Software

A few days ago we reported that Flickr users were revolting. Wait, no that came out wrong. What we reported was that a group of very attractive (or so we assume) Flickr users are unhappy about the addition of video to the site. So they did what any self-respecting group of netizens would, they started a group and created a petition asking for Flickr to remove the video upload feature.

Flickr so far has resisted their demands. But demonstrating that the Yahoo! owned company can in fact be bullied into doing just about anything, Flickr’s Mathew Rothenberg has agreed to another demand: free donuts for any member of the We Demand Donuts Flickr group who shows up to claim one in person. Seriously.

The We Demand Donuts group was obviously formed to mock the No Video on Flickr group. But so far more than 1800 people have signed up. While that might seem like a lot of donuts, Rothenberg is only promising one donut per member while supplies last, and members will have to show up at a San Francisco donut shop to be determined. So if you happen to be in San Francisco and want to see if it’s possible for a donut shop to sell out of inventory, there’s still time to sign up.

[via Thomas Hawk]

If you run a blog or other web site, odds are you already know how important social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon can be for generating traffic. But while you may be used to seeing large traffic spikes from these sources occasionally, over time social bokmarking sites can give you yet another gauge of your blog’s popularity. Have your stories been Dugg or stumbled more times than your competitors? SocialScan makes it easy to find out.

Just enter any URL into SocialScan and the service will look up the site on 12 different social bookmarking/news sites. Some measures are more thorough than others. For example, you’ll only find out how many times that exact URL (ie: your homepage) has been submitted to sites like StumbleUpon or Reddit, while the Digg results will show any time a web page starting with your URL has been submitted.

[via MakeUseOf]

If you shed a tear every time you have to delete a text message at the bottom of your inbox, or if you can’t bring yourself to part with the latest ROTFLOL SMS sent by your best friend, then TreasureMyText is for you.

TreasureMyText is an online service that will store all of your text messages online: the good, the bad, the mundane, the unintelligible. Simply create an account and forward any text message to their standard rate numbers (available worldwide), and your message is forever immortalized.

True to web 2.0 standards, TreasureMyText also has a sharing feature called TextStream (which definitely reminds us of Twitter). You can choose to share your text messages with absolutely everyone (and you wonder why the internet is sagging under the weight of needless information?), or you can pick and choose friends and other members to share your messages with.

TreasureMyText also offers simple folders for organization, and an easy-to-use contacts list.

If you’re wondering where the iPhone fits into all of this (since you can’t forward text messages with the iPhone), the programmers at TreasureMyText have created a mobile client for your jailbroken iPhone that will allow you to archive your SMS over EDGE and WiFi. They have also stated their intention to create a more robust iPhone application with the release of the official iPhone SDK.

[via Technobuzz]

An innovative an dinteresting venture by the University of Southern California called Viewfinder seeks to spatially locate 2D pictures within a 3D environment like Google Earth. The end result places the pictures within Google Earth so that they seamlessly integrate within their environment. Can’t picture it? Just check out the video after the jump, and check out the site for more information on how it works.

The goal is to eventually create a service that basically mixes something like Flickr with Google Earth, enabling users to view and post photos within their virtual environment. Flickr currently allows for geotagging, but viewing the pictures within their environment adds tons of more fun to the idea.

Perhaps Flickr should consider expanding its photo services instead of adding video, which it is trying to do right now, since Flickr users seem to hate the presence of moving pics on the Yahoo owned site. It seems a partnership with Viewfinder and Google Earth would be a better move, and — since Yahoo’s busy intermingling with all sorts of companies right now — why not?

[via boing boing]

SXSWi 2008: Freshbooks talks to Download Squad from Download Squad on Vimeo.

We’ve written about Freshbooks — the online invoicing system — before and have been big fans of their approach and service. We were even more impressed upon meeting Saul and Sunir, two of Freshbook’s team members, at SXSWi 2008.

Grant talked to Saul and Sunir about the service, the importance of community and traveling from Miami to Austin in an RV and stopping along the way to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with customers.

SXSW 2008: Mzinga from Download Squad on Vimeo.

Enterprise companies fall into two camps; those who are competent in the social media space, and those who aren’t. Mzinga aims to bring competency to enterprise social engagement. I caught up with Aaron Strout on Mzinga in the hallway at a rockin SXSW, and he gave us the low down on what enterprise users need to know now about managing their social face in the future.