The Fearless Blogger » product reviews

I Think You Stink

faryl — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 06:45:42 +0000

I’ll admit it – I’m in a crappy mood.

Maybe it’s my meds. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe I’m just scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life, the way I feel when I’m with you - ooops! That’s Baby in Dirty Dancing, not me! Got a bit carried away there!

Whatever the reason (I’m sure if I spent another couple of minutes, I could list at least five more), I’m cranky and I’m irritated and am not about to take it out on my cats – and certainly not on you. (I love you! You know that! Right? OK – we’ll talk more bout that later – remind me!)

I’d say it’s possible I got up on the wrong side of the bed – only I still don’t have a friggin bed to sleep in, thanks to a combination of careless movers, poor timing, ADHD-procrastinated paperwork, and just overall shoddy customer service from Priority Moving.

So, I’m in the mood to vent. I’m wanting to share some of the frustration that the random dingbats and doody-heads (you heard me right!) are bringing into my life.

Still, I don’t want to turn my blog into a ranting bitch-fest.

What’s a girl to do?

If that girl is me, she creates another blog to house all her complaints and disappointments. (Or some of them, at least!)

She even convinces herself this is a positive thing – rather than sit and stew, she can get it all out there, off that DDD chest that already weighs her down. Plus, perhaps by publishing these atrocities, I (yeah, switching back to 1st person – I’m crazy that way) can contribute to the googlesphere – so that others don’t repeat the same mistakes.

If I can prevent one tourist from choosing the Mission Valley “Resort”, then it’s all worth it.

Well, not really – it still sucked.

But it does feel a bit therapeutic to publicly declare to each
Truly Nolan, Priority Moving, and The Mission Valley Resort:

I think you stink!!!

Use Bing – To “Google It”

faryl — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:41:29 +0000

Microsoft’s been promoting “Bing”, their latest incarnation of “Live Search“, pretty heavily. I’m not big on their claims that we’re all suffering a case of “search overload”, but the commercials are kind of clever in their patronizing way (< cue Sarah Palin impression> “Searching is hard!”).

But at the end of the day, Google still dominates. By a show of hands – How many of you typed “bing.com” into your browser to find out more about it? How many of you googled “bing” to find out what it was?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

via 901am | Bing Parody Ad.

Muziic: Free On-Demand Audio (that makes me feel like an underachiever)

faryl — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 10:31:43 +0000

Matt Rosoff at CNET.com just posted a review of Muziic, a free music streaming service with an extensive catalog of songs.

Two things about Muziic struck me as especially cool:

First: The music catalog? YouTube. That’s right – the video site. Muziic

makes extensive usage of the YouTube API to deliver rich audio-visual content, forming the web’s first ever “YouTube for Music”.

I think this is brilliant.

YouTube holds contracts with Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and EMI. (A noted exception is Warner Music, who recently removed YouTube videos containing their music after negotiations around licensing fees failed.) Through the usage of Google’s YouTube Content ID Recognition System, artists are paid royalties based on the number of plays their song receives. “Because of YouTube’s contracts with the record labels, satisfaction can be reached for our listeners and the artists themselves,” stated David Nelson, Muziic’s CTO and Co-Founder.

David, by the way, is the second cool thing about Muziic. The free and legal music service is developed by self-described best friends Mark Nelson and David Nelson, who happen to be father and son.

Mark and David are more than just a father-son team who work well together though. David is only fifteen years old, making Mark Zuckerberg look like Larry King.

I thought having a part time job at a local veterinarian’s office, while playing the dual roles of Nana and the Crocodile in my high school’s production of Peter Pan was sufficiently ambitious for a student.

In my defense, we still took typing class when I was in high school and fax machines were “bleeding edge” technology. They may have just started using photocopiers more frequently in lieu of those fun-to-sniff “ditto machines”. Hard to hatch a start-up when the word “snail mail” had yet to be coined, I guess. (And yes, Nana was the dog. Hey, at least I was part of the cast!)

But enough about me – back to Muziic!

To read more about how Muziic works and see it in action, visit the site.
For a full review, you can read Matt’s CNET article here: More free on-demand audio with Muziic | Digital Noise: Music and Tech – CNET News.

Muziic Player offers all the features you've grown familiar with in other popular media players, including full playlist management, player skins, playback and volume controls.

(Random side note: The purple color most commonly used for dittos is called “mauveine” or “aniline purple”. Like Muziic, a teenager was responsible for its development as well – although William Henry Perkin was already an elderly 18-year old at the time!)

Play Games, Save Kitties (and puppies too!)

faryl — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:17:33 +0000

Earlier this year, I wrote about GiantCrayon’s newest iPhone game, ShiveringKittens. The Tetris-like game challenges you to rescue cute little kittens by breaking them free from blocks of ice.

A couple of things have happened since writing the review, the first of which prompted this post:

GiantCrayon Games today announced it will partner with the ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) to raise money for animals through a first-of-its-kind promotion during March and April 2009. This is the first time an iPhone game has been used as lynchpin of a fundraising campaign.

“I’m so excited to be working with the ASPCA,” said Tim Goggin, GiantCrayon Games’s VP. “We’re really keen to pioneer such a different way of fundraising. And most importantly, I value the wonderful work the ASPCA does rescuing animals, so I’m really thrilled to find a way to help such a great organization.”

As you may already know, I’m not a fan of “the math”.
But this kind of addition, I like
kitties + iphone + game + charity =
a whole bunch of awesome coolness!

The other thing that’s happened since writing the review

My handsome sweetie has developed a bit of an addiction to the game. Frankly, I’ve started to wonder if he looks forward to seeing me, or if he’s actually just counting the minutes ’till he can get his hands on my iPhone. So, consider that an endorsement for Shivering Kitties. Also consider that a plea to those in the SoCal area: If you buy the game, can you please invite my fella over so I can get my iPhone back?

For more details about the game, you can read my original review.

What are you waiting for?

Buy your copy today! ShiveringKittens is available now for iPhone and iPod Touch on the iTunes App Store for $2.99. For every copy sold during the months of March & April, $1 will be donated to the ASPCA by GiantCrayon. (Read full press release.)

No iPhone? Why not buy it as a gift for the iPhone lover in your life, or help spread the word about the fundraiser to others!

Get Shivering Kittens here

disclosure(s): Links to the iTunes store are affiliate links.
I’ve been in a couple of commercials for Giant Crayon and know the folks over there pretty well.
That said, I do think it’s a fun game, purchased my own copy and this was not a sponsored post!

New Social Ad Format at Mashable: Twitter Brand Sponsors

faryl — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:05:34 +0000

Today, Mashable implemented a new approach to social media advertising.

The social media site now features a Twitter Brand Sponsors module – a “widget” that syndicates the latest tweets from sponsoring brands (and one charity).

From Mashable’s announcement:

The Twitter Brand Sponsors module is our first trial of a new breed of engagement-based sponsorships. We like to call them sociable ads.

Social media is opening up a dialogue between brands and the web community. This is better for brands: it creates passionate, engaged customers who share their good experiences with the world. It’s better for the community, too: we get the opportunity to speak directly to the companies that create the products and services we use.

What about ads? Could they be more sociable as well?

My Two Cents

Personally I love this idea for non-obtrusively using Twitter as an advertising medium and revenue stream.

The most recent in a number of site improvements, the module is part of Mashable’s “Social Media Makeover” and speaks to the site’s goal to “reduce the number of ads on the site, but increase the relevance of those ads.” Site founder Pete Cashmore shared in the comments:

Making sponsorships better and more engaging is a tough challenge: as I said when we launched the redesign, we want to reach a point where readers like our ads and engage with them…that way everyone wins.

Everyone Wins

“Everyone wins” is an apt statement. The site’s redesign has prompted some innovative improvements by its partners – improvements that will soon be available to readers to implement on their own sites.

Yesterday, Mashable announced a partnership with popular commenting platform Disqus and new conversation tracker UberVU to bring its readers integrated Social Media Comments. The new features will be available for all Disqus users once it enters general release.

Before that, a Mashable post inspired Dan Zarella to develop the popular TweetBacks and TweetSuite now used by many bloggers. It’s worth noting that Dan is also the developer of the Twitter Brand Sponsors module (kudos to Dan for another successful innovation!).

Read more and share your comments at Twitter Brand Sponsors: Mashable’s New Sociable Ad Format.

Sitetweet: Your behaviors on sites may be shown on Twitter

faryl — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:38:37 +0000

After seeing a tweet about sitetweet.net, I headed over to the site to see what it was all about:

sitetweet allows webmasters to post immediate messages on Twitter about specific behaviors on their site. Usually installed on strategic pages, you can configure sitetweet to send a special message when a user performs a certain action on your site. You can use Twitter’s options for private posts in case you want to control who follows your login.

Some interesting uses:

receive details on goal completions;

register specific searches;

receive notifications from vistors from specific sources.

My initial thoughts

Without seeing sitetweet in action, my immediate reaction was: Depending on implementation, this seems like a potential invasion of visitors’ privacy – what if a visitor doesn’t want you tweeting about their activities on your site?

Giving it a second thought, one would have to provide some sort of login or other information at a site for the tool to be able to send an identifying tweet. Assuming the visitor had the opportunity to decline the tweet, any privacy issues would be avoided. Additionally, if the tweet referred to the action, not the user (e.g., “Someone just commented on a post” or “We just received a $10 donation!”), visitor privacy becomes less of a concern.

Testing it out

Since sitetweet just released a WordPress plugin, I figured I’d give it a look-see and registered for the site. A downside to the registration process is the requirement to provide your twitter login/password – a prevalent and somewhat necessary evil for third party twitter apps, given the constraints of Twitter’s API.

Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that the registration process included the options to post an intro tweet via my Twitter account and follow sitetweet selected as the the default:

reminder: always read what you're agreeing to!

I figured it out fairly quickly when “I” tweeted the following:

faryl: Now using sitetweet – http://sitetweet.net/twitter ! My users’ behaviors on my site will now be shown on my twitter account.

Am I tweeting your “behaviors” here?

In a word: no.

Although I can see sitetweet’s value for some website owners, I couldn’t think of a compelling reason that this would be a “must have” for the Fearless Blogger. Part of my hesitance is that yesterday’s site outtage has me a bit gun-shy about installing gratuitous plugins.

To be candid, I was also turned off by the intro tweet as well. Granted, I had the option of opting out – overlooking it was my mistake. Rarely do I find sites that share my belief that any non-required options (e.g., mailing list registration, newsletter sign-up) should be left unchecked as the default.

The decision factor

It’s not so much that the tweet was sent – it was what it said. Before I’d had an opportunity to evaluate the plugin, readers received a message that their behaviors on my site will tracked and shared. Even if I were to delete the tweet, that information remains online and will be included in search results.

I value my readers’ privacy and comfort levels. Tantamount to that is earning and maintaining your trust.

Let me be clear – I’m not suggesting that using sitetweet does infringe on visitor privacy. Nor should this be considered a negative review. Sitetweet is an innovative service and I could see where certain sites could find some fun ways to implement it. I was probably less inclined to explore potential uses here after being a bit soured by the tweet. On first glance, it just didn’t jump out at me as something that would enhance or add value to reader’s experience here.

And at the end of the day, it’s not the bells and whistles that convince me to add a feature to my site: it’s you.

Your turn

What are some creative uses you can think of for sitetweet’s service?
Do you have concerns about visiting sites that might use similar services to gather & share information about you?

MOO MiniCard Give-Away Winner!

faryl — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:17:36 +0000

Congratulations to Melodie Tao
for winning the
MOO MiniCard give-away!!!

Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter.
Keep your eyes peeled for more give-aways in the future!

Still want MOO cards?
Save 20% off your first purchase!
promo code: NU6ZSP
(valid until January 31st).

Chat Catcher: Bring Twitter to Your Blog

faryl — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:14:17 +0000

In the past couple of weeks a number of WordPress plugins have been surfacing to search and “collect” tweets which include blog links so that they can be displayed with the corresponding blog post.

I’m a big fan of anything that helps consolidate the conversation and give a blogger visibility to any response/reaction to what they write. I’ve been looking at the various Twitter/WordPress tools, both to find the best to include here as well as to write a review of what’s out there.

I’ve not yet played with them all, but regardless of what’s out there, I’m thinking (hoping) my search is over.

If all goes well, I’m sticking with Chat Catcher.

My decision has nothing to do with bells and whistles – it boils down to one word:

SERVICE

Chat Catcher scans Twitter for references to your blog posts. When someone links to your blog, that tweet will be posted to your blog’s comments.

Since the fisrt night I installed the alpha version of the script, its developer (Shannon Whitley, who also created My Tweeple) has been incredibly responsive to my questions and suggestions. A fair expectation for any product perhaps – yet one that is often (understandably) not met when scripts are developed by moonlighting developers who are sharing their plugins and scripts for free.

It’s Shannon’s proactive follow-up that has impressed me. Part of Chat Catcher’s set up involves registering your blog. Shannon has sent me email alerts any time my blog showed an error. These emails are not auto-generated alerts – Shannon included his suggestions on how to fix the issue and offered assistance (keep in mind the script is in beta, so a few errors are par for the course). Shannon also communicates any recent improvements he’s made to the script and instructions on how to implement them.

Being a needy gal with a fondness for attention, this developer is my kind of guy.

Shannon has just released a WordPress plugin for the service. Setup is extremely simple: register your blog, install the plugin, tweak as desired and you’re ready to go. Options include having tweets appear as trackbacks or comments, excluding specific senders (e.g., your own tweets or any spammers) and the ability to submit the comments as administrator (choosing not to allows for additional comment moderation).

Worth mentioning

The service works with any type of blog.
It will process links on Twitter from any url shortening service (tinyurl.com, bit.ly, is.gd, twurl, etc.).
The name does not start with “Tw”. Since Shannon made a point of mentioning that in his blog post, my hope is this means he has plans to expand the service beyond Twitter.
Chat Catch also has an RSS look up service – handy if you want to capture tweets about your blog posts and share them in your sidebar.
You do not need to provide any log on or password information for Chat Catcher to function.
Shannon has a couple of new features in the works – stay tuned!

I have the plugin installed now. To see it in action/help me test it, tweet a link to this post (you can use the shortened url: http://bitly.com/chatcatch) and check back to see your tweet in the comments.

For more information, visit the site at chatcatcher.com.

The Fearless Blogger » product reviews

I Think You Stink

other posts you might enjoy

Use Bing – To “Google It”

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Muziic: Free On-Demand Audio (that makes me feel like an underachiever)

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Play Games, Save Kitties (and puppies too!)

The other thing that’s happened since writing the review

What are you waiting for?

similar posts you might enjoy

New Social Ad Format at Mashable: Twitter Brand Sponsors

Today, Mashable implemented a new approach to social media advertising.

My Two Cents

Everyone Wins

similar posts you might enjoy

Sitetweet: Your behaviors on sites may be shown on Twitter

My initial thoughts

Testing it out

Am I tweeting your “behaviors” here?

The decision factor

Your turn

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MOO MiniCard Give-Away Winner!

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Chat Catcher: Bring Twitter to Your Blog

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