Scoble on Photobucket’s ban @ MySpace: Myspace is right, everyone else is bad, parasites even.

BS.

MySpace is the amazing success it is because it gave it’s users a creative freedom other sites didn’t.

My response to Scoble as follows. It will probably get deleted, so I’ll post it here.

I’ll tell you what I think, I think you’re a goose. News Corp’s Myspace has become popular off the back of allowing broad creative freedom to users, and now it’s trying to take that away. Have you actually checked Myspace to see if there’s an easy alternative there to Photobucket’s video hosting? THERE ISN’T. People are using services such as this because MySpace DOESN’T offer a reasonable alternative + they want to run this stuff on their sites. This is literally a case of MySpace bitting the hand that has helped fuel its amazing success, it’s not an argument about whether they should be able to make money off the site, that they should be able to make money is a given, it’s about creative freedom and what defines a given service, in this case MySpace, and its users.

Food for thought.

Following the recent speculation that image/ video hosting site Photobucket is on the market, the News Corp owned MySpace has moved to block Photobucket hosted videos in MySpace profiles in what can only be described as the ultimate act of corporate sabotage.

Photobucket currently has 39 million registered users and over 2.6 billion photos and videos hosted.

Photobucket is naturally down playing the effect of the MySpace blockage, stating that their business extends across various social networking sites, even going so far to suggest that Photobucket MySpace users may abandon using MySpace for competitors that support Photobucket video includes….yeah right, entire communities of people are going to abandon MySpace because of this. ROFL.

The question of course then becomes whether Photobucket is screwed, or just plain screwed over. I’ve got no way of knowing what percentage of Photobucket traffic comes from MySpace, and we are only talking a block on video content so far, so it’s fairly safe to say that Photobucket isn’t screwed, but given the investors are chasing between $300-$400 million for the company, you could probably easily knock $50-$100 million of the sales price now, if not possibly more, because when your product targets social networks and you’ve had access partially blocked to the biggest marketplace of them all…with the possibility of course that the ban could end up involving all content, your value drops, and drops dramatically…and because of this there’s little doubt that News Corp has simply just screwed Photobucket over. I wonder if News Corp ends up buying Photobucket? What better way to squeeze a better price! 🙂

Michael Arrington @ TechCrunch has the scoop: Google has invested in China based browser Maxthon, which for memory has something like 25-30% of the Chinese market. It’s a very smart move by Google, knocking Baidu off in China and Yahoo off elsewhere as the default search option for Maxthon will exponentially increase their share in China, where they’ve so far failed to make a major indent. Arrington reckons the figure is $1m, that makes the strategic investment an absolute bargain as well.

Has Twitter passed its peak? or is it more of an adjustment following the post SXSW hype, a rollercoaster ride of traffic? I’ve got an ever increasing list of friends/ subs in Twitter, and yet the level of posting this last week is actually declined. Might have something to do with Easter…will wait and see I guess.

If you want to join me: http://twitter.com/duncanriley

Nothing too exciting, but I am trying to post the occasionally interesting thing.

For those not following my posts @ 901am, I wrote yesterday about my switch to all things Google.

But I do have a small wish list of things I’d like Google to implement/ change so I can perfect my experience:

1. Outlook style functionality in gmail
I need folders! The main reason I download my email to Outlook is so I can drag emails into an extensive array of folders. Yes, gmail has tags, but it’s not the same. I’d switch permanently to only using gmail via gmail.com is I could have this feature, if Yahoo can do it, surely Google can as well

2. Full screen text in reader
I’m liking Google Reader more and more each day, but the text from the feeds should use the whole screen, not wrap half way

3. Firefox bookmark integration
I’m staying with Google Bookmarks for sure, but having two Bookmark buttons in Firefox is stupid. Foxmarks integrates with Firefox Bookmarks, GMarks (which isn’t from Google) doesn’t…and Google’s only alternative is the Google toolbar, which I’m not interested in using. C’mon Google, support your product!

There’s probably more things, if you’ve got any suggestions for Google, please share!

Scoble reports the Leo Laporte has switched to Jaiku, a Twitter clone. Already I’m seeing messages there from new signups thanking both Scoble + Laporte. Does the world need another Twitter? I’m finding keeping up on Twitter hard enough as it is, imagine having to do it on two sites, or three, or more? And as for business models, do any of these sites have one as yet? Twitter has zero revenue…so the VC funds must be burning at Web 1.0 rates…it starts to give rise to the bubble argument in a way. Time will tell I guess.

Tags: Twitter, Jaiku

On March 28 I wrote a post pointing out that Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has been duped by a clever person running a site called popuri..a site which I alleged ran on a script that could be bought for $20. Turns out I was wrong, totally wrong, and hence I openly apologise to all readers.

The script (either the same one, or one very close to it) is actually available for free at DP here. 6th script down. Look for “Advanced AJAX PageRank Checker (MOST POPULAR ONE EVER! 400+ Copies sold)”.

Now for those aiming to set up a similar site, all you have to do is add nifty little icons next to the words, find a cool Web 2.0 URL and of course, don’t forget the logo.

Degree of Difficulty: EASY
Time to complete: 20 minutes.

Got this friend request for BlueDot today….sounds lke spam, looks like spam..most likely is spam

From : haveittodayray
username : haveittodayray

Can you help us?

Were the proud parents of our son Lance Lanfear, who is an independent movie producer and has just produced “Jake’s Closet”. Lance is 29 years old and lives in Hollywood.

Our goal is to get 1 million visitors to be among the first to see the trailer of “Jake’s Closet”. So if you like to help us get there simply visit: www.jakesclosetmovie.com put your mouse over the images and click away. Any other form of publicity and/or interviews we could obtain for Lance, would be greatly appreciated. If only just to forward the email to people you know, that would help a great deal too.

The writer/director is Shelli Ryan and the producer is our son, Lance. Its a perfect depiction of the loss of innocence experienced by children caught between their parents and unconscious ways that parental alienation occurs in families distressed by divorce.

Appreciate any help you can give in spreading the word, again to be among the first to view the trailer simply visit: www.jakesclosetmovie.com

Thanks for your help in reaching our goal of 1 million viewers for a subject that should have a potential audience in the millions.

Ray and Judy Lanfear
Proud Parents of Lance
haveittodayray
jakesclosetmovie.com

Arrington covers Sonopia.

It’s an affiliate program with a little touch of custom branding based on the affiliate.

I’ve seen similar offerings before. In 1998.

TechCrunch duped again, or a slow Web 2.0 newsweek? who knows, but credit to those getting the coverage.

Amazing. Simply Amazing. TechCrunch reviews Popuri, a site that provides a list of data like backlinks in Google, Yahoo and others. LifeHacker then reviews the same site. Here’s the thing, there is NOTHING special about Popuri at all, accept that they’ve given the site a trendy sounding Web 2.0 URL and a lite lick of Web 2.0 paint, the script that runs the site isn’t unique, indeed I regularly see sites running the same/ similar script come up for sale at DigitalPoint for $20, sometimes even less. Juan Xavier Larea of Florida, who ever you are, 100 pts for pure genius because you’ve duped Michael Arrington + LifeHacker, and that’s some pretty serious people to dupe. Am I a little bit jealous? hell yes, I nearly bought a site with the same script on it a couple of months back, but thought that it was so run of the mill that I couldn’t even be asked spending $20 to acquire it, it never occurred to me that I could freshen it up and market it as an amazing Web 2.0 breakthrough…maybe I need a change of scenery because I’m lacking in creative genius? who knows 🙂

Tags: TechCrunch, LifeHacker, Popuri