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Raptr, the social network that revolves around gaming, has launched in public beta. The robust site allows users to keep tabs on what their friends are doing throughout the gaming world, and also offers gaming recommendations, accomplishment updates, and a host of other features.

The site is designed to appeal to casual and hardcore gamers alike. In fact, Raptr avoids using the term “gamer” entirely, instead choosing to describe itself as a “social platform for people who like to play and discover games” - founder (and former competitive gamer) Dennis Fong says that many people associate the word “gamer” with a hardcore audience, but Raptr is for everyone.

Gamer Buddy List
The feature that will likely see the most use on Raptr is its buddy list, which allows users to see what games their friends are playing across a variety of platforms. While this can already be accomplished on a number of gaming networks, including Xbox Live and Steam, there isn’t a comprehensive service that keeps track of this information across multiple networks. The site offers downloadable clients for both Mac and Windows, which will track what games are being played and update the server accordingly (users can also use a Facebook Chat-esque interface from within the browser).

If Raptr can become the de facto standard for gaming buddy lists, it will be a huge success. Though it may come as a surprise to some, one of the most important facets of modern gaming is the social aspect. Gamers often align into Clans, and will readily boot up a game whenever they see a familiar screenname pop online. Unfortunately, existing networks are proprietary and only allow users to see who’s logged on to a single network.

Phat Lootz Newsfeed
Another impressive feature on Raptr is its news feed, which allows users to keep track of their friends’ activities thoughout many of the site’s supported games. The site keeps tabs on a wide variety of data, including in-game achievements from Xbox Live and high scores from Guitar Hero. Some games (particularly those with a supported API), allow the feed to get very detailed - you could conceivably use the site to track all of your quests for loot in World of Warcraft. Others send updates with more generic messages, like “Jason Has Just Played Chess”.

Gamers can also use the site’s profile section to display a list of their achievements, including the Gamer Badges seen on the current generation of consoles. While this may seem a bit silly, many gamers are extremely enthusiastic when it comes to earning in-game trophies and awards, and will value any opportunity to display their merits to a broad audience.

Automatic Game Updates
When we first wrote about Raptr in February one of its biggest selling points was its ability to automatically update PC games, saving users the hassle of hunting them down themselves. Since then, the feature seems to have become less important to Raptr, in part because automatic updates only apply to native PC games, which only constitute a fraction of Raptr’s game database.

At launch the site includes support for thousands of games across platforms including the console systems, native PC games, and web-based Flash games. Unfortunately, many of these games don’t make their data accessible - Raptr has to rely on a number of different methods to keep gamers’ activity status up to date, though some developers have made this easier than others. The issue is best demonstrated by today’s consoles: Microsoft has given Raptr access to Xbox Live backend, allowing the site to efficiently monitor user progress across all games. Conversely, Sony has yet to implement an accessible API, which means Raptr can only support select games.

In the long run, we’ll likely see gaming networks become more open, as cross-platform gaming buddy lists and accessible rankings can only help the industry. Raptr is positioning itself as a central hub for these services to play nicely, which would make it immensely popular. But as a casual gaming site, it may have some issues - I have a hard time picturing a casual game player taking the time to download one of the service’s clients or fill in a profile.

Raptr’s social networking shares a number of features in common with Rupture, Napster-founder Shawn Fanning’s startup that was aquired by EA for a reported $15 million. EA apparently aquired Rupture for its technology - the site, which was originally developed as a social network for World of Warcraft players, never launched to the public.

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Geni founder David Sacks has said all along that he wants to create a single family tree for the whole world. Based on some usage stats the company will announce on Thursday, they’re moving towards that goal: over a million unique visitors in August (growth has been steady).

And the biggest family tree at Geni now has over 680,000 profiles and 40,000 users (profiles include deceased family members).

A key feature driving big trees is the ability to merge smaller ones, which can create a snowball effect. Prior to the release of the merge feature, Geni’s largest tree was just 35,000 profiles.

Geni now allows users to upload photos and videos, arrange family calendars, etc. As we said over a year ago, the site is clearly aiming to be the family-centered social network:

Geni won’t be successful if all they can do is get people to add themselves and a couple of relatives and then rarely revisit the site. They want viral growth and the kind of big page view numbers that the large social networks see - up to 20 per day per visitor. To get there they’re adding a few proven features to the site. And by adding these features, they are essentially creating a social network with the family, as well as family friends, as the core. There’s a direct analogy to facebook - instead of colleges and universities, Geni is focusing on family units.

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One of my favorite pastimes over the last year or so has been to tear Twitter apart over uptime issues. See, for example, Twitter Suffers Minor Period Of Uptime (my personal favorite), Twitter: Something Is Technically Wrong and Amateur Hour Over At Twitter?.

Twitter has been mostly stable for the last month or so, though. And today cofounder Biz Stone wrote an email to Twitter users that says they’ve had 99.9% uptime over the last couple of months:

Reliability Update

Twitter has been making great progress in terms of uptime and reliability. Fail Whale sightings are far less frequent these days thanks to our efforts but we still have a long journey ahead. Last month we saw 99.88% uptime and so far this month we are at 99.96%. Our engineering and operations teams have been taking a very methodical approach to improving Twitter. We’re using the word “craftsmanship” to characterize our work here at the office. Reliability and dependability continue to be top on or list of key goals.

I’d say the email is tempting fate a little, but I’ve called Twitter on that same issue before and they failed to fail. Perhaps the worst of Twitter’s scalability issues are behind them (knocks on wood).

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Ponoko ID is a new service from Ponoko that allows customers to “bid” on projects that they’d like to have build. As you probably recall, Ponoko.com is a rapid prototyping/design service that allows you to upload, build, and assemble projects to your exacting specifications.

Rather than making customers to design their own items, Ponoko ID allows customers to request a certain project and describe it in general terms without having to draw or design anything - although image links are encouraged. Designers then bid on the project and the customer and designer decide on pricing and distribution.

Shoppers use the new service to post requests for custom-made individualized goods. Requests are sent to a selection of Ponoko’s pool of more than 10,000 members who then have the chance to put forward a bid to make the item.

Ponoko Chief Strategy Officer Derek Elley says Ponoko ID is a way for shoppers and designers to collaborate to create something unique and special. “What’s exciting is that Ponoko ID makes getting something made just for you as easy as sending an email,” he says. “Shoppers no longer have to accept ‘one size fits all’ mass produced goods but can now save a bunch of money to get their ideas turned into reality by expert designers worldwide.”

Ponoko originally - and fairly obviously - suffered from the too many customers/not enough product problem. Hopefully this new matching system will fill up the Ponoko shelves with cool - and commissioned - goodies.

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Yahoo has highlighted a few more implementations of BOSS, the search API it launched in early July that allows third party websites to incorporate Yahoo search functionality seamlessly into their sites.

This is the second time Yahoo has showcased the fruits of BOSS developers. In early August, Yahoo drew attention to 4HourSearch, the Cuil knock-off formerly known as Yuil; PlayerSearch, a sports-focused search engine; Newsline, a tool for plotting news items on a timeline; and Tianamo, a 3D search visualization tool for Windows machines with Java installed.

Now we’re presented with three more implementations: 123People, askBOSS, and BuildaSearch.

123People

123People is a search engine designed to help you find information about ordinary people. It supposedly returns the best results for people living in Europe, although the index includes those living in the United States as well.

123People has used BOSS to show web results and images about people alongside the email addresses, instant messaging accounts, documents, phone numbers, and other information it collects from elsewhere. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), I couldn’t find more than a few photos of myself when searching with my name, even when I told it which area code to look within.

askBOSS

Built by a Yahoo employee, askBOSS is like Powerset for images. It processes natural language (i.e. “who was the first president of the United States?”) and returns images that are intended to “answer” your query.

In my tests, it worked very well with some queries (“who is the lead singer of the Rolling Stones?”) and returned amusing but inaccurate results for others (“what was the first machine gun?”). But then again, this kind of search isn’t supposed to be easy.

BuildaSearch

BuildaSearch intends to remove the whole programming aspect of implementing BOSS for your website. It simplifies the setup process by letting you pick just the colors, images, and scope of search results you desire.

It took me a a grand total of 30 seconds to set up site-specific search for TechCrunch, found here. Unfortunately, our logo only shows up on the first page so the engine isn’t truly white-labeled.

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Comcast has now jumped into the downloadable video content game with the Fancast Store. It’s a lot like many other video download stores in that you can either rent or buy movies and TV shows, it requires you to install proprietary media management software in order to download and view your content, and it’s not Mac compatible (you can, however, order content from a Mac and download it on a PC later).

Purchasing content allows you to download it on up to three computers, while renting content ties you to whichever computer you use to download the content. Rented video files must be consumed within 30 days and, once initially played, must be watched within 24 hours or they’ll expire.

Read more…

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The browser-bearing world was atwitter yesterday with the announcement of Google’s Chrome browser. Just about overnight, they’ve managed to convince hordes of people that Chrome is the way to browse on your PC. Next step? They’re taking it mobile.

According to an interview with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, the two projects will start working together more closely now that both are approached 1.0 releases, with the Android browser adopting much of Chrome’s inner workings. He also expects the mobile browser to pick up a new name to indicate the relation to it’s bigger, full-blown browsin’ brother.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch

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Microsoft has announced that its Office Live Workspace Beta has reached its one millionth user. The service, which serves as both an extension to Office and a direct competitor to Google Docs and startups like Zoho, was announced last winter and opened in public beta last March.

When we originally covered Live Workspace, we criticized its underwhelming web-based text editor. Rather than focusing its efforts on improving webtop document editing, which is offered by rival Google Docs, Microsoft is trying to bolster its Office desktop suite with Live Workspace. Users are encouraged to edit their documents through the nearly-ubiquitous Office products like Word, with Live Workspace syncing changes to an online archive and other contributors.

The site does offer an online editor, but Microsoft doesn’t go out of its way to point it out - during the intial announcement it wasn’t clear that one existed at all. The strategy makes sense for Microsoft: with an overwhelming monopoly on desktop publishing software and almost no presence with web-based collaborative solutions, it would rather present this as an bonus feature for Office rather than a direct competitor to Google Docs - the longer people think they need desktop software to edit their documents, the better.

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Stylesight, a company that specializes in trend forecasting and product development tools for professionals in the fashion and style industries, announced Wednesday that it has completed its series A round of funding with $16 million from Fidelity Ventures.

According to Fidelity Ventures, Stylesight “addresses a huge need in the fashion market and could shift the way apparel manufacturers, brands, and retailers do business.” With the help of Stylesight, designers, manufacturers, and retailers will have access to the latest fashion data and images, which can then be used in advertising campaigns, design plans, and merchandise displays.

Stylesight will use the financing to expand its research and development efforts and provide more content for its users.

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Concerts hold a unique position in the entertainment world. They have a huge audience, with an estimated 70% of American adults attending a concert every year. And, unlike movies and music, they’re impossible to pirate (sure you can always get a bootleg recording, but people go to concerts for the experience, not just the music). But while a number of startups have sprung up trying to connect users with their favorite artists as well as new ones, few of them seem concerned with the the show itself.

BlueHaze, a San Francisco-based startup launching today, is looking to capitalize on this oversight. The startup is taking a multipronged approach with its solution, and now offers Facebook application, iPhone App, and a web portal to tie the service together. Founder Mark Shedletsky says that most other concert sites are concerned with helping users find a ticket they’re interested in, BlueHaze tries to enhance the experience before, during, and after each show.

At first glance, BlueHaze’s web portal doesn’t seem to offer anything that isn’t already out there. The site has a listing of artists and venues, along with a social network to help connect concert attendees and fans with similar tastes. Users can purchase tickets through the site (the company earns money through affiliate fees), and there’s an online listing of each user’s past concerts so they can keep a digital scrapbook for future reference.

What excites me most about BlueHaze is the company’s iPhone app, which allows users to upload geotagged photos a public album for each concert, which is accessible both during and after the show. I like the prospect of being able to share a photo with everyone at the concert (perhaps of a bandmember backstage, or an especially good shot of the guitarist rocking out). This feature won’t be appealing until the application becomes widespread, but the company says it has already seen over 40,000 downloads since its softlaunch.

BlueHaze will be seeing competition from a number of other concert and music-centric sites, including Songkick and iLike. Also notable is DeepRockDrive, which tries to bring audience interaction to webcasted concerts.

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