iTech News: Facebook's Competition, Sulia, Screen Sharing

The web moves quickly and sites come and go, but who would have thought that one day Facebook might go the way of MySpace? Well, new apps, new functions, new consumer expectations drive the web and here’s some great new things everyone should know.

Good-bye Facebook?

How could Facebook ever be replaced? Of course, that’s what they said about MySpace and how many millions of users have long since forgotten their login passwords?

It’s long been rumored throughout the web that the young tech users out there have had it with Facebook, not necessarily because of the new design, insertions of suggested pages, obnoxious ads or ever-changing privacy issues… they just grow tired of sites as they do fads and types of blue jeans. The new site to watch is Pheed. The social media site plays to the younger generation’s love of smart phone usage and while it’s now only available to iPhones, as with any app, it will soon be available for android phones as well.

Pheed is a new social media platform, both a web site and mobile app that lets you share text, photos, videos and audio and although propelled by teenagers, the company is quick to insist the user base is only 81% between ages of 14 and 25.

Pheed is part Facebook, part Twitter, part Pinterest, part Youtube and all new, so it stands a better than average chance of becoming the newest social media emperor with those who prefer a truly mobile social app with more functions than Twitter. With the popularity of mobile phone usage, it’s something marketers should start considering right away!

More Bad News for Facebook!

And then there’s Sulia. Sulia is described as, “a subject-based social network that connects you to the top social sources on subjects you care about.”

You can sign up to the service by connecting either your Twitter or Facebook accounts, which makes it easily accessible for savvy social media users and aggregates only your set preferences of things that interest you (killing those obnoxious posts about dinner photos, kittens and Farmville-like games).

According to Mashable:

Ten million unique users have signed up in less than a year, and several big-name investors have contributed some pretty hefty funding. It seems Sulia’s mix of crowdsourcing, machine learning and human supervision is making its 1,000+ channels of content a success. View their slideshow on how to get started with Sulia.

Help for Video Marketing

There’s nothing like a great video for marketing. Viddy is the new cinematic social app for iPhone and android phones. Viddy allows users to post videos of 15 seconds or less. The app has come to be known as “Instagram for videos” because of its ability to easily edit footage shot on smartphones with special effects, color filters and music soundtracks.

The app has simplified the process of sharing clips on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and blogs, and it gives users the option to send them via email, SMS or only post them to a personal account page at Viddy’s site.

Rescue for Bloggers, Brands and Front Pages Everywhere!

RebelMouse is a unique approach to social media management. Once you install the RebelMouse bookmarklet to your browser, you can easily share content to your RebelMouse page. Somewhat a mix of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and a blog, your content can be placed easily in one place but there’s more to it than that. The functions include the ability to choose certain design elements to personalize your page, almost as you would pick a WordPress theme for its design.

You can also filter your content. Don’t want your tweets to show up? No problem! You choose if you want your original content from your social streams to show up or content you repost and share, too. If you wish, you can use RebelMouse to post content from your front page to your other social streams as well.

Easily edited, fully functional and tons of free tools, it’s a site worth checking out.

Clean Up That Facebook Page Easily

Speaking of MySpace, do you remember what you had posted on your profile? Is there anything you’d rather not have on the web forever, for anyone to search out? Well, before you abandon your Facebook account or just want to clean it up for a job search (employers use Google search for applicants), there’s an app for that!

SimpleWash scans all the content on your Facebook profile — including comments by other people on photos or posts — and detects keywords that might be associated with things you don’t want a potential employer seeing (drugs, alcohol, profanities, and the like).

You can browse through all of the flagged content, click on anything you want to remove, and be transferred directly to the post on Facebook, where you can delete or hide it. One of the more helpful features: You can run custom searches to make sure you’ve never voiced any negative opinions about the company with which you’re about to interview.

Share Your Screen Live

Skype has the wonderful function of video chatting but you can also share your desktop with whomever you are chatting. Still, it wasn’t the best way to peruse images and such on the fly. Now there is a new service called Click With Me Now attempts to make that process a bit more manageable with a one-click, no-download solution that instantly lets you share a web session with someone else.

It’s billed as a way to share screens as a walk-thru with someone else online. If you’ve ever called for help with a site or online ordering and the help desk person has to describe locations for links and buttons, with Click With Me Now, they can show you exactly by sharing a screen live for you to follow. A great application could be to go over presentations, plans or designs with a client remotely or share steps with team members for those who telecommute.

“Our users are everyday consumers, but our customers are the websites that provide information, products and services to them,” Mark Comiso, Co-founder and President of Click With Me Now told Mashable in an interview.

“Our focus is on working with website companies that sell products that are important to consumers, but purchased infrequently — such as financial services, travel, insurance, and big-ticket electronics,” he says.

The company was founded when Cosimo and his co-founder Brain Handrigan were working at a health insurance company that needed a simple way for its customers to share information about insurance policies with their loved ones.

“When we researched it, we found a huge hole in the marketplace, as most tools that allow people to share their webscreen or system were designed for business collaboration,” says Comiso. “And while they work, they are cumbersome, require heavy downloads and are costly.”