BO.LT: How does it work

BO.LT A more interesting way to share that is the first sentence that greets you when you land on the page. This is a fantastic new idea on sharing and creating. With the site you can add any link you want to share with your usual audience on Twitter or Facebook, with one key difference. Before you share the page you can edit it and add your comments. Yes, you can share your favorite NYPOST article but this time your headline can be in place of the post's headline. You can also edit anywhere you want and delete or add. Once you done and you are satisfied with your handiwork you can share it with your pals and ask them to give you feedback.

How does it work

Now once you start and get the hang of it you can become a curator and create a collection of such pages and call them your own. Once you have a collection of pages you can start remixing them and create your own style and flow. So you can use content already available online and crate your own twists and turns. This is one cool site you can use to play around with content and personalize it. All links are shared via Sharethis and therefore all likes are shortened, no problem sharing on Twitter. You need to play around with this and see for yourself, it is really fun.

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Sociolatte

Justin Bieber tech Startup Investor [Report]

Justin Bieber has a lot of money and Between May of 2010 and May of 2011 Justin Bieber made $53 million. Now that is quiet a tidy sum and it seems bad to just have it lying around. The Business Insider is reporting that Justin Bieber is now investing in Tech Startups. if that is to be believed adn if it is really true. The next teen investor is born. This is a trend that is becoming popular among celebrities, Ashton Kutcher is an investor in such startups as Hipmunk, Fashism, Fab and Airbnb. Justin Timberlake is an investor in Myspace.

The story about Bieber becoming an investor goes like this. A Justin Bieber video is circulating online of Justin playing basketball with NBA star Steve Nash. How is that important. One of the other players (In Blue)was Mike Duda , co-partner of Nash's venture capital firm, Consigliere Brand Capital. Consigliere has invested in three New York-based startups: Birchbox, StellaService and Chloe & Isabel.

Why would Justin Bieber spend the afternoon horsing around with investors?

What do you think about it, please leave your comments in the comment box below. 

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Sociolatte

@WalmartLabs: How does it work

@WalMartLabs began after the acquisition of Kosmix. Kosmix was acquired for $300 million and was a company with deep roots in Social Media and mobile commerce. With the acquiring of Kosmix and subsequently changing the name of the company to @WalmartLabs. 


With this new step into social media and mobile commerce Walmart hopes to lead the way for buiness that would deeply intergrate social media with brick and motor stores. @Walmartlabs with study the impact of the way their products rank in social media and also the way search giants like Google rank them. They are also using mobile devices for in-store real-time research.


The tagline of @WalmartLabs is "Social + Mobile + Retail" indicating where the company wants to go with this new technology. Social Media seems to be very important as mobile devices are changing the rules and definitely to brick and mortar companies like Walmart the more they have customers who engage with their brand the more of those customers will walk into their stores. Business in social media is fast and  great deals and product move very fast as we have seen with daily deal sites.


Kosmix used to be a search engine that would organize the internet into topics and allows users to explore the web by topic.  Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman founded Kosmix in 2005.


Links to find @WalmartLabs on the internet:
On Twitter
On Facebook
On the web  

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Sociolatte

Quora: How does it work

Quora seems to be built on the idea of Yahoo Answers - which has been replicated by sites like Facebook and LinkedIn having their own Fb Answers and LinkedIn Answers. The simple premise is that it is a forum for people to ask questions and others in the community to answer them. Quora builds up on the strength of its users who post questions and others who answer them.

Quora defines itself as 'A continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it'. 

The thing about the questions on Quora is that they are constantly being built upon, think Wikipedia. So when a user finds a question he is interested in and finds it has not been worded properly. The user can help define the question in a clearer manner and therefore bring more light to it and in turn better answers. So each question will be answered totally with references and links and Quora hops that each question will be complete in the sense the user will not have to look anywhere else for an answer. It is accumulated knowledge to be shared with everyone around.

Each question on Quora has a set of topics assigned to it to bring about better organization. Topics are also used to show related questions and bring about context to it. You can also follow topics to find related content for your research. You can also follow individual questions. 

Each question and answer has a history related to it and you can find who asked and who answers and who revised. Each person's name and short bio shows up and you can see when relevant questions have been answered by relevant people. So a question relating to HR is best answered by people working and studying in the field of human Resources. 

Visit Quora the question-and-answer website now.

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Sociolatte

Kibin: Proofreading and Editing for free

Kibin offers to get your writing proofread and edited for free, does not actually work like that but there is a principle involved. So how does Kibin work, you can get your writing edited for free if you have enough credits and the way to get credits is to do the same for other papers. So the more papers you edt and edit the more credits you earn and you will need lots of credits if you papers are long. All this gets done in 24 hours as promised by Kibin and it gets done by human eyes. This is a community based effort and no software involved, other than some  algorithms running in the background to prioritize and get things right. 


But what if you do not have credits and want you editing done faster Kibin offers a way out. For a flat rate of $0.01 you can get it done in 24 hours and if you want it faster be ready to spend more. Bloggers can count this as a blessings as many of them really could do with an  extra pair of eyes. 


If you would like to demo this whole thing, please click here. If you want to join the community and start editing all you have to do is start highlighting text. You'll then have three options: comment, modify, or strikeout. You can login with your Facebook account. 

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Sociolatte

how does Twitch.tv work

What is Twitch.tv and how does it work. Justin.tv launches Twitch TV, a video streaming site for competitive gamers and for those who want to follow their gaming heroes. You can watch live streams of gameplay and listen to professional gamers commenting. Twitch.tv allows users to get in on all the action and discovery awesome games and players. With the popular games being Halo: Reach, Heroes of Newerth, League of legends, Minecraft, StarCraft II, Wings of liberty, Team Fortress 2. With Twitch.tv you can follow all these games and find the best players in the world and also listen to them and watch them using live video streaming.

All of this announced by the best commentators in the world. A gamers paradise.

There is also the ability to use interactive chat and therefore you can talk to the best players in the world and learn their tricks. 

You can also follow the biggest tournaments in eSports. e-Sports is for gamers where professional games gather together to face-off with each other and there is prize money as well, oh yes, tens and thousands of dollars can be won.


Currently the Global Starcraft League tournament or GSL is being broadcasted on Twitch.tv. The company has also signed-up with God's garden a fighting game tournament based in japan.


Twitch.tv also runs a partner program just the way YouTube does. Where games who have a large number of people viewing their stream and following them get a share in the revenue. twitch.tv will share all revenues earned with the most popular gamers and reward their hard work. 


More about twitch.tv
TwitchTV is the largest competitive video gaming broadcast network in the world. Dedicated to supporting, entertaining and inspiring the e-sports community, TwitchTV features the highest quality competitions on all games and platforms, with the top gamers, the biggest tournaments, and the best commentary. TwitchTV leverages the live video streaming platform and infrastructure pioneered by Justin.tv. Learn more at http://twitchtv.com.How to stream on Twitch TV. Please leave a comment below to continue this discussion.

Groupie offers free group socializing

Groupie lets you make new friends and connect with private messaging. The App gives you the opportunity to make friends with like-minded people and stay in touch. Groupie is available for download on your iPhone and iPod touch or you can also join on the web and coming soon to Android and other platforms as well.. It is free to download and you can register with Facebook.


So what is Groupie and how does it work
1. Browse Groups - once you download the App you can start browsing through groups and find groups that interest you. Once you join a group you can start making friends. you can browse groups by category, keyword or location. Groupie will also suggest groups for you and goes a step further by suggesting local groups which will help close the distance. You can also create your own group and invite friends to join, people who find your group can also be allowed to join.
2. Social Sharing with Friends - The App comes with easy social integration and you can integrate Facebook and Twitter for easy sharing.
3. Unique URL's - Each group comes with its own unique URL which means each group can easily be found by search engines and is optimized for the same. So start a group and get famous.
4. Group Message - each group has its own message board, live map and directory. With group messaging you can share links and updates to everyone in the group instantly.
5. Private Message: you can send private text and SMS messages to other users.
6. Privacy -  The App takes good care of your privacy and you can set it to what suits you.


With groupie Group Texting allows you to stay in touch with friends and meet new ones. Create or join groups, stay inn touch with other members, make new friends or simply hangout. Check it out now.

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Sociolatte

Amazon Local to bring you daily deals

Amazon has entered the daily-deals market place with the Launch of Amazon Local. So what is Amazon Local and how does it work. Amazon Local is the deal-of-the-day type of website that has launched in a few cities in the US. The website seeks to bring to people living nearby deals from businesses which helps you save 50% or less.Amazon Local has also launched in Chicago which is significant because that is Groupon's home turf. Amazon Local is now available in California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois and Washington. There is plenty of rooms for multiple players in the daily-deal market and Amazon has slowly started spreading it's wings. 

Amazon has said that the deals have initially started coming from LivingSocial another daily deals site in which Amazon has invested but that now they have started bring daily-deals from their own sales team. Amazon has setup it's own team to bring daily deals to cities that they are operating in. With Amazon being such a huge brand adn given their credibility in the market, which is something they are banking on. Amazon is convinced people will trust them and come to them to get their daily best deals. 

To get started with Amazon Local please click here. 

An original post by

Sociolatte

Digster.fm let's you listen to playlists on Spotify

Universal Music Group has launched a new website that let's you listen to playlists that have been curated by a team of editors Digster.fm. Digster keeps your Spotify playlists and iTunes music updated for you. So no matter what the occasion you can always find a playlist to suit the mood. Whether it's a part or you simply want to listen to your favorite artist Digster has a playlist for you. There are three categories of playlists you can find on the site. 


So how does the Spotify playlists work on Digster
If you’re already a Spotify user it’s easy to stay updated with Digster. All you need to do is open a Digster playlist in Spotify and click the +Subscribe button. This will subscribe you to the playlist so it will be automatically updated as we add tracks. (You may have to re-start Spotify for these updates to appear.)


You can login right now with your favorite social media profile and start listening. The site has 3 categories of playlists.
Live: Dedicated to live action follow the latest releases and the what's new as it get out into the market. will go through regular updates
Digster By: are playlists the are created by some of the biggest names in the music industry
Standard:  Playlist the remain the same and are standard with no change.

An original post by

Sociolatte

Photorank.me: What it is and how does it work

If you like to share photos online through popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter Photorank.me will use an algorithm and tell you how popular your photos are on a scale from 1-100. You can login using your twitter or Facebook or Twitter to get started and once in you can analyze all your photos. Once in you can also login using your Flickr, Instagram or picplz account. The ranking on the site gives precedence to the last 21 days. 

Photorank.me analyzes all your photos and takes into account all the likes and comments your photos have generated. You can also browse the site for people who you know or generally search for people with a high score. A high score means that the person obviously takes some good shots or at least shares photos that generate a lot of interest. 

So are you a social photographer and are you well-liked as well. Do you photos generate a lot of interest if so you can see how you stack-up against your buddies and other photographers. Also if you are into photography this is an excellent site to find users with high scores and browse through their photographs. There are some excellent photos to check and worth your time. When you see a users photos and would like to connect with the person. There are links to the users account from which the photos have been taken. So if it from Flickr you will see a link to their Flickr account. This way you can to connect with other users who have the same interests as you. 

There are three parameters on the site that is used to judge photo popularity

1. Reach: Measures how many different people interact with your photos

2. Activity: Measure how often you share photos on the internet

3. Quality: Measure how many votes and comments each of your photos receive.

The leadership top 50 can be found on the world leaderboard. 

If you are not happy with the service you can always unlink the account you joined the service with.

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Sociolatte

Tango: What it is and how it is different from Skype

With 18 million registered users Tango is growing twice as fast as Skype did during it's first year. Today it is the 6th most popular free social networking App for the iPhone. Tango is a free mobile based video chatting service which is also going to launch it's desktop application sometime this summer. Tango is a cross platform mobile calling device getting ready to launch it's non-mobile platform for windows. Users will be able to access and use Tango across mobile (Android and iOS devices) and non-mobile on your PC. Unlike Apple's FaceTime  Tango works over 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi, while FaceTime is Wi-Fi only. it works over all Android based devices including mobile and tablets and all Apple devices including iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad. The company announced that a mac application isn't too far away. The reason for going windows first was because of the considerably larger user base.


So how does Tango work and how is it different from Skype
1. Tango does video chat - unlike Skype you cannot call landlines and dial numbers. You also cannot accept calls from non-users. Tango is video chat only.
2. Tango is video chat really simple - there is no setup required and n on username and password is required to use the service. All you need to do is to simple add your phone number. Tango then automatically finds others from your address book who are already using the service. A similar feature is going to be offered with the PC version too.
3. Tango keeps a centralized directory of it's users. Unlike Skype which a peer to peer based model of communication. Data moving through end users' devices. 


Please click here to visit the Tango homepage. 


So what are your thoughts on this, please use the comments section below to continue the conversation.


How to make a Tango free mobile video call

An original post by

Sociolatte

What is tumblr and how does it work

What is Tumblr and howto use it.


Tumblr is a great way to share and find content. Once you signup you get a blog and these are the things you can do with it. You can create an original post and share it with other Tumblrs. Upload a photo and share it with other users, post a quote that you read somewhere, add a link to a cool website you like, post a chat (funny conversation you might have had with your friends), upload songs and you can also upload videos especially the last funny video that's stuck in your head.


Tumblr therefore is for people to find and share things. You can create your original blog post or just share things you find on the internet in a random manner. There is also no fixed character length like the 140 character limit of Twitter. Tumblr is an organized way to find and share information. 


Tumblr also has a reblog link that helps users spread information really fast across the site. There is just one drawback especially for people looking to use the site for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) it does not work too well, since a lot of Tumblr blogs are reposts or reblogs and does not really help.


The upside is that Tumblr is fast becoming main steam and can potentially drive a lot of traffic to your website or help you get a lot of attention and eye balls to original posts by you. signing up is fast and easy just a three step process. It is quiet a fun site and you can share whatever suits your fancy and find loads of interesting stuff shared by other users. 

An original post by

Sociolatte

Posterous: How does it work

What is Posterous and how does it work?


Posterous is a blogging platform that asks you to simply email post@posterous.com and it automatically apperas on your own domain. Yes thats right simply send them an email to the address you see above and you got your first post on the site with your own blog. All you need to do is to keep sending an email to Posterous to updated your blog. No, this is not a micro-blogging platform you can send large file sizes. You can send photos and the more the better, you can post videos and more. So you can post audio links, videos, documents, and photos.


Posterous also has a smart way of posting. So if you send them a YouTube link in your post it will automatically embed the link in your post and the video will appear. Group photos sent are automatically arranged in a gallery, you can also send photos from your phone. When you send music, it is automatically dropped into a web MP3 player for your users to listen to easily.


You Can also autopost to all the other Social Services you use like Facebook and Twitter. Posterous currently supports:

 Facebook
  Twitter
  Flickr
  Tumblr
  Blogger
  Wordpress
  Typepad
  Movable Type
  Livejournal
  Xanga Autopost to everywhere

You also have the options to make your site private or even run a group site. Your RSS feed of the site also doubles as an iTunes ready Podcast. You get 1 GB of free storage. You can also use your own custom URL for your blog. You can use the tag#end at the end of your post and that way cut out your email signature and everything else that comes after end.

If you already run a blog and would like to shift to Posterous that it pretty easy to do on the site.

An original post by

Sociolatte

Amplify: How does it work

What is Amplify and how does it work?


Amplify is a service that allows you to autopost to Facebook, Google Buzz, Posterous ,Tumblr, Wordpress, Blogger,Ping.fm, Plurk, Friendfeed, Diigo, Delicious, Bit.ly URL Shortening. 


The idea behind the service is to allow old fashioned conversation by clippings things off the net and sharing it. You can amplify it by adding your thoughts and start conversations around topics of interest to you and your friends. You can share news, videos and just about anything.


The service has a Twitter style box just bigger with HTML options that allow you to autoshare with your other social network connections on sites like Twitter and Facebook. There is also a Facebook styled Newsfeed to keep up with what's going on. 


There have been new features that have been added today to the service.

1. Live Feeds: The Amplify Newsfeed now updates in real-time so that new posts stream in without you ever having to refresh the page.

2. Mentions: One of the most important ways to keep up with a conversation is to know when you are being spoken to or about. With this in mind, every user now has a “Mentions” feed that displays the latest mentions of their twitter @username on Amplify. So, if you’d like to make sure someone sees one of your comments or posts on Amplify, just be sure to include their Twitter @username.

3. Conversations feed: This is the place to see all the latest comments on Amps you’ve posted, previously commented on or are “eavesdropping on” (described below).

4. Eavesdropping: An “Eavesdrop” link has been added to the bottom of every Amp that lets you add it to your Conversations feed. This way, you can keep up with the latest conversation on Amps you haven’t yet commented on just as easily as one’s you have.

5. Action Feed: When you want to quickly check the latest comments and recommends of your Amps, the new Action feed is the place to go.

6. Managing emails: To help you become less dependent on email notifications, in addition to a global setting that lets you turn off all email notifications for new comments, you will now see a check box on the Amplify save page and below every comment form that lets you opt out of email notifications on a per post basis.

7. Permalinks: The changes described above apply to conversations that take place from within one of the various main feeds on amplify.com. But sometimes, you might open a specific post in a new tab and want to keep up with new comments on it right from there. Now, all permalinks will automatically let you know when new comments have come in, so you don’t have to keep refreshing the page to find out.

8. Microblogging and Direct Messaging: The limit on microblog posts and direct messages has been increased from 500 to 1,000 characters, giving you more room to say what you need to say in those instances.

[Hat Tip: The Next Web]

An original post by

Sociolatte

Shopkick: How does it work

Shopkick is a San-Francisco based company that has just released it's iPhone App. 

The whole idea is actually quiet simple. You download the App onto your phone and then walk in to any store that partner's with Shopkicks and you can collect  "Kickbucks" just for walking in. (Your phone automatically connects with Shopkick offers from a device pre-installed in the store). This applies to people who love and hate shopping. Shopkick says that you need to be rewarded just for visiting stores and get product offers from companies that really matter to you.  Its early partners include nationwide chains like Best Buy, American Eagle Outfitters, Macy's, and the Sports Authority, as well as shopping-mall outfit Simon Property Group. Shopkick is right now based in the US and has not yet gone international.

Once inside a store you can earn kickbucks for scanning the barcodes of products and special offers related to the product will get pushed to you. 

What do you do with kickbucks?

Kickbucks can be redeemed for Facebook credits which can then be used to play your favorite games, download songs, in-store gift cards and other standard stuff like magazine subscriptions and charity donations. You can also save up your virtual currency "Kickbucks" to redeem goods in the future. Shopkick also says "You can redeem your kickbucks for cool rewards like gift cards, iPads, music downloads, donations to causes, and much more!"

Check out the video from Shopkick.

An original post by

Sociolatte

What is Fourwhere and how does it work

Fourwhere is a mashup between Google Maps, Foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp. All of these being location based services. Geo-location being the center of it all. If you want to search for a place all you need to do is to enter your location in the search bar on top and click search. 


The Google map automatically shows you your location and you can click on the locations you want to know more about and you get automatic reviews that pop up about the place you want to know more about. Reviews come from Foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp. Giving you lots of information for you to discover many new places and find new stuff.


Fourwhere has this to say about themselves if you visit them


FourWhere helps you to find comments, tips for venues left byFoursquare, Gowalla and Yelp users. FourWhere automatically retrieves and aggregates user comments and visualizes them on the map. To use FourWhere, provide your location, and then click on the map to see venues (locations) or tips (comments written about a particular place).

FourWhere is public service so there's no need to register or sign in. All you need is your web browser. Go ahead, start discovering the world around you.

FourWhere is built by Sysomos using the public data from Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and the Google Maps API. 


All very simple and very useful. Fourwhere being a mashup between the best Geo-location services around means you will be able to throughly research a place before visiting it. It will also help you discover new and exciting places and locations and show you hot to reach it on the map. Fourwhere is really cool.


Access Fourwhere

An original post by

Sociolatte