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Will Yahoo Buzz Bring YOUR Site Traffic?

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Since it’s launch in February, Yahoo! Buzz has really not created much, well, buzz.  Part of the problem was that only about 100 content creators were invited to submit stories, text and video.

Today, the doors are now open to everyone.  You can submit stories here.

Unlike Digg or the recently shuttered Thoof, there is editorial discretion, meaning you will likely have to get passed a human before gaming the system.  This will likely keep some Web site owners today. However, the lure of potentially being featured on Yahoo’s homepage, is the Golden Ticket that will keep bloggers rolling the dice.

If you’re not familiar with Yahoo! Buzz, here’s the scoop in their own words:

The best of the best – chosen by people like you.

* The buzz can be about anything – a great story on a major news site, an extraordinary bit from an obscure site, an intriguing video, or a fantastic blog that shouldn’t be missed.
* Instead of editors, people like you determine the top-rated stories.

How it works.

* First, we determine the most popular topics that people are searching for on Yahoo!.
* Then, we showcase the most popular stories within those topics, based on activities like voting and emailing stories to friends.
* Stories with most Buzz may be published on the Yahoo! home page – you can impact what millions will see on Yahoo!.

If you experience the Buzz Effect, we’d love to hear about it.

What Did You Look Like in the Past?

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Since so many people read Techcrunch, I’m not big on recycling content they bring to my attention.  However, YearbookYourself is an exception to the rule.

Talk about a good time!

Simply upload a straight on photo of yourself (or a friend), and you’ll be able to check out what they would have looked like through the years in a fictional high school yearbook photo.

You can enlarge/decrease the size of your face and rotate the photo until it looks like it belongs.  Go check it out!

To me, it’ll always be 1982!  ;-)  Which look should I stick with?

Fight Poverty With Blog Action Day

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Blog Action Day will be upon us before we know it. The annual nonprofit event looks to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters. This is accomplished by having a myriad of blogs post about the same issue on the same day. The goal being to “raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.”

Slated for October 15, and tacking poverty, their are currently 921 sites with an audience in excess of 2,357,595 readers. Expect this number to rise dramatically as the event nears.

How can you help? Here’s how…

The best thing a blog can do is to keep their post on topic. Audiences visit our blogs because they enjoy the style, personality and topic of the site. So it makes sense that the best way to get through to these audiences is to use that same style, personality and topic to talk about Poverty. For example:

* A Design Blog might analyzse a set of charity posters and how they convey their message.

* A Tech Blog might look at pro-poor technologies and projects.

* A Political Blog might examine the relevant agendas of leading candidates.

* A Sports Blog might look at recent charity activities of a major sports franchise.

What Can One Person Do?

Poverty is not only a pressing issue, it is a complex one. It’s easy to think that there isn’t much an individual can do. Fortunately this isn’t the case at all. With activities ranging from advocacy and professional contribution to charity and financing, there is in fact many ways that we can act.

The Splashpress gang is on board. Are you?


Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

AOL Purchases SocialThing!

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It’s official: After only five months in private beta, lifestreaming service SocialThing! has been acquired by AOL.

Look out FriendFeed.

You can expect SocialThing! to be integrated with Bebo, AIM, and other community properties.

Despite recent blog cuts due to “budget,” it seems AOL’s pockets are deep enough to buy new products, just not pay the content folks to keep it fresh.

The price tag has not yet been revealed.

What makes SocialThing! special is its “smart algorithm” that can figure out who you’re friends with, making the need to define a friend list unnecessary.

Yahoo’s Fire Eagle Goes Public

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Yahoo’s new geo-location platform, that gives developers the ability to include positional data in their applications sans headache, is now open to the public.  Dubbed Fire Eagle, the project was announced back in November ’07 and has already been adopted by Six Apart and LightPole.

What makes Fire Eagle neat is that users can syndicate their positional data to any partner service.  All you have to do is update from a supported device or Web site. Talk about taking stalking to a whole new level!

For example: send a geo-tagged photo to my favorite photo site and Fire Eagle will automatically update my current location on my blog and social network profiles.

Thankfully, users can disable the tracking anytime they like.

Playing hooky from work?  Fear not.  The system allows you to lie about your location as well.

Since existing Yahoo IDs can be used, many expect Fire Eagle to be well-embraced by developers. Take your location to the Web, painlessly.