Cameron Olthuis

I’ve been tagged, by Will McInnes. The meme is for the top 5 social media & blogging tools.

My top 5 social media tools are…..

1) del.icio.us
2) Digg
3) Bloglines
4) Techmeme
5) Akismet

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The NHL is gearing up to launch a social network in time for the 06/07 hockey season. The network, dubbed NHL Connect, is currently in private beta and can be viewed here.

Pete Cashmore (Mashable*) has the scoop…

users can create profiles, add friends, upload photos, insert YouTube videos, add comments, join groups and subscribe to new content via RSS. There are also some hockey-specific features: the latest NHL news, lists of scheduled games and the ability to find users based on their favorite teams and players.

I’m a hockey nut and I was delighted to wake up this morning and read about this. I can hardly wait for it to become public.

Social networking is a natural step for the sports community and I’ll be watching for the NFL, NBA, and MLB to follow suit. Fans are passionate and these leagues already have huge community followings which will make adoption of these services pretty easy. It will be especially nice for people like myself who live 1000+ miles away from any serious hockey civilization. Now we can connect with other fans to share a common interest. Kudos to the NHL for recognizing this huge opportunity and going for it. Go Flames in 06/07!

I think TheWeblogWire, which launched today, is a brilliant idea. Mashable broke the news….

The idea itself is interesting: The Weblog Wire allows companies to submit press releases, and bloggers to subscribe to these releases via RSS. Submitting a press release costs $99, or $149.99 if you want The Weblog Wire to write it for you.

Two reasons why I think this idea is a good one..

1) Bloggers want to break the news as quickly as possible, they will signup to receive the feeds.

2) Marketers want bloggers blogging about their product, services, etc.

TheWeblogWire’s success will be dependent on their own marketing strategy, unfortunately getting a little buzz from some blogs won’t be enough for them. It’s just not the right channel to reach the people submitting through other news wires, such as PRWeb. I’m excited to see what else, if anything, they have up their sleeves for marketing as I would really like to see them gain traction.

I’m pretty excited about Postbubble, one of the new projects ACS is rolling out in conjunction with WeBreakStuff.

Postbubble is a blog about web 2.0 with a slightly different twist. Instead of just profiling the new companies we’ll be taking a more indepth look at the actual business models and strategies behind them. For example… Which social networking sites will succeed and why? What will it take for the Ajax homepages to succeed?

The main author of the site will be one of my partners, Aneil Weber. The rest of us will be chipping in from time to time but it won’t be my main focus. It actually works out perfectly because Aneil is in a whole nother league when it comes to writing and picking apart business models. Head on over and check it out.

I critiqued a whole bunch of web 2.0 sites on a combination of design and usability aspects, placing more importance on the usability aspect. I tried to focus more on sites that provide a good community oriented experience, designs that encourage people to participate. After all, that’s the staple of what “web 2.0″ is.

The final result is 10 sites that I feel are the best combination of both good design and usability. The list is in no particular order.

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