Social bookmarking has been around for a while. Sites like del.icio.us and Furl have made it easy to take your favorite links from around the Web, tag them to keep them organized, and save them for future reference or share with your friends. FFFFound extends the concept to images. If you see an interesting photograph, a particularly beautiful piece of art, or just an entertaining photo somewhere on the Web, FFFFound allows you to link to it, tag it, and save it to retrieve later or share with the rest of the community.
The service also sports an engine that can recommend images for you based on your previous likes, dislikes, and the way those images have been tagged by the people who found them. Once you've found an image that you like, you can upload it to the service, link to it, tag it, and then share it with others. Once your image is visible, other FFFFound users can save it or flag it as inappropriate. FFFFound's recommendation engine generates similar images that you may like and displays them underneath the image that you uploaded, so if you see another image on the site that you like, you can click through to view more images of the same type.
Most of FFFFound's images are art, photography, and graphic design. FFFFound is currently in private beta, so you can't sign up to share your own images quite yet. Luckily, you can browse the uploaded images of the most recent and active members, and most of the images uploaded are viewable by the public. You'll find images from e-cards, photographs from Flickr, and even corporate logos and odd snapshots from around the Web. FFFFound provides an IE extension and a bookmarklet to make it easier to share images without having to copy and paste links.
With all of the buzz about copyright infringement and content ownership, FFFFound invites copyright holders to contact them if users upload copyrighted material that they'd like removed. FFFFound may have to be more aggressive about this policy when the service emerges from private beta. At the moment, the quality of the images at FFFFound is very high, but that probably has something to do with its limited membership.
FFFFound images range from the beautifully artistic to the offbeat and hilarious. The images on the front page change every time you refresh. At one glance, I saw an antique poster for a Broadway play, gorgeous black-and-white vintage photography, and a digital masterpiece that made a towering rock look like a modern apartment building. There's always something new to see.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Pingie Turns RSS into SMS
There are a number of apps out there designed to push RSS feeds from your favorite blogs and Websites to your mobile phone. The trouble with those services is that if you can't install software on your phone, don't want to pay for mobile Web access, or have a carrier that doesn't allow you to use those services, you're stuck. Pingie can help. The service allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds from your desktop, and then sends you text messages when the feed updates. It's quick, simple, free, and best of all works with most mobile devices.
Google Reader, Bloglines Mobile, and other services all bring news and updates to your mobile phone, but there's a catch: you have to have mobile Web access or you have to be able to install apps on your phone. That's fine if you have a smartphone like a Motorola Q or a Blackberry, but if you have a Motorola RAZR or a Samsung Juke, an app that runs on Windows Mobile or PalmOS doesn't do you any good. Worse yet, if your carrier is someone like Verizon (like many Americans), you may not be allowed to install software on your phone at all if it's not downloaded directly from your carrier.
Pingie gets around that whole issue by sending RSS feed updates to your mobile device via text message. A Verizon subscriber with a device like a Samsung Juke can get text messages, even if they can't install a news reader or don't have a cellular plan with mobile Web access.
Additionally, Pingie will send you a text message every time one of your RSS feeds updates. This is great for people who like being alerted when there's new content on one of your favorite blogs or sites instead of having to go to the site to check it yourself, or wade through pre-downloaded feeds.
[ via DownloadSquad ]
Google Reader, Bloglines Mobile, and other services all bring news and updates to your mobile phone, but there's a catch: you have to have mobile Web access or you have to be able to install apps on your phone. That's fine if you have a smartphone like a Motorola Q or a Blackberry, but if you have a Motorola RAZR or a Samsung Juke, an app that runs on Windows Mobile or PalmOS doesn't do you any good. Worse yet, if your carrier is someone like Verizon (like many Americans), you may not be allowed to install software on your phone at all if it's not downloaded directly from your carrier.
Pingie gets around that whole issue by sending RSS feed updates to your mobile device via text message. A Verizon subscriber with a device like a Samsung Juke can get text messages, even if they can't install a news reader or don't have a cellular plan with mobile Web access.
Additionally, Pingie will send you a text message every time one of your RSS feeds updates. This is great for people who like being alerted when there's new content on one of your favorite blogs or sites instead of having to go to the site to check it yourself, or wade through pre-downloaded feeds.
[ via DownloadSquad ]
BedJump: Making Hotels Fun Again
I love to travel, but staying in a hotel has lost some of its luster since I was a kid. Sure there's room service and if I'm lucky there's a mini-bar, but it's lost a little of its charm. BedJump on the other hand, makes me excited to stay in hotels again. Every couple of days, BedJump updates with hilarious photos of real people jumping on hotel beds, usually with the person in mid-air. Who says jumping on the bed is naughty?
The people at BedJump are right when they say that there's something luxurious and intoxicating about hotel beds. They're relaxing, they're usually comfortable, but best of all, they're bouncy. BedJump regularly posts photos of real hotel guests staying at hotels around the world, enjoying the bounciness of the bed they paid to sleep in. The site takes submissions from anyone who wants to send them, and posts nearly all the photos they get.
BedJump is actually part of the larger site Hotels By City, which helps vacationers find destinations for their trip depending on the type of vacation they'd like to take, the best hotels for their vacation type or the city they've visiting, and helps users book hotels and vacation packages once they've decided where they want to go. BedJump encourages people to explore the rest of the Hotels By City network of sites to book their vacations, and once they've found a hotel in which to stay, to take their best mid-air snapshots or hotel bed lounging photos and submit them to the site.
Extended features aside, BedJump is a lot of fun. You can sign up for e-mail updates when a new bedjumper's photos are posted. If you're interested specifically in bed jumps on cruise ships, entire photo sets of bed jumps, bed jumping videos, or even a tutorial on how to bed jump, you'll find links to each category on the sidebar. If you're in love with the site, you can even buy a BedJump t-shirt to wear while you're jumping on the bed during your next vacation.
The people at BedJump are right when they say that there's something luxurious and intoxicating about hotel beds. They're relaxing, they're usually comfortable, but best of all, they're bouncy. BedJump regularly posts photos of real hotel guests staying at hotels around the world, enjoying the bounciness of the bed they paid to sleep in. The site takes submissions from anyone who wants to send them, and posts nearly all the photos they get.
BedJump is actually part of the larger site Hotels By City, which helps vacationers find destinations for their trip depending on the type of vacation they'd like to take, the best hotels for their vacation type or the city they've visiting, and helps users book hotels and vacation packages once they've decided where they want to go. BedJump encourages people to explore the rest of the Hotels By City network of sites to book their vacations, and once they've found a hotel in which to stay, to take their best mid-air snapshots or hotel bed lounging photos and submit them to the site.
Extended features aside, BedJump is a lot of fun. You can sign up for e-mail updates when a new bedjumper's photos are posted. If you're interested specifically in bed jumps on cruise ships, entire photo sets of bed jumps, bed jumping videos, or even a tutorial on how to bed jump, you'll find links to each category on the sidebar. If you're in love with the site, you can even buy a BedJump t-shirt to wear while you're jumping on the bed during your next vacation.
Facebook 'Secret Crush' App Installing Malicious Spyware
Facebook: "You have a Secret Crush invitation"
OMG, OMG, OMG! Who could it be?!
Unfortunately, if you find this note on your Facebook page, it's more likely to be an undercover malicious spyware program than a declaration of love from your Facebook crush of the moment. Love is truly dead.
Security firm Fortinet uncovered a widget that disguises itself as a normal Facebook application but actually unleashes the "Zango" adware/spyware virus when installed. Users will receive an e-mail alert that they have a "secret crush" and upon signing into the social networking site will see an alert much like a friend or group request. Clicking on it asks users to install an application on their page, but also demands they invite five friends to join.
Having gone through the trouble to install the app, most people will invite their friends, making the widget a "social worm," researchers said. "Even after that step, no crush of any sort is revealed."
Instead you get a page that requests an additional download--a download that is in fact the Zango virus.
Fortinet said that as of January 4, approximately four-percent of Facebook users have installed the "Secret Crush" application, which also goes by the name "My Admirer."
UPDATE: "Facebook is committed to user safety and security and, to that end, its Terms of Service for developers explicitly state that applications should not use adware and spyware," a Facebook spokesperson said in an e-mail. "Users should employ the same precautions while downloading software from Facebook applications that they use when downloading software on their desktop. We have contacted the developers and have disabled the Secret Crush application for violating Facebook Platform Terms of Service."
UPDATE II: Zango issued a press release last week that denied any involvement in the "Secret Crush" application.
"At no point while adding the Secret Crush application to a Facebook profile did the widget attempt to install Zango software," Zango said. "The Secret Crush widget is neither a Zango application nor is it affiliated with Zango in any way. Zango does not own it, did not manufacture it, and did not bundle software with it."
OMG, OMG, OMG! Who could it be?!
Unfortunately, if you find this note on your Facebook page, it's more likely to be an undercover malicious spyware program than a declaration of love from your Facebook crush of the moment. Love is truly dead.
Security firm Fortinet uncovered a widget that disguises itself as a normal Facebook application but actually unleashes the "Zango" adware/spyware virus when installed. Users will receive an e-mail alert that they have a "secret crush" and upon signing into the social networking site will see an alert much like a friend or group request. Clicking on it asks users to install an application on their page, but also demands they invite five friends to join.
Having gone through the trouble to install the app, most people will invite their friends, making the widget a "social worm," researchers said. "Even after that step, no crush of any sort is revealed."
Instead you get a page that requests an additional download--a download that is in fact the Zango virus.
Fortinet said that as of January 4, approximately four-percent of Facebook users have installed the "Secret Crush" application, which also goes by the name "My Admirer."
UPDATE: "Facebook is committed to user safety and security and, to that end, its Terms of Service for developers explicitly state that applications should not use adware and spyware," a Facebook spokesperson said in an e-mail. "Users should employ the same precautions while downloading software from Facebook applications that they use when downloading software on their desktop. We have contacted the developers and have disabled the Secret Crush application for violating Facebook Platform Terms of Service."
UPDATE II: Zango issued a press release last week that denied any involvement in the "Secret Crush" application.
"At no point while adding the Secret Crush application to a Facebook profile did the widget attempt to install Zango software," Zango said. "The Secret Crush widget is neither a Zango application nor is it affiliated with Zango in any way. Zango does not own it, did not manufacture it, and did not bundle software with it."
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Hands On With Hulu
After waiting most of the day for approval from Hulu PR, I can now post a hands-on evaluation of the beta, which was officially announced at midnight Sunday night. (When registering, the terms of service repeatedly failed to load, meaning that I had no idea if Hulu would make me watch old episodes of The Littlest Groom if I posted content without permission.)
The verdict: Broad? Extremely. Deep? No. If you were hoping for some magical archive of TV episodes, forget it. This is why piracy is winning, people. But give Hulu credit: what it does, it does well.
Fortunately, the site has learned several key lessons from the Web 2.0 design gurus: keep it clean, keep it simple, and organize it well. While you won't find any user-generated video here, both studios have presented their gems, front and center. Take for, example, the once-lost version of Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday: The Chronicles of Narnia":
And that's one of the nifty things. Video can be embedded into blogs. Sure, you'll still end up watching the commercials, but that's the tradeoff. Oh, and design for widescreen.
Only the last aspect needs some more work. If you're looking for a certain show, clicking on the "Browse Titles" link at the top of the page will bring up a list of shows, each adorned by a small banner icon. No preference is given to either NBC shows or Fox properties; each is treated equally.
But Hulu made one mystifying decision: in the page marked "Popular Episodes," the user is subjected to a two-wide column of "favorites," with no indication whose favorites they are. Users? The site's editors? NBC executives, in a back-room deal with Fox? Some indication would be helpful. The same treatment is given to the bottom of the home page.
Playing a show is straightforward: once you click on the episode, a window opens with some interesting options: "Lower lights" turns the surrounding white background a dark gray, making extended viewing easier on the eyes. There's the standard "embed" and "share" options, as well as "details". For some reason, Hulu included both a "share" and "pop out" option, to give you two options to view.
There are ads, although the presentation isn't consistent; when I viewed a Simpsons episode Monday morning, the episode started with a short lead-in, and then 15- and 30-second ads played during the normal commercial breaks. (There are strange dots within the time slider that I believe correspond to commercial breaks.) However, on Monday afternoon, the ads were gone, even during a watching of the same episode.
The video is crisp and smooth, when it loads. For some reason, I received several instances of the following error message, one when trying to view an episode of House, and once when I tried to view The Blues Brothers: "Unfortunately, this video is not currently available in your country or region. We apologize for the inconvenience."
It's not quite clear what this means, since I'm sitting in Arizona right now. Has John McCain really ticked off Hollywood that badly?
The other problem is actually getting the video to load. Again, on Monday morning the experience was seamless: video loaded seamlessly, and everything worked as you would expect. At 3:15 PM PDT, it took about ten seconds to load a video page, perhaps fifteen seconds for it to actually begin, and even then the audio had a tendency to desynchronize -- evidence, it seems, of problems with the server load.
The sad thing is that Hulu will only archive the last five episodes of a current show, and a single season of a show that's off the air -- typically the first season, but not always. On the other hand, it's an excellent way to keep up with shows that don't quite make your DVR for reasons of scheduling or capacity.
Hulu suffers from two beta problems right now: an apparent lack of server capacity, and a deep stable of content. I have every confidence that Hulu will solve the first, and will refuse to solve the latter. Which, when you think about it, is just plain dumb. Yes, advertising is annoying, but it pays my bills. I'm willing to put up with it. But if the model works for the five most recent episodes of a given show, it should work for all of them. Let's hope this changes.
The verdict: Broad? Extremely. Deep? No. If you were hoping for some magical archive of TV episodes, forget it. This is why piracy is winning, people. But give Hulu credit: what it does, it does well.
Fortunately, the site has learned several key lessons from the Web 2.0 design gurus: keep it clean, keep it simple, and organize it well. While you won't find any user-generated video here, both studios have presented their gems, front and center. Take for, example, the once-lost version of Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday: The Chronicles of Narnia":
And that's one of the nifty things. Video can be embedded into blogs. Sure, you'll still end up watching the commercials, but that's the tradeoff. Oh, and design for widescreen.
Only the last aspect needs some more work. If you're looking for a certain show, clicking on the "Browse Titles" link at the top of the page will bring up a list of shows, each adorned by a small banner icon. No preference is given to either NBC shows or Fox properties; each is treated equally.
But Hulu made one mystifying decision: in the page marked "Popular Episodes," the user is subjected to a two-wide column of "favorites," with no indication whose favorites they are. Users? The site's editors? NBC executives, in a back-room deal with Fox? Some indication would be helpful. The same treatment is given to the bottom of the home page.
Playing a show is straightforward: once you click on the episode, a window opens with some interesting options: "Lower lights" turns the surrounding white background a dark gray, making extended viewing easier on the eyes. There's the standard "embed" and "share" options, as well as "details". For some reason, Hulu included both a "share" and "pop out" option, to give you two options to view.
There are ads, although the presentation isn't consistent; when I viewed a Simpsons episode Monday morning, the episode started with a short lead-in, and then 15- and 30-second ads played during the normal commercial breaks. (There are strange dots within the time slider that I believe correspond to commercial breaks.) However, on Monday afternoon, the ads were gone, even during a watching of the same episode.
The video is crisp and smooth, when it loads. For some reason, I received several instances of the following error message, one when trying to view an episode of House, and once when I tried to view The Blues Brothers: "Unfortunately, this video is not currently available in your country or region. We apologize for the inconvenience."
It's not quite clear what this means, since I'm sitting in Arizona right now. Has John McCain really ticked off Hollywood that badly?
The other problem is actually getting the video to load. Again, on Monday morning the experience was seamless: video loaded seamlessly, and everything worked as you would expect. At 3:15 PM PDT, it took about ten seconds to load a video page, perhaps fifteen seconds for it to actually begin, and even then the audio had a tendency to desynchronize -- evidence, it seems, of problems with the server load.
The sad thing is that Hulu will only archive the last five episodes of a current show, and a single season of a show that's off the air -- typically the first season, but not always. On the other hand, it's an excellent way to keep up with shows that don't quite make your DVR for reasons of scheduling or capacity.
Hulu suffers from two beta problems right now: an apparent lack of server capacity, and a deep stable of content. I have every confidence that Hulu will solve the first, and will refuse to solve the latter. Which, when you think about it, is just plain dumb. Yes, advertising is annoying, but it pays my bills. I'm willing to put up with it. But if the model works for the five most recent episodes of a given show, it should work for all of them. Let's hope this changes.
Hulu Beta Invites
You may remember AppScout's Hands On Hulu post, about the new online video service offering full-length episodes of some of your favorite TV shows. Well, recently I got my hands on over 2,000 invitations to the private beta version of Hulu, so now you can try it out yourself. To redeem your invite, check out this Hulu preview at PCmag.com.
5Min: Tutorial Videos in a Flash
We all want to learn new things and expand our horizons; in fact, one of my New Year's resolutions is to learn to cook some new dishes for friends and family. Thankfully, learning new things doesn't necessarily mean that I have to take a class or spend hours upon hours reading or studying. With 5Min, I can learn how to make a vegetarian shepherd's pie or a beef Wellington in just a few minutes.
5Min is a video site that specializes in how-to and instructional videos made by people with knowledge of their subjects. The best part is that all of the videos are short-form; none of them are longer than five minutes long.
Five minutes is all it takes to learn how to cross-stitch, to fold a t-shirt, or even to seat dinner guests. The videos at 5Min help you learn at least a little about a specific topic, and while you may not be able to learn everything there is to know about everything in five-minute snippets, you can certainly get started. The point of the videos at 5Min aren't to make you an expert, but to help you learn enough to get involved with a topic, teach you a quick tip or trick, or give you enough information that you can fill in the blanks on your own.
5Min videos are all created by the user community. The site staff and administrators provide the framework for the service and might contribute a video or two on their own time, but the bulk of the content is provided by 5Min.com users. Each user gets a "studio" where they can upload their videos in their areas of expertise. The service was founded on the principle that everyone's an expert in something, so everyone is invited to participate and share their knowledge with the rest of the community.
The topics at 5Min range from the arts, business, fashion, food, games, parenting to even sports and technology. You can find videos on how to check your HOSTS file for spyware on one page, and on another page you can learn about how scientists use DNA fingerprinting to catch criminals.
If you're not looking for a brain buster, you can head over to the Home category to get 10 Feng Shui tips for your home, or the "fashion" section to learn how to properly tie a do-rag. If the topic of the video is just too broad to cover in five minutes, you might find a series of videos on the same topic, each taking you through a specific step.
The beauty of 5Min isn't just that the videos are all short (the average video is about 3-4 minutes, and sticks very closely to a specific topic), but that the site reaches out to everyday people to share their knowledge with the world. You'll find videos on topics you didn't know you wanted to learn about, and after only five minutes, you'll find your life that much richer.
5Min is a video site that specializes in how-to and instructional videos made by people with knowledge of their subjects. The best part is that all of the videos are short-form; none of them are longer than five minutes long.
Five minutes is all it takes to learn how to cross-stitch, to fold a t-shirt, or even to seat dinner guests. The videos at 5Min help you learn at least a little about a specific topic, and while you may not be able to learn everything there is to know about everything in five-minute snippets, you can certainly get started. The point of the videos at 5Min aren't to make you an expert, but to help you learn enough to get involved with a topic, teach you a quick tip or trick, or give you enough information that you can fill in the blanks on your own.
5Min videos are all created by the user community. The site staff and administrators provide the framework for the service and might contribute a video or two on their own time, but the bulk of the content is provided by 5Min.com users. Each user gets a "studio" where they can upload their videos in their areas of expertise. The service was founded on the principle that everyone's an expert in something, so everyone is invited to participate and share their knowledge with the rest of the community.
The topics at 5Min range from the arts, business, fashion, food, games, parenting to even sports and technology. You can find videos on how to check your HOSTS file for spyware on one page, and on another page you can learn about how scientists use DNA fingerprinting to catch criminals.
If you're not looking for a brain buster, you can head over to the Home category to get 10 Feng Shui tips for your home, or the "fashion" section to learn how to properly tie a do-rag. If the topic of the video is just too broad to cover in five minutes, you might find a series of videos on the same topic, each taking you through a specific step.
The beauty of 5Min isn't just that the videos are all short (the average video is about 3-4 minutes, and sticks very closely to a specific topic), but that the site reaches out to everyday people to share their knowledge with the world. You'll find videos on topics you didn't know you wanted to learn about, and after only five minutes, you'll find your life that much richer.
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