Qbox is a search engine/media player combo that lets you find and listen to music available from social networking sites including MySpace, Bebo, and YouTube. The interface is a bit more complicated than it needs to be. If you just download the standalone media player for Windows, you'll be told that you need to sign in if you want to search for music.
Search results are displayed in your default web browser, which is odd because the Qbox media player acts as sort of a stripped down browser for playing web audio and video clips. Don't ask us why it won't display search results.
Now here comes the important part: Qbox is not compatible with Firefox 3. If you conduct a search from the media player or the web site using Firefox 3, you'll get a list of songs. But when you click the play buttons next to those songs, you'll be told that you haven't installed the Qbox media player if you're using Firefox 3. When we logged into the web site with Internet Explorer, everything worked properly. But when we tried to search from songs from the media player interface, the results were again displayed in our default browser, which was Firefox 3. There doesn't seem to be a way to select your prefered browser from within the software.
You can also click on genre tags to browse for songs within the media player itself. Qbox is currently available as a public beta, so it's possible the company could improve the interface and adds Firefox 3 compatibility.
Tired of getting email notifications letting you know that someone wants to be your friend, poke, or wink at you? Webmail provider Orgoo wants to bridge the gap between email and social networking. That means you'd be able to receive all of your email notifications without leaving the social networking site. TechCrunch reports that Orgoo hopes to convince social networks like MySpace and Facebook to integrate the Orgoo email interface, which will also encourage users to spend more time on the web page.
While most social networking sites have some sort of private messaging feature, they tend to lack the features you'd find in a full fledged email service like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail. Orgoo supports POP and IMAP, which means you wouldn't necessarily be stuck with an @orgoo.com or @myspace.com email address. You could link any POP or IMAP-enabled account to the service.
Last year Yahoo! made some waves by claiming that email itself could be the basis for the next generation social networking. The implication is that Yahoo! may add social features to its email and IM services to make Yahoo! Mail a bit more Facebook-like. Orgoo's solution seems to achieve the same goal by taking the exact opposite approach.
Desktop social networking client Sociagami has added two features that were noticeably absent from earlier builds: Twitter integration and support for updating your status from the application. When we first looked at Sociagami a few months ago, the software provided an attractive (but RAM-heavy) tool for interacting with your Facebook and MySpace contacts. You could see all of the latest status updaes in one place, navigate through your friend list in a slick browser, or view the latest photos uploaded by your contacts.
But without the ability to update your own status, Sociagami wasn't nearly as useful as other desktop social networking tools like Digsby. The latest version includes a handy status update tool that lets you post to Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter simultaneously. If you only want to update one service, just uncheck two of the boxes.
The new Twitter client works pretty much exactly as you'd expect. You get a list of recent messages from your contacts in one window, and you can sift through your contact list in the browser. One thing that sets Sociagami apart from Digsby is the fact that you can see all of your latest Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook messages in a single window.
But while Digsby already has a reputation as a RAM-heavy application, at least that utility also gives you email notification alerts and an instant messenger application, two features that Sociagami lacks. Still, we're happy to report that Sociagami continues to get a bit better with each release, so we're not ready to give up on this application just yet.
AOL has picked up social networking site Bebo for a huge wad of cash. While we didn't really see this coming, the move makes a lot of sense. AOL's audiences tend to skew old (you know, except for the fine young folks who read AOL-owned blogs like Download Squad), while Bebo is big with the 13-24 set and has 40 million registered users.
While Bebo doesn't have the name recognition of Facebook or MySpace in the US, it's huge in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand. And it does have a considerable US audience as well. Perhaps most importantly, regular users click on an average of 78 pages per day, showing a high level of user engagement.
Flotzam is an application that makes pretty visualizations out of your social network updates. Every time someone posts new media or comments to your Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and Digg accounts, Flotzam floats a message across your screen. You can also add any RSS feed to receive updates from other sites.
Flotzam doesn't offer much more than a pretty visualization. You can click on a message to open a web browse and see the message in its original context. But there's no way to post your own updates from Flotzam. You can install the application as a screen saver, which could actually be useful. But unfortunately Flotzam's a bit of a resource hog, so you might be better off using a blank screen as a screen saver if you want to save energy while your computer is idle.
We also noticed that Flotzam had a tendency to crash while it was checking our Facebook page. Once we removed Facebook from our preferences the problem went away. Note that you'll need to visits the Flotzam page using Internet Explorer if you want to install the application.
How many web pages do you login to every day? There's your email accounts, social networking sites, bank and credit card web sites, online stores, and entertainment web sites. That's a lot of passwords and URLs to remember. PageOnce aims to make things a lot easier by letting you view all of your online accounts in one place.
The site is in private beta, but if you visit TechCrunch, you might be able to score an invite today.
As soon as you've got your account up and running you can start adding online services to your PageOnce homepage by clicking the "Add Content" button. Up pops a window with a handful of popular services like Facebook, MySpace, Gmail, Yahoo!, Blockbuster, and Netflix. But PageOnce doesn't stop there. You can also associate your login information for airlines or travel services like American Airlines or Travelocity. And you can add your bank account information too.
Ever wish you could find one web site that works as a social networking site, an IM service, a way to discover new music, sell your artwork, or store files online using a web-based desktop? Yeah, neither did we, but those are just a few of the services offered by Hurox, a site that's so jam-packed with features that it almost defies description.
Don't get us wrong, Hurox is hardly the only company trying to control all of your online activities. Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and others would like you to use their email, IM, calendar, photo, and video sharing services. The difference is that most companies don't try to cram everything into a single URL. And there's a good reason for that. Hurox is kind of pretty, but it also seems horribly complicated.
When you first sign up for a free account, Hurox asks you a series of questions to determine whether you're more interested in things like celebrity gossip or tech news; folk music or heavy metal; reading or watching movies; and so on. Then you get a little tour that attempts to explain what you can do with the site, but it's hard to keep everything straight when you can do everything from creating and sharing personal web pages to creating an online marketplace for selling goods.
We're all for all-in-one solutions. We love programs like 8hands or Flock that let you manage multiple social networking services at once. And Digsby does an awesome job of acting as n email notifier, chat client, and social networking monitor. But Hurox is something else altogether. It doesn't let you manage activities you were already doing online. It asks you to join yet another social network. Sure, it's a social network that's full of features, but it has so many features that we can't help but think of Hurox as a kitchen sink site. It seems like the company just added every feature they could think of without taking the time to make sure that they all make sense together.
We're suckers for all-in-one applications. That's why we were excited to check out Digsby, a new all-in-one utility for managing multiple IM, e-mail, and social networking accounts. Digsby just launched in private beta this week, but we've got 5000 invites to give away to Download Squad readers. Keep on reading to find out how to get yours.
Digsby is a desktop client that lets you chat with contacts no matter which IM service they use. It also includes an e-mail notifier, and a pop up screen for keeping track of Facebook and MySpace updates. You can even add a Digsby chat window to your Facebook page so that anyone viewing your profile can send you instant messages which you can reply to using Digsby.
The problem with search engines (if you're one of those people who believe there's a problem with search engines) is that they don't know who you are. Google and other search companies are tackling this issue by compiling your search history in a way that could eventually help the search engine decide which results will be most relevant. But for the most part, right now when you, your mother, and that mad scientist down the street search for information on building a nuclear bomb in your basement, you'll all get the same results.
Delver wants to change that. The company came out of stealth mode at this week's DEMO conference. The idea is that you can search for information that's relevant to you by gathering search results from your friends' social networking pages. All you have to do is enter your name into Delver's service (no registration necessary) and it will try to determine who you are, and then search your public profile on sites like Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube to determine who you friends are. Then when you enter a search term, like say "pizza places," you should get a list of places your friends recommend or at least have talked about.
If you do register for an account Delver will let you associate yourself with accounts on social networking sites. But as you've probably guessed, other users will be able to search your social network without knowing your password. Theoretically they can already do this, since all Delver does is draw publicly available information together in one place. But it's still mildly creepy. Then again, why would anyone care where your friends buy pizza?
Are you the sort of person who likes to bookmark interesting web pages on del.icio.us, submit important or odd articles to digg, share rumors with Truemors, and send funny pictures of cats to your Twitter followers? Then have we got a Firefox add-on for you.
Sharealic is a Firefox add-on that works with Firefox 2, 3, and Flock and Songbird. It adds a handy menu to Firefox that lets you submit any web page to a ton of social bookmarking sites or similar services with just a few clicks. Sure, there are plenty of other ways to share items with your friends, but if you like to spread your love across multiple services, Shareaholic can save you a lot of time.
Shareaholic also lets you know at a glance how many times a page has been dugg or submitted to del.icio.us. Of course, if you'd rather submit a site to multiple services all at once, you might want to check out the Mahalo multi-submit toolbar. Shareaholic requires you to submit your links to one service at a time.
We just wanted to remind you that today is your last chance to enter nominations for the Open Web Awards. This is the first annual collaborative awards event honoring the best social networking services.
We're asking readers to choose their favorite companies in five categories:
Mainstream and Large Scale Networks
Applications and Widgets
Start Pages
Mobile
Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
Please choose just one company or web site per category and leave a comment on our nominations page. All entries must be received by 3:00PM EST today. Around 30 blogs are participating in the Open Web Awards, which are sponsored by Mashable. Your nominations will be thrown into the larger pool and soon we'll start the voting rounds.
Google has removed more than 40,000 sites from its index. This is a good thing, because many of those sites were pretending to offer useful information and instead viciously attacking your computer. Keep in mind, those sites are still out there, it's just that Google has removed them from its index, which hopefully means you're less likely to find them accidentally. But make sure you always download the latest security updates for your computer and web browser. What's your favorite program launcher? - Ask DLS
Launcy, Rocket Dock, Object Dock, FARR, Quicksilver, and SlickRun are just a few of the excellent program launchers Download Squad readers use. If you're looking for the fastest way to launch applications on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer, make sure to check out the recommendations in the comment section of this post. We're always amazed at the wealth of knowledge our readers possess.
Everything you ever wanted to know about social networking and more. This week Grant and Christina teach you how to make friends and influence people with help from Facebook and Insomnia Radio's Jason Evangelho.
This is the first annual multi-blog awards event focused on social networking sites. The contest is sponsored by Mashable, who will be holding an award ceremony in San Francisco in December.
We'll have a few voting rounds coming up in the coming weeks, but round one is a call for nominations. We're asking you to come up with a list of your favorite companies in 5 categories:
Mainstream and Large Scale Networks
Applications and Widgets
Start Pages
Mobile
Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
For complete details, see our nomination page and vote in the comments on that page. If you want your vote to count, please post it on the nomination page, not this page. All entries must be received by Tuesday.
Download Squad is pleased to announce that we're participating in the Open Web Awards. What that means is you, our dear readers, get to participate in the first ever interblog collaborative award event designed to recognize excellence in the social networking world. The Open Web Awards are the brainchild of the folks over at Mashable, and about 30 blogs are participating.
Over the next few weeks, we'll have voting rounds in several different categories. But today we're going to give you a list of categories and call for your nominations. To nominate a company or website, just leave a comment with the business name and the corresponding category. For example, if you want to nominate Hi5 in the Mainstream and Large Scale Networks category, just say so. That's all there is to it. Once we've got all the nominations in we'll add your votes to those gathered from other web sites and let you vote on the top companies in each category.
Here are the categories:
Mainstream and Large Scale Networks
Applications and Widgets
Start Pages
Mobile
Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
Feel free to interpret these categories however you like. You can nominate a company in just one category or in all five. Please just make one selection per category. Now go forth and nominate.
If you've spent the last week looking up good recipes for leftover turkey, here are a few of the yummy stories you may have missed on Download Squad.
