KickPlay is a fairly new startup that provides a place for people to create personalized games using their own images and sounds. KickPlay offers you a place to play, create and share your favorite games, including Mahjong, Solitaire, Skeet, Connect Four, Memory and several others.

The unique part about KickPlay is not only can you play all of these games online, but you can also personalize them and then share them anywhere on the internet, like del.icio.us, Facebook or on your blog. Not only are the games easy to learn, even though a lot of people know them already, but making them personalized is easy as well.

So, if you like playing games like the ones I listed above then go check KickPlay out. Let me know what you think about the games and whether or not you like the fact that you can personalize and share them with friends.

Today the launch of erockster was announced by Clear Channel Radio, and is to be a music portal and social network that will contain a large collection of content for music fans of all genres.  According to the press release erockster will be adding 1000 songs to the site each week, which will total about 5000 songs over the next month.

erockster was created to be an online social network for people that like to search the internet to find their favorite artists, and also to discover new ones. Users of erockster can either listen to hundreds, and soon thousands, of their songs and video on demand, or they can choose to stream and listen to their 24/7 broadcast.

With the help of erockster, users will have a place where they can listen and be involved by registering their preferences and influencing the content that is featured by erockster.  In case you are wondering, the site was created and produced by Eric Szmanda from “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” along with the help of Tyler Martin.

“Clear Channel came to me with the chance to be a kid in the candy store,”added Szmanda. “Now, erockster is giving all fans an outlet to listen to a wide variety of music, discuss bands, concerts, and really anything that we have an opinion or comment on that’s music-related.”

Enjoy, and be sure to let me know what you think about erockster.

Chilirec is a new startup that lets users create their own personal internet recorder, which can be used to record hundreds of radio channels.  All you have to do is sign up and wait a few minutes, then you will be all set with your own internet recorder recorder.

After you have created your internet recorder recorder you will be able to start listening to music within about 5 minutes.  The music is stored online, so you do not have to worry about taking up hard drive space on your computer.  However, you do have the option to save your recorded music to your iPod or hard drive by clicking on the diskette symbol.

Searching is very easy with Chilirec, and after a day or two you will have access to thousands of songs.  Also, on your Chilirec page you can view the songs that you recently recorded and can listen to them by either double-clicking on them or dragging them to the media player.

As a note for those who are interested directly from Chilirec’s site:

Chilirec is a recording device intended for recording of radio stations. It is for personal use only. File sharing or distribution of recorded material is prohibited.

Movavi Online is a free online tool that lets you download videos from popular video sharing sites, like Google, Break.com and Youtube, and convert them to popular video formats, including MPEG, AVI, MOV, MP4, 3GP and FLV.  Also, with Movavi Online you can convert videos that you already have stored on your computer.

The service is absolutely free, as I said before, and can be used as many times as you want.  The only limitation right now is that the videos can not be longer than 10 minutes or over 100MB in size. Also, up to five files can be converted in a single session.

Another interesting feature about Movavi Online is that you can merge all of your selected videos into one long movie.  All you have to do to get started is enter in the URLs or upload the files you are interested in, select an output format, enter in your e-mail address and then click “Convert.”  Simple as that.

If you enjoy using the Free version and later want to convert as many files you want without a size limit, then you can always purchase their Movavi Video Converter software.  Test their free version out and let me know what you think.

Sun Microsystems is hosting a free event in San Francisco on May 4-5, 2008 to allow startups to meet each other and apply to Sun’s Startup Essentials program. This event, called Startup Camp, is a way for Sun Microsystems, as well as other sponsors, hosts and partners to reach out to the startup community.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Sun Startup Essentials program, here is a very brief overview:

The Sun Startup Essentials program is specifically designed to help startups get their business off the ground rapidly, and at lower cost. With the Sun Startup Essentials program, your business can get the industry-leading systems it needs at significantly discounted prices. Furthermore, discounted partner hosting services, free software and free technical advice via email are all included.

To help get the word out to the startup community they are hosting this free event, which will allow startups to meet and to listen to some of the web 2.0 authorities. As of right now the list of confirmed speakers include Jonathan Schwartz, Brian Solis, Stowe Boyd, David Berlin, Om Malik, Pete Cashmore, Jason Hoffman, Neal Vineberg and Saeed Amidi.

Over 900 people have registered already, so if you have a startup then I HIGHLY recommend that you attend the Startup Camp event. The reason is because this event will include SpeedGeeking, which allows startup founders to compete in the Best Startup Contest by giving a 5 minute overview of their startup to VC led group of peers.

More beneficial Startup Information:

Another service that is beneficial for startups is called “The Startup Review,” which is a partnership between Sun Microsystems and “The Startup Review” or the “Startup Camp” event on May 4-5, 2008, check out the links below. I like posting about startups, and I hope that my posts are beneficial to them. However, as much as it hurts to say, “The Startup Review” and the “Startup Camp” are much better ways to help bring attention to your startup, and I definitely recommend that you check them out.

• The Startup Review- Click here
• Startup Camp- Click here

BidMyCleaning is a new web startup that offers their customers an easy way to bid on cleaning services, including maid service, window cleaning and carpet cleaning. The benefit with BidMyCleaning over other similar services is that they follow the entire process, from search to bidding and finally to scheduling.

The process is fairly simple. First let them know whether you are looking for a maid service, window cleaning service or carpet cleaning service. After that you will then be able to select a bid from trusted cleaning services that are rated by the customers. Once you select your bid you can schedule online instantly with the cleaning service you chose.

Right now BidMyCleaning is available Houston and San Diego with future plans to include Dallas, Austin, Orange County, San Jose and hopefully one day nationwide. If you are in Houston or San Diego all you have to do is enter in your zip code to get started.

I think BidMyCleaning is a very unique service, and given that they can continue to expand the number of providers and customers, it should turn out to be a beneficial service. What do you guys think, if a service like this was available in your area do you think it would be beneficial ,or would you use it?

I know several people who use cleaning services, and a lot of times they have to suffer through a few bad ones before they actually find one that gets the job done right. This is where I think BidMyCleaning would really become useful, because they let users rate the cleaning services. So you have a chance to read reviews from other customers to help you decide which cleaning service to choose from.

Publicity Wheel is a new startup that offers a unique way for people to boost their site’s traffic and exposure, all at no cost. Using Publicity Wheel is very simple and it gives any site the ability to get some exposure, not just the popular ones.

The concept of Publicity Wheel is simple- every time they spin a new website is selected to be featured on the banner image or text link that users place on their site. There is one featured website selected for each category, and will only be displayed on the users’ sites who selected the same category.

Each time someone clicks on the image you gain a number of publicity points. Each publicity point you earn gets you one chance at winning when they spin the wheel. So, the more points the have the better you chances of winning; however, having the most points does not guarantee your chances of winning.

Publicity Wheel seems like a pretty fun way for new web sites to try and get some extra traffic and exposure. However, the amount of traffic you receive will be determined by where the users’ place the banner ad on their site as well as how many sites are involved overall. The main question I have is how much “boost” in traffic would a featured site be expected to get right now?

Today AOL announced at the Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 that they are integrating with Google’s Picasa, Photobucket and Webshots to enhance the BlueString service. If you are not aware, BlueString is an AOL startup that lets users create and share photos, videos and music.

Now users of BlueString will be able to use and share the photos and videos that they have stored on either Picasa, Webshots or Photobucket. Not only that, but AOL has also signed an agreement with Eye-Fi that will give users a way to “automatically upload photos from their cameras to their BlueString accounts using wireless networks.”

From the Press Release:

“These enhancements mark a major milestone in BlueString’s development,” said David Liu, Senior Vice President, Social Media and Messaging, AOL. “Our goal with this product is to make it easy for people to access their personal media no matter where it resides on the Web or even in a camera. These collaborative efforts will enable us to fully demonstrate that ability.”

I know I was a little vague about BlueString earlier in the post, so here are some of the features available to its users:

• Enjoy your photos, videos, and music from your PC or camera.
• Store them and organize them quickly and easily.
• Share exclusively with whom you choose and no one else. Your media never leaves your BlueString account. You are always in control of who can see your BlueString stuff.
• Publish your photos or videos into your own blog or website.
• Create links that you can share or post wherever you choose.
• Oh yeah, there is one more thing: It is Free

BlueString is actually a pretty cool service and offers a lot more features than what I have listed above. And it will only improve now with the addition of Eye-Fi, Picasa, Webshots and Photobucket. I am planning on testing BlueSting out in the next week or so, but I can pretty much tell I am going to like the service. If you use BlueString please post a comment letting me know what you think about it.

Conduit is a site that lets users create a personalized toolbar for their site that can help build brand loyalty, traffic and revenue. Creating the toolbar can be done in a matter of minutes, and the best part is that it is absolutely free.

Another benefit of Conduit is that it offers subscribers a simple way to “access to the content, communities and applications” that they are interested in. As of right now over “140,000 publishers have joined the Conduit network worldwide, including major brands such as Fox News, Lufthansa, Major League Baseball, Greenpeace, TechCrunch, Softonic and small and medium organizations in 180 countries around the globe.”

Obviously I had to jump on board and create a toolbar for Tech News Source, which can be downloaded using the image at the bottom of this post. However, I thought I would list a few of the features Conduit has to offer in case any of you are interested in creating your own personalized toolbar:

• Use your own logo
• Search box that can be used to search your site, Google, news, weather, or whatever you want
• Site Links- Create a drop down menu that lets you put links to different parts of your site
• RSS Feed
• E-mail notifier- Automatically informs the user when a new message has arrived to any of their webmail or POP3 accounts.
• Pop-up Blocker

Again, these are just a few of the features that can be used when creating your personalized toolbar. If you own a web site then you should definitely think about creating a toolbar, because it gives your subscribers better access to your site’s content.

If you are interested in installing the Tech News Source toolbar all you have to do is click on the image below and it will take you to the download page. If you do install it please let me know how you like it and if you would like anything else added to it.

Source: Wwwhat’s new?

Tech News Source has come a long way since it was created in December 2007, not only with the amount of readers and subscribers, but also with the addition of Sponsors. The first few months were focused mainly on creating quality (at least I think so) content and building up a readership, which is also something I will continue to do.

After those first few months, with the help of Digital-Folders and the Digital Point Forums, I was able to quickly find sponsors for this site, which are in my opinion an important part to this blog. The reason is because it lets me know that there are sites out there that like Tech News Source enough to pay to advertise on it. As a result I would like to thank them and let my readers know a little about my Sponsors.

• Web Talk Forums (WTF)- This is a great forum for discussing anything from marketing, web design, SEO and so much more. I am a member and so far have really enjoyed it. So, if you are a webmaster then you should at least check WTF out.
• Todoodlist- This is an e-book about paper simplicity, and comes with a 30 day money back guarantee. With Toddodlist you will get 7 fun essays, 5 ideas to be productive with paper and a 5 step system to reduce complexity in your life.
• MyTestBox.com- The main purpose of this site is to provide web software reviews that are written by users. I like this site because you get software reviews by actual users, who describe their experience with the software during the review.
• ShowThatPortfolio- This is a startup that helps bring together designers’ portfolios into one place, allowing potential clients to easily find the designer they need. As a designer you can create a portfolio and have the possibility of getting a client interested in your work. As a client you can search through the portfolios to find the one you like, and can then contact the designer to pay them for their services.
• Web Detector Forums- These forums provide users a place to discuss SEO, traffic, hosting, art, website promotion, website development and much more. Also, right now they are offering cash to the top three members with the most referrals. So, join now and get your friends involved and you might just win some money.

Again, I want thank my sponsors and I hope that they are benefiting by advertising on Tech News Source. I will be doing a weekly post thanking my sponsors because they are what keep this site up and running, along with my readers of course.