Well, eight months after it first started making headlines we finally managed to score an invite to the Zivity beta site, and now we can tell you: not very much.

After all the hype it's received, we expected ... well, something we hadn't seen before, or at least something pretty special. You know, something slightly more than just an opportunity to set up a profile page and look at some pictures of naked chicks female beauty.

Granted, Zivity has entered the market at more than a bit of disadvantage. With megaporn site (excuse us, modern pinup showcase) SuicideGirls setting a certain standard for adult communities online, it can be pretty hard for any new kid on the block to compete. Still, given that Zivity is clearly aware of SG (Missy Suicide is one of their photographers), you'd think they'd at least try to have a site that's more impressive.

No such luck, though: aside from the photos and their totally original voting system, there's not much there there Does anyone really need yet another website where they can set up yet another profile? Sure, the pictures are pretty hot (if a bit tame) ... but why do you have to have one more profile to keep track of just to look at them?

Sample model page

Sample Photo Set

Photo Upload Page (note: no nudity for nonmodels!)

To be fair, Zivity is in beta, so maybe they have some other features in the works that will be in place before their public launch. If not ... well, we sure hope at least a chunk of that $7 million is winding up in their models' pockets. We hate to see good money going to waste.

· Zivity

* * * * *

Previously: Zivity's Big Score: Good Money After Bad?, Porn 2.0: Haven't We Been Here Before?, The New Porn.com: When Bad Things Happen To Good Domains

What is AttenTV? According to the web site:

As you spend more time online, your clicktream [I assume this is not a typo but a clever neologism] (the record of where you visit online) increasingly represents who you are and what you are interested in. AttenTV turns one person's or group's clickstream data into another person's entertainment.

Watch what others are watching. See who is watching you. Influential individuals. Voyeuristic groups.

Luckily, I am influential and a voyeur, and I have several restraining orders to prove it. So I downloaded the special alpha version of AttenTV's Mac OS X application (thank god; who wants to watch what Windows users are watching?). Normally alpha versions are not unleashed on regular users without extensive warnings; the Attentrust company knows that only savvy users who are ready for anything their untested product will dish out will dare to open AttenTV.

Upon installation, the program asked for some biographical details. A check-box option asked, "OK to email you about Attention opportunities?" My goodness! Whatever an Attention opportunity is, I look forward to it!

Now I was to create an Attentron channel. Again, the program did not need to explain what this was, but in any case I was ready to name my channel! My channel, if you want to watch it (if that is a thing you do; perhaps AttentionTV will break the Old Media stereotype of channels as something to be "watched"!), is named "NickDouglaslooksatthingsonthenetplaceyay". (The Attentron makes figuring out the rules of naming channels into a game! For example, if you try to add spaces to your channel, Attentron does not tell you this is disallowed but grays out the "Sign up" button! Minigame!)

Now the real fun began! The Attentron (so many Atten words! It's a whole new world!) redirected me to a web page for another application, the "Attention Recorder." It then promptly crashed. This was convenient, as it left me more room to install this second application. This involved restarting Firefox — I almost lost this review, dear reader — but you can't make technological progress without breaking a few eggs.

After that, what a rush! I re-opened Firefox and AttentionTrust demanded a username and password from me! Another minigame! I failed to guess what username they wanted, so I opened another browser to figure it out (in a clever move, AttentionTrust blocked me from using Firefox to recover my password so I could use Firefox).

I thought I'd won this game by figuring out that my channel name was now called my username. Wow, if I'd been smart enough to know that, I sure would've made the name shorter! In any case, that wasn't enough. AttentionTrust asked me again and again to re-enter my name and password, sometimes several times every time I opened a web page. Wow, that's a lot of typing! I couldn't figure out why the program wouldn't leave me be! It couldn't be broken; a program named Attention Trust could obviously never be broken.

Finally I realized: I'm not yet trusted! I've been blocked from the circle of trust! Oh no! I don't know how I'll cope. Did the company's founder, Seth Goldstein, confuse me with my publisher Nick Denton, who wrote several short-sighted articles making fun of Seth's intelligent postmodern language? Or did my webcam notice that I look unshaven and thus untrustworthy?

In any case, I had no choice but to uninstall the programs. I am sad that I have to leave this world of crashing and secret usernames, so I will never feel the joy of watching a stranger browse the Internet! Farewell readers, and trust your attention! Or attention your trust! Possibly both!

Nick Douglas writes for Valleywag, Blogebrity, and Look Shiny. Please trust him.

Further analysis:

Jaxtr's home page explains the service with a three-panel comic:

That's pretty clear. You post a friendly widget, people call you from their computer, you hear calls or voicemails at your leisure, no one knows your number, and you can end the service at any time. I can see three types of people appreciating this service:

• Anyone posting an ad on Craigslist, selling something on eBay, basking in 15 minutes of YouTube fame, or some other reason to take calls for a period of time. For them, Jaxtr is a voice-message system that just happens to conveniently fit with their normal phone habits.
• Picky people with more fans than friends, who want to hear constant aural love without the promise of loving back — or the trust of handing over their number to everyone they want to hear from.
• The penny-pinchers who, back in the payphone days, would "ping" each other like so: "Mrs. Douglas, you have received a call from It's-Nick-pick-me-up-from-school-thanks." Jaxtr lets them leave voicemails without paying for a normal mobile call.

Signing up was simple. I filled out two quick forms, told Jaxtr my phone number, got a call from them and entered a two-digit phone number to confirm my phone (no signing up with your enemy's phone number), and posted here. We'll see how the calling goes.

One weird detail: The Jaxtr programmers decided that actually naming time zones is too obvious, so they picked cities — not major cities, mind you — to represent time zones. I just have to figure out whether my zone is "Boise, America" or "Dawson Creek, America":

Nick Douglas writes for Valleywag and Blogebrity and runs a show called Look Shiny. He just called to say he loves you.

What's wrong with the latest Technorati video

1. Can we do this without it sounding like there's a full cafeteria behind the camera? If you can't get a studio, at least quiet down the office for ten minutes. Clearly that's all it takes to film your show.
2. Aaron and Liz, practice your lines.
3. But get a teleprompter too.
4. "One other blogger suffices to say"? Where did you learn grammar, boy?
5. Didn't you watch the "Get a Mac" commercials? You can't use "touch " unless you make a point first.
6. Liz. Put down your hands until you learn how to use them.
7. Is it the microphone making Aaron's voice come in through the right speaker or did the sound editor have a Bloody Mary for breakfast?

And that's what's wrong with Technorati's video today. Until they post today today's, because I'm writing this at midnight. Okay. Let's do some news.

Technorati vlog for October 11 [Technorati]
Earlier: Technorati's new daily vlog: Less talk, more techno [Valleywag]

The major disappointments:

• Co-host Aaron Crane can't stand still, distracting attention from co-host Liz Dunn.
• The premise is that Technorati knows what's top news, right? Surely the rich database of live information streaming through Technorati can tell the vloggers more than "Gee, people are riled up about that Mark Foley scandal."
• Speaking of Foley, the show covers the story by rehashing a few three-day-old details. We already saw this on the Daily Show, guys.
• The filmmakers use stutter-filled takes instead of reshooting until the hosts nail it. Throwing up a first draft insults viewers. (Case in point: Valleywag posts.)
• Who the hell is this Louis Black wannabe "pontificating" about "bogus blogs"? Can he slow down and explain what he's talking about?
• The show ends with another week-old story, the "men's bathroom etiquette" video using Sims to simulate the danger of talking in the boys' room.

Technorati can fix this show — train the hosts, add links below the video, and dig deeper into the news instead of parroting headlines. Maybe then it'll be worth five minutes of your life.

Technorati Daily Vlog [Technorati]

It is thus with greatest pleasure that I opened the July edition of Valleyschwag. The monthly branded-geegaws package outdid itself by scoring some edibles from aol.com. Love or loathe it, any site that sends Superman cookies bound up with its logo is a winner. The crumbs may fade, but the memory of AOL's gesture — or is that just the saturated fat — will stick with me.

Equally scrumptious is the fortune cookie from Mozes, which tells me to text "fortune" to 66937 for my fortune. Not that I bothered texting, as adding "in bed" to "Mozes" was entertainment enough.

After the jump, more schwag, and someone's holding a hoedown.

Edgeio sends a pleasantly generic sticker that won't go on my iBook, as do abazab, eurekster, and snubster.

AOL accompanies the cookies with a dogtag bearing that little man. He's jumping. It's a symbol of an AOL user trying to fly. AOL must represent gravity, or lost dreams or something.

Jumpcut sends a rough but rightly-sized (small) tee. The logo looks cool enough to wear on an off day.

That's everything except waitwhat'sthisit'saPOSTER FROM VALLEYSCHWAG! Looks like the cowboys are holding a hoedown on July 14 at their office in South Park, San Francisco. Check out the deets and RSVP here.

Valleyschwag [Official site]
Valleyschwag hoedown [Announcement]