It wasn’t so long ago that new Internet radio stations like Radio Io and Radio Paradise took the WWW by storm. Suddenly, you could stream your favorite music genres and sub-genres (“Alt Rock”, “Acid Jazz”, “Hairbands”) all day long, or all weekend if you wanted. No longer was your listening limited to FM radio and those annoying DJs or “three in row” playlists before a commercial interruption.

Then came Pandora, an Internet radio/media player hybrid based on the Music Genome Project. This breakthrough music service uses a complex mathematical algorithm to organize music types according to the attributes (over 400 traits or ‘genes’) of each song. It sounds complicated, but the result is that you create your own radio station based on your likes, dislikes, moods and other preferences. Create as many mixes as you like, as often as you like – and share them with friends or post to your Facebook page. (more…)

Sure, one-to-one “iChat” and video conferencing have been around for a while. But combine IM, Web cams, chat rooms and online video – and what do you get? Live video chat rooms. Whether for business, social networking or even chatting online with your kids, it seems that free Web chat rooms are an idea whose time has come.

Today, we’re ‘chatting’ with Craig Kilgour of Camfrog Video Chat based in Austin, TX:

Aplus.net: Who uses Camfrog ­– and are they located mostly in the U.S./North America?

CK: Camfrog is a very diverse community that is composed of people from all over the world. For some reason, our software is very popular in Asia and Europe, and also in Turkey.  We have localized versions of our software in the major European languages along with Thai and Turkish, and we are working on adding even more languages. (more…)

Already, they’re calling him ‘Tech President,’ President 2.0., and the first social media president. As Barack Obama took office at noon EST today, one of his first official acts at 12:01 was to switch over to a new Whitehouse.gov and introduce the new White House Blog. His director of New Media for the White House, Macon Phillips, welcomed readers in “Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov”: (more…)

Check out my new guest post, “The Blogosphere: Still Fast, Fresh, and Evolving”, about the evolution of blogging – on BUZZ Networker today!

The results are in: the 2008 Crunchies recognized Google Reader, Windows Live Mesh, Cooliris and others as the most compelling startups, Internet and technology innovations of the year. This was the Crunchies’ second annual competition, co-hosted this year by GigaOm, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider and TechCrunch.

Online voting for the Crunchies ran Dec. 15 through Jan. 7, with the awards ceremony held last Friday in San Francisco. Here, in the order they were presented, are the winners and runners-up:

Best Application Or Service
Google Reader (winner)
MySpace Music (runner-up)

Best Technology Innovation/Achievement
Windows Live Mesh (winner)
Facebook Connect (runner-up)

Best Design
Cooliris (winner)
Animoto (runner-up) (more…)