Articles and famous profiles, sure, but this is personal. PersonRatings.com is a website where visitors can anonymously review and rate other people. Unlike the famed and apishly simple HotOrNot, it’s highly personal with names and reputations on the line as the crowd rates a target’s intelligence, sexiness, classiness, and sense of humor, among other attributes.
New Friendfeed Goes Real Time
Friendfeed has been tinkering with a new real-time design at beta.friendfeed.com. The real-time version allows all pages to update in real-time, so users can see their friends’ photos, messages, comments, and likes as they occur.
Twitter Would Say ‘No’ To $1 Billion
It looks like the biggest April Fool’s Joke was on all of us. Despite persistent rumors that Google was in talks to acquire Twitter (the coolest thing since the last coolest thing since sliced bread), no deal is forthcoming.
The Information Mafia Cometh
In light of the hysteria generated by the Associated Press’s plan to go after online news aggregators, Google is quick to point out any action the AP takes won’t apply to them. Why? Because Google already struck a deal with the AP.
Google’s Still Not Buying Twitter
Likely, Boomtown’s Kara Swisher gets tired of being the TechCrunch Google-rumor-debunker. Maybe not. She seemed to enjoy reminding readers about the Michael Arrington grapevines sprouting out tales of Google buying Digg and Bebo, neither of which ever happened. This time it’s Twitter.
Is Gmail Google’s Real Social Network?
The Past
Google’s email service Gmail was launched to the public five years ago this week. Back then, the service turned the web email industry on its ear by offering an entire gigabyte of storage to users who were lucky enough to receive an invite. Small potatoes now, but that was a nice chunk of storage from an email service back then.
Give Customers a Way to Interact or They’ll Go Elsewhere
Netpop Research recently released a report on social media use by consumers who have broadband Internet connections. The report indicates that the majority (76%) of broadband users are active contributors to social media.
Tap Tap Revenge Most Popular iPhone App
Tapulous’ Tap Tap Revenge was the most popular iPhone application in the Apple App Store in February, with 32 percent of users installing the game, according to the comScore Apple App Store Report.
"It’s impressive that a game like Tapulous’s Tap Tap Revenge can attract a higher penetration among Apple app users than apps for larger and more established brands," said Brian Jurutka, vice president, comScore.
Online Ads Need to Be More Engaging
A study from McPheters & Company in co-operation with Condé Nast and CBS Vision found that magazines and TV ads are more effective than online ads. The study looked at 30-second TV ads, full-page 4-color magazine ads, and Internet banner ads in standard sizes.
They used eye-tracking software to determine the circumstances for when online ads were actually seen by participants. Highlights of the study include:
Hulu Improves Search Feature
Hulu announced some improvements to its search functionality today. For one, they have added some shortcuts to the autocomplete feature.
Previously, the autocomplete suggestions would just take a user to the regular search results, but now, the shortcuts offer other options like going straight to the latest episode (for current shows), or the show page (for all shows).