Bacn is a new term for any email you receive that isn’t spam but isn’t a personal message. For example, an electronic bill that you get through email is bacn. It’s been Web 2.0-ized so it’s not spelled bacon, it’s bacn. I just don’t like that it’s pronounced “bacn.” It should be pronounced “back-en.” I think it’s more fun this way. What else is pronounced “back-en”? Maybe you’re cool and say “backing up,” backin’ up because you think that the last “g” is useless and overkill.
Thumbalizr – Website Thumbnail Creator
Thumbalizr is a simple site offering a simple service. You enter in a URL and it produces a thumbnail. You can also choose what size thumbnail you’d like it to create. Thumbnail is a little misleading because it’s really creating a screenshot of just the website. It’s actually a great tool to “quickly” create a screenshot of a website without doing a print screen, pasting it into Paint or Photoshop, cropping out everything outside of the browser window, exporting the image and uploading it to a server. It comes in very handy for bloggers on the go that might only have access to a web browser.
The only downside is that like most screen capture websites, it’s pretty slow. I’m sure most people can take the long road in the same amount of time thumbalizr takes to create a thumbnail.
MizPee – Where’s the Bathroom?
MizPee is a website that helps you find public bathrooms in your area. This site is in its Beta phase so there aren’t many listings. Of course when you have to go, you won’t have time to find a computer with internet access, so this website is mostly a mobile service. You goto their website and you can navigate to city and it’ll show you a listing of public bathrooms. Again, not very accurate but should be much better once it grows.
For me, it’s still easier to go into a store and ask to use the bathroom. It did give me ideas for a website or two.
Monster Dare – Daring Social Network
Monster Dare is a social networking site where you can dare each other to do stuff. You can dare friends or complete strangers. The dare can be for street cred or it can be for money. Since I’m rich with street cred, I would probably do stuff for money. The dares range from silly dares that are there just to be funny, impossible dares and even XXX dares. There also a chicken category but there’s no dares there.
Well after accepting the dare, you have to prove that you took the challenge. Looks like submitting a video is the only way to prove it. The submitted video then gets voted on. You can also submit money to the pot so it is more enticing to dare accepters. Sounds interesting but there isn’t much content up there.
iJigg – Digg for Music
iJigg combines the idea of Digg with music. You can post music like you submit stories on Digg and visitors can listen to them on a little Flash player attached to each post. Users can then Digg Jigg the song.
The developers have commented on Digg that it’s like youtube as well. I’m guessing that’s the case since you can embed the song in your site/blog, or they’re a little optimistic. In any case, they shouldn’t limit themselves to just music. Eventually they’ll probably move up to video for music videos. Bandwidth, I’m assuming, is the issue for this startup.
Dandelife
Dandelife is a “social biography site”. People can add their events on a timeline. You can wander around to other timelines and biographies. It’s like how people on mySpace blog about things they’ve done or places they’ve been but much more organized. One cool feature is the integration with your Flickr account. You can associate pictures to events on your timeline. Same thing applies to your YouTube account. You can have your YouTube video connected to the event as well.
Their main competitor seems to be OurStory, which seem very traditional when you compare these two companies’ business model. OurStory seems like one of those Web 2.0 companies that just offer a free service to get out there and start charging for “premium” accounts that have more features. I haven’t tried registering with them but I think you can host your pictures there. Of course, they could offer more storage space for a fee. Very traditional Web 2.0 business model. In contrast, Dandelife seems to have a very different business model, according to Techcrunch. The stories you create with your Dandelife account and timeline can be bidded on by corporations to sponsor your story. Maybe it will be like “Sung’s trip to Las Vegas is sponsored by Miller Lite” or “Welcome to the Taco Bell Drive to New Mexico”. Mmm…Taco Bell…
This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode when Kramer sold his stories to Elaine’s boss Mr. Peterson and couldn’t tell the stories to anyone. Proving again that all good ideas come from Seinfeld.
