Crunchy Mustard

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.

A Rabbi has friended me on Facebook.

After joining the Columbia network (Facebook lumped Barnard College into Columbia’s network…. those bastards, haha) I have received a slew of friend requested from my future classmates. After going through the lot, I came to a unique solicitation:

Rabbi Yonah added you as a friend on Facebook. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, friends with Rabbi Yonah.

To confirm this friend request, follow the link below:
http://columbia.facebook.com/reqs.php

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

I am, in fact, not friends with Rabbi Yonah. I’m not even Jewish. Excusing the fact that I am a Ukrainian Christian… what is a Rabbi doing on Facebook? One look to his profile and you’ll see that he’s quite a young member of the Columbia staff and heads various Jewish groups on campus. Interesting bit of networking he’s doing here.

Can I friend the Pope?

There’s a new project over at Successful Blog, and I thought I’d give it a shot. It’s a group writing project and the question is: What’s Your Blogging Metaphor?. Edit: More of a simile, actually.

Blogging has always been a hard thing to explain to the generation before us. “Web 2.0″ and “blogosphere” are things they just don’t know about. Rather than ignore this fact, I’ve come up with the perfect metaphor for blogging.

Blogging is like a county fair. You know… funnel cakes, completions, and all. Everyone gathers around - your family, your neighbors, kids, grand parents, friends. Each person brings something unique - money for amusements, pies to sell, or BBQ equipment to compete with.

All of these different attractions at a fair make up the diverse spectrum of topics in the blogosphere, or the entire “blog world.” Although food dominates at a county fair, Aunt Suzie’s pie represents a gadget review blog while Uncle Tom’s secret BBQ technique represents a fiery political blog.

Aunt Suzie proudly brings her pie to the table. She takes look at every other ladies’ pies (even though she knows hers is the best) and shares recipes, comments on the shape and style of each crust, and new ideas for next year. Think of this small congregation as a blog. Whether its a gadget or a pie, there’s constant review, commenting, and chat going on.

Now Uncle Tom… he’s a little more competitive. You see, he represents the fiery world of political blogs. Uncle Tom knows he’s got the best BBQ recipe, and he’ll fight to prove it. The men gather ’round and openly critique each others’ rigs and styles. No holds barred: review, commentary, and discussion still occur. Although none of the men want to admit it, each of them are learning new techniques, styles, and ideas during this event.

Catch the underlying theme here?

In both of these examples, discussion and feedback are the defining point. This is exactly what a blog represents. The blogosphere represents a world of discussion and commentary… just like your local county fair competitions

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.

While signing up for a Last.fm account (great stuff program) I stumbled upon “mypictr.” It’s this nifty little tool that lets you upload any photo of yourself no matter the size. Then, you can use their zoom and crop tool to select the part of the photo you want exactly.

Now you don’t have to worry anymore about opening up a graphic editor and waiting ten minutes for it to load. Just upload, crop, and download.

The site will crop pictures at any size for ALL of the major networks out there. You can also cut photos for popular message board types or choose the standard 64×64.

So go check out my new Last.fm account, sign up for yourself, and check mypictr out