Twitter might have some competition in its race to become the “pulse of the planet.”
The latest in social networking, Blerp allows users to post and share comments, videos, photos, and more on top of any site online. Today, the service makes the important transition from alpha mode to beta, with its team announcing that Blerp now features seamless integration through Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox plugins.
Not only does Blerp create discussions right on top any Web site on the Internet, but the latest upgrade allows users who activate their Twitter and/or Facebook accounts to have Blerp posts show up on the feeds on those sites.
The service is trying to both expand online discussions to all the Web pages of the Internet while increasing the potential for multimedia shared by users. As this screenshot shows, users can, in addition to posting regular comments, link back to other articles, post relevant images, and even create polls on the spot.
Blerp is just one of a couple products created by RocketOn, a South San Francisco-based startup aiming to combine all the discussions taking place across the Internet into one unified forum.
RocketOn’s virtual community platform allows users to create an avatar for themselves that can explore any Web site as one segment of the vast virtual world. In addition to chatting and playing games with friends, users can get really silly with their virtual characters by adopting pets or going on dates, just to name a few activities.
Right now, the company’s business model is founded on what it calls a “healthy revenue stream” from the sell of virtual goods to users’ avatars. After raising $5 million in Series B funding from the D.E. Shaw Group in February 2008, RocketOn has been slowly growing as a healthy startup that at least one report has dubbed “Twitter 2.0.”
With Blerp’s upgrade from alpha to beta, RocketOn continues to implement its mission of unifying the Internet’s scattered discussions.
