Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with web2.0

Book Marketing and Social Networks

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:20:49 -0800

What are some clever web 2.0 / social networking tools to use to market a book to college aged kids in America these days? I've got a book that's about to come out, and I've got a big social network of my own to work with. What are some effective, unique, cool, and smart ways to spread the word?

I'm not super familiar with how to promote things on Facebook or My Space but I know there are multiple ways. How hard is it to write a simple gadget (text and a pic) to include on peoples facebook pages?

The main character in the book is going to have his own My Space and Facebook Page, so how can I use that in my plan? There will, of course, be a book webpage with chapter excerpts and a blog for the character. Any clever viral-worthy gimmick ideas that are easy?

Any real idea, no matter how dumb or seemingly obvious, is welcome!

(anony due to pen name)

Online Text Formatting/Cleaning?

tesseract420 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:34:05 -0800

Online text cleaning site? I came across a web site that offered free text cleaning, like stripping ">" marks from e-mails and the like. I've googled and googled but can't trace my way back to the page. Is anyone familiar with this site?

I know there are programs like Text Cleaner, but this was online and free.

Printing Online (Not Printing on Demand by golly!)

enriquem — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:21:59 -0800

Is there a company (besides Kinkos) that can send me a print out of a PDF that I have? Is there a company (besides Kinkos) that can send me a print out of a PDF that I have?

I have a document that I want to print. It is over 400 pages, and I do not want to use my paper or ink for this. Is there a Web 2.0 company that can print this and mail it to me besides Kinkos? I would hate to waste my money on them if there is a Web 2.0 alternative...

Web 2.0 Companies

Sufi — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 02:20:30 -0800

Websites/blogs that discuss popular or up-and-coming Web 2.0 companies? I read Lifehacker and Download Squad, places that introduce me to new and interesting Web 2.0 sites frequently. While they do offer the information I am interested in, I'd like to go one step further and seek out a website that discusses nothing but Web 2.0 companies.

So my question is this: Are there any websites or blogs that exclusively discuss popular or up-and-coming Web 2.0 companies, such as Yoono, Clipmarks & pownce?

I welcome all suggestions! Another Lifehacker/Lifehack would be fantastic tho not Web 2.0 exclusive.

Help me find a platform for new video/blogging social network (YouTube clone)

simpleperson — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 11:24:13 -0800

Can anyone recommend a social networking platform for building a self-hosted, professional interactive video/blog sharing site? I am working on an exciting project for a multimedia startup, we are trying to build an interactive video and content sharing social network (like YouTube, but with a niche focus).

We are looking for a platform that will offer a nice balance: easy to set up, but easy to configure and customize, and with a decent feature set.

We are looking for the basics: user blogs, comments, profiles, tagging, as well as some advanced abilities -- hopefully content rating/recommendations and a strong ability to customize down the road. We are looking for a YouTube clone, more or less, although the finished product will probably look and work very differently.

We need this to be self-hosted, but we are willing to switch platforms if need be (current we are a .NET shop)

We are looking at a variety of off the shelf packages, including MS Community Server. Anybody have much experience with Community Server? Is it robust and easily customizable enough to survive as a full-on community network? Or would it be too limiting as time goes on?

Alternatively we are thinking Ruby on Rails would be the best development platform for this, but we don't want to start from scratch. Are there any strong open-source ROR social network packages out there? Or something not open, but strong?

Thanks for any input!

Other frameworks akin to Ruby on Rails?

killdevil — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:14:49 -0800

What are the best database-driven Web application development frameworks out there right now? More specifically, please orient me to toolsets you know of that are similar to Ruby on Rails. I have a couple of database-oriented Web applications I'll be working on in the near future. I'd love to avoid (re)writing lots of the low-level code (recordset handling, security, user input validation, &c, &c, &c ) that every such application needs in order to function, as I've done numerous times in the past. Rather than dust off some of my own home-rolled libraries, I'd rather take the time to choose and learn one of the integrated open-source frameworks that have come into being over the past few years.

I know of Ruby on Rails, obviously, and have heard of a a couple of python-based frameworks that seem philosophically similar to RoR. Please note that I'm totally language-agnostic -- I'm quite handy with all the languages that form the "P" in "LAMP" and with some others as well, but I don't mind picking up some new syntax if it'll simplify my development task in the end.

Help me understand my options!

How do I maintain professional ownership of a potentially inflammatory, but awesome, project?

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:36:47 -0800

I have an awesome secret work project, but I'm worried that I'm going to get in trouble if I pursue it. Who can I get to help? How can I best negotiate the office politics? Essentially what I want to do is overhaul our website, but it not my place to do so, nor can I easily keep credit for my idea. A little more detail inside (sorry to be so vague)... They just redesigned the website of my workplace. Quite frankly, it sucks, and it does not suit our youthful, web-smart user-base. I have a great idea to make it more helpful and intuitive. I believe I also have two big problems.

Firstly, web design is not my departmental thing, and I believe that the web design people will hate me and take this as a criticism (which it is), even if I pose this as a personal project (I am beginning relevant graduate studies in the fall). I am already especially not friendly with these folks.

The other problem is that the proper course for such an idea is to introduce it to a particular committee. I do not want to do this because I am slowly realizing that the point of this committee is to steal ideas of junior staff and turn them into "group initiatives". As far as I can tell, this just means that someone else does the project and gets the credit. This irritates me.

How do I do this? Do you have any advice? So far, my only plan is to ask for forgiveness when I'm done, once I've presented it or written it up. But I would really like to be able to discuss it with web people/experts in advance, because as I said, I don't really know how to go about it (tech-wise) even though it seems like a really simple reorganization to me. I could wait to learn it in my upcoming graduate studies, but that could take years and I'm really excited right now. How could I make contact, outside of my work, with someone who can help?

I apologize in advance for my inability to clarify.

Help me find a web design firm in NYC

names are hard — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:48:04 -0800

I'm looking for a sleek web design company in New York City. I've got a website draft done, but need someone to make it sleeker, polished, better looking. It is a web 2.0 media company, so a firm that is familiar with the design ethic of this space would be ideal. Don't need a full website design from image to product, just a tweaking of what I've got. On the cheaper side would be ideal, as this is not a huge project.

Online marketing - tools for keeping track of the tools?

rmm — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:04:37 -0800

Online marketing - tools for keeping track of the tools? So a lot of web savvy folks are on MetaFilter - I'm hoping some of you kind souls might be able to help. This is a little similar to some of the previous questions, but hopefully not too redundant.

I'm familiar with both the previous marketing questions on AskMe, as well as being familiar with a lot of the web 2.0 related sites and tools. What I'm looking for is help and best practices on actually executing a marketing plan for publicizing a site and the idea behind that site. I'm working with some folks (in my spare time) who have an existing site on a semi-obscure topic and they even have a recent book on the topic they've written to boot. I'd like to help them out, but am trying to figure out how, and how best to measure the efforts.

I'm seeing it as a combination of:

a) reaching out to interested people who don't know about the book and accompanying site (via a Flickr group? affinity groups related to the topic in message boards etc.?)

b) measuring how they're doing reaching out (this, I'm not as sure of - survey existing users of the site? measure click throughs with banner ads, etc.? what else?)

The problem is I don't want to come off at all like we're spammy folks. If new users buy the book, fine - but if not, life goes on. The people behind the site are doing this out of a pure love for the topic and a desire to create a community around it rather than a 'OMG, let's get rich and famous on the Internets' scheme. They're interested in building a community, and I've heard the 2.0 technologies are good for that ;)

Also how do you measure the metrics of these things - what methods work and which don't? Are there blogs devoted to discussing which methods work ('send to a friend' type links) versus which don't (click through ads?), and the metrics for these different methods?

What sites do you use to propogate your memes, hobbies, ideas? How do you do it in a fun, friendly, upbeat way, rather than 'buy the book' type of thing? What templates or tools do you use to keep track of where you've publicized things to? If people know of forums for interactive marketing that discuss these topics and are useful to you, please post them here as well.

Thanks muchly! (and yes, there'll be a linke to MeFi projects when the time is right, but first, marketing plan)

I need a blog. No, a wiki. Or something.

unknowncommand — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:04:26 -0800

I need a blog or a wiki or a cms or a combination of same or something that doesn't really exist. Help? I am trying to create a freeform thing (for lack of a better word). It will be a group of annotated links/entries/pages/posts (depending on how you want to think about it). Some of these will be annotated links to an existing page (a la del.icio.us). Some of them will just be notes about a text heading, rather than a link. I want them mixed together, with no structure. I want tagging, and I want the whole mess to be obviously and easily keyword-searchable. I want a group of 5 people to be able to edit/tag it easily.

Basically, I want del.icio.us but with the ability to have text entries. Or I want tumblr but with tags. I suppose I could do Wordpress, but it's such a pain to add all the links, and then it's just too...bloggy. And wikis seem too structured (unless I'm missing something). I have no need for these entries to be linked together.

I am likely being too picky, but if anything like this exists, I would be overjoyed to find it. I've read the ask.me posts about wikis and blogs, and I've not found anything. Any help would be appreciated.

Feedo is a No-Go.

beaucoupkevin — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:18:20 -0800

Are there any worthwhile competitors to Feedo? I'm in the process of building A Thing and one of the features I'd like is a rolling series of headlines from a variety of RSS feeds related to a particular topic, formatted nicely. Feedo seems like it'd be perfect (small, fast, easy to configure with a nice selection of skins, and cheap) except for a simple problem: they can't straighten out their login system long enough for me to start an account, give them my money, and start using it. This, of course, fails to fill me with any sort of confidence.

So: spending up to $20 a month or so, what services out there offer something similar? (And don't say "Build it yourself." I'm aware of my technical shortcomings, thankyouverymuch.)

Online Collaboration and Interactive Madness

agropyron — Wed, 30 May 2007 07:52:56 -0800

What are some web sites that allow people to interact in unusual and awesome ways on the internet? Massively Multiplayer Pong was great, but it seems broken. Swarmsketch is another great example. Help me find others... One that I'm trying to recall: there was a big collaborative "novel" that was being written one sentence at a time. Visitors would be presented with two sentences, and would write a new sentence to go between the two. It was hilariously awful. Can anyone find the link?

Wasn't there a site where dozens of people were drawing on a sketchpad simultaneously?

Last example: Interactive fridge magnets.

I'd love to find more sites similar to these, or sites that fit the broader definition I started the question with.

Do take our business plan and talk with "an angel" now?

humannaire — Sat, 26 May 2007 11:33:59 -0800

Three years ago, a friend and I began developing a web app that allows for instant video conferencing. It uses 15kbs, and uses Flash to achieve its internet goodness. It just works, no problem. And we have had success with it - as a product at two separate companies, no less, building it from scratch both times. Up until now we have been charging for it, month to month, as a service for businesses that can want something better than IM chat. (It has a lot of extra "bells and whistles.") But now we want to switch it up. We want to go Web 2.1. When I say 2.1, I mean take a good idea - two-way television (or "youtube with a phone receiver") - and plugging it into an established Web 2.0 business model. So this shift plus another shift into the Web 2.0 business model.

Voila! Web 2.1!

It doesn't matter if only one person has the service, even. You can see and hear me, and type back your response. (Even if you can't hear me, you can see me and we can both "type-talk." But I guarantee you want to plug in your webcam and use it after you see (and hear) me on my end. Essentially, how I explain the idea is it's "the shift from book to television, sythesized with yet another shift - to telephone - and add this to a Web 2.0 business model, and everyone wants to use it. Scratch that, once you use it, you'll never want to use an ordinary telephone again.

So anyway that's the background. Now for the question.

My buddy and I are hooked up with two small companies that see what we are saying but are neither interested in moving out of their respective fields (both transportation) to move into specializing in content and... happyhappyjoyjoy... dataflow. As it stands, this is an old model example of the cart steering the horse.

Presently, I am all for presenting this to an angel and getting funding to staff and build our web app as a videophone for ordinary users, and a videoconferencing tool for business users (the Pro account). But the two bosses of both of the companies we represent are focussed elsewhere. Both are happy to use it for their own ends, and sell it to other commercial subscribers for a large monthly fee. In other words, the old model.

Do we 1) move again, and rebuild the service again 2) license the service from the primary company for exclusive use, or 3) do something to get the two owners to realize the true value of it, 4) stay with the companies but break off and set it up as a separate division.

Flickr for Clothes, y'all! Good idea?

Firas — Sat, 12 May 2007 23:36:14 -0800

Wardrobe software. Has nobody done this? Wouldn't a social webapp for clothing be fiercely awesome? I'm not the target user really (I assume a hypothetical userbase would skew heavily towards the other gender) but even to the extent that I see it being personally useful, it does seem awesome.

Think something like: being able to list everything, add pictures, define combinations, take pictures of yourself in those combinations, get people to suggest combinations for you, etc. Basically a heavy emphasis on organization and communication instead of just spreadsheet-style itemization.

I know that 'social shopping' is an exploding niche and that people have done this with eg. perfumes (basenotes), but I'm concerned that this may be a solution looking for a problem.

Whatcha think?

Recommend a free online notepad

schroedinger — Mon, 07 May 2007 10:09:21 -0800

Free online application for storing quick ideas, notes, websites, etc--like post-it notes on your moniter, only digital and easily organized and searched. Currently I'm trying out Helipad, but what do you use? More functionality needs inside. Over the course of a day I have lots of little things I write down. To-dos, websites I want to visit, ideas to research over the next couple of weeks, recipes to try. Writing things down on slips of paper creates a mess. Up until now I used Gmail, but it's all too easy to forget about them after a million emails to myself with "" in the header I'm realizing this really isn't a solution.

I want an online notepad. Nothing that requires downloading a program or installing an extension in case I'm using a public computer. It should be able to store multiple, editable notes, I should be able to search through it, and the notes should be easy to organize. Tags are good, but the possibility of categories would be great too to enhance browsability--that way interesting/important notes and/or categories can jog my memory if I'm looking for a different note.

Most importantly, it must be simple and easy to use, otherwise I'll slip back into old habits and keep using Gmail.

I've tried Remember the Milk and Backpack. I found Helipad recently and it's good, but I can't shake that in this GTD-obsessed world there might be something even better. What are your suggestions?

Where did that Web 2.0 go?

platinum — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:08:54 -0800

Within the last few weeks I came across a website that listed something like 20 steps for getting Web 2.0 savvy, except that the name was most likely nothing like that and now I can't seem to find it anywhere. I recall that one step was supposed to be completed each week, and it involved things like creating a blog and getting a flickr account, etc. It may have been put together for some type of university course. My google-fu is failing me!

Examples of Web Branding Gone Awry?

jmprice — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:57:36 -0800

Can you think of any examples of established companies seeking user-generated content and the results backfiring? I'm working on a presentation of best practices for PR firms who help companies sponsor and incorporate user-generated content into their branding. I'm looking for case studies where efforts backfired and how the company responded.

Things I might be interested in:
- Where a company starts a blog and commenters start to pick apart claims and embarrass the company;
- An ironic and satirical video rises to the top of a brand video contest;
- Enterprising individuals customized merchandise so that it makes a political statement.

I'm sure there's a lot more out there.

Can you provide me with some specific examples?

One's I'm considering right now:
- The media coverage of MoveOn.org's 2004 video ad contest where a submission that compared Bush to Hitler stole all the thunder out of the contest.
- When Nike started offering customized wording on shoes and they quickly banned individuals from using the word "sweatshop".

Nudity vs Porn - not a question of ethics, but a question of implementation

revmitcz — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 16:58:13 -0800

How would you, as a site owner, encourage people to upload photos as part of a social networking site including those with "soft" or "respectable" nudity but discourage the mountain of spam-like XXX cam girl sites from exploiting that loophole for shady business tactics? Okay, so let's quickly compare Flickr to MySpace in regards to photos. MySpace is over-run with "near nudes" and cheap plugs for the gazillion "hot XXX cam girls" sites all over the web, et al. However, they don't allow nudity and they're very clear about that.

Now, Flickr allows nudity - and i've read nary a complaint from anyone about that. Not to say there are no complaints, but I just haven't heard about it. Ditto for sites like DeviantArt.

So, the question becomes..
How would you, as a site owner, encourage people to upload photos as part of a social networking site including those with "soft" or "respectable" nudity but discourage the mountain of spam-like XXX cam girl sites from exploiting that loophole for shady business tactics?

Is it just a matter of how it's implemented?
Is it just the way a community is built in the first place?
Is there some specific wording that should be used?

I'll probably be posing another question, similar to this in regards of user behavior, in a few days for a project i'm working on and I trust the MeFi crew above any other place I could openly ask this question - so your opinions are all very greatly appreciated.

Zoho, any good?

Karmakaze — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 05:54:31 -0800

Do you have feelings about the Zoho suite of web apps? My older brother, who thinks I know more about this internet thing than he does, just emailed me asking if I I know much about the Zoho suite of web applications, because he's trying to figure out how/whether to use 'em. I've heard of them, but never really touched them. I'd like to give him a more cogent answer than that, though. Could any of you with direct experience give a few reviews?

YouTube Ranking

Toekneesan — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 17:38:49 -0800

So just how does YouTube rank their "top" and "most" videos? Do they have human editors? I found this intersting little video on YouTube and have been watching it grow as a meme all day yesterday and then kind of explode today. Technorati listed it as the WTF subject for most of the day, and still lists it as the most popular video. But YouTube, where it's hosted doesn't seem to know it exists. In spite of watching it go from a couple of thousand views to almost 40K in less than 48 hours, it doesn't show up on any of their most or top pages. It statistically surpasses most of the other contenders in their Most Viewed, Top Rated, Most Discussed, Top Favorites, and most linked categories but it's not there. Why?

Help Me Find a Public RSS Reader!

phixed — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 14:38:07 -0800

Is there a website, online reader or service that will allow me to aggregate a number of RSS feeds and share them on a single page available to the public? I am teaching a class and would like to set up a page that allows all of my students to keep tabs on a set of feeds I select. Thus far the closest that I have been able to find is to create a Yahoo 360 profile, but that only allows up to three feeds to be displayed. Google Reader also comes close with their public page options but you have to manually go in and choose which posts you want to share, something that is unmanageable for this purpose.

I've also looked into Rollyo, Diigo, Yahoo MyWeb, Squidoo and others but none of these seem to offer exactly what I'm looking for. This seems like something that has to exist so please, I beg of you, help me find it!

What's the bestest way to self-publish?

docgonzo — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 11:53:23 -0800

Has anyone used blurb.com? More to the point, what are my options for self-publishing? I am enamoured of the idea of putting together a hardcover of wedding pictures -- Blurb looks okay, if a bit hard to customise (and the shipping costs to Canada are too steep.) Any other ways to get a hard or softcover, perfect bound 40-60 page book with a very small print run?

So I know HTML. What to learn next?

Robot Johnny — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 19:23:55 -0800

What web technology/language should I learn to make simple online apps and just generally enhance my bare-bones knowledge of HTML? I know my HTML and CSS, and am pretty comfortable making simple websites and having them look nice (and coded by hand), but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to anything more complicated than that.

I've been able to wrestle my way through simple modifications of existing code (like a WordPress or MT installation, for example) but I otherwise know little to nothing about PHP or MySQL.

Then there's AJAX this, and Ruby that, and all that other "Web 2.0" jargon that I know nothing about apart from having general idea of what it can do.

I also have absolutely NO programming experience beyond

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10

So, with my limited knowledge, where should I begin, and what should I learn? I'm not too interested in anything too complex, but I think I'd have fun fooling around to create (relatively) simple things like Wordie or just beefing up my websites with a little more user interactivity.

Any good books, too?

Easy redirects

PandemicSoul — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 19:35:06 -0800

Anyone know that website that made redirects easy? A month or two ago, I visited a new Web2.0-ish site that made it easy to create redirects by just putting in your original URL and the URL you want to redirect to.

For the life of me, I can't find it anymore. Any ideas?

Sexy Web Based Wishlist Services

JPowers — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:24:23 -0800

I'm looking for a slick, web 2.0-esque, well designed wishlist site. The best I've found so far is MetaWishlist, which I'm not all that impressed with.

My chief concern is design. I want a sexy looking site.

Also, I want a site designed speically for wishlists. Not a work-around like using Ta-Da List or Delicious.

(Oh, and as much of a greasy fan boy I am for Google, the Froogle wishlist is fugly.)