Singapore based Comiqs gives users the ability to create their own comics with a rich web based editing suite.
Sites and services that provide comic generation aren’t new. Comic Life from Plasq (makers of Skitch) would be the best known in the field, and comes installed on new Macs. There’s also no shortage of “add speech bubble” style web editors available as well. Comiqs offers a similar feature set to Comic Life, but online and totally free.
Users can use Comiqs with photos uploaded from their computer or from a photo-sharing website like Flickr to create a comic. Tools include speech bubbles of different kinds and shapes, frames and fonts. The interface is drag and drop so the learning curve is next to zero. Comics can also be embedded on other sites in a custom viewer for multi-page productions.
Comiqs is currently securing investors to take the service to the next level, where they intend to “work closely with cartoon artists in a revenue sharing arrangement that open up new revenue streams for talented artists and position our site as a place to find talented cartoon artists.”
Comiqs completes with StripGenerator, PikiStrips and Toondoo.
The demo video below shows one frame editing, but it should be noted that the tool can be used for traditional style (frame by frame) comics. You can also play with the service directly without the need to set up an account.
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Comedy.com, yet another comedy video site, officially launched last week, featuring several web series, user networking, blogging functions, clips of stand up comics, a joke database and more, Variety reports. The Santa Monica, CA-based site is majority owned by former chief exec of UPN and president of Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) Television Dean Valentine’s Symbolic Action LLC, with funding from Prism VentureWorks and Walden Venture Capital. The site currently has no advertising, though that may change in the coming months as it is expected to feature banner and embedded ads. Valentine spent over a year developing Comedy.com, putting together roughly half a dozen two to four minute webisodes and shooting them on high-def digital video. Among the shows are a show biz spoof called The HollyWoody Show, a daily satirical newscast Newest New News, Loops, a sitcom featuring comedians offering video clip commentary a la Mystery Science Theater 3000 and How to Make a Hot Girl Laugh, in which two comics have 60 seconds to—you guessed it—make a hot girl laugh. Although much of the content is geared towards young males in the 18-34 demographic, Valentine is confident Comedy.com will attract a broader audience.Facebook is planning on allowing users to add activities from third party social networking site directly into their Facebook news feed, we’ve confirmed. The goal is to centralize all that activity in one place.
Third parties can already integrate directly today via the Facebook API, Beacon and the Facebook Platform, but adoption from these companies, which are indirectly also competing with Facebook, has been slow. Now, users can add the content stream directly. Users simply tell Facebook what third party services they use the most, along with their credentials or public feed for the site. The content stream is then pulled into your Facebook News Feed.
What this means: in your friends news feed, you may start to see more content from Flickr, Twitter, Digg and other third party services. This competes directly with what a number of startups are doing - namely FriendFeed, Plaxo Pulse and the more recently launched Iminta.
This is certainly an opening up of Facebook. And given that so many tens of millions of users spend so much time on the site already, it could remove the wind from the FriendFeed/Plaxo sails.
But don’t expect to see a RSS feed or widgets showing what you or your friends are up to any time soon. The data feeds that Facebook opened up last year do not extend to the News Feed. And from what we hear, Facebook hasn’t made a decision to open it up yet. Until they do, there is still plenty of breathing room for competitors.
Some Internet successes baffle me. I’m sure a few have crossed your sights and caused you to raise a brow in disbelief as well.
Here’s one example. Does the name Stardoll mean anything to you? I wager it doesn’t ring a bell for a good supply of Mashable readers, despite the fact that the site has been spotlighted in our feed in the past. Three times, in fact. First in late June 2006, and twice in early and late August 2007.
If you haven’t been fortunate to familiarize yourself yet with Stardoll, I’ll give you brief tour: Virtual dolls plus virtual brand-name attire.
Yep, that’s pretty much the extent of it. Oh, and there’s some kind of social element to it. Something about club chats.
Why do I mention this “Barbie-2.0” invention? It’s been profiled today in the latest New York Times Magazine “Consumed” column, authored by Rob Walker. The reason he’s pinned up the site for all (who have no paid it heed already) to see: it’s grown a lot since it first broke onto the scene.
(To disclose fully here, our own Kristen Nicole was already aware of the site’s phenomenal success many months ago. Kristen has spoken rather optimistically of the site.)
