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Lavalife introduces new online personals and social networking site for baby boomers

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lavalife.jpgLavalife, a leading provider of products and services designed for singles, announced the launch of lavalifePRIME, an evolution in online dating and one of the first-ever sites exclusively for mature singles age 45 and over. The new lavalifePRIME, designed exclusively with socially active 45+ singles in mind, offers a mix of online dating and social networking that allows members to have a customized experience that reflects their life stages, interests and attitudes.

“There are more than 85 million Baby Boomers in the United States and Canada, according to recent research, and this particular group of singles is looking for something quite unique,” said Marina Glogovac, Lavalife’s Chief Executive Officer. “As we created lavalifePRIME, we did extensive research that confirmed that Boomers are tired of competing on mainstream dating sites where the overall users are much younger and the emphasis is primarily on looks. This group of mature singles is seeking a place not only to connect with other like-minded singles, but also to uncover important life information, explore new interests, exchange ideas and to maximize their busy lifestyles.”

Originally posted on May 29, 2007 @ 12:05 pm

MySpace acquires Photobucket

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photbucket.jpg News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media, parent company of social networking site MySpace, is currently negotiating for acquisition of Photobucket, a popular Web site for storing personal photos, graphics, slideshows and videos, for an estimated amount $250 million. However, official figures are not yet disclosed.

After operating for about 4 years, Photobucket contains approximately 2.8 billion images coming from 41 million registered users worldwide. Ranked as the 22nd most visited Web site in US, it is a dominant market leader in the US online photo market with about 40% market share.

Recently, there had been a friction between MySpace and Photobucket over some technical disputes. MySpace accused Photobucket of violating some of its house rules, prompting them to block traffic from its site to Photobucket. Last April 23, both companies made peace and established procedures to prevent the same situation from happening again.

Based on Hitwise stats, Photobucket is the third most popular destination for MySpace users after Google and Yahoo.

UPDATE: Fox Interactive Media, a division of News Corporation, announced separate agreements to acquire Photobucket and Flektor, Inc.. Terms of the deals were not disclosed.

Originally posted on May 30, 2007 @ 10:05 am

Site for sharing academic documents launched

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scriptovia.jpgScriptovia.com, a Seattle-area startup, announced the launch of its network that allows students from all over the country to collaborate and share resources to help each other excel academically.

“The site is very similar technology to YouTube or Flickr, but for academic documents. In the Scriptovia community, students can post their schoolwork – essays, class notes, lab reports, presentations, and more – so that others can view them, discuss them, learn from them, as well as critique them,” Aseem Badshah, founder and president of Scriptovia.com said.

Scriptovia.com’s features can be used at every stage of the learning process, from the initial discussion of ideas and gathering information, through writing up notes and redrafting, to sharing the finished project and getting comments. Scriptovia.com also provides similar features to other social networking sites. Scriptovia.com members can create profiles, can tag each other as friends, send messages, and provide comments.

Originally posted on May 29, 2007 @ 11:49 am

Digg now banning users for blindly Digging

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SEOpedia is reporting that Digg is now banning users who Digg stories too many stories too quickly without actually viewing or reading the content. This is something that has long been advocated for by the community, particularly when the community sees spam reach the Digg homepage, before they can bury it.

Myself and others have noted that they are several legitimate reasons to not click a link and read or view the content of a Digg submission. However, the explanation given for this banning by Digg makes it appear as though the user was regularly digging stories at a volume and rate at which they were clearly either too lazy to read beyond the title and description, or that they were simply gaming the system and inappropriately inflating digg counts. The latter wouldn’t be very surprising given that I have witnessed my fair share of SEO circle jerk gaming on Digg, especially considering the banned user was part of this SEO’s discussion group.

Your account was banned for the rate of Digging activity you’ve engaged in. We’ve determined that the time in which your Diggs happen, it isn’t possible to actually read the stories. Please read each and every story before you Digg or bury a story. Once you agree that you will Digg/bury more responsibly and read the stories, we will unban your account.

Digg founder Kevin Rose took the opportunity to answer questions the community had after this news hit Digg.

This is extremely rare. We have automated systems that flag abnormal digging behavior (eg. hundreds of diggs in an hour). If the user is banned due to an alarm being set off – in all cases, they are given an opportunity to be re-instated. We strive to keep digg as bot free as possible.

When asked how to get an account reinstated, Kevin replied, “Just email us.”

This automated system appears to be intended catch bots that are used to game the system, but can likewise be used to catch diggers who do the same thing manually. Digg will continue to develop algorithms to detect and prevent diggers from misusing or abusing the system, as they become a greater target crossing the chasm into mainstream culture.

Originally posted on May 25, 2007 @ 2:18 pm

EU Grills Google Data Retention Policies

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eu.jpg The European Commission’s Freedom, Security, and Justice Division has requested Google to provide additional information about its data-retention policies.

Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, a group of data protection officials coming from 27 countries, is helping the Commission to validate if there is any violation of EU privacy laws.

Earlier, the Article 29 Working Party the Chair Peter Schaar informed the Mountain View-based search engine that it failed to meet the EU data-retention policies despite making some major readjustments.

Google has not responded to the letter but its Global Privacy counsel Peter Fleischer is quick to defend this new feature.

“Google recently announced a new policy to anonymize our server logs after 18-24 months. We’re the only leading search company to have taken this step publicly. We believe it’s an important part of our commitment to respect user privacy while balancing a number of important factors, such as maintaining security and preventing fraud and abuse,” said Fleischer.

The company expresses its willingness to meet with different privacy stakeholders to improve the system and protect privacy of Internet users.

Originally posted on May 29, 2007 @ 5:04 am