New Site Crowdsources Shopping Advice From Your Facebook Friends

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Cloud Shopper

Quick Pitch: Cloud Shopper asks your FacebookFacebook friends to review products you’re interested in purchasing. If you’re buying a gift or deciding between similar products, you can share a list of potential items.

Genius Idea: The majority of consumers rely to some extent on social networks to guide them in their purchase decisions, according to a 2009 survey by Gartner research firm.

Cloud Shopper aims to organize the way people solicit this advice. Users can browse products (pulled from Amazon.com), and select those they’d like to start a conversation about. They can either create a Facebook wall post asking for comments on that specific item or compile a list — let’s say, “possible gifts for Suzie” — and share it with friends. When friends click on the Facebook link, they’re directed to a commenting section where they can review each product. Products each user likes are kept in a tabbed section for others to browse.

But why not just create a wall post or a Facebook question when soliciting shopping advice from your Facebook friends? The best reason is a feature that is due for release in about two weeks, which will let users solicit advice from specific friends in their networks. So, for instance, if you were thinking about buying a camera, you could ask only your photographer friends for advice. If you’re shopping for a birthday present for John, you can share your potential gift list exclusively with you and John’s mutual friends.

Another cool feature of the site is that it pulls information about a product into its dashboard from multiple other sources like TwitterTwitter, YouTubeYouTube and FlickrFlickr. We’ve seen similar functions work well on product sites like Retrevo, and having the information handy while browsing and commenting is convenient.

Cloud Shopper’s site, which launched on December 15, is still suffering from its newness. When Facebook friends click on the products you’re asking them to review, for now they land on a page that is less than intuitive to navigate. Options like Facebook Poll and Facebook Question integrations are also still on the way.

The idea could have some weight if the promised features pan out. People like to discuss purchasing decisions — if that weren’t true there wouldn’t be so many peer-written review sites — why not take friends’ advice instead of a stranger’s? The success of the self-funded company, however, depends more on its users following through with Amazon purchases. Collecting a fee on a significant number of referrals could be a task equally as tricky as building a network.

Image courtesy of iStockphotoiStockphoto, sjlocke

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

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How Facebook Beat Google in 2010

Facebook beat out Google as the number one most-visited site in the US in 2010, according to the web analytics firm Hitwise.

How was FacebookFacebook able to outplay the former web champion, and can GoogleGoogle make a comeback in 2011 and beyond?

Facebook, once easily dismissed as the next social networking fad, has seemingly discovered Google’s weak spots. What are they, and can Google regain ground here?

That’s the topic of my CNN column this week.

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OpenFeint Sees 187% Spike In Downloads Of iOS Games Over Christmas Holiday

The holiday season traditionally sees a spike in mobile app downloads as users receive new devices and have more free time to interact with their phones. Today mobile social gaming platform OpenFeint is reporting that it added over 450,000 new users on Christmas day, which is a 184% spike over its daily average and the largest single day in its history in terms of new users. And the network added nearly 1.4 million new users in the four days around the holiday, including Christmas.

OpenFeint users downloaded more than 5 million OpenFeint enabled games during the 4-day stretch, with Android downloads growing by 73% and iOS downloads up by 187%. And it appears that activity is up from the same period last year; the network added 88% more users than a year ago.

So what contributed to this growth? OpenFeint’s cross-platform approach to its social gaming platform, first launching on the iPhone and iPad and more recently adding Android game developers to its rapidly growing community, definitely is helping set the gaming platform apart.

The company recently took a $8 million investment from Intel Capital and Chinese gaming company The9, as OpenFeint looks to expand beyond the iOS and Android platforms.

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BarMax, The $1,000 App (That’s Actually Worth It), Hits The iPad

It was just about a year ago that we first wrote about BarMax, an iPhone application meant to help law student pass the Bar exam. But if you’ve heard of the app, it’s more likely because of its price: $999.99. And now you’ll be able to part with the $1,000 at the click of a button for the iPad too.

BarMax, which, believe it or not, actually seems to be a good deal at $1,000, has just launched the iPad version into the App Store this evening. Specifically, the California (each state has different Bar exams) version is ready to roll.

Last month, we did a preview of the iPad version and noted that the company had racked up over $200,000 in sales from the California and New York versions of their iPhone app. And the iPad version looks to be even more useful as it has been re-built from the ground-up to take advantage of the new form factor and larger screen.

Here are the key features of the iPad version from the company:

Native iPad app that has been built from scratch to take advantage of the iPad screen size.Larger screen eliminates the need for books that some users still had.Students can buy a new iPad if they don’t have one and the course for just $1,500, which is still more than 50% off from other leading courses.  We expect a spike in iPad purchasing among law students.Enhanced outline reader layout with quick page scroller.Ability to highlight text, create notes, and bookmark pages.Redesigned Multiple Choice section with explanations of correct and incorrect answer options.

The reason the $1,000 price (the max you can charge in the App Store) is reasonable for this app is because of both the massive amount of data included — just about 1 GB — and because the course that students typically take for Bar exam prep, BarBri, usually costs something like $3,000 to $4,000 for the same type of information prep.

More importantly, the app appears to actually work. The data from the last Bar exam results showed students who used BarMax fairing well above the average pass rate.

To celebrate the iPad launch, BarMax is also giving away one copy of the $1,000 app to a lucky soon-to-be-lawyer TechCrunch reader. Simply email info@getbarmax.com with “TechCrunch” in the subject and your law school and graduation year in the email by January 5, 2011. They will select a winner at random from those who email.

You can find BarMax for iPad here in the App Store.

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MySpace to Make Major Layoffs?

MySpace may be looking to reduce its staff significantly, as multiple sources claim the social network is planning significant layoffs that could affect up to 50% of its employees.

Sources close to the situation have told All Things Digital that management is in the midst of figuring out more drastic cost-cutting measures that owner News Corp. asked for in the wake of MySpace’sMySpace decreased revenue and traffic. These possible layoffs, which have yet to be determined, could affect employees located outside the U.S. MySpace has declined to comment on the subject at this time.

This rumor comes not too long after MySpace made significant efforts to revamp its image. October saw the beginnings of a new era for MySpace, when the site announced its intentions to become more of a leading entertainment hub “socially powered by the passions of fans and curators” instead of being a “place for friends.” Earlier this month, the Hijacks program was introduced, allowing certain celebrities — like the Black Eyed Peas and Jack Black — to “take over” the site for short periods of time. And last month, MySpace partnered up with Facebook, making it possible for users to log in with FacebookFacebook.

But it seems these changes haven’t done much to improve MySpace’s fortunes, and News Corp. bigwigs might not expect a significant turnaround to happen. There are rumors that MySpace will get sold off (something Mashable’sMashable Ben Parr certainly believes). As of now, it only looks like we’ll start seeing if there’s some truth to any of this speculation in the new year.

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Human Connectome Project maps brain's circuitry, produces super trippy graphics

By Christopher Trout posted Jan 1st 2011 10:29AM A team of researchers at the Human Connectome Project (HCP) have been carving up mice brains like Christmas hams to find out how we store memories, personality traits, and skills -- the slices they're making, though, are 29.4 nanometers thick. The end goal is to run these tiny slices under a microscope, create detailed images of the brain, and then stitch them back together, eventually creating a complete map of the mind, or connectome. The team, comprised of scientists at Harvard, UCLA, University of Minnesota, and Washington University, is still a long way from cutting up a human brain, partially due to storage limitations -- a picture of a one-millimeter cube of mouse brain uses about a petabyte of memory. A human brain would require millions of petabytes, and an indefinite number of years, causing speculation that the payoff isn't worth the effort -- although, we're convinced the HCP wallpaper possibilities are totally worth it.

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HOW TO: Get More Out of Your Web Fonts

Anders J. Svensson is a freelance writer, part-time adventurer, and the senior copywriter at Veer -– a provider of affordable images and fonts to creative professionals. On Twitter, find Anders at @mightyrival and Veer at @veerupdate.

It’s a text-based world. Everywhere you look, there’s a sign, an ad, or a screen relaying information. The hand-lettered signage at your mom-and-pop corner store aside, most of the messages you see are set in familiar fonts.

You’ll find plenty of tips and tricks on using type elsewhere –- and far more technical ones, at that –- but here are some select ideas and advice that will put you (and your online presence) on the path to becoming a font savant.

If you’re wired and online, fonts first fall into three categories: The system fonts that came with your computer, the somewhat tacky fonts you can download at free sites, and the really nice fonts you might pay for if you are in the habit of paying for fonts.

Within each of those categories, fonts can be grouped on more aesthetic grounds. And though it won’t impress many crowds if you’re able to slip phrases like “French Ronde” or “Caslon-esque” into conversation, knowing fonts by their practical applications can help you choose the right ones for your projects.

Display fonts are big, beautiful and a bit unwieldy. Like a claymore sword, they look great hanging on the wall. Display fonts are destined for splashy ad headlines, website mastheads and anything requiring just a few words. If you set an entire document in a display font that has an old West, wood-cut, wanted poster aesthetic, your readers would probably gang up on you pretty fast.Text fonts are your go-to fonts. Ones like Arial, Lucida, Georgia and pop culture darling Helvetica are all very readable at any size. This makes them ideal for setting long passages, articles, books and newspapers, where the design calls for multiple levels of headings and content.Pixel fonts appear to be straight out of your favorite 8-bit arcade game. Their letters consist of tiny blocks or dots, making them ultra-readable at small sizes and low resolutions, which is perfect for mobile applications and tiny screens. They can also offer the convenience of being both readable and machine readable. Take that, bar codes!

Beyond the practical, fonts can be further classified by styles (script, stencil, weathered, etc.), decade, country, and even artistic movement (like Art Deco or Bauhaus). Of course, it isn’t all about good looks. Fonts fall into technical categories too.

If regular fonts are cars, OpenType fonts are time traveling DeLoreans. Car on the outside, remarkable effort and technology on the inside. So how do you take an OpenType font up to 88 mph? First, get up to speed on alternates.

Alternates are stylistic variations of characters that can be substituted for the default alphabet. While many fonts only offer a limited character set (26 letters, 10 numbers, and basic punctuation.), an OpenType font is more likely to have dozens, hundreds or even thousands of characters. Plus, advanced features that make automatic substitutions.

If you’re working with a script font, you might want to swap in characters that are ornamental or have repeated letters –- like a double-S –- replaced by a ligature (a character of two or more joined letters) that was specially made and therefore better looking. If you have enough variations of ‘I’ and ‘S’ for example, you could write a word like “Mississippi” with so many different characters, it would resemble custom hand-lettering.

As a general improvement over .ttf (TrueType format) files, OpenType fonts are a universal format; you can install an .otf file on both a Mac or PC, no problem. But just because you can install an OpenType font doesn’t mean you can make use of everything it offers. That depends largely on what design software you’re using the font in.

Imagine having the power to levitate chairs with your mind, but never using it. That’s akin to what you may be doing if you use an OpenType font in MS Word. Instead of the beautiful script you bought, you may see a mess of disjointed letters, because MS Word doesn’t support OpenType’s advanced features. In contrast, if you were using Adobe InDesign, the features would kick in and do some of the work for you.

Plus, you can always turn off autopilot and take control by picking and choosing alternates, ligatures and swashes yourself.

If you’re getting serious about working with fonts, discovering Adobe’s glyph palette is like finding a magical portal to Narnia in your wardrobe. Instead of talking fauns, you’ll find a useful, scrollable grid of every character in the font, which sometimes number in the thousands.

Overwhelming? No problem. A drop-down menu lets you filter the selection and view just ligatures, swash capitals, ornaments or number sets –- whatever the typeface designer has created and organized for you.

You can also select a letter or letters, and filter the glyph palette to display alternates for your selection. If the designer has included a half dozen different “E” variants, you can swap them in manually. Same goes for finding custom ligatures to replace “OO,” “LL,” “TH,” and the like. Some designers will go as far as including entire custom words designed as single glyphs.

Once you’ve spent some time exploring the glyph palette, you’ll know what to expect from future fonts.

Typography is a lot like architecture. The surface aesthetics that everyone can enjoy are a result of an incredibly technical effort by its creators.

Though not all of us are cut out to hunker down and create a great font from scratch, using and power-using fonts is a very accessible creative arena, even for non-designers. You’ll know you’ve delved too deep when you interrupt dinner conversation to point out the ball terminals on the menu’s Bodoni-style serif.

- Top 5 Web Font Design Trends to Follow
- The Future of Web Fonts
- 10 Beautiful Free Hand-Drawn Icon Sets
- 9 Free Resources for Learning Photoshop
- 20 Free Social Media Icon Sets For a More Shareable Website

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