Social Networking and Web 2.0

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Macintosh, Freeware, Social Software, web 2.0

Cocoalicious is a really slick — but, unfortunately, Mac-only — dedicated browser for your Del.icio.us bookmarks. If you’re a bookmarking junkie, and you have way more sites saved to Del.icio.us than you could ever hope to keep track of, this could be an ideal solution for you. It’s laid out a bit like Apple Mail, with your tags running down the left side, your bookmarks on top, and a browser pane at the bottom.

You can put bookmarks directly into Cocoalicious — it syncs with your Del.icio.us account — or use the bookmarklet to add stuff to Cocoalicious straight from your browser. This way you can take advantage of autocompletion, tagging by dragging, and other features that make Del.icio.us easier. Cocoalicious also supports Spotlight, so you can search for your bookmarks straight from the Finder!

[via Lifehacker]
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Filed under: Internet, Social Software

Weheartit is a fun way to share photos or videos you’ve seen while browsing the Internet. Others can see what you find interesting and also comment on them as well.

Weheartit works by bookmarking their I heart it bookmarklet and as you visit websites, images and videos are outlined in pink with an “add to my heart” text above it. Clicking on this link adds the image to your heart page where you can add tags, mark it NSFW or unheart the image. From there the image becomes viewable to all Weheartit members so that everyone can see what’s hearting you.

The only issue we had while using the service is that it outlines all the potential images in pink and makes everything look like its February 14.

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Filed under: News, Social Software

Have you ever heard a public figure make a claim that seems a bit preposterous? In the year of a U.S. presidential election, more people are going to be scrutinizing candidates — and political bloggers — and wondering if what they’re saying is true, exaggerated, or just completely made up. That’s where Ameritocracy comes in. You can add a quote, and Ameritocracy users will rate its accuracy and its relevance.

We think this is great fun, because it takes a step toward realizing our fantasy of siccing Slashdot commenters on all of our nation’s politicians. Sure, the accuracy ratings might be questionable, but they should continue to improve as the site gains additional users. Ameritocracy is full of diverse issues and opinions, so if you can’t get worked up over the election, maybe you have an opinion on propositions like, “The mobile phone may be the most potent tool ever invented for the elimination of poverty.”
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Filed under: Utilities, Social Software, web 2.0

Web-based list-creation service Blist has made a couple of changes recently, and the biggest one is “less a feature and more a philosophy.” Because Blist is easier to demonstrate than it is to explain, you can now try Blist without an account. You can play with all the features, browser other people’s Blists and even make your own — you just can’t save it.

At the same time, they’ve introduced social features, similar to the ones you’re familiar with from places like Digg and Google Reader. You can add contacts and share Blists with others via your contact list. Previously, you could only share via email (that feature is still available.) We love to see intelligent uses of social features like Blist’s. It looks like they’ve added something that people will actually use, without going overboard with elaborate profiles.

[via Mashable]
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Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Search

With all the social networking sites out there it’s hard to keep track of who’s on what site and what are they doing. Whoisi is attempting to bring everything together so that keeping track of your friends doesn’t feel like a second job.

Just enter their user name and have it added to the whoisi database. From there add them to your “follow” list and every time you visit the site it will display their latest activities. Keep in mind that once added, anyone can follow them from the whoisi site.

An interesting feature of whoisi is the ability for anyone to edit information about any user. You can add additional sites that this person is a member of or delete the site. Currently whoisi supports information from Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, LinkdIn and rss feeds.

Once you get over that whole privacy thing of anyone can add you to the site, the convenience of being able to follow all your friends on a simple website is quite appealing.

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ReadWriteweb has a post on the new trends that have been shaping up at the search front and those that could possibly challenge Google's dominance in the future.

A summary of the list

1. Outsourcing of crawlers
2. Targeting single proven sources like Wikipedia
3. Peer to Peer search
4. Core search is still getting funded

Over all the article lambastes the approach to using natural language as users have more or less come to expect the machine to respond to queries where the difference in the terms is stark. Among these the use of P2P for search does look very interesting. It does solve one big problem with search - scaling to the size of the web.

The more fundamental aspect is the inertia to change. Even if there are engines that provide distinctly better search than Google, perhaps there will be no en-mass switching over unless Google itself deteriorates in quality.

See full article.

Related Entries:

Google Trends - Search Traffic Trends - 11 May 2006

Google reveals downward trend in nanotech popularity - 08 July 2006

Google Malware Warning Could Hit Your Web Search - 27 February 2007

Search Retention: Healthy Yet Fierce - 26 August 2007

Contents of this feed are a property of Creative Weblogging Limited and are protected by copyright laws. Violations will be prosecuted. Please email us if you’d like to use this feed for non-commercial activities at feeds - at - creative-weblogging.com.

SearchEngineWatch's Kevin Ryan has a great post on the fallout of the recently announced partnership between Yahoo and Google. The deal that is supposed to have spurned the takeover bid from Microsoft is bound to have a large impact on the emerging market for internet advertising.

An excerpt from the article

Partnership is a lovely term as it covers all manner of good and evil while saying exactly nothing in the process. Agency managers I've spoken to recently are still struggling with Google's arguably one-sided advertising terms and conditions.

Maybe the negotiations will go better once Google is the only place to buy search ads. Maybe Hillary Clinton will get back into the presidential race as well. I hear the American dollar is about to mount a giant comeback against the Euro, too.

It does seem that the only outcome of Microsoft's bid was to hurl Yahoo into Google's arms. The recent exodus of talent from Yahoo also stands out as a bad sign of things to come. Yahoo does seem to exude the impression that it is not looking towards search as the frontier for the next growth. It may be right in attempting to add a social layer across all its web properties and perhaps think about search advertising once that is done. But in the meantime, the advantage that comes to Google may make a comeback in the future almost impossible.

See full article.

Related Entries:

Could Terry Semel bring Yahoo back into the black? - 11 May 2007

Yahoo, Print Media Boast Alliance - 14 June 2007

Yahoo’s Beginning… - 10 November 2007

Google Looking Forward To Deal With Yahoo - 13 May 2008

Contents of this feed are a property of Creative Weblogging Limited and are protected by copyright laws. Violations will be prosecuted. Please email us if you’d like to use this feed for non-commercial activities at feeds - at - creative-weblogging.com.

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, Search

With Twitter, you generally follow people you know or at least have heard about from others, but that limits your social circle. Twellow attempts to change how you find people to follow by indexing all the publicly available messages floating around the twitter network into searchable categories.

Twellow’s website is laid out so you can click on a category and it will display all the members that have expressed some interest in that particular subject. In addition, Twellow also provides a search box for more free form searching.

But if the idea that your messages are being indexed so that others can find you is a bit unnerving, just make sure you send your twits in private.

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Filed under: Utilities, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Chi.mp is an online identity aggregator — don’t start groaning just yet, it’s different from the ones we’re used to. Chi.mp stands for Content Hub and Identity Management Platform, and it’s centered around your own yourname.mp domain. Instead of keeping your data fragmented across several different social networks, you own your data, and you can keep it all on one domain and control what flows out to where (and to who).

Chi.mp is still in alpha, but we can’t wait for a chance to see what it can do. We already know that your chi.mp domain will work with OpenID, and consolidating your login is definitely a good start. The specifics of chi.mp’s interface and how it will interact with existing networks are still under wraps, but this looks like one to watch. Signups for the beta are still open, so head over and check it out.

If you’re curious about how chi.mp has got its hands on all those .mp sites, here’s the explanation: “.mp, the ccTLD for the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) is being repurposed for personal identity and social networking. Second-level .mp domains will be integrated into the chi.mp offering and given away to personal owners free of charge.” If you want to get in on the sunrise registration for .mp, you can score a domain for $50.
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Filed under: News, Social Software, web 2.0

Facebook is at it again, rolling out features in advance of the redesign we’ve been hearing so much about. The latest addition is comments in the mini-feed. Now when you find out that “Ashley changed her profile picture” you can click a little + icon next to that item and add a comment. This doesn’t go for all mini-feed items: it seems to be only for profile and status changes. At least you can’t comment on a mini-feed item about someone’s comment (yet.)

Well, ok. It’s one more way of communicating on Facebook, but what does it imply about the future of the wall? What used to be the main point of communication is now one of many, with photo comments, mini-feed comments and messages all in the mix. Will more places to comment make things easier for users? On the plus side for Facebook, users will stay on the site a few seconds longer to check one more place for comments, but is it a plus for you? Weigh in with your comments about comments.
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LimitNone, a small software company has sued Google for copying its product - for Microsoft Office calendar items and email to Gmail.

An excerpt from Wired

The dispute centers around a LimitNone-developed tool that allows people to move Microsoft Office calendar items and email to the Google platform. The Chicago-based company claims it showed this tool to senior members of the Google Apps team in early 2007. The LimitNone team was repeatedly assured that Google would not roll out a competing product.

It does seem an obvious sort of application that Google would have wanted to develop. Though it does help that LimitNone will get a lot of publicity for this.

See full article.

Related Entries:

Google Buying 5% Of AOL For US $1 Billion - 17 December 2005

Verizon Wireless Sues I-VEST over Spam - 03 June 2007

What’s Behind Google’s $4.6 Billion Incentive for the 700Mhz Auction - 21 July 2007

Wi-LAN Sues the World - 01 November 2007

Contents of this feed are a property of Creative Weblogging Limited and are protected by copyright laws. Violations will be prosecuted. Please email us if you’d like to use this feed for non-commercial activities at feeds - at - creative-weblogging.com.

Filed under: Internet, Productivity, Social Software

All of us could use a personal assistant every now and then, especially when it comes to planning your itinerary for a trip where you have to put together reservations for restaurants, entertainment, and rental cars into something you can follow once you reach your destination.

TripIt is a site designed to take confusion out of trying to organize all your reservations by doing it for you. The service takes all the plans you’ve made for your trip such as plane reservations, rental cars, and restaurant reservations and organizes them, adding important things like directions to get to where you’re going and a projected weather forecast for your trip. Your TripIt itinerary can then be printed out and taken with you as well as forwarded to friends in email, synced with your personal calender, or viewed on your mobile device.

TripIt allows you to add information to your trips manually or if you schedule events with one of TripIts supported websites you can just forward your reservations to the site via email and have them added to your itinerary for you. Currently TripIt supports a slew of airline websites, restaurant reservations through OpenTable.com, and they just added support for a variety of event sites such as Ticketmaster.
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Filed under: Audio, Fun, Video, Social Software

Let’s be honest here. How many of us have gotten on stage to do a bit of karaoke. Don’t worry no one is gonna laugh at you. Because when you did get up there, it was only for that moment never to be repeated again. Well that would be true unless you decided to sing it up at Red Karaoke.

Red Karaoke gives you the ability to sing your favorite songs and have it hosted on their site to share with others. Depending on how good you are at karaoke, this could be a good thing or a bad thing because members can comment and do vote on your performance.

The quality of the music reminds us of general midi files, but then again the accompaniment isn’t the star here you are. If you want to give your performance a little more pizazz connect your web cam for some video karaoke action! The service itself is fun and easy to use. And Red Karaoke does offer a decent selection of songs ranging from the 1950’s to the present in a variety of genres.

But try as we did, we couldn’t find any NKOTB.

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Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

TwitterCounter has one simple purpose in life, to give you a counter to display the number of people that follow you, from Twitter, on your website.

Just enter your user name and TwitterCounter will display the number of people following you over a seven day period. To display the updating counter on your website simply copy the available code and paste it to your site for all to see.

If you’re really into your Twitter stats, enter your email address to receive daily updates. Because we all know you’re only a few followers short of that elusive number one spot!

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Windows Mobile, Productivity, Web services, Social Software, iPhone

If you’re not one of the 125,000 people who got a chance to try out the cross-platform note capture app Evernote during its private beta, don’t despair. Evernote has launched an open beta, so now everyone can give it a try. If you were already in the beta, does this change anything for you? Yes, indeed it does: there are now two types of Evernote accounts, free and premium.

Free users keep all the features of the closed beta, with the caveat that you’re now limited to 40mb a month of uploaded notes. If you’re a power-user, or someone who’s really sold on the Evernote lifestyle, go premium for 5 bucks a month or $45/year and get rid of that cap. Premium also comes with the option of SSL for all your uploads (for all those pictures of the enemy base, we guess) and priority access to the queue for Evernote’s text-recognition features.
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Filed under: Text, Social Software, web 2.0

A mind map is a graphical representation of words or ideas that are linked around a central theme. Putting down your ideas on a mind map really helps to concentrate your efforts to ensure you stay focus. But while mind maps are generally helpful, assembling one on your computer may require a map of its own.

Instead of figuring out how to put one together yourself, text2mindmap has developed a site where you can enter in your ideas in an outline format and Text2mindmap will generate a fully interactive map. You can move the segments of the map around to see how each word or idea is connected to another.

The site is in beta and configuration options are limited to font, color and sizing. What would be nice for future updates, is the ability to download your map to some sort of self contained application that will allow you to retain all the interactive aspects of the map instead of the static image download option currently available.
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Filed under: Internet, Social Software, web 2.0, Browsers

Social web browsing plugin Yoono has emerged from private beta. The new version still wears a beta label, but it’s available to the public. Yoono is basically a utility that hangs out in the Firefox sidebar and gives you quick access to instant messenging services, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, FriendFeed, and Piczo.

The public beta adds support for Firefox. It also packs a few new features:

• Filter your friends activity by network, group, or names
• Add FriendFeed and Flickr comments
• Send Twitter direct messages and replies
• Upload pictures to Facebook or poke friends
• Browse Digg video

Yoono will also be adding Google Talk and MySpace soon. There does appear to be a bug that prevents Yoono from working properly on Firefox 3 in some cases. The problem seems to show up if you’ve installed some other browser plugins. Yoono is expected to release an updated version addressing this problem within the next few days.

[via Mashable]
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Google uses the click through rate to rank the paid search results. The more clicks an ad gets, the higher it will be ranked in the search results. Does Google also use this method for the regular search results?

Filed under: Fun, Social Software, web 2.0

Do you have trouble finding like-minded people to follow on Twitter? Not sure how your favorite Twitter celebrities pick the people they follow? Now you can follow the same folks as your Twitter idol — it’s Merlin Mann, just admit it — by using a tool appropriately called Twannabe.

Twannabe takes your username and your idol’s username and tells you who they follow that you don’t. We think Twannabe is a useful service that doesn’t do itself any favors by framing things in terms of idols and hangers-on. If you just want to follow a bunch of people your best friend knows, it works just as well.
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Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

Timelines are a great way to provide an overview of events. But what’s even better is a timeline that generates content automatically based on information you probably already have.

Dipity takes automated timeline creation to a new level. If you have (and quite frankly who doesn’t) a Blogger, Flickr, WordPress, YouTube, Twitter or any of the other supported social networking site just enter in your user name, URL or an RSS feed and dipity will do the rest.

You can view your timeline in years, months, weeks or even one day. Dipity also let’s you rate your events so that those with higher ratings are displayed more prominently than others with lower ratings.

You’re free to embed your timeline on your own site or list them on dipity’s searchable directory.

If you ever wanted to see your online life sprawled out in front of you, dipity is one way to go about it.
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