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Millions of war records now online

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civwar_soldiers.jpg

Ancestry.com is commemorating Memorial Day weekend by unveiling more than 90 million U.S. war records– from the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 through the Vietnam War’s end in 1975. The collection also includes the names and gravestone details of 3.5 million deceased U.S. soldiers.

“The history of our families is intertwined with the history of our country,” said Tim Sullivan, chief executive of Ancestry.com. “Almost every family has a family member or a loved one that has served their country in the military.”

The records, which can be accessed free until the anniversary of D-Day on June 6, came from the National Archives and Records Administration and include 37 million images, draft registration cards from both world wars, military yearbooks, prisoner of war records from four wars, unit rosters from the Marine Corps from 1893 through 1958, and Civil War pension records, among others.

After D-Day, subscribers will have to pay $155.40 a year.

Originally posted on May 25, 2007 @ 8:30 am

Filed Under: Web

Fatdoor launches in Bay Area

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fatdoor.jpgFatdoor, a community networking web site dedicated to helping people get to know their neighbors, has launched its service in the San Francisco Bay Area. Fatdoor creates a social network for people who want to connect, communicate and share with others in their local communities.

“Life is local, with people’s communities extending in concentric circles from their homes to their neighborhoods, towns and beyond,” said Bill Harris, chairman of the board, Fatdoor. “Fatdoor mimics this on the Web. With rich maps and pre-populated data for more than 100 million households in the U.S., Fatdoor brings real neighborhoods online giving people the tools to find and communicate with their neighbors.”

Fatdoor has all the familiar ingredients of social networking such as personal profiles, intra-personal connections, group networking and information sharing, but is centered on local neighborhoods. It also uses Microsoft Visual Earth for mapping.

Originally posted on May 29, 2007 @ 7:16 am

CollegeHumor.com launches content sharing application with Facebook

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collegehumor.jpgCollegeHumor.com, the source for irreverent student humor and co-ed pop culture, announced a unique content sharing application built on Facebook Platform.

The new CollegeHumor applications will allow Facebook users and fans of CollegeHumor to interact more easily. With this new application, Facebook users will be able to share their favorite CollegeHumor videos, pictures, and articles in their profiles for their friends to view. They will also be able to add applications that showcase the newest and most popular content, content from their school, and even an application to insult their friends (Editor’s note: Why would you insult a friend?).

“Facebook has truly emerged as the premiere online social utility. We’re thrilled to be sharing our unique content on the Facebook Platform and to be part of larger growing online community,” said Josh Abramson, president and co-founder of CollegeHumor.com.

Originally posted on May 28, 2007 @ 9:23 am

Spam’s everywhere but few are complaining

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It may be true that spam messages are everywhere, but a new study reveals that more Americans are accepting them as a fact of life.

What are the facts of this study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project? Thirty-seven percent of U.S. email users say they are getting more junk in their personal e-mail accounts. Some 29 percent said that there is an increase of junk mails in their accounts at work. On the other hand, 28 percent of Internet users say that spam is not a problem at all, that’s up by 16 percent compared to June 2003.

“It’s maybe starting to become part of life online. Once something’s part of life online, people feel that they should just stop complaining about it and move on, even though people are still annoyed by it,” Susannah Fox, associate director with Pew Internet said. [Full report]

Originally posted on May 24, 2007 @ 10:17 am

YouTube, Pepsi host comedy sketch contest

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sketchies.jpgYouTube and Pepsi is holding “YouTube Sketchies,” a contest for comedy sketches. A panel of judges will choose 20 finalists from entries submitted between May 24 and May 31. YouTube’s users will then vote on which contestants should submit follow-up sketches and a winner will be selected after three rounds of voting on July 12.

“Some of the best YouTube comedians use the episodic format, and they’ve been hugely popular as a result,” said Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing at YouTube. “We’ve seen an evolution on YouTube from one-hit viral videos to people building passionate audiences that tune in to see every new video.”

The winning sketch group will receive a brand assignment and a production budget from Sierra Mist to create a comedy short that will be presented on the drink company’s Web site in an effort to showcase its new Lemon Squeeze flavor.

Winners also will get to meet sketch group the Lonely Island and attend a screening of the Paramount Pictures film “Hot Rod,” due Aug. 3. The Lonely Island were involved in the making of “Lazy Sunday,” a mock rap music video that originally aired on “Saturday Night Live” in December 2005 and was subsequently viewed more than 5 million times on YouTube before NBC Universal asked the site to remove it.

Originally posted on May 22, 2007 @ 10:09 am