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2009

Olark Is A Dead Simple Chat Widget For Site Owners

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The ability to chat live with visitors is an incredibly useful marketing tool for site owners. Whether a site owner operates an e-commerce or consumer or business service site, live chat is increasingly becoming the norm for engaging with visitors in real time. Olark, a Y Combinator-funded startup (re)launching today at Demo Day (it was previously branded hab.la), has made the ability to embed chat into a site incredibly simple.

For free, site owners can embed the widget into their site with just a few lines of javascript. One useful feature that Olark offers is the ability to add one-to-one chat to any website without editing any code. Olark’s short link service lets website owners create a link to any site they would like to chat with a visitor about. When a customer/user clicks on the link, the Olark widget will float over to the visited webpage. The site owner can use an existing IM client, such as GChat or AIM, and each customer will show up in the buddy list. So site owners can interact with visitors from their preferred chat program. Visitors show up on a website owner’s buddy list as soon as they hit the site (with an anonymous ID like Web User 1), with the name of the page they’re on. Basically, you can watch everyone’s progress through the site even when they don’t talk to you.

While Olark has a free offering, you can add different functionality to the chat widget starting at $5 per month. One paid feature is the ability to hide the widget on the site when the site owner isn’t available to chat. You can also implement chat in certain pages while restricting chat on others. While most customers will use the free version of the widget, paid clients have been doubling every month and the startup is in line to hit profitability next month. Olark is already being used already on 4000 sites, including SurveyGizmo.com and HonestIdeas.co.uk.

Of course, there are many competitors to this product out there on the market, including chat offerings by Meebo, Digsby and AOL all with the same functionality. But Olark’s co-founder, Ben Congleton says the beauty of Olark’s widget and short link service is in its extreme simplicity, allowing even a non-tech savvy site owner to be able to implement live chat on a site easily. Plus, Olark lets owners customize the widgets to resemble the look and feel of the site in which its embedded. Olark, which was originally a side project of its founders before the startup entered Y Combinator’s program, was rebranded from hab.la during the program. Congleton says that the decision was based on a few considerations, including confusion around the spelling and pronunciation of “Habla” as well as the advantage of having a .com domain versus the .la domain from Hab.la.

Media_httpwwwcrunchba_creug
Website: olark.com
Location: Mountain View, California, United States
Founded: April 20, 2007
Olark is a lightweight tool to chat with visitors to your website using your existing instant messaging client. Visitors to your website appear as buddies on your Buddy list, their messages to you appear as IMs. Learn More
Information provided by CrunchBase
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I just added this to bufalocomputerservices.com, my business site and it's really that easy! Very cool! Might even pay for a plan if it works out.

Visualizing up to ten dimensions - Boing Boing

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http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf?mediaId=99898&affiliate=33530

Bowloftoast sez, "This is a short animation that takes the viewer through a progressive description of all (and all possible) dimensions, up to and including the 10th. It is an elegant introduction to the fundamentals of string theory and a mind-blowing toe-dip into the pool of the metaphysical."

Imagining the Tenth Dimension (Thanks, Bowloftoast!)

via boingboing.net
This is simply amazing and may cause your head to explode but worth a look.

From Boing Boing:

Bowloftoast sez, "This is a short animation that takes the viewer through a progressive description of all (and all possible) dimensions, up to and including the 10th. It is an elegant introduction to the fundamentals of string theory and a mind-blowing toe-dip into the pool of the metaphysical."

Imagining the Tenth Dimension (Thanks, Bowloftoast!)
http://tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php

Meet Lisa Sanders, The Doctor Behind 'House' : NPR

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via npr.org
Lisa Sanders' monthly "Diagnosis" column in The New York Times Magazine was an inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House.

Moon And District 9 Can Save Sci-Fi

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via cinemablend.com
Really good look at two up and coming sci-fi movies!

But twice this summer, using a fraction of Abrams' budget, a film has popped up to give fans of smart sci-fi their fix. Though Duncan Jones' gloomy, atmospheric Moon and Neill Blomkamp's adrenaline-pumped District 9 could not be more different films, they both seem to herald a new age for sci-fi, in which cheaply available special effects and a handful of brave distributors mean that science fiction is no longer just the realm of safe Hollywood efforts. You can watch Transformers all you like, but now you have the option of something that looks as good, and has a brain to go with it.

Moon Trailer
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIexG8179K8]

District 9 Trailer
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHihFA8q8xI]

The World’s Youngest Practical Shooter - Neatorama

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This little guy puts me to shame!

New Clips: District 9 And Inglourious Basterds - Screen Rant

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  [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgSR71FjPQw&rel=1&color1=d6d6d6&color2=f0f0f0&border=0&fs=1&hl=en&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&iv_load_policy=3&showsearch=0&hd=1]
More goodness for the upcoming District 9 and Inglorious Bastards movies.  I can't wait! I'll be seeing both hopefully.

Experience the planets

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Check out this amazing site that features some amazing artist renditions of the 8 planets! via @BadAstronomy

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