eSnips has launched a service called Social DNA, a series of quizzes created in-house to help its users connect with one another. Quizzes can have any mashup of content--although most is text--ranging from toilet etiquette to political views to current events. The service is starting out with text, pictures, and audio clips, and is expected to expand to video in the near future.
What makes Social DNA interesting is how it pairs you up with other eSnips users as you go, providing percentages of how well you match other users based on your responses to the quizzing. Those who are willing to take an entire quiz (which usually has 10 to 12 questions) will get a more precise pairing. eSnips also takes the liberty of clumping you into one of its "social genes" groups, which are quizzes put categorized by sub-genre.
Along with its Social DNA section, eSnips is integrating people's Social DNA results into their profiles, so they can compare and contrast quiz results with people they're already friends with, or when browsing any old profile. eSnips will actually break down your total "compatibility" with a person, along with the best match of a quiz you've both taken. Yael Elish, CEO and co-founder of eSnips thinks this is a far better system for finding common areas of interest with your social networking buddies compared to Facebook and MySpace, which takes any information you've entered and turns it into tags. Incidentally, the company is planning to widgetize Social DNA to let people take it off the site and onto blogs and other Web sites, which I think could lead to a standalone Facebook app if somebody takes the time to code it.
This is a nice value-adding service for eSnips users but nothing revolutionary. It's not a platform launch or an open API (application programming interface). Social quizzing services are all over the place including Tickle (formerly Emode.com), QuizFarm, and MTV-owned Quizilla, to name a few. Social DNA is, however, much easier on the eyes and more user-friendly than any of those. I also have to give eSnips a nod for their writing. Say what you will about the wonder of user-generated content, but having pros write the initial batch of these has made the quizzes both quirky and entertaining.
Related: fooWHO: social bookmarking with a pinch of eHarmony
Get your quiz on with eSnips' new Social DNA testing center. Based on your answers, it lets you know who you should befriend.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Waiting for Google's online hard-drive service to launch? Check out Digital Bucket, a new storage service that's simple and intuitive. We've seen plenty of virtual desktop services here at Webware, and the one thing many have in common is attempting to emulate an existing GUI. In the case of Digital Bucket, that look and feel is the Microsoft Windows file explorer, and as I've found by using the service this morning-- this isn't a bad thing.
When it comes to files, drag and drop is by nature a very effective way of moving things around. In the Web world, this was a relatively difficult thing to manage until recently. Getting your files onto Digital Bucket in the first place involves hand picking files off your hard drive. There's also a simple mode that will sync an entire drive or folder of your choice. Once they're on there, you can drag and drop at will, sorting them into various music, video, and document folders. There's also a tagging system to let you quickly group and sort similar files.
The file uploader is simple to use, and gives you plenty of information about the status of your files.
(Credit: CNET Networks)What makes Digital Bucket "webby" is its collaborative nature. During the beta test you get a 1GB storage, and two collaborators. These folks gets access to your virtual storage space, and you can place all sorts of permissions on your files on a per-user basis to control access. You can also monitor their bandwidth usage through the admin controls, and set up file feeds that they can subscribe to see the newest additions without having to log-in. Digital Bucket is rolling out the multiuser feature only with their $149-a-year business user tier, so users of the less expensive basic and pro accounts are on their own--literally.
Another handy feature of Digital Bucket is the integration with Zoho to let you edit any documents or spreadsheets you've got stored. Box.net and Omnidrive have this feature, and it's wonderfully helpful if you don't feel like firing up another app on your computer to quickly view what's on it. Likewise, there's a picture viewer that does full-screen slide-shows, and music and video previews that play right inside the file browser.
I really enjoy the look and feel of Digital Bucket. In terms of value for your buck, ideally the company could transition the beta into a free service, and add shared accounts on the two lower-tiered subscriptions. If you're really looking for a free gigabyte of space (or more) to stash your stuff, there are already a handful of services like the aforementioned Box.net and Omnidrive, along with others like Xdrive (5GB), eSnips (5GB), and MediaMax (25GB).
View your files like you would on a Windows machine, although the picture preview mode is a little bit more svelte than XP's.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
- Box.net gets new design. Box.net has gotten a face-lift that shows more files and menu choices in the same amount of space. They've also completely gotten rid of the sidebar (which once housed navigation options), and added some neat previews for any photos that have been stored. There's also the option to send any file that's on there to one of your Box.net widgets without having to leave the page. Previous Box.net coverage here.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
- MySpace partners with Bodog. Online sports gambling, TV, and music service Bodog has partnered with MySpace to tweak the user song count on MySpace's music player to five songs (up from four.) All users need to do is add Bodog to their friends list and they'll instantly get the limit increased. This move is aimed at bands who want to promote an extra song, but for users who want an alternate way to get more songs on a profile, check out the eSnips music widget, which we checked out earlier this month. [via Mashable]
- PreFound, the community-powered search engine has been re-resigned with a new look and a results page that includes Google and Wikipedia results along with PreFound user suggestions. You can now set PreFound to filter your results based on location, with help from Google Local. PreFound also has added some social bookmarking features with a bookmarklet for easy adding of content to their user groups, which combine search results with group discussion.
- Netvibes launched its Coriander release last night. The new version of the site upgrades the look and feel of media-rich RSS feeds and improves sharing options for your favorite feeds or page layouts. There also are some really neat new modules, such as the one for Google maps and a March Madness one that displays scores, video, news, and blog posts about NCAA games. Also added is the ability to change the width of each column of modules, which makes each page even more customizable.
eSnips, the social networking and content-hosting service, is quintupling the storage on users accounts to 5GB. The company is also adding new music-sharing features that let users create embeddable music widgets and playlists for use on eSnips user pages, blogs, Web sites, and social networking sites like MySpace. The service ties into the eSnips marketplace, which lets you buy and sell user-generated content like photos and music.
We covered eSnips last year and noted its similarity to social bookmarking site Del.icio.us mixed with content hosting like you'd find on social networking sites. Since then, eSnips claims to have grown to a user base of more than 1.5 million registered users, which is more than Del.icio.us in less than a third of the time. The company also added 'Micro-Portals' in November, which are themed community pages that aggregate some of the site's most popular content. Photography, for example, gets its own Micro-Portal featuring popular or interesting photos from eSnips users. The same goes for poetry, painting, and now music.
The embeddable music widgets make eSnips content easier to share. It's a useful utility for existing eSnips users, but unlikely to draw new users to the service; there are a lot of music-playing widgets available. eSnips does get a thumbs up for its combination of music features: You can store, share, and sell music all from one interface.
Completely unrelated (but very interesting) is the eSnips toolbar. I usually don't get excited about toolbars, but this one has a neat feature that lets you take really slick looking screenshots of whatever Web page you're looking at, to share with others. Other social bookmarking tools rely on users or the site's feed to fill in aspects like the title and the description; but with the toolbar, you can just take a shot of it and post it to your eSnips profile, without having to log in or even touch your keyboard.
I've embedded one of the eSnips music widgets below, although as a warning I didn't pick out the music.
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