It’s no surprise that twitter can be a bit unstable from time to time. Twitter is probably the only service I know that’s almost more down than it’s up, and still have a loyal fan base and increase it’s number of users.

But what are the alternatives?

There are a lot of similar micro-blogging services out there, but can they replace twitter?

If you take a look at the various alternatives to twitter are they really an alternative?

Pownce:

About a year ago I wrote a post about Pownce and twitter. I compare the two services, but what really hit me was, that a year ago I wrote that twitter is unstable.

Twitter is still unstable and Pownce hasn’t replaced twitter. Why is that?

Pownce doesn’t have the simplicity of twitter. No one (except a few) has really bothered making any services for Pownce either and perhaps Pownce is just too feature-heavy?!

As always you are welcome to friend me on Pownce.

Plurk:

The brand new microblogging tool is called Plurk and everybody are talking/blogging about it. It’s probably the closest thing at the moment to twitter.

The timeline is very different and takes a little getting-used-to. However when some of your friends plurk, you can respond directly to their plurks by just clicking on it.

Plurk has a clever little extra thing that might be addicting to some users. It’s called Karma. It’s a score and the more you plurk, respong to plurks and add friends, the more Karma you get.

All the big blogger people are plurking. If they like it might breakthrough. Perhaps they should have waited and launched Plurk at some big blogger conference. That’s what twitter and Friendfeed did.

Add me as a friend on Plurk.

Some might also see Friendfeed as an alternative to twitter, but honestly I haven’t really jumped on the Friendfeed bandwagon yet.

I’m still not sure what to do with Friendfeed, but I would love to know, so if you have any advice or ideas, please don’t hesitate to share.

Which tool do you see as an alternative to twitter? Will you stick with twitter or move to another microblogging service?

From time to time people are kind enough to mail me and ask me to write about their startup or interview someone. I just love to get these mails. It makes me feel important and a bit like Darren Rowse and Shoemoney. Many of the mails are the copy/paste standard “Hey interesting site you have. Let me tell you about this great product we are about to launch…”-mails. Never mind that. Even those mails makes me feel important…

However communicator, Jonas Thoursie from Yooba was kind enough to mention that my site was interesting and that he found my interview series “Show Me Your Desktop“, particular interesting. Because he took the time to look at my site, I’ll take the time and space and write about Yooba.

Let’s start out with the official Yooba introduction.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So what do you think Yooba is about?

What I can see from the introduction Yooba is about redefining ads. The “brute” with Mr Clips (or Clipsy) in chains, changes the billboard from a boring commercial to a more interesting one. The same thing goes for the displays later on.

You can’t find any details on Yooba.com or on their blog, but the Yooba Facebook group reveals a bit more.

“Yooba lets you create different kinds of online content for marketing purposes. It can be anything from a simple ad to a full scale interactive campaign. Yooba provides a browser based flash/flex application that possesses everything you need to design and create your content. You don’t need any programming or artistic skills. If you just have a creative idea, you can have it published in no time.

The publishing is a simple procedure. You can put your creation anywhere you want. Yooba takes care of the hosting. Since Yooba is a completely web based service, you can work from any computer you want, and you can create and save projects and publish them later.

Finally we come to the evaluation part. Maybe the most important one in a marketing manner. Yooba provides a backend system that gives you feedback on your published content in form of information and statistics.”

I think this means, I can take my boring ads and make them flashy and hip without any programming skills. Sounds interesting. Now I just need to be creative.

If you are interested in joining the Yooba Beta, you can sign up on the Yooba page.

So is Yooba anything for you? Is this a new service or do you know other companies that offer the same?

Pownce (pounce) – You might have heard or read about it. It’s all over the internet, not as in Joost-all-over-the-internet, but pretty close.

This is what they say about themselves:

Pownce is a way to send stuff to your friends. What kind of stuff? You can send just about anything: music, photos, messages, links, events, and more. You can do it all on our web site, or install our lightweight desktop software that lets you get out of the browser.

So what’s all the commotion about?

• Kevin Rose, the founder of digg, is a part of it
• Can be compared to Twitter, some even call it “Twitter on steoroids”
• TechCrunch, Newsweek, Wired and other news media are covering it
• Its by invitation only and invitations can be bought on eBay
• Its Web 2.0, thus making it hip, hyped and hot

There are only a few obvious differences between Pownce and Twitter. With Pownce you can send files (10 Mb) and forward messages to your friends. Sounds a bit like gMail to me. Pownce has a desktop application, plenty of Twitter applications are available too, perhaps one of them would be so kind to create a Pownce application too, now that the Pownce API is going public. You can update Twitter from your mobile or instant messaging, with Pownce you can send group messages and events.

Unfortunately Twitter isn’t always as stable as you would like, I’ve only experienced downtime on Pownce once and a few error pages, but thats what you expect from a startup.

I think at some point you have to chose between Powence and Twitter… are you a twit or a powncer? Its just a matter of time before both sites can do the same.

Oh and did I mention that I have 11 Pownce invites to give away? The first eleven to drop a comment asking for one…gets one.

Rhode Island, USA based Swift Blue has asked me to invite The Beta News readers to join the alpha test of their local search engine. I’ve previously written about one of Swift Blue’s project, FamFridge, unfortunately a tragic family issue has set them back.

Searoo Local Search is only for the US at the moment, so you need an American zip code to register. Once you’ve registered you can review restaurants and see the reviews for the restaurants in your neighbourhood. There is also a Q&A section, where the users can connect and ask for restaurant, hotel and other recommendations.

Searoo is still in alpha test, so you should prepare for a few dead links and missing options.

You receive points and medals when you review a restaurant . At the moment you can only flash and brag about them.

 The email from Swift Blue:

We at Swift Blue, LLC would like to invite you to try out Searoo. Searoo is in alpha testing and we want you to participate in it!
Click here to go to Searoo Alpha.
It’s ok to give out this link to your friends, we are actually encouraging you to send the link to as many people as possible. But please note that the permalinks WILL be changing in the near future, so try not to make too extensive use of them. However, the old ones will work for sometime after the change.
We are inviting you to try Searoo out because the production of FamFridge has been heavily pushed back.
Our CTO and lead engineer had a tragic and immediate family issue to take care and has since left the company because of it. It is unfortunate and we wish him and his family the best.
Because of this departure we have been pushed back on our schedule and we are frantically looking for a new Ruby on Rails developer to bring on.
So it is going to be sometime before we can send you some invites to try out FamFridge, we apologize. In the meantime we want you to try out our newest web application, Searoo.
Thank you,
David Berube
CEO Swift Blue, LLC

Three weeks ago I launched my second site – FIFA 2008 News. It has the latest news about EA Sports’ coming FIFA Soccer 2008 featuring interviews, screen shots, trailers and demos and press releases directly from EA Sports’ Press Room.

It all started out with an article I wrote for Connected Internet, which quickly became and is one of the most read on the site. Everton Blair suggested that I started a site up with FIFA 2008 news, I’ve done that and I’m proud to say that traffic is growing each day.

This is my first attempt at a “real” niche blog. I’ll try a few experiments on it.

The picture above shows the traffic increase over the last week until today, which explains the down hill.

I’ll try to work some social media magic on it, build a Squidoo lens, create a Blog Carnival, viral marketing on various blogs and forums and other stuff. About the monetization, I’ll apply for Chitika once I get more than 10,000 visitors, until then I’ll stay with Google Adsense and AuctionAds.

If you are into football/soccer and like to play it on your Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Nintendo Wii, DS, Nokia N-Gage or PC, then please go to www.fifa2008news.com.

I recently joined Pownce. If you haven’t heard about them here is a quick quote from their site:

Pownce is a way to send stuff to your friends. What kind of stuff? You can send just about anything: music, photos, messages, links, events, and more. You can do it all on our web site, or install our lightweight desktop software that lets you get out of the browser.

I’ve got six invites for my friends. So who wants to be my friend?

You can read a bit more about Pownce on their blog or on Pownce.com

Did you ever use one of the online dating services? There are plenty of sites on the web offering you personals ranging from adult dating to christian dating from black dating to gay dating.

I’ve collected a bunch of the newest and most innovative dating sites. All of them are start-ups. A few of them requires a fee, but most are free online dating sites.

• Online Speed Dating – You will be matched up in a 15 Minute Blind Date (Speed Dating) session where you can meet your blind date face-to-face via webcam.

• WhereJackMetJill – WJMJ is a lot like Myspace and allows daters to customize their profiles to suit their unique tastes. It avoids the formulaic trap which many dating sites are prone to and WJMJ is simple to use. This is a Britsh start-up and costs £12,99 per month.

• MeetMoi – You get updates about potential matches as text messages on your mobile phone, and then you can use text messaging to flirt with the person. The service is free and for Americans only.
• BallsInYourCourt – BIYC helps you find a compatible mate and gives you a safe, open environment to connect to your ideal mate. The homepage features a search function or browse yourself by selecting your city. The service is free of charge.

• Mingle 2 – Mingle 2 lets you search by location, age, and gender, and photos are available. Basic, simple dating service—but there’s no cost involved.
• KissCafé – Like any other dating site, it is free and you can make an extensive profile. You even get your own URL, which makes it easier to post it on Facebook and similar sites and you can submit your own dating advice – Kiss Facts on every page. There are also ads from organizations like Greenpeace, which offer environmentally-aware tidbits of news or information. This would seem to present the site as a place for socially-minded or environmentally-minded people to meet.
• FlirtFrenzy – I’ve previously mentioned this one. You get ten minutes to chat with a member you are interested in, and then after that, it’s up to you whether or not you exchange contact information. You select your flirting partner based on geographical location and his/her profile stats. Free and you don’t need to sign up.

I could go on and on, but these are some of the most recent start-ups. They are all in heavy competition with sites like match.com and eharmony.com. The free and ad-free sites are having a hard time making any money of this. Let’s see if any of these can make it out there.

Did I miss any sites? Which one do you prefer? Did you ever “get” anything out of a dating site?

Did you read my post on Connected Internet about the Top 6 addictive and free online games?

If not you should head over there and try a few of them out. Number one on the list, Desktop Tower Defense’s designer has teamed up with the designer of FlashElementTD. They’ve quit their day job and started their own business, Novel Concepts. They still haven’t found a name for the gaming site yet, but they are working on it. One thing is sure though, they will focus on free online games.
Dave Scott says: “Our goal is to create an awesome casual gaming site with a social networking twist which we will use to host all our future games as well as some we have made already.”

Paul Preece is currently working on the latest version of the free online game Desktop Tower Defense (DTD) 1.5, which will feature the “Ink/Blob Tower” and “Boost Tower”.

You can read more about on Paul and Dave’s blog, Novel Concepts.

Best of luck to Novel Concepts, I am really looking forward to seeing more from them.

Did you install the AGLOCO Viewbar? Or perhaps you don’t know what AGLOCO is?

Let me give you a brief explanation: “AGLOCO is an Economic Network. An Economic Network is based on similar roots, but also adds the driving principle that individuals who have joined together as a group can be economically stronger than the individuals alone.” Now doesn’t that sound peachy.

You use the AGLOCO Viewbar to search the internet. The viewbar is installed in Windows and is placed either right above your Task Bar (the one with Start, Quick Launch etc.) or at the top of your screen – you decide. Now all you have to do is use the search function in the Viewbar and that is it. You can use all the common search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, Lycos and so forth. The search results will appear in your favourite browser (IE or FF) with ads along the side and on the top. Just like you know it from Google, except this time, AGLOCO, meaning the community gets the money.

AGLOCO also has a referral program, which means you will get something extra when you refer a friend (or a reader hint hint). When he or she refers another one you get a small bonus again. Sounds like a pyramid scheme to you? Don’t worry it is pretty harmless.

Until now John Chow has referred over 17,000 users. Until now the only frustration is, that the servers are very slow. There are so many users signing up, so you have to be very patient and do a lot of browser refreshs to get through. Hang in there. You can do it!

So sign up for AGLOCO Viewbar and let me know how it works out for you.

You can now combine activism, fashion and SMS/text through Reactee’s latest innovation.

It is quite easy. You design your own T-shirt with your desired message like:” Got plans Saturday nite?”, “Stop Global Warming” or “Møjn, It’s Petersen Inc” (Ok, I made the last one up). Combined with a unique keyword like, “DATE”, “HOT” or “Pinc”, you text the keyword to 41411 and get a personalised message back from the owner of the T-shirt. This way a DJ can promote his playlist, you can get info on how to stop global warming or I can promote my site.

Entire organisations can use the same keyword and use different T-shirt designs to promote their cause. You can also join their affiliate program, Reactee will pay you a commission for sales of shirts that you design and activate

Unfortunately only Americans can use this service at the moment. I read about this on TechCrunch and their readers get 20% of any T-shirts purchased by the end of June. Use the code: TECHCRUNCH.