I’d like to quickly revisit the story because I’ve been following Pownce from day one, I’ve actually used it more than Twitter, and I’ve been bullish on the service because I thought it offered a compelling feature set when compared to other services in the space. I was wrong.

First of all, less is sometimes more. We all know that, but it was really obvious in this case: Pownce was the Twitter fan’s dream come true, adding groups, file sharing and several other highly requested features without cluttering the service with too many options. However, sometimes simplicity and lack of options are what differentiates a service and makes it worth your while. Twitter devs may be slow when it comes to adding new features, but they’re slow on purpose, because they understand that Twitter is good, for the most part, as it is.

Secondly, sometimes even being much more reliable than your competitors isn’t enough for success. When you think of it, Pownce was positioned very well: it had the features, it had solid backing (it is, after all, Kevin Rose’s baby), and - although it wasn’t without technical issues itself - it came to the scene at a time when Twitter struggled with frequent downtime. And despite the fact that Twitter’s problems with downtime lasted for month, users did not move over to other services, except perhaps FriendFeed (to a certain extent).

The main lesson is probably this: if you’re not first to the game, but perhaps second or third, you need to do your research very thoroughly; sometimes being bigger, better and faster than the competitors simply won’t do.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Pownce Invites Increased: Please Invite Others
Pownce Adds RSS, Support For More Video/Photo Sites
Pownce To Launch Public API
Pownce Releases Public API
Pownce Invites on eBay
Pownce Gets New Features
Put Pownce on Facebook

Nope, I needed to send some ID and utility bills. The process was fairly simple, I took a photo of my phone bill, my AmEx report and both sides of my National ID. In the Paypal documentation they say a phone bill is not ok, but since my apartment is not on my name I don’t pay bills per se. Nevertheless, I sent these all off.

After some mucking about (the form was not the best), Paypal accepted these documents and this, as a lot of government and verification processes puzzles me a bit. I mean I could’ve Photoshopped all that right? Unless they actually checked with my government and bank and carrier service, which I’m sure they didn’t, they replied in like 2 days, they can’t be really sure.

My reasoning is that someone like me would have to go to more trouble to prove his identity and location truthfully, than a money launderer would have to go to to forge this stuff. If I didn’t have a camera I would’ve had to spend about $30 to photocopy, print, scan and so on. A money launderer may have to pay $1,000 for a good forgery, but hey, he has a printing press right, money comes easily.

The point is, that all I proved is that I have an internet connection and probably an ID. Is this a process that is supposed to deter people on the wrong side of the law? I doubt if it does, it did deter me though, my account was even frozen for a while!

Paypal anti-laundering safety regulations

Related posts

• PayPal Now Offering Mobile Security Key (2)
• Computer Security Software ESET SysInspector (3)
• Hacking Horror Story… (10)
• Online Virus Scan (2)
• Identify And Analyze Malicious Webpages (1)

Image © mic.imac

Flickr user mic.imac has a fascinating portrait up of Steve Jobs, comprised entirely of artfully arranged Apple products. The portrait echoes a theme that runs through the upcoming Welcome to Macintosh documentary my colleague Nicole Martinelli wrote about on Monday, which is that the people who work at Apple give themselves entirely to the work of designing and producing the products the company makes.

Of no one is that statement more true than Steve Jobs. As CoM founder Leander Kahney says in the documentary, “Apple is Steve Jobs.”

What are the Adobe AIR apps that you couldn’t live without?  Tell us in the comments!

DeskTube - DeskTube lets you get complete control over YouTube on your desktop. Search, watch, comment, get embed codes, upload your own videos and even download the videos you are currently watching as MOV files.

Dorame - Dorame doesn’t add much to the Pandora listening experience, but it does give you the freedom of being outside of your browser and changing up the appearance of the service.

EarthBrowser - EarthBrowser gives you live updates of clouds, earthquakes, the weather, satellite overlays, volcanoes, fires and a whole lot more.

Feedalizr - Many people have downloaded service specific apps like TweetDeck, Twhirl and so on, but Feedalizr rolls several social tools into one app.  You can work with Facebook, Flickr, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Twitter and VideoVideo all from this one handy interface.

Google Analytics - While most people love looking at statistics about their websites, Google Analytics can be a bit slow at times for those webmasters that use their tools.  This Adobe AIR app gives you the ability to open reports in multiple tabs for easier switching and allows you to change date ranges faster.

MiniTask - A desktop tool for creating detailed to-do lists that you can separate out by categories, copy the items out to other programs, set reminders, print out task sheets and more.

Posty - Get all of your FriendFeed. Identi.ca, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr and Twitter updates in one handy application with built-in URL shortening, spell checking, message search and more.

TweetDeck - While it seems that apps only work with one social site are becoming passe, TweetDeck gives you so much control over how you see your Tweets, it is well worth it.  Your incoming messages are already split into columns for timeline, replies and direct messages, and then you can build custom columns for things such as work, friends and more.

Twhirl - The odds are fairly high that this is the application you installed Adobe Air for in the first place, but that doesn’t exclude it from the list in case it wasn’t.  Probably the most popular of the Twitter clients, Twhirl also supports interactions with multiple accounts for FriendFeed, laconi.ca, seesmic and Twitter.

Yammer - Yammer, the private corporate microblogging service, gets a desktop client that runs on the Adobe AIR platform, allowing you to use all the features of the service freed from your browser.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Adobe Building Office Apps to Go After Microsoft?
Adobe Launches Updated Flash Player 9: Moviestar
Adobe Apollo Turns Into AIR and Gets New HTML Capabilities
Adobe Can’t Fix Security Flaw Until End of October
Adobe Illustrator Integrated with Del.icio.us
Adobe’s Web-Based Photoshop Express On Its Way
Adobe to Acquire Makers of Web-Based Word Processor Buzzword

For Yahoo, Spears wasn't the only pop-culture icon in Yahoo's top 10 searches. Also on the list were Miley Cyrus at No. 4, Jessica Alba at No. 6, Lindsay Lohan at No. 7, and Angelina Jolie at No. 9.

Apparently a lot of people are curious about World Wrestling Entertainment, because WWE was No. 2. The online game RuneScape was No. 5, anime series Naruto was No. 7, and American Idol finished in 10th place on Yahoo's list.

Yahoo also broke down searches for various other subjects. For economic searches, the top 10 list started with IRS stimulus checks, then followed with oil prices, gold prices, gas prices, Dow Jones, Sallie Mae, stock market, AIG, foreclosures, and debt consolidation. The list reveals that people use general-purpose searches for everything ranging from how-to advice to the latest news.

In the people of politics, President-elect Barack Obama led the list. Next came Sarah Palin, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Ron Paul, John Edwards, Mike Huckabee, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Mitt Romney.

AOL also shared its top search terms for 2008, though it didn't break out overall terms.

Ask.com also spotlighted popular 2008 searches, and has a few variations on the standard search categories. Its top questions are as follows:

1. How do I get pregnant?
2. How do I lose weight?
3. How do I write a resume?
4. How much is minimum wage?
5. How much is my car worth?
6. How do I change my name?
7. What is the meaning of life?
8. How do I register to vote?
9. Why is the sky blue?
10. How do I download videos?

And since Ask.com bought Dictionary.com earlier this year, it's releasing top search terms for that site. People's vocabulary expansion efforts concentrated on these terms: maverick, socialism, economy, recession, radical, cyclone, solace, realtor, environment, and potholes.

Apparently Google, which has shared search trends on its annual Zeitgeist list since 2001, didn't get the memo to release its results Monday, but expect it to cough up some new results soon--and, I hope, some of the accompanying graphs.

Ding It’s Up is a unique service that provides you website downtime alerts via Twitter. You can get updates in your email, mobile or Twitter about when a site goes back up. The service sends you a message about the concerned website (that you entered), and you don’t even need to register for this service.

Ding It’s Up and more services like these are used by webmasters who have to monitor their own sites, though it’s also useful for people who are frequent users of Twitter, YouTube and other social tools/networks.

---
Related Articles at Startup Meme:

Company Name

Dailymile

20-Word Description

Dailymile is a social training site for runners, triathletes, and cyclists.

CEO’s Pitch

That race was great, but how do I stay in-touch with the people I just met? And how can I find people to train with in a new city? Providing an answer for these questions drove us to begin dailymile. We wanted to find a better way for athletes to sign-up for races, share workouts, and meet participants. Participating in a race doesn’t end after you submit payment. It’s the daily journey of training, learning, and sharing. As athletes, each day for us is an adventure filled with lessons learned and friends made. We share these experiences with one another through dailymile.

Mashable’s Take

Currently in private beta, Dailymile is a site for keeping track of your workouts, finding athletic events you can participate in, and sending motivation to others. The design is very slick and the features are well-organized, and while the event section dedicated to 10Ks and triathlons can be intimidating, there are tools that can be useful to just about any level of athlete – even if you’re just the type trying to stay in shape by going to the gym.

Once logged in, the homepage of Dailymile is very Twitter-esque, allowing you post a short update about your most recent workout (which can range from running, to swimming, to weightlifting, etc.), as well as multimedia content like photos and videos. There is also a “You and Your Friends” timeline, an “Everyone” timeline, and a “My Training” log – essentially the same views offered on Twitter. Speaking of Twitter, your updates can be auto-posted to the service if you sync your accounts.

Dailymile takes it a step further than other would-be Twitter clones though with some features very specific to the fitness niche. For one, there is the “Motivation” feature, which allows you to message other people on the site with a pre-set message like “Great Performance” or “You’re an Inspiration.”

There are also discussion groups you can join like “40+ and proud of it” and “My first marathon,” so you can find people pursuing a similar fitness goal as yourself. The aforementioned event section is already seeded with lots of running, trialthon, and cycling events you can participate in, though most seem to be on the West coast (not surprising given the time of year).

Ultimately, Dailymile has adopted a lot of popular features of other sites for the fitness niche and done a nice job with them. I think it’s more likely to be successful with serious workout nuts than weekend warriors, but there is certainly something for anyone that wants to put the time in - both in the gym and on the site. As mentioned, Dailymile is currently in private beta, but you can try it out using the invite code ‘mashable’.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

To those of you with a feed addiction, it may come as some surprise to learn that RSS adoption is still surprisingly low across web users– even those who spend a lot of time on the internet. Most people are unaware of the technology or if they are – even less interested. A lot of people simply prefer email subscriptions and depending on the target audience of a blog this can be nearly equal with RSS subscribers. Even here on MakeUseOf, a substantial number of our subscribers are using email for updates.

There are hundreds of interesting ways in which RSS feeds can be put to use. Yahoo Pipes is one great example and this is something I’d like to write about in more detail at a later time. For now however I’d like to introduce you to PostRank.

What is it exactly?

“PostRank is a scoring system developed by AideRSS to rank any kind of online content, such as RSS feed items, blog posts, articles, or news stories. PostRank is based on social engagement, which refers to how interesting or relevant people have found an item or category to be. Examples of engagement include writing a blog post in response to someone else, bookmarking an article, leaving a comment on a blog, or clicking a link to read a news item.”

The 5 ‘C’s are used to determine the popularity of any particular post, I’ll leave you to check it out for yourself if you wish to find out more detail, but in essence this criteria includes the following:

• The creation of a blog post responding directly to another blog post. This is the biggest determinate of a post’s popularity.
• Commenting on a blog post – the second most important measure of audience engagement and the quality of the article.
• Discussion – this involves mentioning a post on other social networking services like Twitter.
• Sharing – submitting a site to Digg, or bookmarking it using a service like Del.icio.us
• User activity on the page – clicks and page views, not given too much weight in PostRank.

Using this system, blog posts can be run through PostRank to determine just how popular (and therefore how good) the posts are. In the example mentioned above, this is how NewsGator implemented PostRank.  When viewing one of your feeds online, you can choose to change the view to show only the most popular items – a useful feature for when in a rush.

Why Would You Want it?

For me the biggest issue I have is finding time to read all the feeds I subscribe to. While personal blogs may only get updated once a day, large multi-author blogs (like one particular blog you may be aware of) are updated much more frequently while other sites focusing on news will be updated constantly 24/7.

With this constant flow of information it’s become increasingly necessary to have the ability to filter out articles which are not of interest to you, and instead simply read the articles which are.

This is where PostRank comes in.

What’s great about this is that no matter what RSS reader you use, be it web based like Google Reader or a desktop application like FeedDemon you can still use PostRank to filter your feeds.

PostRank is both an online RSS reader, service and also an API which developers can choose to include in their applications if they wish. One notable online service which have done is this is Newsgator Online a few months ago.

How Else Can I Use It?

To use PostRank on any feed simply submit it to the PostRank website.  I’ve shown an example in the screenshot below.

If this is a fairly popular feed you’ve submitted then it’ll already be in the system.  If it’s a bit more obscure than you may have to wait a day or so for it to be fully submitted (I’m actually only guessing, I have no real idea how long it takes. Perhaps someone else knows?). In my own experience any feed I wanted to use was already submitted so I’ve had no issues.

After this you can choose what to do with the feed.  You can select from 4 different rankings:

• All Posts
• Good Posts
• Great Posts
• Best Posts

You can also filter the feed by any keywords you want.

After doing this, if you decide you would like to use this feed in your own RSS application then simply click the ‘create new feed’ button. Using this feed you can simply import it into whatever application you already use and replace the feed which may be overwhelming you slightly.

If you decide to create a PostRank account then you can use the site as your web based feed reader.  You can save submitted feeds and change them as you like. If you don’t want to sign up then if you want to make any changes to the feed you’ve created you’ll have to start over again – although it’s not really that inconvenient.

Hopefully some of you can find this useful, I know I did.  Has anyone else already been using it in this way?   You may also want to check out Mark’s previous article on using PostRank and AideRSS in Google Reader.

(By) Laurence John was born naked, screaming and utterly helpless at some point in the last century. With the help of talented programmer and fellow MUO author Wez Pyke, Laurence is working on a new Blog; extendably.com, check it out!

Enjoyed the article? Please leave a comment and tell us what you think about it

New here? Get your cheat sheets and freebies at MakeUseOf Downloads. Enjoy!

Related posts

• What is a FeedReader ? (15)
• Ways to Stay on Top of The News (6)
• The New RSS Feed Reader Wars! (37)
• Some great RSS feeds to add to your reader (9)
• Snackr - Fancy Feed Reader (Adobe Air App) (9)

If you’re like me, sending holiday cards is one of those “necessary evils” of the holidays. A new service, Ecardlets.com, hopes to make the process a little easier — at least for your friends with iPhones.

Ecardlets.com is a San Francisco, CA startup founded by ex-Microsoft and ex-Googlers, and has just launched its initial public beta of the first-ever ecard platform designed specifically for the iPhone. The unique three-dimensional greeting cards take advantage of the iPhone touch screen by allowing recipients to open and flip the cards with just a flick of the finger.

I tried out the service today by sending myself a few cards. The service couldn’t be any easier to use. Simply design your card and hit “send.” The service sends a text message to your AT&T iPhone recipient which includes a link to your card. Then simply swipe your finger to open the card and read the enclosed message.

There are plenty of stock cards ready to send (there’s even a “Congratulations on your new iPhone” card), but the service will become a lot more interesting as more people begin uploading their own card designs. The site offers a Photoshop (PSD) template that you can download to make your own ecardlet that others can then send. Right now you have to email your designs to ecardlets.com but the site is working on a system to enable user-generated ecardlets.

So spice up your greeting cards this holiday season and send your iPhone-toting friends something different.

Ecardlets.com is, at least for now, completely free to use…so send to your hearts content.