GizmoProject.com

Another company trying to compete with Skype. You can call any Gizmo Project, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, or Windows Live user. They also give you free voicemail and conference calling which Skype does not offer.

See if this is a better fit for you if you really need the voicemail and conference calling. I still think Skype is better but it doesnt hurt to have competition out there.

FlipTrack.com

Ever want to make your own music video that looks professional and moves with the beats of the music without breaking a sweat. Now there is something out there for you, its called FlipTrack.com.

Check out this video it looks pretty good for homemade.

The plus and minus of this is that you can't use any of your own music. The plus is that they have tons of music you can choose from which is legal to share with your and post on your own sites.

Here is some info about the company

fliptrack's Patent Pending technology lets users create their own music videos using their photo and video content in combination with our catalog of licensed music. Fliptrack technology automatically matches images to the rhythm and beats of a song, making it easy to create “movie-quality” videos. Click here to see some examples. For consumers, there is no easier way to legally create and share. Click here to get started. For artists and labels there is a brand new way to promote and sell your music. Contact us for more information.

FlipTrack.com

Fleck.com

Pretty cool Web 2.0 concept it allows you to edit web pages with your comments and notes. You can also share with your friends or even copy to your own blog. The best is that you dont have to install any software.

About Fleck.com from their website

Fleck.com wants to add a new layer of interactivity to the web. Fleck is inspired on a story written in 1945 by Vannevar Bush and an article titled 'We Are The Web' by Kevin Kelly.

Vannevar Bush predicted a machine called the Memex that would allow people to surf from one information page to another. Some people say that Hypertext and the World Wide Web are based on or at least inspired by the Memex.

One thing that the Memex had and the web doesn't is the ability to add new content to every page it contained. After reading the Wired article by Kevin Kelly we decided to try to add a new level to the web by adding new tools that would allow its users to add information rather than just consuming it.

Fleck allows you to interact with pages on the web just as if it were pages in a magazine. You can save your annotated page for yourself, send it to friends or colleagues or use it in your blog.

You can start using Fleck right now. It's free and what's best: you don't have to install anything on your computer. Try the search box at the top of this page or add Fleck to your browser with a Bookmarklet or Extention.

Fleck was founded by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Patrick de Laive and Arjen Schat and is privately funded.

Swicki

I was very intrigued by their tag line and the fact that they got B funding for 5.5mil

A search engine that learns from your
community's search behavior.

So I added a Swicki account to my blog in hopes of finding out what is so cool about this service. What is very interesting about this is that your community can add, delete and improve the results. It is very much like how Wikipedia is like with the ability to edit the results. For a community like mine who does not get a lot of traffic, I do not think that my Swicki will change much but for a large community this will allow users to get more of a targeted search results. Since the user in most part can relate a subject to the community better than probably most search engines. With SEO you can also make it so that your site will come up higher on a search result but with a community like this you will be able edit these results so that they are kept relative. Search engines have a very hard time with pictures since it cant read a picture, so that is why sites with lots of pictures dont get ranked as high. Since Swicki is a search engine that learns from the user it would be more likely to pickup on these sites than a regular search engine.


Swicki

blogprinting.com

After doing some searching on this website I find what they offer is a way for bloggers like me to publish my content for distribution which could be used for gifts, self promotion or marketing tools.

I wish that they had more pictures so I could see what a printed blog would look like and how this might differ from what I would be able to do at home. Would the quality be that much better? I the world of blogging this services will help bridge the gap of the old and the new.

Here is what the company had to say

BlogPrinting addresses the rapidly growing blogosphere, providing bloggers (and their readers) with a convenient, easy-to-use way to publish blog content as printed books. Whether for hardcopy archives, gifts, off-line reading, or plain old publishing, our tools make it quick and easy. Unlike other methods that require software downloads and a lot of manual intervention and editing, our solution converts your blog into a printed book "on the fly." So the book is always fresh and always reflects what's on your blog now. This is our initial release, and we have many features in the development pipeline. If you have any specific requests, please send us a note via our QOOP Service Form.

blogprinting.com

Crazyegg.com

Many times when you have your own blog or website you would like to know more about what your visitors are doing and liking. Google Analytics offers something like this where you can see what links and images are being clicked the most. Crazyegg.com goes one step further by giving you detailed view of how many clicks that link got and where people went after that. You can also see a list view of what item was clicked the most. They also have this heatmap which shows the areas that are clicked the most with a redish color.

The best part of this service is that it is free! The free account allows you to track up to 5000 visitors a month. For $19 a month you can track up to 25,000 visitors, $49 a month you can track up to 100,000 visitors and for $99 a month you can track up to 250,000 users a month.

Crazyegg.com

Games for Social Networks and Blogs

Ever wonder how Myspace came up with the games on their website? I am sure they did not create themselves but than who? I found a site that offers these services for free! However, of course like everything that is free the games will come with short ads in the beginning while the game is loading. This particular site is open to anyone that is has a website that would like to use their game services. Most of the games are very simple but cute.

Bunchball

Virtual Worlds: Building Community and Innovation or Just Another Fad?

Today I was able to attend the "Virtual Worlds: Building Community and Innovation or Just Another Fad? " with speaker Cory Ondrejka, CFO, Linden Lab.

Some info about Cory Ondrejka from the speaker biography

As CTO of Linden Lab, Cory lead the developing "Second Life," Linden Lab;s award winning, user-created digital world. His team has created the revlutionary technologies required to enable collaborative, atomistic creation, including distributed physical simulation, 3D streaming, completely customizable avatars and real-time, in-world editors. He also spearheaded the decision to allow users to retain the IP rights to their creations and helped craft Linden's virtual real estate policy.

Prior to joining Linden Lab in November, 2000, Ondrejka served as Project Lead and Lead Programmer for Pacific Coast Power and Light. At PCP&L, he brought the "Road Rash" franchise to the Nintendo for the first time with "Road Rash 64" and built the core technology teams that completed multiple products for Nintendo and Sony consoles. Previous experience includes Lead Programmer for Acclaim Coin-Operated Entertainment's first internal coin-op title and work on Department of Defense electronic warfare software projects for Lockheed Sanders. While an officer in the United States Navy, he worked at the National Security Agency and graduated from the Navy Nuclear Power School. Ondrejka is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, where he was a Presidential "Thousand Points of Light" recipient and became the first person to earn Bachelors of Science degress in two technical majors: Weapons and Systems Engineering and Computer Science.

Cory spoke about what Second Life was, how it is affecting the communities and business and what we might be able to expect in the near future.

He explained how Second Life was first introduced, much of the community flocked to music. Just like in other technologies like the web, blogs and social networks music helps bring people together. Music is something that we all can relate to. All of the Second Life community is user based, any user at any time can create a virtual world that fits their needs. He went on explaining that blogs and websites are an one way conversation. Second Life allows people to be in conversation and interact in ways that they normally would do. When in Second Life users will be able to interact with buildings, people and any part of the environment. They find that the average age of their users are about 34 and more women than men. The users can range from 13 - 80, however the older you the more likely you would use Second Life again. Since Second Life is not a game but a community that based on what the community has to offer. There is a higher chance that the older you are the more you have experienced and thus be able to add more to the Second Life community.

He goes on to explain that there are some similarities to the early days of the web. When large companies first started creating a web page they would scan there catalog and say that they are done. With the belief that this will make consumers purchase from their site and not ever have to go to the Brick and Mortar store again. As time has showed this was not the case. You can see in Second Life that many large companies have started to develop buildings in Second Life but after they create it they just stop. As time will go on many companies will learn to utilize Second Life in ways that may be more beneficial to them. He went to explain that IBM for example currently has about 4000 users on Second Life. They only know what IBM has divulged to them but the thought behind what large companies are using Second Life for is collaboration. For a large company like IBM who has employees all over the world with all different background it is very hard for them to integrate all of them. By using Second Life they could be able to hold orientations with all new employees from across the globe in a centralized location. Even if this would only reduce travel costs by 1% for a large company like IBM this could potentially mean tons of cash. By still having this orientation in a virtual world, new employees would be able to use their key strengths of communication just like you would be able to in a cocktail party. Unlike websites and online trainings users would be able to interact with the instructors and fellow coworkers, which will help with the integration of the new employees. He also points out that a hotel was created which allowed users to interact with their hotel. They were able to find out by asking the users if they were able to find the front desk or what they thought about the hotel. This is tremendously helpful for them to know what the user thinks and the way that they will react with their environments.

Another space that he points out is Shockproof Island. Shockproof Island was created by users that have experienced strokes. The hardest part for a stroke victim is recovery, in most cases they need an activity that will help them with their motor skills and actively work their brains. Users created Shockproof Island so that victims would be able to play games that will help with their motor skills and interact with other stroke victims.

Many business have emerged from Second Life. He explains how a female person created a million dollar a year business from buying, selling and renting real estate in Second life from a $10 investment. The most popular business in Second Life is clothing. Clothing is highly competitive with trend cycles only lasting about 2 weeks. Second Life has a growing economy which currently has a GDP of about $60 million a year with about $7 million selling back against the dollar.

In the future the hope to make everything open source. They currently have the coding source open source since January and hope to make the servers open source as well. They are working on a localized voice which will allow you to communicate with users like you normally would. You would faintly hear other conversations depending on where you are and how close you are to them. They do not have any plans in the future right now for a phone version of Second Life.

All in all I believe that Second Life is an emerging technology that will have a huge impact in our society. What the impact will be only time will tell.

Here are some other sites that are similar to Second Life - there.com and kaneva.com

Sony Home/Game 3.0 to compete with Second Life

It looks as though that Sony will be joining Second Life in hopes of making the next generation gaming power. Sony hopes with the use of Blu-ray and their high powered cpu engine they will be able to create an exciting new 3D Virtual World. Here are some highlights from the article at Playfuls

Making your own personalized 3D character or avatar. These realistic human characters are highly customizable with different body types, skin tones, ages, clothing and accessories, creating a unique personality for each user.

• Exploring the 3D community that is Home – a sleek, modern indoor space featuring spacious common areas, retail shops, game lobbies and extensible, customizable personal apartments.

• Communicating with others through text, audio and video chat, along with sophisticated emotional animations for each character.

• Being assigned an apartment in Home where others can be invited to join you as you show off your own style in an area you can personalize yourself with furniture, art and other items. You can even show your video, pictures and music content stored on your PS3 hard drive.

To read more visit http://www.playfuls.com/news_06448_Web_20_Is_Old_News_Sony_Gives_You_Game_30.html

Second Life - Owning Land

I have been researching how to own land in Second Life. I figured out that you will need to sign up for the premimum account for $10 a month. You than have to find land that you can buy and build on. Some place you can only rent.

After looking through tons of places I was able to find a land that I wanted to buy. The property I was able to get as 500 Linden and very small like 200 sqm. Figuring out what I can do with the land is very difficult. You have to work with these "Prims" which are basic shapes that you can use to make buildings. Since the land I got was very small I wanted to create a billboard that I would be able to advertise in Second Life. I have not been able to successfully build my billboard yet.

I also was able to purchase this program that allows you to make money in Second Life. What this program does, is that every time someone purchase this program you get 90% of the sale amount. The way you will be able to make money off this is by finding a good area where there is good foot traffic. I will see if I can make any money of this

Second Life

I am sorry that I have not been able to post more blogs but I have been playing around with Second Life for about 10 hrs now. I find this virtual world very interesting. After you go through so lengthy training process you than can explore this new world.

My main objective was to find out how people have made this into an e-commerce venue. So far in the journey I see that you are able to advertise in the virtual world just like you see on streets and highways. You are able to sell clothing, land, and other products.

I am going to explore more to see how pricing works in Second Life. How do I advertise with someone? Can I sell more than just "things" in Second Life? Is there ways to link back to the real world?