Filed under: Home Entertainment

Apparently TiVo sent around an email notifying its loyal overpaying customers that it's shutting down the TiVo Rewards program on May 28th of this year. This won't matter to the vast majority of TIVo customers, no no, this decision only screws the company's staunchest word-of-mouth advocates. You know the kind, the alpha geeks obsessed enough with the company's products to others spend their time zealously recommending it to friends and family in the hopes of spreading the premium DVR experience (and earning some points while they're at it). Shutting down the program is one thing, but expecting the most loyal segment of TiVo's cutomer-base to turn in their points before the next series of hardware comes out is beyond lame and decidedly un-TiVo.

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

---

What it does

Want your web app to look brighter, slicker, and more attractive? Check out GlassBox. This Javascript library allows you to create outstanding effects for any of your web projects. You’ve got transparent borders, shiny skins, fades and drags, and more. Besides that, GlassBox is designed fore ease of use; it’s customizable; it comes with a fully operable and coherent API with documentation; it works on multiple browsers; and it’s open source. You’d think you were working with Flash. GlassBox works with Prototype and Script.aculo.us. It’s licensed under MIT. You can see it at work on the site itself. Have a look yourself.

In their own words

“Create Clear and Colorful Web Applications

GlassBox is a compact Javascript User Interface (UI) library, which use Prototype and Script.aculo.us for some effects. With GlassBox you can build transparent border, colorful layouts and "Flash-like" effects.”

Why it might be a killer

This lets you create Flash like effects without Flash. It looks good. It’s a lightweight download that will make your site shine.

Some questions

Is this going to be monetized in any way? How effective is it?

Updates


 » original news

What it does

The internet has seen quite a few incarnations of health related sites which claim to revolutionize the way patients and doctors interact. These portals tend to be quite similar and they also tend to affix a social community on the side, as a means of support and encouragement. CareSeek, however, takes a different approach. It tackles the subject of doctor recommendations—find the best doctor for your needs-through nurses and other health care providers. Health care providers, after all get an inside view of the medical industry, they know how a doctor performs, their patient rapport, their level of professionalism. Thus CareSeek employs those in the medical field to give recommendations of doctors they know. Doctors are notified if they’ve been reviewed; they can clarify details and voice their own opinions. The site also hosts a community forum.

In their own words

“Most of us start by asking a friend or family member. If we’re lucky, we know a nurse or other health professional that has some real insight into how their colleagues deliver care.



When nurses and staff see a doctor with a broad spectrum of patients they become experts on that doctor’s bedside manner and clinical competence. Plus these nurses and medical professionals also are patients themselves, so when they rate and review a doctor, you’re getting great advice.



If you have personally cared for others or undergone treatment, you also have valuable recommendations and we want to hear from YOU.”

Why it might be a killer

CareSeek looks to those who know best to recommend doctors. This goes straight to the heart of the matter. Users are easily able to find out about doctors and how patient friendly they really are.

Some questions

What’s to stop user from posting disparaging remarks, especially if they’re not warranted? This does seem to involve too much subjectivity—a doctor’s reputation is on the line here—how are reviews vetted?

Updates


 » original news

…well, maybe.  It seems like every time we hold a daily poll, and one of the options in the poll is a subsidiary of Google, that option always seems to win.  I’m not invoking Ron Paulism or anything, I’m just saying.

Actually, it’s not an unfair conclusion to draw. We asked the question today, now that YouTube seems to have declared that they’ll be entering the arena of live video ala UStream sometime this year: who do you think is going to end up being the eventual dominant force?

We’ve graphed the numbers, and overwhelmingly you feel that the current slew of competitors out there are going to be slaughtered.

Anyone who reads this blog for any period of time will draw the not altogether incorrect assumption that I’m a little bit of a UStream fanboy.  For reasons stated the other day in a comment I posted to this story, they made a very good impression on me very early on, and I’ve got a bit of early adopter loyalty to the company (in much the same way you have Twitter loyalty - don’t judge me!).

Before I get too far into my own conclusions, I’m going to toss the mike over to the commenters, who had some interesting observations. Cramp had this to say:

There is an elephant in the room!

The only upside for these other poor companies is to hope that Youtube buy them to shortcut dev time. Otherwise they’ll end up the same as companies like Revver, Dailymotion, Stage6 etc. Lot’s of bandwidth bills and no ad revenue.

A very salient point, and it’s an elephant in the room not just for the live video services, but for YouTube itself, which is only around because of the money printing press that Google has in their basement. Internet Man of WebSiteMagazine agreed, and reiterated just how huge Google and YouTube are:

I’m going to have to say YouTube, as much as it pains me. Until another service unseats YouTube as a WHOLE, they will take the market share. Just like “Googling” has entered the English dictionary, people “YouTube” videos when they are looking for something.

That seemed to be the common stream of thought in the comments as well, except for Mike of TechTicker:

UStream has managed to do a pretty good job. Their video quality leaves some to be desired at times, but they have substantially better uptime to Yahoo and have held up in some high use scenarios like the UN Climate Change Conference.

As far as I’m concerned they’re the leaders in the field right now.

I tend to agree with them, based off their metrics as well as their proactive role they’ve taken in promoting what they do. UStream is the leader as of now.  I rather dread, though, the sheer onslaught that a powerhouse like YouTube will bring to the marketplace, once they decide to do this.

There’s also another aspect to this that people aren’t considering (and I’m sure someone over at YouTube is thinking about this, but so far no pundits have really picked up on it).  Live video takes up ten tons more bandwidth than non-live.  By opening up that sort of video to the general YouTubing masses, they’ll be seeing a huge increase in the amount of resources they’ll need to devote to the system.

I’m sure that Google can probably still afford this, even after the significant market cap hit they’ve taken the last couple of weeks, but how long can they continue to sustain that level of expense in the face of a very limited ability to monetize their inventory.  This is a situation where the smaller and more nimble companies will likely have a better chance at profitability.  It doesn’t matter who you are, Mogulus, Justin, Ustream or YouTube - you’re going to have unsold inventory at this point.  The one that is best set up to sell ads on that inventory without busting the bank paying for bandwidth will be the winner.

ShareThis

What it does

Spring vacation is coming up, which means it’s time to start booking flights and planning trips. With the cost of flights rising, you want to find something affordable, something cheap. SkyScanner will help you do just that. This search engine gives you flexibility and finds the most reasonable prices. The interface provides options for worldwide and local flights, roundtrip and one way, and links to other travel deal sites. SkyScanner searches airlines and travel sites directly, meaning you do not have to input data each time a new page opens up. Besides that, SkyScanner offers mobile functionality. Users can search for flights from their cellular phones. Features are similar to those you’d find on any airline booking site—you type in the airport code or city of destination and origin, select the number of adults and/children and select your dates. It’s that simple, there’s nothing more to it.

In their own words

“Skyscanner is a search engine technology company

Started by three founders in 2001, we are a small company based in Edinburgh with a big ambition to become the number one, online resource for travel information.

What makes Skyscanner different?

• We aim to show you as many prices as we can

• We aim to allow you to browse these prices easily and flexibly

• If we don't have the price for a particular airline, we make that clear so you can see all other options

• When we link you to an airline or travel agent site, we aim to transfer all the information already entered to save you time”

Why it might be a killer

SkyScanner is quick and effective. It saves time as you don’t have to fill in information each time you perform a search, and the interface is clear—it doesn’t suffer from an inundation of ads.

Some questions

SkyScanner does lack some features. You cannot opt for flexible dates or multiple stops. Unlike Kayak, results aren’t all displayed on one page. Navigation could be simpler.

Updates


 » original news

What it does

The problem with Last.fm’s ‘Similar Artists’ feature is that they are hardly ever similar to the artist you wanted to hear in the first time, in so as much as it frequently is the case that you may like artists that play very different genres and styles. Thus is why the launch of OwlMusicSearch.com is just a reason for celebration: this site allows you to search music using music. Let me explain myself a bit better: in the first place you need to register as a user in the site, and after that’s done, you use the site to choose one song in mp3 format from your music folder, use the media editing tool to select the part of the song you prefer, and then let the Music Owl find tunes that are similar to the part of the song you are in the mood to hear. You can preview –prehear, really— the songs and if that is what you were looking for, you go ahead and purchase it from the site, as you do from iTunes and similar sites.

In their own words

“Owl Music Search compares your favorite songs to thousands of others to find similar songs for you to listen to, enjoy, and purchase”.

Why it might be a killer

The reason why this site could become a killer startup is that it tackles a concrete need, which is to trace objective similarity, and not automated or user-defined, which is more readily available from similar audio sites, and prone to fail to produce interesting results. OwlMusicSearch.com really lets you find the kind of work you like, by using that very same music you like, without having to type in stuff, tag or really do anything other than select a song you like.

Some questions

Having only mp3’s to choose from seems a bit restricted in my opinion. What about other frequent (though hideous) formats, like the ever-present .wma? If users need to convert their files to an extension this site supports, it doesn’t make it too user-friendly, does it? How will they see to this issue?

Updates


 » original news

Not sure if you’ve heard of a site called SiteHoppin’ but the team behind it has just added a new feature, called Beer Credits (seemingly an attribute to the drunken stupor SiteHoppin’s team seems to always occupy). If you check out the site, you’ll see that SiteHoppin’ has taken an iPod shuffle approach to viewing sites from across the web. Actually, SiteHoppin’ works perfectly with your iPod Touch or iPhone, and this seems to be a primary consideration behind the design of the site.

While SiteHoppin’ seems kind of cartoony, the new beer credits system seemed at least somewhat worthy for a Friday, considering the rest of you are out partying and I’m home in front of my computer. Let’s start with a little background on SiteHoppin’.

The concept behind this site is to let you peruse all that the web has to offer, without clicking or even typing in keywords. You can sit back and enjoy the show, or choose a category and run with it. There are some interactive options, like tagging and discussions, and overall the site is a bit similar to others like Web Hot or Not. The new beer credit system lets you earn credits every time you go site “hoppin” and you can use these collected credits to in turn promote your web page on SiteHoppin.

Now, since these web sites play as a show, or sorts, they display in an iFrame. So at it’s most basic level, these Beer Credits are a form of advertising for those wishing to promote their sites. I’m not exactly sure how SiteHoppin’ plans on monetizing this system, but I’m positive it involves real beer. Watch the clip below to see the inner workings of SiteHoppin’.

Evil Masterplan - Gotta Pay That Rent! - video powered by Metacafe

ShareThis