Web 2.0 posts

Filed under: Blogging, Web services, web 2.0

Is "Real-Time" taking the place of "Web 2.0" on the hypechart?

by Nik Fletcher Sep 14th 2009

Is just me, or is "real-time" the replacement term for "Web 2.0": you know, hideously over-used, over-hyped and prime for a square on the Internet Bullsh*t Bingo card? I mean, word has it that every man, dog and Venture Capitalist is on the real-time train now that mere mortals like parents are embracing Twitter. Continuing the real-time push is Pubsubhubbub - the real-time blog notification technology with a name that 95% of the Internet struggle to pronounce on first reading - and today it received another boost from Typepad who've enabled the technology on all their hosted blogs.

If you're wondering "what does this mean for me?", it's worth noting that Pubshubhubbub isn't something that consumers in general would see - it's designed to speed up the propagation of news to RSS services and the like - though if you're looking forward to the even-quicker delivery of illiterately-captioned cat photos to Google Reader, this is the magic sauce that may well power it.

It's not that I'm opposed to real-time notifications in general [I mean, I'm dying for Twitter to flick the switch and stream updates from my friends doing their laundry to my iPhone] but in an age where we're seemingly drawn to 'first' instead of 'better' with the news, I can't help but feel we ought to be looking at relevancy, not real-time.

[Original Image from Dave Winer]

Tags: Pubsubhubbub, Real-time, Twitter, Typepad, Web 2.0, Web2.0

Filed under: Design, Beta, web 2.0, Humor, Fugly Friday

Fugly Friday: Tiny Designer

by Jay Hathaway Jul 31st 2009

Web 2.0 style is its own special brand of Fugly. Hundreds of sites capitalize on the volcanically-hot design trends that signal a Web 2.0 property, but botch the job and end up looking like they were made with cookie cutters in 2007. But now, botching the job can be even easier, with Tiny Designer! You can create your own hideous Web 2.0 elements in seconds, including plenty of gradients, that ubiquitous lime-green color, and (of course) the always-popular "beta" badge.

Can you believe that the entire Tiny Designer site was made using elements from Tiny Designer? I sure can: it's atrocious. From the glossy sticky notes (why?) to the misappropriated Twitterrific bird at the bottom of the site, everything about Tiny Designer does violence to the entire idea of design. If you're not too stunned by the eyeful of horrors that is the Tiny Designer front page, launch the design gallery and see what other abominations this Frankensite hath wrought.

And all of this is to say nothing of the clunky, stilted user experience of actually attempting to make anything in Tiny Designer. The tool's disorderly UI involves a lot of toolbars stacked on top of one another, and, of course, a lot of gloss. If you thought the dismal results people produced with Tiny Designer were somehow due to user incompetence, you'll change your tune once you try to do anything with it. I'm predicting a long weekend of nightmares about the entire web being rebuilt with Tiny Designer.

Tags: design, fugly-friday, gradients, tiny-designer, web 2.0, Web2.0

Filed under: Blogging

Download Squad's Pictures from The Crunchies After-Party

by Nik Fletcher Jan 13th 2009

Don't worry, we're not going all Valleywag on our loyal readers, but with a bucket-load of photos from the Crunchies (and ensuing party) we thought it wise to separate the sober from the (Myspace-sponsored) party photos from San Francisco's City Hall. Thanks to all at TechCrunch for welcoming us Download Squad-ers to the event!

Gallery: Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party

Tags: alcohol, crunchies, party, techcrunch, web 2.0, web2.0

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

Where is your username registered? Find out with Usernamecheck

by Jay Hathaway Oct 13th 2008

There are a lot of advantages to using the same username for all your online services. It's easier to remember, and friends can find you more easily. If you're someone who's in this habit, you might want to take a look at Usernamecheck, a site that tells you which sites your favorite username is registered at.

Usernamecheck scans 60+ different networks, from 12seconds to Zooomr, and tells you if your name is taken. The sites on the list are some of the best, most useful places to have an account, so it might remind you of something you've been meaning to sign up for. Or, if you're an Internet addict like me, it might remind you of sites you signed up for and forgot about. Either way, it's worth a look.

Tags: social networking, SocialNetworking, username, usernamecheck, web 2.0, Web2.0

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Search, web 2.0

MiaMia : Ask Anything, Get Email or SMS Answers. Sometimes.

by Lee Mathews Aug 30th 2008

No, I didn't edit that image, that's actually the first question that pops up on MyMiaMia's flash intro banner. While I'm not certain it's a reference I would make when trying to flog my awesome new web app, it did make me stick around and try it out.

It's a slick concept. Visit the website and type in your query, get an answer sent to your email or cell phone via SMS. Your answers will probably arrive with a short, ceontextual ad at the end (at some point - right now it's just a placeholder).

I figured their example of a dictionary word was child's play, so I threw them a curve: Who played Ash in Army of Darkness? To my amazement, here was the reply: "Bruce Lorne Campbell an American actor, producer, writer and director, best known for his starring role as Ash in the Evil Dead trilogy of horror/slapstick movies."

Tags: answers, questions, search, web 2.0, Web2.0

Filed under: Developer, Utilities, web 2.0

Flexigrid: slick Web 2.0 data grids with jQuery

by Jay Hathaway Jul 20th 2008

Flexigrid is a jQuery based way of making flexible data grids, either by inputting fresh data or grabbing it from an existing table, XML, or JSON source. The "flexi-" in Flexigrid refers to its resizable height, width and columns. Flexigrid also now has a toolbar, a search function, and its own API.

Although the API isn't documented yet, there's enough there to figure out how to do the most important things Flexigrid does: collecting and sorting your data. It'll use Ajax to populate your new grid from an XML source, and there's an auto-resizing function so you don't have to mess with your columns too much right off the bat. The CSS should also be editable, so you can hack in your own theme if you're ambitious.

Tags: data grid, DataGrid, Flexigrid, grid, jquery, web 2.0, Web2.0

Filed under: Search, web 2.0

Yoozila: Google's Hot Cousin?

by Lee Mathews Jul 8th 2008

Ok, ok, we know that when something is as powerful and useful as Google that looks shouldn't matter, but come on. Would it really be too much to ask for her to doll herself up a little? Just a little. Throw us a bone!

Fortunately, Yoozila has arrived on the scene, all AJAXed up, and shiny web 2.0 graphics to top it all off.

The results page can be quickly - and usefully - customized. Turn thumbnails on or off, filter your results by region, language, file type and license type (though it doesn't work that well on some searches yet), and of course you can search within your results.

The thumbnails can be incredibly useful; they're a good way to spot scam sites before you get suckered in to visiting or give you a visual reminder of sites you're visited before.

It's built on Google code, so you'll get the same web, image, blog, news, and other results either way. Yoozila's done an excellent job updating the old, saggy Google interface.

Tags: google, search, web 2.0, Web2.0

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

Produce informational videos with Viddix

by Joey Celis Jun 18th 2008

Instructional videos or online reviews can sometimes be difficult to follow. Depending on watch you're watching it might be nice to have a second video displaying additional information that would aid in the presentation. Viddix may have found the answer to this in the form of their iPanel.

Once you've uploaded your video to the website, you'll need to add cuepoints. These cuepoints allow you to add text, links, photos, html pages, charts or other media rich files that your viewers can read and interact with. Viddix also provides cuepoint presets to ease the production of your video.

From start to finish, the production concept is straight forward and the average user shouldn't have many issues with producing their own videos.

While still in beta, we find the concept very useful, especially since we've started taking guitar lessons.

Tags: social, video, web 2.0, web services, web2.0, WebServices

Filed under: Business, Utilities, Office, Productivity, Web services, Beta, web 2.0

280Slides: great new web-based presentation software

by Jay Hathaway Jun 5th 2008

The first thing you'll probably notice about the new web-based presentation creator, 280Slides, is that it looks an awful lot like Apple's Keynote. As great as Keynote is, 280Slides has a few advantages: it's free and it's web-based. It's got all the features you would expect from good presentation software: you can present in full-screen mode straight from the web, download your slides, or share your presentation to SlideShare. Vimeo and Youtube integration let you add video to the mix, too.

We can already see 280slides saving numerous butts at conferences. Equipment failure? No big deal, just borrow a computer (any platform will do!) and pull your stuff from the web. Presentations were a good candidate for the next desktop function to hop aboard the "cloud computing" bandwagon and go web-based, and the folks at 280 North have pulled it off with style and functionality. Frankly, we're a little relieved that we'll never again have to ask, "Hey, does this machine have PowerPoint?"

[via Daring Fireball]

Tags: 280slides, keynote, powerpoint, presentation, web 2.0, web2.0

Filed under: Business, Internet, web 2.0

Facebook expands mini-feed again, announces more changes

by Jay Hathaway May 26th 2008

The Facebook mini-feed continued its expansion on Friday, adding YouTube, StumbleUpon, Hulu, Pandora, Last.fm, Google Reader, and your personal blog to the list of sites that can share data to Facebook. The import feature already included Flickr, Picasa, Digg, Yelp and del.icio.us. What's Facebook's goal with all of this? Over at ReadWriteWeb, Josh Catone speculates that Facebook is going to become the operating system of Web 2.0, sucking up the best features of other innovative sites.

Josh's idea makes a lot of sense, especially when you consider that the new Facebook profile design, scheduled to launch shortly, won't let you hide your mini-feed when you're looking at your profile. Facebook says this doesn't matter, because hiding it for yourself never affected which stories others could see, and they want users to know what they're broadcasting. If it doesn't affect anything, why take away the choice to hide it?

We'll engage in a little speculation of our own: by expanding the amount of info in the mini feed, and giving users as much exposure to it as possible, Facebook increases the value of advertising in the mini feed. They haven't announced any formal plans along those lines, but their recent moves (think Facebook Chat) seem to be targeted at increasing the time users spend on the site, which in turn increases its value to potential buyers. Just some mini-food for thought.

Tags: business, Facebook, lifestream, web 2.0, Web2.0

Filed under: Audio, Podcasting, Blogging

BlogAmp - podcasting made easy?

by Jay Hathaway May 23rd 2008

BlogAmp is a service that generates embeddable podcasts for your blog. BlogAmp calls them audiocasts, to include both streaming and downloadable 'casts, but we'll stick with "podcasts." Those were streaming too, last we heard. BlogAmp basically handles the generation of your podcast from start to finish: uploading, creating an embedded player, and creating an RSS feed.

BlogAmp's business model seems to be based on selling storage space. For a fee, you can upload your mp3 files -- support for other formats would be a plus! -- and avoid the need for other hosting. If you've already got plenty of storage space on another server (the server that hosts your blog, for example), you can use BlogAmp's other features for free. Some of these are cool: you can reskin the player a little bit and add download links for the individual mp3s in your list. Some of them are a little bit obnoxious: do we really want to make it easier to add "e-commerce" links to a podcast player?

If you know how to put together a podcast, but you're having trouble creating an RSS feed or finding a way to play it from your blog, BlogAmp could be a useful tool. For veterans of audio on the web, there's probably nothing here you can't already do yourself and customize more carefully.

Tags: audio, audiocast, blogamp, music, podcast, streaming, web 2.0, Web2.0

Filed under: Internet, web 2.0

MyGads remembers your wife's birthday

by Cory Bohon May 19th 2008

Besides having a funny name, MyGads allows you to remember things that you might not always have the answer to. This web 2.0 service allows you to input information that you want to remember later, then when you need the information, you can either send the service an instant message or text message from your phone with a keyword to retrieve the information.

For instance, if you want to remember "My Birthday," then you could create a statement similar to "My Birthday - 12/06." You could then text or IM MyGads to retrieve the birthday. This service has unlimited uses and might just get you out of a sticky situation, say, remembering your anniversary or wife's birthday.

Tags: instant messaging, InstantMessaging, MyGads, service, text messages, TextMessages, web 2.0, Web2.0

Filed under: Utilities, Web services, web 2.0

Trendrr - compare and share social data

by Jay Hathaway Mar 25th 2008

There are plenty of comparison tools for site traffic. Given a few minutes, we're willing to bet our readers could create a graph of a site's popularity over time. But what about graphing an artist's plays on MySpace or YouTube, how often people write blog posts about each presidential candidate, or how many people are seeding a file on BitTorrent? Trendrr lets you graph, compare, and mash up this kind of data with ease.

Trendrr makes graphing simple by including a drag-and-drop scratchpad that lets you edit and compare graphs with a minumum of effort. The system is based on the RESTful api, which means advanced users can hack together their own trends - there's an example on the site of graphing your computer's CPU usage over time. For everyone else, though, the list of built-in data sources includes popular sites like eBay and YouTube. Don't miss the gallery of popular graphs, which are sometimes informative and sometimes just funny.

Tags: social, Trendrr, trends, trendspotting, web, web 2.0, Web2.0, website

Filed under: Productivity, Web services, Social Software, Beta, web 2.0

Twiddla offers no-fuss whiteboarding

by Jay Hathaway Mar 14th 2008

Twiddla is an online whiteboard that lets you start collaboratively marking up practically anything: a blank page, your own images, or a website. It was created to solve the hassle of e-mailing design proofs back and forth for comments. With Twiddla, you can do real-time markup in a matter of minutes, without even signing up.

Twiddla does have accounts - it's in public beta, so you can sign up now - but you can start a new meeting without one, and edit your user details on the fly. Once you're in a meeting, you've got all the basic markup tools you would expect: pen, text box, some basic shapes. You can also upload images or browse to a site and start marking it up. Communication during the meeting is supported by a text chat box and an audio chat button.

It might not be as full-featured as some of the more established whiteboard services out there, but it definitely scores points for quick setup and ease of use. There's even a bookmarklet for your browser, so you can "twiddle" any page with one click. Sure, we could find a couple things to complain about -- an eraser and a tool for drawing neat arrows would be nice, for starters -- but we're in a good mood because we just used a functional web service without having to sign up.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Tags: collaboration, markup, twiddla, web 2.0, Web2.0, whiteboard

Filed under: Productivity, Web services, Beta

InsideTrip searches fast, comfortable flights

by Jay Hathaway Mar 3rd 2008

Finding a cheap flight isn't too hard these days. At least a half-dozen major sites search for the best fares, and many of them will search their competitors and compare rates for you. InsideTrip is trying to carve out a new niche in this crowded market by focusing less on the cheapest flights, and more on the easiest, most comfortable ones.

InsideTrip rates flights on its TripQuality scale, which includes your choice of 12 different factors. Sick of flights being late? Check the "on-time stats" box. Is sitting in the middle seat one of your pet peeves? InsideTrip has a box for that, too: you can search by historical load factor.

We conducted a few test searches to see how much more you could be paying for these amenities, but it turns out that it's not that expensive. InsideTrip just lets you narrow down the same cheap results the other sites offer, based on what's most important to you. If you'll gladly endure a few hours of wait time or some lost bags to save money, skip it. If you're concerned about everything from security wait times to the age of your plane, you might want to give it a look.

[Via TechCrunch]

Tags: airfare, beta, InsideTrip, search, tickets, travel, web 2.0, Web2.0

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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