web 2 posts

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Web services

Developing with API's

by Chris Gilmer Jul 6th 2007

Have you ever wanted to create a nice little Web 2.0 mashup, but just didn't know where to turn to for an API that could grab the information you are looking to incorporate?

API's, application programming interface, are the source code that computer program libraries provide in order to support service requests. API's are often part of a standard software development kit, commonly referred to as an SDK. Companies that offer APIs range widely from Sony for their Playstation, Microsoft for Windows software, and more recently popularized in the online environment with Google Maps and many other online based mashups. As more and more organizations open up API's for developers to tool around with, that includes many that you visit online every single day, it gets harder and harder to keep track of what's available, and what is possible with them.

ProgrammableWeb has done a great job of supplying a comprehensive listing of all Web 2.0 API's. Anything from Google Adwords, del.icio.us, 30 boxes, Feedgator, BBC, Twitter and Zoho are listed here. All categorized and waiting for you to click and download.

Check out some API mashups we have profiled.

Tags: api, code, designer, developer, mashup, online, web 2, Web2

Filed under: Business, Design, Fun, Internet, Web services, Social Software

Making money from PowerPoints with PPTExchange

by Chris Gilmer Jun 21st 2007

Selling presentations? I'm sure Microsoft didn't think about that when they started development on Powerpoint. Who would have ever thought that it would be possible to make some pocket change for selling the notes you jot down in a PowerPoint presentation? Welcome to Web 2.0 where everything is possible, but not everything is a viable business.

PPTExchange is a service that allows users to publish, trade and sell any document created in a PowerPoint presentation. It is a neat idea...sort of. But can it benefit people in the long run, and make money? I highly doubt it. Content so far on the site includes animated stories, a presentation entitled "people that look like their dogs", and a Student of the month certificate. Just from that small list you can get the idea of the type of site it's turning into. This one just doesn't stand out in the long list of online applications.

Tags: microsoft, online, powerpoints, PPTExchange, selling, web 2, Web2

Filed under: Business, Design, Internet, E-mail, Productivity, Web services, Yahoo!

MyYahoo updates with POP Mail and Gmail modules

by Chris Gilmer Jun 14th 2007

my yahooo updates pop modules with gmail access

If you are a big fan of custom start pages like the new MyYahoo, and a user of a POP mail account, you might get excited about a new feature Yahoo has added.

In iGoogle, you can only pull in your Gmail account, well, Yahoo thought hey, why not, let's make it so that any mail account can get imported into our customers start pages in the new MyYahoo. So they came out with the POP Mail module that launched yesterday; Pull in mail from any mail account, Yahoo or not, as long as it supports POP.

Yahoo also added in a Gmail module, because hey why not allow Google's Gmail users the ability to pull in their mail. If you want to get hooked up with the new My Yahoo beta that serves this content, sign up for an upgrade if you haven't already, and you'll be on your way. The page is clean and as easy to use at Netvibes. However, even though I enjoyed having the Gmail/POP modules preview my emails, when emails are clicked out to read more, you will have to sign into your email account. A little hassle, but that could be easily forgotten about. Yahoo is on their way to building a serious contender here, and it's definitely one you might want to consider. Netvibes is still a leader in this space, and is for sure a location that Yahoo and other "start pages" want to study when finding out what works, especially when it comes to a clean and uncluttered space. In other words, if My Yahoo got rid of that giant ad, and tightened up the top of the page so that we could fit in more content, it might get a little higher on the list.

MyYahoo has also updated their Scoreboard, Weather and Shopping modules.

Tags: gmail, import, mail, my yahoo, MyYahoo, netvibes, pop, start, web 2, Web2, yahoo

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Fun, Internet, Web services

Web designers RIP, Zude is here

by Chris Gilmer Apr 20th 2007

Seems like someone has some kind of beef with web designers, or a passion to see more bad design online, but at least it seems like a cool service.

Zude is a new online service that lets people quickly and easily design their own websites. Through the Web 2.0 technology that Zude employs, people will be able to drag and drop content creating enhancements for the MySpace sites of the internet. This includes widgets, pictures, videos and images with the ability to resize, rotate and move the elements around the page.

Zude launches May 1st, and the scheduled fee for the service will be $25 a year for a blank customizable space. The premise for the service is great. It allows people that are not able to code and put together a website the ability to express themselves online, but are we headed to a geocities, MySpace, everything all over the place online world? Just as long as this service doesn't extend to the business sector, web designers should still be employable (we hope).

[via profy]

Tags: ajax, design, designer, drag drop, DragDrop, myspace, profy, web, web 2, Web2, website

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Kids, Blogging, Web services, Social Software

Teenie Bopper social network site Piczo gets a larger vocabulary

by Chris Gilmer Apr 20th 2007

One thing that tends to take a while in the Web 2.0 market is the expansion to non-English speaking markets. Even Google is guilty of waiting a while to open up services for non-English speaking residents of the world.

Piczo, the social network that specializes in the teen market, has finally expanded to include other languages. The second place superstar in the social space for teens now has international versions for users in Germany, France and Spain.

It's a move that hasn't come soon enough for the over 1.2 million users in Germany alone. Piczo's current user base is approx. 25 million users worldwide.

[via webware]

Tags: france, germany, international, myspace, network, piczo, social, spain, users, web 2, Web2

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Web services, Social Software

How many page views a month does a Web 2.0 company need to get an IPO?

by Chris Gilmer Apr 20th 2007

We are in a crazy time right now as far as internet companies go. Just like 1999, they are popping up everywhere, and everyone is doing something 2.0 related. Only difference now, they are all online based applications.

Well, what would it take for a Web 2.0 company to hold an initial public offering? Michael Kanellos looked into this with Opus Capital partner Ken Elefant. Ken stated that his firm will not even think about investing in a 2.0 company unless they have one billion or more page views.

So what's the math here? A web 2.0 company needs to pull in at least $5 million/ month to be independent. Ultimately what Ken says is that in order for companies to be viable, their best bet is to get bought out by an established player. For more on Michael's findings check out Cnet.

[image via TechStartups]

Tags: business, company, ipo, web 2, Web2

Filed under: Design, Fun, Internet, Photo, Text, Utilities, Video, E-mail, Web services, Social Software

Emailing junk with CuBee

by Chris Gilmer Apr 19th 2007

CuBee takes the clutter out of your email inbox. It's a rich content email and messaging system which allows users to send out emails containing large files like video, pictures, animation, and notes.To add a little bit of Web 2.0 cuteness, messages can be sent inside a digital envelope with an emoticon to express feelings.

CuBee is integrated into ZCubes, a website where users can seamlessly browse, search, edit, paint, draw, watch, listen, print, network, work, and just about everything else you would care to do online.

Check out a demo of what ZCubes can do.

Tags: cubee, draw, email, files, images, inbox, mail, message, paint, video, web, web 2, Web2, zcubes

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Fun, Internet, Text, Video, Web services, Adobe

Scrapblog on your desktop

by Chris Gilmer Apr 18th 2007

The team from Scrapblog is hanging out at the Web 2.0 expo this week, and has some exciting news.

Scrapblog, who officially announced their availability on April 2nd, is a way for people to aggregate social media into an online scrapbook. It's a simple drag and drop way to combine photos, videos, audio and text to create really cool multimedia pages, or online scrapbooks. Material can be uploaded and embedded from Flickr, YouTube, Photobucket, Yahoo Photos, and Webshots.

With the Web 2.0 world rapidly shifting towards giving users the ability to access files and applications both online and offline, Scrapblog is going offline, and onto the desktop. They have been working hard to build a version of Scrapblog that runs on Adobe's Apollo platform which shouldn't be hard given the fact that they already employ Flash for their main interface. The release date is expected to be around two months from now, and they will be opening it up for trials with an announcement on their blog at that time.

Check out some samples of what you can do with Scrapblog.

Tags: adobe, apollo, application, desktop, images, multimedia, online, photos, scrapblog, video, web 2, Web2

Filed under: Business, Developer, Internet, Web services

Amazons web infrastructure focus

by Chris Gilmer Apr 17th 2007

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos gave the keynote at the Web 2.0 Expo, outlining some next-gen focus of Amazons suite of Web Services.

So whats in store for the shopping portal? Bezos and his team are pushing hard on the family of Amazon Web Service API's that includes the S3 storage API, EC2 computer services and the Simple Queue Service. Bezos also mentioned that Amazon is working on other API's in the web infrastructure stack.

Amazon's Simple Storage solution has become a highly touted cost conscious alternative for companies to manage online e-commerce services, and currently holds 5 billion objects in S3, up from 800 million in July 2006. However, Amazon currently isn't making money on this venture, but sees it as a future money making opportunity. S3 currently has 90 million requests per day, and 16 thousand requests per second.

Some companies which have been taking advantage of Amazon's S3 service are S3AjaxWiki, JungleDisk, and iminlikewithyou. Also, dont forget about using A3 to back up your Flickr photos.

[via programmableweb]

Tags: amazon, api, ec2, jeff bezos, JeffBezos, s3, simple queue, SimpleQueue, storage, web 2, Web2

Filed under: Business, Fun, Internet, Web services, Social Software

Inpowr can help you explore and discover, you

by Chris Gilmer Apr 17th 2007

With so many obstacles in your daily life, its sometimes hard to organize and plan every step. Inpowr wants to be there for you.

Inpowr is currently in beta mode, and attending the Web 2.0 conference this week in San Francisco. Their online platform is a location for self discovery, helping users plan every aspect of their lives. Goals can be set, and things that you want changed in your life can be noted, with other users supporting you if you so choose. The system takes into consideration the well being of users and measures progress made, so that goals can be met. After all is said and done, experiences can be shared so that others can learn from you.

Sounds like a pretty interesting online self discovery service, once we are on the beta look out for a full review to see if this is a service that does what it says it can.

Tags: discover, explore, goals, inpowr, self, social, web 2, Web2

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

You too can be a nosy neighbor with iStalkr

by Chris Gilmer Apr 7th 2007

Who's up for a little stalking? Its ok, no Britney Spears stalking, just some RSS and ATOM feed stalking. iStalkr is out of beta and ready for users to create a world of spying and nosiness.

iStalkr is a web application that creates a "lifestream" that will track RSS and ATOM feeds from a variety of services that you might use throughout the day including Digg, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Google Reader and Twitter over a time line. From that point, you can choose to paste a time line of data into a website or blog to let people know what you are up to, or monitor other people's timelines to see what they have been up to.

It's a pretty cool application, but really doesn't serve any other purpose.. Sure its great to see how many times someone twitters, when they check out their news feeds, and how many times they Digg something throughout the day, but it's just another fluffy Web 2.0 gadget.

[via Profy]

Tags: atom, delicious, digg, flickr, google, istalkr, lifestream, rss, stalking, timeline, web 2, Web2

Filed under: Internet, Web services

Schmedley start page, nothing new here

by Chris Gilmer Mar 1st 2007

Start pages are great to gather the information you check out frequently, and take a quick look at them in one convenient location. There are many Ajax start pages on the market including Netvibes, Google Personalized home page, Yourminis, and Pageflakes that all seem to do the job. So what makes Schmedley different? Nothing really.

Its pretty, ajaxy, and just another player in this ever expanding market. But there is one cool feature that sits at the bottom of the screen. That OSX style dock that adds schmidgets, as they are called, to your screen. Schmedley's quicklinks at the top allow users to add stocks to watch, search for images, check out movie times, and subscribe to feeds. As far as organization goes, there is nothing new here, the other start sites on the market beat this one out. It does seem cluttered, and not the first thing I want to look at in the morning, but it was worth a shot. It might need a bit more work in order to compete with the market leaders.

Tags: ajax, schmedley, start page, StartPage, web 2, Web2

Filed under: Audio, Business, Internet, Blogging, Web services

Odeo is for sale

by Chris Gilmer Feb 20th 2007

Odeo, an early pioneer among podcasting sites, is up for sale. Odeo's creator, Evan Williams is aiming to be open and honest about the sale, and wants everything out on the table so he's blogging about it. The creator of Blogger and the founder of Obvious Corp who is the web development company behind Twitter, admits that Odeo has not gotten the attention it deserves.

Back in the day, Odeo did receive funding, but when things didn't work out; Evan bought it back and was trying to rehash a business model. Twitter has taken off, and they must spend their time with that application, so Odeo is on the market. As an alternative to a buyout, Obvious is currently looking at looking at different investment situations as well, from a cash offer to equity. The full Odeo pot includes selling the odeo.com domain as well as the studio.odeo.com platform, including all code, the brand, and a database of three million MP3s. So, if you're interested, drop Evan an email.

UPDATE: Evan was reported to have paid $5 Million when he bought back ODEO from investors.

[Thanks Jordan Running]

Tags: evhead, obvious corp, ObviousCorp, odeo, podcasting, sale, twitter, web 2, Web2

Filed under: Design, Developer, Internet, Text, Web services

It's Tutorialicious

by Chris Gilmer Nov 20th 2006

Are you good at writing tutorials? Or maybe you have amassed a collection of tutorials you have written for friends and family? Maybe you're just looking for some inspiration? Enter tutorialicio.us. It's the del.icio.us and digg of the tutorial world. Tutorials are submitted and are voted on by members to rise to the top of tutorial land to be seen on the front page of the site. All of the tutorials are focused on programming and design, from creating a Web 2.0 logo to building a simple search engine with Python and MySQL. Although the database seems small at the moment, tutorialicio.us is focused on a little niche market that loves to show and tell.

Tags: how to, HowTo, tutorialicious, tutorials, web 2, Web2

Filed under: Internet, Office, Web services

Helipad tagged online note taker

by Chris Gilmer Nov 10th 2006

If you have many things to remember, and don't want to clutter your desk and computer with a sticky note mess, try out Helipad. Their online hosted note application makes it easy to create notes and tag them with keywords for easy locating. With the free online application you can draft up anything that you normally would in a word processor--all you need is an internet connection. Helipad's auto save timer helps you remember to save your document in intervals you set. It also has support for mobile devices, and in true Web 2.0 fashion, you can share your documents with your friends.

Take a peek at some screenshots of the Helipad interface after the jump.

Tags: computer, helipad, notes, share, sticky note, StickyNote, tags, web 2, Web2

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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web 2 posts

Developing with API's

Making money from PowerPoints with PPTExchange

MyYahoo updates with POP Mail and Gmail modules

Web designers RIP, Zude is here

Teenie Bopper social network site Piczo gets a larger vocabulary

How many page views a month does a Web 2.0 company need to get an IPO?

Emailing junk with CuBee

Scrapblog on your desktop

Amazons web infrastructure focus

Inpowr can help you explore and discover, you

You too can be a nosy neighbor with iStalkr

Schmedley start page, nothing new here

Odeo is for sale

It's Tutorialicious

Helipad tagged online note taker

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