Ergebnisse

It’s been a week full of surprises: Pownce closed pretty unexpectedly, while Twitter is still growing at an amazing rate. And a new trend finally has been turned into an API, or rather two APIs: Google as well as Facebook try to decentralize social networking and at the same time establish their own platforms as the central social hub. I am really looking forward to buddypress – in my opinion, “hosted” services are fine as additional traffic streams, but no online professional should put his main assets into third-party hands.

Google friend connect is opening

Last week, Google started the public beta phase for its new service friend connect: Basically, we’re talking about a social API here: there’s a unified login via Big G and Open ID. The implementation is simple, there’s a couple of ready-made widgets, but actually it’s all about the community now, who is expected to build their own apps. Is this going to be a threat for Facebook? The future will show.

…and Facebook launches Connect

The new service is FB’s version of a portable single-sign on. While OpenID is great in theory, I totally agree with Dan:

Truth be told, I’m a big fan of Facebook, and could easily see them getting this one just right. And apparently, I’m not the only one. In a recent press release, Facebook states that,

“two out of three new registrations at participating sites were generated through Facebook Connect during the testing phase.”

66%! Wow! And the sticky sweet Facebook goodness doesn’t stop at the registration page.

“users who logged in using Facebook Connect were 50 percent more likely to participate socially on a website than non-Facebook Connect users once logged in.”

Of course, a grand don’t come for free: he who bestows upon his website the powers of FB, grants them sole access to all the social data gathered. So the standard blog-commenting system without registration is here to stay for another while.

More Facebook news: embeddable videos

Embedding videos is not a big deal anymore – every major site offers this function. But Facebook takes the game to the next level by introducing friends-only embeddable videos, and the quality has improved as well:

The quality will be bumped up to 720p, which is technically the low end of HD. Coincidentally (or not), YouTube turned on an HD-quality option on Friday. [...] The key change, though, is that the videos will now be embeddable on other sites. [...] Just as on Facebook, you can determine exactly who can see any video you upload. Those privacy settings will be maintained across the Web.

Win tickets for Elite Retreat

There’s no doubt that Elite Retreat is a high-profile conference, and it’s always sold out quite quickly. And the tickets are not too cheap either, but here comes the good news: The friendly guys from Pepperjam are giving away not only free tickets, but also gives away hotel room and a free flight. To be eligible for the freebies, you’ll have to work hard though, as the rules are all about affiliate performance. [via Shoemoney]

Video of the week: A Chain Animation

1993 45 media artists did a chain-animation – most of them were using an Amiga. Max has uploaded this 21-minutes clip – looks pretty amazing:

Also recommended: Akira remodeled. Have you ever wondered, what the manga classic Akira would look life, if it had been produced for an American audience? Laughing Squid knows!

And that’s it for the week – have a great Sunday, enjoy your trips to the blogosphere. See you next week! And btw: don’t forget to clean your screen

Got any news you’d like to read about in my weekly round-up of current blogosphere events?
Don’t hesitate to contact me! Of course I’ll include a backlink to your original story.

So don’t hesitate – just click here for the contact form and give me an update on your issues: Give me input!.