Livesteez - The New Video Sharing Place for Hip-Hop and African-American Entertainment News

Have you ever wanted a place where you can meet people and discuss current events and politics while networking? The place is Livesteez - a new online social network and a forum especially devoted to urban youth which allows members to upload and share videos, discuss current events and politics, as well as network.

Livesteez news feeds and discussion boards almost exclusively feature Hip-Hop- or African-American- focused stories. View here, here and here. Livesteez is a perfect example of a specific social networking community that does not rest on its demographic differences, but adds innovative applications (video sharing in a social network, exclusive artist contracts) to keep its technology current and members satisfied.



But Livesteez might need to promote it's site better to reach audiences. The discussion forums seems to be begging for attention (who cares to talk?) and Livesteez appears to have just a handful of members.

Via: (Killerstartups)

Next2Friends Launches Beta And Connects Friends Next To Friends

Do you want your friends to be next to you? Next2friends is a new social community that's now on beta version until late March 2008 and limited to 250, 000 users during the 3-month beta period. The social site allows friends to stay connected to each other by taking advantage of mobile phone tools. It's got some amazing features that will get you attracted from the word "go".

Here are just a few:

Once you create a profile at Next2friends.com, not only can you make friends online but the site's Intelligent Proximity matching will send you updates on the Next2friends users that you passed throughout the day that share your interests.

Here's how it works: You set up a Next2Friends profile detailing all your likes, dislikes, quirks and everything that makes you who you are. Then, as you move about in the real world, if you have the Next2Friends software loaded onto your Bluetooth enabled mobile device, Next2Friends will automatically collect and match your data to other Next2Friends users you came into close proximity with. When you next sign into your account you'll receive notification of all the people you passed throughout the day who share your likes, dislikes, and yes, even your quirks.

With the Ask-A-Friend feature, you can also get a friend's advice on a pair of shoes you like to buy while you are shopping by sending them a photo and asking their opinion. With the Live Streaming Video, you can broadcast live events from any capable mobile device or webcam to your family and friends wherever they are in the world. They can watch the event in real-time with you, as it happens. The idea is for you to capture moments and share them with your friends with live video streaming while living in the real world.

But, doesn't the whole idea of the social networking startup seem like you don't have your privacy as it could be a way for people to track you throughout your day? Wouldn't that make you feel like someone's probably watching you?

Last.fm Launches OpenSocial App for Ning

Last.fm has created an application built on OpenSocial specifically for the creators of Ning. This allows individual members of the group to add the application to their personal profiles.
networks. The Last.fm application will be a Gadget option that Ning administrators can include in their group homepages.

The Last.fm app displays top music artists, which can be clicked on to direct to their artist profile on Last.fm. Users can edit the list to reflect their personal taste in music, and sync it with their own Last.fm account, which will pull their preferences from Last.fm. Additionally, users can listen to music via the application.

Kylie Minogue's Fans Live at Kylie Konnect

Fans of the singer Kylie Minogue, can now meet at Kylie Konnect, an online social network where they can create their own profiles, post their own photos, blog entries, meet other fans and make friends.

Kylie Konnect is just like any other social network, except that everything's all about Kylie Minogue. Her profile on the site features exclusive music, news, tour information and more, and allows fans to download exclusive behind the scenes footage and have a chance to win 'money can't buy' prizes. While promoting her latest single, "2 Hearts," Kylie will use a feature on the service that lets users upload content directly from their mobile phones to offer her fans exclusive pictures taken on the road.

Fans of other artists would be interested in seeing their stars launch their own social networking sites. So what if that happens? Well, I'm sure there's still a lot of space in the socio-cyberspace. We'll see...