Ajax Girl

the parody video Tom Cruise WANTS you to see! on FunnyOrDie.com

When the Will Farrell/ Sequioa backed ($15m+) FunnyorDie launched in March 2007 it made a huge splash with Farrell providing original content that quickly went viral. After an initial peak the traffic slowed right down, with some suggesting that it may not rise again. Content has always been the key, and as the Jeremy O’Connell send-up of Tom Cruise above demonstrates, they’re still producing the right stuff.

The positive side is that FunnyorDie has slowly grown since their initial post launch slump. According to comScore figures, FunnyorDie did 1.8 million uniques in December on 10 million page views. In perspective this placed FunnyorDie 5th on comScores humor index for the month, behind CollegeHumor at 4th, and ahead of The Onion at 11th. Notably that this is with FunnyorDie allowing their videos, like the one above, to be embedded on other sites, a move that would result in video views not being represented in comScore’s measure of site traffic.

FunnyOrDie

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Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/221436441/

GigaOm has broken the news that Automattic, provider of the WordPress open-source blogging software and spam filter Akismet, has raised $29.5M in a Series B round of financing led by True Ventures. Other participants in the round include The New York Times, Polaris Ventures, and Radar Ventures.

The large injection of capital will not only go towards the development of Akismet and WordPress (the downloadable software) but the development of Wordpress.com (its hosted blogging platform), Gravatar (its avatar offering), and BBPress (an upcoming hosted bulletin board product) as well.

Wordpress.com recently boosted its storage cap to 3GB, far surpassing its competitors Blogger and TypePad. WordPress was honored twice at this past week’s Crunchies in the categories of “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Best CEO”.

Last October, Automattic was rumored to have turned down a $200M acquisition offer.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/221408745/

Critical Media, a New York City startup that operates Web-based video clipping and video syndication services for local TV and national news content, jut launched Syndicaster.TV. Geared at local TV stations and television groups, Syndicaster.TV lets broadcasters log onto the Web and capture video clips from any TV station minutes after they air.

They simply select the portion of the video they want by highlighting the desired section of an accompanying speech-to-text transcript. Then they can download the clip as a WMV or Flash file for republishing to their Websites, automatically distribute them across the Web through ClipSyndicate (Critical Media’s TV-to Web syndication platform), or transcode the video clips and send them to iTunes.

Syndicaster.TV is free to any broadcaster who is a partner in ClipSyndicate. “Bloomberg has been using it for four months, making 60 to 90 clips a day,” says Critical Media CEO Sean Morgan. The service is basically a combination of ClipSyndicate and his Critical Mention video-clipping service, which already captures TV signals from more than 600 TV Stations in North America and elsewhere and makes them viewable immediately on the Web. Now he is taking that video and making it instantly publishable to strengthen the position of ClipSyndicate.

Since all the video gets translated into text, the broadcasts from each station can be delivered as an RSS feed to station executives. Morgan is also looking into creating a Syndicaster offering for radio stations, which would capture just the audio and allow them to publish radio-show segments, along with full transcripts embedded as searchable meta data.

ClipSyndicate

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Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/221406782/

TrackMyShipments offers a centralized delivery tracking service that is similar to TripIt.

The concept is simple. Users sign up and forward emails they receive when ordering goods online to TrackMyShipments. The email can be in any format and any layout. The service then extracts the data to create a centralized tracking point for all deliveries. TrackMyShipments regularly pings the original service for updates, and can email or SMS location updates of tracked items to users.

The Milpitas based service is a solid enough idea, although I can’t help that wonder exactly how many people have soo many packages on the way that they need a centralized management service for them. Perhaps this is a service that may find a stronger use base in the corporate sector where deliveries are more frequent, than with average consumers.

TrackMyShipments

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TripIt

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Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/221309200/

If you sell anything online, whether physical goods or services, you’re probably keenly aware of the 2-3% (plus $0.30) lost through transactional fees every time someone makes a purchase with their credit card. This fee rears its ugly head whether you use PayPal, Google Checkout, or Amazon Flexible Payment Service since those companies are largely just passing on the fees imposed on them by credit card companies.

Noca, a startup founded by ex-Visa employees, is attempting to virtually eliminate transaction feeds by bypassing the credit card companies altogether with its own online payment service. Since $5 billion goes towards online transaction fees every year in the United States alone, and since online vendors have particularly slim profit margins, the company thinks that the near elimination of transaction feeds would be a huge boon for online vendors. Concurrently, Noca seeks to provide consumers with a more rewarding and more secure purchasing experience, thereby making its service appealing to both actors involved in a transaction.

While Noca aims to eventually facilitate online payments for purchases of all sizes, it begins with a focus on micro-payments, and on micro-payments made through Facebook in particular. It has launched two Facebook applications to test its payments system out: OneClick Pay and HelpYourWorld.

The former provides a simple way to send money to friends. As you can see in the screenshot to the left, the idea is to send someone a digital check; you actually enter your routing and account numbers into the application instead of using a credit card. This poses a significant obstacle to adoption (who remembers these numbers or carries around a check in their pocket?). But the company insists that using checking information rather than credit card information increases security and reduces the chances of identity theft. Plus, Noca is working to provide functionality that would allow you to enter your online banking credentials in lieu of your checking information.

The latter Facebook application, HelpYourWorld, provides a good use case for Noca’s micro-payment system. Since the application solicits $1-at-a-time donations for a series of causes, it benefits greatly from Noca’s lack of transaction fees (especially the standard fixed one of $0.30). Noca hopes that many other Facebook applications with similar micro-payment needs will use its APIs to implement its payment service.

As for the benefits to the consumer, Noca promises to provide strong and flexible incentives through cash back schemes, frequent flier miles, and the ability to designate a part of your payment to a charity of choice. The company also insists that its service will be substantially easier to use than others like PayPal, and that consumers will gain access to a much more comprehensive transaction history than they would get elsewhere.

In the longer term, Noca will become much more like a credit card company itself, providing credit to users through direct partnerships with banks. In doing so, it will be able to provide users with the same benefits of buying things on credit without charging vendors standard transaction fees, which it considers mostly oligopolistic fat. To make money, Noca will also attempt to leverage its user data to target them with tailored advertising and product deals.

PayPal

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Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/221290935/

23andMe, the consumer genetics testing company founded by Sergey Brin’s wife Anne Wojcicki, is now available in Europe and Canada.

The service, which launched in November enables customers to search and discover whether their genes make them more predisposed to certain outcomes, such as cancer or other illnesses.

Michael signed up for a 23andme kit in December. You can read his experience with the service so far here and here.

No word as yet as to when the service will be available outside of Europe and North America. The full list of countries where 23andMe is now available: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vatican City State.

23andMe

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Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/221264670/

Today I noticed that Ask ET (Edward Tufte’s forum) displays related articles in a very unique way.

People normally use tags to link related posts. If Ask ET used tags in a typical way, a post would look like this:

When you clicked on a tag, you might see a page like this:

This conventional method technically gives you access to the related articles. However there is a problem. You have to click the tag to discover what’s behind it. The Interface design tag in the first screenshot leaves a lot to the imagination. How do you know it’s worth clicking through to a whole ‘nother screen based on that two-word link? Most people wouldn’t bother, and they’d be missing out on good content.

Ask ET uses a totally different approach. Instead of linking to pages for each tag, it simply shows the tagged articles inline. No separate screens. No navigation. It’s a beautifully simple solution.

Click the image to see the actual design full-size:

I love how this layout removes a navigation step and puts the focus on the content. The list of related articles encourages you to wander through the site, like getting lost in Wikipedia. Individual article titles catch your eye. Just by passing over the list on your way to the article you might discover the Interface Hall of Fame/Shame or an article about email communication in the White House.

Sometimes we think we’ve got it all figured out as our websites settle into repeating the same patterns again and again. It’s great to see a fresh takes on a supposedly “solved” problem like how to link related articles.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/808-a-very-different-approach-to-tagging

The problem with most job sites is that the people companies really want to hire don’t put their resumes on them because they are happy in their current positions. If you are a star manager, chances are your employer knows it and is treating you well so that you don’t even think about leaving. Who wants to bother looking for a job anyway if you don’t have to? That’s right up there with looking for a new house in terms of time-sinks to avoid.

The folks at NotchUp, a stealth startup based in Los Altos, California launching later this month, have a better idea. Founded by two Peerflix refugees, Jim Ambras and Rob Ellis, NotchUp tries to lure talented-but-complacent workers and managers into its recruitment pool by turning the job search on its head. Instead of desperate out-of-work employees going hat-in-hand to companies begging for a job interview, on NotchUp, the companies have to pay to interview you. This is supposed to bring out those passive job seekers every company really wants to find.

The site lets you set whatever price you like per interview, but also provides a calculator that takes into account your current position, experience, education, and salary to come up with a number. What I like about this approach is that it uses economic incentives to try to bring a better inventory of talent onto the market, just like Zillow does with its “Make Me Move” feature that lets people make unsolicited offers on houses that are not officially on the market. If a company is willing to pay you a few hundred or even a thousand bucks just to interview you, chances are they are pretty serious and it is not going to be a waste of time. It acts as a filter for both the employer and the prospective employee.

According to the site, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Powerset are all corporate beta testers using NotchUp for recruitment (well, maybe not Yahoo). NotchUp is still in stealth. The only way to get into the site right now is to be invited by a current user, which is how I learned about it.

Setting up a profile is easy, especially if you already use LinkedIn. NotchUp just imports your LinkedIn profile, you set your price, and you are ready to go. Any friend you refer to the site who gets an interview earns you a 10 percent referral fee. As employers search the site, they can make offers to interview you, which you see in your inbox. You can choose to only get offers from corporations, or from headhunters as well. And you can block recruiters from any particular company (like the one you currently work for) from seeing your profile. The service is free for job seekers, and companies pay NotchUp a fee for each resulting interview.

NotchUp is a really good idea. It turns job hunting into something more people will want to do in a way that makes them feel good about themselves. Even if you don’t get the job, you get paid for your time.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/221209934/

According to a company blog post, social news site Reddit has launched, in closed beta, the ability for users to create their own “reddits”.

The new feature will eventually allow all users to create their own social news lists for chosen topics. These customized reddits will come in three flavors: public, restricted, and private. If you set up a public reddit, every Reddit user will be able to view and participate in the reddit. Restricted reddits will only allow certain members to contribute. And private reddits will only be viewable by their own members.

For the next week or so, Reddit will solicit a “handful of users” to try out the new feature before opening it up to everyone. Mixx has implemented something similar, while we’re still waiting for Digg to do the same. As these social news sites become more platform-like, we’ll see them competing with offerings like Fraxi (covered here) and Pligg.

Digg

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Mixx

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Reddit

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Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/221216464/

American Express Publishing is looking for a Web Developer in New York, NY.

Facebook is looking for a Web/Graphic Designer and a User Experience Researcher in Palo Alto, CA.

Netflix is looking for a Senior Interactive Designer in Los Gatos, CA.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky is looking for an Interaction Designer in Boulder, CO.

Alpinist Magazine is looking for an Art Director in Chicago, IL.

Fyreball is looking for an Interaction designer in Seattle, WA.

Hargray Communication is looking for a Web Designer in Hilton Head, SC.

PixelMEDIA is looking for a Senior Front-End Ninja in Portsmouth, NH.

LECTRIC Internetoplossingen is looking for a Front-end Developer in Zaltbommel, The Netherlands.

Threespot Media is looking for a Technology Director in Wilmington, Delaware.

You’ll find more jobs at the 37signals Job Board. And don’t forget the Gig Board for projects or temp gigs.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/807-job-board-recent-postings