SocialTimes.com

MySpace Updates Their Karaoke Site With Video Posted: 15 Oct 2008 02:04 PM CDT Back in April I posted about the launch of MySpace Karaoke. Today, the company has announced a redesigned version of the product which includes the addition of video. The video is also available for HD support. This is a pretty substantial upgrade that I’m guessing will increase traffic to their general karaoke product. One other awesome feature is the ability to embed the karaoke videos that have been recorded! I’ve embedded one of the more popular recordings below. One of the downfalls of the application is that you can’t record from Macs. It’s interesting that nobody has launched a full scale application similar to this on Facebook. I think something along these lines would be extremely successful on Facebook. I’m interested to see how this impacts MySpace’s traffic in the long run. This service is definitely entertaining and with video combined into the service I could see a lot of people using this. Considering that Fox Interactive owns MySpace it will be interesting to see if there is eventually some sort of integration into American Idol. If you want to sing along with the other users of MySpace, go check out MySpace Karaoke.

Social Ad Summit: Social Advertising Metrics Posted: 15 Oct 2008 09:58 AM CDT Next from the Social Ad Summit video archives is the Social Advertising Metrics panel with Sean Ammirati (mSpoke/RWW), Albert Lai (kontagent), Ian Swanson (Sometrics), Cam Balzer (DoubleClick Performics), and Jodi McDermott (Clearpsring). Check it out!

Potomac Based Ninja Tickets Announces Launch of Ticket Search Engine Posted: 14 Oct 2008 11:00 PM CDT Looking for a way to find tickets to your favorite band’s upcoming concert? Maybe you are looking for football tickets but all of them appear to be sold out. Well look no longer. Potomac, Maryland based Ninja Tickets has announced the public beta of their event ticket search engine. The site crawls all tickets to sporting events, concerts and theater shows. I had a chance to test out the system and it works pretty well. When you search it will automatically group events which you can click through to. The event page then displays links to the various tickets and an image of the event venue. There is also space for conversation on every event page. So far the company is boasting that it has over $16 billion worth of tickets indexed so far. I’m not quite sure what that amounts to in the actual number of tickets but if the average ticket price is $100, that would be approximately 160 million tickets. I don’t know their average ticket cost though so this is just a random estimate. One of the interesting features provided by Ninja Tickets is its “Price Rating” system which “calculates where each event ticket should be located based on its offered price — in effect displaying seats that truly offer the best ‘market value’ for consumers.” Ninja Tickets also makes an interesting claim: “Ninja Tickets is the only search engine that can pull ticket data from online ticket sites in real time, allowing consumers to see all tickets available at time of search.” I have no proof to suggest otherwise! This is most definitely an interesting concept and I think it could definitely succeed. The real key is gaining critical pass and then negotiating referral fees with those that don’t offer affiliate program currently. Let us know what your experience is with Ninja Tickets! I’m not quite sure about the name but the service appears to work pretty well. I’m interested to see how quickly this service grows.

D.C. Launches Developer Contest Posted: 14 Oct 2008 04:44 PM CDT Today the District of Columbia's Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) announced the launch of Apps for Democracy. The program, which was developed with the help of iStrategyLabs, is a competition for developers to create interesting ways of visualizing DC’s public data. The incentive for developers? Cash prizes of course! How much exactly? Well there will be over $20,000 in prizes with the largest prize being $2,000 for any individual or group. Developers will also receive public recognition for creating winning applications that will be used by the government, citizens, visitors, and businesses in the District of Columbia. It sounds like a pretty great program and there is some interesting data that is available for developers. This competition reminds me of existing data mashups with maps on the web that record local criminal activity as well as housing prices. I can also envision a useful iPhone application that leverages GPS to provide you with locally relevant data. The competition is open to all developers and has the intent of fostering innovation in the DC technology community. Will this transform the community overnight? Definitely not, but this is most definitely a step in the right direction. It is clear that the Office of the Chief Technology Officer is determined to integrate the startup community within the government. I had the opportunity to speak with Vivek Kundra, CTO of D.C. a few weeks ago and he emphasized the organization’s commitment to supporting a thriving start-up community. If you are a developer or work with a group of developers, I highly suggest checking out the Apps for Democracy contest. Also, please let us know your thoughts on the program!

Plurk Launches Campaign ‘08 Features Posted: 14 Oct 2008 03:26 PM CDT Plurk, the micro-blogging service which received a lot of buzz earlier this year, is pulling a Twitter and launching “Plurk the Vote”. According to the press release, “Plurk the Vote provides a platform to share political beliefs and discuss in real-time the key issues that will decide the 2008 Presidential election. Registered Plurkers hosting their own mini-election during Plurk the Vote also have the chance to win $5,000 in prizes for the most lively discussion and participation.” The service is similar to the Election 2008 product rolled out by Twitter last month in that it parses through “plurks” (the equivalent of “tweets” on Twitter), and filters out those messages related to Obama, McCain, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin. The other component of this new “Plurk the Vote” campaign is that users gets to set up their own mini-elections. The user who attracts the most number of votes will receive $5,000. So far the majority of Plurk users appear to be liberal. 84 percent are voting for Obama and 16 percent are voting for McCain. Apparently undecided is not an option on this poll! Adding political features is clearly a trend in the social media space. C-Span launched Debatehub, Facebook launched a registration application, and of course Twitter launched Election 2008. This is one more site to add to the mix. Plurk has continued to grow rapidly but most of that growth appears to be abroad. Alexa.com shows the site is growing at a furious pace whereas Compete.com shows the site has been on the decline domestically for the past few months. Are you on Plurk? Do you use the service frequently?

You are subscribed to email updates from The Social Times To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner
Inbox too full? Subscribe to the feed version of The Social Times in a feed reader.
If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: The Social Times, c/o FeedBurner, 20 W Kinzie, 9th Floor, Chicago IL USA 60610