Hi5 today announced that they will integrate an embedded virtual world platform that they had acquired earlier this year into their service.

Hi5 is one of the most popular social networks and its userbase is mostly outside the US. They clearly see the value in having their users interact with each other more in real-time, rather than the current bulleting-board-like model where a user posts something and you see when you ‘refresh’ your page.

With a dynamic real-time interaction model like Unype, users do not have to refresh their homepage or relogin to the service to see what is new. Each new action, post and event is propagated to all live clients in real-time. Unype’s backend has been fine-tuned to support just that.

We are looking forward to seeing more social networks develop and employ more real-time interaction models.

If you live, work or play in Manhattan you know that finding a bathroom when you need one is typically not easy. Most signs say either "no bathroom" or "bathroom only for customers" and those bathrooms you do find are normally filthy and probably carry more diseases than a rat. Most NY'ers have their bathroom list in memory. I know that most Starbucks have bathrooms (although there is normally a line) and most McDonalds have semi-clean bathrooms. Outside of those 2 companies, it's hit or miss.

A new startup launched last week to help with this problem. The site is named Diaroogle and their mission is simple; help people find a clean bathroom when they need it. Enter an address and find public restrooms with ratings and photos (yuck).

There's a mobile app because when you need to go, you need to go. Josh at Webware says the mobile app lacks a map and any GPS-style positioning so you will be typing with your legs crossed. Clearly in this case the mobile app is what will make or break Diaroogle.

The Google Maps integration works but I would prefer that the bathroom list auto-update as you pan around the city and/or zoom in. Similar to how Yelp handles the map movement.

Currently Diaroogle is in Beta and only available for Manhattan so if you want to use it, move here. They do have plans to expand outside Manhattan. Competitor MizPee is currently the leader in the public toilet space.

The upcoming New York Television Festival (NYTVF) will feature a day-long digital event to recognize producers and content creators on emerging digital platforms.

Digital Day will take place on September 16. The fourth annual New York Television Festival starts September 12 at New World Stages.

LonelyGirl15 and KateModern creators Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried will discuss their new online series ‘The Resistance’ on Digital Day.

Other panelists include author Douglas Rushkoff, Blip.tv’s Dina Kaplan and representatives of Sony Pictures, ABC Entertainment and SciFi Channel.

Partners in Digital Day include For Your Imagination, Blip.tv, Mint Digital, Big Screen/Little Screen and the Web 2.0 Expo.

TVWeek and New Media Minute editor, Daisy Whitney writes, "old Hollywood will increasingly find itself jockeying with the nimble Web TV networks" and For Your Imagination is the scrappiest and most nimble one of the bunch which also includes Revision3, Next New Networks, Mania TV and MyDamnChannel. The article, "Searching for Web Video's Seinfeld" and to foster additional competition there is a poll entitled, Which Web-video studio is poised to make the next Internet mega-hit? With successful content like The Green House, DadLabs, Kyle Piccolo, xgobobeanx, and Break a Leg, the choice is simple, vote for For Your Imagination! Thanks Daisy!

Editor's note: This news was embargoed for Tuesday morning but the embargo was busted this afternoon so per our embargo policy, we will post now.

NY-based Appointment planning and physician review service ZocDoc has announced today that they have raised $3 million in a Series A round of funding. The round was led by Khosla Ventures and David Weiden from Khosla Ventures will join the ZocDoc board. This is Khosla Ventures first investment in the consumer healthcare industry.

ZocDoc helps you book doctor appointments online and find immediate openings. You can also check out Yelp-style doctor reviews. The service is currently only available in NYC but the founders say San Francisco is coming in 2009. Check out our ZocDoc coverage including video demo, launch of dermatologists, What I'd like to see is pricing information when services are outside an insurance plan.

While ZocDoc isn't as "sexy" as some of the other startups out there, it is one of the most useful out there today. I continue to be impressed with the service and how they are expanding into more healthcare practices. Last week I booked my first doctor appointment using ZocDoc and will have a full review after my appointment tomorrow.

Designer Pages is a collaboration platform for designers and product suppliers. Founders Jacob Slevin and Avi Flombaum will present the company tomorrow at the Web2NewYork networking party.

Editor's Note: This news was embargoed for 8am today. Another blog busted the embargo posting 7 hours ago, so per our embargo policy, we will post the news now. 

NY-based white label social networking provider KickApps has announced a new partnership today with Akamai. The partnership will bring Akamai's Stream OS video management system into the KickApps video player. The Stream OS provides KickApps customers with high-end video management and the Akamai media player will allow for ad integration inside the KickApps video player. KickApps notes that the combined offering provides web publishers with drag-and-drop video player creation, a comprehensive media management system, social media enhancements, HD video players, and new video revenue opportunities.

As this new video rollout is part of the KickApps social network solution, all of the normal KA social features are available including commenting, rating and sharing of the media. The new partnership also allows for on-demand deployment of High Definition (HD) video. The key for KickApps is to listen to their customer's needs and meet them - this video partnership helps to keep their customers in-house for video distribution.

Pricing for this new video content delivery system will be based on usage and SVP Michael Chin tells me it will be "extremely low". Chin also notes that, "we believe we’re able to match Brightcove & Maven for the higher end market".

It's important to consider whether hosting video content yourself (like the new solution above) or on a video hosting solution is best. There are pros and cons to both solutions - we took a look at some of the issues last month. The strategy and the goals must be considered.

KickApps recently partnered with Userplane on IM/chat and with Clearspring on widgets.

ClickZ has announced that their editorial team will be moving today to a new office downtown at 120 Broadway. The company notes that various teams will be centralized including the law.com team.

Search engine Hakia is down in that area along with a variety of other NYC startups. The area seems to be growing in popularity from what I've seen over the past year. Hubs of startups all growing all around Manhattan - it's great to see!

In the process of managing non-profits and startups, I’ve used many different online tools to better enable collaboration and communication in organizations. Through the years, I’ve tried many different tools, and now think I have a pretty good list. I am still looking for solutions in two major areas, and would love suggestions if anyone has them.

Website Registration:I’ve used GoDaddy and Namecheap in the past and they are both really good. If you have to be anonymous, I have had good experience with International Alliance Privacy Services.

Website Hosting: I have tried self hosting, as well as many different online hosts. If you have a good technical person on board, and REALLY have the need for something advanced (cron jobs, RoR, significant processing needs), then you can try either dedicated hosting or colocation. For dedicated hosting, I really like Softlayer. For NYC based colocation, I really like Pilosoft. For most website hosting needs, all you need is a good shared hosting provider. I highly recommend NearlyFreeSpeech. I do NOT recommend GoDaddy, or NameCheap.

DNS Hosting: Normally I just use my domain registrant, or my website host for DNS hosting. However, if I really need to be anonymous, I will use FreeDNS.

Email Needs: I used to use my own mail servers, but now I completely rely on Google Apps. If you are a registered 501-c3 organization, you can also get GoogleApps Education, and Google Checkout for free. Therefore you get the hyped up version of Google Apps, as well as free payment processing!

Actual Website:: I am not a total Wordpress convert. It started as a blogging software, but has grown to become a very very stable content management system. I’ve tried other CMS like Joomla and Drupal, but they are really really complicated to work with.

Internal Website: Mediawiki, the software behind Wikipedia, is great for internal websites. Any member can just click on edit and add or remove information. I’ve tried other wiki installations, but none are easier to maintain than MediaWiki.

Phone Service: For those who simply need a phone number, but don’t necessarily want to answer it all the time, I highly recommend the currently freeGrandCentral if you can secure an invitation. If you can’t secure an invitation, you can use RingCentral.

Fax Service: For a great fax to email service, definitely try RingCentral.

Conference Call Service: Unless you really need a toll-free number, I highly recommend FreeConferenceCall. There is a short message in the beginning of the call saying this is a service provided by freeconferencecall.com, but do you really mind?!

Forms, Spreadsheets and Documents: I really like GoogleDocs (part of Google Apps mentioned above) for simple spreadsheets that are shared between multiple people, i.e. financial projections between executive committee members. However, if you need to construct a nice looking form to accept information, Google Spreadsheet really sucks. I’ve found Zoho Creator to be absolutely amazing in that respect though. They even allowed for scripted actions like automatically sending an email using data you just collected as acknowledgment. For example, at the New York Interscholastic Mathematics League, we use it to collect registration information.

Business Banking I am starting to really like Chase Business banking. They have a pretty high monthly service charge, but one that can be waived if you open a business credit card and charge any amount on it each month. So simply have your credit card make 1 dollar monthly payment onto Paypal.

Newsletter I’ve tried out Constant Contact and they are a great service provide. Unfortunately, they are also decently expensive (15 dollars a month) for organizations starting out. I’ve tried open source solutions like Dadamail and Phplist. They are simply too difficult to use for any normal human being. If anyone knows of any good newsletter provider, hosted or not, I would LOVE to know.

Project Management This is an area I’ve tried many tools and just can’t quite get used to any of them. BaseCamp seems to be the best at the moment, but they are REALLY expensive. Also, I STILL don’t know the difference between milestones and tasks. Ever since Activecollab betrayed the open source community, it has started to really suck even as a tool. I have found Collabtive to be a really good imitation of BaseCamp, but not nearly as polished. So if someone knows of a good project management tool, I would love to know.

So there you go, my years of trying out different tools boiled down onto one blog post!

Evidently rumors of the venture economy’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. At the beginning of the month New York-based serious game entrepreneur Nt Etuk announced he had raised a Series B round of $6M for Tabula Digita, the educational game company he founded four years ago. Here’s the lead of the press release:

New York, Aug. 1, 2008 - Tabula Digita,Inc., an educational gaming company delivering pre-algebra and algebra software programs to K-12 schools and consumers, announced that it recently closed its Series B funding led by Ascend Venture Group, LLC.

“Tabula Digita’s educational video games have been embraced by some of the most respected thought-leaders in K-12 education,” said Ntiedo Etuk, chief executive officer of Tabula Digita. “This tremendous acceptance, coupled with positive reviews from all corners of the market, has been both flattering and suggests that we will be successful in transforming the way children learn and their level of engagement.”

Nt and his founding partner Rob Clegg were early entrants, making serious games for K-12 against skepticism and long odds to pioneer the market. With that back story in mind, this new round of funding is even sweeter and comes with our wishes for continued success.