We’re almost halfway through October, which means Halloween will be approaching shortly!  Time to start thinking about costumes, parties, and decorations that will be sure to spook the neighbors.  As I was surfing around today, I came across this website that depicted the top 20 over the top Halloween displays, and thought I would share.  Some are pretty creative.

Remember, you can check out what’s hot for this Halloween simply by using Me.dium Search.  When searching your keyword, you’ll get results returned back to you that are being viewed and found interesting by others like you.  Whether it’s an idea for a thrifty and creative Halloween costume, or finding a place to get all your party supplies, let the crowds help you out.

As for me?  Well this year I haven’t decided on a great costume yet, but what I DO know is that I want to find whatever party these guys are going to be at:

What are your plans for Halloween?

When you tune into your favorite TV show, you don’t expect nor want to watch the same episode that was played last week.  Why should search results be any different?  Wouldn’t it be interesting if your results weren’t static, but instead dynamic and constantly offering something new?

Check out Me.dium Search, the first crowd-powered search engine. Me.dium’s technology lets the inherent activity of real people - not robotic crawlers - determine relevance.  Your search results will be returned to you featuring websites that have been surfed and found hot by other people in relation to your keyword.  Results will consistently change as different websites become more actively surfed, and you’ll be able to stay updated on what others find interesting NOW.  (You can read a more detailed description here.)

You may still be asking “what can this search engine do that others can’t?”  Well the easiest way to demonstrate would be a quick and easy example. Take a look at “Alice in Wonderland.” Do your standard search, and you get a Wikepedia article as the first returned result.  Great if you’re researching the 1865 novel or trying to get an abridged summary of what it’s all about.  Do that same search with Me.dium, and the top result is Tim Burton’s new motion picture “Alice in Wonderland” which is in the beginning production stages, set to be released in 2010.  With stars like Anne Hathaway, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter, it certainly has gotten a bit of buzz, and our search engine reflects that.  Chances are that if you’re searching “Alice in Wonderland” (and you’re not writing a college/HS paper,) you’re curious about the new movie.  Why waste time sifting through results, when you can get immediate access to the hottest stories and breaking news?

Me.dium is all about search, and letting real people determine what’s hot right now.  You can influence these results by downloading one of our Me.dium toolbars.  Check it out and tell us what you think!

A few weeks ago, I came across Student of Fortune, a new website that is self described as being like “Ebay for homework.”  When originally looking this site, I was confused as to how these transactions could be considered legitimate and not cheating.  I wrote up a review of my thoughts, and got some interesting feedback from readers.  A comment on the blog was also left by one of the founders of Student of Fortune, acknowledging those comments and also stating that “We don’t want kids to use it to cheat. We want to provide a mechanism for people to get help with difficult questions AND make money off their particular expertise.”

A few days ago, I received a message from the same founder letting me know that there were some major text changes on the homepage, and that the website was reworded and framed to address some of the concerns that both other readers and I had.  Immediately I took a look at the site and was pleasantly surprised.  Their old tag-line used to be framed as such: *Post your entire homework question, *Get answers to your question, *Buy answers, ace your classes

Now, as you can see, they have changed their homepage text to:

Instead of being described as a blatant site for buying and selling of answers, they have framed it to now be used as a researching and tutoring tool.  The core of the website remains the same, but they have changed different areas of the site to facilitate more “online tutoring” rather than just immediate transactions.  Additionally, in the FAQ there is a question as to whether this site is cheating, to which now the answer is: “We believe that users who write solutions which not only help provide answers but also help teach how the answers were achieved will be the solutions that are purchased more often than not. And for that reason, we believe that Student of Fortune is a teaching and research tool, not a tool for cheating. But it’s up to you how you use it.” Additionally, there are many other wording changes a StudentOfFortune.com that I encourage you to check out for yourself.

So is re-wording really going to stop people from purely buying and selling answers on this site?  Of course not.  There will always be those people who cheat, even with or without the internet.  No website can monitor that.  However, I think that the changes Student of Fortune made really helps them transcend that morally gray area into something that can be seen as legitimate.  If a student has an essay that they’re willing to pay for someone to critique, or is stumped at the tail end of a math problem—asking for help seems like a fair request.  Also, if a student does use this website to cheat, that’s on them—the website is no longer responsible for facilitating cheating because their intentions are clearly stated otherwise.

Although my first critique was harsh, I want to commend the people behind Student of Fortune to being so receptive to feedback.  The person I spoke to was very positive, friendly, and legitimately wants people to use his site as a learning tool.  The fact that they listened to what people were saying and made changes accordingly is something that I think other companies should take a lesson from.

So now that the site has been reworked, would you use it to get help with a school assignment?  Would you still use it to straight up buy an answer?  Is it still cheating, or a useful tool?  Thoughts?

When Facebook opened the floodgates to the general public, they were bombarded with new accounts, but in doing so, did they turn their back on their original audience?  One new website thinks so: Introducing Kollegelife.com, a new social network that is exclusive to (you guessed it) college students.  It is a place for coeds to connect, shop, share, and post.  Features include:

• Kpix (pictures)
• Kflix (YouTube videos)
• the Skoop (where you can share stories featuring sports, dating, and even the erotic)
• Nightlife
• “chicks and dudes” section of the site where you can upload and view other people’s self portraits,
• A national student blog, which seems almost Twitteresque….students across the country post a sentence or two of whatever is on their minds (limit 500 characters.)
• and more

Creator and college senior Brandon Hodsdon made Kollegelife to bring back a space only for university students.  Going to their homepage a message says “Almost 40% of Facebook users are now over 35 years old.  Over 70% are out of college.  Join KollegeLife, meet college students!”

I decided to create an account, and check the site out for myself to see if it had any potential.  I graduated college approximately a year ago, so I just used my old college email address, (which I suppose defeats the purpose of the site, but justified for research purposes.)

While I had some serious issues with the design and the layout of the site, I am not going to focus on that as it just launched a few weeks ago and surely has some kinks to work out.  KollegeLife is supposed to be a one stop shop for students.  Just initially taking a look at it, it seems to be much more about connecting to other random college-aged individuals, rather than networking with already established friends.  The site reminds me of Myspace+Collegehumor.  There are sections where you can check out party pics, look at crazy spring break pictures, and even buy and sell items such as textbooks at the online marketplace. The site seems much more “stereotypical” of what college is depicted as, (hooking up, parties, girls, etc.)

I played around with my profile, and didn’t find it to be very organized.  (On my profile, a video came up with a mountain biking accident…completely random.)  I also couldn’t figure out how to make friends, and the FAQ page was nowhere to be found.  Of course, these are all things that can be fixed and ironed out in time as the site becomes more refined.

It is hard to fully critique this site as many sections are still blank without user-participation. The biggest question is whether this site will actually catch on, when the only new factor it offers is exclusivity.  While Facebook did open its website up to the general masses, today it still has networks and privacy features which users can set up to keep that “exclusivity.”  Facebook is still the dominant social network on the University scene, and I don’t forsee people leaving it anytime soon.  Yes, people were recently thrown into panic mode when the new design was realeased, but the overall format and functions are the same.   Like I mentioned last blog, if a new social network emerges, let it be something original.  I don’t want to see the same things over and over again.  Honestly, I wasn’t too impressed with KollegeLIfe, and the only way I would leave Facebook was if another network offered some incredible new features.   Would you join yet another new network just to have it be college-only?  What do you think about KollegeLife?

1. Wake up
2. Check Gmail and work email
3. Facebook it
4. Twitter it
5. Check Myspace friend Requests
6. Take a look at what’s hot on Me.dium Search
7. Back to Twitter again
8. Check out Mashable, scan page for any interesting new start-ups
9. Repeat steps 2-8

And that’s about how I kick-start my mornings Monday through Friday.  (Ok, who am I kidding, it’s the same for Saturdays and Sundays too…just maybe a few hours later.)   I’m addicted.  At some point during my 9 steps today, I came across this article on social network etiquette and it got me thinking…Not only do we have social rules on how to behave in public, but now there are certain social rules on interacting online.  Every day, new social networks pop up, beckoning us to share more personal information to people who may or may not be our friends in the outside world.  For some, it’s a frenzy of getting number of friends sky high, and for others it’s a way to connect with old high school buddies or network within a specific field.  Regardless, it seems hard to remember what life was like without all these ways to connect with others virtually.  With strangers connecting and friending each other out there, are social networks actually changing the definition of the word ‘friend?”

With my morning routine already established, it’s rare for another social network or utility to make the cut.  (It took me a couple of months to really get in the twittering groove, and even now I’m still a novice!)  So how many more ways do we need to share our personal information with each other?  With the general-profiles covered, I’m thinking that for networks to survive, they’re now going to be more about niche networks catering to a specific audience. People are looking for new things to be done, not just the same sort of networks with different backgrounds and fonts. I wish start-ups would stop trying to “out-do” each other with minuscule tweaks changes, and instead focus on something original.  I read in an article last week that the magic number for social networks is 7 as the general public can handle 7 social networks at once.  Any more is just too overwhelming.  For me, this number is closer to 4 or 5.  I’ll admit it, I find most of these sites to be great ways to connect, kill time, keep in touch, network etc, but there comes a certain point when I just can’t keep up anymore.

So I’m curious, with Facebook and Myspace dominating the scene, what would it take for you to join another network?  What would you want to see done that hasn’t been done before? (And what networks can’t you get enough of?)

Thoughts?