Technically Speaking

I just switched to Justin.tv this morning. Not that I broadcast regularly (I am right now), I made the switch because of the fact that Ustream.tv wouldn’t pick up my Macbook built in web cam.

While both services seem neck and neck for customers or users, they should support all platforms. Now I only changed things around because of some of the really cool things that will be coming out via Lookery very very soon. I of course have a rex.tv page and that is the reason. There are things I didn’t realize, but now I do! Read more about Lookery on the blog.

Now one thing that I’m not sure of, and it could be set this way so you don’t overload your router, but I don’t hear any audio via Justin.tv. I guess if you view it, let me know if you hear audio. I’m playing tunes currently on my iTunes.

Technically Speaking, just something fun to do. bathroom lights

Google has been reported to have broken over the $700 per share price this morning. My first reaction is that there are a lot of people out there that are making money. My second thought is the US economy is all riding on the good ship Google. If for some reason Google mis-steps, there could be disastrous results for the entire economy this country is thriving on right now.

Yesterday, there were talks of the Web 2.0 bubble going under very soon. As long as Google’s stock goes up, I think that is doubtful. There will be a downturn, but the same thing happens in sports; right NY Yankee fans? What about St. Louis Cardinal fans? You get what I mean.

Now the naysayers will hope for a Google collapse sooner than later. I for one hope that the stock price keeps going up. With the other industries in disarray these days - mortgage industry, banking, steel, farms, etc et al - it’s good to see that the one thing keeping our economy going is the internet.

Technically Speaking, without Google and the Web 2.0 explosion it would be 1929 all over again.

SezWho announced a series of new features to enhance the online community experience and elevate conversations among participants.

SezWho is a collaborative review and reputation service that informs and improves conversations across distributed social spaces. It supports blogs, forums, social networks, wikis – any site that features user-generated content.

SezWho gives every online community the power of eBay-like ratings and reputations, providing community participants with valuable information about the views and expertise of the individuals who contribute through comments and content.

Visitors can rate user-generated content based on the value provided. Next to each comment is a simple question: “Was this comment useful to you?” A cumulative ranking is then associated with each comment, which collectively provides an overall score associated with individual profiles. SezWho lets reviewers take their reputation and reviews with them wherever they participate on the web, offering a snapshot of their expertise and knowledge throughout all SezWho-enabled sites.

Among the new community enhancing features, SezWho introduced two new widgets. The Red Carpet widget lets communities feature top-rated participants on a virtual red carpet. Each avatar links to individual profiles that provide a history of comments, associated articles or pages, and the overall ranking for each. The new SezWho badge lets contributors display their personal rating and expertise portfolio on their blogs or other sites to reinforce an earned reputation.

Beyond tracking conversations and the value of individual contributions, the latest SezWho release also provides statistics for both contributors and site owners. Contributor statistics show who and how many people are rating and viewing a contributor’s profile. Site statistics show how much additional traffic SezWho is driving and where that traffic is coming from.

SezWho, launched in June 2007, is a collaborative review and reputation service that informs and improves conversation across distributed social spaces.The company also raised $1 million from KPG Ventures in its first round of funding. directbuy

Lending Club is announcing a partnership with the Georgia Tech, Kansas State and the University of Michigan.

While rocketing to the top in approximately 100 days as people-to-people (P2P) lending service via Facebook, today they are announcing the availability of its community-based lending service through the websites of top university alumni associations. This will expand the choices of lending and borrowing money among fellow alumni. Lending Club is the first in the P2P lending industry to provide co-branded lending applications to online communities.

Lending Club launched at the end of May exclusively as a Facebook application. Since then, the Lending Club community has rapidly grown beyond Facebook to more than 22,000 users who have loaned and borrowed more than $2 million within the community.

Their service is available to individual borrowers with credit scores at or above 640. Using Lending Club, borrowers can apply for personal loans of $500 to $25,000 to be funded by one or many individual lenders. To date lenders have funded 90 percent of all approved loan requests. Lending Club handles user authentication, bank account verification, credit checking, credit reporting, funds transfers and collections.

Lending Club is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA. They recently had a round of funding ($10.26 million) by Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners.

Full Disclosure: Rex Dixon is the Director of Social Media Content for Lending Club

Just heard about it on Pownce and Snitter (twitter). San Francisco earthquake - a 5.6. I hope that everyone out there is ok! That proves that twitter and Pownce have a place in the world. Another event first heard on a social tool. Of course there has to be the blog based out of the UK that says it all.

Now here is some official information from the .gov site. Below, you can see some un-official but right on the scene information.

Technically Speaking, time for another beer here in the STL!