities between Mint and Texthog, their methods of tracking expenses are completely different and could be useful for different people. Freelancers that need to track businesses expenses might find Texthog especially useful. Reports can be exported into csv and in the near future, to quickbooks and Excel formats.

Texthog is fully functional as a finance-management website, but requires your constant interaction with the system. If you stop texting your transactions, the system will stop being useful for you. But if you can keep up with that, then Texthog may be worth a try.

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Reviews: Mint

More: continued here

Right on time; as promised yesterday, Skype client for the iPhone is now live in the US App Store.

We’ve gone through the features yesterday, but the folks at Engadget mention a very interesting glitch (or feature) that was previously unreported. It seems that you can make Skype calls over 3G network if you have the beta 3.0 OS installed on your iPhone; unfortunately, in that case the application is also quite unstable. On the other hand, if you have the latest official software, Skype works well, but you can only make calls through WiFi. We can’t say what the future will bring, but I’m guessing that the “support” for calls over 3G will be removed in the next version.

So, how do you like Skype on the iPhone? Voice quality any good? What features do you miss the most? Please let us know in the comments.

Reviews: Skype

More: continued here

There are a number of ways to promote your Twitter account. You can add yourself to one of the many growing Twitter directories, advertise your brand, or, as I’ll discuss in this post, feature a badge with your Twitter information on your website, blog, or even in your email.

Here are 20 embeddable badges and widgets that you can customize to include your tweets and, in some cases, those of your friends. Have another badge or widget to add to the list? Tell us about it in the comments.

Twitter badges

Chris’ Twitter Badge - A simple HTML badge that comes in the form of raw code you just copy-and-paste while changing a few links.  It will show your last four tweets and keeps the basic Twitter branding and logo from the site.

SayTweet - SayTweet allows you to upload a picture of your own, tag the Twitter users shown, and their tweets will show up in speech bubbles on the image as they publish them.

Sigpad - Sigpad asks you to enter your Twitter username and it then creates a bookmarklet you can add to your browser toolbars.  Once you’ve done this you can compose emails in AOL, Gmail, Outlook, Windows Live or Yahoo Mail, drag the bookmarklet into the body, and your latest Twitter update will be shown in the email when you send it.

TwitStamp - TwitStamp lets you set up an easy, attractive, and customizable badge that displays your latest tweet. You can select the badge’s size, background and so on.  You can also set up a TwitCard that will show your name, avatar, bio, latest tweet, number of followers and more.

Twitter Statuses Badge - A Twitter badge that will show the last few tweets from your account, along with how long ago you posted them and the permalink to them so that people can go to them directly.  Can be customized via CSS to better match your blog or site.

Twitterati Badge - A very simple JavaScript solution for your badge needs that will let you set height, width, colors, border and so on.  Displays your tweets as well as those of your followers.

TwitterCard - One of the biggest complaints people have about badges for any service is that they don’t fit in with their overall blog design.  TwitterCard tackles this complaint head-on by giving you a JavaScript powered badge to show all your Twitter info in the 125X125 format.  This will fit in perfectly with your ad units, or just about anywhere on your site without looking the least bit out of place with current design standards.  Also has the ability to be implemented via HTML or a WordPress plugin. (please note that the JavaScript was not working when we tested it, but the other methods were).

TwitterMySite - Enter your user name, any extra text you may want and in what color, and simply click “Generate my Button.”  You’ll be offered up a selection of different badges, all set with the variables you entered, ready for you to paste into your site.

U Stand Out Twitter Badges - U Stand Out offers up a nice selection of badges you can use for your site or blog that range from artsy to straight-to-the-point.

Vincent Abry Twitter Badges - A collection of Twitter badges for just about every taste in various sizes for all the different blog configurations out there.

WishAFriend.com Twitter Widgets - These Twitter widgets are all flash-based and offer you different themes such as holidays, fun, USA and so on and will display a scrollable selection of your most recent Tweets.  Just enter your username and then get the embed code to get started.

Twitter widgets

Bastawhiz’s Twitter Widget - A customizable widget that lets you set the height, width and the number of tweets to display.  Each tweet is hyperlinked to the permalink on the Twitter site for easy access.

Blogger Buster Twitter Widget - A Twitter widget built specifically for blogs on Blogger.com.  Just enter a title for it, your username and the number of tweets to display and you’re done.

Language Is A Virus - Language Is A Virus offers hundreds of different Twitter widgets that you first choose by the size small, medium or large, and once you’ve selected that, you can sort them by color.  Find the one you want and you have it as a badge or a widget, but if you go the widget route it will also display your last 5 tweets.

Official Twitter Widgets - Twitter offers a mixture of Flash and HTML widgets depending on the platform you wish to put them on.  Officially supported sites are Blogger, Facebook (via an application), MySpace, and TypePad. Twitter also offers generic widgets for other sites.

Sprout - Ever wanted to build your own widget from the ground up?  Well, Sprout will let you build them for several services, but Twitter is probably the most popular.  If you’re worried about not knowing anything about programming, Sprout handles that for you by giving you the ability to just drag-and-drop the elements you want, but arranging them easily in the way you want.

TwiBadge - TwiBadge is a WordPress plugin widget that allows you to easily add the official Twitter widget to your site.  This allows you to show a group of your most recent tweets, your user name and number of followers, but best of all, it will also enable your readers to login and follow you so they can do everything right from your sidebar.

Twitter Widget - WidgetNest offers up a nice little Twitter widget that keeps the theme of the main site.  It displays your name and avatar, and your last several tweets scroll one at a time at a speed of your choice. Coding is available as JavaScript and Flash.

TwitterSalt - TwitterSalt allows you to customize your widget on their site and then just by using a single line of HTML code you can post your updates on sites, on message boards, in emails and more.

WordPress.com Twitter Widget - WordPress.com hosted blogs can’t upload their own plugins, but they’ve been nice enough to add a built-in widget for you to add your tweets to your blog.  Just enter a title, your Twitter name and the number of tweets to display, and then you can just add it to your sidebar.

More Twitter resources from Mashable:

- The Twitter Followholic: An Epidemic

- 6 Unique Twitter Visualizations

- 6 Twitter Games to Make Tweeting Fun

- HOW TO: Create Groups for Twitter

- Sixteen Great Twitter Moments

Reviews: Facebook, Gmail, MySpace, Twitter, TypePad, WordPress, blogger

More: continued here
Powered by SmartRSS

The world’s second largest social network, MySpace, has found a new partner that may make the relationship between MySpace and Google a little more rocky: Microsoft.

Specifically, MySpace and Microsoft announced today that the MySpace website will be available for Windows Mobile this summer. In addition, they announced that MySpace would be supporting Microsoft’s Silverlight platform (a rival to the popular Adobe Flash), especially for the creation of applications on its developer platform.

Confused yet? It’s a lot of partnerships and technology integration to announce all at once. It is also a very interesting move for both companies. This announcement adds a new dynamic to the rivalry between Google and Microsoft: Google already has a multi-million dollar deal with MySpace, while Microsoft owns a small chunk of MySpace rival Facebook and helps power its search and advertising platforms. It will make these relationships even more complicated and something to watch for over the next year.

MySpace for Windows Mobile

The first announcement was that MySpace would be available for Windows Mobile phones. MySpace is already available for the iPhone, Blackberry, and even for Google’s Android platform, but has avoided making a version for Windows Mobile until now. With the advent of a Windows Mobile version, MySpace will be available on almost every mobile smartphone.

The Windows Mobile version of MySpace will be available this summer for Windows Mobile 6.1 phones and for the Windows Mobile Marketplace this fall. In addition, LG phones will have the MySpace application pre-installed.

Silverlight for MySpace’s OpenSocial Platform

The second major announcement revolved around Silverlight, Microsoft’s challenger to Adobe Flash, which is installed on nearly every computer in the world and runs on popular websites like YouTube. MySpace and Microsoft have released an Open Source kit that will help developers create applications that utilize Silverlight.

However, there was no announcement about MySpace’s own use of Silverlight. MySpace Video, one of the worlds largest video website, currently uses Adobe Flash to run its videos. This could be interesting to watch, especially if the partnership strengthens.

The MySpace / Facebook / Microsoft / Google Relationship

The partnership between MySpace and Microsoft on Silverlight and Windows Mobile are good first steps for fostering a deeper partnership. The partnership, however, should raise some eyebrows and concerns with the leadership over at Google and Microsoft. Google paid around $900 million dollars for a multi-year search partnership deal with MySpace. Microsoft paid $240 million dollars to buy a small piece of Facebook at a valuation of $15 billion dollars. It also has the rights to run Facebook’s advertising platform and has a search deal with the social networking giant.

Will this new partnership be what breaks the back of the Google-Myspace partnership? Will this hurt relations between the Facebook team and Microsoft management? The answer to these questions are probably going to be answered in the next few months as the Google-Myspace search deal expires and Facebook continues its explosive growth.

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Google, MySpace, YouTube

More: continued here

YouTube has been moving to bring in legitimate, licensed content from TV networks and movie studios for some time, inking deals with the likes of CBS and MGM, among others. Now, that professionally produced content is going to become the focal point of the site, as Google plans to launch a major redesign within the next month.

According to ClickZ, YouTube’s main navigation will soon be switched to “Movies, Music, Shows, and Videos. The first three tabs will display premium shows, clips, and movies from Google’s network and studio partners, all of which will be monetized with in-stream advertising.”

Meanwhile, the user-generated content that was the original premise for the site will be relegated to the “Videos” tab. This new navigation makes YouTube considerably more like Hulu, who offers two main options in its navigation – TV and Movies – from the video site’s parent companies: NBC and News Corp.

Why would YouTube want to emulate Hulu, which, though relatively popular, is still just a fraction of the size of YouTube? The main reason is that YouTube has been somewhat infamously unable to generate much money considering the size of its audience, whereas Hulu is able to attract high-end advertisers both because of its agency ties and its lack of more difficult to monetize user-generated content.

While I understand why Google might want to effectively “hide” user-generated videos from a business perspective, at the moment, it’s going to make the site a lot less engaging for users, simply because of the lack of quality pro content hosted on YouTube. Other than music videos, YouTube’s content catalog lags well behind that of its peers (I recently called it the TBS of online video). Unless deals are reached to bring its content catalog up to par – and these too are rumored – launching the said redesign would seem to be a mistake by YouTube.

Reviews: Google, Hulu, YouTube

More: continued here