Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters, Social Software

Twitter has a lot of untapped potential in the world of play. A fast, nimble social network could spawn all kinds of cool games, but I don’t think it’s there yet. Spymaster, a new game that quickly flew up the ranks of Twitter’s trending topics this week, lets you play spy and assassinate your Twitter friends, but for those of us who aren’t playing, the notifications for it are pretty annoying.

You may have already received DMs from your friends asking you to join their spy rings, or seen level up announcements and assassination attempts posted under the #spymaster hashtag. There’s a way to turn the announcements off, but most people apparently haven’t found it yet. As for the game itself, you score points and gain power based on the number of people in your Twitter network who are also on Spymaster, and by completing missions or attacking other players.

Spymaster is in private beta right now, but if my Twitter list is any indication, it’s not that hard to get in.

Kill (and spam) your Twitter friends with Spymaster - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 31 May 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember Looking Glass (Brandy, You're a Fine Girl)? How about David Essex (Rock On)? Now for the tough question: Can you remember even one other song by either of them? Probably not. So, is your website a one visit wonder…?

Ben McKay had a fairly lengthy piece not long ago on how to keep that from happening. You need engagement. He looks at a number of different types of reader engagement. And you need you content to be profitable (as in beneficial) for your site's visitors. …

Filed under: Business, Developer, Social Software

Facebook’s FBFund is a $10mil initiative to provide funding for startups that are doing promising things in the Facebook app or Facebook Connect area. Recently, 18 startups were chosen to receive a whole bunch of money and attend Facebook’s Rev09 incubator program this summer.

All 18 winners (and two non-profits, who can’t get a cut of the money due to the structure of FBFund) are listed on Facebook’s Developer Blog, but I want to highlight a few of the apps that look most likely to catch on in a big way. Nutshell Mail, which was featured on Download Squad back in February, consolidates all your social network subscription emails into one periodic digest, keeping your inbox clear. Sortuv finds local businesses that are “sortuv” like ones you already know and like. Gameyola is a platform for casual Flash games.

Do you think any of the FBFund projects will take off? Let us know which ones you love or hate in the comments.

Facebook announces winning apps in FBFund originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 29 May 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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© Aaron Gustafson
I've been contributing over the last few months to the content of a vibrant and growing site that points toward the future of the Internet and has profound potential for users in…

© Aaron Gustafson
I've been contributing over the last few months to the content of a vibrant and growing site that points toward the future of the Internet and has profound potential for users interested in search engines. The site is NetworkingForPros.com.

When I look across the web at the moment, it's clear that the Internet of yesterday (static pages where you could find information and news) has been replaced by an interactive, social Internet that is about people instead of facts and figures.

One of those people …

Filed under: Productivity, Social Software, Search

With all the hype around Twitter as the future of search, it makes sense that someone would put together a Search Engine that combines Google results with results from social sites around the web. Enter SearchMerge. It’s basically just a text entry field and a selection of sites to search, including Twitter, Friendfeed and YouTube, but it has the potential to be very useful. Or, it would, if there were any apparent rhyme or reason to the order of the results.

A search for Download Squad turned up a Last.fm page, our website, a year-old Vimeo video, and a post about netbooks from February, in that order. The results were all relevant, but they could be sorted in a more logical way. SearchMerge is also fairly slow when you’re using it to search every available site. The real-time search option is neat, but suffers from the same long wait for results. It’s a great idea, but it has a long way to go in the implementation.

SearchMerge: search Google and social sites simultaneously originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 28 May 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

In a video Town Hall last week, the folks at Digg announced they were going to take a new approach to sharing Digg stories. That change started with the removal of the “shout” feature, used to promote your Digg posts to friends on the site. Instead of shouts, Digg now has sharing options including email, Twitter and Facebook.

I see a few likely effects of this. First, Digg will be able to draw in more traffic from these other popular social sites, rather than just promoting stories to people who are already active Diggers. Second, becoming a power user won’t be as much a matter of collecting contacts on Digg. This might go a long way toward making it a more Internet-wide enterprise, and spreading the power around on Digg. I think the main effect will come from adding Twitter and Facebook links, not from removing shouts, which weren’t the most effective tool on the site to begin with.

[via Appscout]

Digg gets rid of shouts, turns to Facebook and Twitter originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 May 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Blogging, Web services, Freeware, Social Software, web 2.0

Although there’s no doubt that Twitter is the current reigning social status update king of the hill, upstart FriendFeed is certainly a more than viable alternative. FriendFeed does everything Twitter can do and much, much more right out of the box, aggregating all of your feeds (including your Twitter stream) into a single unified online presence.

If you’re already using FriendFeed, you might be interested in Feedstats, which shows you statistics about just what it is you get up to online, at least in terms of what you are funneling through the FriendFeed service. It also shows statistics about which other FriendFeed users you tend to interact with most, and which ones you are most compatible with, in terms of liking the same content.

Of course, all of these statistics are drawn from FriendFeed’s openly available API, which means that you can snoop on your friends and see just what their habits are, as well. Or even better, check out a few A-list microbloggers to see just how much more social-networky than you they are.

Feedstats gives you stats on your FriendFeed usage originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 May 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Blogging, Social Software

If you use a lot of social networking sites, and different groups of your friends are scattered across all of them, it might be time to start a lifestream. AmpliFeeder is an open source platform that pulls in everything you share on other social sites and displays it in one convenient location. It works with tons of sites, including Twitter, Delicious, Upcoming, Last.fm and Facebook.

AmpliFeeder also has a handful of themes to choose from, and supports custom themes using XHTML and CSS. There are no hosted accounts, so you’ll have to find a place to put it, but it’s extremely easy to set up, once installed. Check out the video walkthrough on the documentation page for a step-by-step guide to getting AmpliFeeder up and running. If you need a solid, easy-to-use lifestreaming platform, this might be worth a look.

AmpliFeeder: open source lifestreaming originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 May 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Web services, Social Software

If you’ve used a file-sharing service that lets you upload files and send the link to a friend via email, you might appreciate FileTwt. It’s the same idea, but you pass the link along via a tweet or a direct message on Twitter.

In keeping with Twitter’s spirit of brevity — or maybe with FileTwt’s inevitable bandwidth costs — the max file upload is currently only 20mb. FileTwt is a brilliant idea for a couple of reasons, though.

Twitter can be a good broadcast and promotion mechanism, and sometimes you want to share a new design or a demo of some music you recorded with everyone who follows you on Twitter. Or maybe you have a friend who needs a file, and Twitter is the only way you two are connected. Tweeting can definitely be faster than sending email.

Share files via Twitter with FileTwt originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 26 May 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Webmasters in an online webmaster forum observed an anomaly in Google’s results that might indicate a new Google penalty. Which websites have been penalized and could this affect your own website?

The Personal Branding Blog took a look last week at three search engines they were betting we didn't know about.

Wolfram was one of the three. We've looked at it ourselves recently. But the other two were search engines I hadn't spent much time with yet.OneRiot looks at what's happening on Twitter and Digg in realtime results…. Twine is, amazingly, completely unrelated to Twitter. But it capitalizes on the foundations of social media in that you can join groups based on what you're searching for, …

Filed under: Fun, Games, Social Software, web 2.0, Web

It’s easy to add videos, music and images from around the Internet to your website, but what about games? Heyzap is a way to place any of over 12,000 casual Flash games on your website. It’s as simple as copying and pasting a widget code .

Heyzap bills itself as a way to engage with your audience and get them to spend more time on your site. This has an effect on advertising revenue for big players, but I’m not sure it’s the most appealing thing about Heyzap when you’re just a little guy. I think this could turn into something like the YouTube of games — instead of sending friends a link to the games you like, just post them right on your blog.

Embed Flash games on your site with Heyzap originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 25 May 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So with all the hooplah about Wolfram Alpha, what's the most likely response from Google? TechCrunch had a piece a few days ago on something the people at Google are calling Google Squared…

The idea is to treat the web as a database of information and mine it. Nobody cares what site you got it from. Just tell me… How many acorns does one mature oak tree produce in a year? How many eggs does a robin lay? How far is it from London to Sydney? …

Filed under: Audio, Social Software, Web

Last week “twitter for music” service Blip.fm announced that most of its music would be streaming from imeem. This week, the company added YouTube music videos, which not only greatly expands Blip.fm’s music library, it also gives users a reason to hang out on the web site rather than using third party clients like Blipster. Well, a tleast until someone develops a good desktop client that will let you send and receive updates, listen to music, and watch videos.

You can now use Blip.fm as a sort of music video Search Engine, whether you want to share songs with friends or not. If you do want to let people know what you’re watching or listening to, you can send messages with links to songs or videos with just a click. You can also link Blip.fm to your Twitter account so that your friends don’t even need to be signed up for Blip.fm to know that you harbor a secret Def Leppard addiction.

[via GigaOm]

Blip.fm adds YouTube videos originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 21 May 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Social Software, Humor

“Don’t drink and tweet” is probably some of the best Twitter advice I can give you. But if you must post to Twitter while intoxicated, at least try to do it from DrunkTwt. DrunkTwt posts your intoxicated Twitter ramblings anonymously, using an enormous text field that you don’t have to be at all sober to click on.

Once your update is entered, it’ll show up in DrunkTwt’s Twitter stream, which you can follow if you’re interested in other users’ drunken antics. Because a hashtag is automatically entered, and to make sure your post fits, you’re limited to 115 characters on DrunkTwt.com, instead of the standard Twitter 140. They probably figure the target audience won’t notice anyway.

DrunkTwt: Tweeting while intoxicated originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 20 May 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Social Software

Twitter is probably the hottest startup around without a business plan. Over the past few years, Twitter has gained millions of users, become a media darling, and started attracting celebrity tweeters like nobody’s business. But the company isn’t really set up to make money… yet. But Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says that’s all coming soon.

What’s interesting is that Stone says Twitter will buck the trend set by other web services by staying ad-free. Instead, the plan is to make money from “various add-on-tools and services” for business and professional users. For example, analytics tools, or a directory of commercial Twitter accounts. Some of those tools could be available by the end of 2009.

Stone says the company doesn’t plan to show ads next to messages because a) it’s not “interesting,” and b) because it could tick off users. The first point sounds a bit odd, but the second one makes sense. While Gmail users have long been used to seeing ads near their email messages, imagine if every fifth message you received on an instant messaging client was an ad.

[via The Inquistr]

Twitter: Our business model will be add-ons, not ads originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 19 May 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you living in a bad neighborhood? Your website could. Did you know that your web host probably hosts several websites on the same web server as yours? Some of these websites might belong to shady businesses. If they are major spammers, your website might be banned on Google.

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Social Software, Browsers

Flock is a web browser that’s based on Mozilla. But what really makes it stand out is the integration with social networking services including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube. Flock 2.5 is out today, and it adds enhanced features for Twitter and Facebook, including:

• Read Twitter replies (err… @mentions) in the Flock sidebar
• Save Twitter searches
• Take actions like replying or clicking on Twitter links from the sidebar
• Use Facebook chat from any web page
• Drag and drop web content into the Facebook chat box to share it

There’s also a new feature called FlockCast so that when you post a tweet, set your MySpace status, write a blog post, or upload pictures to Flickr, you can click a button to automatically post those actions to Facebook as well.

Flock 2.5 social web browser adds more Facebook and Twitter features originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 19 May 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Developer, Security, Google, Social Software

Facebook has taken steps in the past to promote sharing identities across different social networks, with its own Facebook Connect and its membership on the OpenID board, and it just took one more big leap by allowing Facebook logins via OpenID. If you have an OpenID from a provider like Google, you can now login automatically to Facebook. You can also register for Facebook using a Gmail account, which Facebook is hoping will boost its membership numbers.

According to the Developer Blog, users who register with OpenID are more likely to become active Facebook users. That means Facebook has every reason to support OpenID, even though it competes in some ways with Facebook Connect. The reason Facebook initially limited registration to workplaces and Universities was that those emails could fairly reliably verify a user’s identity. It’s nice to see that OpenID has achieved the same level of legitimacy.

Facebook rolls out support for OpenID logins originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 19 May 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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