Slate has launched “The People’s Inaugural Address,” a collaborative, interactive feature that lets users compose, edit and vote for the speech they would want President-Elect Barack Obama to give at his inauguration. Guided by a database of inaugural addresses from past presidents, users will be able to select favorite phrases from previous inaugural speeches and use their own words to create an ideal address.

Powered by cutting-edge technology from MixedInk, “The People’s Inaugural Address” is more than a wiki since it allows anyone to write, remix and rate speeches while synthesizing a variety of opinions to determine the most popular. Slate will feature the top-rated speeches, and visitors can search for other user-generated speeches by author or phrases.

Users can create, edit, remix and rate inaugural addresses now through January 16, when Slate will highlight the top-rated speeches and ask users to cast final votes for their favorite ones. On January 19, Slate will publish the top-rated address that is truly of, by, and for the people.

WhatAreKidsSaying.com, a new website for kids and teens, announced that it is going to pay the college tuition of the first three members of its website to reach 50,000 points.

Founded by University of Michigan graduate and former NFL Linebacker, Ian Gold, WhatAreKidsSaying.com offers kids and teens a platform to express their thoughts and opinions, without fear of judgment or criticism. Kids and teens can participate in a variety of creative writing contests. They will also be given their very own time capsule, where they may store personal writings, photos, and music, rediscovering their treasures for years to come.

Adding to a growing list of his “off the field” endeavors is NFL superstar Wide Receiver, Greg Jennings. The Green Bay Packer is the WhatAreKidsSaying.com National Spokesperson. Jennings, a self-proclaimed poet, is excited about the opportunity to begin encouraging kids and teens to let their voices be heard.

With just 15 days until a historic presidential inauguration, Amazon.com has launched the Inauguration Store. The store features everything customers need to get ready to attend the event, host an inauguration party or watch from home.

The Inauguration Store features a countdown to the event, along with a host of product ideas to help customers prepare. Those who are attending can find top cameras, outerwear and other items to stay warm and capture history at the event. For those watching from home, the store features the latest in home entertaining and Barack Obama-related souvenirs and memorabilia.

TheKnot.com closed the year end 2008 with its highest number of new registered members in the company’s history.

The Knot posted membership increases over the previous year of more than 40% for the second, third and fourth quarters of 2008 for an overall increase of 12 percent for the year. This is the highest number of new members on record for the company.

With a combined annual membership base of 1.9 million new registered members across their wedding brands, The Knot captures the names, email addresses and wedding dates of the vast majority of the 2.2 million couples getting married in the US. Despite the recent economic downturn, brides and grooms continue to plan for significant wedding, gifting and home-related purchases in 2009.

Pageviews for the site also increased 11% over 2007, while time spent on the site increased 13% over the prior year. These numbers demonstrate that, despite growing online competition the site continues to increase user engagement with this incredibly loyal user base. TheKnot.com maintains its position as the unparalleled leader in the online wedding category.

The company attributes this year’s success to its investment in new platforms and system upgrades, along with a strong increase in rich and interactive features, like enhanced video and new planning tools.

The Sports Network and Contec Innovations announced the upcoming availability of their new global mobile sports service in early 2009.

The new global mobile sports service provides unprecedented mobile access to all things sports. Covering more than 50 sports and hundreds of leagues and events from around the world, this initiative allows mobile users around anywhere to access up-to-date news, photos, results, statistics, live action and more.

Available via mobile Internet, SMS and MMS, the service has three distinctive audiences in mind at present: mobile operators seeking to enhance their sports offering, mobile service providers that wish to add new services to their portfolios and media companies/brands that sponsor mobile Sports content in their local markets or on a global basis.

A December 2008 survey by Harris Interactive of more than 2,000 U.S. adults reveals which pop culture celebrities and politicians Americans think would make the most appealing neighbors, and who isn’t welcome anywhere near the backyard.

US adults would most like to be neighbors with Sarah Palin (14%), followed closely by Oprah Winfrey (13%), according to the survey commissioned by real estate website Zillow.com. Retirees (26%) and residents in the South (19%) disproportionately favor Palin as the most desirable neighbor. Paparazzi magnets apparently don’t make the best neighbors, as only 2% of U.S. adults would like to be neighbors with David and Victoria “Posh” Beckham in the coming year.

It also seems age and gender play a prominent role in neighbor preferences:

• Among adult men, Sarah Palin is the most desired neighbor (17%), while 17% of adult women said that Oprah Winfrey was the most desired neighbor, ahead of Palin (12%).

• Among 18-34 year old men, Michael Phelps tops the list as the most desirable neighbor (17%). In comparison, only 9% of 18-34 year old women thought the gold medal Olympian would make a desirable neighbor.

• The gender gap reveals that among 45-54 year old women; 21% voted for Oprah, compared to only 6% of their male counterparts.

Britney Spears, the trouble-prone pop star, was voted the worst celebrity neighbor in 2008, according to one in five (19%) U.S. adults. However, Spears’ reputation has improved over the past 12 months. In 2007, 21% voted Britney the worst neighbor. Rosie O’Donnell was a close second in 2008, with 18% of the votes, compared to 14% in 2007. Rounding out the top 5 worst list is Joe the Plumber (8%) Lindsay Lohan (7%) and Adam “Pacman” Jones (6%).

VideoMD.com, a new website that focuses on physician-generated video health information, has reached a milestone of 2500 patient education videos. VideoMD.com would like to thank all of the physicians, health care providers, and institutions that have helped to contribute to this milestone.

“We are quickly building the most comprehensive library of health information videos on the web. All of our featured videos are reviewed by physicians for medical content. We want the health information consumer to know that our video library is up to date, and trustworthy. We have videos from your own trusted physicians, as well as some of the preeminent specialists in their field of medicine,” said Dean Heller, MD, President of VideoMD.com.

In addition to providing a portal for all health information consumers, VideoMD.com serves as home for physicians to better educate their own patients. Health care providers can post educational videos for their own patients on their individual page of VideoMD.com.

Priceline.com has released its 5th annual list of top destinations (or can be places to avoid for people who do not like the crowd) for ringing in the New Year.

For the 4th consecutive year, Las Vegas is once again the #1 destination for New Year’s revelers.

To compile its list, priceline.com looked at a sampling of more than 30,000 Name Your Own Price hotel room booking requests made by Priceline.com customers for the New Year’s holiday. Because the survey is based on actual booking requests, and not on consumer preference polls or votes, Priceline.com believes its annual survey is one of the more accurate predictors of New Year’s travel trends. Also, by focusing on hotels instead of airline tickets, the Priceline.com survey is able to include the travel intentions of consumers who will drive to their destination.

Priceline.com’s Top 50 New Year’s Eve Destinations

#1 Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity South
#2 New York City, Chelsea Area
#3 New York City, Times Square/Theater District
#4 New Orleans, Downtown/Convention Center
#5 Chicago, Millennium Park/Loop/Grant Park Area
#6 New York City, Empire State Building Area
#7 Orange County, Disneyland Area
#8 Orlando, Universal Studios/Sea World
#9 San Francisco, Union Square West/Nob Hill
#10 New Orleans, French Quarter More →

Amazon.com released its “Best of 2008” lists, which include the bestselling, most positively reviewed, most-wished-for and favorite gift products as determined by Amazon.com customers in 2008.

The following is a list of the bestselling products on Amazon.com in 2008 by total units sold:

• Books: “Breaking Dawn” by Stephenie Meyer (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)
• DVD: “Wall-E” (widescreen single-disc edition)
• Music: “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay
• Video Games: Nintendo Wii
• Software: Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007
• Electronics: Amazon Kindle
• Home & Garden: Oster 4207 electric wine opener
• Grocery: Senseo Douwe Egberts dark roast coffee pods
• Gourmet: Taste of Italy gift basket
• Health & Personal Care: Groom Mate Platinum XL nose and ear hair trimmer
• Beauty: Bare Escentuals bareMinerals SPF 15 foundation
• Toys: Wild Planet Hyper Dash
• Baby: Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube
• Apparel & Accessories: Levi’s men’s 501 pre-shrunk jeans
• Shoes and Handbags (Amazon.com and Endless.com): crocs Cayman sandal
• Jewelry: sterling silver open Double Flower pendant, 16″ – 18″
• Watches: Casio men’s Pathfinder multi-band solar atomic silver watch
• Sports & Outdoors: Razor A Kick scooter
• Home Improvement: First Alert CO600 plug-in carbon monoxide alarm
• Automotive: Accutire MS-4751WC digital programmable tire gauge with light

More →

MacMod announced that its new site with 5,000 community members will be launching this January 1, 2009.

“This is going to help us knock out the bugs before we go public,” said Co-founder Jacob Thomason. “It’s nice to be in the final stages of what has been a 2 year plan.” The site is repositioning itself as a Mac-only social network with lots of Mac-centric content.

In addition to having the largest library of modification guides and an active forum, the new features users can look forward to include:

State-of-the-art Profile System: Users can create an online profile, meet and befriend Mac users from around the world, leave wall comments, and share personal photos with the community.

The Big Blog: Unlike very large generic social sites MacMod has a niche to serve and this allows member blogs to be aggregated and served up in a real-time community wide blog called “The Big Blog.”

Groups: Meeting other Mac users on the new MacMod.com can happen in numerous ways, but one way to find like-minded people is to create or join groups where community members can participate in topical discussions.

Software Tools & Tutorials: MacMod is developing a large collection of software tools and tutorials for its users. These programs will specifically focus on customization and productivity. Tutorials will be published weekly to help users put those programs to use (e.g. how to rip & burn a DVD).

Activity Feed: Know what your MacMod friends are up to with a real-time activity feed that chronologically catalogs their actions on the site.

Applications: Members can install several applications to customize their profile including a Twitter Application. Several applications will be available at launch with more coming soon.