Social Buffet: Cnet’s Bare Bones Pic Hosting, AdSense API Leaked?
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Written By Reprise Media | May 30, 2006 | Share This
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It looks like Cnet is trying to bring the Sizzler Steakhouse mentality to online pic hosting - at least in terms of portion size. According to Techcrunch, Cnet launched Allyoucanupload.com last week as a free offshoot of their more comprehensive Webshots service. Allyoucanupload seems to be designed for message board and social network enthusiasts, as it provides code specifically for embedding photos - it even lists a couple of sites (MySpace, Xanga) by name.
If you find other pic hosting sites too confounding or expensive, Allyoucanupload might be just the ticket. It doesn’t cost anything, requires no registration and provides unlimited bandwidth - you’re not going to get stuck with a broken link after too many views. You can resize images on the fly, and link to thumbnail or full size versions - although if you lose the address of your pic, the site provides no way to find it. You’ll have to upload again (easy), or accept Cnet’s invitation to sign up for a Webshots account - they offer a free version or a “full” version for $2.49 a month.
The easier it is to add pictures to user generated content on social networks, the more that content is worth (at least theoretically). If only there were some way for users to monetize what they create…wait, here comes Rateitall.com with some apparently embargo-breaking news concerning the as-yet-unreleased AdSense API (hat tip to Eric Giguere). From the press release:
“By leveraging the Google Adsense API, RateItAll has enabled its members to create Google Adsense accounts, earn cash for their content contributions, and track their earnings without ever leaving the RateItAll.com Web site.”
Battelle has an AdSense API discussion going over at his place. Sharing revenue with folks who make the content is nice, but as more than one poster noted, it’s probably going to attract spam - something places like MySpace already have plenty of.
Topics: Social Media |