A New York City startup called Howcast is launching today that wants to be the YouTube of instructional videos. In fact, the three founders—Jason Liebman, Daniel Blackman and Sanjay Raman—are ex-Google employees who worked on Google Video and YouTube before they left eight months ago. They actually are going for a little more polish than YouTube, trying to bring some production values to the world of Web video.

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I haven’t really got much to post at the moment. As I have mentioned previously, I intend to up the quality of content on this site from basic commentary to essay-length posts. This post is a sneak-peak of a couple of technology reviews I will be doing in the coming weeks.

The sites I will be reviewing are WasabiTV.com.au and Tiinker.com. Both “Web 2.0″ type start-ups created here in Australia. I won’t go on  in detail at the moment but do check them out for yourself.

Stay tuned for the full-reviews in the coming weeks. They are great sites!

I read today that Co-founder of Topix, Rich Skrenta is looking at taking on Google with new search engine, Blekko. I discussed this with a few people at work today and the response seems to be very negative. The responses I got: “Sif!”…”As if anyone can compete with Google”. To be critical of yet another so-called competitor of Google, I believe, is rational. It’s been tried before and giants like Yahoo! and Live haven’t even managed it. So what is so good about Blekko?

Well, one of the problems I think Skrenta and his team are trying to fix is when you type in a word like “Kylie Minogue” you get many pages of results: images, news, scholar, books, et al. Not to mention the hundreds of pages of search results. I feel, Blekko is trying to achieve a more integrated Google. One page and summaries of what you actually need (want) to know. And apparently no PageRank algorithm.

I’m really excited to see what Blekko has in-store. I am, admittedly a Google-aholic but I am also open to better ways of doing things. For example, I am looking at making the move from iGoogle as my home page to PageFlakes as the latter looks and moves a lot better, whilst still being integrated with the likes of Gmail.

Apparently, Blekko will not be live until 2009. At the moment by going to the domain you get a picture of some cute, puppet-looking creature. I wonder how cute and fun Blekko is going to be…

Yaro yesterday posted a blog on his achievements for the year over at Entrepreneur’s Journey.

Some of the highlights:

- Attending the Strategic Profits event in Florida.

- Attending the World Internet Summit in Melbourne.

- Buying his first house and a new car.

- Selling BetterEdit.com for a low-six figure sum.

- Continuing to enlighten, inspire and teach me more about online business and the opportunities it provides.

If you would like to read the blog post, and I highly recommend you do, click here.

This post is the first of three posts Yaro intends to publish on this topic. So add his blog to your RSS reader so you don’t miss out on the others.

Over and out…

P

Lootist: Specialist-Guided Product Discovery

I was reading a post on EJ (Entrepreneur-Journey) the other day about a new start-up, Lootist.com. Lootist is gift shopping site with a twist. You have your Amazon’s and Epinions which, sure, offer you a huge range of goods at your finger tips but how does one find what they want when they don’t really know what they want?

Mike Sonders, the founder of Lootist says “In mid-2006, a couple of months after graduating with my MBA, I needed to buy a gift for my then-roommate for his birthday. He was (and is) a DJ, and I wanted to get him something really cool that he’d appreciate and enjoy… but I didn’t know the first thing about DJs or the stuff that they use”. This is how Lootist was born.

How it Works and How it is Different

I shall walk you through the steps of how I became a ‘specialist‘.

Signing-up is no big deal. I won’t bore you with the details of that. Once you’ve signed-up and activated your account (etc) you go to the ‘My Specialities’ tab. Here, you can select a category (e.g. Music), related words to this category (e.g. cd’s, alternative, hip-hop, downloads, etc) and a bit about what makes you a specialist in this particular category. You may be a musician, a record producer, an aficionado - as long as you can provide value, go ahead and make yourself a specialist.

Now you need to drag and drop the ‘Loot It‘ tab into your bookmark toolbar - I suggest Firefox. To add a product to your area of speciality you go to, say, Amazon, bring up the product page and just click the ‘Loot it’ button. This will activate a pop-up where you scribe some basic information in the fields provided and your done.

The competitive advantage of Lootist is its ability to help people that are not in the know to purchase specialist gifts. Ideal for mums and dads buying Christmas presents for picky offspring.

[I highly recommend checking the FAQ’s before you get started. It’s always handy to, when it comes to using a new site. Find the FAQ’s here.]

Conclusion

Well done to Mike on this achievement. It’s embraced the whole Web 2.0 movement (dare I go there) in that it creates an experience and value through user-interaction. With Loot you’re not being spoken down to by mathematical algorithms and Amazon, you’re following suggestions by people experienced in various categories. A create features is that you may be a ‘buyer’ looking for a gift for your music-minded cousin but you could well sign-up as a specialist in your favourite hobby. It goes both ways. Users become contributors!

I wish Mike the best of luck with Lootist. Also, if you find any bugs do send them through to him via email. He’s one easy guy to get in touch with! Thanks Mike!

It’s the silly season so it’s time to have a little fun. Oh, and it’s the season of sharing and love. Thus, I shall share with you all, something… I shall share my RSS subscription list. Isn’t that a kind gift?

Well, I don’t know about you but I love reading things like this. Peoples favourite books, music, RSS subscriptions (of course), restaurants, sock colour (?), etc.

Just to get started. I use Google Reader for all my RSS viewing. To be quite honest, I have never used any other similar tools so wouldn’t know if there are better viewers out there but use Reader simply because it’s a Google product (I love Google of course) and it ties in with all my iGoogle widgets. Now for the fun stuff:

At Ease - This is a Radiohead fan site. Probably the best of its kind on the web - in my opinion. Importantly, with a World Tour on the cards I have to keep up to date with the latest Radiohead news.

Ben Metcalfe - I forget how I found out about Ben Metcalfe. I don’t know much about him or his work either. I think he’s done some work with MySpace so thought he’d be an interesting chap to follow. He hasn’t added much new content of late - probably working hard at MySpace as presumed - so I will be patient with this one.

Branding Strategy Insider - Well, as a marketing major it sort of goes without saying why I am subscribed to this feed. Always interesting stuff on branding to be found here.

Carbon Planet - I love - or should that be <3 - Carbon Planet. Their purpose in society; their website; they blog; their people; they building - all mighty fine! David Sag, Carbon Planet’s CEO is always very interestingly read and covers the pressing issues. Very Australian focused but very relevant, globally.

College Startup - Always full of helpful stories for a budding blogger like myself. It has a nice for-students feel about it too, surprisingly.

EJ - Entrepreneurs-Journey by Yaro Starak is without doubt, one of the best Internet Business blogs/sites on the entire WWW. I must admit, his site has gotten a little commercial of late with stacks of ‘product reviews’ overtaking informative articles but they are starting to get interesting too as my knowledge and interest in the topic expand.

Gearfire - I have no idea what this blog is about from face value. I will keep you posted I guess. It must be on my list for a reason.

Official Google Blog - Australia - I don’t think I have to say much about this one. I think it would be foolish not to keep up with Google’s Australian focused news.

ifoApple Store - This is a news and information blog about Apple’s retail stores. Very much a narrow, underservied niche and I am sure one that could use just the one site - this one. It’s nice to be able to follow the development of cool Apple concept stores across the globe.

Internet Outsider - Another site I don’t know much about. I will have to keep an eye on it and see how it fares.

Naomi Simson - I have been following Naomi for a few years via BRW magazine in which she has featured a few times. Naomi runs Red Balloon Day, a highly successful gift/adventure/experience booking business. She’s very much a motivater and leader. I love this blog - she’s one experienced woman.

Official Google Blog - This is the worldwide Google blog and it’s more active than it’s Australian offspring. I read it for the aforementioned reasons.

Pajago - Well, as if I wouldn’t have my own blog on my RSS list. I do this primary to see how my posts look in Reader. Just to ensure they don’t go funky and all.

ProBlogger & ProBlogger Jobs - Only added these this morning. Can’t really say a lot yet.

Radiohead News - This is an auxiliary to At Ease - just incase one or the other crashes…

Ok, I am going to call this post 1 of 2. This post has turned out longer than I expected.

Stay tuned for part 2 which will be posted tomorrow during the week.

PJG

I do apologise for this not being new content. I haven’t had much time to tap away at the keys, you see. However, I have stumbled across a few really interesting sites and blog posts over the weekend and following, is one of them.

I found this post on a new blog I have subscribed to, Branding Strategy Insider:

What are the most powerful marketing words in the English language? Since the early 60’s researches in advertising and academia have presented various findings. All agree the power lies in ten to twelve words. Here are the results chronologically:

1961: You, Easy, Money, Save, Love, New, Discovery, Results, Proven, and Guarantee

Source: [Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), Nov. 1, 1963, p. 4; Lowell (Mass.) Sun, Nov. 4, 1963, p. 5; Northwest Arkansas Times, Nov. 7, 1963, p. 4; etc.]

1970: The 12 most persuasive words in the English language are: you, money, save, new, results, health, easy, safety, love, discovery, proven and guarantee. According to the claim of researchers in the Yale psychology department.

Source: [Fresno (Calif.) Bee Republican, Jan. 20, 1970, p. 7; Yuma (Ariz.) Daily Sun, Jan. 20, 1970, p. B6; Burlington (N.C.) Daily Times-News, Jan. 20, 1970, p. 6A; etc.]

Here’s an Associated Press item from January 1972, in which the list takes on significance by being quoted from the Canadian Consumer Magazine:

The Canadian Consumer Magazine quotes a research report saying that the 12 most persuasive words in the English language are: You, money save, new, results, health, easy, safety, love, discovery, proven and guarantee. Note that the three-letter word “sex”, didn’t make the top 12.

Source: [Gettysburg (Pa.) Times, Jan. 17, 1972, p. 9; Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, Jan. 31, 1972, p. 12; etc.]

Bill Gold repeated the list in his Washington Post column “The District Line” in July 1978.

In a recent issue, Trends reported that a study by experts had identified the 12 most persuasive words in the English language. They were listed as: “money, save, new, you, results, health, safety, easy, guarantee, discovery, proven and love.” Trends also mentions that public relations people and advertising copy writers are wondering how the study managed to overlook “free,” which along with “new,” was long considered one of “the best-selling words in the language.”

Source: [Washington Post, July 27, 1978, p.12]

Enjoy,

PJG

Prime Minister Helen Clark has entered the blogosphere, posting a rebuttal to The Press political reporter Colin Espiner’s On the House blog over her criticism of journalism standards.

Source: Stuff.co.nz

Bec and Lleyton Hewitt apparently have a stake in online venture, eSwap.com.au. I wonder how it goes for them.

Radiohead have announced a tour of the UK in 2008, playing large outdoor events. Dates confirmed so far are:

Victoria Park, London - June 24th and 25th
Glasgow Green - 27th
Lancashire County Cricket Ground, Manchester - 29th

More dates are expected to go on sale when these sell out.

Tickets will be on sale Friday 7th at 10am from our official box office at - this link -

Source: British Concerts