ReCrunch

[TC] StreetAdvisor Launches New Services:

StreetAdvisor will today launch a range of new upgrades that will give homeowners, renters, and buyers a more complete picture of where they could live. The new StreetAdvisor provides a real-life “insider” view that provides users the ability to learn and share vital details about where they live, including noise levels, traffic, neighbors, entertainment, and public services in a similar way to travel review sites. Recommendations and negative experiences about local businesses, entertainment and services will also be supported.

Call me crazy, but the first thing I do when I get to this site is type “NYC” in the search box. The top result is “Nyac, Alaska, United States”. Is it just me or should it be easier to find America’s biggest city?

Speaking of New York, the top street in the United States at the time of writing is New York’s own E 19th St. Clearly the website is very new as there is only one review there. And I thought being featured on TechCrunch meant instant popularity and multi-million dollar valuation. Maybe it just needs some time.

Let’s backtrack a little at this point. The point of StreetAdvisor is to provide information on your neighborhood. Then why is Broadway, the longest street in the world that spans the length of Manhattan, all one neighborhood? Apparently SoHo and Harlem are the same thing.

Update (based on comments):

MSN Maps (or Live Search) does not find “NYC” either, but this is not a review of web-based map services. This review pertains only to one web service. I expect it to work reasonably well. If this is the fault of the API they chose, then perhaps they made the wrong choice, so it is still their fault. Also, I doubt they are using Microsoft’s API for search considering the maps on the site are from Google.

Also, it turns out I was wrong about Broadway. The streets are broken up by zip code, so Broadway 10001 and Broadway 10031 are in fact different neighborhoods. However, both share the same header - “Broadway, New York, New York, United States”. Unless you compare the URLs or maps on the two pages, there is no indicator they are actually not the same. And neither tells me whether it is 10001 or 10031.

[TC] HotSwap To Enter $370 billion Used Car Market:

Used car sales are big business - at least $370 billion/year in the U.S., with $81 billion or so of that occurring online. New startup HotSwap wants to apply some of the more recent trends on the web to that market … The company, which is based in Berkeley, CA, allows anyone to list a used car for sale. In addition to basic information, people are asked to include a video of the vehicle, which is embedded in the listing. Videos, they say, are a much better way of showing off a car.

Low resolution videos are not better. Images can show you if the car you are interested in is indeed in the condition stated. That is sufficient information. At the end of the day, you still need to test drive it.

YouTube is for TV clips and for lip sync videos. Flickr is for quality photos. If I want to see a pimped out car do tricks, a video would be nice. If I want to check if the ‘97 Accord in the ad is missing a bumper or there is a giant dent in the door, all I want are a couple of images. I don’t want to watch 10 minutes of shaky video that will tell me virtually nothing.

[TC] Now We’re Not Talking: Telstra Bans Facebook:

Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, has banned its approximately 49,000 employees from using Facebook. As Cameron Reilly at G’Day World puts it, “This would be a retarded move for ANY company, let alone a company that is trying to position itself as a company that “gets” online.”

I forgot that being hip was more important than being productive nowdays. Let’s look back at what TechCrunch itself has taught us about social networking at work.

[TC] Career Advice: Don’t Spend Half Your Work Day On Facebook And Then Brag About It:

A Goldman Sachs trader in the UK named “Charlie” was warned by his employer that his visits to Facebook on company time were to stop. He spent, apparently, over 500 hours on Facebook in a six month period. That works out to about 4 hours per day.

Perhaps if employees did not spend half their time on Facebook, companies would not be banning it.

[TC] Truemors For Facebook:

Guy Kawasaki’s Truemors is testing out a new version of the service for Facebook. … TFF is for you to “tell your friends.” You can post something that only your friends can read and discuss. In fact, you can get even more specific: Selecting just a few of your friends.

In other words, now you can add a Facebook app that does virtually the same thing as Facebook Notes. This one, however, carries the Truemors branding and will undoubtedly try to get all your friends to install it. And just wait until someone figures out how to actually monetize it.

[TC] New Forum Site To Gossip About Work:

I’m just going to touch on Wurkpal briefly. It’s a very simple forum site that is designed specifically for people to gossip/complain/etc. about their work environment anonymously. The site takes a guess as to where you are logging in from based on a reverse hostname lookup and tries to direct you to the correct company forum. You can also view the directory and go from there.

Is today April 1? How does WurkPal manage to get TechCrunch coverage? It’s a forum that atempts to determine where you work based on your IP address. It’s not a secure connection, so the whole “safely chat about your company’s rumors/news” line is a bit bogus. If you are at home, you’re out of luck for sure - the directory link is only found at TechCrunch. Same story if you are trying to access it through an anonymous proxy. Thus, you should not be surprised if HR contacts you for posting juicy gossip there.

I hope the angel funding they are referring to are the sandwiches their mom made them.

Ok, the iPhone reference is unnecessary, but I had to work the AT&T sales update in there somehow.

[TC] Joost Says They Have 1 million Beta Users; Launch By Year End:

1 million is a lot of beta users. But that’s the number of users that IPTV startup Joost co-founder Niklas Zennström said are using the service at a press event in Estonia yesterday

The number of users who stopped using Joost after finding out that the best content they could find was MTV’s Laguna Beach from two years ago: unknown.

[TC] Snimmer - Test It If You Dare:

Like Meebo and eBuddy, Snimmer is a web-based instant messaging service. … When you use the service and sign on there is an opt-out to tell all your friends about the service. I caught it the first time and unchecked it, but on a second login I forgot and all of my GTalk friends were IMed with a message about Snimmer. I then spent thirty minutes apologizing to everyone who IMed me with “WTF” or something similar.

OMG! I gave a sketchy-looking website all my contacts and they spammed them. At least all that money coming in from Nigeria will make me feel a whole better.

[TC] BOOMj.com: Social Networking For Baby Boomers:

BOOMj.com is a “lifestyle and social network” for Baby Boomers … BOOMj.com offers the usual variety of social networking features including blogs, video, friends, relationships etc… as well as travel deals, financial information, health and wellness and celebrity gossip. By their own description BOOMj.com is MySpace meets Amazon.com for the over 40’s.

You have a job, a family, a house, a whole bunch of real responsibilities. You are hoping to have enough time in your busy schedule to go get a colonoscopy. What’s missing? Social networking. And no, that does not include stalking your kids on Facebook. We mean connecting with other people going through a mid-life crisis while having demographic-targeted advertising shoved down your throat. Thanks BOOMj.com!

Next week: Anheuser-Busch attempts to tap (pun intended) into a new market by launching a website that helps seniors organize keggers*. Just because you are collecting social security doesn’t mean you have to act like it.

* kegger: A wild party where beer is served (usually in disposable plastic cups) from a keg. Keggers are usually associated with high school and college students, but anybody can throw one if they’ve got a lot of friends and at least one keg of beer. [urbandictionary.com]