BeeMood: A Blatant Twitter Clone for Italy

BeeMood is just about as straight-up a Twitter clone as you could hope to find, targeting Italy. Users get their own page where they can update their status, reply to others, or see the most recent Tweets BeeMoods from the people they follow. You can also post and receive updates via SMS on your mobile.

The one “original” feature of BeeMood is their map that shows where recent updates are coming from geographically. However, this also really isn’t their idea – it’s a rip of Twittervision, a mashup built using Twitter’s API and Google Maps.

It’s easy to knock so-called “clones” of popular services for having zero originality and what some might argue is a lack of integrity. However, so long as the original site they are copying waits to enter new markets, the strategy seems to be fair game, and one that can result in a profitable exit for founders.

StudiVZ, a German Facebook clone, sold for more than $100 million. The financiers behind StudiVZ, the Samwer Brothers, are also invested in Frazr, a Twitter clone for France and Germany, that appears to be getting decent traction from a quick poke around the site.

For more copycat goodness, check out “Exposed: The 7 Most Blatant Web 2.0 Rip Offs“

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Facebook’s 2008 Resolution: Regulate Developers

Facebook has a new year’s resolution of its own, and it’s regarding the Facebook platform. Users may (or may not) be happy to see the changes if they notice them at all, while developers may see it as the oncoming avalanche of regulated applications. In a very snide manner, Facebook posted its resolution based on the fact that some developers are trying to take advantage of the news feeds update feature. Shouldn’t this be an expected byproduct of the newsfeeds? Or perhaps Facebook still confused about how it would like to use Mini-Feeds…

At any rate, Facebook has put some additional checks on email notifications as well as links installed in Mini-Feed notifications, in an effort to curb the misuse of feeds within Facebook. As a result of developers sending notification emails to users for one application along with another application for a pooled quota effect, Facebook is taking measures to keep developers from using tricks in order to get more users to sign up for applications. Specifically, Facebook has noticed that some developers have begun placing links into Mini-Feeds, notifications and notification emails in order to install additional applications.

Tsk, tsk. Don’t these developers know that Facebook is the only one allowed to use deceptive measures to gain from the activity of its users? Some would even say that Facebook needs to check itself before punishing others for an abuse of power when it comes to feeds, but that’s an entirely different post, best left to the banter-inducing whiles of our very own Rizzn.

On a related note, we’re glad to see Scoble’s Facebook account reactivated, but we’re still waiting to hear from Facebook its plans on dealing with the likes of Plaxo’s upcoming tool (other than blocking its users). Based on Facebook’s new year’s resolution, we’d expect even more regulation to ensue. Can Plaxo work around this, and push on for an open web according to an entity other than Facebook?

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Secret Crush: First Serious Facebook Hack?

Apparently, one of those annoying “who do you like” Facebook applications called Secret Crush actually downloads and installs spyware on your computer. The application appears no different from other similar ones: it appears in your profile, saying that someone has a “secret crush” on you. Eager to find out who the secret admirer is, you install it, and instead of some lovin’, you get the infamous Zango spyware. Not nice.

The scam was discovered by security gateway vendor Fortinet, who claim that the threat is quite serious, since about 3 percent of Facebook’s users have already installed the adware-infested program. Although the users themselves have found out that Secret Crush is a scam a while ago, not everyone is in on the news, and users are probably still installing the app as we speak.

No wonder, because after a bit of research we’ve found out that several applications called “Secret Crush” or “Secret Crushes” are listed in the Facebook apps directory, and several of them have been marked by users as spyware. Some reports also claim that the application doesn’t install adware, but instead charges your cell phone for receiving SMS horoscope messages. It’s not quite clear what application does what here, but we suggest that you refrain from installing anything “secret” or “crush” related until the situation is clearer.

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Loss of the Giant: Nathan Stoll Leaves Google

Google has successfully cajoled many smart techies to join their camp in the past, but lately they’re also losing some of their best and brightest. This time it’s Nathan Stoll, product manager of Google News, who has written about the experience of leaving the big G on his personal blog.

“I feel like I’m breaking up with Google”, says Nathan, yelping “Can we still be friends?” Don’t feel too sad for him, though; as he himself admits, leaving Google doesn’t exactly leave you penniless on the street; more likely you’ll be hired by some other market leader for a hefty salary. Other than “tackling new endeavors”, it’s hard to determine any actual reasons for Nathan’s departure; we wish him luck in the future.

Monster is a Beast, Acquires Affinity Labs

By: Kristen Nicole

Monster Worldwide has acquired Affinity Labs for the purpose of bringing in more vocation-based vertical social networks under its umbrella. Affinity Labs is a developer company that creates community sites specific to various vocations, such as Policemen, Nurses, and artists.

Founded by Cristopher Michel, Affinity Labs already had a strategic alliance with Monster, according to Paid Content. Monster had been selling advertising to the company, and Monster users had direct access to Affinity’s services. And Affinity Labs CEO has a long-standing relationship with Monster in addition to the existing relationship through Affinity Labs, as Michel sold a social networking site, Military.com, that he’d founded earlier.

As niche social networks continue to show their promise as pools of targeted data, and other networks like Facebook are being plundered by various brands, like Path101, for advertising and leveraging purposes, Monster isn’t one to be left in the cold. This is a definite push for more market share in terms of direct advertising purposes, as well as the offering of a more comprehensive online resource for those developing their careers around a particular vocation.

It seems to be working for Monster, and other industries, like banking, are hoping that a cultivated social network will help them gain direct access to a larger user base as well. With the other developments around social networking as it specifically ties into careers and job hunts, such as Jobster, more integrated features are being utilized for a shift in concepts that surround the task of searching for a job. It seems that Monster is also taking this into consideration, so we’ll see in what ways Monster will develop and integrate its new acquisition.

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Facebook App Fatigue? Cleanup Profiles

By: Kristen Nicole

There are very few people I know on Facebook that have more applications on their profiles than us here at Mashable, and our avid friends throughout the over-zealous tech blogging industry. So this new application I’m about to share with you will be far more useful to you than it will be for myself. It’s called the Clean Profile application (insert superhero entrant music here). It lets you view other users’ profiles without all the applications junking up the page.

So for those of you that would like to visit your friends’ profile pages and actually see the link for sending them a message, or their regular wall (not the super wall), Clean Profile is the app for you. Ironically, you’ll only be able to use it directly from a user’s profile if they’ve added the application. This means that a link will appear below their user photo, giving you the option of viewing their clean profile. If their profile looks anything like mine, good luck finding that link in the first place.

But don’t let this ironic twist of fate get you down. If you add the application, you can visit anyone’s clean profile if you access it through the application (as opposed to directly visiting your friend’s profile). So for all my friends that are planning on visiting my Facebook profile, you may wanna swing by Clean Profile first.

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New Year’s Tech Resolutions

By: Erick Schonfeld

Okay, I know, I’m late with these, but coming up with New Year’s resolutions is tough. And isn’t there a one-week grace period anyway? Rather than do predictions, I thought I’d offer up some resolutions—things I’d like to see happen this year. These aren’t my resolutions. These are resolutions that tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook should adopt, IMHO. (And, no, they are not capable of coming up with their own resolutions. Someone has to do this for them). If you have better resolutions to suggest for these or any other company, please add them to comments.

Apple—Learn to Let Go. Don’t repeat the mistakes of history. Open up a little bit. You are helping to bring the phone and other mobile devices into the digital age. Other people and companies want to be a part of that too. Make it easy for them to build apps on top of the iPhone and your other products. (You’ve indicated that you are working on this, but we are still waiting to see the results). Command and control got you this far, but in a world where every device is connected, a bunker mentality will limit your growth.

Facebook—Stop Being a Party Hog. Release my friends and leave Scobie alone. You want everyone to create applications for Facebook, but when it comes to letting people take data out of Facebook you are not so generous. Find a way to let members take their social graph (their list of friends and social connections) with them to other Websites. If you are serious about becoming the social operating system of the Web, you need to let people party the way they want to, and where they want to (even if that is not on Facebook). Embrace this change. You’ll still be popular. The alternative is to battle a growing user backlash (and startups looking for workarounds).

Google—Go Beyond PageRank. The main way you sort search results, PageRank, is more than a decade old. It is the basis of the entire search economy. But it is also starting to be gamed in ways that threaten to dilute the value of your search results. People are buying and selling links on Web pages with the express intent of manipulating search results. You can fight this, and you are, but maybe it is time to start shifting to other ways to rank search results. There are other sources of authority on the Web besides links, aren’t there? (Don’t ask me what they are—you are the one with all the genius employees).

Amazon—Open Up The Kindle. Your Kindle Reader is a big step forward in terms of gaining mainstream acceptance for electronic books. But what is great about the Kindle is the service, not the device. It is your 90,000-and-growing titles in e-book format, seamless wireless downloading, and back-end billing linked to existing Amazon accounts that makes the Kindle worth replicating. Put out a reference design and let other companies make sleeker electronic readers that tie into the Amazon store. The design of the device itself is clunky. Stick to what you know, and let other companies build the hardware.

Microsoft—Get Serious About Webtop Apps. Productivity apps are moving to the Web, and while that threatens your Office franchise, you need to get in front of this trend now before it gains much traction. You are inching towards this with your recent Office Live Workspace beta, but you still need to get past your Barbarians at the Gate mindset. While Google, Adobe, and others try to figure out how to bring their Web-based word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation software offline, you are already did that a long time ago with Office. Now you are integrating Office apps with Office Live, but you are trying to force people to use the offline apps as their default environment. Keep that as an option, but let people create documents and spreadsheets online as well without the need to ever launch Office on their desktop.

Yahoo— Use The Traffic, Luke. I don’t know what to tell you guys (and gals). You are losing more executives than Google, Jerry Yang’s first 100 days were uneventful, and still nobody knows what your strategy is supposed to be. Your biggest asset is that you still attract more traffic than any other site in the U.S. (although Google is gaining on you). For the most part, you like to slosh that traffic around Yahoo, but you’ve shown signs that you are willing to turn that hose towards other worthy Websites, even if they have no pre-existing deals with you. Find more ways to spread that traffic and to get other Websites to return the love. Then use that natural traffic network to lure other Websites into your advertising network. Focus on dominating the growing behavioral ad-targeting market instead of trying to beat Google head-to-head on contextual and search ads.

eBay—Sell Skype. Come on, you know you want to. It was a bad fit from the start.

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Google Presentations Introduces Embedded Slide Shows

Source: TechCrunch

Google Docs just added some cool new features to its Web-based Presentation software: slide shows that you can embed anywhere on the Web. Check it out below:

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Microsoft will always be a 'copycat'

Just a day after video-sharing site Veoh added a TV tab with shows from Hulu and CBS, Microsoft did the same thing with the launch of a new MSN Video Guide. (This is really just a new user interface to showcase this content). It too has a TV tab with full-length episodes from Hulu (Fox and NBC Universal shows), as well as CBS. Similar to Veoh, the read more

Google Lodges Patent For Reading Text In Images And Video

Source: TechCrunch

A patent application lodged by Google in July 2007 but recently made public seeks to patent a method where by robots (computers) can read and understand text in images and video.

The extension of the application would be that images and video indexed by Google would be searchable by the text located within the image or video itself, a big step forward in indexing that has not previously been available. Information Week suggests that privacy issues raised by Google Maps Street View will get more complicated as eventually YouTube videos will be indexable via the text that appears within them.

A full copy of the patent application “Recognizing Text In Images” can be viewed here.

Some choice lines from the patent:

“Digital images can include a wide variety of content…For example, digital images can illustrate landscapes, people, urban scenes, and other objects. Digital images often include text. Digital images can be captured, for example, using cameras or digital video recorders. Image text (i.e., text in an image) typically includes text of varying size, orientation, and typeface. Text in a digital image derived, for example, from an urban scene (e.g., a city street scene) often provides information about the displayed scene or location. A typical street scene includes, for example, text as part of street signs, building names, address numbers, and window signs.”

This will make every book in the Google Books database really searchable, with the next step being YouTube, Flickr (or Picaca Web) and more. The search capabilities of the future just became seriously advanced.