The Musings Of Jeff Chandler
Ali J from everybodygoto.com has published a humorous blog post which compares a few different web 2.0 startups to Hollywood movies. Some of the comparisons include:
What movies can you think of that would compare well with a web 2.0 company?
Here is an interesting story I came across via Mashable Apparently, Pownce users are beginning to use their accounts to solicit diggs. It’s interesting because, Digg.com has recently implemented features that try to prohibit lobbying such as removing the top digg users list. The tactic being used on Pownce seems to be working and it will be interesting to see if Kevin Rose allows it to continue.
The last thing I would want to see on Pownce is pages and pages full of PLEASE DIGG posts. What do you think of the situation?
MashupAwards is a hand-picked showcase of the best web mashups with awards served on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis.
The criteria involved with judging each Mashup capable of winning an award consists of: Uniqueness, Creativity, User Experience, Utility, and Content. Users also have the ability to nominate a mashup of their choice which will be reviewed by the staff of MashupAwards. MashupAwards also contains a page of information describing how to create a mashup, which contains suggestions, tips, as well as a list of the ten most popular APIs.
The winner for June 23, 2007 goes to DiggLabs.
The labs provide a broader (and deeper) view of Digg. A lot of stuff gets submitted to Digg every day, so good things can sometimes fly right past you. Labs projects look beneath the surface of the Digg community’s activities and display them in fresh and unique interfaces.
To view more information about mashups or to view all of the winners that have won an award, visit http://mashupawards.com
Appscout has put together a detailed preview of a new user-generated content service which promises to provide relevant, useful information but without the users. Thoof uses an algorithm that will discover a reader’s interests while tailoring the stories to an individual’s tastes. Commenting on Thoof will be non existent as well as the ability to rank stories. The only means of interacting amongst each other is the “SEND TO A FRIEND BUTTON” which will email a selected news story to a friends inbox of your choice.
The thing that makes Thoof stand out from the crowd is that it allows its members to submit news and headlines, and rather than rank those stories, the stories are immediately posted to users’ homepages. There’s no ranking, no commenting, and no burying of stories. Stories are automatically rated by the system to only be displayed on the homepages of Thoof users who have previously clicked on or indicated interest in other stories of the same type or topic. In fact, the only items that a user can click on when viewing a story are the “send to a friend” button to email the story to someone else, or the “improve” button that allows users to correct story blurbs for accuracy, or immediately report and flag duplicates. When I tried the “improve” button, it returned a 503 error, reinforcing the fact that Thoof is still very much a beta. Some features aren’t completely implemented, and others may yet come. – Source Appscout
Thoof is still invite-only, and there is no time table as to when Thoof will become publicly available. Click here to check out Appscout’s preview of Thoof
Digg Like Comment Editor For WordPress
Ronald Huereca of the Reader Appreciation Project has released a WordPress plugin which gives administrators and regular users the ability to edit their own comments within a given time frame. The plugin pretty much works in the same way that the Digg commenting system works.
The plugin uses Ajax so the entire page never needs to reload. Once a comment is published, a timer starts to count down the remaining time available to edit the comment. Once the timer reaches zero, only the administrator can edit the comment. Users can also edit their email address, or their URL by clicking on the text that needs to be edited. This will open the comment editor window allowing you to make the necessary changes.
Plugin Features
I have installed this plugin on this blog so now you’ll be able to edit your own comments. We need every WordPress blogger to install this plugin, or something similar so that users can edit their comments. Why this functionality is missing from WordPress by default is beyond me, but the solution provided above works out very nicely. Please visit The Reader Appreciation Project and grab your copy today and install it as soon as possible so people can edit their own comments.
Special thanks to the guys who host the WordPress Podcast for tipping me off on this plugin.