Time is precious, and so is accuracy. By adding details of 10,000 performance venues to their web application ArtistData have further simplified the lives of musicians, making it easier for them to keep their fans updated with accurate information about upcoming performances.
This has been one of our most requested features. Now when you are adding a show within ArtistData, as you type in the venue name, you will hopefully be greeted with a long list of potential matches.We loaded about 10,000 venues in there to start and will be adding more as you input shows at venues we dont have, so dont worry if the venue you’re playing isn’t in there. If you add the show, we’ll get a note to add that venue!
This adds an essential piece of data validation to an already useful service that allow artist to update their information in concert database, social networks, calendar widgets and local publications from one central dashboard.
Veritocracy is a social news network with a difference - you don’t socialise. Instead users of the site vote article up or down anonymously, and have their preferences inferred from their voting patterns.
Just because an article contained information you are glad you read, does not necessarily mean you endorse it. Veritocracy uses your votes to feed you more of what you want to see, and less of what you don’t. With most social news or bookmarking sites, a vote translates into a public endorsement of an article. In some cases this can also mean a public endorsement of the author and/or the viewpoints contained in it. Veritocracy makes all votes private to ensure that everyone can vote frequently and honestly, without having to consider how those votes will be perceived by others.
The service is still in beta, so it will still be a while before we find out whether anonymity breeds wiser crowds. In the meantime I can’t help but admire the beautiful interface.
Social media company Sprout have launched a new brand marketing product. Sprout Mixer lets content owners provide fans with simple tools to design and share gadgets in blogs and social networks.
Sprout is very excited to launch www.sproutmixer.com and show the world the product we have been working on concurrently (for the past 11 months) with Sprout Builder. Sprout Mixer is built on the same platform as Sprout Builder but it has a simpler user interface and the ability to be white-labeled or skinned. We are creating a new form of online interaction that we are calling, “Creative Engagement Marketing.” With our tools you can create a brand experience for your fans and consumers.
The gadgets can be copied from user to user, and can also be remixed and adapted my more creative fans.
With obvious applications in film and music brading, it will be interesting to see what other industries try out this marketing approach, and what other experiences will be shared. I’d love to see something like Mixer used in education, with students selecting and mashing up learning resources.
Ubiquity from Mozilla Labs is a Firefox plugin that bridges simple user commands, semantic data embedded in a web page and standard API to make life a lot easier for users.
Some examples:
getting a map of craigslist rentals
dropping restaurant reviews into an email
forward the translation of a web page to a colleague
Ubiquity is about working with information rather than being a passive recipient. Building on microformats, semantic markup and natural language processing ubiquity is still in its early stages, but in the long term will become integrated into Firefox.
Today we’re announcing the launch of Ubiquity, a Mozilla Labs experiment into connecting the Web with language in an attempt to find new user interfaces that could make it possible for everyone to do common Web tasks more quickly and easily.The overall goals of Ubiquity are to explore how best to: * Empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions. (With search, users type what they want to find. With Ubiquity, they type what they want to do.) * Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs. (In other words, allowing everyone–not just Web developers–to remix the Web so it fits their needs, no matter what page they are on, or what they are doing.) * Use Trust networks and social constructs to balance security with ease of extensibility. * Extend the browser functionality easily.
Some new Google Talk features make it much easier for site owners to keep in touch with their visitors.
You can now embed a “chatback” badge in your site that lets visitors see whether you’re available for a chat session. A simple wizard lets you choose between different badge formats, including a version that can be sent by email. When clicked, the badge launches a simplified web based Google Talk client.
The full version of the client now features group chat and media embedding.
Putting your business on-line is no longer about setting up a website and having an “enquiries” address. Reputation, branding, research, service delivery and marketing extend into social networks and social media sites. Web tools are supplementing or replacing desktop applications, while the lower costs and expanding features of mobile devices are making ubiquitous access an affordable reality. We collaborate with colleagues that we've never met in person and inform our opinions with custom data feeds.
Loosing Site describes these changes; analysing trends, signposting resources and providing in-depth reviews and tutorials.
