Crunchy Mustard

Merriam-Webster has chosen the ever popular phrase of exclamation, “Woot!” as their Word of the Year.

The word was chosen from a list of 20 including others such as “blamestorm,” “hypocrite,” and “quixotic” in an online survey. The words competing generally came from the mostly frequently searched terms on Merriam-Webster Online as well as their own Open Dictionary which operates like a wiki.

“Woot!” is known as part of l33t or elite speak, popularized by online gamer forums and geeks alike. Clearly, it’s no surprise “Woot!” came out on top in an online poll.

[Merriam-Webster Online, via WIRED.com]

From the geniuses at CollegeHumor (aka, the place I’ll be interning next week) comes: Internet Commenter Business Meeting.

PWWWWNEEEDDD!

Hello folks! You should feel a little extra special today, as you’re reading the words of a Connected Ventures intern! Connected Ventures is the company behind the brains of sites like Vimeo, College Humor, Busted Tees, and a few others. So, to show my appreciation in being able to work among the youngest, most innovative web geeks out there, I’m going to tell you a bit about Vimeo!

So, unless you’re a human-being who hasn’t been living for the past year, you certainly know of YouTube. You may also know that whenever you need to find that random clip from Southpark, or that really funny bit from Stephen Colbert (hey, I like Comedy Central) you know to search for it on YouTube.

Vimeo’s a bit different. This video community focuses on the more personal edge of video-uploading. Here’s their pitch:

Use Vimeo to exchange videos with only the people you want to. We have a bunch of different privacy options so you can choose exactly who can see your videos, and others can do the same. When you join Vimeo, this page becomes your homepage and will fill up with your videos (and the videos you love).

The site is definitely a lot more private than YouTube, and it fosters a more creative environment (especially if you enjoy creating small movie-shorts.) They also use a great tagging system, like Last.fm. Each day they have new fun projects to participate in. To join, all you need to do is upload your video and tag it with the specific word they give. Example: “merightnow: Just grab a camera and film whatever you are doing right now!”

These mini projects are featured on the front page along with the latest video uploaded with that tag. It’s a really great way to get involved and be creative! So check Vimeo out

Oh, and on a final note, you may be thinking (probably not) “This girl’s got her own company! What does she need to work for free for?!” - I’m telling you people, clearly it’s just for the free lunches and the chance to work in this office. On a more serious note, I’ll be able to gain quite a bit of experience from working with the best WHILE keeping my company going at the same time.

Right now, Facebook and Myspace are in a boxing match and Myspace is on the floor crying.

A few days ago Facebook launched themselves into the world of open-sourcedom through their brand-spanking-new developer platform. The API gives a limitless amount of third party developers direct access to Facebook’s functionality and its 20 million users. “Huh?” you say?

Commonly referred to as “apps” any Facebook user can head over to the directory and use a two-click system to install tons of different applications to their profile. There are more than 20 different categories to choose from including music, business, messaging, and mobile. Many of the applications offer direct connections to popular services such as Twitter and digg.

Facebook also fills the void where Myspace once lead with user-uploaded MP3s, photo slide-shows, and scrapbooks. These new features joined with the sleek look of Facebook (rivaling Myspace’s tainted blinking heart backgrounds) and extreme user functionality make the question of choosing a social network not a decision but an IQ test.

Users can also now remove existing Facebook applications (like Facebook photos) and replace them with new ones. Like Microsoft with Windows, this creates an situation in which Facebook is competing with other developers on its own platform.

The bottom line? Although Myspace still trumps Facebook with 100 million users over 20 million users (with growth of 300,000 versus 100,000 users per day), Facebook’s new transparency and access to its core features will offer amazing advances in marketing to create a viral phenomena like never seen before.

Me? Right now I’m updating my Twitter, while doing a few diggs, after having created a digital slide show and updating my favorite RSS feeds to compare with my friends… all through my pretty Facebook profile.