MyPantyStore.com Launches a Social Network for Panty Lovers?
Future webmasters, I urge you, please think logically before jumping into a web venture based on what’s popular for any business.
I understand, all the rage is social networking, and the current times and future have much room for more niche networks… but a place for panty lovers? Granted, it may get some traffic (depending on how provocative its pictures are), but what are they thinking?
Maybe I’m wrong and they are right, but this is just laughable. And creepy. Very, very, very creepy.
Hogs get Fatter, Pliggs get Slaughtered
Just a week after the Digg clone script company, Pligg, announced it was up for sale, VideoSift, which claims claimed to be the biggest website currently not currently using Pligg’s software, informed Pligg by email that it has developed its own software and would not longer need Pliggs services. Ouch.
Here is the aforementioned email:
Pligg is a good general CMS, but there were a few considerations for moving off:
We started VideoSift shortly after Pligg was ported from the Spanish language Digg clone Meneame.net written by a talented Spanish coder, Ricardo Galli. ( http://meneame.net/) Pligg has gone through a lot of revisions and changes since then - and we haven’t moved with them.
About 2 months ago, there was a serious security breach at VideoSift (and other Pligg based sites) that compromised part of our DB. The breach was based on a simple hack that would have been found by analyzing the Pligg source. Although the Pligg community was quick to respond and patch the problem- This pushed us farther down the road to closed source.
And lastly, although we were well on our way to writing our new software, we have some misgivings about the pending sale of Pligg. Pligg is licensed under the Aferro GPL which is pretty strict about the re-sell of code.
The new VideoSift has been rebuilt from the ground up to work well around video aggregation. Our community loves it, and we can’t wait to launch it this Friday.
Thanks and cheers,
Brian Houston
VideoSift
Sydney, Australia
Terrible news for the Pligg sale. Despite some obvious weakness, like the security glitch a few months back, Pligg is a great script, and I wish the developers well in their endeavors in selling.
Report: Facebook Costs Australia Businesses $4 Billion in Lost Productivity
I’m always skeptical of statistics involving the loss of productivity and how much money businesses lose as a result of events, like every March when you hear that businesses lose $999 trillion billion zillion dollars during the first two days of the NCAA basketball tournament. But this one is interesting (although full of holes).
The study estimates that Australian employees spend 1 hour of time per day online. It guessed that at least one employee from the 800,000 Aussie business was an avid Facebook user, spending about 1 hour per day on the site. However, the study failed to realize the basics; that there are only about 240,000 Facebook members residing in Australia. I guess we can thus deduce that somewhere around $1.4 billion is lost per year. (Based on their formula).
Who knows.
Check Point Security Software’s New Logo
Now, I may not be one to talk, because I don’t even have a logo for this site, but no logo at all is surely better than the one Check Point security software has come up with. The CEO of Check Point reportedly allowed his 6 year old daughter to come up with a logo for the company, and this is the result.
Notice to Investors: if you have any money whatsoever in this company, pull it out now! If the CEO is making poor basic decisions like this, how is he going to operate in the future, when he must make a multi million dollar decision.
Before anyone says "It’s just a logo", please realize, it is more than a logo, it is a corporate brand, and if all I had at my disposal were logos of companies when attempting to figure out which company to go with, I would vomit as I passed this logo by. But like they say, any publicity is good publicity, so here are your 15 minutes Check Point. Use them wisely.
USA Today Social Network Failing
If you are a major player in any facet of the media (either network or cable TV, or the print media), please heed to my advice:
DON’T ATTEMPT SOCIAL NETWORKING!
It’s simply a recipe for disaster. If we have learned anything from the NBC’s poor attempt at a social network aimed at comical videos, AOL and Netscape’s attempt compete with Digg, and the various other giants who have attempted to compete with the Web 2.0 successors, it’s that they don’t work, plain and simple.
The USAToday launched what they considered a social network for news, and since that time they have had a 29% drop off in unique visitors (from 14 million to 10 million) per month. Obviously, this is not a direct result from the newly created website, but the site obviously didn’t help business at all. Sometimes companies need to realize they have a certain audience for a certain reason, and any changes may lead to the business’ demise.
THe USAToday will rebound, but it’s going to be difficult to compete with the NetVibes of the web.
Bolt.com Going out of Business - Files for Bankruptcy
This one has been a couple weeks coming… Bolt.com has officially announced it is ceasing operations. After copyright lawsuit debts amounting to $10 million, and the news on August 1st that GoFish.com was not longer in the hunt for Bolt, it’s over.
I’m just not understanding the economics behind this one. If anyone has any financial states, I would love to see them. I don’t put much faith in silly website rankings, but there’s no joking around with a Compete rank of 112. I’m assuming the copyright lawsuits also included cease and desist judgment for much of the content on the site. But still, with all the money being thrown around right now, it seems as if someone could’ve turned such a high trafficked site down a new path. Oh well, I guess that’s just more traffic that has now become available for the rest of us, right? :-\
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has his Day in Court Against ConnectU
This is a story I had heard about two years ago from a Harvard grad I am friends with (who also mentioned Mark Zuckerberg was one of the biggest pricks on campus (WAS one, not HAS one).
Apparently, Zuckerberg was hired to develop some coding for the similar college start up, ConnectU.com. Shortly after his term of employment with ConnectU, Zuckerberg had thousands of fellow Harvard students signed up for his very own website, TheFaceBook.com. The choppy story I heard two years ago was that two brothers were the main investors/creators of ConnectU, both of whom are heirs to quite a large family fortune, so basically they were dragging the lawsuit out as long as possible, in hopes that Facebook would gain national notoriety. Well, it has, and now Zuckerberg is going to have to pay.
I would think there would be some type of settlement in the near future, but if anyone were to refute such an attempt, it would Zuckerberg. The timing of everything is too sketchy for this not to work in the favor of ConnectU. However, I can’t help but call ConnectU out as a bunch of morons for not taking advantage of the publicity they are getting. Their Alexa ranking has jumped this week since the news of the settlement, yet when I go to the University of Miami’s page on the website (where I happen to be studying Law), it brings up a database error. Talk about a wasted opportunity!
Xuqa Switches its Name to Peanut Labs
Xuqa, known for virtual worlds, forums, and other various social networks, has decided to change its name and focus more on quizzes and other third party content that will appear on more popular social networks.
The only question that remains is "could they have made their logo look any more like a penis?"