The feed tab seems to be unchanged containing news feeds, but still users may find it hard to “understand” why there is a Wall anymore because it will be text-only from now on. Using a Publisher Tool users will be able to post to their friends’ feed tabs and their own. The tool could be similar to FriendFeed-like conversations but it’s nothing certain until we get more info from the guys.

Existing wide and narrow profile boxes will now appear on a new Boxes tab that every user can enable/disable on their profile.

Though I said there are 5 tabs contained within the layout, users will be able to add their own, too. Facebook will allow up to 5 application boxes to be shown across all tabs but there will be some sort of height restriction.

I’m waiting for the release to give you more info because right now there isn’t much I can dig, except for a not very informative screenshot. Stay tuned.

From what I remember they’ve implemented the “new search” a couple of weeks ago but with some errors on the page so that users where not able to grab the code. The improvement is visible and has a clean code, while users are happy that you can now pick the sites you want to search on, there aren’t any radio buttons and no more “Google Search” buttons.

Check out the video if you want to know more about Adsense for Search which is now powered by Custom Search :

So far the Mountain View, California based company has raised $27.5 million over three rounds but if this turns out to be real, Allen & Co may be working on the most expensive private venture deal that we’ve heard of, lately.

Though rumors late last year said NewsCorpmay have been in talks with LinkedIn around an acquisition, no official papers were issued.

Honestly I don’t get it why a company like LinkedIn that have said publicly they will reach $100 million in revenue in 2008 would need funding so I suppose right now it’s nothing more than a rumor. Let’s see if we can find out more info in the days that will come.

According to Rafat Ali, GodTube managed to raise $30 million from GLG Partners, a hedge fund. Guess they have a lot of faith in the business model.  GodTube the site that started on a $300 script found lots of people in the US that demand religious programs and exploited it and exploded to the top 1000 websites in September 2007.

Not sure how God and the Internet mix but GodTube is doing nicely and dominates their niche market.

That’s definitely one I would keep my eyes on to see where it’s going.

via Mashable

According to a study, U.S. people traffic to Question & Answers websites increased 889 percent in the last two years and the main reason is that when you ask something there’s a real person behind the answers you get. It puts more weight on it and makes you feel like the guy with the solution is an expert, or something.

The most visited sites are Wiki.Answers.com and Yahoo!Answers.

“One of the core principles of the World Wide Web is that we live in a shared world where shared knowledge is valuable. Answerit is an online tool for South Africans to interact and share knowledge that is particularly relevant to their local experience” said Elan Lohmann, GM of Social Networking on 24.com.

Using Answerit is pretty easy. You need a 24.com account and you ask your question and from what I see the service is similar to Yahoo!Answers allowing you to vote for the best answer.

Another thing I like is the leaderboard. This is where you can see the Leaders, Gurus or those that got the most thumbs up. You can also add them to a watchlist if you think they are the experts you could learn from.

So if you want to know who was first, the chicken or the egg, go ahead and ask your smart questions on Answerit.

MyBroadband has broke the news on Media24’s digital unit, 24.com, acquiring a stake in Blueworld Communities - the social media technology company behind social networks like Zoopedup and Blueworld.

Quotes from the MyBroadband article

24.com has acquired a controlling stake in Blueworld Communities – a local social networking group.

24.com recently acquired a controlling stake in Blueworld Communities, a social media company founded by Bradley Voges, Brendt Brooks and Charl Norman which focuses on building and maintaining web technologies such as social networks.

Blueworld Communities owns and runs the websites Blueworld, Zoopedup and Gaypeers and generally targets a younger audience through its social media platforms.

24.com CEO Russel Hanley says that the acquisition gives the company access to both Blueworld’s established online community and their social networking technology.

Hanley highlighted the fact that Blueworld Communities’ audience is complimentary to the 24.com audience and they will definitely look at synergies in future. The 24.com CEO further pointed out that the Blueworld Communities technology will enable them to target certain niche social media markets in future.

“We are very excited to be a part of the 24.com family and look forward to leveraging their assets to further expand our social network’s market reach.,” said Charl Norman from Blueworld Communities.

“We also have a very strong youth demographic which compliments 24.com’s older user base. We are very proud of the social media platform we have built and look forward to exploring synergies between our technology and existing 24.com brands to further expand our niche social network strategy.”

Media24 is the dominant player in the South African online market with well established brands like News24, 24.com, Health24, Wheels24 and Fin24. This latest acquisition will further improve their strength among younger Internet users, a market which Naspers have already started targeting with its shareholding in MXit.

Read the article here

[Disclaimer: Charl Norman is the owner of Bandwidth Blog and also a founder in BWCOM] 

Building a successful blog has many key elements, one of them is a great design and layout. Now not all of us are design savvy and could easily end up with a horrible looking blog. Luckily we have blogging rockstars like Adii to provide high quality themes with feature packed back ends.

Adii released three new premium Wordpress themes, the Live Wire series : Live Wire 2.0, Live Wire Edition and Live Wire Style. The prices start at $99.95 for a single license (website), go up at $149.95 for all three themes and two licenses and if you need to use them on an unlimited number of domains you’ll have to pay $249.95 (includes all three themes).

Here is a list of the features you get when you buy a Live Wire premium theme:

Automatic Image Resizer (requires PHP GD Library to work)
Custom Page Templates for Archives, Sitemap & Image Gallery
Built-in Gravatar Support for Authors & Comments
Author Profiles & Archives
Featured news section
Video Panel (for use with Flash videos)
Navigation Dropdown Menu’s
Sidebar Tabbed Box
2 different homepage layouts (featured section)
Widgetized sidebars
Integrated Banner Ad Management (easily switch this on / off)
Integrated Flickr & Feedburner

The three themes are all magazine-like but I’m sure you could use them on your blog even if you don’t want to start an online magazine. For example, an ideal place to use the Live Wire themes would be on a blogs network. We all know branding is important and having the same elements present is a must for blog networks.

I had the chance to see all of the themes in action and I really liked what I saw. Functionality is great but kept simple with a clean layout and sweet features.

One of my friends bought the developer’s package for his network of blogs and told me that his RSS subscribers increased by 20-percent and readers started to make more and more comments on his articles. This sounds like a great deal so if you want yours, go ahead and buy it now.

The application was built in partnership with Vodacom and stands on three big pillars: blips/virtual notes, the navigator and GRID events. Here are a few details about each one.

First of all, the blips and the virtual notes. If you find something interesting in your area you can add some text, images or a video for others to see and be directed there. It also comes packed with a navigator to give you the shortest route from one place to another, and GRID events where Facebook users can setup events and send invites to other.

“The functionality that we’ve introduced to Facebook with this application is not only very handy but a lot of fun too. With its location-based technology, The GRID application highlights what is happening in your area on a social level, by displaying information being shared between friends and other users specific to that location.”

Ever knew what an Online Reputation Monitoring tool is? Well it’s exactly what it says, a tool that you use to have your brand under a big zoom.

BrandsEye is a new service by Quirk eMarketing, that you can use to protect your brand, track and quantify the exposure you have and see what other people are talking about you.

For those that haven’t heard what BrandsEye is about here is how it works.

They will track every piece of online text that mentions your brand, including blogs, press release websites, twitter and more other. It then tags and ranks them according to the relevance and the credibility of the source, in real time, and using a set of statistical learning algorithms and some sort of human intelligence processes they come out with the final score.

The score is highly customizable offering all sorts of charts that will help you better understand your brand and what it needs.

Who’s going to be interested

First thing that popped into my mind was that I am already able to track my brand (Alex Ion for example) for free, using services like Google Search, Google Notifications or Technorati. Why should I pay the rumored $750 price?

The answer was simple. They’re going after large brands, the upper end of the markets and they don’t plan to compete with the services I mentioned. Aim high is usually what makes money. They’re doing it.

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