Archive for June, 2007
Google Adds Blog Search
June 29th, 2007
MatthewBlog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves. Whether you’re looking for Harry Potter reviews, political commentary, summer salad recipes or anything else, Blog Search enables you to find out what people are saying on any subject of your choice.
Your results include all blogs, not just those published through Blogger; our blog index is continually updated, so you’ll always get the most accurate and up-to-date results; and you can search not just for blogs written in English, but in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese and other languages as well.
There are a few different ways you can get to Blog Search:
- blogsearch.google.com (Google-style interface)
- search.blogger.com (Blogger-style interface)
- The Blogger Dashboard
- The Navbar on any Blog*Spot blog
It’s the same search in each place, no matter how you get to it. The Navbar, however, provides two buttons: one to search the blog you are currently viewing, and one to search all blogs.
Prosper.com: The ebay of loans?
June 28th, 2007
MatthewE-Loan co-founder Chris Larsen’s online marketplace matches lenders and borrowers. Banks and “payday” outfits alike will be watching closely A decade ago, when Chris Larsen co-founded online loan broker E-Loan, he purposely took aim at traditional mortgage lenders, many of which he thought deceived borrowers and charged too much. Now, he intends to shake up a whole new swath of the financial services business. With Prosper Marketplace, a San Francisco startup he’s launching Feb. 13, Larsen aims to carve out a new business — this time by doing a number on check-cashing “payday” lenders that charge usurious interest rates.
Essentially, Larsen hopes to create an eBay (EBAY)-style loan marketplace. Prosper matches people who need small loans, but can’t get them from traditional banks, with willing lenders. Says Larsen: “We let people on both sides, borrowers and lenders, participate in the credit marketplace directly.”INVESTING IN PEOPLE. Indeed, the notion is not just to provide a new way for individuals to get small loans. It could also turn anyone with a little money into a banker. Potentially, lenders can earn an annualized 6%-and-up in monthly interest payments from a range of borrowers, providing an addition to stocks, bonds, real estate and the like. “People who have money can invest directly in other people and diversify their investments,” he says.
It’s a bold idea — so bold that it’s certain to draw naysayers who may wonder why anyone would lend to people they don’t know. So far, only one other company, Zopa, currently operating only in Britain, has tried something like it, analysts say.
“At first, I was skeptical,” says Asaf Buchner, a financial services analyst with JupiterResearch. But now, he thinks the notion could have legs if it follows the same virtuous cycle as eBay, which flourished as buyers flocked to where the sellers were and vice-versa.
ON THE BLOCK. Some consumer advocates are already cheering. “I think this could be David’s stone hitting the banking industry between the eyes,” says Jamie Court, president of The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights, a nonprofit consumer-advocacy group in Santa Monica, Calif. “Chris is stripping the banks and other middlemen out of the business. It should be a huge, transformative event.”
Here’s how Prosper works: People who want a loan of up to $25,000, for whatever purpose they state, put it up for bid at a maximum interest rate they’re willing to pay. Although they can remain anonymous to everyone but Prosper and regulatory authorities, they must submit to having their credit record checked and their credit grades — determined from their so-called FICO credit scores — displayed on their listing. They also can provide their annual income, so a debt ratio can be determined and also displayed.
People who want to lend money bid in increments starting at $50, usually just for a portion of the loan, to reduce risk. They also can have standing orders to provide loans of a certain size to borrowers with specific credit grades, interest rate requests, and other criteria.
PAYMENT PROCESSING. Prosper provides borrowers and lenders information on standard interest rates and default rates associated with the various credit rating levels, so they can make judgments about reasonable payments and risk levels.
When the listing ends, the bids with the lowest rates are combined to produce a single loan that’s repaid over three years. Prosper draws payments from the borrower’s bank account and sends them monthly to the various lenders’ accounts. For its cut, Prosper charges borrowers a fee equal to 1% of the funded loans, as well as a 0.5% annual loan-servicing fee to lenders.
The site went up a week ago, with no publicity, so only about 20 loans are listed currently. They range from a request from a top credit-grade borrower for $5,000 at 6% interest to pay off a credit-card balance (eight bids) to a request by a “high risk” borrower for $10,000 at 13% interest to pay for a surgical operation (five bids). So far, according to Prosper, most of the lender bids are coming from Prosper insiders as a way to seed the market.
GROUP DYNAMICS. If a borrower fails to pay, Prosper turns the matter over to one of several collection agencies chosen by lenders. But Prosper has a new wrinkle intended to avoid bill collectors in the first place. People can form groups of borrowers — for instance, a PTA group or alumni of a university whose collective repayment record is made public. When a group member misses a payment, the group leader is contacted first, before the collection agency.
The idea is that people are less likely to default if they know their delinquency will hurt a group of people they know, and that the group leaders will be inclined to make sure members don’t miss payments. “Credit markets have destroyed the sense of commitment and shame if you don’t pay,” says Larsen. “So we try to make sure buyers are tightly associated with a group, whose reputation is directly impacted by one person not paying. That should dramatically lower default costs.”
Some fledgling group leaders have high hopes. Jeff Dannewitz, a mapping engineer in Chandler, Ariz., just formed a small group that he hopes will include both borrowers and lenders. “It’s just like being a banker, but I do it from home,” he says. “I’d rather have a little more control over what and who I’m investing in than just put money in a mutual fund.”
FEAR FACTOR. Some reckon they might be able to make a living as group leaders. Groups get cash incentives when a loan gets funded or an on-time monthly payment is made, and leaders can choose to keep or share rewards with the group. Gary Richardson, who sells sunglasses and goggles on eBay, hopes to have as many as 10,000 members in the group. In essence, groups could become virtual credit unions.
That’s if everything goes as well as it did at eBay. Yet loans are clearly a more serious proposition than Beanie Babies or even Manolo Blahnik shoes for people on both sides of the transaction. The loans not only can involve thousands of dollars, but the consequences of nonpayment for the borrower are more severe: Prosper will report defaults to credit agencies.
Even a few high-profile defaults could scare off new lenders, just as fraud on eBay keeps some potential buyers and sellers away. Richardson, for one, believes that lenders will simply shy away from the dodgier loan requests. “There’s going to be people on there who won’t get loans,” he says.
eBAY’S EXAMPLE. Still, there’s reason to think the idea’s time has come. For one, in an era when eBay has become one of the world’s largest e-commerce hubs, the idea of person-to-person lending may not sound as farfetched as it once might have. After all, eBay drew many of the same doubts but has continued to thrive. So did the eBay unit PayPal, which has become the Web’s largest person-to-person payment service and is now moving to become a broader alternative to credit cards online.
Plus, there’s some track record now. Zopa, which started last March with a similar service in the UK, plans to enter the U.S. market sometime this year, says CEO Richard Duvall. He says that so far, the service has had no defaults thanks to rigorous screening of borrowers, while providing lenders an average 7% return. “The eBay phenomenon made people realize they could do business with people they don’t know,” he says.
Prosper has some seasoned backing, too. Early eBay investor Benchmark Capital has invested in Prosper, as well as eBay founder Pierre M. Omidyar’s mission-based investing group Omidyar Network. Other investors include Accel Partners and Fidelity Ventures. Total venture funding in the 20-person company is about $20 million.
BANKS, TOO. Although Larsen clearly intends Prosper to be a for-profit enterprise, he hopes Prosper will put a dent in payday lenders that he thinks too often exploit low-income people. These are the storefront operations that often set up shop in strip malls and charge interest rates upwards of 300%, with marketing tactics aimed specifically at folks with bad credit histories or who don’t have bank accounts.
Indeed, the Federal Trade Commission warns people away from them. And New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has forced several payday lenders to pay refunds to borrowers and stop doing business in the state. Will they be happy with this new competition? “I hope not,” Larsen growls. If he gets some traction, banks may not be too happy either.
Apple iphone Released tomorrow
June 28th, 2007
adminThe Apple iPhone launches today, June 29. The new product encapsulates a significant shift in Apple’s strategic focus, which is extending steadily beyond the computer into the broader realm of consumer electronics and digitally connected lifestyles. However, the exclusivity and terms of the agreement between Apple and AT&T means that, in the short term, the iPhone will have a limited impact on the structure of the U.S. market for mobile telephony. In the longer term, the device probably will instigate a process of innovation and diversification.
Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) is hoping that the distinctive design of the iPhone will disrupt and even re-invent the concept of the mobile handset in the United States and worldwide. Apple has forecast relatively modest sales of 10 million units by the end of 2008, which would translate into an approximate 1% share of the world market for handsets.
The iPhone represents a natural extension of the successful iPod franchise from a standalone digital music player into a multi-functional communications, media and information device with Internet access. In particular, as Apple marketing drives interest in smart phone features, iPhone design will force other mobile handset makers more aggressively to develop and diversify their offerings.
The handset includes a sophisticated operating system (based on Mac OS X, which is used on Apple’s existing computers); innovative applications, including visual voice mail and improved full Web browsing capabilities (using Safari); and multi-touch screen technology, enabling users to interact with the device using their fingers rather than a stylus.
Similar to other Apple products, the iPhone has attracted considerable media attention and publicity. Sales of the iPhone probably will benefit from short-term stock shortages, thereby stoking demand and anticipation throughout the summer months. However, the relatively high price of the iPhone ($499 for a four-gigabyte model; $599 for an eight-gigabyte model) will limit mass-market customer adoption.
Like the iPod, the iPhone will be a closed technology platform, sacrificing openness for simplicity in the user experience. However, there will be scope for software developers to create third-party applications for the iPhone, which must operate within the confines of the Safari browser.
In recent years, the first generation of Apple products have suffered from relatively higher levels of manufacturing defects compared with competitors. For example, customers reported problems with screens on the first generation of the iPod Nano, as well as earlier versions of the PowerBook.
Apple sought to allay concerns about the iPhone, announcing an upgraded glass screen, and extended battery life, in the two weeks preceding launch. However, several characteristics have raised debates about the appeal of the first-generation iPhone.
These include:
–the general durability of the device, compared with equivalent mobile handsets, and the life of the battery, which is not removable;
–the user interface, particularly for those accustomed to tactile feedback with keys when sending text messages; and
–the speed of Internet access, which will rely on AT&T’s (nyse: T - news - people ) relatively slow EDGE network in areas without wi-fi.
Apple essentially has focused on entering rather than disrupting the U.S. mobile telephony market. The flawed yet necessary agreement with a provider such as AT&T is illustrative of the challenges facing entry into this market. The closed nature of the iPhone means it will have relatively limited implications for the structure of the market, at least in the short term. However, it does signal the beginning of a new era of multi-functional mobile handsets, consisting of media, communications and information.
Over time, there will be growing pressure for handset makers, including Apple, to enhance the networking capabilities of handsets–notably by taking advantage of faster third-generation (3G) networks. There will be pressure on Apple to maintain a steady stream of new iPhone models, address design limitations and offset the competitive threat posed by potentially more open and flexible devices from rival firms.
TOTW 6.25.07
June 25th, 2007
adminSo this week we have two thoughts of the week.
I know you are worried about being overwhelmed… but both are just good enough that they both need to be here.
1) “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
Sometimes that is all we can do, knowing that each situation will eventually pass.
2) “The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places.” ~Author Unknown
Stay the course, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side… in most occasions it is a off brownish color
Choose Quality Over Price
June 23rd, 2007
MatthewWhile entrepreneurs that are starting their new business typically look for ways to save money on everything from office space to consulting services, there are some things that are worth the splurge and more often then not, can give you the competitive edge you need to succeed. When you are getting ready to launch don’t skimp on these:
Legal Services: It is a very bad idea to pinch pennies when it comes to legal counsel. The legal advice you get early on, including the form of organization for your business, is critically important and hard to undo. Make sure that however much money you have, you spend it well on legal counsel.
Good People: Spend money on hiring good people and creating strong partnerships. “If you add one bad apple to a company of four people, it can ruin your company.
Design: From your letterhead to your website, Is is an extremely smart investment to spend the money for good design. Using clip-art logos or a clunky website designed by your best friend’s cousin can scream amateur. Make sure that from the start your business looks as successful as you want to be.
Of course, that’s not to say you should break the bank on these essential elements but keep in mind that you should always choose quality over price.
Start Up Idea
June 23rd, 2007
MatthewMobile Advertising: If you want to market your business, forget the Super Bowl. Instead, spread your message on the small screen–the really small screen, as in cell phones. With nearly two-thirds of our nation’s population owning cell phones, according to CTIA Wireless, it’s hard to imagine staying competitive if you don’t. For businesses looking to capitalize, the cost of mobile marketing varies from very cheap (sending SMS messages) to expensive (sending video commercials). According to RBC Capital, U.S. spending on marketing and advertising over wireless networks is expected to reach $1.5 billion by 2010.
Cell Phones Category
June 22nd, 2007
adminThe fact that we added a cell phone category to our blog shows how “ geeky ” we are. With the realease of the iphone we had to add the category.
Websites to check out
June 22nd, 2007
adminWhat’s tomorrow’s YouTube? The Web’s next breakout hit may be one of these innovative, useful, and fun new sites.
Yahoo Pipes
Like Popfly, Yahoo Pipes lets you create your own mashups or “pipes.” As with Popfly, you drag and drop prebuilt modules, and then create connections between them. But Yahoo Pipes is much harder to use than Popfly, and the way to go about building your own mashup isn’t always obvious. But if you’re willing to do some digging and learning, you can build very useful stuff, such as a mashup that uses Yahoo maps to show the locations of all apartments for rent in a certain neighborhood. BuzzDash
Are foreign movies better watched with subtitles or with dubbed dialog? Is it okay to cry at work? Who is the best center fielder of all time–Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, or Ken Griffey, Jr.?If these are the kinds of issues that keep you awake at night, we have a Web site for you. BuzzDash lets you participate in, comment on, and see the results of numerous quick opinion polls. The polls are organized by topic, such as movies, football, and politicians; and if you have a burning question you want answered, you can create your own survey.
CircleUp
Anyone who has ever tried to organize an event–or to get a group of people to respond to a simple question like “Who can drive the kids to Little League this week?”–knows how tough it is to filter and organize the answers into coherent, usable form. That’s where CircleUp comes in handy. Use this site to send an e-mail or instant message to a group of people; then wait for it to return a consolidated summary of responses to you. It’s simple, it’s free, and it will liberate you from the recurring feeling that you’re herding cats whenever you try to coordinate an activity involving more than two people. Organizers, Searchers and OptimizersThe Web has so much information that it’s hard to keep track of everything. These sites will help you pull content together and move around the Internet more efficiently.
Pageflakes
The Web is just as chaotic as the world–but Pageflakes can organize both of them for you. This super-customizable version of a home page enables you to pick the news and information feeds you want to read, and to specify the “flakes,” or applets, you want to include. Flakes let you add all sorts of cool stuff to your page–movie times, to-do lists, a notepad, e-mail, a horoscope–even sudoku or a personal blog. If you’re looking for one-stop browsing, this is it. Spock
If you spend more time than you should googling folks, you need to check out Spock.com, a search engine designed to dig up information about people. Start by typing in a name, or a search term that describe a group of people–for example, Motown Singer, or Rastafarians. The site then searches through various social networking sites such as MySpace and Friendster, along with more-general Web sites, and reports on what it finds.For many searches, you’ll get multiple categories of links. For instance, type in Barack Obama, and you’ll get groupings like ‘Democrat’, ‘Senator’, and ‘2008 Presidential Candidate’. Click any link, and you’ll find pages related to both Obama and the larger category. There are also links to photographs, tags, Obama’s Wikipedia entry, his Senate site, and so on. Spock is currently in beta form (its public launch is scheduled for sometime before September), and at the moment you need an invitation to gain access to it, but with luck you can wangle one by filling out the form on the site.
Swivel
Data and graph fanatics, you have a home. Swivel, holds a mind-boggling array of charts and graphs–from a line graph illustrating the relationship between wine consumption and crime in the United States over the past 30 years to a pie chart showing the percentage breakdown of bird flu cases in 14 Asian countries. But the site’s most outstanding feature is its ability to integrate different charts containing seemingly unrelated data. Want to compare the national murder rate to the cost of a first-class stamp, or to total hours of media use in U.S. households, over the same period of time? Now you can. Real Estate, Bookmarks, and BlogsWith these services, you can find a house, browse the Web from a single location, and make sure that your online prose never gets lost.
Trulia
There are plenty of real-estate sites on the Web, but this one comes with a twist. By combining social networking with mapping and search technology, Trulia gives you a high-tech way to find the home of your dreams. Use the different sliders and checkboxes to focus your search (price, square footage, and the all-important number of bathrooms), and Trulia will display qualifying homes that are for sale in the specified area, overlaid on a map. The site includes useful, city-specific real estate guides containing additional data on average home sale prices, most popular neighborhoods, crime statistics, and the like.The Trulia Voices section hooks you up with other people to discuss neighborhoods, housing issues, or real estate in general. Trulia is relatively new, so that section is as yet quite sparse. But if the site gains traction, Trulia Voices may prove to be the most useful tool of all.Tip: To view some cool time-lapse maps showing how an area (such as Las Vegas) has developed over time, hop to Trulia Hindsight. PopURLs
If you’re an information hound, you probably spend lots of time jumping from Digg to Del.icio.us to YouTube to Fark to Google News to anything-dot-com. With PopURLs, you no longer need to waste time hopping around the Internet. An aggregator of all things informative, PopURLs features massive lists of headlines, videos, blogs, and content from all of those sites, as well as plenty of others.One nice bonus is that you can search some of the sites–Del.icio.us, Flickr, and Wikipedia, among others–straight from PopURLs. It’s also easy to tweak the way PopURLs looks and works, too, including customizing the layout of the feeds so you can put the ones you view most regularly on top. The scrapbook is a particularly useful feature; just click the ‘Add to Scrapbook’ button next to any headline, and PopURLs will save it (and up to 19 other favorite items).
Ma.gnolia
If you’re a fan of the social bookmarking site Del.i.cio.us but wish that it were a little more social–and a little less geeky–check out Ma.gnolia. As with Del.icio.us, you can save and share bookmarks and tags. But Ma.gnolia presents a far more appealing design, and it has a few nice extra talents, such as the ability to let you save snapshots of your favorite pages.Ma.gnolia excels on the social networking front. You can join groups, share bookmarks, and browse groups and discussions for more bookmarks on topics that fascinate you. If you’re strictly interested in bookmarking and tagging, Del.i.cio.us remains the best place to go. But if you want to share your findings with others, Ma.gnolia is worth a taste. Five Ways to Create and ShareThese services help you put your thoughts together and publish them on the Web, whether you’re most comfortable talking, shooting video, or just typing.
Yodio
Of course your friends and family want to see all of your pictures from your Venetian vacation–but wouldn’t it be better if they could also hear your voice, telling you cool details about what they’re looking at, or narrating a story regarding some gondola hijinks?Yodio lets you combine photos with sound files to create an audio postcard. To make a recording, call a special Yodio phone number and start talking (or you can record your own MP3 file and upload it). Once you’ve transferred photos to the site, you can add sound and publish your postcard on the Web for others to admire. The site also has a scheme for making money from your productions, though we wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Meebo Rooms
You may have heard about Meebo, the Web-based instant messaging program that lets you communicate with people over various IM services, such as AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo. (See our review of Meebo.)Well equally cool is Meebo’s newest launch, Meebo Rooms, which lets you participate in multimedia chats. You’ll find chat rooms on everything from sports to SpongeBob Squarepants, and the rooms support videos and photos that you can discuss with fellow fans. If you can’t find a topic you’re interested in, simply create a new room and post visuals for others to discuss. You can even embed rooms into your site or blog, and use them to lure people to your own Web destination.
Squidoo
Got an obsession or special passion you want to convey to the world? Squidoo is your ticket. Using the site’s simple tools, you can build a “lens” (aka, a Web page) that includes information on any topic that’s close to your heart, whether it’s cats or Kafka.A lens can be quite different from a blog. With lenses, you share links to resources, book recommendations, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, eBay auction items, and other cool Web content related to a single subject. Even if you don’t build your own lens, the site is worth visiting to see what others have done. You can learn a lot more about lemonade or laptop bags than you ever thought possible. SplashCast
For anyone who has ever dreamed of becoming a broadcast mogul, here’s a quick (and free) way to get a taste of what it might be like. SplashCast lets you create your own streaming media channel that combines video, music, photos, text, narration, and RSS feeds. A wizard walks you through the steps of building your channel. Start by uploading media files from your hard drive, or point to files on other sites. Add captions, commentary, and RSS feeds, and your channel is ready to go. Once you’re done finessing your channel, you can send it to friends and family, or syndicate it to blogs and social networking sites. So far, there’s no way for you to make money from your channels, but the site plans to start a revenue-sharing model.
Eyespot
To create a video all you have to do is point your cell phone, digital camera, or camcorder at something, press a button, and stay focused. The result: an instant movie. What’s not so easy, though, is organizing, editing, and combining your video clips to create something aesthetically pleasing. Eyespot simplifies this process. Upload your videos to the site, and then use its tools to crop and mix them either with other clips you supply or with free video from the site. You can even add effects, transitions, and titles before publishing your video mix for the world to see. Sites for Collaborative Work and PlayWhether you’re putting together an important document or an anniversary party, these services will help get everybody involved. Also, check out a snazzy online photo editor and a new way to search.
Approver.com
Anyone who has collaborated with multiple people on a document knows the true meaning of frustration. You have to distribute the file to the entire group, convince every person to review it by a certain date and time, and get them all to sign off on it. Approver.com lowers the pain quotient considerably. Upload the document you want to track, and the site routes it to everyone who needs to see it. It also lets you set deadlines for reviewing the document, and keep track of approvals and comments. Approver.com works with a number of apps, including Microsoft Office, Adobe PDF, and Open Office; alternatively, you can use the site to create documents, and have your colleagues read them online. Pbwiki
Though the whole world seems to know about Wikipedia these days, many people and organizations don’t realize how useful it can be to build their own wiki. In business settings, it’s an ideal way to share information within a group. For individuals, it’s perfect for planning a get-together, organizing a fan club, or sharing memories with family members. Pbwiki makes creating miniature versions of Wikipedia a breeze. The site’s simple, Web-based tools are perfect for building a wiki–you don’t need to have any HTML know-how–and getting others in on the editing action.
MyPunchbowl
Planning a party, but unsure of what date works best for your friends? MyPunchbowl is basically Evite with a little extra kick. Like any self-respecting online invitation site, MyPunchbowl lets you create party invitations and then track who’s coming, who’s not, and who has yet to respond. But the site also enables you to send pick-a-date e-mail messages to see which day works best for people, set up message boards (useful for organizing things like who’s bringing the vino), and produce a map of the shindig’s location using Google Maps. You can also create an after-party message board where people can share comments, photos, and videos–if, um, appropriate. Quintura
Quintura provides a new way for you to search for things on the Internet. When you enter a search term, Quintura returns an ordinary list of results on the right-hand side, while on the left it offers a visual map (or “cloud”) of related terms. Click any of these words, and the list of results changes to encompass the new term as well, which can help you narrow your search. The process may sound clunky, but it’s surprisingly effective.
The 25 Worst Websites
June 22nd, 2007
adminPeople say hindsight is 20/20. When it comes to the Web, hindsight is more like X-ray vision: In retrospect, it’s easy to see what was wrong with dot coms that tried to make a business out of giving stuff away for free (but making it up later in volume), or to make fun of venture capitalists who handed millions to budding Web titans who had never run a lemonade stand before, let alone an enterprise.It’s so easy, in fact, we can’t help doing it ourselves. So as venture capitalists scramble to throw money at anything labeled Ajax or Web 2.0, and Web publishing becomes so simple that anyone with a working mouse hand can put up a site, we offer our list of the 25 worst Web sites of all time. Many of our bottom 25 date from the dot-com boom, when no bad idea went unfunded. Some sites were outright scams–at least two of our featured Net entrepreneurs spent some time in the pokey. Others are just examples of bad design, or sites that got a little too careless with users’ information, or tried to demand far too much personal data for too little benefit. And to prove we’re not afraid to pick on somebody much bigger than us, our pick for the worst Web site may be the hottest cyberspot on the planet right now.
25. Rentmychest.com
Look up the word hunk in any dictionary, and you will not find a picture of a bare-chested Chris Pirillo, the guy behind download sites such as lockergnome.com. But you used to be able to find several such pictures at this site, where the pasty, paunchy Pirillo auctioned off messages, written on his chest with magic marker, for $20 a pop. These days the marker-based messages are gone, replaced by a single background image that I wish I hadn’t seen and a bunch of linked keywords. Believe it or not, the keywords are actually more expensive, starting at $200. Look, Chris may know his downloads, but please, somebody buy this man a gym membership. 24. IKissYou.org
For a brief period in 1999, an accordion-playing Turk named Mahir Cagri was the most famous man on the Net, which really says more about us than it does about this mostly harmless Web destination. His site, which featured personal photos, charmingly fractured English, and the phrase “Welcome to my home page…I Kiss You!!!” became a minor Web sensation, for reasons that are now entirely obscure. Mahir’s legacy lives on in Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” character, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the Turk.
23. InmatesForYou.com
This site helps you find that special someone, even if you have to wait 13 years for her parole to come up.22. Digital Entertainment Network (den.com)
This DEN of iniquity blew through more than $100 million before it shuttered its doors in January 2002. A sex scandal involving the site’s CEO didn’t help matters. 21. Golden Palace Casino
Web sites used to do just about anything to make headlines, and Golden Palace’s ad campaigns took that idea just about as far as it could go. From buying the “Holy Toast”–the grilled cheese sandwich that looks like the Virgin Mary–to buying William Shatner’s kidney stone, no promotional gimmick is too cheesy for this online casino.
20. Hotmail.com
In the mid to late nineties, Hotmail was a virtual Switzerland for spammers, who operated with impunity across the free e-mail service. Hotmail account holders were routinely buried in a blizzard of junk–in part because new subscribers were automatically added to a public directory of e-mail addresses, making them easy pickings for spam harvesters. A massive “dictionary attack” on the site’s user base in August 2002 didn’t help matters. Later that year Microsoft finally began implementing serious antispam measures, but by then many subscribers had already had their fill of canned luncheon meat. 19. WebVan
The big daddy of dot bombs, WebVan ripped through $1.2 billion of investment capital before checking out for the final time in July 2001. The costs of building a national network of grocery distribution centers proved too great for the online grocer. It’s a classic example of a great idea without a viable business model. The only reason it’s not higher on our list is that its delivery service was actually pretty good, while it lasted.
18. Beenz.com and Flooz.com (tie)
These ambitious schemes to float a Web-based e-currency both sank like a rock in August 2001. The sites hoped wary Netizens would rather trade credits for goods online than use credit cards, but consumers said No Sale. The biggest difference between the two? Flooz featured Whoopi Goldberg as spokesperson. Her career hasn’t been the same since, either. 17. Boo.com
This symbol of dot-com excess burned through cash so fast you’d think its executives worked for the federal government. The fashion retail site featured a 3D avatar named Miss Boo, but the real stars of Boo were its founders, who spent money like it was going out of style–$120 million in six months on lavish apartments and expensive gifts, as well as a site that was too unwieldy for the largely dial-up world of 2000. Amazingly, Boo.com is scheduled for a comeback later this year under new owners. Be afraid, be very afraid.
16. Microsoft Windows Update
Microsoft could have escaped our notice if we didn’t have to visit this cryptic and difficult-to-use site so often. It’s the only reason to ever use Internet Explorer–and then simply because Microsoft’s update site won’t work with any other browser. But it’s not reason enough. 15. Neuticles.com
Are your pets embarrassed about being neutered? Their four-legged friends need never know, thanks to Neuticles–implants that restore the look if not the function of their recently removed body parts. In an especially nice touch, the site opens with a flash animation of a bouncing ball (naturally). Yes, these cosmetic cojones are no joke; prices start at $73 a pair. Not to be confused with BumperNuts, which provide a similar service for your car.
14. BidForSurgery.com
Sadly, this site is exactly what it says it is. Think Priceline for face-lifts and tummy tucks. No, we are not joking. 13. Whitehouse.com
Not the virtual home of our president–that’s Whitehouse.gov–Whitehouse.com began life during the Clinton era as a site devoted to political discourse. In September 1998 it helped distribute the Starr Report, but by then it had also become the most notoriously named porn site on the Web–featuring, among other things, a White House Intern of the Month. Today the site hosts a white-pages listing.
12. The Dancing Baby
Both strangely amusing and deeply disturbing, the famous dancing toddler boogied its way across the Internet and into the spotlight, appearing on both Ally McBeal and a Blockbuster video commercial during the mid-nineties. There are now dozens of variations on thousands of sites. If you’re looking for the parties responsible for giving birth to this phenomenon, blame its parents at Burning Pixel Productions. 11. Rabies for Kids
Here’s what happens when good intentions meet really bad design. Published by the Viral and Rickettsial Zoonoses Branch of the Centers for Disease Control, the Rabies for Kids site is an orgy of graphical offal. You’ll be foaming at the mouth long before you reach the “Activities” section, which features a photo of a dog’s brain being sliced with a scalpel.
10. MyLackey.com
This Seattle-based site offered to walk your dog, pick up your dry cleaning, and do all other manner of scut jobs for a fee. (Isn’t that what kids and younger siblings are for?) The dot com contracted with local service providers for the dirty work, but apparently applied the “lackey” notion to its own employees as well. An infamous memo from cofounder Brendon Barnicle berated the company’s 65 employees for not putting in 11-hour days, making MyLackey a symbol of the dot-com work ethic. Sixteen months after it began, the last lackey still standing closed the doors and shut off the lights. 9. Hamsterdance.com
Quite possibly the most irritating site on earth. Earplugs recommended.
8. BonziBuddy
This animated purple gibbon called itself “your best friend on the Internet,” but many who downloaded this free program weren’t feeling too friendly afterward. Buddy could tell jokes, recite your e-mail, manage your schedule, download files, and more. But the grape ape also tracked users’ surfing habits, hijacked home pages, and installed several of his adware buddies. Depending on your browser settings, merely visiting Bonzi’s Web site or clicking a banner ad could install Buddy on your machine. In 2002 annoyed Netizens had enough of this monkey business and sued Bonzi for deceptive advertising. By 2005 Buddy was history. 7. Pets.com
Who let this dog out? Back in the heady days of 1999 it must have seemed perfectly normal to spend $175 million making a sock puppet famous. But the notion of saving some coin on kibbles and kitty litter never caught on with consumers, and by November 2000 Pets.com had been euthanized–going from IPO to liquidation in just nine months. Before it got sent to the pound, however, the dot com filed suit against Triumph the Comic Insult Dog for allegedly defaming its moth-friendly mascot. Apparently, even sock puppets have feelings.
6. Pixelon.com
More dot con than dot com, this streaming media company boasted of a revolutionary new technology that would deliver high-quality audio and video over the Net. But Pixelon CEO and founder “Michael Fenne” was in reality a grifter named David Kim Stanley, who spent the majority of investors’ money–some $16 million–on a launch party in Las Vegas featuring Tony Bennett, KISS, and The Who. Prior to starting Pixelon, Stanley had pleaded guilty to swindling friends and neighbors out of $1.5 million; he was on the lam and living out of the back of his car when he founded the company. Pixelon’s revolutionary new streaming technology was equally spurious. 5. AllAdvantage
This site had the brilliant idea of paying people 50 cents an hour to surf and watch banner ads all day, plus another 10 cents per hour for every friend they convinced to sign up. All users had to do was install a “Viewbar” that displayed ads and clocked how much time they spent online. Stunningly, the company managed to raise $135 million in venture capital and convince 2 million users to sign up before it folded in February 2001. For some reason, advertisers failed to see any advantage in trying to reach the $4-a-day demographic. Go figure.
4. CD Universe
In December 1999 a Russian hacker named Maxim broke into the music retailer’s site, stole 350,000 credit card numbers, and then demanded $100,000 ransom. When CD Universe refused to pay, Maxim posted 25,000 of the numbers to a Web site. At the time CD Universe was owned by eUniverse, which combined its site and its customer database on an unprotected server. “Basically, they put the candy jar in plain sight and left the cover off,” says current CD Universe owner Chuck Beilman. “It was only a matter of time until someone stole the candy.” CD Universe’s customer database is now separate from the Web site, encrypted, and protected by a firewall. 3. Cartoonnetwok.com
No that’s not a typo; it’s “typosquatting,” where a site owner deliberately registers a misspelling of a popular domain in the hopes of attracting the actual site’s traffic. Cartoonnetwok was one of some 5500 deceptive domains owned by John Zuccarini, d/b/a/ “Cupcake Confidential.” But that wasn’t Zuccarini’s only nasty bit of business. FTC investigators visiting one of his sites found their screens filled with 29 new browser windows for instant credit, online psychics, gambling, and porn sites. When they hit the Back button, another 7 windows opened–a technique known as “mousetrapping.” Worse, many of Zuccarani’s typosquatting sites were aimed at children. In 2003 Zuccarini pleaded guilty to violating the Truth in Domain Names Act and was sentenced to 2.5 years in the federal pen.
2. CyberRebate
The phrase “the check’s in the mail” took on new meaning with this dot com. CyberRebate offered to refund 100 percent of what you paid for electronic goods, provided you a) paid up to 10 times their normal retail value, and b) let CyberRebate hold onto your money for at least 10 weeks. The site banked on people simply forgetting to apply for the refund. Unfortunately for CyberRebate, not enough of them did. The company filed for bankruptcy in May 2001 owing $60 million in refunds. Aggrieved customers had to settle for roughly 9 cents on the dollar. 1. MySpace.com
Yes, we know. With more than 90 million users, MySpace is now more popular than Elvis, “American Idol,” and ice cream. But the Web’s most visited destination is also its most poorly designed and counterproductive.The ease with which anyone of any age can create a page, upload photos, share deeply personal details of their lives, and make new “friends” quickly turned MySpace into a one-stop shopping mall for online predators. That in turn has made the site an easy target for politicians who pander for votes by playing on parental fears. In an era when the basic tenets of the Net are under attack by both Ma Bell and Uncle Sam, MySpace is a headache we don’t need.
2. But let’s put all that aside for a moment. Graphically, many MySpace pages look like a teenager’s bedroom after a tornado–a swirl of clashing backgrounds, boxes stacked inside other boxes, massive photos, and sonic disturbance. Try loading a few of those pages at once and watch what happens to your CPU. Watch out for spyware, too, since it turns out that MySpace has become a popular distribution vector for drive-by downloads and other exploits. And in a place where “U are soooooooo hot!!!” passes for wit, MySpace isn’t doing much to elevate the level of social discourse. In response to a public backlash and some well-publicized lawsuits, MySpace has begun modifying its policies–for example, limiting adults’ ability to contact minors. That’s hardly enough. Requiring some kind of authentication from MySpacers–or their parents–to validate their ages and identities would go a long way toward scaring off the creeps and making the site a kinder, gentler social network. Is MySpace totally bad? Not at all. Are we old farts? Yeah, probably. But the Web’s most popular site needs a serious security reboot. And probably a makeover. Until then, MySpace won’t ever be OurSpace. Taken from pc magazine
Lots O Love For Allen
June 22nd, 2007
adminAllen has taken a job at an undisclosed company in Moreno Valley.
