Digg 3.0 launches with a redesign and extended topics

As expected, Digg 3.0 has launched this morning. The Digg 3.0 site sports a redisign, with a new layout, and also expands Digg’s categories past Technology related topics.

The new categories and sub-categories are:

Technology > (Apple, Design, Gadgets, Hardware, Industry News, Linux/Unix, Mods, Programming, Security, Software , Tech Deals)

Science > (Space, Environment, Health ,General Sciences)

World & Business > (Business & Finance, Politics, World News, Offbeat News)

Videos > (Animation, Comedy, Educational, Music, People, Gaming)

Entertainment > (Celebrity, Movies, Music, Television)

Gaming > (Gaming News, Playable Web Games)

SONY BMG launches Free Music Video streaming service

A new service called Musicbox Video was launched from Sony BMG, which streams Music Videos, artist interviews, and live performances. The videos will be streamed on the website with a flash-based player that utilizes technology provided by Brightcove, which will handle advertising for the service.

This move by Sony BMG comes after a huge growth of music videos appearing on sites like YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! Video and AOL Video.

The Musicbox Video service, just like its rivals, will allow users to share their favotire videos, as well as post them on their website via an embedded flash-based players.

No a big innovation here, it looks like music labels are just now starting to do what should have been done a year or two ago.

Source

AOL launches Digg-like website

AOL just launched a huge “Digg Killer” website. With about 30 topics to choose from, the site works almost like Digg. The users submit and vote on articles, however, unlike Digg, an editor, or “anchor” as they are called on the site, decides which stories make it onto the front page, and which don’t.

The current home of this site is beta.netscape.com and it will eventually become the new Netscape.com, when they beta is over.

The launch of this AOL site comes just days after the news of an upcoming digg expansion, which will expand digg into categories other than technology.

Amazon introduces Amazon Grocery Beta

Seattle-based Internet retailer Amazon.com has introduced yet another a new retail section on its website. Amazon Grocery Beta was launched about two weeks ago, and currently offers more than 10,000 non-perishable grocery items. Unlike most other online grocery retailers which can only deliver to a very limited area, Amazon.com can ship their non-perishable items to any customer.

Amazon.com Grocery also has an extensive selection of natural and organic products for sale.

At Amazon Grocery, you’ll find longtime staples, from Kellogg’s to Jiffy Pop. You’ll find new entries, such as Kashi cereals and Kraft Easy Mac microwavable snack packets. And when we carry a brand, we’ll try to carry every flavor available: not just the most popular flavors of Jell-O, but all flavors, from apricot to wild strawberry and the 70 flavors in-between. We’re also making regional favorites like Andy Capp Hot Fries available nationwide, and making hard-to-find specialties like Zico Pure Coconut Water a standard part of our mix.

We are now one step closer to never having to leave our homes again. Thanks Amazon!

Google Picasa Web Albums “Test” launched

Picasa Web Albums has launched.

Currently it is only a limited “test” release, and invitations are available from Google. To signup for an invitation, goto http://picasaweb.google.com/ and enter in your Gmail user name. Invitations are sent out on a first-come first-serve basis.

In the near future, Google will enable users to send out their own invites for friends and family.

Picasa Web Albums is Picasa’s newest feature, designed to help users post and share their photos quickly and easily on the web.

• One-click web upload using Picasa’s new “Web Albumâ€? button
• Free storage space to post and share approximately 1000 photos, with the option to upgrade to more space
• High-quality photos, automatically resized and optimized to fill available screen space
• Pre-loaded images enable quick scrolling using arrow keys, and mimic a desktop experience of “flippingâ€? through photos, even on the web
• End-to-end photo management that makes it easy to download uploaded photos back to your computer

Picasa offers 250MB of free storage for your images, but more storage is available for purchase if needed.

SingleStat.us - Find out when your friends become single

Built by entrepreneur David Weekly over a short weekend, SingleStat.us will notify you by email when someone from MySpace that you are interested in becomes single.

SingleStat.us aims to be the best way you can keep up to date with what your friends and crushes are up to on the relationship scene.

There is a one time signup fee of $3.95, currently discounted down to $1.95 for the month of June. However, when you mention SingleStat.us in your MySpace profile the charge is waived.

PerSecondPodcast : Own a piece of audio history

Launched June 1st 2006, PerSecondPodcast is an online audio time capsule and innovative advertising solution. Remember the Million Dollar Home Page? Well, this is the audio version of it.

This service allows anyone to purchase audio time from PerSecondPodCast to be used for music, advertisements, blogs, stories, rants or messages to the future. You can basically create a PodCast about anything you like with the audio time you purchase.

PerSecondPodcast promises that they will be online at a minimum of five years, and in addition to serving the audio content on their website, there will be an rss feed for iTunes, as well as college radio airtime, and possibly XM/Sirius Satellite radio airtime.

There is a limited amount of time available for purchase. Once all the time has been sold, copies of all the audio will be place in several iPod time capsules to be burried.

Priced at per second, the current rates are as follows:

$4$1 per second for the BronzeCast - Total of 24 hours available.

$8$2 per second for the SilverCast - Total of 12 hour available.

$16$3 per second for the GoldCast - Total of 6 hours available.

$32$4 per second for the BronzeCast - Total of 3 hour available..

Happy Podcasting!

(Tip by James)

Update: Pricing information updated here

ThinkVitamin.com is Live!

This morning ThinkVitamin.com was launched. Vitamin is “A resource for web designers, developers and entrepreneurs.”

From the email that was sent out this morning:

Here’s a quick summary of the content we’ve put together for you:

Interviews
——————————

Jason Fried
www.thinkvitamin.com/interviews/webapps/jason-fried/Eric Meyer
www.thinkvitamin.com/interviews/css/eric-meyer/Thomas Fuchs
www.thinkvitamin.com/interviews/ajax/thomas-fuchs/Dave Shea
www.thinkvitamin.com/interviews/css/dave-shea/

Features
———————————————————————

“How to Shut up and Get to Work!” By Jason Fried
www.thinkvitamin.com/features/webapps/how-to-shut-up-and-get-to-work

“Making Popular Layout Decisions” By Eric Meyer
www.thinkvitamin.com/features/design/making-popular-layout-decisions

“How C.R.A.P is Your Site Design?” By Mike Rundle
www.thinkvitamin.com/features/design/how-crap-is-your-site-design

“Create your own Ajax effects” By Thomas Fuchs
www.thinkvitamin.com/features/ajax/create-your-own-ajax-effects

“Will Your Web App Make Money?” By Ryan Carson
www.thinkvitamin.com/features/webapps/will-your-web-app-make-money

Training Podcasts
———————————————————————

“The Secret to Perfect Version Control” By Cal Henderson
www.thinkvitamin.com/training/webapps/enterprise-web-apps/

“Ruby Basics” By Geoff Grosenbach
www.thinkvitamin.com/training/ruby/ruby-basics/

“Scaling Web Apps on a Budget” By Ryan Carson
www.thinkvitamin.com/training/webapps/scaling-web-apps-on-a-budget/

Reviews
———————————————————————

Fluxiom - AJAX based digital asset manager
www.thinkvitamin.com/reviews/webapps/fluxiom/

TextMate - Advanced text editor for OS X
www.thinkvitamin.com/reviews/dev/textmate/

Xyle Scope - Powerful CSS debugger for OS X
www.thinkvitamin.com/reviews/css/xyle-scope/

.. and lots more. Be sure to check it out!