SOMEWHAT FRANK

Facebook Impact, Google Acquires ImageAmerica, Internet TV, Pageflakes Blizzard & Collaboration Tools

Photo of the Week: I took a trip to Sausalito yesterday and took in some gorgeous sites including this little red sailboat in the Bay.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.22.07

Google Maps: A users guide to personalization
LifeHacker offers a guide to personalizing Google Maps.

The Impact of Facebook's Platform
Read/Write Web looks at the impact Facebook is making on the Web. It has been just under 2 months since Facebook launched their platform initiative, but this self-opening move has already had an extremely positive impact on the company.

Facebook buys Parakey
GigaOm believes Facebook’s new mission is to: buy all talent under 25 in the Palo Alto-Mountain View area. Parakey is a prime example.

Work Together: 60+ Collaborative Tools for Groups
Mashable looks at 60+ sites that will help everyone be on the same page via online collaboration. Stop, collaborate and listen...

Google Acquires ImageAmerica
Google acquired Clayton, Missouri based ImageAmerica, a company that builds high-resolution cameras for the collection of aerial imagery.

The Professionalization of Internet TV
NewTeeVee looks at the low-cost Internet TV options these days.

Pageflakes Blizzard Release Launches
Customized home page startup Pageflakes launched a slew of new features this morning under what it is calling its “Blizzard” release.

Totally Uncorked
Gary Vaynerchuk's WineLibraryTV a daily 15-min video podcast was recently highlighted in TIME Magazine. Gary was a sponsor and demo'er at TECH cocktail in DC 1. Way to go Gary!

Dow Jones, News Corp. Set Deal
News Corp. reached a tentative agreement for the purchase of Dow Jones & Co. at its original $5 billion offer price. The deal will be put to the full Dow Jones board this evening for its approval, said people familiar with the situation.

Mesmo.tv Discovers Videos You Like
Mesmo.tv is social video bookmarking tool launching today that lets you tag videos you like and throw them into a personalized content stream and group channels.

Review of Streamy, a News Networking Service
Streamy users can share, view, filter and drag-and-drop news stories, while communicating via a very slick chat module.

WordCamp 2007 - Journalism Panel: Om & Dvorak
Josh Hallett covers the second session at WordCamp 2007 which featured John Dvorak and Om Malik. I was there to take in the session which offered an eternal blog/journalism debate.

Yourminis Flashy Personalized Homepage

Yourminis, a Flash-based personalized dashboard of widgets created by Mark Cuban-backed Goowy Media, has been making some aggressive changes since its launch late in 2006. Yourminis offers users one of the most customizable homepage experiences I have seen to date as it leverages Flash to present desktop-like features on the web.

Yourminis, nominated for the 'Best New Site' award at the upcoming SXSW Interactive conference, recently made some changes to focus more on the social aspects of the web by reconfiguring the URL for the personalized homepage from Yourminis.com to Yourminis.com/start. The former URL has been replaced with an html-based “community landing page” which highlights Yourminis’ personalized homepage, desktop widgets, featured pages, widgets and users. The “community landing page” enables users to interact with the widgets as well as with other Yourminis users, thus emphasizing the social aspects of the product. Users can create tabs and share tabs with the rest of the community and I quickly created a tab made up of few Somewhat Frank related items - it can be seen here. Another user configured tab that I am particularly fond of is the Chicago Cubs tab shown below (Go Cubs!).

Of the comparable personalized homepage startups like Netvibes and Pageflakes among others in the space, Yourminis offers the most whiz-bang experience with a number of slick widgets. However, Yourminis could be criticized for being too overwhelming, with its flair and countless configurations, to a first time user. Yourminis’ recent change to a “community landing page” for a first time experience might help to assist overwhelmed users, however it also puts users a click further away from adopting the personalized homepage.

Aesthetic shimmer aside, performance and accessibility are still important aspects of a personalized homepage. With Yourminis I have encountered a couple of hiccups in respect to both as I have had to re-save changes upon returning to see them reverted, and I also have tried to access Yourminis from a public computer and found it inaccessible due to the absence of a Flash browser plug-in. That aside I still find Yourminis a compelling dashboard experience.

Bottom-line:  Yourminis offers a Flash-based personalized homepage experience that might be your cup of tea if you are looking for a flashy approach.

Related Articles:
The History of the Personal Homepage
Widgets Live! Everywhere
Widgets and Web 2.0

Web Influencers, Netvibes Security Issues, AIM is #1, Go2Web20.net Revamped, Attention 200 & Design Geekery

It rained quite a bit this week in Silicon Valley so I thought this photo titled rain on tuesday taken by Daisy Romwall was appropriate.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 02.11.07

The Wizards of Buzz
The Wall Street Journal took an in-depth look at some of the social bookmarking sites that help others to discover the hottest content on the web. These sites include Digg.com, Netscape, Reddit, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Newsvine – all of which empower users to submit content items from around the web. Items are rated and promoted via voting or other mechanisms within the site.The most popular or highest rated items bubble to the top and usually become even more popular as traffic surges towards sources of these hot content items. These social bookmarking sites are managed by a number of users but there are some key influencers that do the most consistent heavy lifting. WSJ put out a podcast to go along with the article and it can be downloaded here.

Netvibes module developer collects web creds, personal content
Niall Kennedy highlights how Netvibes, the personal homepage startup, recently experienced some serious security issues. Netvibes was recently praised by Wall Street Journal reporter Walt Mossberg, but it appears its open-source approach to development has left its users at the mercy of rogue developers. What does this mean? Basically, it means a rogue module developer could take advantage of Netvibes’ users to steal personal information like emails, bank information and just about anything else personal you might find in a homepage module. This is unfortunate for Netvibes as most of its quick growth and development is due to its developer network. I guess Netvibes will have to rethink its security and privacy approach if it or risk losing the trust of its users.

Wall Street Journal IM Ratings: AIM Is #1
What instant messaging product do you use? If its not AOL’s AIM 6.0 you may want to reconsider your choice as an article published this week in the WSJ titled "Rating the New Instant-Messaging Programs" compared AIM 6.0, Yahoo! Messenger 8.1, and Windows Live Messenger 8.1. AIM 6.0 was rated #1.

A Lesson in Viral Video
Inside Higher Education details the events surrounding the Web 2.0 video created by Michael Wusch which Somewhat Frank helped surface in the blogosphere. The article further emphasizes the viral power of the web and the influences of the blogosphere.

Go2web20 Relaunched!
The popular and slick web 2.0 directory created by Orli Yakuel has been revamped and relaunched with a number of improvements which should make the faster and easier to use. It should also offer more information for users. Included in the changes is the creation of a few innovative advertising options.

RocketDock: Add A Mac-like Dock To Your PC
If you are a Mac-lover stuck in a PC-user’s body then you might want give RocketDock a try. Lifehacker recently showcased it as a download of the day so I gave it a try. Upon installing the application created by Punk Software it instantly fulfilled my longing for a Mac-like dock for managing my desktop. Here is an instructional video which details the various configuration options of this nifty little add-on. Oh and buy some schwag or donate to support their development efforts.

31 Places to Monitor Your Reputation Online
If you are into tracking what people might be saying about you online you might want make sure you are checking a bunch of online sources. This article lists 31 places to keep your online reputation in check.

23 Signs That You're Becoming a Design Geek
While developing products I often find myself thinking I am a designer and I know I am not alone. I am admittedly not even close to the skill level of a full-fledged UI designer (like the designers I work with at AOL – they rock!). Nonetheless, this article will give you 23 design geek signs.

Announcing: The Compete Attention 200™
Compete recently posted a list of the top 200 online destinations based on their metrics tracking systems. Surprisingly, Somewhat Frank did not make the Attention 200 – this has to be some sort of mistake.  :-)

Widgets, Modules & Marketing, Breakthrough Ideas of 2007, Google Attention Tracking & Web 2.0 Mainstream

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 02.04.07

First things first, today is Super Bowl XLI and I am from Chicago which means I will be rooting on the Bears today. The photo above shows the Merchandise Mart in Chicago supporting the team by shining the team's orange and blue colors. Go Bears!

Desktop Modules Help To Personalize Data, Cut Through Clutter
Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal dissects the various personalized start page options. He is a Netvibes user but critiques all the other options as well and even hints at a new version of My Yahoo coming soon.

Widget Marketing
Lee Odden of Online Marketing Blog explains how widgets are a great way to help market your site or blog. He even shows off his recent Widgetbox creation.

Desktop Widgets 101
Mike Arrington takes a moment to point out the differences between desktop and web widgets. Widgets are sexy in 2007 and so I would highly recommend you know what they are.

The HBR List: Breakthrough Ideas for 2007
Harvard Business Review's annual survey of emerging ideas considers how nanotechnology will affect commerce, what role hope plays in leadership, and why, in an age that practically enshrines accountability, we need to beware of “accountabalism.”

del.icio.us: overdue new year's resolutions
del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site, has grown to 1.5 million users. This article hints at upcoming integration with Yahoo, its parent company, and user interface updates.

Is Google building the Attention Economy?
Vecosys expresses view on the attention movement and explains Google's recent launch of new products (i.e. Google Reader Trends and Google Bookmark and Search History) that have been leveraging and surfacing attention data.

Mainstream Media Usage of Web 2.0 Services is Increasing
Has mainstream media recognized 'web 2.0'? This article by Read/Write Web takes a closer look at mainstream media adoption of 'web 2.0.'

News Search + Personalization + Social Media = Wikio
Wikio blends news search and personalization in a Digg-like layout. It also offers search and customization options to make it easy to get to items you might like.

Geeks love * tshirts for Sale
I love tee shirts that offer a cool design and this one was created by Cindy Li which fits the bill.

Widgets and Web 2.0

Widgets have become a hot topic in the web community lately as a large number of sites are allowing users to personalize their experience. The term widget can be used interchangeably with gadget, badge, module, capsule, snippet, mini and flake but for the sake of simplicity I will use the term widget in this article to cover all of these terms.

What is a widget?
As the web has become widget happy with community development projects popping up everywhere, I think it is safe to assume that the general public does not even know what a widget is. Rachel Cunliffe, cre8d web designer, recently asked this very question as she encountered an advertisement which pointed her to a widget.  A widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate html-based web page. A widget can be created for just about every site or service possible thus allowing users to pull it into personalized homepages (Netvibes, Spotback and Pageflakes), blogs (WordPress and Typepad) or other social website pages (AIM Pages, TagWorld and MySpace). 

Why all the buzz about widgets?
Widgets are a great way for a site or service to creatively offer products, services or news without having to visit the actual site. Similar to feeds and syndication, widgets can save a user time by making everything they care about on the web easily accessible in one place. Widgets can also leverage syndication in unique ways. The idea really rings clear on a personalized homepage which allow users to aggregate and create their own configuration of widgets. In a recent TechCrunch article Mike Arrington explained the value in a widget-driven personal homepage, Netvibes, as it positions all your favorites in front of you in at one time in saying:

“Like Google search, the best thing about Netvibes is that it has no problem with me quickly leaving the site to take care of other business. And that’s why it’s earned my loyalty as a user.”

Ease of use and the ability to see all or items in one page (via widgets) makes them a key component in the personalization process.

It is unclear exactly who was the first to create a widget. History seems to believe the word "widget" is derived from the combination of "window" and "gadget." A number of widget projects have risen up to help further along the widget movement. Konfabulator was swept up by Yahoo and leveraged to launch Yahoo Widgets to place widgets in front of a mainstream audience. Dashboard, an Apple project, was created to place widgets on the Mac OS X desktop. Opera web browser offers desktop widgets. Google Gadgets launched yesterday (October 3, 2006) to unleash 1200 new widgets which can be used on any web page. Microsoft also offers Gadgets for Windows Live. IAmAlpha.com is an AOL widget initative for AIM Pages which launched with a makeover in May 2006. 

A number of widget marketplaces that have also popped up. Widgetbox, a the online widget marketplace, looks to widgetize the web by offering a number of different widget options. Widgipedia, a free widget community deems itself the ultimate cross-platform resource for both users and developers of widgets and gadgets. The Spring Box, offers a platform to create widgets on for both the desktop and the web and Clearspring, currently in private beta, also appears to be a widget platform looking to widgetize the web.

Bottom-line: Widgets are the wave of the future of the web as our attention continues to be overloaded with too much information. With widgets, users are able to customize a page to be able to get their sites and services in personalized homepages.  An open standard development infrastructure which would allow a single widget to be plugged into any application and work properly seems to be something the widget movement is currently lacking – it may be a pipe-dream but I think it is worth wishing for.