Webware killed the harddrive

100 Ways Google Can Make You a Better Educator | OEDb

2010-08-26T22:06:00.001-03:00

100 Ways Google Can Make You a Better Educator | OEDb

26 New And Awesome Web Apps You Probably Don’t Know About

2010-07-21T20:13:00.001-03:00

" Ten years ago, who would have thought that most of our work would depend on the internet? The internet allows us to have easy access to our files, anywhere, anytime. We chat face to face with friends, meet clients virtually, process payments in a flash and much more. The internet is huge and you can’t get enough of it. It has no end. "

26 New And Awesome Web Apps You Probably Don’t Know About

Google and your Business.

2009-10-03T16:24:00.003-03:00

With all the hype surrounding Google Wave, Lifehack asks:

Is Google Ready to Handle Your Business? (Part 1 of 2)

Is Google Ready to Handle Your Business? (Part 2 of 2)

You can also read this post:

Top 10 Web Collaboration Tools (That Aren't Google Wave)

What is Cloud Computing?

2009-09-25T19:45:00.002-03:00

RealTime Web: 30 People to Follow.

2009-09-13T15:35:00.002-03:00

I just encountered this article about:

30 People to Follow Regarding the Realtime Web, written by Marschal Fitzpatrick. His list is here.

This one follows three posts about the Reatime Web: post one, post two and post three.

If you think someone else should be part of that list. Well, contact him. He will be glad to add that person to it.

Just Tried Scribblelive for fun

2009-09-06T19:02:00.003-03:00

My first event on Scribblelive. It seems a good alternative for live blogging.

3:42 PM: gagneeric

3:42 PM: gagneeric Test de Scribblelive en utilisant une visite au parc Jarry

3:53 PM: gagneeric Adresse de courriel trop longue pour mon carnet d'adresse. Devrai texter avec Twitter. Pas de photo ou video.

3:55 PM: gagneeric Allo de twitter

3:55 PM: gagneeric Ca marche.

3:59 PM: gagneeric Elle dort toujours. On doit attendre.

4:00 PM: gagneeric Fallait qe je le dise pour qu'elle se revelle. Sur le point de partir au parc Jarry.

4:05 PM: gagneeric

4:09 PM: gagneeric Je prepare la poussette

4:55 PM: gagneeric In parc jarry

5:01 PM: gagneeric

5:08 PM: gagneeric

5:13 PM: gagneeric

5:18 PM: gagneeric

5:44 PM: gagneeric

6:21 PM: gagneeric Pour les photos avec tweetpic ca marche...

6:30 PM: gagneeric Parc Jarry yfrog.com

6:30 PM: gagneeric

6:48 PM: gagneeric This test is over...

Effective Social Media Marketing.

2009-09-06T18:55:00.002-03:00

How to establish an integrated message across all social media platforms according to Phyllis Zimbler Miller:

Step 1: Decide on your core brand or positioning – what is your Unique Selling Proposition that makes you stand out from your competition.

Step 2: Evaluate and revise where necessary your Web site/blog to reflect this brand. Think of your Web site/blog as your home base from which your rockets ships will launch into social media space.

Step 3: Begin with one or two social media platforms, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, and engage based on a social strategy developed to promote your brand. Be sure to have your blog posts support this social media strategy.

Step 4: Expand your social media strategy to more social media platforms, always ensuring that the strategy you use on these new platforms supports your previous social media platform strategy.

Real-Time Web 3

2009-09-05T18:44:00.002-03:00

ReadWriteWeb continues to look inside the real-time Web in this last part of a three-part series on the fundamental characteristics of the real-time Web.

"As with other recent waves of innovation (Web 2.0 and cloud computing, for example) there is no single definition of what the term "real-time Web" means. As a result, it is used as a catch-all phrase for a number of developments underway. At this point, we can identify that the real-time Web...

1. is a new form of communication,

2. creates a new body of content,

3. is real time,

4. is public and has an explicit social graph associated with it,

5. carries an implicit model of federation."

The first part is here.

The second part here.

The last part is here.

Real-Time Web 2

2009-08-31T19:39:00.004-03:00

ReadWriteWeb continues to look inside the real-time Web in these first and second parts of a three-part series on the fundamental characteristics of the real-time Web.

1. is a new form of communication,

2. creates a new body of content,

3. is real time,

4. is public and has an explicit social graph associated with it,

5. carries an implicit model of federation."

The first part is here.

The second part here.

Create Groups like in Facebook With Twinester.

2009-08-14T17:10:00.004-03:00

Twinester allows you to create or join groups and communities for Twitter. These groups are called Nests.

All you need is your Twitter login datas. Easy!

Real-Time Web

2009-08-11T18:48:00.006-03:00

After Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, we are entering slowy into the Semantic Web and what is called the Real-Time Web.

Like it was reported last month on ReadWriteWeb:

"Real-time information delivery is fast emerging as one of the most important elements of our online experience. No more waiting for the Pony Express to deliver a parcel cross-country, no more waiting for web services to communicate from one polling instance to another. This is information being available to you at nearly the moment it's produced, whether you're watching for it or not."

Instant messaging services such as Twitter, Friendfeed or Facebook chat would be the foundation of this real-time Web. You can find a list of Real-Time Web startups in the post from Business Week:

"Real-Time Web startups are providing everything from basic utilities and business applications to search and e-commerce."

Examples are: Building43 which wants to make it easier for businesses to use the new Internet to improve their business results; JS-Kit which has a tool called Echo that should allow you to communicate with all your friends and followers in Facebook, Twitter, Google or Yahoo!; or OneRiot which is a real-time search engine.

Real-Time Web Collaboration Tool from Tiago Serra on Vimeo.

Sharing Large Files? Try one of these Apps.

2009-08-11T14:23:00.003-03:00

Orli Yahkuel (hot geeky girl) published an interesting post on Techcrunch about 16 apps that will allow you to share large files on the Web.

As far as she is concerned, if she had to choose one, it would be Mediafire. But, as you might guessed, ther is no complete free service. So, depending on the file and the situation, you might want to stick with three or four just to cover all bases.

Don't forget to take a look at the comments. Good info there too.

Real-Time Google Maps Directory.

2009-08-09T19:09:00.001-03:00

Title says it all: Real-Time Google Maps Directory. Link is here.

A New PC: 10 Free Webwares to Install First.

2009-07-30T15:43:00.002-03:00

In the previous post, I introduced DustinWax's opinions about Panda Cloud Free Antivirus. His comments were part of a post on Lifehack blog about the 10 free apps you should promptly install on a new PC.

Here are the next nine:

For more details, go to Wax's post here.

Avira AntiVir Personal Free Antivirus.

2009-07-27T14:53:00.006-03:00

On my laptop, I have Norton Antivirus 2009. Symantec is supposed to let me install this program on three more computers for free. I tried different times to install it on my desktop and I failed. Don't know why. So I lost patience and I didn't want to lose more time waiting for a support answer.

I checked the Web for a good free antivirus and stumbled on Avira's AntiVir Personal Free Antivirus. You can check a review here on CNET.

From Avira :

Avira AntiVir Personal Free Antivirus is a comprehensive, easy to use antivirus program, designed to offer reliable free of charge virus protection to home-users only. Avira offers: Extensive Malware Recognition of viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, worms; Automatic incremental updates of antivirus signatures, engine and entire software; Permanent virus protection, with Virus Guard real time monitoring; Install and configuration in just a couple of steps, setup to protect your PC in minutes; Virus protection \against known and unknown threats, using an advanced heuristic system; Scheduler where you can set the scanner to make automatic virus scans or updates on your system; Forum and phone support; Knowledge Base with virus descriptions available on web site; Rootkit Detection and Removal; A modularized AV-search engine for improved scan performance.

Version 9 introduces a quick-removal button for eliminating viruses with a single click, enhanced anti-spyware and anti-adware engines, and support for low resolution netbook screens.

The only criticism I would make, my desktop seems to take more time to be ready. But, I really need to buy more RAM. It is usually a torture, Avira or not.

Dustin Wax, project manager at Stepcase Lifehack, used to use the free AVG Antivirus, but he's found that at some point – in every version of AVG he's used – it stopped updating automatically. So a few months ago, he decided to try Panda’s free Cloud Antivirus, and has been very happy: updates happen in the background, files and problems are quietly taken care of.

So, now you have three possibilities to choose from.

Convert PDF to Word.

2009-07-22T16:45:00.003-03:00

I've been looking for a webware like this for three years now. I needed to convert to upload some files to my PalmDrive. DAH! Couldn't make the PDF app work... but the Word app, no problem.

Now, my problem is solved. Here is a link to a page that will allow you to convert PDF to Word with no effort.

There is even a link to convert PDF to excel as well.

Twitcam: Livesteam Video through Twitter.

2009-07-21T14:30:00.004-03:00

The Livestream team has a new tool for livestreaming video. It is called Twitcam and it turns Twitter into a live streaming hub.

Twitcam posts your video description and link to Twitter for all your followers to see. While broadcasting, chat with your viewers via Twitter right from your broadcast page. Once you’re done going live, we archive your video and display it on the same page.

You can also post a link to your Facebook page.

SavorChat: On the Spot Chat with your Facebook and Twitter Followers.

2009-07-14T14:44:00.003-03:00

In a previous post, I wrote about Chatzy, a chat service, which allows you to create a "on-the-spot" backcommunication channel for your lectures, conferences or meetings.

But, if your listeners are Facebook's friends or Twitter's followers, you could also use SavorChat.

SavorChat, created by Marc Stedman (co-founder of Savor the Success), is a new chat service that allows you to connect with your Facebook contacts and your Twitter followers within a chat group.

Once logged in, all your conversations will be shared via Facebook Connect or Twitter OAuth. All your chats will also display the profile pictures and an icon indicating if the chatters come through Twitter or Facebook. By clicking on their photo/icon, you arrive on the participant profile.

TwitR: Another Twitter Directory

2009-07-13T17:28:00.001-03:00

As the title of the review puts it, TwitR is a Twitter directory which is organized by tags, and that will let you see who the top users are at any given time.

OneRiot: Realtime Search Engine

2009-07-13T17:22:00.001-03:00

OneRiot, a realtime search engine, launched in November of 2009.

Actually, OneRiot prioritizes its search results according to PulseRank, a realtime ranking algorithm that delivers search results as they emerge, ordered to reflect current social relevance.

OneRiot is a privately held company headquartered in Boulder, Colo. with offices in San Francisco. (via Crunchbase)

Chatzy: The On The Spot Chat Service.

2009-07-08T13:55:00.003-03:00

You prepared a meeting, lecture or a conference. You need a backroom communication service to allow your listeners to post comments or questions in realtime . Try Chatzy.

Chatzy is a good alternative to traditional chat sites as well as ICQ, Yahoo, MSN and AOL Messenger:

* Chatzy has no registration steps - your friends or listeners can join instantly.

* Chatzy is free and has no popup ads.

* Chatzy does not require any installation on your computer (= no spyware).

* Chatzy works on any PC, with any language and through corporate firewalls.

* Chatzy is simple and easy to use.

You only need an access to a WiFi service.

Prezi, the Flash-Based Presentation Tool.

2009-04-20T17:23:00.002-03:00

The company calls Prezi a zooming presentation editor and the description is accurate as a presentation seems to flow more cohesively via the presentation of numerous free-flowing ideas instead of being linear in nature.

That is the hope of Flash-based software/service Prezi and thanks to Robin Wauters at TechCrunch I learned about it this morning and have had a chance to look at some of the sample presentations and play with the editor as well. A few examples worth checking out are this one which shows just how graphics can really become a larger part of telling an overall story and this one where you can see how a great deal of text can be organized fairly cleanly.

You can try a free version which contains the company logo or 39 euros per year gives you more storage space and the ability to share your presentations online. For 119 euros you get a Mac and Windows desktop application which allows you to design and edit presentations offline.

Oprah loves Twitter.

2009-04-16T18:43:00.007-03:00

Better than an endorsement from the Pope, Oprah will help (as if it needed it) it to grow even more. For instance,according to Compete, a Web analytics firm, Twitter had 14 million unique visitors in March, up from 8 million in February.

According to Oprah's Web site, she has just joined Twitter. She has ben silent up to now, but more than 30,000 followers have already signed up to follow her every 140-character thought, and the number is growing.

The rumor: she would write her first tweet on Friday, when she is dedicating her show to Twitter. (It airs at 4 p.m. Eastern time — check your local listings here for details on viewing the show in your area.)

Ashton Kutcher will be on the guestlist. He is one of Twitter's most active celebrity twitterers and will likely talk about his race with CNN to be the first to get a million followers. I took side for CNN which I am following.

Evan Williams, Twitter's chief executive, could be on the show, too. He mysteriously twittered this message this morning: "Tomorrow (Friday) just became a very big day.

(via NYT)

(update 17/04/09) Twitter was about to explode during the show which was not live, but taped at 11:00 AM ET. Just check the amount of tweets including Oprah in it here.

Through Webguild's Twitter feed, I found this interesting comment about this celebrities thing invading Twitter.

Natania Johnson on SearchEngineWatch wrote this:

"I don't mind celebrities using Twitter. But when I hear things like Oprah crowning Ashton Kutcher the "King" of Twitter, I think - why in the world does Oprah think she's the one who should make a proclamation?

...But with Twitter, the celebrities practically came from out of nowhere and decided they were the most awesome thing to come to Twitter since, well, the millions of users who were already there.

I guess it's just that I've watched people in a variety of niches really advance Twitter, and then Oprah comes along riding coattails and interviewing celebrities.

Don't get me wrong, I love that Twitter is getting so much attention. For those of you who are trying to market your business via Twitter, having Oprah's fans on there certainly helps.

But for those of us geeks who've been on Twitter for a while, this just feels like the captain of the cheerleading squad trying to take over the yearbook. Or the chess club."

Social Objects Site Building by Jyri Engeström.

2009-04-05T16:28:00.004-03:00

In the following slideshow, Jyri Engeström, co-founder of Jaiku and now Google employee, speaks among other things about building sites around social objects. In other words, the social sites we visit today are not just friend networks - they're also built around objects that connect people with shared interests. These social objects could be anything from a photo on flickr to a video on YouTube or a track on Last.fm.

Microblogging: Tiny social objects. On the future of participatory media

View more presentations from Jyri Engeström.

The five key principles for building sites around social objects are:

1. Define Your Object: This is the easy part, but perhaps most important. The social object will be the center of your network. On eBay, it's whatever item you're selling or buying. On Amazon, it's a product. On Flickr, it's a photo and so on.

2. Define Your Verbs: This means what do you want people to do with your social object. Do you want them to comment? Rate it? Share it? Watch it? Etc. Make sure whatever action they should take is clear and highly visible on the site.

3. Make the Objects Shareable: This is almost a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how many sites have not made it easy (or even possible!) to share the object which their site is centered around.

4. Turn Invitations into Gifts: Want your friends to join you on the network? Don't just spam them with an invite, send them something of value. Jyri mentioned how a purchase of a Skype headset years ago also included a set for a friend. Also, PayPal had originally offered a small amount of money posted to the account of your friends who signed up for the service.

5. Charge the Publishers, Not the Spectators: On any network, there are those who are creating and those who are passively consuming the content. You shouldn't charge the latter, only the former. The people who are actively using the service and are getting value from it in some way are the ones who would be willing to pay for additional features or, in some cases, just to use the service itself.

Word Processing: Go Online or not.

2009-03-22T17:35:00.002-03:00

The main benefit of online word processors is their availability from any computer with an Internet connection. You can't count on being able to access the same software on one computer that I used on the last — and unfortunately, although most modern file formats can be read by any word processor, there's always the risk of losing formatting, pagination, or fonts opening a document created in one program (or version) in another.

Using an online word processor means to have a standard format and interface from computer to computer. You don't have to worry about whether the version of Word on this computer matches the one on the computer where you started your document, or whether you won't be able to open it at all. You just log in to Google Docs or Buzzword and continue where you left off.

Off-site storage and backup is another advantage of online word processors. No matter what kind of trouble you get into, your documents are still safe and sound on servers hundreds of miles away.

When it comes to collaboration collaboration/sharing, most online word processors beat even the mighty Word, hands down. Documents can be worked on live, rather than emailing copies back and forth and trying to keep track of versions. Plus, most online word processors allow you to set various levels of permissions, so that you can offer read-only access to one group of viewers, full editing privileges to another, and the ability to add comments to a third. You can often post documents directly to the Web, too, which can be quite handy.

Finally, some online word processors just have good user interfaces. Google Docs is simple, streamlined, perfect for just opening a document and slapping some thoughts together. Adobe's Buzzword, on the other hand, is simply gorgeous.

The main weakness could be security or ... the perception around letting someone else guard your precious texts and secrets. But, if you feel safe enough about leaving thousands of dollars in someone else's bank, why not do the same with your writings. However, hardware isn't inherently more secure than web-based solutions — look at how many laptops, hard drives, and thumb drives get lost by businesses and even national security agencies like the FBI!

H & R Block Goes Web 2.0

2009-03-13T18:34:00.002-02:00

You read right, H&R Block has a "new" Web 2.0 strategy. First, this podcast found on PodTech in which Paula Drum,vice president of marketing for H&R Block, explains how programs using Twitter, Second Life and other onlines venues have had impressive success..

The campaign created by 360i centered on creating a fun and educational online experience for consumers looking to find out more about taxes and H&R Block's tax solutions. 360i developed portable assets that proved taxes could be fun and engaging, including games and quizzes, which were then spread across the Web for consumers to find and share with friends. In addition, 360i created a robust social media strategy to distribute these assets and to support H&R Block's fictional "brand evangelist," Truman Greene.

The social media program also included:

Creating a brand presence in social spaces, giving consumers a platform to interact with HRB on MySpace, Facebook, and eHarmony.

Highlighting HRB's digital products through interactive and sharable widgets.

Starting conversations with online influencers using Twitter.

In his blog, Fagstein commentsd this:

"The videos of the Montreal portion of the trip start at Episode 24 (which is on YouTube but hasn't been posted to the H&R website yet).

After that you can see the fun of hauling luggage up stairs, putting on makeup and walking around taking pictures.

My favourite though is Episode 27, in which "Cassidy" (who knows/cares if that's his real name) walks out of an apartment next to Café Chaos on St. Denis and somehow ends up on an OC Transpo bus holding a copy of Ottawa's 24 Hours daily before the sun comes up. That's some fast walking! "

Doesn't matter. I will still complete my tax forms by myself, even though I am all for Web 2.0 marketing.

Please Retweet Me

2009-03-09T17:54:00.002-02:00

The "Retweet" (or RT) is the act of republishing a tweet from another user by adding RT before it, in order to share it with his community of followers.

Please Retweet Me is a new service that allows those who have articles, information, applications or causes to be "Retweeted" easily (by clicking on a special link appended at the end of the message which allows you to republish it on its own account).

Embedr: Create Video Playlists; Shozu: Centraliz your Upload.

2009-02-10T19:33:00.007-02:00

Yesterday, I registered to two new webwares: Embedr and Shozu.

With Embedr, you’ll be able to almost instantly create a custom video playlist, which you’ll then be able to embed on your site. All you have to do is name your playlist, and then start adding videos from different services.

You can add tags, descriptions, and other things to make the playlist more complete. After you’re done, you’ll be given the embed code, which you’ll then be able to paste into you site’s code, allowing everyone to see it.

Online video has come a long way since the early days of YouTube, and Embedr.com is a clear testament of that.

As an example, here is a playlist I created from videos about the Buffalo Plane Crash.

With ShoZu, you can transfer content from your phone directly to as many as 30 content sharing sites including YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, and Webshots. This is done using ShoZu’s patented upload system. In addition to the convenience that the service provides, users also save money on data costs by only sending a single message, ShoZu handles the rest. ShoZu works in both directions, users can have online content sent to their phones. Over 300 cell phones are compatible with ShoZu.

(via Crunchbase)

Splashcast Extends its Free Service for a While Longer.

2009-02-05T18:52:00.004-02:00

I was going to write a note about the lack of reaction around the disappearance of Splashcast's free service, lack of buzz, which showed maybe it is the right thing to do.

Until Sunday, they were only four notes written about it on the Internet:

On NorthWest Innovation

Silicon Florists

Now Public

Oregon Startup Blog

On the Splashcast blog, only six complaints. So, did anyone care really? The guys at Splashcast seemed to care:

"We have been listening!

Many SplashCast community members have requested that we continue offering our free product. Frankly, we were surprised and delighted by the passionate response.

In response, we have decided to offer any user an extension of their free account for at least another few months. During this time we will determine whether there is enough demand to support a monthly subscription-based service. You can request your free account extension on this page:

http://splashcastmedia.com/blog/survey.aspx

Thank you all for your feedback. We are listening to you.

Sincerely,
Mike
CEO "

Thanks guys. Now, you are talking.

Splashcast Pulls the Plug on Free Service

2009-01-29T19:47:00.004-02:00

After a couple of years in service, Splashcast finally decided to to discontinue their user generated content product as of February 11. Tom Turnbull writes on the startup blog:

"All successful startup companies must focus. SplashCast is no different. Therefore, we have decided to discontinue our user generated content product as of February 11. We want to give our loyal (and brilliantly creative) users a chance to find other services that meet their needs.

This is a tough decision for us. I personally enjoy checking out our user generated channels. There is some truly amazing content, from hilarious to moving."

I also read here that the user base of their premium video applications is about 100 times larger than their UGC user base including several of the largest brand advertisers who are lining up to sponsor Splashcast's primetime TV and music apps.

Obviously, some people are not very happy about this decision as you can read in Splashcast blog's comments section.

Erwin Blom: "Strange, I’d say you wouldn’t be where you are now without the user generated channels. They helped spreading your word. And now the word is out, you don’t need them anymore? Strange."

Chris Brennan: "You are turning your back on the very people that helped you broadcast your brand to the world. You have an amazing product but you are making a very poor business decision. If the option were given to me, I personally would have registered for a paid version. However, you have given no us no option. I used to be a raving fan of Splashcast. Please reconsider your decision. Thank you."

Now, we will have to find an alternative solution. Is there a way to download the files (shows) as a whole, instead of redoing the whole thing using another presentation tool?

So long Google Video Upload, Notebook, Catalog Search and DodgeBall.

2009-01-21T18:53:00.003-02:00

Google wrote officially about the closures and changes in the following posts:

Turning Down Uploads at Google Video
Farewell, Google Catalog Search
Stopping development on Google Notebook
Changes for Jaiku and Farewell to Dodgeball and Mashup Editor

Google Video was transformed more into a meta video search service than a site for hosting videos.

Google Catalogs is a service that long ago was effectively abandoned by Google.

Google Notebook closes, though those with existing accounts can continue to save material. New accounts won’t be allowed, however — nor will the service be further developed, and the Google Notebook Extension for browsers will no longer work.

Dodgeball was designed to allow people to easily connect with others near them via their cell phones.

And what about Jaiku? Jaiku is a micro-blogging service similar to Twitter that never got out of the invite-only stage. The Jaiku code will be made available to anyone. Jaiku will be maintained as place for people to post as well, supported by volunteer Googlers.

Video Startups Webware Market.

2009-01-09T19:05:00.005-02:00

There is an excellent note NewTeeVee called The Outlook for Video Startups in 2009 in which is described almost all video-related online startups. According to this note, all those that have not achieved their second round or managed a network or like YouTube do not belong to a giant will close or be acquired at auction price. Why? Because advertising can not take off and all video startups are based on that model.

Even though, according to Comscore, online video consumption grew by 34% in 2008 and has continued its upward curve. Furthermore, the above chart shows that YouTube has 40% of the total market and the second one, Fox, has less than 4% of the market. that there is no independent startups, and finally, nearly all independent media groups also have a presence on YouTube because Youtube means audience.

DMFAIL: Direct Private Messages Become Public

2008-12-29T19:16:00.005-02:00

As you may know, Twitter has several keyboard shortcuts. For instance, we can send private messages quickly by typing: D user message.

If, by mistake you typed or believed that DM is short for direct message, and wrote "DM user message", your messages were sent to the public stream.

DMFail is a new Twitter service that grabs all those messages and reprints them on its site for everyone to see, which can be quite a horrible experience for the people involved.

Here are more Twitter keyboard shortcuts:

Use the arrow or page up/down keys to navigate in the tweet list. twibble also has some shortcuts for numeric and qwerty keyboards (List describes twibble Version 0.8.6):

[0]: options dialog
[1] or [t]: send a tweet
[2] or [r]: @-reply to selected screen name
[3] or [d]: direct message
[4]: toggle between all tweets and dm/@-Messages
[5]: jump to first tweet
[7]: Mark selected tweet as a favorite
[8] or [h]: Run twibble in the background (Note: twibble may still try to fetch new tweets using your data connection! To shut down twibble always use exit)
[9]: Show log (to see more messages raise the log level in the Options dialog)
[*] or [u]: Fetch new tweets (use this to manually update your tweets. Only new tweets will be fetched and inserted to the current list)
[#]: Reload tweet list (the current tweet list will be cleared and the tweet list from the twitter server will be reloaded)

Also, on Mashable: 230+ Keyboard Shortcuts for Top Web Services.

Lastest News from Netvibes.

2008-12-27T20:59:00.002-02:00

I still enjoy my Netvibes pages. So here are the lastest news from the Netvibes team.

1. You can invite your friends to join Netvibes! Click "Contacts" then "Find Friends" to find your friends listed in your email address book, on social networks or even those we think "you may know".

2. You can share your favorite content and widgets with your friends via Netvibes, Facebook, Twitter or email. Whenever you see the yellow arrow, click it to send the item to your friends.

3. You can drag a widget directly from the "Add content" section to your page! It's the easiest and quickest way to add a widget straight to your page.

Coveritlive and Twitter.

2008-12-22T20:38:00.002-02:00

It is now possible to integrate up to 12 Twitter feeds into your CoveritLive event. Just type in the Twitter accounts you want to autopublish and every minute, CoveritLive will go get any new Tweets and publish them directly into your Viewer Window with a little 't' logo so your readers know it was a Tweet.

And coming up in early 2009:

- Enhanced Q&A and Panel Discussion: edit your reader comments before you publish, enhancements to collect questions before you go live, better communication between panelists (i.e. get notified if they are typing their answer...like MSN Messenger).

- Expansion of 'unmoderated' Reader Comments: reducing the burden of comment approval if you have readers you can trust.

- The Ticker/Scoreboard Feature: creates a 'stock ticker' that runs inside your Viewer Window with information you create (the score of the game, a link to a live video stream, etc.).

Web Applications Vulnerabilities

2008-12-21T19:41:00.002-02:00

A new report by consultancy Corsaire found that, despite a general improvement in security over the past six years, just under 25 per cent of the problems could have a 'critical' or 'high' impact on application security, representing a significant likelihood of data loss or other security breach. The remaining three quarters were split between 'medium' and 'low' impact.

The State of the Web white paper analysed samples of security assessments of applications from leading companies in a number of sectors across the UK, Australia, Europe, the US and Asia.

Google Transit: a very useful Webware.

2008-10-26T15:47:00.002-02:00

If you are planning a trip on a public service vehicule, you should try Google Transit. Google's Transit service, which allows you to choose "by public transit" when finding directions via Google Maps, has been updated to include route and departure information for the STM's buses and metro. The service, which is also available in Vancouver, Ottawa, Fredericton and dozens of U.S. cities.

Google Transit suggests alternate routes, says how long they'll take, and provides the time of departure and arrival of each bus or metro. This is no simple undertaking. Google requires the transit agency to provide a database of all departures for all routes in a specific format. We're talking thousands and thousands of departures here.

Twitter for PR.

2008-10-23T19:13:00.002-02:00

Social Media Classroom and Collaboratory.

2008-10-20T19:15:00.002-02:00

As a teacher, an educational webware is an interesting thing since there still are a few of them. The Social Media Classroom (SMC) includes a free and open-source (Drupal-based) web service that provides teachers and learners with an integrated set of social media that each course can use for its own purposes—integrated forum, blog, comment, wiki, chat, social bookmarking, RSS, microblogging, widgets , and video commenting are the first set of tools. The Classroom also includes curricular material: syllabi, lesson plans, resource repositories, screencasts and videos.

To know about this project, click here.

Wiggio: Online Collaboration

2008-09-17T17:39:00.003-03:00

If you’ve ever had to work with group members unfamiliar with tools beyond email, Wiggio can provide an easy solution for group collaboration.

Wiggio’s interface is very simple — lots of clearly-labeled buttons that less-than-internet-savvy group members can handle without much trouble. There are six main tools:

Calendar — A fairly simple shared calendar that allows you to manage group events. There’s no easy way to add this calendar to whatever time management system you use, but you can set up an automatic email whenever a change is made to the calendar (or any other part of your group). Gmail seems to be able translate those emails into Google Calendar events without an issue.

Folder — You can upload most file types to your Wiggio groups. Wiggio can even handle version-tracking automatically. A group member can download the file, change it and re-upload it. He doesn’t need to change the file name or anything for Wiggio to recognize it as a new version. Old versions are still available.

Meeting — Wiggio offers two types of meetings for users: a chatroom and a conference call. For conference calls, Wiggio uses Rondee, a free conference call service. Wiggio will also host chats for your group.

Poll — Not all collaboration applications offer any tools to help with decision making, but with Wiggio’s Poll system, you can matters to a vote in your group. You don’t even need to track responses to get an answer.

Messages — Through Wiggio, you can send messages to group members in three different ways: text message, email and voice note. You can also post notes on your group’s home page, but no guarantee that group members will log in and see them. I was a little concerned at first that the text message and voice mail options meant that the entire group would have access to my phone number, but all of that is handled internally.

Links — The link tool is simply a place to paste in links so that your group has a shared set of bookmarks.

Wiggio was designed by a group of seniors at Cornell University who were tired of the variety of tools they had to use to keep their group projects running and systems that required techno-savvy to use. Rather than struggle with list-servs and long email lists, they put together one site that could do it all — and for all the different groups they participated in at school. The Wiggio team is clearly starting to branch out to other organizations, like small businesses and committees, as well. There is no cost to use Wiggio. The site uses advertisements to make money.

Firefox 3

2008-09-10T17:04:00.003-03:00

A couple of weeks ago, I updated my Firefox browser for the version 3. So far, I am enjoying it very much. I heard that there were some problems with some specific sites. As far as I am concerned, I haven't encountered this problem yet.

I don't know if it is related but, since I updated, my desktop resolution is set automatically to 640X480 when I turn my laptop on. I don't see how it could be related. But, the coincidence is there.

History, bookmarks and discovery

The most significant enhancement to Firefox 3 is also the most subtle. It’s the location bar, the text field at the top of the window where you enter the web address of your desired destination. Once a purely pedestrian feature, the location bar in Firefox 3 has been juiced up to the point where it is now central to the browsing experience.

Start typing a URL and the window leaps to your aid, searching the page titles and URLs in your browsing history and offering suggestions for the page you’re most likely looking for. Searches are instantaneous and happen as you type. Continue typing and your searches get narrower. Pick a URL from the list and Firefox will remember your choice. The next time you type that same term, your previous choice will appear near the top of the list, if not at the very top.

Early testers of Firefox 3 loved this new feature so much, they nicknamed it the “Awesome Bar.”

Much in the way Gmail’s powerful search box has replaced the old categorization paradigm of menus and folders for sorting and finding old e-mail messages, the Awesome Bar has largely replaced the need for a traditional bookmark filing system. Still, many users will continue to prefer the granular control and long term security afforded by a folder-based bookmark system. These users have not been ignored. With Firefox 3’s new bookmark manager, you can mark your favorite sites by “starring” them — click on the blue star in the URL bar and the page is automatically branded a favorite. Once favorited, bookmarks can be tagged and sorted into folders. You can also set up smart bookmark folders to display your most-visited sites, recently-favorited links or specific tags — just like similar smart playlists in iTunes.

Speed and performance

One of the biggest gripes about the previous version of Firefox was its often dreadful performance record. The browser grew so sluggish and unresponsive after a few hours of surfing that it became almost entirely unusable. The explosion of resource-sucking web applications over the last two years only made the problem worse. Wired.com addressed this stumbling block in an article in May of last year. At the time, Mozilla (the organization that makes Firefox) offered excuses ranging from outdated code to users running too many add-ons.

Whatever the wrinkles, they have been ironed out in the new release. Studies conducted by various sources over recent months show massive performance gains over previous versions of Firefox as well as competitors like Opera, Internet Explorer 7 and the Windows version of Safari.

We’ve been using the beta releases here at Webmonkey and Wired.com, and the consensus around the office is that speed, memory use and overall performance are all vastly improved in this version. Read the recent report by Mozilla’s Stuart Parmenter for the nitty-gritty details about the browser’s performance enhancements.

Security

Firefox’s user base has traditionally been made up by the power users of the web’s elite — developers, software geeks and early adopters. But as the popularity of the browser has grown, it’s attracted casual users who tend to be less net-savvy and therefore more prone to attacks by phishing sites, malware and scripting attacks. This shift has prompted Mozilla to raise the bar on Firefox’s default security measures.

Firefox 3 introduces a new visual language to the browser security game. The subtle tinting and the tiny padlock icon in the location bar denoting a site’s safety are being phased out in favor of stark iconography and clearly defined, color-coded cues. Security warnings come in the form of the passport officer symbol used in international airport terminals worldwide. He shows up as a different color based on the level of security of the site you’re dealing with, and that color is matched by the large button on the left end of the location bar.

Verified, secure sites make the button glow green. Sites with very basic identity information show up as blue, and unverified sites show up as the default gray. Click on the color-coded button and you can see how often you’ve visited the website (if at all), information about the company that owns it and the link to its identity certificate.

Sites with invalid identity certificates show a yellow passport officer and an on-screen warning. Visit a known phishing or malware website and the page is blocked from loading, with a red passport officer and an explanation being shown instead. The list of known attack sites is maintained by the community and updated regularly.

Native look and feel

It’s a small enhancement, but it’s a noticeable one that many users will welcome. Older versions of Firefox were dressed in the same gray clothes no matter which operating system you ran. In Firefox 3, each OS gets its own skin for the browser. Mac users will see buttons, scrollbars and tabs that finally look not just “Macish” but entirely Mac-native. The same goes for a Windows XP version with green buttons and a Vista version with that OS’s glowing blue appointments. Ubuntu users even get a version that’s, appropriately, boxy and orange.

Also, on the major OSes at least, the back button is larger. Mozilla ran its own user tests and found that most people miss the back button with their mice. So, the team made it about 50% bigger.

A better fit for your workflow

For advanced web users, especially those who favor webapps like Gmail or Yahoo mail over their desktop counterparts like Outlook, Firefox 3 provides a more seamless integration into their modern workflow.

Application-specific links on web pages can be set to trigger webapps. For example, you can set up the browser so that clicking on a mailto link opens up in Yahoo Mail rather than in Outlook, or that a calendar event gets added to Google Calendar instead of iCal. This is an extension of what we saw when Firefox 2 asked you how you like to read your RSS feeds — in a desktop app, with Live Bookmarks or in an online tool like Bloglines or Google Reader.

There’s also support for running your webapps off-line. If you go through a quick set up procedure, you can answer messages in Gmail and work on a document in an online word processor, then sync up later when your net access is restored.

Finally, search is everywhere in Firefox 3. Not only are your bookmarks accessible directly from the location bar, but recent downloads and Firefox’s add-on library now have a search box. Most web-based tools use search as an essential component, and it’s because of this emphasis on dynamic search capability that Firefox 3 feels much more in tune with the way we expect our applications to behave on today’s web.

Flash Adobe is now SEO friendly.

2008-07-01T16:43:00.004-03:00

Yes, you read right. A news that I saw this morning on Mashable France. So, you are creating a website for your new webware or startup. Now, you can also express yourself artistically using Flash Adobe on your site without the danger of bad SEO.

Actually, this is what was annonced, yesterday, by Google on its blog:

"Google has been developing a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files of all kinds, from Flash menus, buttons and banners, to self-contained Flash websites. Recently, we've improved the performance of this Flash indexing algorithm by integrating Adobe's Flash Player technology.

... Now that we've launched our Flash indexing algorithm, web designers can expect improved visibility of their published Flash content, and you can expect to see better search results and snippets. There's more info on the Webmaster Central blog about the Searchable SWF integration. "

Indeed, Flash based sites were so far very badly indexed by search engines such as Google or Yahoo. But after a great collaborative work on their part and that of Adobe, any flash site should be indexed as well as the others.

Moreover, even sites with dynamic texts will be analysed by robots. Furthermore, it won't be necessary to modify the current sites which should see their ranking goes up without spending a penny.

In the Mashable's comments section, there are still people not that excited by this announcement.

Max:

"Google's announcement stipulates that the Flash sites will be better indexed, which has nothing to do with "the text is no longer king." And then an entire site in Flash, which consists of a single html page will still be in a very delicate situation. Do not believe everything will be solved overnight because Google took the time to look at Adobe's SDK."

Olivier:

"Surprising to see at Mashable such a lack of restraint in releasing a pseudo analysis on a somewhat blur news by Google. Wait and see how Google's robots will be crawling SWF before claiming victory. What about the external content (XML for example) which involve a lot of SWF? How Google will cope with the loadMovie function? Let's wait a little bit and time will tell."

Can Acrobat.com replace other desktop apps?

2008-06-04T12:04:00.002-03:00

Acrobat.com is a combination of three recently launched online services: Adobe Brio (online meetings), Adobe Buzzword (online word processor), and Adobe Share (online file sharing). Thus with the public beta launch of Acrobat.com, Adobe is taking on Google Docs, Microsoft Office Live Workspace, WebEx, and GoTo Meeting—all at the same time.

But, in Lifehack Stepcase, the question has been thrown: Can Acrobat.com replace other desktop apps? At first glance, for many, Acrobat.com doesn’t seem like anything special. We’ve seen Buzzword before, of course. And we’ve seen all the various Google application, as well. Acrobat.com can’t have anything new to offer, right?

To learn more, link here.

Blackberry 101 for reporters.

2008-06-03T10:59:00.002-03:00

The previous post was based on Dario Gallo's personal experience as a common user with the AsusEEEPC.

Now, allow me to translate another post written by Dario Gallo on Bloc de Periodista, this one based on his personal experience as a reporter on how he uses his Blackberry phone.

"10 ways to use your BlackBerry if you are a reporter.

I've never squeezed a cellphone as I've been doing it with my recently bought Blackberry with continuous connection to the web. My previous phone did not even have a camera. What are the tasks I usually do with this device?:

# Maintain multiple conversations at once with Gtalk, which allows to be connected all the time that one wants. The upper red light indicates me that someone is "talking" to me.

# Answer some SMS (I prefer emails, because they are shelved in my gmail).

# Use Gmail at full capacity, with a special interface for this type of device. Example: when I receive an information from a source, I can resend it to whom it concerns at the redaction desk. All this in five seconds, because my contacts are preloaded into the gmail "normal" and the gmail of BlackBerry recognizes it.

# Web surfing. Of course, slower, but I browse everywhere: in the middle of a traffic jam, in the subway, in the bathroom or in the supermarket line.

# Take pictures with the built-in camera (and what about videos, William from Canada? The lack of video capability is a con.)

# Upload at the same time the pics to Flickr. This system has been used to cover some events in Perfil.com. The columnist takes the picture, flickrs it, then the redaction desk pload it to the site.

# Use Twitter. TwitterBerry is the tool.

# I use thge calendar and the address book. And I can speak by phone

# an what about the rest: Google Maps, music, calculator, etc.. Functions that are not yet mastered. Any suggestions? "

Asus EEEPC: a born-again user.

2008-05-29T17:11:00.003-03:00

Dario Gallo, through his blog "Bloc de Periodista", was one of the first "ordinary" computer user who convinced me about the importance on relying more on webwares and the Internet for our daily computer needs. Now, I took the liberty to translate his last comment about the Asus EEEPC. Besides all the "experts" opinions, it is always good to listen to some down-to-earth common sense:

"When I started in Perfil.com, I asked for a Blackberry to be connected to the internet anywhere I was. Since Gmail and Gtalk are the two programs I use most, the Asus EEEPC I bought in December, was left in a corner. But lately, I've taken some days off and many times I went out to eat. The Asus came back with all its splendor. This image is from Wednesday night while Boca was playing, and in a bar in Palermo I began to review my mails, chatting with Perfil.com redaction and eating a steak. Look at the proportions. It makes your mouth water when you compare the size of the steak with the size of the notebook. The waiter, when he served me, threw a piece of information:''I have never seen a computer so small''.

Trackthis: Follow your packages through Twitter.

2008-05-14T15:27:00.002-03:00

Who would have thought that Twitter could become a Web 2.0 business-oriented service. With TrackThis, a service which allows you to follow a shipment via FedEx, UPS, DHL and USPS with only a shipping number or code, this dream has come true.

How does it work? You tell it a package tracking number from FedEx, UPS, USPS, or DHL, and it will Twitter you back whenever there's an update from the shipper.

The advantages to use Trackthis:

First, you can attach a descriptor to your query (like "lamp shade"). Second, you can use Twitter to easily change your message delivery options: you can quickly turn on or off SMS updates for Trackthis alerts, for example.

Clever and useful...

Powerset, a Semantic Search Engine.

2008-05-13T14:34:00.003-03:00

I have written a few posts about this semantic web buzz and webwares like Twine or Zemanta. Now, some words about this new semantic search engine called Powerset.

So far, this is no threat to Google. Powerset searches only through Wikipedia' s articles and complete the datas with Freebase. So, it is still difficult to compare with other nonsemantic search engines.

Powerset works differently. It doesn't only focus on keywords. It tries to analyse the meaning of a web page according to the search words used.

Checking through some blogs'comment section, it is clear that people are that impressed. I would say that many seem disappointed by the search engine performance. But, most people agree that this is a starting point and that we are looking towards the future.

Powerset on Twitter:

http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=powerset&u=&d=

HelloTxt: all-in-one service for microbloggers

2008-05-12T15:45:00.006-03:00

You have multiple social network accounts and want to update each one of them at once. HelloTxt is a musttry service for you. Now, you can even post multimedia posts like pictures and videos.

To post to Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Myspace and Bebo, you don't have to be registered. But if you are, you have also access to: LinkedIn, Plaxo, Hi5 and many more.

What are they saying about HelloTxt on Twitter:

http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=hellotxt&u=&d=

Working Online: Five Musthave Tools.

2008-05-11T17:01:00.002-03:00

Webwares are all about working online. And if you are working online you need those five webwares, reports ReadWriteWeb.

1)Multiservice IM (Miranda)
2)Crossplatform and screensharing tool (Yugma or Yuuguu)
3) Custom search engine (Google Custom Search Engine)
4)Startpage (Netvibes or Pageflakes)
5)A blog with your name and contact info

The detailled story, here in RWW.

Favotite Web Apps.

2008-05-02T12:03:00.003-03:00

A couple of weeks ago, ReadWriteWeb held a competition to know what web 2.0 apps most excite its readers. The complete listing here.

Discovering Twine.

2008-04-30T17:15:00.003-03:00

Yesterday, I received my invitation to try the beta version of Twine, the virtual version of a strong thread or string composed of two or more smaller strands or yarns twisted together. But really, on the surface, Twine is a place to organize information you find or create on the Web—bookmarks, notes, videos, photos,contacts, tasks. The Bookmarklet plug-in for Firefox makes it easy to save stuff to your Twine wherever you may find it on the Web.

What Twine does is automatically generate smart tags and connect them together. There is also a social element. If you share a Twine with others, each piece of content that someone brings into that online space is associated with that person. So when you do a search, the results that come back are influenced not just by the tags, but also by who put the information into the Twine in the first place.

Twine is putting structure onto all of this unstructured data that is out there by analyzing it and adding tags to it that are connected together. Rather than create a semantic index of the entire Web, which would be a huge undertaking, Twine allows you to start with just those parts of the Web people feel are important enough to save in their collections.

Finally, everything in Twine is widgetizable and exportable elsewhere.

Twitlinks and advertisements on Twitter.

2008-04-16T17:06:00.002-03:00

The last big news about Twitter is the incorporation of ads in the twits. Maybe you read it on a new Twitter mashup called Twitlinks. Twitlinks aggregates the latest links posted to Twitter by tech industry pundits. The end result is a homepage that kind of resembles Techmeme, only without the threading of topics.

In fact, I read the news on Techcrunch and I was surprised to see all the comments more or less in favor of ads on Twitter. No hysteria against or pro there. Well balanced comments. Personally, I am against since the service is already overloaded and crash regularly.

An other interresting point of view was found on the (oversnobbed by some) Valleywag blog.

"Ads on Twitter? They already exist — just not where TechCrunch's Duncan Riley thought they appeared. Twitter cofounder Biz Stone denied Riley's report, telling Silicon Alley Insider, "We're not putting ads on Twitter.com" — meaning Twitter's website. Of course. That would be the stupidest imaginable place to put ads, and Stone knows it. Which is why, for almost half a year, Twitter has been running ads elsewhere.

Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters, a space constraint meant to allow them to be sent to cell phones as text messages. Many of them are shorter, though, and Twitter has been using the remaining space to place house ads since last October, as entrepreneur Charlie O'Donnell first noticed. They began as jokey little asides: "Tip: Wow, you look *good." But they've since changed to tips about Twitter features. As O'Donnel noted, it's a simple step for Twitter to switch from advertising its own products to advertising others: "Tip: Drink Jamba Juice." "

Gridjit and GroupTweet: two more tools for Twitter.

2008-04-13T18:55:00.005-03:00

Two new (at least for me) tools to improve your Twitter experience.

First, a great social portal called Gridjit that allows you to view your Tweets in a far different fashion. This is great for those who don't always check Tweets like the rest of their social networks. Over on the their blog they have a great post on lessons the founder has learned from founding Gridjit.

Gridjit Features:

* Visualize your conversations in a clean layout and take part in a new kind of social portal
* Drill through other people's view on the Twitter-verse by clicking on their profile names and the people they "@" tag
* Update your Twitter status from Gridjit - New!
* Regular updates with more goodies to come!

Then, one of the persistent complaints about Twitter is that it doesn't offer any sort of "group" functionality: messages from everyone you follow come in as a big heap, and anything you say goes to all of your followers. GroupTweet provides a solution for the second half of this complaint, by layering distribution groups on top of Twitter.

Using GroupTweet is simple: create a separate account on Twitter for your group, and have everyone in your group follow that account. Then whenever that account gets a direct message, it pushes it back out for everyone to see.

Interesting quote.

2008-04-12T15:29:00.002-03:00

On Twitter, once in a while, you encounter yourself with clever quotes like this one made by Crystal/BBB:

"QUESTION: If a CPU is hardware, desktop apps are software, web apps are webware, then people are ___ ware? I can't remember the catchword... "

Google App Engine: into the heart of webwares.

2008-04-10T16:49:00.002-03:00

Google is taking a step further. It won't only host webwares, but will also allow developpers to build one with its new platform: Google App Engine.

You heard it right (or write). Google launched App Engine, which lets you write code for a web application, then Google takes care of the scaling/failover/logistics-type issues. You can store your data in a Google Bigtable using the Google File System (GFS). There's a bunch of App Engine APIs to simplify things like sending email and fetching urls. Your application can authenticate users that are using Google Accounts, so you can avoid the whole "ask your users to create a new account" issue if you want.

All the above is possible because Google's architecture is more unified than the architecture of Amazon Web Services, for instance, but less flexible. Using their Google's BigTable service will require writing and deploying a Python script to their app servers, one that creates a web-accessible interface to BigTable.

The official blog post makes it clear that this is a preview release, so Google will be adding more functionality over time but they're opening the program up now to start to allow real-world applications and to get real-world feedback. The first 10,000 developers to sign up get to play with it now.

Twitter Tools

2008-04-07T13:44:00.004-03:00

In these following posts, an introduction to useful tools for Twitter that couold improve your use of this great social web service.

First, in PR 2.0, an intro to TwitterLocal which is an interesting new Twitter service brought to you by Matt King. TwitterLocal essentially allows you to focus on Twitter voices within a specific region (from 1 to 50 miles around any given zip code or city).

Then, Jeremy Owyang, in his blog, presents the Twitter tools he uses the most.

"1) Client: Although I mainly use the browser to see what's going on (I click on profiles to see what people have said) Twhirl is the most popular client, using adobe air technology. Leave this on your desktop, instead of going to browser, also these clients may be more accurate in seeing who's replying to you, unlike the browser version.

2) Search: Use Tweetscan to see who's talking about you, your brand, or a topic you're interested in. For example, I may not just search on "jowyang" but also on "owyang" as some don't use the full name.

3) Conversations: Quotably is the top 'conversation' tracker, it threads together the discussions that members are having by looking at the replies, interesting to see how conversations spiral into different threads.

4) Aggregation: Friendfeed puts all of our RSS content onto one page, making it easy to see from one glance (rather than going to different properties) and you can even reply from friendfeed to different tools. It's smarter to organize around people, rather than tools.

5) Tagging Content: For advanced users, you can start to use the hashag "#" to add metadata around any tweet, this becomes more important as we rate and tag content. Here's a helpful primer. I'm not making much use of this feature –yet.

6) Location Based: If you live in a particular area, and want to parse out a specific location, this Twitterlocal filter finds tweets based upon a users profile location. If you've a local business, this could become useful.

7) Alerts: (update) Often, people will blog about the conversations that happen in twitter, the conversation shifts back to blogs. As a result, I setup Google Alerts for the phrase @jowyang, I see it appear 3-5 times a week on blogs. Thanks Andrew for the reminder in the comments."

On a personal note, I use TweetScan, TwitterLocal, Hashtag and Quotably. I usually twit through Netvibe or directly through Twitter. I think I have an account on Friendfeed, if not, I 'll get one.

Adobe's Photoshop Express

2008-03-30T18:55:00.003-03:00

Adobe released the public beta Photoshop Express, a free Rich Internet Application (RIA) for storing, organizing and sharing digital photos with attractive effects .

Photoshop Express allows loading and organizing digital photos, always keeping the original picture and sharing them anywhere. The best part is that experience is not required to add special effects, such as removing red eyes and imperfections, convert to black and white, cut and resize. The 17 filters work with a single click.

Express allows you to synchronize and edit images stored on Facebook, MySpace and Picasa. Flickr is expected to be part of the menu soon. Users have 2GB capacity to store images and share them. This editor allows online customize the filters that are used, as well as delivering more posibildades retouching.

The only disadvantage is that it does not have space to create a web album. During the beta period, Adobe users will be requested to comment on the functions and features of the product, which was created with Flex, the framework of free open source for building RIAs.

It works under Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and require having Flash Player 9 installed. In the initial stages, it is only available in the United States and English.

With a few hours, Express have already generated a controversy. The site WebWare read the license and found a small "surprise." It is a license given to Adobe. In fact, " a global royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sub-licensable to distribute, derive benefits or other remuneration copy, modify, adapt, publish, translation, public representation and Public reproduction of this content and incorporate this content in materials and works in any format or medium now being used or that develops in the future. "

Zoho Invoice: one more business oriented webware.

2008-03-28T17:06:00.004-03:00

Zoho is preparing to announce the public release of Zoho Invoice. Zoho Invoice is a clean, straightforward, and flexible invoicing service. In other words, it is essentially a billing application, that allows the user to create /import Clients, define items (product/service), generate estimates, convert them to invoice and accept payment against it. There is a good collection of attractive invoice templates for goods and services, or you can create your own.

But Zoho has more than just another invoice app. The company is building a full suite of business apps, which at some point will connect together at the logical places: CRM to invoicing to project management to HR, for example.

Five useful business webwares.

2008-03-17T18:34:00.002-03:00

DocSyncer. A little utility to synchronize your Microsoft Office documents into your Google Docs account. It sounds like a handy app nonetheless since it could blend the power of Microsoft's Office suite with the real-time collaboration you get with Google Docs.

Elastra. This is an "infinitely scalable" relational database running on Amazon's Web Services. The upsides to that: It should be fast, and it should be reasonably priced. The downside: Despite Amazon's claims to the contrary, AWS is not 100% reliable.
Sliderocket is taking a swipe at Google Docs.

Mumboe. Document management for legal agreements. What's interesting is the product's focus on keeping both parties in compliance with the contracts they sign.

NuConomy is a Web analytics company that goes beyond pageview and visitor tracking and measures "engagement." This is critically important for Web 2.0 sites that use interactive technologies (Flash and Ajax), which render the old metrics largely irrelevant.

Sliderocket. New online presentation app. Looks like it could trounce Google Docs' Presentations module, and be competitive with other Web 2.0 apps as well.

(via Webware)

Yahoo! Semantic Web Dream.

2008-03-14T18:37:00.002-02:00

Mike Arrington broke a story over at TechCrunch on Thursday, suggesting that Yahoo! are about to extend their Open Search Platform by embracing a number of Semantic Web specifications. A post on the Yahoo! Search blog confirms this.

What does all this mean? It means we can expect the web to get itself organized, in a hurry. At stake is a significant amount of traffic from Yahoo search, and anyone else that may choose to build applications on top of this data.

Yahoo's support for semantic web standards like RDF and microformats is exactly the incentive websites need to adopt them. Instead of semantic silos scattered across the Web (think Twine), Yahoo will be pulling all the semantic information together when available, as a search engine should. Until now, there were few applications that demanded properly structured data from third parties. That changes today.

Twiddla: the online white board.

2008-03-12T20:58:00.003-02:00

Twiddla is a free web-based meeting place that makes it simple for geographically dispersed people to collaborate on projects. No downloads or plug-ins are required, its browser agnostic and also allows for one-click audio chats.

In an increasingly globalized world, where production chains are very dispersed, an online collaboration tool like Twiddla is a real blessing. Users can mark up websites, graphics and photos, start brainstorming on a blank canvas, browse the web together and save hours of time. So if you are looking for a tool that allows you to communicated and collaborate in real-time with a team that is located all across the world, or just on the other side of town and you don’t want to have to download a thing, check out Twiddla.

With this year's winner of the Technical Achievement award at SXSW, comes a team whiteboarding service that offers a no-setup, online meeting web site for team collaboration.

Semantic Web 101.

2008-03-11T12:49:00.002-02:00

If you want to grasp the fundamentals of the Semantic Web, a good place to start is Denis Shapovanlenko's post titled Mini Research: Semantic Web. This a pretty clear explanation of what the Semantic Wb is and there are good links to go deeper into the subject.

The post is here.

http://shapovalenko.typepad.com/denis_shapovalenko/2008/03/mini-research-s.html

Zoho People: a Human Resources Management app.

2008-03-10T16:46:00.003-02:00

Zoho is launching a new application in their business suite of webwares today called Zoho People. Zoho People is a HRM - Human Resources Management - app that includes five modules: organization, recruitment, forms, checklist, and self-service. Zoho People will be integrated into the suite of business webwares that Zoho provides.

Zoho has created a video overview of Zoho People:

Webwares Vulnerabilities. Should Firrefox be scared of IE8?

2008-03-07T11:57:00.004-02:00

The phrase "Web 2.0" has very little real meaning, as it refers more to Web application concepts than any specific technologies. Nevertheless, tools that are generally considered Web 2.0 have come under fire from several directions for the security vulnerabilities they represent, according to a report released recently by security firm Cenzic Inc.

The report highlights several vulnerabilities in technologies used in the development of Web 2.0 applications:

# AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML)
# XML (eXtensible markup language)
# SOAP (Service Oriented Architecture Protocol or Simple Object Access Protocol)
# REST (Representational State Transfer)
# Javascript and Java# Adobe Flash and Flex# Active X controls
# Microsoft Silverlight
# RSS, RDF, and Atom

The report did not focus primarily on Web 2.0. Instead, it looked at vulnerabilities across the whole spectrum of commercial and open source applications.

# Open SSL Off-By-One Overflow
# Java Web Start Bugs# Adobe Acrobat URI Handling Bug
# IBM Lotus Notes Buffer Overflow
# RealPlayer Input Validation Flaw
# IBM WebSphere Application Server Input Validation Hole
# IBM WebSphere Input Validation Hole
# PHP Buffer Overflows, Filtering Bypass and Configuration Bypass Bugs
# Apache Input Validation Hole# Adobe Flash Player Bugs

The report also highlighted vulnerabilities in Web browsers themselves. It cited Microsoft Internet Explorer as having the fewest "reported vulnerabilities" during the final quarter of 2007, beating out Safari, Opera, and Firefox for the first time (can't believe it).

So, that brings the question: Should Firefox be scared of IE8? According to Mashable's Stan Schroeder, not at all:

"I'm looking at IE 8 features which were presented at MIX and once again I see a whole lot of catching up and very little innovation. When your biggest accomplishment is standards compliance - and we're talking about a product that's been around for 13 years - which is incidentally a feat that your competition has accomplished years ago, you have a problem.

In particular, the eight big features that were discussed by at the presentation are "CSS 2.1 support, CSS Certification, performance, HTML 5 support, new developer tools, activities, Web slices + one unnamed one." Three of them have to do with standards compliance. What's left? Web slices - a feature that lets you subscribe to any part of a web site - is nice enough, but it's also old news: Apple users have had it for some time now. Better performance was expected, as were the new developer tools. Activities, simply put, let you do more stuff with a web page from a contextual menu. Doesn't sound like anything I can't already do in Firefox with an add on.

Which brings me to Firefox' main strength. It's got add ons. Thousands of 'em, and even though they were initially used mostly by power users, I see more and more everyday users like my dad using them. Every other site has a Firefox toolbar, practically every web service has some sort of a Firefox plugin (for example, yesterday I was pleasantly surprised with Basecode, a plugin for Basecamp which enables additional rich text functionality.) "

Are webwares ready for the business world?

2008-03-04T16:17:00.002-02:00

Links to three posts, one, two and three, about web 2.0 services and webwares for the enterprise. Still some resistance and fears, but they are getting closer.

Microsoft would have a new webware strategy?

2008-03-02T16:15:00.002-02:00

Two and a half years ago, Microsoft's top executives and engineers received a memo about a "... services wave of applications and experiences available instantly over the internet ..." was on its way and would change forever the traditional software business. Since then, the software giant has been very quiet about how it would ride this wave.

And now, it can be read around the web that Microsoft' s new strategy will lay out a roadmap of moves across three major areas: the transformation of the company's portfolio of enterprise applications to a web-services architecture, the launch of web versions of its major PC applications, and the continued expansion of its data center network. In other words, Microsoft will focus on what it calls "software plus services" - the tying of webware to traditional installed apps.

Hopefully, it will look more as a type on local computer, save on the web. Microsoft should try to imitate Google by putting everything on the web. Google is the king of the web, Microsoft is king of the local desktop. Microsoft shall take their local MS-Office kingdom as their initial start. Create document on local, but make it easy to post it on the web. If they do a "me too" approach, how effective can it really be. After all, in the mind of the consumer: Google is on the web, Microsoft is on the desktop. Trying to make Microsoft the king of the web is not only an uphill battle, it is also seem "unnatural" to Microsoft's current posture.

Ten Online Conversion Video Conversion Services

2008-03-01T19:13:00.002-02:00

CultCase has selected some of the best online video conversion services available today. They are all free of charge and do not even require registration. We tested all of them by converting and downloading the same 1:42 min Youtube video seen above of an (awesome) cover version for the Beatles' Hey Jude. There were no significant differences between the services in terms of both time-to-deliver and video quality. All of the files looked reasonable considering the quality of the source and took approximately 1-2 minutes to delivery. If you try any of them with your favorite videos please do let them know how it went.

The post is here.

World's Social Network Domination.

2008-02-29T15:18:00.004-02:00

In the global race to become the number one social network, MySpace and Facebook are neck to neck.

In January 2008, MySpace was still ahead with 109 million unique visitors per month, according to comScore. Behind first place, the fight is in full swing. The below table shows the figures for the first six. Hi5 (No. 3, red) and Friendster (No4, blue) stand out slightly from Google Orkut (No. 5, Green), and Bebo (No. 6 yellow). Imeem (No7, violet) are also behind at high speed and exceeds Multiply. Imeem which is not listed had 17.8 million visitors in January 2008.

Gtalk bullshit and Gmail trick to fight back against spammers.

2008-02-28T13:04:00.004-02:00

To make a long story short, I noted all those post about a Gtalk's new feature. Searching around for more info I stepped upon some unknown to me interesting infos about Gmail. But let's terminate the Gtalk theme first. Rafe Needleman on Webware:

"Google yesterday announced in its Talkabout product blog that there's a new way to connect your site or social page visitors directly to you: a Google Talk chatback widget that instantly connects the visitor to your GTalk or Jabber IM client.

I like giving my readers a chance to connect with me directly in real-time, so I'm all about products like this. But the implementation of this little product is so lightweight and so lacking, that I understand perfectly why even the Google blog post announcing it shows only a picture of the widget instead of a live version of it."

Anything to add?

Gmail now. When you register to this service, you get two official email address: usermail@gmail.com and usermail@googlemail.com . But also an infinite bunch of them by adding plus signs. This is called GmailPlus addressing.

What is GMail Plus addressing? Say you have an email address like billgates@gmail.com. If you append a "plus" sign to your email username, gmail will ignore anything written between the + and @ sign.

So any email address sent to billgates+microsoft@gmail.com or billgates+blog@gmail.com or billgates+website@gmail.com will still reach your billgates@gmail.com inbox though technically, they are three different email aliases.

When you share your email with some non familiar service, like a newsletter, you can supply your existing email with a plus sign. If you ever receive spam addressed to that email alias, you know the exact source that's sending the spam and can easily block all emails using a GMail filter.

Useful, isn't it?

Semantic Web: the time has come.

2008-02-28T12:30:00.002-02:00

That's the essence of an hour long interview with W3C Director, Tim Berners-Lee. Berners-Lee says that all the pieces are in place to move full steam ahead and realize the potential of a world of structured, machine readable data, i.e. the Semantic Web.

The podcast and a full transcript are posted here in Nodalities.

From two posts I published earlier (one and two), it is clear that I am excited by this semantic web "revolution". As is Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb:

"My standard explanation of the value of the Semantic Web is this:

Once our software is capable of deriving meaning from web pages it looks at for us, then there's a whole lot of work that will already be done, allowing our human, creative minds to reach new heights."

But there are some who disagree like Mathew Ingram from mathewingram.com:

"Let's face it — the biggest problem with the Semantic Web is that it's as boring as dry toast. It's all about plumbing and widgets and data standards, all of which have names like FOAF and TOTP and SIOC and whatnot. It's right off the dork-o-meter. The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files would have a hard time getting interested in this stuff, let alone anyone who isn't married to their slide rule or their pocket protector. The things that the Semantic Web would make possible are fascinating and in some cases very appealing — it's just getting there that's the hard part.

A related problem, I would argue, is that not enough people even know what the word "semantic" means. I'm sure lots of people hear the term and either have to go look it up, or are left wondering what the hell people are talking about. And even when you know that the word refers to meaning as represented in language, or knowledge as represented in data, you're still not much further ahead — it's meta-data, or meta-knowledge. Not exactly warm and fuzzy, or easy to explain over a beer (or ten)."

On which side are you?

Bricabox

2008-02-27T13:47:00.004-02:00

Yesterday, I registered to this new web service called: Bricabox. According to them, they've taken the best of blogs and social networks, added some amazing new tools and features, and created a platform for you to create your own version of your favorite social content website. Now, with BricaBox, you can have your own social content website, powered by you and your friends, group or audience, in just minutes, and for free!

In other words, they are doing for social content sites what Ning has been doing for social platform.

So I tried it. But something is wrong. My test page doesn't properly show up in neither of my two browsers: IE and Firefox. The pages are also slow to load. The thing is, you have to have a pretty clear idea of what you want to do and also have time to build your network in some ways. This is the main problem I have found with services like Ning or Me. Will it be different with Bricabox?

Nevertheless, it seems to me an interesting proposition. Let's give it more time and visits. Don't just take my word for it, check what people on Twitter are saying about Bricabox:

http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=bricabox&u=

A Webware/Desktop Hybrid with Adobe AIR.

2008-02-25T12:48:00.005-02:00

AIR 1.0; Private IE 8 beta; Apple I is a desktop runtime that allows Web applications to be run on the desktop in a disconnected fashion, said Michele Turner, vice president of the Adobe platform business unit. "We really believe the innovation in technology today is … on the Web and that the desktop has stagnated over the last couple of years," she said.

"Air is going to allow applications that run on the web today - that run in the browser - to be brought down to the desktop," confirms Andrew Shorten, platform evangelist at Adobe.

This software is part of a growing number of technologies that aim to make the transition between the on and offline worlds seamless. AIR is intended to help software developers create applications that exist in part on a user's PC or smartphone and in part on servers reachable through the Internet.

A host of other companies and web services have already built Air applications.

For example, Ebay has built a program that allows users to do much of the legwork required in setting up auctions offline. The next time the user connects to the internet the listing would be posted to the website.

Some comments on Twitter:

http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=adobe+air&u=

Some more blogs:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=es&lr=&q=adobe+air&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=atom

Twitxr stinks, staying with Zannel.

2008-02-20T18:28:00.003-02:00

I have been trying to register to this Twitxr, the so-called Twitter with pictures. Tried with three different email account, nope, I get in. but then, the site doesn't accept my nick and password anymore. Still in beta, well call me when you will be in ... "gamma".

So, I am staying with Zannel. You can send pictures and videos. There is a Facebook app. They also have some embed code to put your Zannel in any site. Convincing.

Semantic Web Revolution: Four Videos.

2008-02-19T17:50:00.008-02:00

In the previous post, I started to write about the so-called "semantic web" revolution. I found three videos that, in my view, are good introductions to the semantic web and microformats, a consequence of the semantic web.

First, this video from DigitalBazaar, the semantic web explained in six minuts.

Then, Nova Spivack's semantic web talk.

Nova Spivack - Semantic Web Talk from Nicolas Cynober on Vimeo.

Finally, a presentation given by Mark Meeker on Microformats. Mark is an Architect on the UI Engineering team at Orbitz Worldwide. In this presentation, Mark explains: * What exactly microformats are * Where they can be found on existing websites * Why they are useful and what you can do with a microformat-enabled site * How easy it is to add them to a site.

An short 30 minute in depth introduction to the Semantic Web for people with some Software engineering background. Presenting the problem ... all » of the Mythical Man Month, this shows how one can use an OWL Ontology, to describe the relation between people and software bugs. Makes the case that the best way to get the Semantic Web going is by opening up a valuable database to a SPARQL end point

Web apps 3.0: the web semantic revolution.

2008-02-18T13:14:00.009-02:00

I spent part of my weekend exploring this web semantic thing. I am impressed and excited. In two sentences: web semantic is all about structuring on the fly the enormous unstructured data ocean contained in the web. It is transforming the WWW in one giant structured database. But I will write more on the subject as I digest all the information I encountered during the weekend.

But I found two sites that could be tagged web semantic sites. First, Twine. Twine is a new service that intelligently helps you share, organize and find information with people you trust. Twine uses the Semantic Web, natural language processing, and machine learning to make your information and relationships smarter. But if that's all Greek to you, just think of Twine as your very own intelligent personal Web assistant, working for you behind the scenes so you can be more productive. You can also check Techcrunch and this blog to learn more about it. Here is what twitterers are saying about Twine:

http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=twine&u=

(update) Radar Networks receives more funds for Twine? by ZDNet's Paul Miller -- VentureBeat reports that Radar Networks has received a further tranche of funding.

Then, this site called Zemanta. Zemanta adds contextually relevant suggestions of links, pictures, related content and tags to text that you paste in the site's box.The World Wide Web consists of many diverse forms of interlinked content. Zemanta is developing new easy to use web weaving tools to be used by anyone, without the need for prior experience or training, but rather intuitively. Twitterers are saying:

http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=zemanta&u=

Waiting for my invitation for Twine and will need more time to experiment with Zemantra.

Tired of Powerpoint: check these presentation webwares.

2008-02-17T15:19:00.002-02:00

Cannot say that you didn't know. Cannot say that you don't have any choice now. Mashable introduces you to 13 online presentation apps, so you could get rid of Powerpoint. Or just try something else for a while.

http://mashable.com/2008/02/16/forget-powerpoint-online-presentations/

KillerStartups: made in Argentina.

2008-02-16T15:05:00.005-02:00

KillerStartups is a site where any new startup can be reviewed and given some more visibility. They review 30+ internet startups per working day. You can also vote for the one you think will be a killer. In short, it is a Digglike clon.

Very good for those who are beginning to undertake new projects on the Internet, they can get more feedback and visibility. They can discuss if they need funding and how to be contacted. The concept is useful for testing the public interest in a project.

But I have just discovered that this is a project developed in Argentina. The creators of KillerStartups are Fernando and Gonzalo Arzuaga creators Gauchonet, which was sold to Terra.

Make your own personalized widgets with Sprout.

2008-02-14T15:53:00.005-02:00

Sprout is an application developed in Adobe Flex which will allow you to create your own "wysiwyg" widgets in a personalized way.

All you have to do is choose the widget size, either from a list or by entering it manually. Then, you can begin to insert all kinds of objects. You can add images or text, as well as components. These components can be multimedia, such as an audio player, generic, like a visit counter or a calendar. You can even add third-party services, among which we find Polldaddy and Meebo, though, these two are not yet available to use.

All these elements are fully modifiable. You are allowed to change their sizes, locations, orientation, in addition to their property. Finally you can preview and save your new widget, or embed to your site. Without doubt, a useful tool to create interesting new personalized widgets.

(update) Creating flashy multimedia pieces of content for the Web might have just gotten a little easier as Sprout Builder opened its doors to the public on March the 12th. This Hawaii-based startup first popped up on my radar at DEMO 08 as they first reveled Sprout Builder. The Flash toolkit makes it easy for anyone to create a rich interactive page, widget or part of a page without knowing how to write a line of code.

What do Twitterers have to say about Sprout:

http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=sprout&u=

Two new multimedia online services: issuu and blog-video.tv

2008-02-09T20:41:00.000-02:00

Blog-video.tv is a new french webcam and personal TV channel site. It is in its beta version. I would say that it is a french Ustream. Youncan stream your webcam live or record it. According to some neutral commentaries, I've read so far, it seems to work pretty well.

Issuu is a site when you want to publish your documents, for instance, your PDF documents. It is the place for online publications: Magazines, documents, and stuff you'd normally find on print.

Free SEO report with Website Grader.

2008-02-06T13:29:00.000-02:00

Want to know how do your site rank with respect to the "natural" search engines without having to pay a SEO specialist ? Website Grader offers this service. Enter the your site's URL and you will receive a detailed report on what you can improve in terms of SEO, and a mark will be assigned to your site as well.

Montreal to hold next Blitzweekend

2008-02-05T11:18:00.000-02:00

Blitzweekend is scheduled this spring in Montreal, Canada March 1st and March 2nd. Blitzweekend is an event dedicated to developers, designers and entrepreneurs who will team up to create a product in 48 hours. It is based on the StartupCamp project.

The goal is to push the boundaries of traditional development by using rapid development tools, open-source products and API. The event will be held on the campus of the University of Sherbrooke on the March 1 and 2, 2008. and build a technology in just 48 hours, in the spirit of startupweekends and rails rumble.

For more information, go to the Blitzweekend site here.

What do they say about Blitzweekend on Twitter:

http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=blitzweekend&u=

Asus EeePC

2008-01-31T12:55:00.001-02:00

This morning, I was reading some posts about what happened in France for the general public launch of the Asus EeePC in PresseCitron. It was a bit of a mess. But, as for the computer itself, the blogger,Eric, is quite satisfied.

The ASUS Eee PC is a subnotebook computer designed by ASUS and Intel noted at the time of its introduction for its combination of light weight, Linux-based operating system (now with Windows XP as well) , solid-state drive and low purchase price. It is nicknamed the "blogging computer" because it is Internet oriented.

Mac Air vs Asus from Edouard parle's blog:

http://edouardparle.blogspot.com/2008/01/macbook-air-vs-asus-eee-pc.html

Here is a Youtube video about this device. You can also check the other related vids and the commentaries to make your mind about it.

Posts about the Asus EeePC made on Twitter:

http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=Asus+EeePC&u=

Morning Cafe: organize your opening tabs daily.

2008-01-31T12:34:00.000-02:00

In my FireFox browser, I usually open many tabs in relation to the posts I want to write. If I don't have time to write everything, I shut down my laptop with the Firefox browser still opened. So the next day, by using the FireFox's restore session option, I can get the previous day tabs reloaded.

Morning Cafe is an FireFox extension that I just discovered and will help me do the same but in a more organised and flexible manner.

You can keep track of daily routine websites and opens them in tabs. This extension lets you organize websites by day and open them up simultaneously as part of your daily routine. This is really handy if you read sites that update on a regular schedule (like webcomics, weekly columns, etc.).

Potential future updates include:- bookmark folder integration- separating lists by time (so you can have a morning/afternoon list for a day, for example)Works with:

* Firefox Firefox: 2.0b1 – 2.0.0.*

Blogs and social networks on Vcasmo and Slideshare

2008-01-29T17:12:00.000-02:00

The video clip provides details of the UKOLN workshop on "Exploiting The Potential Of Blogs And Social Networks" to held in Birmingham on 26 November 2007.

For ease of use on the day, this is a single presentation containing all the slides for UKOLN's blogs and social networking workshop on the 26th November 2007 in Birmingham.

| View | Upload your own

Jooce: the french connection.

2008-01-28T16:58:00.000-02:00

Jooce, the WebOS born in Paris and aimed to be used mainly in WebCafé, will announce in the coming days a partnership with Milk, France's largest chain of CyberCafes. Users will be able to access their private space online and store files, listen to music… More than 500 million people access the Internet via an Internet cafe every day.

User-generated porn webwares: Eroshare and Boobik?

2008-01-23T15:31:00.000-02:00

If you want share your sexual personal life and make friends out of it, here are two user-generated porn sites for you.

Eroshare is a Flickr for exhibitionists. You can upload your homemade pictures and share them with other exhibitionists or voyeurs like you. I am not aware of any Eroshare widget that would allow you to embed your pictures on any web site or blog. But, EroShare gives 2 GB of free storage with every account and has all the standard photo site bells and whistles - friends, tagging, albums, etc. Eroshare is based - where else - in the Netherlands, and has not yet raised any funding.

Boobik? would be the Twitter or maybe the Facebook of porn. The future will tell us. It doesn't explicitly introduces itself as a place for sharing user-generated pornography. Rather, it places the emphasis on social networking. But the result will be mostly just to share pornographic material with others. The site's frontpage shows a series of microblog posts, some of which contain photos with nudity. You can post text, photos, and video embeds with Boobik?, apparently of any rating level (the terms of service doesn't preclude explicit material).

Pownce is now online for the general public.

2008-01-22T17:55:00.000-02:00

Pownce, a service that allows you to send messages, files, links to a friend was launched in beta private six months ago. It was founded by Leah Culver, Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka (Digg's Rose and Burka ).

Since today, Pownce is opened to the general public. A number of new features and a new version of the desktop client, based on the AIR Adobe platform, have been added . The new version allows users to respond directly to friends without going through the website. On the other hand a new feature enables users valued as the most "interesting" people to be followed more closely. They are called the "Featured Powncers".

According to Cluver, "Pownce is not a clone of Twitter, it is a Twitter "Plus" since it integrates file uploading and invitations."

But in my view, users will choose between both because they only need one such platform . Pownce is far behind Twitter in terms of traffic, but the comparison is not very fair since Pownce was in private beta. We will see if the users flock to the service after its opening.

Splashcast media online player integrates Twitter.

2008-01-21T15:15:00.000-02:00

SplashCast now offers the only online media player that allows quick, inline messaging to Twitter. The viewers will be able to click the Twitter icon in your players, provide their username and login and then enter a message to be sent with a link to your channel to their entire network of friends on Twitter. Think Twitter’s just for the early adopter tech crowd? Readers of Sally Forth in the Sunday comics and viewers of the MTV Video Music Awards might disagree.

And here what some people are saying about Splashcast on Twitter:

http://www.davidsterry.com/tweetscan/index.php?s=splashcast&u=

Hictu: a video, audio, text microblogging with a zest of contact agenda.

2008-01-19T16:26:00.000-02:00

I just registered to try a new service named Hictu. Hictu is a service for video microbloggers, who can create for free their own microblog with small posts (containing text, audio and video), personalize their public profiles, manage a presence-enabled friend list, meet new friends.

If you like blogging but at the same time you can't spend too much time setting up traditional blog posts, if you like video blogging but you want an easier way to create a video, if you like to meet new friends, share your ideas, promote auto-generated content.

You can also send automatically your post to Twitter.

Robert Scoble compares Hictu and the Alpha version of Seesmic:

"Why did I call Seesmic “video Twitter?” Because it actually uses Twitter and builds on top of it. Hictu doesn’t do that. I don’t see any of my friends on Hictu, while I see anyone who posts a video in Twitter in Seesmic. "

Kirsten Nicole on Mashable explains that:

"Of all the Twitter competitors, Hictu is one of the most determined for adding features that will differentiate it from the crowd. It’s typically done so by supporting particular actions and other network tools that some sites wouldn’t do or haven’t yet added. This is still evident with this newest version, giving users more networking options and several more ways to control their content from within their account."

And Finally, Hictu also allows users to provide and receive availability information about their contacts. Through a one-to-one, secure authorization mechanism users can invite their contacts and in just few minutes retrieve a useful set of information regarding their availability and communication means. It supports majority of communication platforms for each of your contacts, you can keep your contacts updated through Post including audio, video, text and RSS feed changes.

Is there some money to make with Twitter?

2008-01-17T18:05:00.000-02:00

Mayank in Webguild wonders how can you monetize Twitter? For instance, putting up advertisements in their empty space on the right is an option. People on a Twitter page are looking for info on what their friends are doing and not interested in related content that is ads. So, even though simple ads would work, they won't be too profitable. To think about this problem of monetizing Twitter, we need to consider that what are the assets of Twitter. The assets, of value, presently is the technology or their platform and users who are using it. So, monetizing that has to be done using these assets.

Jason in Calacanis is proposing this:

1. In feed advertising. Imagine if every 10th, 20th, or 100th tweet was an advertisement. Would that be so horrible? No, not at all. "your free Twitter account is brought to you by Apple's iPhone" would be perfectly acceptable to users and advertisers on the web. These ads will get solid click through if targeted well.... also they could be display/visual ads that really "pop" off the page since Twitter pages are text based (as opposed to say Flickr where the graphical ads would compete with the photos).
2. SMS Advertising. Users would be perfectly fine if every 100-200 or so SMS Tweets they got an advertisement. If/when Twitter turns on SMS advertising they will have the largest independent inventory of SMS advertising in the world. You think Google or a carrier mighty be interested in that?
3. Subscriptions. Would it be possible to pay for a reliable Twitter professional service for over a year. I would estimate 1-5% of Twitter users would pay for a professional version that had 99.9999% up time, as well as special features like file storage for MP3 files, photos and videos (i.e. like Pownce's pro account). This might "only" be a ten to fifty million a year opportunity, so I wouldn't focus on it.

In mytextad blog, they push for their service, though, they agree that there could be other ways. Their solution goes as follow:

"Our Primary concept is simple. Whenever an advertiser broadcasts a message over mytextad.com that message would be forwarded to twitter. The benefit would be that the advertisers message would be delivered to thousands of handsets at once. In essence anyone "following" our chatter."

Matthew Oliphant, in UsabilityWorks, gives six reasons why he would give money to Twitter:

"Stability would be nice. Being free right now, I don’t really care so much when Twitter goes down because, at least for the past few months, Twitter has spent more time up than down. Except apparently today, the day I choose to make the previous statement about stability.

All avenues to and from Twitter need to work. I want IM, SMS, Web, and 3rd Party methods to work. I don’t bother with IM because it rarely works. SMS never seems to work. I know it works for many people, but even though my phone is “synced” to Twitter, no dice.

No ads. Like Flickr, I don’t want to see anything but Twitter-related ads on my UI anywhere. Yep, I am willing to pay for that. I had a day where my Flickr subscription lapsed and my god it was full of ads. okay it wasn’t all that bad, but along with the other “pro” perks, I likes not seein’ ads.

Exporting my data. In fact, exporting all my data, including “With Friends,” so I can, um, take up scrapbooking and make my conversations all pretty like. Seriously though, I want to be able to back up my Twitter versations like I back up my email. Speaking of which, I really need to back up my email.

The ability to post updates to a select audience. Okay, you might think this is odd. The last couple of conferences I went to, I took notes via Twitter. Each update went to everyone. All 291 followers (half of whom are likely real people). I’d like for people to be able to opt-in to my updates for the day without having to create a new account or forever losing the ones that don’t opt-in. There’s multiple design solutions for this one, but I guess what I am asking for is the ability to create groups on the fly."

Anymore suggestions.

A tool for liveblogging: Coveritlive.

2008-01-14T11:57:00.001-02:00

Until now, before Coveritlive, to liveblog an event, you could use Twitter and insert it with widget in your blog. Sometimes it worked well, some other times, for the traffic going through Twitter, it was barely liveblogging.

You could also write directly in a post and save it as you add new information. Now, by embedding Coveritlive in your blog, you get a power tool to liveblog any event.

CoverItLive is a new, hosted service for blogging events in real-time, or "liveblogging." It's a useful tool for people covering major industry events, speeches, sports, and the like. Setting up a CoveritLive account is fast and free, and once you've done so you can either jump straight into liveblogging or schedule upcoming events. Liveblog content is all hosted on CoverItLive, and you put it on your blog by pasting in a small snippet of HTML code.

MeBeam: videoconferencing made simple.

2008-01-09T13:16:00.000-02:00

From all the existing solutions to conduct video conferencing over the Internet, MeBeam is the simplest of them all. Without registration, you must create a new chat room by giving it a name and communicate that name to your guests so they can video conference in it with you. Then, after allowing access to your webcam, you can see the video recorded by the other chatroom participants' webcams. If you want to chat with unknown persons, you have the option to access randomly an existing room.

An Ossan may come and run through your blog.

2008-01-05T18:03:00.000-02:00

Did you already give a Kancho to the making-a-speech Ossan at the top page (Kancho is a Japanese traditional children's play which is an act of shoving your first fingers up someone's butt and Ossan is a Japanese term which is a little impolite but cute way to refer to a middle-aged guy)? Click his butt and he, out of the pain, starts running, getting out of this website and running through one after another of blogs that have the Ossan Blogparts. Likewise, if you give a Kancho to the Ossan on one of those blogs, he will also run through various blogs. Deploy one of these blogparts into your blog so the number of your visitors may increase. Agree on the terms of service and start using this feature now.

Social networks for indie musician

2008-01-02T20:00:00.000-02:00

Reuters: Social networks for indie musicians that may make waves in 2008.

–>Eventful encourages people to vote for bands to come to their town. The service seems to be emerging as the source for communities to build buzz for their favorite acts. It also helps bands define exactly where they are going to perform. That’s a big deal when most of the money a band makes on the road is through merchandise.

–> The changing landscape of online music retailing makes Amie Street an indie music social network to watch. Amie Street uses variable pricing to define the cost of an MP3. The price is set by the number of times the song is downloaded. The price starts at zero and can increase to a high of 98 cents. Amie Street represents a transformation in the market, showing that the 99 cent per track pricing model is not set in stone. With more competition in the online music retail world, pricing will only fluctuate. Amie Street seems to approach the market with a clear view that demand is the only thing predictable about pricing music. The more demand, the higher the price the track should be. On another note, Amie Street is expanding with this model into Japan by offering the same pricing strategy for MP3’s, anime videos and manga comics.

Tweet Scan: a search engine for Twitter.

2007-12-29T20:07:00.000-03:00

Search engines for Twitter seem to be blossoming lately. After Hashtags, now you can use Tweet Scan. Tweet Scan allows you to search recent Twitter messages for words and phrases of interest to you. It's like a mini-Google for Twitter. If you're a reporter, that is one more tool transforming Twitter in a handy device to write or document your stories.

You can search in near real-time, the messages appearing Twitter's public timeline xml file. Beyond a simple search engine, you can get daily emails of tweets that mention your interests. When you're choosing your search terms, it's easy to preview the results. Once you're setup, you'll get a daily email including tweets that match. They're really quite fun to read through if you choose good keywords. If you prefer more infrequent emails, you can choose the weekly option.

Want to create your startup? First, read these 36 tips.

2007-12-27T15:39:00.000-03:00

These tips originally appeared as separate posts on the BlueBlog, the blog of AdaptiveBlue. [Ed: Alex Iskold is founder and CEO of AdaptiveBlue, as well as being a feature writer for RWW.]

This is a collection of startup tips covering software engineering, infrastructure, PR, conferences, legal and finance. They describe best practices for an early-stage startup. We hope that you will find these tips useful, but also please remember that they are based on subjective experiences and not all of them will be applicable to your company.

8 Software Engineering Tips for Startups.

5 Infrastructure Tips for Startups.

11 PR Tips for Startups.

7 Conference Tips for Startups.

5 Legal and Finance Tips for Startups.

Top webwares and sites of 2007.

2007-12-26T21:31:00.000-03:00

A previous post presented the eleven web apps of 2007 according to LifeHack. Now, it is ReadWriteWeb turn to analyse some of this year's best webwares:

RSS Reader: Google Reader (with an ongoing interest in Bloglines Beta, Newsgator, and fav.or.it).

Start Page: Pageflakes, Netvibes .

Tech News: Techmeme, Original Signal .

Online Music: last.fm .

Web Office: Google Docs, Zoho .

Project Mgmt: Basecamp .

Web Email: Gmail .

Social News: Digg, StumbleUpon .

Video, Photos: YouTube, Flickr .

Social Networks / Blogging: Facebook, MyBlogLog, Twitter, Tumblr .

For the detailed article, enter here.

Clipmarks 3.0

2007-12-22T18:18:00.000-03:00

I use Clipmarks to share stories that I find on the web. I also blogged some stories in my own blogs, especially, Scienciaramificacion. For instance, here, here or here.

Now, just in time for the holidays and new year, Clipmarks wanted to give everyone a brand new Clipmarks. A Clipmarks that is more powerful, more portable and more enjoyable than ever. So, we're extremely excited to introduce Clipmarks 3.0 and the birth of the ClipCast. With a ClipCast, you can now share clips with your friends on Facebook, MySpace or anywhere else on the web. You can also follow the action from clipmarks.com on your iGoogle or Netvibes page. See the demo.

The 11 webwares of 2007

2007-12-21T14:41:00.000-03:00

I really like the idea of creating, editing, and sharing documents and computing power “in the cloud”, accessible by whomever you want from wherever you want on whatever system you have handy. So, according to Dustin M. Wax at Lifehack, those are the eleven webwares of 2007.

bubbl.us: Flash-based mindmap creator bubbl.us allows you to quickly and easily make effective, attractive mindmaps that can be exported as images or as HTML outlines, or shared with others who can add new items or draw new connections between existing ones.

Buzzword: This online word processor is both gorgeous and a joy to use. Running in Flash, as you’d expect of an Adobe product, Buzzword works well and has a pretty full set of features already, and promises off-line functionality and PDF export in the near future.

Empressr: Another Flash-based app, Empressr allows users to create and share slideshows using text, images, videos (including webcam captures created on the fly), and other rich media. Presentations can be shared on the Empressr site and can also be embedded in users’ own pages.

Highrise: From the good folks at 37signals comes Highrise, an enterprise-grade contact manager and customer relations manager. 37signals sets the standard for web 2.0 apps, so you know it’s good: clean design, a highly functional interface, and interconnectivity with other 37signals apps.

Jott: A combination of speech recognition and live workers backs this “note to self” service, allowing Jott to produce remarkably accurate transcriptions of your spoken messages. Originally Jott simply recorded your message, transcribed it, and sent it to you or to someone in your contact list, but their new Jott Links service connects up with various web services allowing you to post to blogs, add appointments to your online calendar, tweet with twitter, and add todos to your todo list.

Mint: Online money management made almost frighteningly easy, Mint allows users to add all their bank accounts, credit cards, stock trading accounts, and other financial information into a simple, clean view. Although some have raised concerns about the security of all this sensitive information, Mint’s model was impressive enough to garner the TechCrunch40 Top Company Award (and $50,000 seed money).

Nozbe:Modeled on David Allan’s “Getting Things Done” approach, Nozbe aims to be the ultimate GTD app. With easy-to-add next actions associated with contexts and projects, Nozbe comes pretty close!

Sandy: Sandy is a virtual assistant centered on your email. You email Sandy with (almost) natural language statements, like “Remind me to call John Smith at 8am tomorrow”, and Sandy emails you a reminder at 8am tomorrow to call John Smith. Coupled with Jott, Sandy is a really exciting service!

Scrybe: The much-anticipated release of Scrybe left some feeling let down, but hype aside, Scrybe could well become the online calendar of choice. Flash-based Scrybe uses a natural-language parser similar to Sandy’s, allowing new entries to be created quickly and easily. The developers say they’re hard at work on integrating Scrybe with Outlook, which would make Scrybe a hard one to beat.

Todoist: Billing itself as “useful, fast and easy to use”, Todoist can be nothing more than a todo list — you start typing into the text box, select a due date, hit enter, and move onto the next. With a little specialized syntax, though, you can format lists, search for multiple criteria, manage your lists from Gmail, and integrate with external services like Launchy and QuickSilver.

Vitalist: Another contender for the GTD app, Vitalist also offers next actions, projects, and contexts (unlike Nozbe, you can create your own contexts), as well as a virtual “tickler file” and a mobile-optimized version. GTD apps are a highly personal product — one person’s way of getting things done might be nothing but a series of obstacles for another — so it’s good to see so much competition and innovation in this space.

Well, now, you have it.

R.I.P.: the webwares. Not heard about webwares. Someone is not reading this blog.

2007-12-18T17:06:00.000-03:00

In a recent survey, NPD asked nearly 600 PC users: "Have you heard about online, browser-based office productivity applications like Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, gOffice, etc.?" NPD also asked, "If so, how often do you use them?"

Ninety-four percent of U.S. consumers have never heard of Web-based productivity suite alternatives. A mere 0.5 percent have substituted Web-based productivity suites for desktop software such as Microsoft Office. Chris Swenson, NPD's director of Software Industry Analysis, described the 0.5 percent figure as being a "bit high." Swenson predicted worldwide usage to be even lower than the United States.