Gearfuse

I’m pretty sure the consensus is that most people don’t need another reminder to use social media sites. They already take up so much of our time. But how could you possibly resist this Social Media Watch, despite the encouragement it provides for procrastinating more important projects.

Featuring all of the major networks, including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and so on. Each of the 12 digits have been replaced with the logos of your favorite networking sites. You can grab yours for about $18.

Wanna see some more awesome gadgets? Follow us on Twitter @Gearfuse for exclusive content, contests and more.

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The social media war has finally come to an end. We all know that MySpace has been declining in popularity and use since 2006 and since then, has only been beating out Facebook in US-based traffic. Now, Facebook has overtaken MySpace, according to Comscore. The exact results? For May of 2009, Facebook actually passed MySpace with 70.278 million unique visitors compared to MySpace’s 70.255 million. So close, but I think we can officially declare the ‘Book the winner of the social networking wars.

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Say it ain’t so! Brett Brewer, the guy who formed MySpace parent company InterMix Media and later sold it to News Corp., says that Facebook will dominate the social networking war on a worldwide scale. Facebook’s traffic is already overtaking MySpace and MySpace’s appeal is dying by the week. But it’s not just Facebook that Mr. Brewer focuses on:

But Mr Brewer, who has left the company to set up an online ad network that deals with both companies, also warned that Facebook is likely to be usurped as the king of social networking sites within two years by another entrant which will most likely pop up with better user functionality for mobile phones.

Brewer sounds spot on. Mobile phones are king in 2009 and if you’re not using a top-tier cellphone (iPhone 3G, Blackberry, G1, etc.), you might as well become a recluse. I see something similar to Twitter and Facebook taking over the web and mobile phone markets by storm in 2010-2011. What do you think? Do you prefer MySpace or Facebook?

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Watchmen Exclusive

Pumped for the upcoming Watchmen flick that’s directed by Zack Snyder? You betcha. Despite the torrent of legal issues surrounding the film, FOX and Warner Bros., News Corp felt compelled to leak a behind-the-scenes video to MySpace the other day and the result is a video tour de force. Never before has a superhero/supervillian movie based on a comic looked so good before! The power of Dr. Manhattan! Can you even handle this kind of cinema? Let’s hope so.

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These adorable little devices called Poken are used to exchange social networking info among new found friends who have their own Poken. No one cares to jot down email addresses, user IDs and screen names when they’re in a rush. So, the Poken have been created as a quick way to exchange such information in a matter of seconds. All it takes is a ‘high five’ from your Poken to your new found friend’s Poken. RF technology then sends the info between the devices. The next time you log on to your favorite site, your profiles are linked.

Poken are just $20 dollars and are capable of storing up to 64 contacts before each upload. Each time you add a new contact, your Poken’s hand will light up green. When you approach your limit for contacts, an orange warning light will show from the Poken’s hand, warning you that you’re being too much of a social slut. When all is said and done, you can use your online Poken account to choose which of your profiles you want to share. A precaution in case you want to prevent a shady new friend from accessing personal information. Goodbye business cards, hello Poken!

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Samsung is updating its portable media player with the successor to the Samsung YP-P2, the Samsung P3. The device will be formerly announced in January, joining the media player race alongside the iPod, Toshiba U103 and the non-existant MySpace PMP.

Subtle changes include its rectangular aluminum body and three inch 480 x 272 touchscreen. You can expect it to have Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, FM and many of the other typical photo, audio and video capabilities found in portable media players. Storage capacity will range from 4GB to 32GB with varying prices which will be announced at a later date. Expect this to hit store shelves in early 2009.

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Who does Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace.com, think he is? Michael Arrington of TechCrunch? Because he certainly doesn’t think he’s the CEO of MySpace. If he did, he wouldn’t have come up with the crazy notion that MySpace could compete in what is essentially Apple’s market of portable media players. Seriously, a MySpace-branded portable media player? Are you nuts?

According to Reuters, DeWolfe is only thinking about it. Let’s hope this idea remains a thought never to be realized, lest it joins the ranks of the Zune all the way at the bottom. If Microsoft can’t compete, what makes MySpace think it can? Clearly, it’s the Kool-Aid.

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Tonight, MySpace kicked off its new commercial free music service which doesn’t include any of that bullshit DRM business.  Using its ever popular Flash player, users can purchase songs or add them to a playlist. It’s now possible to create a streaming playlist of as many as 100 songs each that can be shared and ranked.  MySpace music will also offer on-demand, ad-subsidized playback of full tracks in addition to allowing users to purchase unprotected MP3s of songs through Amazon.

Could MySpace music be another competitor for iTunes? It’s certainly looking that way. Just wait until Facebook joins with iTunes commercially. The “Great Social Networking” war is upon us.

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Valleywag has posted a great little exploit from a “Canadian computer guy” that allows you to access any private MySpace profile. Using a Yahoo! Mobile widget portal and a little URL trickery, you can easily browse through any private profile, photos included. I stopped using MySpace about two years ago, so I signed up with a throwaway Dodgit.com e-mail address to see if I could make it work.

Sure enough, it did. Five minutes later I was checking out some hotties from my hometown and scoping out Heidi Montag’s private photo collection, which was nothing special. If you need some new pics to whack off to, give this tutorial a read. After the jump, more proof and linkage.

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Inside sources are saying that the rumor which started out yesterday as a sort of pipe dream is true. Myspace is said to be purchasing photo-sharing website Photobucket for a cool $250 million.

According to an overzealous Photobucket employee, who remains unnamed, the photo site called for an all-hands staff meeting at 10 am yesterday morning to announce the news to its staff. No official announcement has been made, but we consider this a done deal. — Andrew Dobrow
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