This post was originally featured on The Next Web.

For those of you who haven’t yet heard of MMA, it probably sounds like some form of fancy business degree from the Wharton school of business – But for those of you who count themselves among the fighting aficionados of the 21^st century, you must know that MMA stands for “Mixed Martial Arts”; the global phenomenon that combines such sports as Boxing, Kickboxing, Wrestling and Jujitsu, into one multidimensional adrenaline fest.

Even if you’re not a fan of violent tests of human will and ability, one can still learn a lot form MMA as far as what it can teach us about businesses fighting for recognition in a hot new industry where no one yet has any particular edge. In other words, how a company can effectively peacock to make itself an obvious standout from the rest of the pack? As a case-study, I would like to run through a quick inventory of LowKick, one of many MMA companies, but unique in its decision to take the road less traveled by, in a clear gamble to achieve its desired differentiation.

The potential market value for MMA is huge, and for good reason. MMA is gaining traction worldwide as the latest global sensation, and is already considered to be the fastest growing sport in America- hands down. It edged out NASCAR for the coveted slot in 2009, and added it to a growing list of yearly accolades.  These include a record breaking $222,766,000 of Pay-Per-View earnings in 2006, and an impressive trouncing of boxing in betting revenues for the first time in 2007. It’s no wonder so many companies are looking for a piece of the action. A quick search on Google for MMA websites will turn up a veritable directory of MMA portals, with such industry recognizable names as SherDog, MMAFighting, to name but a few. So what is LowKick’s strategy to earn a spot all its own amongst such tough competition?

LowKick, is a relatively new MMA community portal founded in 2007 by Itai Librider and Itai Arbel.  From the get-go, the Itais realized that any attempt at being recognized as the best MMA portal at doing the same things as everyone else, would basically amount to an exercise in futility. Even if they did succeed, it would be like being the best Vuvuzela blower at the world cup, no one is really going to notice. Instead, the boys at LowKick decided to go in a completely different direction. As opposed to trying to be recognized as the authorities on MMA commentary, they passed the torch on over to the fans, granting them the soapbox rights to stand and be heard. Their efforts go way beyond the traditional forum model, where diehards engage in heated debate in the back annals of sports history which no one will ever see, hear, read or care about. A mind boggling 60% of LowKick’s content is fan generated. With such a model, there is always the question of how to control site quality? – LowKick solved this issue by tapping into the natural competitiveness of the MMA fan.  Essentially, the members themselves vote on what is considered the most quality driven content through their mouse, with the most popular content being featured on LowKick’s home page. So although the content is very similar to that of other MMA portals, with fans being able to upload anything from opinion statuses, to entire articles, pictures and videos – The degree of respect given to fan generated content and having it serve as the driving force behind the sight, is certainly unique.

LowKick’s understanding that their golden goose lies in their fan base, has led their site to resemble a sort of MMA version of Facebook in many respects. Even their competitions are reminiscent of the social platform giant, only with a little more testosterone built in. You won’t see an MMA fan playing “Name that tune”, even if it will win him a shiny new iPad. What you might see though are MMA fans crashing your server to play “Name the tune of Brock Lesnar’s walk out theme”.

Perhaps the most telling feature in LowKick’s arsenal that demonstrates this fan focused mentality is their “Picks” section. If there is one thing MMA fans like, its predictions. They like making them, they like hearing them, and more than anything else, they love the 20/20 hindsight ability to debunk them. Fight fans agree that MMA is the most exciting new development to hit the combat sports since Athens beat Sparta in 371 BCE, but agreement basically stops there. From which fighter is the pound for pound greatest athlete to hit the octagon, to which gym produces the best fighters – ask any two MMA fans a question and you’re bound to get three different opinions.  That’s why LowKick’s fan picks are so exciting for the average MMA fan. Every fan is given the fighting chance to have their opinion reach the top of the rankings. Whenever a member makes a prediction on which fighter will win in an upcoming bout, his pic’s are tracked and tallied so that he can earn prediction points over time. Aside from winning cool prizes, a member with an accurate track record can build a homegrown reputation as a professional pundit, commentator and critic – and people will start to listen.

What you’re basically looking at then, when you summarize LowKick’s business model, is the functioning reality of an MMA based company adopting social media. There are already countless blogs, vlogs, fan made websites and fan based Facebook pages dedicated to MMA. There are also a plethora of professional MMA communities. LowKick though, is perhaps the first example of an MMA portal leaving the controlling stake of their portal’s direction in the hands of the fans.

This bold experiment of LowKick’s; to pin their hopes of success on the adoption of a social media based strategy in a fiercely competitive industry, is definitely a gutsy one. They have certainly managed to differentiate themselves, although the jury is still out on whether or not this uncharted approach will yield results. However, there are some telling indicators that point to their being on to the right track. LowKick already boasts a healthy 1.8 million monthly views and a 45,000 member fan base – But the most powerful indicator might be the $250,000 dollar round of angel investment LowKick has recently procured. If there’s one hint that companies look for to let them know they’re moving in the right direction, it’s whether or not investors are willing to put up the capital. As fight promoters have always told agents looking to get their fighters on a good card, it’s all about what people are willing to pay good money to see – The old saying rings just as true when it comes to gauging a startup’s chances – “Money talks”.

When companies are trying to figure out who they want to market to, they usually think in terms of quality; meaning high end B2B sales to large corporate customers – Or quantity; meaning high volume B2C sales targeting the individual consumer. Who do you think gets lost in the mix? – That’s right, small business.

The reason for the neglect of the small business market stems part and parcel from the notion that this market has neither the ability to afford the high priced items reserved for big business, nor the volume to justify the push of lower end items. However, as it is with all matters of value, the truth of this perception is directly related to the breadth of one’s vision. If you view small business as a Hodge-Podge of unrelated individual vendors, each struggling to make it on their own in a sea of corporate waters, then yes, small businesses is less attractive than the higher end B2B markets and the voluminous B2C markets. If on the other hand, you have flexibility of vision and can imagine each small business as a piece of a unrealized collective whole, you may just have stumbled upon one of the greatest untapped markets out there, where large numbers combine with the need for high end competitive services – Essentially the best of both worlds.

Soho OS, a new and innovative social and business management platform, was one of the first to recognize the full potential of this unformed market. They set about converting individual small businesses into a “virtual corporate” whose size is dictated by the number of their members, whose borders span every corner of the globe where small businesses and an internet connection can be found, and whose talent pool is as deep and individualized as the business owners are themselves. Their strategy for creating a virtual corporate out of disparate parts was built upon the bold and unprecedented move of offering a fully stocked suite of core business services free of charge, a “Premier package” of cutting edge technology offered as an SaaS “pay-as-you-go” service, and a host of social media services built right into the platform.

The genius of Soho OS was to create an advantage out of a handicap. The size handicap of small businesses meant there was always a need to rely on a dependable network of capable business associates. As such, small businesses have evolved an inbred ability to form rock solid partnerships with each other. Soho OS has taken that ability into the social media age, giving it a global standards boost, and real-time capabilities.

New Job Market

A company like Soho OS was born with innovation in its veins and can never sit idly on one advantage for too long. Proof of this lies in the fact that mere weeks after opening up their closed beta with a fully revamped UI, Soho OS is announcing a partnership with Donanza, an online marketplace for freelancers to vie for projects. Projects are mined from over 300 separate web sources, and tens of thousands of new projects are added each day. Donanza offers a whole new measure of value for Soho OS users in that now they not only have the ultimate tool to manage their businesses; they have a fantastic resource with which to secure new business directly from the Soho OS interface.

New Bloggers’ SMS Widget

Soho OS is also announcing a new bloggers widget providing free SMS service for their readers. The idea is to show one small feature of the mix of features which Soho OS offers its users and enable bloggers to give their readers added value and a further reason to keep their pages open. You can check out the widget on my blog (look right).

What I love about Soho OS is that they are perpetually trying to think out of the box with regard to their own services. Large companies are usually very happy with their products, using them in a linear fashion without having a need to adapt them to other opportunities. If a new need crops up, they simply build another product. Small businesses don’t have that luxury and therefore try to milk each and every product of its full potential before considering other ideas. Soho OS did the same thing here. They already offer SMS service but thought, “What else can we do with that?”

If for no other reason than these clear demonstrations of vision and drive; you should want to trust your business in the hands of such entrepreneurial spirit. Make sure to stay tuned as Soho OS continues to innovate and revolutionize the way we think, work and communicate with one another.

Have you ever looked at a photograph of a captivating figure, with vivid detail and exotic settings, and thought to yourself ‘If this person could talk, what would they say?’ That’s the question that the people at Fotobabble asked themselves before creating their innovative application that allows you to upload an accompanying audio message to your photos, effectively creating a sort of digital scrapbook.

The idea of attaching text to photos is as old as photography itself; however text can never fully capture cadence, tone and sincerity, all things that add value to the viewer’s experience. The benefits that such an application can bring to the personal consumer market should be self evident. You can share memories and experiences with family and friends, framing the message and tone of your pictures in ways that text can never do. With Fotobabble, your pictures can tell your story the way you remember it.

However, Fotobabble has set their sights much higher than on the personal user/ sentimental market.  Fotobabble believes it can also be used to better frame the message of brands and companies, public personalities and celebrities. Imagine logging onto a major organizations page and having their slogan actually talk to you. Customers are used to seeing the ‘Face’ of a company, but now they can hear the ‘Voice’ as well. The same goes for celebrities and public personalities, or pretty much anyone who wants to tell a story through their pictures, but in their own words. Even the journalism industry could theoretically adopt such an application, replacing dry captions with vibrant monologue and further framing the tone of the news.

The possibilities are many. For starters though, Fotobabble is teaming up with iVillage, the popular women’s social media community, to launch two promising campaigns. The first targets the personal/ sentimental market, asking woman to upload pictures with a theme focusing on beauty, fashion and confidence, hitting at the heart of iVillage’s members’ interests.  The second campaign is building on the personal /sentimental market as a foothold to break into the celebrity market. This ‘All Star Moms’ campaign asks mothers of celebrities to upload images with Fotobabble , discussing advice, tips and even recipes that helped them turn their kids into the stars they are today.

In the microsite for their campaign, visitors can see and hear the motherly advice of such celebrity moms as Robin Paul, mother of NBA sensation Chris Paul, as well as the mother of late night funnyman, Jimmy Fallon, and pro skateboarder Ryan Scheckler.

Sometimes there is a fine line between a good idea and a realistic one that will actually catch on. With high profile moms eager to pitch in for the ‘All Star Moms’ campaign, the evidence seems to indicate that Fotobabble is on the right track.

What I think is really great about this sort of application is that you never really know how far it can go, and where it might pop up next…

“Can I see your license and registration please?” “Certainly officer, but please don’t click on the picture, I was drunk when I recorded it.”

Since I have become addicted to Foursquare recently, the location check-in service, I set upon finding the best tips to get to the top of Foursquare’s leaderboard while playing fair.

Here are the top 5 tips I can give you:

1) If you want to become mayor, check-in to places which you know that you’ll be able to check-in to frequently, as many times as possible. Didn’t find your place on Foursquare already? Add it. Don’t forget and don’t neglect for someone else may steal your mayorship from you.

2) Foursquare resets its leaderboard on Sunday nights so make sure to start early in the week.

3) Check-in to new places because these grant you 5 extra points.

4) Get familiar with how to unlock your special badges and work on unlocking them. Here are two great badges lists:
TonyFelice.Wordpress.com and TheKruser.com

5) Don’t cheat. For the sake of the community, don’t check-in to places if you’re not really there. This only hurts the whole user experience on Foursquare.

One feature I feel is missing in Foursquare: Once I check-in to a place, I want the app to scan all my contacts and tell me the 5-10 users who are closest to my proximity at any given time. This will enable users to maximize the potential of meeting people in their network more frequently and make for a more cohesive user-base.

And finally, here’s a good, short Foursquare tutorial for you:

Many companies are using their blogs, campaigns, videos and general outreach to engage with their community in various ways. When companies do think of community contribution in one form or another, it usually takes the form of comments or a like. uTest, the world’s largest marketplace for crowdsourced software testing, is flipping this notion on its head. Believing that an open and global community can offer a knowledge based resource which no closed off company can match, uTest’s community has become one of its most prized assets. To nurture this “asset”, uTest has demonstrated a keen understanding that if you want to have an active community base, you need to engage your community and get them excited about engaging you back. In this post we’re going to focus on three uTest programs structured with just this sort of sensitivity in mind, i.e. that community communication and utilization is a two-way street.

1. The Bug Battle- Bug Battle is a brilliant campaign which actually makes testing interesting for even the non-hardcore, techy individual. Bug Battles pit uTesters against each other in a contest to diagnose a select number of popular web, mobile, desktop and gaming applications in search for the one most in need of a good bug exterminator. Competitions take place quarterly and the latest one sought to uncover the buggiest geo location software from amongst three choice contestants; Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite (results due out in mid-June…stay tuned). uTest community members really get into this one. They relish the competition alone, but if that were not enough, there’s always the not-too-shabby prize money of $4,000 to keep them annoyingly giddy for the few short weeks that the competition is under way.  For participating companies, battles usually generate a healthy amount of press, a scrubbed list of prioritized bugs (given free of charge, upon request) and many are pleased enough with the results to become regular uTest clients.
2. Crash Courses- Another relatively new and cool initiative is uTest’s “Crash Courses” for testers. Instead of going through an official certifying body or training company to create their training material and content, uTest turned to select members of their community to seek out top testers with serious bona fides in both experience and the best testers ratings.                                                                    Using the community itself to source their wisdom and talent, uTest was able to ascribe instant credibility to their courses while giving their community exactly the kind of courses they wanted.
3. uTest Blog- uTest makes heavy use of its community with its “guest blogger“ program. Members not only contribute to the blog itself but also play a hand in its direction. Votes are taken on key content issues such as who should be interviewed, and what questions should be asked for the uTest monthly Testing The Limits column featuring outside experts, execs and authors. uTest’s openness in allowing uTesters to continuously contribute to their posts has contributed to their blog becoming a must read in the app-testing world, and has led to the landing of a “Top 5” finalist spot in the “Best Corporate Blog” category of the 2009 Open Web Awards as well as winning the Hive Award for the best blog of 2010 in the “Business Software” category.

What’s most interesting about these programs is their broad demographics appeal across the global testing community. Advanced testers, who have already done their time in the testing trenches, are not necessarily looking for the same community experience as your bright-eyed and bushy-tailed new recruit. By affording veteran testers the opportunity to become Bug Battle judges, course designers and guest bloggers, uTest has created the equivalent of a corporate advancement track for their community, significantly increasing the uTest community’s time frame of relevance for active community members. Creating a community with a mass appeal for its market and which allows its members to actively influence the community itself, uTest has earned a die-hard following of some of the best software testers in the world. Consequently, uTest is now the benefactor of a top tier pool of talent with which they can offer superior testing services to any prospective client. Grant your community a voice to speak and a hand to act, and they will grant you their talent. A solid winning strategy for any company wishing to optimize community utilization – tested and certified by the experts themselves.

We are excited to announce that next month we will be launching our new service: Blonde Chatroulette. Think that Chatroulette is fun? Blonde Chatroulette is way better! We all love Blondes and our chatroulette consists of 90% Blondes 10% Males at any given time. That’s our ratio and we guarantee it. Our site has a unique algorithm which tracks each time 100 visitors enter the site and makes sure that only 10 of them are male. The 11th guy will need to wait in the “Waiting Area” until the next slot opens. Males are limited to 30 minutes each session. Once your 30 minutes are done, the system kicks you out. Blondes can of course stay for as long they want. Blondes can also decide to keep you on for longer than 30 minutes, if they like you. Next week we will share screenshots of the waiting area which can be customized to your liking – you can wait for the Blondes on a beach drinking a Pina Colada or in a Ferrari on the road. It’s up to you! No matter where you are, you have a clock showing you how many minutes approximately you need to wait until your next session. There’s no limit on how many sessions you can do.

See our Business Development Head checking out the new service in a sneak preview below. Each person that joins can randomly pick from hundreds of Blonde videochat partners. Not happy with your current Blonde? Click “next” any time, or if you’re happy, stay with your current pairing.

Our official launch will be next month, so stay tuned. It’s true, Blondes do have more fun and we will be giving away a few exclusive invites. During the first month I promise to make a few sneak appearances myself.

Next Monday, March 15th I am organizing a crowdsourcing session at the famous GarageGeeks venue in Israel. We have four different companies presenting their own view of what crowdsourcing is all about and how they utilize crowdsourcing in their own companies.

We have four speakers:

Doron Reuveni, CEO of uTest - Doron will discuss how online communities are disrupting many industries; will compare the differences between a mob, a crowd and a community; will provide a sneak preview of a live demo of a not-yet-launched version of uTest’s software testing platform.

Yael Elish, VP Product & Social Media Marketing, founder of Waze –  Yael will discuss CrowdSourcing and the use of social and gaming elements to engage users to build a viable service and reach critical mass.

Yaniv Golan, Co-Founder & CTO,  Yedda –  Yaniv will discuss CrowdSourcing and the First Thumbs War – as a creator of a Web service, you’d love to have the crowds breathe life into your service through participation. Yet, what happens when the participating crowds have their own opinion about what your service should be like?

Dan Rimon, Co-Founder,  AllRise - AllRise is an online public courthouse where users can sue anyone and charge them with anything. The crowd debates the case and the crowed decides the verdict. Dan will present how they came up with the idea of AllRise and show examples of some cases that were opened.

We’ve also got a special surprise for you – an iPhone app that will make its special debut during this night showing us geeks (even Blonde geeks) how to maximize our networking skills with the crowd around us.

Please confirm your attendance on the Facebook event page and don’t forget to BYOB (or BYOW for that matter) Sharing is caring

See u all there!

(Disclosure: Xsights is a Blonde 2.0 client)

Xsights is a new start-up company that has just come out with its Light iPhone app which enables its users to bring print to life. Xsights makes it possible to transform static printed items that can be captured through the cell phone’s camera into an interactive multimedia experience.

Xsights empowers its users and lets them add a creative, personal touch to their printed items. While using Xsights’ advanced technology, users have the ability to take any printed object and connect it with links of their choice. With Xsights Light app, these printed images become a door to endless opportunities of content. Users can “attach” a YouTube trailer, a 3D view of a specific street via Google Maps, a Wikipedia page, a Facebook or Twitter profile or any other link to invitations, greeting cards, photos, maps or business cards.

In addition, with Xsights, users can now also view movie trailers of the top 100 movies showing in US theaters currently by taking pictures of any of the digital images in the “More Things to Capture” section on Xsights website: http://xsights-services.com/Movies.aspx

All of the images that appear in Xsights’ “More Things to Capture” section are already uploaded to their servers, therefore users can take a picture of any of these movie posters, games or logos when they appear in magazines, wall posters, bus stops or anywhere else outside, take a picture and view their relevant clips moments later.

“See it. Capture it. Bring it to life!” is Xsights’ slogan. The Xsights solution enables users to take a picture of any pre-defined object and receive immediate relevant and interactive online data. Xsights inspires its users to imagine a future world where soon everything they see around them will be considered “clickable” from landmarks, wall posters, street signs, ads, theater listings in magazines to book covers or billboards. Clicking on the item with their mobile phone’s camera will allow users to receive additional layers of information and open up doors to endless interactive content. The technology that Xsights specializes in is known as Augmented Reality. Welcome to the world of tomorrow.

Key differentiators of Xsights when compared to its competitors: Only the Xsights application can identify minute objects – even a small icon or text. In addition, Xsights also works in any condition – even if the printed item is wet or crumpled.

Xsights has just launched its iPhone app and will soon launch its BlackBerry version. Other selected J2ME handsets will also get Xsights soon.

Download the Xsights Light application from the iTunes Apple Store here: http://appsto.re/xsightslight.

Want to create your own interactive message? Watch the video below to learn how:

In today’s world where we have an option of which search engine to use, we find ourselves perplexed regarding the question: Is Google the best that search can be? Even for those of us who consider ourselves to be Web savvy, finding the right search term can often be tricky. And once we get the search results, we must screen through an abundance of information in order to find one or two truly desired results.

To understand a little more about the world of search, let’s go through our time machine, and check back on how search started.

Excite was one of the most recognized brands on the net when the “dotcom portals” boomed in the 1990’s. Excite was founded as Architext in 1994 by six Stanford undergrad students who had the clever idea of using statistical analysis of word relationships to make searching more efficient. After years of signing exclusive distribution agreements with companies like Netscape, Microsoft and Apple, Excite went public in 1996. In 2003, Excite Italia (the operator of Excite Europe) took control of the Excite portals in most of Europe, and was later acquired by Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com). In October 2007, the GoAdv Group – a pan-European media company, announced the completion of its acquisition of the Excite Europe group of companies while IAC Search and Media acquired Excite in the US. Today, Excite offers a variety of services, including search, web-based email, instant messaging, stock quotes and customizable user homepage – with content that is collated from over 100 different sources.

Going back a few years in time, a small search engine named Google was started by a couple of Stanford University students in January 1996, who hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page. The domain google.com was registered in September 1997,and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. in September 1998. Since 2001, Google has acquired several companies, mainly focusing on small start-ups. In 2006, Google bought the online video site, YouTube. The entry of Google marked a major milestone in the history of search engines, as it used a “page ranking” system on the basis of number of links to a particular site.  Google’s search engine became so popular that it led to origin of the term “Googling,” which means to search for information using Google.

In June 2009, Bing – formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search and MSN Search – became Microsoft’s current web search engine development. Advertised as a “decision engine,” Bing has a catchy “Stop Searching. Start Deciding” slogan made that allows its users to feel in control of their searches. Bing categorizes searches allowing for improved image and video searches along with preview searches, and its “decision engine” associates information on the Web to help its users make better decisions about things like travel reservations, shopping online, your health and more. In August 2009, only two months after Bing became public online, it gained 9.3 percent of the United States Internet search market causing Google to become somewhat worried about its market share.

Jumping forward to present time, Meaningo, a recent a startup company specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) search applications. In simpler terms, Meaning is a semantic search engine, guiding users to find the exact products they are looking for in a more refined and efficient manner. Finding the right search term can be a time-consuming process, as many search results have little relevance with their goal findings. Meaningo was designed to increase the effectiveness of online searching, so users searching the Web can successfully find what they’re looking for without much name refining in the search engine.

Meaningo was specifically designed in hopes of overcoming common impediments Web users are faced with when searching for information online. Meaningo provides its users with an easier way of defining, refining and controlling the quality of the search while providing very accurate results even for complex inquiries. Watch my video below where I interview Meaningo’s Founder & CEO, Dr. Zach Solan, and find out the true meaning of Meaningo.

(Disclosure: SimilarWeb is a Blonde2.0 client)

SimilarWeb the Firefox add-on that enables users to discover related websites similar to ones they are currently visiting has now made it simpler than ever to find similar content that relates to the user’s interests. The three new features include Similar Articles, Recent Buzz, and Mini-Mode, which allow the user to further research and organize finding websites and articles that appeal to their interest.
The Similar Articles feature allows users reading an article online, to instantly receive related articles without having to leave the page they are browsing. It’s extremely useful for finding different views about your topic as well in-depth information when doing research.
The Recent Buzz feature brings users the latest buzz on twitter that relates to the topic they’re reading about. When browsing a website or article the user can receive the twitter community’s reaction about that topic.
The third new feature mini-mode will move the sidebar to a minimized designated tab on the left side of the screen.  When users want to view similar sites, they simply click on the minimized tab and to expands it back to a normal size tab.
With the launching of these three new features, SimilarWeb has been able bring users all types of similar content relevant to their interests. SimilarWeb may actually substantially decrease users’ dependence on search engines in the future.