It’s proven its usefulness in incredibly diverging scenarios, ranging from loud egocentrics to real-time news aggregation during disasters. For a more extensive read on Twitter, check out the MakeUseOf PDF Guidebook to Twitter.

Nevertheless, it’s always refreshing to see a Twitter alternative hit the market and challenge the active powers. After all, competition lies at the very foundation of progress.

Yahoo! Meme

Meme, Yahoo’s new microblogging platform is a Twitter-challenger that should be taken seriously. Even though it’s been running a short while in Portugal, it’s just recently been launched for the English-speaking public. I was lucky enough to receive an early invite.

The opinions on Meme deviate – it’s been called a serious Twitter-killer by some, a superfluous clone by others. In this article we’ll try to compare the features of both platforms – not to blatantly conclude which is better, but to look which prevails in what area.

Where Meme Beats Twitter

There are a few areas where Meme makes Twitter bite dust – a few features that aren’t included in the latter contestant, or not as actively.

Media-rich and extended post functionality

Contrary to Twitter, which is mostly text-based, this Twitter alternative not only supports, but focuses on media-rich posts.

There are four different kinds of posts; text, picture, video and audio. The latter three allow you to post media from your hard drive or an internet location – as well as supply it with a caption. Video and audio players are embedded in post overviews so you can play everything on spot.

Obviously, Meme also supports text posts. The main difference to Twitter, however, is that you can type up to 2000 characters – the equivalent of roughly fourteen tweets.

Meme also supports basic HTML mark-up, allowing you to type in bold, italic and create links.

Reposting and commenting

Another defining feature of Meme is the reposting functionality. Sure, retweeting is possible as well, but it’s far more limited.

Next to each post you’ll see a repost button, as well as the number of times it’s been spread around already. By clicking the button, you instantly repost the item to your stream. As you can in the screenshot below, you can attach a personal comment to the repost – this will be visible to the source, as well as your followers, but will not be carried in any subsequent reposts.

Each repost also includes two names at the bottom – the one who you reposted it from, and the original source. This ensures that the spiritual ‘legacy’ of a post is always carried on, no matter how many reposts have passed.

Of course, reposting isn’t the only way to comment on someone else’s activity. Every post in Meme also gets its own page. On there, multiple people can comment in a threaded view.

Where Meme Fails Twitter

Every coin has two sides, and Meme is still far from perfect. There are a number of areas where the Twitter alternative still fails Twitter, due to missing features or functionality.

Content

I hate saying it, but Meme is still far inferior to Twitter in terms of content. A large majority of people on Meme just post ‘funny and cool’ pictures all day long – which is entertaining at the start, but quickly gets tiresome. At the time being, there’s a huge shortage of people who have something meaningful to add. Looking solely at content, Meme might be heading the same way as Tumblr.

Of course, this is not a permanent conclusion. Twitter started out the same way, and quality of content is bound to improve over time. Nevertheless, it can’t be ignored.

Searchability

The searchability of Meme is very limited at the moment – not to say ‘nonexistent’. It’s not possible yet to search posts, or search ‘topics’ like in Twitter.

Twitter’s real-time search is one of its great strengths, and because of its complete absence in Meme, this is an obvious failure.

Third-Party Backing

Last but not least, third-party applications also aren’t available. Where Twitter is supported by an abundance of online and offline client applications, as well as hundreds of cool ‘bots’, Meme is completely stand-alone. The biggest (and only) link to the outside-WWW is RSS functionality.

Conclusion?

There are a few wins, a few fails. Whom you regard as the winner is completely subjective. You’ll have to carefully consider which features you value most in a microblogging platform. Personally, I’m a Memer – what are you, and why?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Who’s Following You on Twitter and are You Following Them? (11)
• Twittastic Desktop Twitter Client With Nifty File Sharing Tools (11)
• Track Your Twitter Popularity With TwitterCounter (10)
• Too Much To Tweet? Tweet It With Twitblogs (5)
• Seesmic – Like Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku Or Pownce But With Video (9)

How cute.

Anybody can be a Trekker, wannabe Jedi, or gamer. Why not prove yourself to be a fashionable geek with some genuine stuff from some of your favorite Internet companies? Let’s look at some examples.

The Digg Shop

The Digg Shop has shirts, hats and hoodies from your favorite social news site, and you need not be MrBabyMan to appreciate that. When sitting down to watch this week’s Diggnation, why not crack open and enjoy a cold beverage with this pint glass and bottle-opener combo?

The Reddit Store

If you’re not down with Digging and Reddit’s more your thing, I haven’t forgot about you. The Reddit Store has nice, stylish tee-shirts and offers free shipping. How could you resist this uber-cute onesie for your little Redditor? It has karma points written all over it.

The Google Store

Google remains the top brand on the Web according to Nielsen Online, and the Google Store boasts worldwide distribution of many fun and/or practical items, some of them earth-friendly, such as lip balm, recycled notebooks, Blogger beanies, YouTube hoodies, lava lamps, bike jerseys, and yo-yos. Unfortunately, Google Gulp is still in limited-release beta.

Yahoo! Company Store

Yahoo! isn’t far behind in Neilsen’s ranking. The Yahoo! Company Store sells lots of knick-knacks, lots of pet-toys, and lots of… purple.

The Microsoft Store

If you’re looking for Microsoft programs and operating systems to purchase, the Microsoft Store has what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for Microsoft-related merchandise, such as shirts, mugs etc., you’re better off checking eBay because I couldn’t find a Microsoft company store besides the one at the company’s Visitors’ Center in Redmond. Oddly, Microsoft doesn’t take orders on the Web.

Source: eBay

In fact, eBay may be one of the best places to find memorabilia from certain high-profile companies, including defunct companies, such as the above Webvan-branded pen or items featuring the former spokes-puppet for Pets.com. Just type your favorite company’s name in the search and you’ll likely find some rare stuff that the public usually can’t get.

The Mozilla Store

Free software fans, don’t feel left out. The Mozilla Store sells tee-shirts and accessories, as well as software CD bundles and extremely-cute Firefox plushies, the proceeds of which go to support the Mozilla Foundation. In keeping with the open-source spirit, Mozilla also has a community store with user-submitted designs.

The Winamp Store

The Winamp is one of the most popular media players around. The company has a swag store as well. You may buy T-Shirts, Mugs, Bumper Stickers, Mousepads, Posters and Stickers.

The Wikimedia Store

Finally, Wiki fans, you’re in luck. The Wikimedia Store on CafePress is open for business and naturally, user edits. Show your support for free and open culture by purchasing shirts, posters, mugs, mouse pads and messenger bags bearing the logos of your favorite Wikimedia projects.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the kinds of stuff that you can purchase from your favorite companies. Tell us your favorites that I may have left out. What’s the most unusual piece of “swag” you’ve ever received? Shout it out in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Where To Buy Cool T-Shirts Online (42)
• 9 Sites With The Latest Fashion Trends For Fashion Maniacs (8)
• Yahoo Searchmonkey Expands with Playable Music Tracks (3)
• Utilizing Windows Search 4.0 (Part 1) (10)
• Make Use Of Podcast #38: Yang Quits Yahoo!, iPhone Google App (1)

I guess it’s because they want us to stay forever but sometimes you just really don’t like the site or maybe you are trying to clean up your accounts (because you have so many all over the net).

Whatever the reason may be, I’m sure you’ll find that this little cheat sheet will make deleting those unwanted accounts quick, easy and painless.

Yahoo

There are two ways to delete your Yahoo account. The first way is to totally abandon it for at least four months. Inactive Yahoo accounts are deactivated after four months so if you’re in no rush to get rid of it, you can simply stop using it.

The other way to delete your Yahoo account is to visit the Account Termination page.

• Log into your Yahoo account. If you’re already logged in you may have to re-enter your password just for verification purposes.
• Click here to get to the Account Termination page.

Facebook

Facebook offers two options. You can either deactivate your account or permanently delete it. Of course, the deactivation method is much easier to find than the permanent deletion option. One thing you should know is that if you deactivate your Facebook account, your profile information will still be saved such as your friends, photos, interests, etc. On the other hand, permanently deleting your account will remove all of your information from Facebook and nothing will be saved.

To deactivate your account:

• Hover your mouse over the Settings menu in the top right of any Facebook page and click on “Account Settings”.
• Click on the “Deactivate Account” link at the bottom of the page.

To permanently delete your account:

• Click on Help at the bottom of any Facebook page.
• Search for “delete account” in the search box underneath the Help Center heading.
• Click on the “I want to permanently delete my account” link and read the 2 paragraphs there.



• Click on the link at the end of the last paragraph, read what’s there and then click the “Submit” button.
• Click here for the easy route.

MySpace

MySpace makes things a little bit easier, no searching needed.

• Click on “My Account” in the top right corner of any MySpace page.
• Click on the “Account” link.
• Click on the “Cancel Account” link at the bottom of the page.
• Select the reason why you want to cancel your account, and then click the “Cancel My Account” button.
• Click here for the easy route.

Ning

One thing about Ning is that even when you delete your account, the content that you’ve added to any social networks you were a part of will remain on those networks. If you don’t want your content to remain, you’ll have to delete it yourself. An easy way to do that is to simply leave each network you belong to separately before deleting your actual Ning account.

In order to leave a social network on Ning:

• Sign into the network.
• Click on the “My Settings” link in the top of the right hand column.
• Click on the “Leave (Social Network Name Here)” link at the bottom of that page.

To leave the Ning network altogether you will have to contact Ning by clicking here. There is no option in the “I have a question about” menu for deleting an account so you will have to pick which one you think fits best.

MSN

Just like Yahoo there are two ways to delete your MSN account. You can either stop using your account for 30 days or delete it manually. After 30 days of non-use your MSN account will become inactive and after 90 days your passport will become inactive.

To manually delete your MSN account:

• Click on the little arrow next to your name in the top right corner of any Hotmail page.
• Click on the “View Your Account” menu option.
• Click on the “Close Account” link at the bottom of the page.
• Read the info, enter your password to verify your identity and then click on the “Yes” button.
• Click here for the easy route.

Twitter

Note: If there are issues with Twitter, the option to delete you account will be disabled and you’ll get an alert message like the one picture below. So, hopefully Twitter is in good shape if and when you try to delete your account.

• Click on the “Settings” link in the top right corner of any Twitter page.
• Click on the “Delete My Account” link at the bottom left side of the page.
• Confirm that you want to delete your account.
• Click here for the easy route.

FriendFeed

FriendFeed is another site that makes you do a little searching before being able to delete your account.

• Click on the “help” link at the bottom of any FriendFeed page.
• Click on the “Using FriendFeed” header to expand it.
• Click on the “How do I delete my account?” link which will be the last link under that section.
• Enter your password in the first box, type the word “delete” in the next box, enter the reason why you’re deleting your account in the last box.
• Click on the “Permanently delete my account” button.
• Click here for the easy route.

Jaiku

Jaiku has the account deletion option right where you’d expect it to be.

• Click on the “Settings” link in the top right of any Jaiku page.
• Click on the “Your Profile” link under the Account heading.
• Click on the “Want to delete your account?” link at the bottom of the page.
• Click on the “Goodbye Cruel World, Goodbye” button.
• Click here for the easy route.

If there are any other websites that we haven’t mentioned here, why don’t you tell us how to cancel an account on that site?

Image Credit : Gaudium De Lingua

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Update all your Social Status Messages with Ping.fm (14)
• Stay Socially Connected Online With Yoono (18)
• Combine and Synchronize Email Accounts with Fuser (10)
• 5 Reasons Digsby’s A Must-Have IM Client (30)
• 4 Tools to Update the Status Messages the Easy Way (10)

While everyone has their own favorite system, such as Tina’s list of great free online time management tools, my own favorite is Yahoo Calendar.

The following article outlines all of the cool tips and tricks that will turn Yahoo Calendar into your very own personal and professional assistant.

How to Successfully Organize Your Life

About a year ago, I realized that I was spending so much time trying to finish projects simply in order to make money to pay the bills, that I wasn’t doing anything to achieve any sort of ultimate success.  Without goals, you never elevate your success to higher levels. Instead, you can end up spending your entire life running at full speed in different directions, but never getting anywhere.

Once I realized I needed direction and focus, I turned to Yahoo Calendar, mostly because I already use Yahoo email so I knew about it and it integrates nicely with all of the other Yahoo services.

Create a List of Short-Term Tasks

Yahoo Calendar helps you focus the direction of your daily efforts by providing you with the ability to list your short and long term tasks.  The best way to use this feature is to make a general list of tasks that you want to successfully achieve within the next one to three months.

Obviously, your monthly tasks will include the short term “work” that you need to accomplish, but many of the longer term tasks should be focused on your ultimate dreams and goals.

For example, if you want to become a published author, it’s a good idea to establish a reputation as a writer through blogs, or by submitting your work to writer’s organizations and contests.  Your task list will ultimately organize your goals into bite sized pieces that you can realistically accomplish.

Keep Organized Using Yahoo Calendar Events

The heart of Yahoo Calendar is the “event.”  Whether it’s a project, a birthday or a meeting, events are the small daily tasks that tend to get lost when your list of responsibilities gets too long.

By entering your daily tasks into Yahoo Calendar, you’ll instantly have your own virtual personal assistant that will keep track of what you have to do and when you have to do it.  It will even remind you through email or mobile phone (more on this feature below).

Entering an event is very easy, and it’s a powerful tool with a number of useful features.

The best way to keep organized with this feature is by entering an event the moment you learn about it. This way, you can rest assured that you won’t forget. For someone like me, the less that I have to remember, the better off everyone will be.

Entering an event is very simple – you can simply enter a title, event type (there’s a list of about 27 types), and the date and time. Don’t forget to make it repeat if it’s something that takes place on the same day every month or every year.

Event Reminders – Your Own Virtual Personal Assistant

Or course, my favorite feature included in the “add events” tool is the ability to send invitations to people via email, and the option to enable reminders.

These two features add tremendous functionality to Yahoo Calendar.  No longer must you remember to check your calendar every single day. You can set up this web app to either email you, send you a message in Yahoo Messenger or even send a text message or email to your mobile phone to remind you of your scheduled event.

Are you prone to forgetting dentist or doctor appointments or even birthdays and anniversaries (I am!) – this feature alone will help you keep organized and on time for every single appointment in your hectic schedule.

The other very useful feature is the “invitations” tool. By simply listing email addresses, you can remind family, friends, or co-workers of important events. If you’re working on a project with colleagues and you’ve all agreed to meet somewhere to go over work, you can use this feature to have Yahoo Calendar send everyone in the group an email invitation to the meeting. The Yahoo Mobile feature that’s integrated into the online calendar is very easy to set up.

Just complete the simple “create alerts” wizard to integrate Yahoo Calendar with your mobile phone. This is a feature that I use constantly in order to keep organized and on time – I couldn’t live without it!

Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly Calendar Views

Yahoo Calendar provides four view formats for your calendar. The daily view gives you an hour-by-hour view of your daily schedule. My favorite view is the weekly view, because it provides just enough of an overview so you can plan ahead, while also offering enough specifics so you know exactly what you should be working on this very moment.

Another nice overview is the yearly view, which provides bold dates for those days where events are scheduled.

When you really need to organize your schedule, these four views really offer the perfect solution. You can choose what level of organization you need, and then use just the features that you need to stay organized in your particular situation.

Work Collaboratively in Groups with Yahoo Calendar Sharing

Of course, another powerful feature of Yahoo Calendar is its ability to share events within your calendar, either publicly or just to a select few.

The cool thing about the “sharing” feature is that it’s so easy to customize. If you have a private calendar, but you want family and friends to have the ability to view your schedule, you can create a “friends list” of people you would like to grant access to.  You can even create “special friends” who have rights to modify your calendar.

Organizing Your Life With Online Calendars

There are a number of great online calendars available to help you organize your time and energy. Wendy’s article, “4 Online Calendars To Help You Get Organized” lists four of the most popular online calendars. The smartest approach is to test drive each of them for a week or two to determine which one fits your own style and organizational approach. Once you choose one and use it every day, you’ll notice your productivity and accomplishments skyrocket tremendously.

Do you use an online calendar to keep organized? Share your favorites in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Tracks – An Advanced “Getting Things Done” Application (11)
• Stay Organized with Rainlendar Calendar (20)
• Schedule & Manage Your Messages With Sendible (1)
• Manage Your Life with Free Online Time Management Tools (11)
• iCalendar Lite- A Free Transparent Desktop Calendar (Windows) (12)

A while ago MakeUseOf published a quick Yahoo! Go Review, which offers a good overview of what’s included in Yahoo! Go. Below, you’ll find some sample shots from the application and a description of the kind of mobile connectivity you can accomplish by using this application.

Yahoo! Go Keeps You Connected to All of Your Online Activities

Once you install Yahoo! Go, the first thing you’ll notice is a pretty cool, well-designed “carousel,” which lets you scroll through the list of applications that are loaded by default.

The nice thing about the carousel is that with just one finger, you can scroll left or right through your applications. Depending on your phone’s keypad or navigation buttons, you can then “select” that application to open it.

Yahoo! Go comes preloaded with a number of basic apps like email, weather and maps, but you may also want to add specific applications that you use a lot, like for sites such as Yahoo Buzz, Facebook or eBay.

To add more widgets, you can scroll to and select the “add widgets” application.

Here you’ll find a long list of applications, ranging from very cool to very lame. For my purposes, I’ve added Facebook, eBay, Yahoo Buzz and several other small apps like a tip calculator, Yahoo Answers, and a shopping tool for checking product prices. There are enough applications in the library to really tailor Yahoo! Go to the sort of things that you like (or need) to do when you’re on the go.

Using Popular Applications Like Facebook and eBay

My favorite part of using Yahoo! Go is the fact that I can immediately connect to a simple mobile version of Facebook and eBay, two applications that I use a lot. Facebook takes a little work to get set up – you need to submit a request on the mobile app for a PIN, which you receive when you log into your account on the Internet.

Once your account is set up, reading Facebook updates from your friends (and adding your own) is easy, and very addictive!

As you can see above, on the screen to the right, you can quickly update your status from your phone, updating your friends and family instantly without the need to find a computer.  You can also scroll down to view your friends updates and even post comments to their “wall” from your phone.

Another application I use constantly is eBay. This app is excellent for when you’re shopping, yardsaling, or at an auction and you want to check out what similar items are going for on eBay. Setting up this app is nowhere near as complicated as Facebook, you simply sign in and you’re good to go.

If you’re into buying a lot of items on eBay, the “items I’m bidding on,” and “items I’m watching,” sections will give you an advantage. No matter where you are, you can keep an eye on when the auction for items you’re interested in are going to end, and you can time your final bids accordingly.

Common Yahoo Widgets

Of course, I find that I use the more common Yahoo widgets the most. If you’re normally a Yahoo user anyway, and have a Yahoo email account, news settings, and weather preferences, you’ll get much more use out of Yahoo! Go. For example, whenever I’m bored in a doctor’s waiting room, I always find myself pulling out my phone to read the news.

Within the news app, you can also select specific news sources that you’re most interested in. For example, above you can see that I’ve added two feeds from a couple of my favorite paranormal websites. If you’re more interested in what people are saying, rather than mainstream news reports, then Yahoo Buzz is the place to check out. Of course, you can access that from Yahoo! Go as well, as you can see on the right in the image below.

On the left, above, is the calendar application, which is plugged directly into your online Yahoo calendar. This means that when you’re in your office and you’ve entered a list of appointments and event dates that you don’t want to forget, you can access those calendar entries from your mobile phone by using the Yahoo calendar widget.

Useful Yahoo Widgets For Travelers

Whenever I’m on a trip, the apps that I find are the most useful are Yahoo! Maps and Yahoo! Weather. It helps that both applications save all of your normal Yahoo preferences from when you use them online, so even when you’re on your mobile device, all of your normal location settings are preloaded for you.

Unlike Google Maps, Yahoo hasn’t yet integrated cellphone triangulation technology into them so that you can zero in on your current location, but Yahoo maps does have the ability to utilize any GPS technology that you might have installed on your phone. As you can see above, you can display weather for multiple locations at once, and of course you can look up the weather (and forecasts) for any location in the world.

The “OneSearch” widget is the heart of Yahoo! Go. From this one location you can perform a quick search for phone numbers (like the local pizza delivery place), access your address or phonebook, or quickly read up on the latest news.

While there are plenty of choices out there for mobile users, Yahoo users in particular will find Yahoo! Go to be one of the most reliable and useful ways to stay online even when you’re on the go.

Do you use Yahoo! Go, or do you prefer other mobile all-in-one applications?  Share your opinion in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How to Set Up Laptop Wireless Internet Access Through Your Cellphone [Windows] (36)
• Watch Hulu & Flash Videos On Your WM Device With Skyfire (9)
• Total Media Domination – Your TV, Video and Audio on any Device (12)
• The Ultimate Guide To Your Windows Mobile Phone [PDF] (12)
• How To Use Your GPRS Cell Phone As A Modem (14)

Here’s what I’m covering :

• Jerry Yang steps down from Yahoo!
• Barack Obama to give up the Crackberry
• Poll: Best Google search operators and tips
• Google voice and video chat
• Google iPhone App.

[display_podcast]

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Yahoo Searchmonkey Expands with Playable Music Tracks (3)
• Use Google’s new Mobile Directory without a Keyboard! (7)
• Scrapboy- Desktop Client for Facebook, Myspace & Orkut (Win) (5)
• MakeUseOf Your iPhone: Set Up Voice Dialing With Cactus (8)
• MakeUseOf Your iPhone: Palringo Instant Messenger (10)

Well now Yahoo is going one step further by introducing the ability for users to listen to full length music tracks inside Yahoo search results. Before you get all excited and sell your iPod on eBay, there is a limit though (as always). You can only listen to 25 free songs per month. Any more than that and you have to sign up for the Rhapsody Service which costs $12.99 a month.

But this is still very useful if you are doing search engine queries for a singer / band and you are wondering if you have the right person or the right song. Or if someone recommends a singer / band to you and you want to listen to a sample of their music. You can now listen to some songs inside the Yahoo search results. If you stay within that 25 songs per month limit, it won’t cost you a thing.

To try it out, just enter the name of a singer or a band into Yahoo. Being a newly introduced feature, it doesn’t have songs for everyone at the moment. They have songs for my favourite band, U2, but not for my girlfriend’s favourite, Runrig. But I entered some big names into the search engine – Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, and they had songs for them. But surprisingly, there was nothing for Eric Clapton. What a scandal! ) But give Yahoo a bit of time and I’m sure they will eventually have songs for everyone.

If there are songs available, you’ll get a box identical to the one above. If you see the song you want to play, just click on it and a player will open at the bottom of the screen :

Click on the “play” button and the song will start. Easy.

I am constantly amazed at the developments of Search Monkey and at how fast Yahoo Search is developing. If Google doesn’t start changing and developing their search pages for the semantic web, they’re going to get seriously left behind! They should stop making internet browsers (which they’re not really that good at) and instead concentrate on developing their search engine (which they are REALLY good at). What do you think?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Cool Search Engines To Remember (20)
• Welcome To The Future Of Online Search (5)
• Songr – A Desktop MP3 Search Engine That Also Downloads Songs for You (14)
• Put MakeUseOf on your Google toolbar (7)
• Master the Google Operands – Search Like a God & Save Time (41)

The good news is that if you have a webcam, a fairly fast internet connection and some spare time on your hands, Yahoo gives you the chance to set up a free live video channel on the net and the ability for others to view your channel.

The end results vary a great deal but hey that’s the beauty of the internet. Everyone on Yahoo Live are amateurs and unprofessional so you’re going to see a mixture of both good and bad which also means you get to see real people, not actors. Think of it as American Idol online.

So do you want to be the next Howard Stern or Jerry Springer? OK then, grab your webcam, your wild, screaming and unrestrained audience and follow me…. because Mark O’Neill has donned his suit and gone in search of some panting groupies!

Setting up the channel is dead easy. You just have to go to Yahoo Live, sign in with your Yahoo account, and then click on “My Channel”

You’ll be asked to name your channel. I named mine after my blog and provided no-one else has snagged the name first, it’s all yours. Then the URL is automatically set up and provided your webcam is plugged in, your channel is automatically live and ready to go! You thought it was more difficult didn’t you? Nope, that’s all there is to it.

Most Yahoo Live channels are radio DJ’s but you’ll also find a few live talk show hosts thrown in there. What you’ll find depends on the time of day you check in. Most of the action takes place at night. At times I’ve seen singers taking requests from their viewers, comedians doing stand-up routines, talk show hosts discussing some weird subjects….it really all depends on what time it is, what day it is and how lucky you are. But truth be told, the site is heavily slanted towards radio DJ’s.

There is a chat box to the right of your screen so your viewers can interact with you and underneath that are webcam screens. If someone chats to you, you can decide to put them on a little webcam screen so you can see them (if you want your visitors to be on the webcam screen, they need to have live channels themselves – which is no big deal – they can make one but never use it). So when I started my channel, I decided to cast myself as “the man that did bad jokes”. Soon I got myself a few visitors and I started on the knock knock jokes…..oh look, here comes Jimmy…..

My visitors didn’t appreciate my jokes and they told me “not to give up the day job”. So I gave them a couple of George Michael hits (”Careless Whisper”!) and one girl screwed her face up like she had just swallowed half a lemon.

Oh well, I guess the entertainment business is not for me. I suppose I’d better go back to editing those Make Use Of articles….sigh! I don’t suppose anybody wants my autograph? Yeah I guessed as much. A guy can dream can’t he?

Jimmy didn’t think much of Yahoo Live and a lot of other people have criticised it but I like it for its entertainment value. Plus as I’ve said, you never know who you’re going to see on there. Isn’t that the beauty of the internet?

[rating=3]

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Yahoo! Games: WordRacer is my Boggle Game of Choice (6)
• Yahoo Talent Show – $50,000 and Development Deal (0)
• Yahoo Searchmonkey Expands with Playable Music Tracks (3)
• Yahoo Launched a Time Capsule (3)
• Yahoo Answers – Get Fast Answers (4)

BrowserPlus allows developers to create dynamic web apps that mirror the functionality of desktop programs. As of now, community developers do not have access to the code, but everyone gets a sneak peek into three useable Yahoo BrowserPlus demos and what it can offer.

1. BrowserPlus PhotoDrop

The first app that you can demo is PhotoDrop, which is basically a Flickr upload tool. It does everything that you expect, such as batch editing of tags, simple photo editing tools, and effects. However, what’s great about using BrowserPlus for an app like this is the ability for you to drag and drop photos from your desktop straight into your browser. This added functionality really adds to the ease of use of the app, and is just one of the many services BrowerPlus offers (you can check the API of some of the services offered by BrowserPlus here http://browserplus.yahoo.com/services/).

2. IRC Client

The next one you can demo is an IRC client. This IRC client is fast, easy to use and looks great running in your browser, as the UI is purely AJAX. Another great feature that BrowserPlus shows off through this IRC client is built-in text-to-speech as well as desktop notifications.

3. JSON Inspector

The last app that you can demo would be more useful to developers, rather than the average internet user. It’s a browser-based JSON inspector, which is useful for cross-platform developers as they are in the processing of accepting web standards.

Well everyone, there you have it. Yahoo BrowserPlus seems promising, with its variety of useful services and tools. I’ll be excited to see what powerful and functional webapps gets created when developers get their hands on the code.

(By) David is a creative individual trying to find his place in this world. Visit his tech blog, Beta Cubed – B^3

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• 10 Essential Software Apps For Web Development on a Mac (39)
• Yahoo! Games: WordRacer is my Boggle Game of Choice (6)
• Yahoo Talent Show – $50,000 and Development Deal (0)
• Yahoo Searchmonkey Expands with Playable Music Tracks (3)
• Yahoo Launched a Time Capsule (3)

The next stage of the web is all about the semantic web, microformats, and making search results more relevant, accurate, user-friendly and visually appealing. Instead of pages and pages of boring, drab results where you have to click several times to get what you need, you’ll now get most of what you need right there on the search page.

Some of the enhanced features that we can now expect to see include thumbnail graphics on search results and meta information which is normally ignored by the search engines. Movie sites and cinema sites could have critics ratings, YouTube movie trailers, opening times and performance details, restaurants could have opening times, menu PDF download links and directions to the place (along with a map). Websites can have Stumbleupon ratings, people can have their resumes, phone numbers and fax numbers prominently displayed using services such as LinkedIn, recipes can have ratings and nutrition information displayed, airports can have upcoming flights updating on the search page. Search engines can also index and thumbnail information such as Facebook profiles, MySpace profiles and many other things that are normally overlooked by the search bots.

Right now though, everything is in beta with the SearchMonkey platform so to see things in action, interested searchers will have to opt into it. This is extremely easy. All you have to do is go here and click on what you want to see. Your choices can easily be removed later if you wish. At the moment, only Yahoo is involved with the project but I would really like to see Google getting involved as well with their own similar project or offering to collaborate with Yahoo.

Some parts of SearchMonkey are still a bit rough around the edges but you can still see the promise of things to come. For example, I put my name into Yahoo and up popped my LinkedIn profile, thumbnail and all :

As you can see, instead of just a boring old link, we now have a new and improved search result. We now have a thumbnail of wee old me as well as meta information from the profile including my location, my industries and my specialities.

Or take a movie example. I am eagerly looking forward to the new Batman movie this summer. But maybe I want to watch the first movie to refresh my memory? So let’s look it up on Yahoo search :

Instead of just a link, you are also given the rating, the link to the Internet Movie Database and other details such as the plot, the director’s name, the names of the main actors, the release date and MUCH more.

This only begins to scratch the surface of what is possible. So much more can be done to make search better. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the imagination of the developers and what they can come up with in terms of tools. It also depends on the will of website owners and their willingness to modify their sites to make them adaptable to these new formats.

But it’s in the best interests of everyone to follow these new ideas – because as the following Yahoo video makes clear, the better you make your site, the more visitors you will have in the long term and that is good for everyone!

I’ll be following SearchMonkey very closely and if any major new developments come up, I’ll write about it again on Make Use Of. Meanwhile, why don’t you try out SearchMonkey for yourself then come back and give your opinions in the comments.

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Cool Search Engines To Remember (20)
• Yahoo Searchmonkey Expands with Playable Music Tracks (3)
• Taking Search Back To Basics With Wikia Search (7)
• Hittery – Awesome Custom Search Startpage (7)
• Bringing Command Lines to The Web: Yubnub and More! (10)

MyAvatars was designed by an Italian developer and works using Yahoo-owned MyBlogLog. It simply shows the blog commenter’s MyBlogLog (MBL) avatar next to their comment.

It is simple to install on your Wordpress blog and by displaying the person’s MBL avatar next to their comment, it instantly livens up the page and puts a face to the words. It kind of creates an intimate friendly community and takes away the anonymity that normally surrounds blog commenting.

If the commenter doesn’t have a MBL account then they show up as a shadow figure. But I have noticed that this is becoming rarer these days as most people who regularly visit blogs tend to have MBL accounts as they want to become part of the community and interact with the other visitors. But on the off-chance that you get someone not registered with MBL then they will show up as Shadowman (or ShadowWoman!).

But for those registered with MBL, leaving a comment brings up their MBL logo :

I have heard complaints that this plug-in slows down the loading of the blog but personally I have not seen any slowing down of my blog at all. The only time you are likely to see a slow-down is when MyBlogLog is down and since they are hosted on Yahoo servers, that isn’t very likely. When was the last time a Yahoo server went down? Right, I can’t remember either.

If you use this plug-in, you’ll quickly find that people love seeing their avatars featured on their comments. Some have actually told me by email that seeing their shadow avatars next to their comments have actually prompted them to go to MyBlogLog and sign up for an account! This just goes to show that people (despite what they may say to the contrary) love attention, they love seeing their face or their avatar associated with their words and their opinions – and this means repeat visits to your blog!

And if you don’t have a MyBlogLog account, then you need to get one today and upload an avatar. You can open MyBlogLog account and join MakeUseOf community here. It’s free and essential if you are a blogger or visit a lot of blogs. MyBlogLog is the social network for bloggers everywhere.

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• The First Wordpress Plugins You Must Install (29)
• Kaltura Adds Video Management To Your WordPress Blog (11)
• How To Upgrade Your Wordpress Blog Automatically (16)
• Give Your Wordpress Comments A Makeover With Disqus (12)
• Another 10 Must-have Plugins for Your Wordpress Blog (3)

(1) Alternative Algorithm & Interface

Mooter
Mooter organizes each search in clusters of relevant categories, so that you can further dive into specific topics to find specific results. Of course you can see all the results anytime. Nice concept, but seems like the service has not been updated since 2005.

Mahalo
Mahalo claims to be the world’s first human-powered search engine. Organized, comprehensive, spam (but not ad) free. I like it for the sidebar on the right, which contains a lot of information relevant to the search term, such as fast facts and quotes. The rest of the results are pre-sorted into Top 7 links, news, basics and other relevant topics. It looks neat and it’s very thorough and clear. Mahalo (Hawaiian for “thank you”).

Searchme
From all the search engines I have seen, searchme definitely is the most unique and impressive one (Renee also looked at it here). Instead of showing a list of links with short excerpts of the text on the site, it displays a whole page preview for each result and the user can scroll through the pages in a 3D animated interface. The search terms are highlighted within the preview and on top there are a list of possible categories to click for more specific results. A site heavy on system resources, but absolutely beautiful and useful!

(2) Compare & Combine

WebCrawler
WebCrawler searches the web’s top four search engines simultaneously. They are Google, Yahoo!Search, LiveSearch, and Ask. Unfortunately, you only see a mashup of the different results, and if you find the results of say Yahoo annoying, you can’t exclude them.

MalaMata
MalaMata is a customizable search engine, so you can tell it which of up to four different search engines it should query. The results are displayed all at once in four separate sub-windows, but you can focus on and switch between them easily.

Katapulco
Very simple, but potentially very useful search engine that lets you query various pages, for example regional Google versions, recipes or shopping sites, simply by entering a letter key (shortcut) behind the search field. All shortcuts are listed for easy reference. The full list contains over 70 search engines and user suggestions are possible and welcome.

ATUNN
Futuristic yet simple interface. From the interactive menu above the search field you can select a category and eventually define a specific search engine, although I wonder why the video search doesn’t offer YouTube as an option. The music category is very cool. It redirects you to a new page where you can browse music by major categories like genre, year, nation, mood, and more. From there you can go into various sub-categories. The music comes via Last.fm Radio. Back to the main page, there is a text menu on top of the page with several categories like Mail, Music and SocialNetwork which open a list of links when you click on them. Quite a nice selection of shortcuts.

Sputtr
From this category, Sputtr is my design über favorite. I love the interface, it’s very well done, and I will definitely use Sputtr on a regular basis in the future. It’s a fully customizable search homepage – your search, your way. So how it works is that you enter your search term in the search field. So far, so regular. To query a specific search engine, instead of hitting enter, click the respective symbol in the list. That’s very cool. And to add even more search engines, customize the page and choose from a comprehensive list. If you find your favorite search engine is missing, simply submit it. Drag&Drop allows you to rearrange icons and in case you don’t like one of them, you are free to remove it altogether. To save your layout, you have to create an account, and I recommend it!

(3) File, Site & Topic Specific Search

PDF Search Engine
A PDF or eBook search engine. It does what it says. Simple and straight forward.

ICONlook
An icon search engine. If results are plenty, it makes sense to filter by size. Again, simple and straight forward. Nice interface, too.

loadEvery
I wasn’t quite sure where to put this search engine. At a first glance the interface isn’t very appealing, but it’s functional and that’s what counts. So this is a search engine for files with the option to search specific, suggested pages. The music search for example allows you to query Skreemr and goear among others.

FindSounds
A sound search engine for AIFF, AU, MP3, and WAVE files matching different options such as mono or stereo, minimum resolution, minimum sample rate and maximum file size.

Listen77 & Songza
Both are search engines exclusively for music in the form of mp3’s. Songs cannot be downloaded easily, instead there’s an on-site player which works nicely for both, although Songza is much more pretty. However, despite over a million songs in the database for Listen77 and an undoubtedly popular Songza, both rarely returned more than 50 songs, even for well established artists. Great concepts, but require serious attention, especially filling the music collection.

Deligio
Deligio should be your first stop when looking for software. Here you’ll be able to discover and share applications for all major operating systems, as indicated by respective symbols next to each search result. Users can rate results and submit software not yet indexed. Clean, simple, useful, it’s as easy as that.

Retrevo
Matching people and electronics. What a neat idea, where’s my PDA, can I print it? No seriously, this search engine is intended for finding product reviews, manuals or more general recommendations. Say you’re looking for a new camera, the result page will list all available models and you can narrow the search down by defining a price range, brands or specific features, and then look at the individual models that remain. I will definitely look at this one when I’m in need of a new digital device, maybe a PDA, finally.

Tag Galaxy
Tag Galaxy basically works like Mooter, organizing results in categories, but its 3D planet interface is much more beautiful and the search engine is dedicated to Flickr images. The site is a 2008 diploma thesis project of Steven Wood from the Georg-Simon-Ohm University of Applied Sciences in Nuremburg, Germany.

Powerset
Your search engine for Wikipedia articles.

Word & Biiible
If you ever again have a serious religous discussion, these ones may come in handy. Search the complete text of the Qur’an, New Testament, Tanakh, and Upanishads with Word or just the Bible with Biiible. The latter also features a Verse of the Day. Unusual? Yes! Useful? Maybe. Maybe not.

How to get rid of…
This could as well go into the fun section, but it’s serious and not as silly as it may sound. The source for results is Yahoo! Answers. It really only works for the terms in the A-Z list. Searching How-To-Get-Rid-Of.Info for bug, stain, or hilary clinton didn’t yield a single result.

Topicle
A search engine community to search only handpicked URLs, rather than the whole world wide web. Every user can add links, create a new, custom Topicle, and rate existing ones. Popular Topicles include Online Shopping, IPhone Applications, and Digital Camera Reviews. The site does not require a signup.

(4) Eco Friendly Search

Greenback Search
Saving the environment one search at a time, powered by Yahoo. But how does it work? Greenback Search uses its revenues to purchase carbon offsets from CarbonFun.org. I support the notion, but I remain a skeptic.

Ecocho
You search. They grow trees. They promise to grow 2 trees for every 1,000 searches made. As I look at it 4906 trees have been planted, which equals the recycling of over 5 million Lbs of CO2. I suppose that’s an estimate of saved carbon for the lifetime of the roughly 5000 trees. So it’s not much per year I guess. Meaning you have to use it more! This site is powered by Yahoo as well.

Friends Green
This search engine will save the rainforest. So far 607,000 sq ft have been saved. Again it’s Yahoo technology behind the search results.

Blackle
And finally, the infamous Blackle, claiming to use less energy, by using black instead of white background. But it only works effectively on CRT monitors, the energy saved with LCDs is minimal. At least this one is based on Google.

(5) Fun

Doogle
The Feckin’ Search Engine of Ireland.

FunnyLogo
Google search with a unique logo. I’m sure you’ve seen it before. With this one you can also change the font style.

ShoeZam!
The Shoe Search Engine. For all your Manolo Blahnik needs, and just in time for the Sex & the City movie.

Where’s the Milk
As farmers in Germany dispose their milk on their fields to put pressure on the industry and customers, this search engine hits a nerve.

And here we are, The End. Ideas? Suggestions? Comments?

*Oh yes, seriously! Compared to what is out there, this list is small!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Yahoo Searchmonkey Expands with Playable Music Tracks (3)
• Welcome To The Future Of Online Search (5)
• Master the Google Operands – Search Like a God & Save Time (41)
• Bing: The Next Big Thing From Microsoft (18)
• A Quick Guide To Google’s New Search Features (15)

But all is not lost for Yahoo. People love to put them down but I still love them and they are still a mighty force to be reckoned with. Here’s why:

(1) Del.icio.us

In my humble opinion, Del.icio.us is probably the best thing that Yahoo owns. As well as having a cool website name, it is also the number one place on the internet for storing bookmarks. In case you’re looking for a cool desktop tool to manage delicious bookmarks, I wrote a MakeUseOf post on how to organize Del.icio.us bookmarks.

(2) Flickr

One of the best business decisions Yahoo ever made was buying Flickr. I use Flickr extensively for backing up my photo collection (with the use of private encrypted albums) and if you are ever looking for a photo, Flickr is the place to go. Whenever I come back from holiday, I surf Flickr to see where I’ve just been and re-live the memories….

(3) Yahoo Answers

Do you know a lot about a subject? Do you like to show off your knowledge? Do you have a degree from the University of Life and the School of Hard Knocks? Share your knowledge on Yahoo Answers and get a thrill out of helping someone. Some queries are downright daft but some others are heart-rendering. One person some time back asked how to break the news to her mother that she had been sexually assaulted by her father.

(4) Yahoo Messenger / Chat

Before there was Google Talk, there was Yahoo Messenger. Yahoo Chat holds a special place for me as that was where I met my girlfriend seven years ago (and we’re still together).
I would steer clear of the chat rooms these days but I still use Messenger as it is one of the best chat programs out there today (right up there with ICQ).

(5) Yahoo Games

One of my guilty pleasures. If I want to while away a rainy afternoon, I will hang out in a dark shadowy online Yahoo games room playing canasta or blackjack with a professional player claiming to be a total beginner. If card games are not your thing baby then there’s lots of board games and role-playing games. My only complaint is that Yahoo Games gets a little hinky on Mozilla Firefox which makes me think Yahoo Games is secretly in love with Mr Internet Explorer from Redmond, Washington state.

(6) Yahoo Geocities

Aaahh….nostalgia! Long before I had my proper website, I had webpages on the free Yahoo Geocities. With its easy-to-understand PageBuilder, Geocities helped me to learn a lot about creating webpages. Again, only one complaint – Geocities absolutely detests javascript – many a classic webpage broke down because I added a line of javascript. Geocities also doesn’t support FTP so if you’re serious about your webspace, I’d suggest you do what I did and upgrade to a proper website.

(7) Yahoo Greetings greetings-yahoo.jpg

Despite it being over-run by an American Greetings premium service, Yahoo Greetings still has free offerings for all occasions. Send an e-card for someone’s birthday or just send an e-card to show you care. The free offerings ARE a little sparse though, compared to the past. If you have a Yahoo email account, you can search your email address book inside Yahoo Greetings to find the person you want to send the e-card to.

(8) Yahoo Movies

I normally look at the Internet Movie Database to read up on movies but Yahoo Movies is still worth a look, even just to get a second opinion. As well as reading news and gossip, you can also check the showtimes for your area, look at the box office charts to see what’s good at the moment, write movie reviews and watch movie trailers.

(9) My Yahoo

Before I was lured away by Google Reader, My Yahoo was the first page I saw when I opened my internet browser in the morning. I would then read the Garfield strip and check the news headlines. Makes for an excellent browser start page as you can also configure My Yahoo to notify you of new Yahoo mail and when Messenger contacts come online.

(10) Yahoo Widgets

Does your desktop look boring? Yahoo Widgets can spruce it up with a few widgets sprinkled here and there. Have a constantly updating weather report sit on your desktop, or an eBay feedback checker. Maybe a framed photo of your children? The widget directory probably has whatever you need. For more detailed overview along with couple of screenshots check out Aibek’s Yahoo Widget review here.

Do you know of any other Yahoo services that make you go Yaaahhhooooo?!!!! Tell us in the comments.

Mark O’Neill is a freelance writer, proofreader, editor and blogger. Check out his blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

Disclaimer: All of logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Yo Frankie! – Free Open Source Platform Game (16)
• Yahoo! Games: WordRacer is my Boggle Game of Choice (6)
• Yahoo Answers – Get Fast Answers (4)
• The 3 Best NFO File Readers To Open Those NFO Documents (18)
• Smarterchild as Your Virtual Personal Assistant (21)

“Word Racer is an exciting, fun, and fast word game where up to eight players compete by creating words from various grids made up of letters. Once a player finds a word, no other players can use that word.”

WordRacer is a fast paced, online multi-player Boggle type game, that is thoroughly addictive and I’d assume great for your brain. Also helps out with your Scrabble game. Always at least 300+ challengers ready, so what are you waiting for?

You may also check out Aibek’s post on Addictive Web Games

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Toribash Fighting Game – Design & Try Perfect Fighting Moves (17)
• Top Five Free Online Shooter Games – Must Read For Gamers (88)
• Top 5: Addictive and Challenging Web Games (15)
• The Best Online Flash Games (29)
• Sporcle – Cool Games That Make Learning Fun Again (4)

Yahoo recently launched Talent Show in order to find someone who can become next internet celebrity and run own show on Yahoo. The idea of contest is to produce a video piece that best highlights your skills and abilities, and it can be about anything you want. Each person can submit upto 50 videos with each piece being less then 10 min in length. Videos will be judged based on users’ votes and comments. The winner of the contest will get US$50,000 and a development deal to star in, or produce show on Yahoo.

To participate you have to be over 18 and live in USA. Also all submitted video should be original and cannot include any copyrighted material. Some more rules here
Talent Show Timeline

• October 23rd: Talent Show opened for submissions
• November 13th: Users can watch, comment and vote on videos. Videos still can be uploaded
• November 27th: Last day to submit video.
• December 1st: Last day for users to watch and vote on videos
• December 4th: Five finalists announced. Competition continues among them.
• December 12th – 13th: America votes for the ultimate winner of the Yahoo Talent Show
• December 14th: The winner is announced

So, if you think you’ve the talent and carisma to become next internet star like Maria Sansone from THE9, OR Joanne Colan from Rocketboom go ahead.
Here are web-based video editing tools that you may use to buff up your video; jumpcut, homemovie and eyespot

Update(Dec 18′th): Talent show has a winner, check him out here

• Yahoo! Games: WordRacer is my Boggle Game of Choice (6)
• Yahoo Searchmonkey Expands with Playable Music Tracks (3)
• Yahoo Launched a Time Capsule (3)
• Yahoo Answers – Get Fast Answers (4)
• Welcome To The Future Of Online Search (5)

So on today’s menu we got, THE 9 – an entertaining daily show from Yahoo TV, hosted by one more internet hottie Maria Sansone

For more pics, check out her Flickr (profiled here) photos here.

The 9 show is Yahoo’s video blog, covering daily top 9 picks from the web. Yahoo got it right by getting never boring Maria as a host who can get you in the right mood anytime. After every show, you can vote on the best item of the day, recommend 10′th item that you feel was missed out and forward daily picks to a friend.

You are also provided with an option to get daily picks delivered to your email or get it via RSS (simply copy this url: http://9.yahoo.com/rss) to your feedreader.

If interested, you may also check out the blog What’s Maria Wearing that posts picture of Maria on a daily basis, here

Read more popular posts:

• 5 Great WebComics You Should Read
• HowTo: Free and Huge custom poster for your wall
• 7 Excellent destinations to watch TV Shows for FREE
• 13 Bargain Websites That are Cheaper than eBay
• The Best Places to Watch Documentary Movies Online
• 5 “DISPOSABLE” Web Accounts to Keep Your Identity Safe
• Top Five Free Online Shooter Games – Must Read For Game
• Are you Sure your Email isn’t being Hacked?
• 10 Cool, Funny, Sexy and Crazy Valentine Message Generators
• 40 Unusual Websites you should Bookmark
• …….More……

• Yahoo! Games: WordRacer is my Boggle Game of Choice (6)
• Yahoo Talent Show – $50,000 and Development Deal (0)
• Yahoo Searchmonkey Expands with Playable Music Tracks (3)
• Yahoo Launched a Time Capsule (3)
• Yahoo Answers – Get Fast Answers (4)

Yahoo Answers is a place where you can ask and answer questions. And unlike many other similar services and forums, things happen extremely fast here. Most of the questions receive multiple replies within a one day of posting. It is like free consulting service.

Question posting process is quite simple, you only need is to select right category and specify how long it will stay open. Once this period is over best answer is choosen. Each posted question goes through 3 stages; open(still needs an answer), undecided(multiple answers are given and users are asked to vote for the best one) and resolved(best answer has been choosen).

Features:

1. Apart from asking and answering questions, you can also browse through 40 million already answered questions. There is a high chance that the answer you are looking for is among these 40 million answers, just search or browse by category to locate it.
2. For each question following options available

vote on it report abuse emait to friend add it to your watch list (this is very handy for tracking several questions) add it to del.icio.us track answers through RSS using your feedreader Add it to “My Yahoo!”

3. If you like answers given by one user you can monitor this person’s questions and answers through rss

4. User account interface provides detailed statistics about your questions, answers and points

5. Display your questions and answers on your blog or myspace profile.

To measure each user’s activity Yahoo answers introduced point based system. Each user receives some points for different type of actions like asking(-5 p) and answering(+2 p) questions. Initially every user starts with 100 points. This point system requires user to contribute in order to continue receive benefits of using the system. More on point system here. You can see highest perfroming users and their scores on the leaderboard seciton.

Need more information? Check out Yahoo Answers tour here. There is also Google Answers, which comes with a twist, it deserves a review of it’s own which will be coming soon.

Note: Yahoo does not guarantee the accuracy of the answers provided by users. So, people giving an answer may actually have no or little knowledge on the subject. Thus, I would not to rely on users when problem needs a professional assistance (ex;health issues).

• Use Hunch to Answer Your Questions & Make Decisions (4)
• Top 10: Free and Highly Trafficked Q&A Communities (8)
• Massive List of ‘HowTo’ Sites + ‘HowTo’ Search Engine (42)
• Ask & Answer the Web’s Questions with Aardvark [Free Invites!] (8)
• 6 Unique Web Communities That You Won’t Forget (54)

You can go and drop there allmost anything you feel like. There is no word about when the capsule will be revealed to the world but something like letter to your children or grandchildren can be fun. I am thinking of dropping a screenshot of makeuseof’s index page.

Categories under which stuff can be dropped include: LOVE, ANGER, FUN, SORROW,FAITH, BEAUTY, PAST, NOW, HOPE and YOU. You can also view what other users said and comment. If you want to be a bad ass and be remembered this may be a right time for some criticism.

Actually, this is the first time that digital data will be gathered and preserved for historical purposes.On November 8th, you will have helped create a digital legacy of our times, a mosaic of revealing snapshots that will be sealed and entrusted to Smithsonian Folkways Recordings based in Washington D.C.,and officially taking its place in history.

It has been 4 days since release and many people already submited interesting content.

If you wish to use it sign up is required but if you have an account for any Yahoo services you can use it. Ok now I am off to drop a line there as well…

• Yahoo! Games: WordRacer is my Boggle Game of Choice (6)
• Yahoo Talent Show – $50,000 and Development Deal (0)
• Yahoo Searchmonkey Expands with Playable Music Tracks (3)
• Yahoo Answers – Get Fast Answers (4)
• Who are you? What your pig drawing, browser type, fav. drinks, etc. reveal about you! (6)