YouTube was a disappointment in that playing their videos in full screen was torture. I’m sure you’ve been there and experienced the same pixelated mess. I needed to find a site where HD was the standard and not the exception.

Enter Vimeo. Oneupweb posted our Obama Sign video there, so I thought I’d check it out. I was looking for a quick fix. Maybe 10 minutes of deep powder riders in British Columbia. Well, 10 minutes turned into 4 hours and I was hooked on Vimeo.

At Vimeo you’ll find only high end, artistic user-generated videos. No vert ramp skater clips shot on cell phones here!

Finding what I was looking for was fairly straight forward. The site search allows you to search by Videos, People, Groups, Channels and Forums. I searched for “snowboarding” in Videos, clicked on a thumbnail that looked good and discovered a way-cool film about pro snowboarders, from South Korea of all places. The original is a classic travelogue with amazing photography.

It features awesome snowboard talent crossing the globe in search of great snow and the next big money contest. The quirky twist to this film is the slope-side signs in Korean and the 3,000,000 Won prize check the winner was holding on the podium. What really blew me away was the rich, saturated colors, incredible details and awesome sound. This is online HD heaven in full-screen, woofer-thumping glory.

But wait – there’s more. Vimeo is an online film and video community where you can connect with users in all sorts of ways. Vimeo Groups allows you to create communities. Vimeo Channels showcases videos around a common theme. Examples are: Video Art, Short Films, Slo-Mo, Animated, Documentaries and 19,000 more channels! Projects is a forum where you can meet new people hoping to collaborate on video projects. There’s even a Facebook Connect feature to integrate Facebook with Vimeo. The more I explored, the more impressed I was.

Connecting with other Vimeo users is easy. First as a contact, then you subscribe to their videos to see their new submissions. With a free basic membership you can connect to your hearts content and upload 500MB every week. With a Vimeo Plus membership your upload limit is 5GB per week, plus other perks. This will set you back a whopping $59.95 per year. Are you kidding me? What a steal!

In the mood for a video but don’t know what to watch? Check out the staff recommendations on the home page. Or click the Explore tab for more ideas. The Right Now tab shows the latest videos just uploaded or in the process of uploading.

Vimeo also has a widget that’s customizable for your blog, social network profile or anywhere that supports embed code. The widget automatically updates when you upload new videos.

I could go on, but you get the idea. I like the site and recommend it for those chilly winter weekends spent hibernating.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Reviews on StraightUpSocial, search marketing-related reviews on our sister blog StraightUpSearch, broad-based reviews on Oneupweb Reviews, and product-focused Oneupweb Reviews on Epinions.

No you dih-ent.

I love movies, but I don’t love the Academy Awards. I don’t even like them. I don’t like the Academy. I don’t like a bunch of anonymous industry dinosaurs telling everyone what movie they thought was the best movie of the year. For me, their track record speaks for itself. I despised The Titanic. I couldn’t even watch Forrest Gump (I actually threw the video across the room after ejecting it, with my boot, during the part where Li’l Forrest teaches Elvis how to dance). The ceremony itself is a poorly-coordinated series of interminable, self-congratulatory speeches only occasionally punctuated by unfunny jokes and embarrassing musical performances. And who cares who wore what dress? Seriously? I’m sure I can read about it in Us or People later, when I’m at the dentist’s office. But, shucks, enough about me. What am I gonna do about it, is what you’re asking. Besides whining? Like a giant baby?

One of my favorite movie-related sites is RottenTomatoes.com.

I can typically rely on the ratings, because the Tomatometer compiles reviews from many different sources, so if your favorite critic woke up on the stupid side of the bed and gave Marley and Me four stars, he or she will be drowned out by a sea of more competent voices. Inclusion is, from what I can tell, based on a near-perfect democratic process: reviews by, say, Richard Roeper are given the same weight as those by all those people (and they are legion) you’ve never heard of. The movies are rated on a percentage of how many “fresh” (good) or “rotten” (sucktastic) reviews they’ve received. Go there, cinephiles. You won’t regret it.

What I’d never looked into, though, is whether I could use RottenTomatoes.com as more than just a ratings tool, as a digital soap box to espouse my jaded views and, perchance, find like minded folks out there who also feel that the Academy would be one of the things we wouldn’t miss should California finally fall into the ocean. And who just want to talk about movies we love, while not hearing about how “great” Tom Hanks or Robin Williams are in their latest cinematic atrocities.

(By the way, if you like Tom Hanks (who I actually liked in Road to Perdition) or Robin Williams (I got nothin’), please don’t take offense. Keep liking them. You’re in the majority. I’m the freak, here.)

And there it is: The Vine.

Not only can I start a journal (“The Aching Fist”), but I can start my own group (“The People’s Academy”). I can post my own reviews. I can reach out to other freakish film buffs and talk smack about Julia Roberts. We can simultaneously discuss the relative merits of both Why Does Herr R Run Amok? and Making the Grade.

We can give our own damn awards for Best Picture, Best Upstaging by a Monkey, Best Spit Take, Best Open-Hand B-Slap, Worst Special Effects, Least Realistic CGI, whatever we want. We can create a manifesto that calls for the death of movies based on TV shows and/or starring Adam Sandler. When I’m ready, and when I’ve moved in a little bit (get a picture put up, etc.), I can auto-invite 20 friends to join in. And get the ball (or, in this case, tomato) rolling.

Thank you, RottenTomatoes.com, for providing a venue, and for making it so darn simple. And all I have to suffer through is a few banner ads. Which I can complain about in my journal. Ha!

I give The Vine community a rating of 99.99% fresh, and I’ve done very little. I’ve only just begun. My group and journal are mere shells right now, empty vessels. Tabulas rasa. But I’m single, live in the goondocks, am a dork, and have started to intensely dislike Facebook. I’d imagine it’ll fill up pretty quick.

Take that, secret entrenched cabal! Quiver in fear, Academy members!

Viva la revolution!

PS: Blatant hint – the Vine features a fairly robust search function, that you could maybe, if you want, use to find my journal. Or my group. If you want.

Tumblr really emphasizes fast and easy. I found the only thing easier than posting to a tumblelog is signing up for the service. According to Tumblr it only takes 10 seconds to sign up; they weren’t lying. I didn’t have a stopwatch running, but I’d say that I was good to go in about 10 seconds flat.

Anyway, this is the only form you need to complete to become a Tumblr:

Note the big, easy to read letters! I couldn’t help but feel like I was looking at the blog version of a Jitterbug phone.

After signing in you are directed to your dashboard which offers tabs to immediately begin posting.

From here you can begin expressing yourself until your heart’s content. Within a matter of minutes my tumblelog began to take shape as I was quickly able to post a text entry, a photo and a website link.

It was ridiculous how easy it was. As far as posting larger media files, I could post photos as fast as I could find them on my computer. Tumblr also has features that allow you to post to your tumblelog while you are on the go (or just plain busy):

  • Bookmarklet – You can drag a Share on Tumblr button to your web browser’s bookmark toolbar to quickly post to your tumblelog.

  • Mobile + Email Posting – Email or text posts from your mobile phone directly to your tumblelog.

  • iPhone App – The Tumblrette app makes it simple for iPhoners to upload tumblelog content.

  • Instant Messaging Posting – Allows AOL users to post IM’s directly to their tumblelogs.

All in all, I think this is a great micro-blog service. I am not an avid blogger – what little I do, I post to my Facebook page. What has always bugged me about blog pages is how cluttered they can get. I really like how clean the tumblelogs are and I am very impressed with how easy and fast it is to post various forms of media.

In addition, I think a business could really benefit from using Tumblr:

  • A business could post company messages in a variety of ways – text, photos, quotes, links, chat, audio and video – to benefit different audiences. A properly maintained tumblelog would be very good for reputation management.

  • With time management always an issue, Tumblr can benefit a business because it’s so easy to post messages and it’s easy to maintain.

  • With its customizable interface, it would be easy to design a tumblelog to match your business’s theme, color, design, etc. I can see a graphic design department going nuts with this one.

Bottom line: I am usually very picky about the products and services I use online. However I like what I see here. It’s simple, clean and easy to use.

The Official Oneupweb Review… OneUp Thumbs-Up.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Oneupweb Reviews on StraightUpSocial, search and ecommerce-related reviews on our sister blog StraightUpSearch, and product-focused Oneupweb Reviews on Epinions.

If your boss is tapping you on the shoulder about what’s going on with the company Facebook page, or if you are your own boss, you can use Facebook Apps to connect with your company’s target demographic.

Social networking applications, most commonly referred to as apps, offer a way for businesses to share video, blogs, photos, music, games and much more, directly from a Facebook profile page. Facebook apps for business are organized in categories by purpose, such as Recently Popular, Most Active Users and Newest.

While almost every social network has a way to pass food, drinks or throw snowballs, Facebook has some interesting ways of connecting a business with its target audience. Of course the The Visa Business Network is an obvious choice for small business owners looking for new ideas, but what about I Am Mom? Whether you’re an independent scrapbooking consultant or a medium-sized kid’s retail chain, this app could help connect you with your target audience: Moms.

I Am Vegetarian is a similar app to I Am Mom. It could help a health food store connect to one of its biggest markets. This app also applies to lifestyle companies, such as yoga studios, or even an independent nutritionist.

For businesses looking to share video, podcasts and blogs, RSS lOOkout grabs content from other websites. Have your own company podcast, blog or list of jobs appear directly in the company Facebook profile. SeenThis? is another app that allows friends to share what their reading online.

There are a lot of specific apps for different magazines and newspapers, including NYTimes.com Most E-Mailed Articles. This could be a great app for an independent bookseller looking to share news. There is also an app for The New York Times News Quiz to test your news IQ.

The list of potential apps is an endless one. And if you have access to a developer, you can customize applications that fit your company’s specific needs. Facebook’s principles for apps give developers insight and thoughtful guidelines. Facebook also offers a verification process for new apps that can help them gain exposure.

So whether your business is small, large or somewhere in-between, there are plenty of social applications that can engage your target audience. And remember, if you don’t like what’s out there, you can always make your own.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Oneupweb Reviews on StraightUpSocial, search and ecommerce-related reviews on our sister blog StraightUpSearch, and product-focused Oneupweb Reviews on Epinions.

And of course, check out what the new yuletide greetings are in the social media landscape.

Last year, one of my favorite viral e-cards involved uploading a friend’s picture to see them dressed up and merrily dancing like an elf. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who found it enchanting. ElfYourself.com, brought to us from Office Max and powered by JibJab, is reported to have logged more than 193 million site visits last year.

So I decided to head over and see what was new for this year. I was pleasantly surprised.

This year, ElfYourself allows visitors to upload not just one, but five photos. And that’s not all. I was also given the option to choose the style of dance I wanted to subject my friends to: disco, Charleston, country and classic. I’m a country girl at heart, so the choice was pretty simple.

After uploading pics of five Oneupwebers, here’s what I got:

Afterwards, I was then notified of the expiration date for my custom creation, with a link to keep it forever with a $4.99 digital download.

I could also purchase custom gifts including “office supplies” such as mugs, mouse pads and more. To take a cue from Guinness: Brilliant! Office Max has created a fantastic viral campaign that accomplishes what the social media world has so far, ultimately, been lacking—a way to capitalize on the buzz and monetize the success.

I give the 2008 ElfYourself 2 thumbs up. And if you agree with me, check out Oneupweb’s NaughtyListed.com—my other favorite social site this holiday season.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Oneupweb Reviews on StraightUpSocial, search and ecommerce-related reviews on our sister blog StraightUpSearch, and product-focused Oneupweb Reviews on Epinions.

Recently launched to the public, Facebook Connect was designed to be a data portability application that will enable users to port their profile data to partnering third-party sites. According to Facebook, the goal for Connect was to give Facebook users the ability to “take their identity and friends with them around the web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings.”

Soon to be gone are the days of creating and keeping track of multiple logins and profiles for every site an online socialite wants to participate in. Facebook Connect allows users to log into third party websites using their Facebook login and profile. Once a user has participated in a third party site, their actions can be rebroadcasted on their Facebook wall for all their friends to see.

For the user, the main benefit is the simplicity of one login for wherever they go and the ability to easily keep their friends up to date with what they are up to and what they are getting involved with on the web.

Facebook Connect will also benefit the third party websites that opt into the service. Sites that require users to fill out a profile to participate often turn away users that don’t want to go through the hassle of setting up yet another unique profile. Facebook Connect will lower the entry barrier; in most cases a lower entry barrier will translate to better accessibility to a larger audience, more social participation and an overall increase in site traffic.

Another benefit is the tremendous potential for third party sites that opt to use Facebook Connect to be able to utilize a user’s profile information to target advertising to the right audiences more effectively.

Upon launching, Facebook announced they had partnered with about two dozen high profile sites including CBS.com, Digg, Hulu, Discovery, Six Apart, CitySearch and Twitter to name a few. Support and inclusion from a whole host of major vendors is coming as Facebook Connect is beginning to gain steam.

Unlike the competition that should eventually come from Yahoo, Plaxo, Google’s Friend Connect and MySpace’s Data Availability, which employ Open ID, Facebook Connect was developed independently and uses proprietary code. For the time being, Facebook Connect has been able to fire the first shot in the identification management wars.

Currently Open ID has been slow to take off because of issues with poor usability and disagreements with branding and implementation. This should allow Facebook Connect to gain momentum and, most importantly, mainstream acceptance and adoption in a relatively short amount of time. There is speculation that it may be difficult for Open ID to catch up when it finally gets its usability issues sorted out.

To begin my Oneupweb review of Facebook Connect I utilized a functional demo site called The Run Around that Facebook provided.

• To login, participating sites will have a convenient log on button, which will probably be located in the upper right corner of their home page most of the time.

• Clicking on the tab will bring up the site’s dialog box showing you the flow of information that will take place and inviting you to input your Facebook ID.

• This is the demo site – there’s just enough there for you to post something for the sake of the demo. Note how you are signed in under your Facebook name with your Facebook profile picture. If this were a blog, your profile picture and name would appear next to your post.

• As shown above, one of the other key features of Facebook Connect is that you can see which of your friends are also members of this site. If I had any friends on Run Around, their profile picture and name would appear beneath the Friends header.

• Clicking on will publish your posting and send a news feed instantly back to your wall on Facebook. Clicking on your profile picture will send you back to your Facebook profile. And the news feed will be there waiting for you and your friends looking just like this:

My initial impression of Facebook Connect is that it is a complex product offered in a simple and easy to use package. I can see avid users who actively participate in a number of social sites really getting behind this product. It’s very easy to access and it looks like a great way to keep your friends in the loop.

However I do have concerns. Even though you can customize your security settings, the “one key” approach to your web browsing really makes me nervous. If someone were able to obtain your login information, I imagine it would be very easy to do a lot of damage very quickly. I am also not very excited that the third party websites will have access to my profile information and the profiles of my friends. I don’t particularly enjoy being the recipient of targeted advertising messages and I wouldn’t be surprised if third party sites would eventually abuse the information they are given.

However, I understand you can determine just how much access third party sites have with your information by adjusting your security settings.

Once this platform takes off – and I predict it will very quickly – it will be very interesting to see how this technology shakes down. Facebook Connect has the potential to provide a layer of socialization never seen before to a rapidly evolving web.

You can read more Oneupweb Reviews on StraightUpSocial, our sister blog StraightUpSearch, and product-focused Oneupweb Reviews on Epinions.

YouTube added a search bar as part of its embedded video player skin earlier this week. The search bar is triggered when users mouse over the top portion of an embedded video, or pause the video after it has started playing.

Users can enter simple search queries to find other favorite YouTube videos. Results of the search appear in place of the embedded video image. Users can watch any video in the results, or search for others.

This new search bar helps with accessibility, especially if you want to find similar videos. For example, if I am reading a Oneupweb Review of Google SearchWiki, which includes an embedded YouTube video, I can immediately begin searching for other SearchWiki-related videos.

In general the YouTube search bar is simplistic, so it doesn’t allow advanced searches that can narrow down your 10,000+ results.

This could make those searches for Britney Spears related info difficult, so I suggest YouTube add more advanced search options.

Overall, I disagree with other critiques that have referred to this tool as “fugly.”

The Official Oneupweb Review… OneUp Thumbs-Up.

In addition to our reviews of new social networking tools, you can also read search-related reviews on StraightUpSearch and miscellaneous Oneupweb Reviews on Epinions.

This latest overhaul of Windows Live is Microsoft’s way of building a “home base” for Live users by organizing their lives under one homepage. There are four basic new functions:

° Download friends from LinkedIn, FaceBook, Hotmail or by entering a friend’s email address
° SkyDrive upgrade from 5GB to 25GB for a more competitive photo sharing system
° Capable of showcasing RSS feeds for a blog or social network
° Profile capabilities that allow users to post updates and comments

Users who first enter the site are invited to view the new changes and to create their personal profile, which is very simple.

“Your Social Info” allows users to tell friends and the public about themselves, including their fashion style—Outdoorsy, Classic or Trendy— and even their sense of humor—Sarcastic, Clever & Witty or Campy & Cheesy. A “Favorite Things” section allows users to personalize the profile with great books and music accompanied by pictures.

Besides providing plenty of ways to personalize the profile, it’s also easy to add and organize friends from other social networks. Windows Live allows users to group people under predefined categories, such as “Coworkers” or under categories created by the user. These groupings are accessible for sending photos or emailing as well.

The overall result of Windows Live Wave 3 is a home page that blends interesting concepts from FaceBook and MySpace, but without the fun factor and usability elements.

While building my profile, I couldn’t help but envision PC, the nerdy, pudgy man in a boring brown suit from the Mac commercials. The language on the site made it feel stiff and probably appealed more to a corporate businessman than your average Joe.

For instance, would an average person refer to anyone in their lives as an “activity partner.” This language appears when users decide why they are on the site; is it for making friends? Dating? Activity partnering?

The language, like the overall site, can be confusing.

Common users may get easily lost on this site as Windows Live doesn’t maintain a consistent navigation. MySpace users can easily search for people and music on the web or on the site without worrying about finding their home profile. That’s not the case with Windows Live, which becomes too cluttered too quickly with too much personalization.

In addition, instead of making us enter by hand a bunch of favorite sites, accompanied by a picture, let our social networks speak for us. Thank you for letting me ad Pandora to “My Web Activities,” but where is Digg, YouTube, and Good Reads. All my favorite books are on Good Reads already. Why isn’t this available? Or is it and I just can’t find it because the site is so hard to navigate?

Usability is clearly a problem Microsoft still hasn’t fixed. That’s why Google continues to dominate search with a 63.1% market share. It’s also why I was able to fully personalize my iGoogle home page in 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes.

The point of a “home base” is that it saves the everyday user time and provides easy access to their online lives. Clearly Microsoft wasn’t thinking about this concept in the design stages.

So the official Oneupweb Review… Windows Live Wave 3 gets a OneUp Thumbs-Down.

If you have a search-related tool/site/necessity you would like the bloggers here at Oneupweb to review, please leave us a comment and let us know.

Even though Thanksgiving was just last week, Oneupweb employees don’t pass up a chance to sit down and share each other’s company – especially when food is involved.

Oneupweb CEO Lisa Wehr started Ethnic Food Day about nine months ago as a way to introduce employees to different cultural cuisine. It has also served as a reminder that we can communicate with each other without using a keyboard.

This week’s dish of choice was Fish-and-Chips, a traditional working class meal originating in England. Deep fried Cod with potato fries became popular in the United States when England colonized the Northeast in the 19th Century. In Traverse City, our home town, we replace cod with freshly caught whitefish when it’s in season.

Today’s Fish-and-Chips was provided by our friendly neighbor down the street Scott’s Harbor Grill.

So what was the “official” Oneupweb review of this week’s ethnic Food Day? Making the day a truly social event, everyone participated in a food survey.

“Dyno-Mite” was what 34% of employees thought. (And the cookies didn’t hurt the voting curve.)

A pint of England’s best brew may have changed the minds of 62% of employees who thought the fish was YUMMY, but not quite scrumptious.

Only 4% of employees decided the fish was OK, but not worthy of seconds.

And thankfully no one felt they were headed for heartburn, meaning the fish just wasn’t palatable.

So the official Oneupweb Review… Scott’s Fish-and-Chips get a big OneUp Thumbs-Up.

Stay tuned for more Oneupweb Reviews, including a taste test of some hot-off-the-grill social networking tools.