Animoto, the company that allows you to create videos from your photos and music tracks, has expanded its business services to include a vertical for professional photographers.
Features include adjustable speeds for photos displayed in an Animoto video (think one tempo for a wedding video versus another sports highlights), and the option for a “call to action” button that can be placed at the end of the video. This new action button makes Animoto for Photography videos can redirect viewers to a particular page where further actions, such as a buying photos, can take place.
Animoto, which has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Amazon, has since begun to build out its existing services for more business-focused purposes. With prices listed at $99 per user for three months or $249 per user for one year, Animoto is also building on its existing subscription-based revenue model, which already extended additional features within its basic service such as mp4 file download capabilities.
As Animoto has also begun to build a business around its music library marketplace, this is another opportunity for growth within the new Animoto for Photography service. Enabling photographers to submit their content for paid use by other Animoto users isn’t an immediate feature in pipeline, but “allowing photographers to submit photos [for money] to Animoto would be an excellent way for a photographer to be noticed and would allow our users a larger selection of photos from which to choose,” says chief executive Brad Jefferson.
Clearspring, the widget creation platform, has acquired AddThis, the bookmarking and sharing button, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition moves Clearspring closer to becoming a service that allows any users to share content from any website.
While many travel-oriented sites provide a way for travelers to share their experiences with one another, few let you connect with locals based on your travel destination.
The much anticipated MySpace Music is geared to launch tonight, providing a platform for both major and independent labels and artists to promote and sell their music. The monetization potential of MySpace music is driving a great deal of interest to the new platform, as MySpace has always been considered a useful promotional platform for artists.
After launching 
You’d think a “wish list” application from Amazon would have been a success on Facebook. It enabled the sharing of individual wish lists and direct purchasing without leaving the confines of the social network. But Amazon’s wish list app, called Giver, launched earlier this year, failed to gain significant traction and is no longer in operation. The problem was that it lacked integration with Facebook’s native applications, specifically the Birthdays app that tells you when your friend’s birthday is near — you know, a time when people actually buy gifts for each other.
Widgets have provided one of the more effective yet indirect ways of increasing your reach on the web. Now, Widgetbox, one of the more prominent and 
When I dream of the day when I can afford a personal assistant, I imagine passing off all the tasks I hate spending time on, like making phone calls. While there are a handful of emerging personal assistant services like 
Kyte’s new types of advertising embrace the in-show overlay format, which will now display over the bottom 1/3 of the viewer canvas. There are also show production ads, which act as splash pages to be used in other video content as a form of cross-promotion or merely another advertising option within Kyte’s platform. True, overlay ads have been around for Web-based video programming for some time, but Kyte’s somewhat niche sector in the online video market has afforded it some wiggle room in regards to its ability to attract the type of brands that would want to promote themselves on Kyte’s user-generated programming. 
According to hi5, over 2 million Widgetbox widgets have been added to hi5 from its existing support, leading to more than 65,000 subscriptions to widgets. Now, any developers that would like to create an application for hi5 now have the option of creating an OpenSocial application that’s distributed on Widgetbox and through hi5 and all the other of the other social networks that have launched OpenSocial support. 
Trulia mobile has also been upgraded to include a new iPhone app, which takes advantage of its map and image-viewing capabilities and offers a new way in which to access the news feed features Trulia is also rolling out in this release. In addition to mobile phones, Trulia has also teamed up with Dash Navigation to provide mobile access through its GPS-enabled navigation device, giving you yet another way to both search for and drive to homes in a particular area. 
The dominant photo-sharing service has steadily been improving its slide show feature in order to make its users’ media more readily experienced and shared across the Web, and today’s slide show updates continue those initiatives. Three major new features for the Flickr slide show allow you to access the slide show viewing options from nearly every page on Flickr, embed the slide show in “bite-size” form, and view the slide show in full screen. 
A new series called Model.Live is debuting this week on Bebo (see 
While that’s the idea, there are still those that would rather rent the movie for a cheaper price (why buy a movie that you don’t know you’ll like?), even if that means that a few days later your friends come over and you go ahead and spring for the extended rental because you end up liking the movie and want your friends to enjoy it as much as you did.
The new section for developers will be a new Features tab in the Insights area of your application, which will show 
This particular upgrade seems like a no-brainer, but it also reminds us that there’s a growing number of sites where video content can be found, and that there’s an added value in supporting more than just YouTube and a handful of other video-sharing sites for its aggregation purposes. 
To find out how this new translation tool actually works, I had a quick call with Jajah CEO Trevor Healy. We did a three-way call to Jajah’s new translation service, which is accessible through its own separate dial-in, offered on a local basis around the globe. Once you’ve dialed in, just speak a phrase into the phone for translation. Jajah’s translation service will repeat this phrase back to you, in order to make sure it heard you correctly. This will also help offset some of your fear as a non-Mandarin speaking user. Once you’ve confirmed the phrase, you can then have Jajah translate it. 
Lulu has been working hard to ensure an easier self-publishing tool for its users, and that has led to a number of partnerships with services like 
Nevertheless, there are other social networks that are continuing to infringe on the global market, launching various localized sites all around the world. That’s not to mention the existing social networks that are developed and launched from within the Asian market. While no details have been released regarding Friendster’s plans for this recent round of funding, it’s clear that a very decisive plan for growing its presence in Asia, which includes hopes for significant revenue, are items that are likely at the top of Friendster’s list.
And as with most sites that have looked to online communities for support and organic growth purposes, tipjoy has added automatic Twitter updates to its tipjoy bookmarklet in order to rebroadcast your kindhearted tipping activity across the social Web. 
Since the launch of the iPhone 3G, the past couple of weeks have been prime time for companies to launch new mobile sites. 
service plans to tackle is the Obama nomination speech at the Democratic Convention next month. Lucky for AirBed & Breakfast, it had plenty of practice with SXSW and has an early start for the upcoming convention. There will be an expected 75,000 people in attendance, and so far AirBed & Breakfast has 328 people with available rooms, ready and waiting for Obama supporters. 
Taking all of this aggregate metadata into account, Taglift is recommending matches for marketing content and video content for advertisers. By looking at anonymous behavioral data from networks like 
According to the company, this latest round will be used for the development of new services, as well as a continued focus on driving revenue. Even a year after comScore noted its 500% growth (which has evened out to about 300% growth over the past year), the site is still doing well as far as traffic goes, according to comScore and Hitwise. The teen-oriented social network, founded a few years ago by teen siblings and their older brother, is still promoting this angle for authenticity purposes, as the site and its features are still very much angled towards teen interests.
user, you’re sure to notice that some of these peripheral sections of MySpace could use a little sprucing up, and with other social networks like Facebook offering more integrated uses for their applications, 
There are some other 
So what will these new ads entail? 
There are a few others that are looking to such advertising methods in order to interject their brand wherever consumer conversations are occurring–
The concept of creating a network that gives freelancers a marketing platform isn’t new–there are established networks like Guru and newer networks like 
Qponix is a new widget advertising company with a very specific targeting method and client base. Going after retailers, the Qponix widget aims to further engage consumers more than most other widgets, by giving them an interactive search, shop cart and coupon tool that simplifies the overall shopping experience. 
There are three main aspects to the Breeze platform, which include the application creation process, testing, and distribution. Cascada handles all of these attributes, with a simplified application editor, a mobile application simulator, and the distribution tools that will make it easier for your end users to get your application on their phone. The simulator lets you see how well your phone will work across a variety of handset models, enabling you to make the necessary tweaks in a more efficient manner. 
So some Verizon customers out there may be happy to learn that a partnership with Rhapsody includes a synced account and the ability to purchase items through your phone. You’ll get two songs for the price of one–a version that lives on your phone, and another that’s found in your associated Rhapsody account. Even the billing has been synced so any Verizon customers (even those with existing Rhapsody accounts) can just pay for their Rhapsody subscription as an included option on their Verizon phone bill. Handy. 
It’s a unique meshing of editorial, professional and user-generated content that’s aggregating material from Bleacher Report’s network. That’s a promising move for several user-generated citizen journalism sites out there, as this move works slightly in reverse of the typical distribution model when you’re dealing with traditional media networks. 
Comment-tracking tool 
They’ll both be using 
Teigen: Today, you can import from Zoho and Google Docs, but we are going to support more of the document services later. But on the Beta 2 release, we’ll also introduce file upload. This will enable users to upload pdfs, docs, actually any kind of file, and mix it together with other Secondbrain content. This will make Secondbrain the first “complete” content aggregator - bookmarks, social media and files. Users get 1 GB of file storage to start with, and will give they a pay option later for more storage space.
WidgetBucks will be focusing on three areas now that it has raised additional funding the technology to further optimize publisher earnings, global expansion, and team development on the engineering, sales and marketing ends. 
So, Trusted Opinion is partnering with major television and film studios in order to create such communities of trusted enthusiasts in order to provide a useful recommendation tool for circulating long forgotten content. 
Using Scribd’s 
Equally as important, the advertising options available on 
To that end, Userplane is offering these white label social applications beginning this week. The applications include Webmessenger, Webchat and Webrecorder. The ability to add single purpose applications to existing platforms is not a new trend, but it is one that’s being more readily supported, as we can see with Userplane’s new community-building plugins. 
Photos are actually taken with the Phanfare application, with the built-in camera tool, which streamlines the process. This means that photos are saved with Phanfare, and accessed on your Phanfare account. The idea behind this all is to remove the PC, as if it were a middleman, in the photo-sharing process. Phanfare wants you to consider your iPhone as you would any other digital camera–except it can send photos out to friends and family.
Pictures in Chat - Finally! Gmail’s Chat widget is starting to look more and more like a real IM client. User photos in Gmail Chat are especially helpful when you’re using group chat.
Random Signature - This feature lets you send a new signature with every email sent. Gmail pulls these random quotes from a quotes RSS feed by default, but you can enter your own feed for a more personal feel. This feature would’ve been under the “Best” category if it weren’t for the fact that random signatures can’t be automatically converted into links so that this feed-to-signature capability might be used as a promotional tool.
Some other added benefits of the organization features are that you can also use Passpack to record and maintain data on your frequent flier miles, warranties, and other relevant information that would be helpful to have through a single, secure access point online. It speaks to the potential of virtual assistant tools like 
When one thinks of Blackberry phones, one often thinks of the ability to send and receive emails easily, unlike other sometimes painful mobile versions of email accessibility. But what if you don’t have a Blackberry, and don’t particularly want to pay extra for a data plan?
And as useful as this particular feature is, there was still no visual voicemail optimized for smartphone users until today. This latest version is available for public beta, and it offers access to your 
One great feature about KidZui is the stimulating environment it creates in order to encourage children to explore and learn all they want. There are also social options available for children, so they can interact within this protected environment. Similar to other child-protection Internet services, you’ll need a wristband code in order to enter KidZui.
Add directly to iTunes here
Add directly to your Zune here
The 
Making friends and connecting on Facebook is getting easier–or more automated, at least. Facebook has already added a few features like “People You May Know” (which 
As Inergize works with several clients in the traditional media sector, the need for these clients to have a more robust way of syndicating content is quite relevant in the face of changing media consumption behavior. Entriq is all about providing content to consumers, wherever the consumers are. That means television, the web, radio, mobile phones, etc.
In creating a hub for this particular form of news tracking, RivalMap is targeting the enterprise sect that doesn’t have a dedicated in-house system for doing the constant, necessary research of maintaining industry news. It also offers a tool for leveraging the onslaught of social media that is becoming more pertinent in the news world. As an internal solution for businesses, RivalMap can also incorporate files that employees may have, along with the other web-based content that’s floating around. 
Gamers are a particularly avid and fascinating special interest group that can be leveraged as a highly targeted audience for the delivery of quality content and ads. Launching June 5th and hosted by 
As important as this step is for both Microsoft and Facebook, Microsoft wasn’t the first to integrate Facebook chat–
With strategic investment from the European Founders Fund, Tremor is looking towards global expansion. If any investment group is looked to for helping out with a European strategy for growth, the Samwer brothers’ Founders Fund is amongst the most notable for such expansion. 
Ping This!
After landing 
MobileTribe, on the other hand, is a different type of integration that leverages the mobile devices to enable users to send SMS messages or make phone calls directly to friends on various social networking site. As MobileTribe acts as a single-point access portal for these social networks, Jajah’s implementation provides a central messaging tool that keeps both parties safe and offers more direct communication tools within a mobile application. For this particular partnership, Jajah is able to make calls and send SMS messages to Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo users. 
mashable109:http://mashable.com/2008/05/21/smallworld/
Aside from wondering what