Meebo, the chat widget tool, had already launched its own ad network some time ago. Now the company is launching ads on its own partner network, with Toyota being the first marketer to advertise. With 85 publishers signed up for its partner network, Meebo is enabling brands to run ads on a larger scale directly through Meebo’s company, with the same results they’ve grown accustomed to on Meebo.com.

What’s this really mean? In Meebo’s long-standing effort to expand its own network, web presence and visibility, the integrated communication tool has launched several tools and gained several partners, many of which have teamed up with the company for marketing purposes. This is in part due to the fact that Meebo’s integrated communication tools enable brands to connect directly with consumers through multimedia brand messages, chat, and advertisements. On the consumer end, these communication tools provide great channels for product and brand discussion as well as valuable feedback that marketers can use in their larger data pools.
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How does a creative production company, which deals with marketers and advertising agencies, delve into social media marketing? A partnership with a company launched by the well-known Jeremy Abelson is one way to get the ball rolling. As the creator of UrbanHostess and PocketChangeNYC, Abelson became well-versed on social media marketing implementation early on, and has since launched a new production shop called Samson’s Barber.

This new production shop was chosen by creative production company thelab as its exclusive digital arm, introducing a wealth of experience in online and social media optimization for advertising purposes. Below is an interview with Abelson, who talks about Samson’s Barber, its relationship with thelab, and the future of online marketing within social media.
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Trapster, the mobile application that lets you search and report speed traps on the road, has revealed two major new updates for its iPhone app, both of which take advantage of the new iPhone OS 3.0.
The first new feature is the loading time for Trapster’s maps. Instead of the old maps, which took a full 28 seconds to load, the updated maps take only 8 seconds for launch. This is because Trapster is able to use the native maps API for the iPhone, as opposed to having to use a Safari web view for maps, which took up a great deal of JavaScript, lengthening the load time.

This may seem like a minor update, but let’s think about this. Who wants to wait nearly 30 seconds for anything to load? And if you’re already an iPhone user then you’ll appreciate an application’s ability to use the device’s maps directly. More specifically, we’re talking about a speed trap application. The faster you can search for speed traps, the better off you’ll be. And for those that actually contribute to Trapster, there’s nothing more discouraging than a slow load time when you’re ready to report a new speed trap.
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Twitpocalypse. It’s the Y2k of the web 2.0 generation, and was originally supposed to occur tomorrow. Twitter has since forced up te Twitpocalypse to 2 pm Pacific today in order to deal with the bug and have all hands on deck. The Twitpocalypse issue comes from a bug in Twitter’s system that may crash third-party Twitter applications when their tweet identifier numbers hit 2,147,483,647. This is the signed integer limit for Twitter apps, and many are close to reaching this number, as the tweet identifier numbers will start turning negative, thus crashing Twitter apps.
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hi5 manages to keep our attention lately, with all the product roll outs the social network has, geared directly towards its Game channel and virtual goods-based economy. The latest to team up with hi5 is SmallWorlds, the 3D virtual community that launched last year.

The SmallWorlds integration with hi5’s Game channel is pretty seamless, as SmallWorlds already took advantage of several social media services for building out its own feature set. Incorporating things like YouTube video channels and other media consumption options, the virtual world is one of the more robust offerings out there.
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Many have tried to start a company that puts your Twitter status updates on a tee shirt, but the end results have been largely dismal. It’s a tricky concept to pin down in a revenue-generating model when you’re merely a third party service.

But Threadless may have figured something out. In partnership with Twitter, Threadless the company that made t-shirts social, launches Twitter Tees today. And the best thing about this new project is that it keeps the community around Twitter and Threadless intact.
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There’s lots of ways to rank Twitter users, by reputation, the number of followers they have versus the number of people they follow, who replies to their tweets, who retweets their updates, or the relevancy of links they share through their updates. But what about their looks?

Admit it. You’ve peeped a few Twitter user profile pictures before, clicking all the way through to view the full size of someone’s image you find particularly interesting. And there’s nothing quite as compelling on Twitter than an interesting user photo. It can grasp someone’s attention enough to convince them to check you out if they see your ultra-tiny thumbnail as one that’s being followed on someone else’s Twitter profile.

So why not rank Twitter users by their hotness?
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Another accelerometer game from Social Gaming Network (SGN) is due out this summer, along with the iPhone OS 3.0. SGN hasn’t revealed many details about the upcoming game, but based on the screenshots we received, the game looks to be a flight simulator, with some good fighting action going on.
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What happens when trip planning is made social? Ruba is the latest project from serial entrepreneur Mike Cassidy, and it’s taking a very social approach to helping you create the best trip suited to your needs. Ruba, launching today, does this by covering three main aspects of search and discovery. The three main aspects are as follows:

Themes
Visual
Discovery

What this boils down to is a very pictorial way in which to peruse the site and see what’s of interest to you. Ruba starts with the basics, such as Top Hiking Places, or Best Romantic Getaways in Tuscany. This gives you a broad idea of the specific type of content a user is after, as opposed to merely starting out a search based on geography.
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How financially fit are you? It’s a very important question these days, and the tools to keep you financially healthy are all the rave. Mint, the web-based personal finance tool, is releasing a new section of its site called Financial Fitness in order to give a wider range of features to its users. Financial Fitness really takes Mint’s existing personal finance tools to the next level, making the new segment a natural progression for Mint.

Financial Fitness consists of five personal finance principles and lays these out for users to note on a weekly, monthly and annual basis. These five principles include:

Know your Money
Spend Less than you Earn
Use Debt Wisely
Invest Your Savings
Prepare for the Unexpected
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