Scopetech

Being away from home for an extended period of time can be a stressful event. Although for years, travelers have been wondering who will feed the dog or get the mail, there is now a new question lingering when one embarks on vacation: how the hell am I going to get on the internet?

Wonder no longer, loyal readers. By following the three P’s of wifi, you will never again have to worry about getting behind on your Facebook friend requests.

Preparation
The first and easiest way to stay connected when you’re not home is to plan ahead. Various hotel chains offer free wireless either in-room or in the lobby. When making reservations, either choose one of the hotels from this list offered by WiFiFreeSpot or make sure to ask over the phone. There’s nothing like free wifi and a minibar to start a vacation right.

Hotels aren’t always the residence of choice during vacations. With free lodging and food, staying at a relative’s place is a hard option to turn down. If you’re staying at Aunt Mabel’s and her 56k connection just isn’t what you were hoping for, AnchorFree might be able to help you. Before you head out on your trip, try their free WiFi search engine to find hotspots close to you via Google Maps. Although there are many sites that offer a similar service, AnchorFree seems to be the most functional design. For the person always on the go, AnchorFree also offers a database of hotspots called WiPod that can be uploaded onto your iPod for access at any time.

Pirating
Let’s say you read this article and decide to totally ignore my first suggestion of planning ahead but still want to find some hotspots. The second P is for you. Finding a connection on your own is a little time consuming, but with the right methods it can work. First thing’s first: you need some kind of network detection utility. Personally I like NetStumbler for Windows and iStumbler for OS X. Once you have a network detection tool, simply hop in your car and find a connection.

Start your search at hotels. Going into various hotel lobbies until you hit a hotspot seems to be the most successful method because once you’re in, you’ve got a comfy couch and possibly even some hot coffee to enjoy while you browse. If you aren’t near hotels, the technique necessary is a little bit shadier. My favorite process is looking for the neighborhood with the nicest houses and driving through them slowly. I guarantee you will find at least one unprotected network with a name like “dlink” or “linksys”. This is generally only good for short email checks because it might generate some unwanted attention. Random vehicles driving slowly through rich neighborhoods aren’t quite kosher with the police. Before you decide to use this method, read this WikiPedia article pertaining to the legalities of using other people’s connections without their knowledge. It is a little sketchy and could possibly get you in trouble.

Paying
If acquiring your connection somewhat illegally is something you don’t really want to get into, paying is always a viable but expensive option. Every wireless carrier offers some kind of plan to keep you connected to the internet anywhere your cell phone gets signal. These plans usually run about $50 a month for unlimited internet on top of the price of a wireless card. If you don’t want to go through your wireless carrier, companies like WayPort offer subscription services that give you access to exclusive hotspots in places like McDonald’s, IHOP, Hertz, and many other franchises. WayPort subscriptions run about $30/month with a one year contract, or $50/month with no contract which isn’t that appealing of a price point considering you still have to find one of their hotspots. Although, what town doesn’t have a McDonald’s?

So there you have it. 3 different methods to help you stay connected even when you’re out on vacation. Preparation, Pirating, or Paying. But please, try to remember one thing while you are using these tips. YOU’RE ON VACATION. Use the internet to help find places to visit and new things to try, not to hole up in your room all day. You left your house for a reason, enjoy it!

Fichey is a flash-based site that allows users to easily browse websites, as ranked by services such as digg and del.icio.us. The site caches jpegs of the websites which can easily be viewed by the site’s flash interface.

It’s an interesting concept that is great for quickly going through the various sites’ pages.

The site’s navigation consists of a floating box which you can use to choose which site you want to view pages from, choose the date to get sites from and buttons to go to the next image.

Clicking on an image you’re viewing takes you to the actual site.

While it’s certainly no replacement for digg or any of the sites it uses, it is a quick way to check out a bunch of sites generating buzz, one after the other.

Have you ever wished that you could share the social networking experience with your family without exposing Mom to the webcam girls of Myspace? If the answer is yes, Genoom might be exactly what you’re looking for.

Genoom is a service that allows users to build a closed social network, specifically for their family. The site allows you to create a network, add family members, and create a central hub for them to keep in touch and reach out to others within the family tree.

Users can sign up for the site, flesh out their family tree, and then invite those family members to join them. To keep things interesting, Genoom offers a map interface (leveraging the Google Maps API), photo albums, and message boards, letting the entire family share the fond memories of Christmas 1998 and the shame of Uncle Floyd streaking through the park last Easter.

The site is easy to use and navigate, so your less tech savvy relatives should have no trouble filling out their profiles and helping to build the family tree. It also offers social networking stalwarts like private messaging and event announcements for family get-togethers and parties.

Genoom hopes to fill a void for people seeking an easy to use, family friendly social environment and looks like it’s well on it’s way to doing just that. The site is in public beta right now, much like similar services Geni and KinCafe. No word on an official launch date at this time.

Wallop is a social networking site, formerly by Microsoft, allowing users to share pictures, comments, blogs and music with friends: it’s nothing new, but what sets Wallop apart from other sites is the User Interface. Wallop is all in flash, meaning a unique user experience which just might be enough to get people to use it. (*cough*Mac Users*cough*) Kidding aside, there seems to be enough to get people using Mac or Windows to give it a try. Since this is a former Microsoft product and me being a Windows user, I felt pretty comfortable with the service.

Because it’s flash, you’ll find you can drag and drop items on the screen which will come in handy since sometimes, moving from one feature to the other leaves the previous feature’s box open if it hasn’t been dealt with.

This feature isn’t a bad thing, it lends itself to the Microsoft Windows user(and Mac too I guess), after all, imagine how annoying it would be if every time you opened a new window the other one would close.

To the left of your own profile page you’ll see your friends in little circles, at the top will be your profile picture meaning it’s easy to go back to your own profile at any point in time. To the right of that is the menu (left) which applies to the profile you’re looking at. For instance, if I’m looking at my profile and I click “friends” I’ll see all my friends as well as other people in the network, click on pictures I’ll see my pictures. If you’re watching someone else’s profile these functions will apply to them and to the top of the menu you’ll see whose profile it will apply to with their picture, name and online status there so you won’t get confused.

Along with the drag and drop features of the site, expanding menus are also a part of the site meaning lots of features can be implemented using minimal space, not to mention it just looks cool. Also, the gallery to view photos is slick though I can’t help but wonder if might just be too much, making less technical users prefer the simplicity of Facebook’s galleries.

Wallop doesn’t feature any advertising but makes money through purchases of “mods” which are little add-ons people can implement into their profile after purchase. Technically, users purchase “Wollars”, an in-service currency that will allow you to get Mods. This revenue model could work, micro transactions generate massive revenue as is evident with Habbo Hotel and Facebook, but the issue here is if people will want to pay for something like this. With Facebook, users are more than happy to pay $1 to send “gifts” which are essentially clip-art but they aren’t totally necessary and Facebook does have advertising to fall back on. If Wallop can make this successful is yet to be seen.

It’s a pity Wallop is a social network on its own, instead it would be interesting if something like this would be offered by sites like Facebook as an alternative way to use the site. Instead, Wallop will encounter the same problems that any social networking site will have: getting getting people to actually use it. As good as it is, I won’t use any site unless all 4 of my friends are on it, after all, that’s the reason for these sites in any case: to interact with friends.

We have a few invites to Wallop, leave a comment with your email if you want one and we will hook you up so fast, it’ll pack a Wallop(sorry, we had to).

“Turn 1 cent into $10 million!” This is the purpose Moola, a new service claiming to be the world’s first “Advertournament”. The premise: Moola provides users with their first penny which is then used to be waged against another player in a short flash game. The winner doubles their money and moves up the ladder, continuousy doubling their money all the way up to 10,737,418.25 dollars. Sound familiar? Well, if you’ve ever been up late at night watching infomercials, this has all been heard before. Hoping people are dumb enough to fall for an old trick in a new format, Moola has taken the pyramid scheme online, replacing selling products with playing online games and investing money with wasting time.

Moola can be explained in a couple simple steps. First, a players choose the money they want to wager, then they choose the game to play. Before the game loads, an advertisement plays. Unlike most ads, you cannot choose to ignore this advertisement because you are quizzed after them, every single time. The game is then played after the forced advertisement, and the winner takes all the money while the loser starts all over gain. This process is repeated until someone wins millions of dollars. Progress is expressed in what I like to call the “Time Wasted Pyramid,” a Who Wants To Be a Millionaire-esque graph displayed on every page.

Although Moola seems like a fair online game service, breaking down its format reveals subtle tactics to make sure the house always wins. Every game played on Moola is a game of chance. To win the top prize, a player would have to be lucky enough to win 30 games of chance consecutively, wagering their full winnings every time. With that kind of luck I’d rather invest in a lottery ticket or compete against Jamie Langridge in the U.S. Rock, Paper, Scissors Championship.

Also, the entire concept of Moola is based on what other players are willing to wager. This means that to win the big 10 million dollar grand prize, there has to be at least one person with the same amount of money that is willing to lose it all in one short flash game. Someone who has also has been lucky enough to win 29 consecutive games. Impossible doesn’t even begin to describe the odds of this situation. It’s much like the contests radio stations run. Sure, you COULD win the Mustang and a trip to New Zealand, but most likely you’re just going to end up with a coupon for a free meal at Bennigan’s.

To be fair, Moola users can choose only to wager a portion of their winnings and are able to cash out at any time. Though this means you could very possibly get on a streak of 15 wins and take home a little over 300 dollars, Moola is hoping the Vegas effect will keep users from quitting while they are ahead, always hoping for that next big win. Double or nothing is an addictive concept.

The last in shady dealings that Moola offers is the “Booster Zone.” Toted as a way to move up the Time Wasted Pyramid faster, Moola users are encouraged to sign up for promotions to partner sites in order to receive money in their Moola accounts. Though some promotions are free, the ones offering the most money to Moola users usually require purchasing a service. A free site offering advantages to users willing to pay? Never.

Put simply, Moola is a waste of time. The sad thing is, that’s exactly what they want it to be. All the wasted time on their site is spent looking at advertisements, generating more and more money for them. As a user sits there about to waste all their imaginary money on the next game of rock, paper, scissors, Moola is getting cash from the advertisers. Though it’s a great business model, when it comes to consumers, your time would be better spent on one of the internet’s millions of free flash game websites. At least then you don’t expect any money.

Google released its Second Quarter Earnings today, and for the first time in years they missed analyst’s predictions. The search giant posted earnings of 3.87 billion, an only 6% increase from the previous quarter, far below Wall Street’s expectations. At the close of the market today, Google’s stock had dropped a little over 7% due to the unimpressive numbers.

Oddly, revenue is not the culprit in Google’s earnings miss. With revenues up 58% from last year, the lack of earnings can rest solely on the shoulders of the (in)famous Google expenses that everyone knows and loves. With everything from gourmet chefs to a free laundromat, this quarter’s expenses totaled $1.21 billion (sucking up 31% of revenues), up 4% from last quarter.

Could this steady increase in expenses mark the beginning of a penny-pinching spree throughout the company, or possibly even the end of the paradise known as the Google Compound?

As a fan of any company willing to offer free food and weekly roller hockey games, I sure hope not.

(Logo courtesy of 10e20.com)

Natuba is a new way to follow everything happening in your friends’ life online. The site links to all the social networks that you are part of and pulls your latest blog posts, YouTube videos as well as pictures from Flickr and Photobucket with the option to pull information from many other services.

I had a chance to try out the site briefly and was rather impressed. The front page of the site greets you with a very Twitter-like feel and has automatic updates of what’s happening on Natuba at that very moment. Upon logging in for the first time, you’re asked to build your page where you add your content from the many different services like MySpace, Twitter or Blogger. Integration with these services appears to be seamless with little to no time establishing a connection with each one. Where does all of this content go? You’re presented with a highly customizable page that you can share with your friends, where you can edit and change just about anything to suit your preference.

Natuba handles a lot of things very well; the customisation of your page, the seamless integration with each service and the easily navigated interface. It seems great for the kind of person that’s a part of many different networks and just wants to share their content at one place only, and for those who prefer to have a blog, a service like Tumblr offers just as much functionality with the option to display whatever content you wish, rather than everything. Natuba is definitely a service worth checking out if you’re interested in keeping everything in one place, especially if you want seamless integration and great functionality.

We’re giving away invites to Natuba, if you’d like one, please leave a comment with your name and email address and we’ll send one your way as soon as possible.

The two dominant comic publishers in the world, DC and Marvel, are often viewed as dinosaurs by the web comics crowd. Old guys with old money on an old platform. It looks like DC wants to change that, as they begin to hype their new web comics platform, Zuda.

The site aims to be a social aggregator of web comic talent. Artists submit original comics (using DC or other characters and such is not permitted) in a standardized format, users vote and comment on the content, and the highest rated of the comics may get a publishing contract with DC.

Zuda seems like a winning business idea for the publishing giant. Bright creators come flocking to them in droves, hoping to score, and the community gives them a pre-installed test market for the material. For all the cynics believing DC is luring in starving artists to poach their potential franchises from them, the Zuda team attempts to stall that notion right from the get-go:

The copyright for each comic submitted to Zuda will be owned by its creator. DC will publish the winning/chosen comics under fairly conventional publishing agreements adapted to the peculiarities of the digital platform: initial payments for the work that is done, with royalties from revenues based on other uses, such as books, merchandise and movies/television shows. In the next couple of months the contracts will be going up on the site, and we’re doing our best to make them as clear as possible, so people can make an informed decision about submitting their work.

Zuda is set to launch officially this October, according to the site. You can sign up for their update mailing list on the Zuda main page or check back to Scopetech for further updates as we get them.

Though often criticized, Alexa’s traffic statistics are used to measure the popularity of websites. These statistics can be shown to prospective advertisers, making websites money even if the statistics aren’t accurate but are in their favour. Many people have been turned off of the service because it requires the installation of a browser toolbar which was available solely for Internet Explorer, until now. The Alexa toolbar is now available for Firefox meaning even more people can choose to not use it.

If you’re not interested in using Alexa, consider using Compete to track website popularity. Ultimately, a website’s internal statistics will be of most use to advertisers while sites like Alexa will be useful if you’re just curious enough to get a basic idea of how websites stack up against each other.

Wikipedia is broad and features just about anyone that’s done anything, giving you all the information you could want on a person and more. Spock aims to get a little more personal, giving you some basic information on people, things they’ve done and the ability to find other people based on those things thanks to tags. Gleamd has found itself a niche, allowing users to enter people into their system, place a small biography on the person, then allowing users to comment on the person. While Wikipedia will have information on Robert Scoble, mentioning he has a blog, Gleamd allows users to say what they think about the person. Think of it as Wikipedia lite, with comments. It’s actually an interesting idea. Consider that many people have heard about Robert Scoble but may not know why he’s so popular. Gleamd will tell you exactly what he’s known for and allow users to comment on the person, giving you an idea if this person is generally liked or not. It’s safe to even compare this to testimonials.

The site is moderated so people who aren’t “interesting” probably won’t get their own page on the site, so don’t try submitting yourself unless you know you’re of actual interest (rules me out totally). There is a point-giving system to the site where users gain points the more they participate, however, it doesn’t do anything other than rank users. Users can also vote on stories if they so wish. Gleamd will fill that void in helping people know why some people are so popular and what people generally think about them. Be sure to check out the screen shots below.

Looking for invites? We have some to give away, leave a comment and we’ll send you one. We love you that much.