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yooRyoo fans: we apologize for our unexpected haitus since last week. Because we were unable to provide you with an update last Friday, we bring to you today our ever-popular “Friday Fishwrap” feature…but on a Monday! “Friday Fishwrap” is where we reveal to you the results of our “Is It Real?” feature from the previous Sunday, and then share a fun video from the World Wide Web for you to enjoy!

Our last “Is It Real?” posting featured a new iPhone application created a 3D, holographic animation on the iPhone that moved when you moved the phone. It was aptly named “iHologram” and was available through the iTunes app store. It’s hard to describe in words, but it really is cool to see it in action – watch the video in our last post, to get a sense of what it is!

We then asked you to vote on the authenticity of the application. Here are the poll results:

• 50% of you thought that while it looked cool, it wasn’t real
• 40% of you thought it was real, and want to download it to your iPhones
• 10% of you were undecided

The actual truth: while it is a great concept, the iHologram is not yet real! To quote a story from Gizmodo about the iHologram:

The amazingly convincing 3D anamorphosis app iHologram turns out to be just a technology demonstrator rendering rather than a real app. Its developer, David O’Reilly, apparently wasn’t trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes with the cool clip of the strolling cat, but just demonstrate how the 3D effect could be made to work. He’s up for collaboration “with a developer or studio who wants to make it happen,” for real, though.

I can’t wait to get it when it is real! So, for now we are just with a cool video to demonstrate the concept.

Speaking of cool videos: today, in a crazy celebration to Web 2.0, we proudly present an over five minute video called: “5000 Web Apps in 333 Seconds”…check to see if you can find your favorite in this crazy kaliedoscope of all things good about the web!

Rest assured, yooRyoo is back on track and tune in tomorrow for a very new satirical Web 2.0 posting. Until then, have a great Monday everyone!

Happy Sunday – the weekend is almost over. But before you head back to work, make sure to vote on today’s Is It Real? contender.

For those of you new to Is It Real?, it’s a simple concept: we provide a company name and description, and your job – if you choose to accept it – is to vote on if you think it is a real company or not. We tally your votes all week long, and reveal the real answer on Friday.

One caveat – you cannot use the internet in anyway to help guess your answer. Ready? Then let’s get started:

Today’s company is called MyGlu – a web 2.0 open-source API that allows users to begin threading together information from a variety of social network sites, and presents it in a single dashboard-like interface. Taken from the website directly, here is a brief description of their services:

No two social networks are alike. Taking this into account, MyGlu is designed to aggregate key information from all these sites, and give users an easy-interface to share and update data.

With already existing APIs for MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Friend-Feed and Spokeo (to name a few), MyGlu is a much-needed application is the clouded web 2.0 space.

So friends, we must ask – Is MyGlu Real?

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A new study by George Picken & Calvin McCracken released today entitled “Attempting to measure ROI on Web 2.0 Companies – Why Sisyphus Had it Easier” revealed an alarming statistic: 67% of all Web 2.0 statistics are made up on the fly, based on only anecdotal evidence.

George Picken reciting statistics that he just made up

“It’s really amazing” stated Picken, “Not only are the statistics completely unreal, nearly 95% of the time these false statistics are made by people with a peripheral knowledge of  Web 2.0!”

“What’s more surprising are the demographics,” added McCracken, “80% of these false statistics are made up by men aged 25-40. The second largest group are transgendered people aged 90+ at an incredible 17.3%...or so I’ve heard.”

Calvin McCracken, known recluse
and his wife, posturing

Based on a rough survey they did at various local coffee shops around town, Picken & McCracken’s study went on to reveal more surprising data:

• 53% of Web 2.0 companies are created with no plan to make money, and from that group only 24% of them actually survive the first year
• 12% of Web 2.0 services are geared to Mac users exclusively, which matches the commonly believed 8% market penetration of Macs within the home computer user segment
• The three fastest growing Web 2.0 services are:

microblogging (at 33% over the previous year),

social network applications (with a steady average 15% growth rate for the past 6 years)

mashups (with a sharp spike of 42.2%, this year over previous)

Picken & McCracken’s study is expected to cause ripples into the blogosphere (83.4% of all news is transmitted throughout the web through blogs, the study has found).

“Now that it’s published online, it’s gotta be true,” said Picken.

“Yeah, once it’s on the internet it’s part of the collective reality,” added McCracken, “It happens 93.47% of the time.”

Fans of “Is It Real?” might have noticed a recent trend where most of our “Is It Real?” features are indeed real. That is not only a testament to the wide-breadth of companies on our Web 2.0 world, it also speaks to the strangeness of it all. In fact, a recent set of Google searches has revealed a number of the satirical companies that we created actually do exist!

To that end, today we are featuring a few of those companies. No polls this week – but be sure to tune in next Sunday for a brand new version of “Is It Real?“…

yooRyoo created company #1: Triangle Hero

Introduced on June 12, Triangle Hero was a parody of Guitar Hero, but with a less-sexy instrument. Designed to teach players how to patiently wait through 138 bars of rest in symphonic pieces before playing your triangle controller, we thought it was a smarmy commentary on those crazy instrument games. Well we weren’t the only ones…

The Cartoon Network started featuring this commercial for a suspiciously similar game…

yooRyoo created company #2: Toot and Toot 2.0

Created as a rip on Twitter, Toot (and Toot 2.0 – now available for the iPhone 3G!) is a faux company designed to provide your health updates to subscribed friends through a micro-blogging service. Now you can Toot all day long, and no one will be the wiser!

Did you know there’s a real Toot company? We didn’t either…here’s a description of their services:

Toot! is software for making rich résumés and portfolios.

A rich résumé includes examples of your work. It exchanges the dry chronology of dates, companies, job titles and duties for an enriched résumé with actual pieces of your work that prove you know your stuff. Those pieces can be presentations, reports, plans, lesson plans, budgets, schematics, art, music, dance — anything you can render in digital form.

A portfolio is a trove of your work, collected over time with reflections about each piece. With Toot!, you can keep an on-going record of your life, including artifacts from all its aspects — work, education, hobbies, family, vacations, etc. When it comes time to create a résumé for a specific opening, you can select those pieces from your portfolio that best exemplify your qualifications for the position.

yooRyoo created company #3: iClock

With Web 2.0 parody, Apple’s “i” series (iPod, iTouch, iPhone, etc.) is an easy target. yooRyoo imagined a time (hah!) when Steve jobs would create a clock where he could control – and enhance – the time-tracking experience.

However, there really is an iClock application. Here’s a review:

iClock‘s simple, intuitive interface never lets me down. With a quick glance at the pull-down menu, I can see what time it is where I am….where I’m going…and where I’ve been. With another click, I can check the weather at my next destination. Its so much more than a digital timepiece for the Mac.

yooRyoo created company #4: the gPhone

In a clever twist to combat the popularity of the gPhone, yooRyoo introduced on July 22nd, our “open-source” version of a Google-created phone, called the gPhone. Ultimately, the gPhone is designed to do one thing really well – make phone calls! In addition, we added a feature called “I’m feeling lucky” which randomly calls people – it’s like the Web 2.0 version of drunk-dialing.

Since we debuted this clever satire piece, many people have started calling Google’s upcoming Android phone the “gPhone” (yes, Google is really creating a smart phone). We’ll take credit for where credit is due. Here are a few gPhone links:

• gPhone Finally Coming. About Time (published Aug 14th)
• iPhone and gPhone shakes up wireless world (published Aug 21)
• New g-Phone semi-revealed? (published Aug 26th)

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It’s clear that since we launched yooRyoo in mid-June, we’ve already had an impact on how technology is evolving. Stay tuned for more “OMG – It IS real!!” features in the future. Have a great rest of the weekend.

with horror. “What, do I have to start looking at ASCII photos of naked women again? I mean, what is this – 1982?” said one.

Today, in our regular “Is It Real?” posting, we’ll present to you a Web 2.0 company/service, and then we’ll ask you – the readers – to vote if it is real or not. But first, let’s ask an important question that might be plaguing readers of our site – why should you vote?

The answer is simple – Web 2.0 is great because it provides openess and true democratization to the web. However, because of this, it’s also very scary! Some things on Web 2.0 just shouldn’t exist. And you, as a savvy Web 2.0 consumer, must be sure where to spend your precious time on the web. Because, Google is watching you and ready to serve up ads based on the kind of sites you frequent! Big Brother is Watching!!!

So, with that, let’s get into this week’s Is It Real? -

Estilook – a social networking site designed to allow community members to have “fun” while judging other people’s design and fashion!! This Portugal-based Web 2.0 company allows you to:

• Share your style by uploading your pictures and looks
• Have fun knowing and voting in outfits of people from different companies
• Keep track of trends  and news to aggregate even more style while dressing up

Here is a rough (online) translation of their company mission (translated from Portuguese):

Estilook is an innovative social community directed toward people who have proper style. Our mission is to provide a democratic space where people of some countries, cultures can show and share its styles, interacting with other users of similar interests.
Professionals and not lovers of fashion are welcome to the site. Estilook Is a place where common people can learn to dress in accordance with proper style, can make uploads of these looks, to think on different appearances, to be aware of trends, events in the area and much more.

Simply put – this is Web 2.0 fashion police community! What more could one ask for?

So, readers, I ask of you: Is Estilook Real? Take a second to vote below:

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In a crazy move (on a triple-word play, no less), Hasbro games announced today the release of one of their newest online, Facebook game application – Crapulous!

Crapulous is an ASCII-based application available through the Facebook application interface, allowing users to clumsily play against a “computer-generated AI” player through command-line scripts.

“Loosely fashioned after such engaging games as Zork and that one the Matthew Broderick kid played in ‘Wargames,’ we’re convinced Crapulous will be as popular as ICQ,” commented Hasbro spokesperson, Crash Bandicoot.

Although early beta-tests revealed difficulty installing the command-line window interface on most computers, Crapulous has already gained a significant early install base, revealed Mr. Bandicoot. “We’re definitely excited by the usability testing on Windows NT machines, but only those with more than 256kb of RAM,” he added.

Nonplussed, the creators of Scrabulous have already released their replacement game, WordScraper, and have already tracked more than 8 billion installs.

Hasbro has already tentatively announced a complete roadmap of ASCII-based games for Facebook, through the remainder of 2008, including:

• BattleCrap – face off against another player, in this exciting, turn-by-turn script-based battle game
• CrappyLand – where kids and adults move simple emoticons through a flat, 2-dimensional land of fun
• Hungry Hungry Crappos – exciting turn-based action, where you compete to “eat” more “&” symbols than your computer based foes
• Oper-crap-tion – your skill at kernel commands is put to the test…fail, and you might hear the dulcit sound of an 8-bit alarm tone from your speakers

Happy August 1st, everyone! It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for the Friday Fishwrap, where we not only share an end-of-the-week video with you, we also reveal the answer to this week’s “Is It Real?“…

If you recall, last Sunday we featured a company called Ribbit:

Ribbit is an open platform for telephony innovation giving their developers unprecedented access to their technology through the Ribbit API and allowing them to innovate at will. Their business is built more like a software company than a phone company, counting on their developers to create the next generation communications solutions the world has been waiting for.

Then, we asked you to vote on how real this company is. Here are the poll results:

• 66.7% of you said it was real
• 22% said that it wasn’t real
• 11% just weren’t sure

The answer: Ribbit is indeed real! Savvy readers could have discovered this by reading our comments – one of which came directly from a developer at Ribbit:

Well, as someone who has been on the team at Ribbit for most of this year, and have watched both their developer community and awesome innovations like Ribbit for Salesforce (letting you phone in CRM updates) and the AIR iPhone http://www.merhl.com/?p=29 gain popularity, I guess I can tell you without fear of croaking: yup. Ribbit’s real.

Thanks for those comments, Ellen Petry Leanse. I think it’s cool that Ribbit is available on the new iPhone!

Thanks for voting, and tune in this Sunday to vote for next week’s “Is It Real?” Until then, enjoy this Friday Fishwrap’s video: “The Machine is Us/ing Us”…

Is It Real? is a Sunday feature on yooRyoo where we introduce a new Web 2.0 company and ask you to decide whether or not the company is indeed real, or if it is something we made up. We’ll give you the company name, a description of the services and any additional detail that we think might be helpful for you to decide.

Your role is to review the company, and without the help of Google or any other online source, determine if it is real. Vote with the poll below – polls will be open until Friday, in which we’ll reveal the answer in that Friday’s Fishwrap.

So, without further ado, here is this week’s company: Ribbit – an Open Platform for Telephony Innovation…

Ribbit’s team is comprised of traditional telephony experts, “Voice 2.0″ experts as well as various web development, social media and infrastructure experts.

Ribbit is an open platform for telephony innovation giving their developers unprecedented access to their technology through the Ribbit API and allowing them to innovate at will. Their business is built more like a software company than a phone company, counting on their developers to create the next generation communications solutions the world has been waiting for.

Their first product is called “Amphibian” which allows users to manage mobile voicemal like email through widgits in iGoogle and Facebook, and “Experience Caller ID 2.0 – dip into the social web and know not just who is calling but what the caller has been doing.”

So, Is It Real? fans….Is Ribbit real? Vote below, and let us know your thoughts. Answer revealed this Friday!

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Nothing beats a cool smoothie in the heat of the summer…nothing that is, except for high organic search results and a bump in page rank! That’s why the founders of Google have joined forces with the creators of Jamba Juice to provide nutritious, delicious, frozen concoctions with a burst of SEO goodness in every sip.

Under the working term “Google Juice,” this concept store combines thirty different fresh fruits, wheatgrass and completely legal over-the-counter health additives with inlinks, optimized on-page content and XML sitemaps. Served over in-store wireless networks, Google Juice will extract relevant demographic information from your credit card, and “serve-up” your personal or business website as an authoritative page.

“We’ve taken the concept of organic search to an entirely new level,” said one in-store, assistant night-manager at a local Google Juice store, “Everything here is certified pesticide-free…no fruits were purchased from any link-farms.”

As Google Juice concept stores roll-out throughout the country, numerous fanboy sites have already sprung up, including the Google Juice blog, the Google Juice UK blog, and the North American Man Google Juice Love Association.

Google and Jamba Juice representatives, when contacted for their opinion, promptly hung the phone up without speaking to us.