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New Friendfeed Widgets Available

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Social activity aggregator FriendFeed has launched a new set of embeddable widgets, enabling blog owners to keep their readers informed of their every move.

Among the widgets: A FriendFeed Badge to show off the services you use and your recent FriendFeed activity; A FriendFeed Feed Widget that let’s you embed your feed or a room’s feed on your blog or Web site; And the FriendFeed Chicklet, the most compact way to link your site’s visitors to your FriendFeed.

Aside from getting your readers more involved with your activities, you can also share stores and conduct more customizations than ever before.

Access the new goodies here.

Originally posted on August 28, 2008 @ 9:18 am

Digg Dialogg: Vote Questions Up or Down

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The Democratic National Convention is underway, and so is a new product from Digg: Digg Dialogg.  This concept takes the ‘wisdom of crowds’ concept and applies it to interview questions.

Here’s how it works:

Digg will identify a guest interview

The community will submit questions (text or video)

The community will vote on which question should be asked

According to Digg, guests…

“will represent thought leaders and tastemakers across diverse topics including technology luminaries, environmentalists, entrepreneurs, musicians and filmmakers.”

Up first, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, August 27th.

Cool concept.  But what happens when the Digg community decides to get personal or ask the questions that no interviewer ever ask.  There’s a reason most interviews are generic.  Without censorship, the concept is beautiful.  Will Digg have the balls to let ALL questions stand.  And more importantly, will guests continue to make themselves available, knowing they can be subjected to some uncomfortable topics?

Either way, Digg is proving that they understand that evolving their business model is a must.

Originally posted on August 25, 2008 @ 1:01 pm

MapQuest Gets a Facelift

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A simplified homepage, designed to get users to the information they seek quicker, has been launched by MapQuest this morning.

Honestly, I’m such a devoted Google Maps user, that I don’t even remember what MQ used to look like.

The new landing page automatically populates a map with your location (according to IP address).  Enter an address for a map, or click the “get directions” button (which is grayed out by default) to get instructions on traveling from A to B.

The streamlined look allows users to get directions, gas prices, construction information and view live traffic cams – all from the homepage.

Below the fold you will find tools to customize your map.  You can plot out the city’s best burgers or locate the nearest coffee shop.

I don’t see myself ditching Google Maps, but I might cheat a little.  You won’t tell, right?

Originally posted on August 26, 2008 @ 10:18 am

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.

Originally posted on August 15, 2008 @ 11:56 am

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?

Originally posted on August 18, 2008 @ 3:15 pm