Web 2.0 Stores > Fast, Simple, Search Engine Friendly Ecommerce

Are there any startups that don’t plug in to MySpace these days? The latest contender is BlueOrganizer, a Firefox extension that allows you to bookmark books, movies, music and other items. As mentioned previously on Mashable, BlueOrganizer helps you to catalog the items you already own, or make a note of products you want to buy in the future. But things have changed a lot in the last few weeks. As of version 2.5, the site and the plugin have been redesigned (looking much better) and they’ve added support for the Flock browser. They’ve also added a bunch of smaller updates like batch deleting of your bookmarks, del.icio.us integration, synchronization between multiple computers and the ability to import your contacts from Gmail, AOL and Hotmail. Another new feature: they’ve released widgets to place on MySpace and your own blog (being Flash-based, they also work with Friendster, hi5, Xanga, Blogger, Windows Live Spaces et al). The new “bluebadges” showcase your books, video games, wines, and other collections in either a filmstrip or an animated slideshow - you can see an example on the team’s MySpace page. What’s particularly good is that MySpace already has sections for your favorite movies, books and music - the widgets fit right in. That said, I’m not sure what the strategy is here (if any). The Flock browser has always seemed like a geeky platform, despite the recent launch of a PhotoBucket-themed version. If they want to attract the widest possible audience, why not focus on support for Internet Explorer, which still has the lion’s share of the browser market? It seems likely that the MySpace widgets were released “because they could”, rather than in a real effort to reach the mainstream. But that’s no problem, because I’m sure we’ll see the odd widget popping up on Wordpress and TypePad blogs. On a wider point, I’m not sure whether the MySpace generation wants to download software. These users seem to access the web on friends’ computers, at school or even on family machines - and with the rise of web-based instant messengers like Meebo and e-Messenger (aka eBuddy), even IM clients don’t require a download these days. YouTube also had massive success with a totally web-based model, while the downloadable video-sharing tools like Grouper and PiXPO completely missed the boat. So while Browster and others might be toying around with the “MySpace angle”, I don’t see mass adoption coming anytime soon. (Counterpoint: how the heck did StumbleUpon reach 1 million users with a Firefox-only extension? Perhaps because they waited it out for four years?).

There’s much buzz being made about the ComScore stats for July (released yesterday), which basically show an unprecedented boom in online video. YouTube entered ComScore’s top 50 sites for the first time, hitting 16 million visitors - an increase of 20% since June. That might explain the recent outage, which was blamed on a database failure (see YouTube Down). Meanwhile, MySpace Video doubled its traffic in the same month, receiving 20 million visitors. It’s a pretty big jump to assume that MySpace Video is now “bigger” than YouTube, but this does confirm the June stats out of Hitwise, which showed MySpace Video growing much faster than the young upstart. But since you have to be very careful when referring to stats (see the MySpace vs YouTube hypefest), the best we can say is that both sites are attracting plenty of eyeballs. It’s also worth noting that Yahoo Video maintains the number one spot, with 21.1 million visitors and a 28-percent increase from June. However, it’s fairly obvious that we’ll have a new leader by next month (at least from ComScore). So what about the other players? Google Video continues to offer a poorer experience than YouTube, although they have been testing a new interface, and the service received a huge boost in traffic when they added a “Video” link to Google.com last week. Meanwhile Metacafe, Grouper, Veoh and others continue to attract funding and buzz, despite slower growth. What’s more, scores of niche video-sharing sites (”YouTube for Weather“, “YouTube for How-Tos“) continue to spring up. But it’s probably fair to say these markets have network effects. The big guys will just keep on getting bigger, although the “biggest” site is virtually impossible to call. Update: Hitwise just released new stats to show that MySpace Video’s market share has seen slower growth in July, and YouTube is now the faster growing site by their measures. Frankly, you can draw any conclusion you want if you choose the right data. What we can be sure of is that the stat providers are booming, since we cover them every time they put out new data.

(via, source data)

Seattle-based TripHub is a new service for planning group travel. It’s been in “soft beta” since March, but they just launched the official version a few minutes ago. The company was founded in 2005 by veterans of Microsoft and Expedia, and has taken funding from Madrona Venture Group and private investors. The board of advisors includes Zillow Chief Executive Rich Barton, Farecast VP of Marketing Mike Fridgen and RealNetworks VP Dave Richards. The team have referred to TripHub as a cross between MySpace and Evite - I’m not sold on the MySpace angle, but it shares a lot in common with Evite and other group planning tools. You start by creating a trip and inviting some friends - you can then add entries to the group blog (a new feature in this release), add events like scheduled activities, book hotels and search for flights. All these activities can be shared with the group, helping you to co-ordinate your plans. They’ve also used the company blog to provide travel guides, checklists and tips, all linked to from the main site. Additionally, they have a co-branded site with Alaska Air, available here. Group planning is tricky, so I’m glad to see these tools solving a real problem. What’s more, it’s pretty easy to see a business model here. TripHub is simple and useful: if they can strike some more deals with airlines and other travel sites, it seems they could get some traction.

Adoppt, which has just entered Alpha mode, is another new blog platform and social network. It has almost every feature you’d expect from a community site: blogs, tagging, forums, favorite links (similar to social bookmarking), a question and answer service (like Yahoo Answers), photo uploading, networks of friends and much more. It even comes complete with badges for MySpace pages and blogs. The only thing it lacks is a sense of direction - it’s the everythingitis problem I wrote about back in April. Obviously these markets don’t follow any simple rules, but I still question whether there’s space for yet another generic social network. There’s definitely a market for networks that are focused on a niche - like a MySpace for Moms or a community of sneaker fans, but I’m not so sure whether the generic sites can get any traction. Nonetheless, Adoppt is in alpha right now, so let’s give them a chance. PS. Mashable’s Adoppt account is here - feel free to add Mashable as a friend if you sign up.

Fanpop is a new social network for fans of certain websites, TV shows, people and products. But this definitely isn’t “MySpace for fans” - instead, it allows users to create their own portal-like pages with links, headlines and forums. These pages are called “spots”, and you can join a spot to register your interest - you can also become a fan (aka friend) of another user. The “links” feature is very similar to Digg - you add relevant links for others to rate and comment on. The “headlines” feature, meanwhile, auto-populates itself with news and blog articles about the topic at hand. What’s more, Fanpop recommends related content from sites like Wikipedia, Flickr and YouTube. If you make lots of contributions that get highly rated by other users, you can become a Top Fan. Mashable’s profile is here - as you can see, I’ve joined the Web 2.0 spot, Family Guy, MySpace and the Daily Show. But I’ve also set up a Mashable spot, which you can join here (please do!). Setting up a page is super-easy - the only glitch was that it refused to accept any of my custom header images. For some reason, I really like Fanpop. I think it’s the instant accessibility for the average user - everyone’s a fan of something, and it’s a really simple way of expressing your personality by associating yourself with brands. What’s more, the design and usability are impressive. My only concern would be whether they can keep the spam out - but they seem to be doing a good job of that by including the option to flag users and links, and by marking new spots as “pending”. Perhaps I’ve missed some glaring failure (lack of business model, “yet another pointless social network” etc), but I think Fanpop is pretty neat. I see this as another StumbleUpon - simple, fun, and easy to explain to the average Internet user.