Swurl aggregates social media presence, functioning under the same guise as FriendFeed, to name just one of the current options for getting your online life in one place. What makes the recently launched (in beta) Swurl a slightly different proposition in the space, is that it pulls everything together in the form of a blog.

You can see what it all looks like through this link to the blog of one of Swurl’s founders, Ryan. Be sure to click on the timeline tab on the header, which shows off the feature of being able to filter in social media activity from the past, all of which is offered up for viewing in calendar format.

Of course this is social media, and therefore you need to be able to include your pals by definition, and Swurl does this by allowing you to create a feed of all their activity too, Ryan’s is here.

Currently with 19 services able to be sucked into a Swurl blog, including those you’d expect, Youtube, Facebook, Wordpress, Twitter, Flickr etc. there is a far reach of usability as diversity can, depending on your own integration into the social netscape, reign supreme. Style Sheets can also be altered giving your piece of Swurl that unique look.

There appears to be a fair amount of activity in terms of people getting on board, and from initial impressions of the service and the site itself, it is easy to see why. However, one reservation would be the number of services that can be aggregated. Even though the big names are there, Swurl’s 19 is less than half of what FriendFeed currently harvests content from. Is this enough for the hardcore social media trend setter?

Posted by Sam C at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tripwolf has launched in a public beta format. What is Tripwolf? It’s a social travel guide that allows users to get together and create trips, while offering features that make investigating possible destinations a breeze.

It is also possible to use a drag and drop feature with the places of interest on the site to create printable pdf files that function as your own travel guides. A nice idea, but I am as of yet unconvinced of its success.

An attitude that is arguably applicable to the entire site. Although comprehensive in many ways, pulling in data from Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia among others, it feels a little surplus to requirements. This is probably a harsh assessment, especially since they have a groovy logo and name, and incidentally, are backed ($1.2 million) by MairDumont the travel guide publisher, an announcement made in conjunction with the launch. It’s as with most things, a case of time and in Tripwolf's case specifically, how ‘hungry for travel’ the social media savvy are.

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Social applications are where things are at, well to degree at least. And despite this, many would still suggest that when it comes to business models, the social application market is yet to demonstrate one that is tried and tested.

Now, whether this is the case is an argument for another day. As RockYou, the company behind many apps, notably a host of Facebook and OpenSocial efforts has just tipped its cap and filled it with £35 million in venture capital. This hefty cash injection (I doubt it is in actual cash) will be spent on additional tools and services, increasing the company’s already dominant position in the market.  It is even being speculated that the “current momentum” will see RockYou becoming a top 10 internet property in a relatively short amount of time.

Via WebWare

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What with recent downtime on everyone’s* favourite micro-blogging site Twitter, we thought we’d bring you yet another site designed for keeping in touch with 140 character sized slices of life.

Readers meet Plurk, micro-blogging with a prefix and karma. The prefix can be any number of words from ‘says’, ‘wants’, ‘hates’, etc. So you could say, 1000heads ‘loves’ social media, for example. Karma is a little bit more complicated, and quite a nice touch at that. It is a score out of 100 calculated on a variety of activities and interactions that you undertake within the Plurk world. The better Plurker you are, the better your karma. It is arguably nothing more than a ploy to keep you coming back, though if it is, then it’s a good one.

Want to see your life on the line? The horizontal Plurking time line that is… Then head to Plurk and see what you think.

*Not necessarily accurate…

Posted by Sam C at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

ReadWriteWeb has taken a stand and begun to wade through the ever rising tide of Social Media venues, apps and tools that want to connect you. At the centre of this discussion is speculation on when we’ll have that one site/app that’ll pull our Social Media personas together.

With so much out there, the lost at sea sensation is always a mere step behind you when it comes to being net social. RWW’s post explores this battle to stay afloat as new start ups vie with latest trends for your online networking attention.

Posted by Sam C at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As a response to the excellent BrandTag, Jane of Dear Jane Sample blog came up with the clever idea of presenting her daily routine – using only brand logos.

It is a concept-and-a-half, and surprisingly accurate and easy to read with each logo being so easily associated with a particular activity, there is no difficulty in understanding exactly what Jane has been up to. There seems to be one error however, as I’m not entirely sure which brand is represented by a Cannabis leaf, something brought up by the mass of comments.

Posted by Sam C at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

With a badge for each and every social bookmarking site an option, avoiding the bottom of your post looking like the arm of a dedicated boy scout is a concern that must be addressed by the discerning blogger.

This is a problem that Aza Raskin decided to address, and has done so rather successfully by all accounts. Rather than selecting a choice few or go the whole nine yards and represent everything available, both of which risk the alienation of a proportion of readers, Raskin created a workable solution for everyone. A piece of JavaScript that is able to tell where your blog readers have been recently, and in light of the information it digs out, present suitable badge options.

It works on the same bit of clever stuff that makes a link you’ve been to previously change colour, so you know where you’ve been, as you fly from one corner of the webosphere to the other. It is interesting and inventive stuff, and available at his site.

Via RWW

Posted by Sam C at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Zombies are registering highly on the popular horror-monster hierachy and as such are over-running the film industry in a similar manner to which they dominated a certain, well-used social network. However, there is no such zombie-fatigue as witnessed within facebook occurring in the moving picture business.

It is maybe this continuing interest that has encouraged Lost Zombies to risk the merger of flesh-eating undead with Social Media once again. Functioning as a social network, the site encourages users to provide evidence, in the format of uploaded content, of the existence of zombies. Once enough ‘evidence’ is collected then a feature length documentary will be produced to inform the masses of the holocaust around the corner. Personally, I can’t think of a better reason to join an online community. The world needs to be warned!

Posted by Sam C at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mashable has been talking about mothers online and how the ever-expanding internet user base is a demographic in constant flux. Specifically, new born babies entering the world in a blaze of social media glory. An example is Mena Trott’s dedication to the art of blogging as she updated her readers via her mobile phone from the hospital as she gave birth. Arguably, this is an extreme case in point; Mena is after all a founder of the new media start up, Six Apart.

What the piece does illustrate though, is that habitual users of sites including Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and many other Social Media spaces are entering adulthood with no let up on the necessity to stay connected.

Posted by Sam C at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Back in the gloom of February we featured on this very blog the glorious We Feel Fine. An excellent example of frivolous, yet brilliant Social Media utilisation, the site allowed you to spend longer than you intended gauging the emotion of the blogosphere.

Well, in its wake comes Twistori, a simple, aesthetically pleasant site that pulls in tweets relating to six specific expressions of desire. Meaning if you put ‘I’ before love, hate, think, believe, feel and wish, someone on the other side of the world wide web may see your tweet scrolling gently upwards the Twistori page. A favourite quote lifted only a few minutes ago, “I think yogurt gives me an asthma reaction…”

Posted by Sam C at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Naming conventions for the recent spate of web 2.0 start-up companies have resulted in some weird and wonderful brands popping up all over the place, inventing words and forsaking vowels with impunity. While it is tempting to regard companies such as Flickr, Joost, Twing, and the rest as symbolising the cool, trendy generation of internet entrepreneurs, the simple fact is that they are reacting to a common issue encountered by online businesses – all the good domain names have already been snatched up.

For anybody in this position, the options are twofold; they can either take advantage of this web 2.0. company name generator and reinvent themselves as Zoomjam or something, or they can keep their chosen name and compromise with a potentially clumsy and less intuitive URL.

The issue then becomes how to get visitors to your disastrous, incomprehensibly-addressed website. With the information bombardment suffered by consumers these days, you can hardly expect them to remember their level of debt, let alone every web address that passes their way. Look no further than the Far East for your solution, where the clever trend is to advertise search terms rather than full domain names.

The benefits of offering memorable and intuitive keywords to replace long URLs are obvious, and by using search terms you can even direct people to specific pages on the site without needing to further complicate things by showing ‘slash’ or sub-domains. Of course, the use of search terms sound like an easy answer, but the possibilities offered pave the way for the future of advertising to put even greater importance on SEO and which search terms current visitors are already using to visit your site.

For more on the this head to here…

Posted by Sam C at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With aggregating yourself online becoming an ever more desirable activity in which to partake, it is well worth investigating FriendFeed. The site allows all your updates across the ever-expanding mass of social networks to be collated within your ‘friendfeed’ that all your pals can subsequently subscribe to. This basically means they are far less likely to miss that Flickr update of your cat riding an invisible bike.

FriendFeed is also likely to alter that social network throng having made available its API. If as many developers get involved as were seemingly calling for it to be made available in the first instance then FriendFeed may be appearing in new places, on new platforms and in varying forms.

Posted by Sam C at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The popular micro-blogging platform has been taken as the core of Ze Frank’s latest online escapade, a Twitter war.

Named Colour Wars the concept despite being barely conceived, received a swell of interest and people eager to take part. A few of which exist in this very office! The current challenge is a bad-ass ro-sham-bo based rumble that is yet to be resolved.

Once the throws of rock, paper and scissors have been dealt and a victorious team announced, the challenge will begin anew, completely reborn. As what? Who knows? And that’s why we love it!

Posted by Sam C at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Microsoft Research during the month of June 2006 anonymously tracked all messenger activity. After analysing the data, it is apparently clear that we are all much more connected than one could possible imagine!

Actually, we’re about as connected as we thought previously. It is however nice to have it confirmed. Six degrees of separation is about spot on, with Microsoft’s bespectacled brain heavy types discovering from the 45 terabytes of information they skimmed that we, are on average, 6.6 steps from any other messenger user.

It is likely we are, if anything, more connected than this, as the study only takes into account MSN users and therefore omits other IM clients. The Mashable article covering this has a link through to the actual report should you feel like thoroughly enveloping yourself in statistics lending weight to the concept of a global village.

Posted by Sam C at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

THINK! and Transport London decided to mine the potential of viral marketing for their latest campaign attempting to get viewers to consider how aware they are as a driver.

If you are yet to see the campaign that speaks with a reserved assurance then it would be unfair of us to discuss it anymore, instead you should simply take the test.

Posted by Sam C at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If being nice to others just isn’t your angry bag, and you are thinking that social networks offer no purpose for your miserly ways, you are wrong.

Mashable have collected the best anti-social networks at your disposable to express hatred, name enemies and should you be in the mood, declare holy war on an individual. Go ahead, turn your negativity to action, deride proactively!

Posted by Sam C at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Riding the mobile social network wave is something that is proving particularly popular right now, and LinkedIn is endeavouring to place itself on the crest.

So how would one describe the untethered web? Probably like LinkedIn’s European managing director Kevin Eyres - “quick” and “convenient”. It’s a good place to start.

Posted by Sam C at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Times recently featured an article highlighting that in a particularly short period of time the amount of female net users has grown considerably. And while the increase is not unexpected, some of the statistics certainly are.

Paul Glazowski at Mashable points out the most interesting, such as the fact 70% of girls are operating a social network account compared to only 56% of boys. Or that 35% of the female demographic are operating a blog, something a minor 20% of males partake in.

If Paul’s slim line rundown isn’t enough then we suggest landing on the Times article for some more assessment and detail on the altering gender topography of net users.

Posted by Sam C at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Daniel Steinbock, a doctoral student in Design and Education from Stanford, has developed TagCrowd. The site gives anyone the ability to generate a tag cloud from a slab of text, a specific document or, and most interestingly, a URL.

Entering the URL of a blog for instance, will immediately return a tag cloud, visual representation of the most common terms of language the site uses. It is a feature that, as far as Word Of Mouth marketing is concerned, will validate TagCrowd as useful tool. 

Posted by Sam C at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Never able to find what you need in a forum? Never able to find the right forum where the conversation relevant to you might be taking place? Then Twing could be your thing!

The beta release of the new forum search website will not only fire you into the heart of discussion on your desired hot topic, but also seek out the most fast and furious communities when it comes to growth and activity. Presented well with an easy to use interface, Twing is great way to find the forum for you.

Posted by Sam C at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

LinkSpank gives one and all the opportunity to share online content and use a website with a suggestive name. Working in a similar manner to Digg, without fully entering the arena of social bookmarking this site aims to serve as an online organised inbox, where amusing links can be kept and organised.

It doesn’t have oodles of functionality compared to larger social networks, but has potential to fill a void for those who spend their nine to five time circulating videos of a cat being vacuumed.

Posted by Sam C at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As more and more social networks fight for ground in Southern America, one that is worth being aware of is Sonico. According to the Alexa traffic rankings, it has become the 130^th most visited site in the world since arriving in August 2007. This startling expansion has brought over 8 million users, a fact that will probably place it near, or indeed at the top, of the list of the largest social network venues you are unaware of. As Sonico continues to claim territory it is certainly a space to watch.

Posted by Sam C at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As online marketing advances through the emphasis shift of site hits being paramount, to an arena where consumer engagement will be the new yard stick, a fresh look at the methods of measurement is required. Addressing this is NuConomy, endeavouring to let companies know how well they are communicating with their customers by focusing on people rather than statistics.

Posted by Sam C at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A rather convoluted website called Botanicalls tells you how to wire your leafy pals into the micro-blogging site Twitter. If I’m honest, at times the set-up is thoroughly unfathomable to my non-circuit board savvy mind.

However, once plugged in, the little green fellows will send you updates on their moisture levels, informing you on their status, whether they are saturated, drying out or just right. Basically Twitter is giving us the opportunity to prolong organic life!

Posted by Sam C at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is always a pleasure when a guru passes on information. In this case the we are being shown the light on how to get an article Dugg effectively on social-bookmarking site Digg by Social Media observer Dan Zarella.

Rather than focusing on the playing of algorithms, a subject examined thoroughly already, Zarella has concentrated on the connections that can be made, seeing this as the beating heart of maximising an article’s potential. His report called Link Attraction Factors relays his findings and it is worth investigating two tools he created as result of his work, the Keyword Tool and LAF Title Check.

Zarella featured on ReadWriteWeb as a guest author discussing his work examining Digg, which gives some background as to the finer points of his investigations.

Posted by Sam C at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As social networks look set to go mobile your ability to be ever present within your favourite spaces will be fulfilled!

Mobile social networking is not an unexpected trend by any stretch, but things are approaching a tipping point. With new sites arriving thick and fast designed specifically for connecting while away from your laptop, this shift in Social Media may be upon us sooner rather than later. The Social Times discusses the mobile revolution at length, but if you get the gist of what we’re talking about, here are some of the fore runners in the mobile social network arena.

Mocospace - One of, if not the, largest mobile social networks with over 2 million registered users and a billion page views a month.

Groovr - A big mobile network for the States, comprising of shoutouts, checkins, photos and videos.

Loopt - A slightly different take on the concept that fully utlilises the mobile aspect by being GEO based.

Posted by Sam C at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The type of individuals clicking on banner adverts has been outlined thanks to a collaborative study undertaken by comScore, Starcom Media and Tacoda. For those investing heavily in this method of promotion the report is not pleasant reading, as it indicates around 50% of hits are being generated by a non-profitable minority of about 6%.

Profiling this 6% has revealed these ‘Heavy Clickers’ are less than influential individuals with limited income and nearly no online spending. Tech Crunch outlined them as between 25 and 44 years-of-age, and despite not being financially active are tethered to the net a lot, frequenting job-boards, gambling venues and auction sites.

Although it has arguably always been known that hits are not the defining characteristic of success in the online marketing arena, this study lays it out. Engagement is ever increasing as the defining characteristic by which to judge the success of any online campaign.

A press release issued by comScore regarding the study can be read here.

Posted by Sam C at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What is a major European sporting event if not an opportunity to hang a viral game in the name of marketing? Well, to see this sort of thing done as it should be, visit Euroball. Utilising football’s UEFA Euro2008 championship, the JVC (official Euro2008 partner) sponsored game revels in competitive joy with no pretension.

Euroball is as addictive as it is thoughtfully produced. Want to lose an hour of your life, in football related, virtual coin tapping action? Follow this link…

Posted by Sam C at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

France’s number one social network - Sky Rock - is expanding. Available in five languages there is no immediately obvious barrier to the growing membership figure.

Tagged as the “Free People Network” Sky Rock was born from the mind of Pierre Bellanger in 2002 and is linked closely to the radio station of the same name (also Bellanger’s creation) which has over four million listeners daily. Currently the SkyRock Network is listing over 13 million blogs, so it is a space well worth watching.

Posted by Sam C at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ever wondered how the blogosphere is feeling? If you have, then I suggest you head to the website We Feel Fine. You’ll be confronted by a universe of floating circles and squares each representing emotions expressed across the net. Click on one to be given a slice of context in which the emotion occurred, and should you feel intrigued by this, the full post is only a link away.

Posted by Sam C at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)