SOMEWHAT FRANK

What's Next For The Go2Web2.0 Directory

Go2web20.net, an aggregated directory of web 2.0 products and services, launched a few months ago and has been busily growing ever since. Yesterday, co-founders Orli Yakuel and Eyal Shahar gave some insight into a new version of the directory that will be coming soon. The enhancements are as follows:

• Improved performance for faster load and view times
• The addition of a tag cloud as another way to sort through the products and services
• The addition of a "quick glance" which gives a description of the product or service when you roll the mouse over the logo
• Go2Web20.net is now looking for advertisers to help keep this great directory running - if you are interested send an email to [email protected]
• Companies listed in the directory can now add their own content to their profiles - they may be able to even add a video

These sound like some great improvements to an already extremely useful site. One thing I would like to see is a slight modification of the RSS feed for the product. Currently, the feed updates every time a new product or service is added to the site and provides a link directly to the that product or service. Alternately, I would like to see a feed point to the Go2Web20.net brief of the product or service since it offers a description that is not viewable via the current feed. By bringing users back to Go2Web20.net it gives users the opportunity to find out more about the product before visiting the product or service directly.

I reached out to Orli Yakuel, shown to the left, for a comment and she had this to say of her experience with Go2Web20.net thus far:

"It's been a lot of fun uncovering and exposing all the great services of web 2.0. I'm trying to be the first to publish new and fresh services but I respect the old one too. I'm adding sites after thoroughly testing them myself first. I am excited at the response to Go2Web2.0 so far and look to continue to improve the directory service in the coming months." 

I think it is also worth mentioning Go2Web2.0 will be available in a book version soon. It might make a great keepsake or a wonderful coffee table conversation piece. 

GoodSearch The Web And Help Find A Cure For Cystic Fibrosis

What if the charity of your choice could earned a penny every time you searched the Internet?

Well, that is exactly what is happening today (November 28, 2006) as Somewhat Frank has selected to support the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as the charity of the day on GoodSearch. The GoodSearch charity of the day is displayed on the left side of the site and all of search revenue for the day is donated to the displayed charity. GoodSearch was highlighted recently on Somewhat Frank in an article titled Philanthropy Through Technology. 

Thanks to J.J. Ramberg of GoodSearch we were given the opportunity to select the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as the charity of the day.  Please help to support the search for a cure for cystic fibrosis, the inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive systems of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States, by searching the web with GoodSearch today.

Why Isn’t Internet Access Free For Travelers?

I have been traveling quite a bit lately and have had to rely on public Internet access. Much to my dismay I have found that most hotels and airports still do not offer free Internet access. Why isn't airport and hotel Internet access a standard free feature?

Airport Internet Access
I feel that having to pay for Internet access in airports is unconscionable since travelers are a captive audience and are only in the concourse for a short period of time. I understand it is a business however the price is manifestly unjustice as travelers pay between $5 and $21 for short term access. I would think airports would want to make concourses friendlier to business travelers by offering a complementary service. There are quite a few airports that have taken the lead in this movement as shown in this running list of airports with free wifi. These free wifi airports are most likely supported by advertising. I think most people would look at a few advertisements in return for free Internet access. I just hope that other airports like O’Hare Airport (the busiest airport in the world) and Dulles near Washington, DC would look to please its travelers with free wifi soon.

Hotel Internet Access
Hotels are also guilty of ridiculous markup on Internet access. Hotels do not have you pay for television, water or electric access but Internet connectivity has not yet been lumped into the category of necessities. I would definitely place it on my list of hotel room must-haves. I stayed at the Bellagio in Las Vegas over the summer and recall paying close to $20 a day for an Internet connection and another $20 for a T1 an Ethernet cable. A recent stay at another luxury resort surprised me with similar $10 a day Internet access charges. In both hotels I paid the Internet access charges but I feel these charges should be rolled in as a complementary service.

Other Access Options
There are other Internet access options if the connectivity is as much a part of your life as breakfast. Verizon, Cingular and Sprint among others offer wireless cards and access for between $40-$60 a month which is a steal if you are always on the go and paying for Internet access. Additionally, you could try and find free wifi in your area as I have written previously. 

Bottom-line: The Internet is a series of tubes and is here to stay - therefore it should be looked at in the same light as television service since for many travelers Internet access is a necessity.

Current Feed Reading Habits Examined

The way that people read their content has been evolving as online syndication has spawned a number of different content reading approaches. Firefox introduced live browser bookmarks and IE7 recently added the feature to integrate feed reading into the web browser. A number of online and desktop-based feed readers round have been duking it out. While personal homepages have also grown very popular as users can customize a page with widgets to fit their routine interests and needs.

I recently encountered an article by Stuart Brown that examines a snapshot of current feed reader habits by taking a look at the FeedBurner feed subscription metrics of his site Modern Life Is Rubbish. Stuart gives his opinion on the various reader options that are used by his subscribers. A similar report was done by FeedBurner a few months back as they analyzed TechCrunch's feed subscription metrics. In comparing my own feed subscription method metrics to both of these reports I think it is worth noting that Somewhat Frank offers similar trends in readership (see pie chart below) but also has subscribers using additional other unmentioned services which further amplifies the segmentation in the feed reader marketplace.

Startup Dreams? Bootstrapper's Bible Could Help

The web 2.0 movement has shown that it is a great time to start an online business with limited funding. As a number of startups have emerged some have received funding while a large number of others that have turned to 'bootstrapping' to keep their startup dreams alive. Bootstrapping in financial terms is the idea of starting a business with little or no money (outside funding). There is not a right or wrong approach however bootstrapping does allows a startup to maintain more control of their product or any eventual returns as the startup does not have to answer to a bank, VC or other investor.

Seth Godin, a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change, has written several helpful and inspiring books including The Big Moo which I highlighted previously. The Bootstrapper's Bible, one of Seth's latest books, is focused on the concept of bootstrapping an idea he touched on briefly in Making Money On The Web. The Bootstrapper's Bible is currently available for free download. I would highly recommend taking a look at is as it has some helpful hints on that can be applied to startups and large corporations alike.

Holiday Cooking Tips Online

The holiday season is a time for family, friends and social get-togethers.  Often at these events food takes center stage.  While I am not a cook, it does not take kitchen mastery or training as a chef to create a tasty meal.  Instead, many people are turning online for help with their creations.  The WSJ.com recently highlighted some of this online activity by listing a number of blogs and other social media sites emphasizing kitchen assistance. Some of the sites included:

ChefsLine.com - Offers a culinary phone hotline
Chefs.com - Blogs, podcasts and forums
Chefsblogs.com - An aggregated directory of categorized chef blogs

I was somewhat underwhelmed by the sites mentioned in the article. Instead I looked to Sphere for some cooking related blogs. Programmable Web points to a number of food related mashups. Social bookmarking site, del.icio.us offers popular cooking sites. Also with the expansion of user contributed online video sites you can find a number of great cooking videos online. For the courageous few who venture away from tradition this Thanksgiving and deep-fry their turkey, this video might help encourage an adequate attention to safety.

TECH cocktail 2: Technology Evangelized

Just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend our friends over at TechnologyEvangelist.com have unveiled the first couple videos in a series of film captured at TECH cocktail 2:

The TechnologyEvangelist.com crew traveled down from Minnesota to spend the evening interviewing as many guests as possible on a range of topics from startups, web 2.0, the future television and about TECH cocktail itself. So expect to see a new video every day till the end of the month. Here are the first two:

TECH cocktail - Eric Olson and Frank Gruber
TECH cocktail - Christopher Monaghan

Thank you TechnologyEvangelist.com, I cannot wait to see the rest! 

Cogmap: Wiki For Company Org Charts

Looking for visibility into a company you are working with? Or just curious to see how a company is structured? Cogmap an online organizational chart wiki may be just what you are looking for. With Cogmap you can search for a company org chart, add people to the chart, drag and drop to update the organizational layout or start your own org chart. Cogmap provides a chart, outline and directory view for each organization.

I searched and found the AOL org chart and it appeared to have some inaccuracies due to its community managed wiki format. However, the org chart is close enough to get a general idea company organizational layout. Some other org charts I came across were as follows:

Amazon org chart
Google org chart
Microsoft org chart
Yahoo org chart

I found that though Cogmap offers an easy to use product for visability into organizations it lacks ample ability to zoom out of an organizational chart. Basically, you cannot fit large org charts into one web page or print out.  Adding a "one page view" for easier viewing and printing should be on Cogmap's immediate roadmap.

Qloud: Social Music Search With Tagging

Qloud, a Washington, DC based startup, recently launched a music search with social networking features and tagging. Qloud music search allows a number of search options as users can search for music by artist, song, keyword, genre or a number of other criteria. Upon finding a song it can be previewed, added to a wishlist, sent to a friend or purchased from a number of different music services (including AOL Music, Amazon and iTunes).  An interesting feature is the ability to export any search to an RSS feed, an email, or most importantly, a playlist to get onto your iPod.

Qloud uses social networking to allow users to add friends, view their music preferences and their recent activities. Qloud enables users to better organize music collections with tagging via the use of the Qloud iTunes Plugin. Upon installing the Qloud iTunes Plugin I found it could definitely help to find music within iTunes. Though I did not experience it myself, I have heard that the Qloud iTunes Plugin install could cause iTunes to be shaky potentially fail. So proceed at your own risk. It was definitely something that iTunes was lacking though I presume they will now try to add the feature. The tagging feature is shown in the screen-shot below - click the screen-shot for a closer look.

Qloud has created a helpful Qloud tutorial as well as iTunes Plugin help to aid the adoption of the product. Also be sure to check out the Qloud blog. For other blogosphere perspectives visit GigaOm, Mashable! and PaulStamatiou.com.

Bottom-line: While reaching critical mass may be an obstacle, Qloud is a people powered music search engine which leverages tagging and other social networking hooks to enhance discovery of new music on the web.

TechCrunch In the City

TechCrunch 8, an event celebrating the web 2.0 movement, took its show on the road to New York City this past week (November 16, 2006) and I traveled to be in attendance. AOL supported the event by being one of the many sponsors. AOL also had space at the event to demonstrate AOL Video, SearchVideo and the recently updated dev.aol.com. A small group of AOLers snagged the daily corporate shuttle from Dulles to NY. It was my first trip on the corporate jet and was definitely a memorable one as we maneuvered in front of a nasty line of storms.

We were not the only guests flying in for the event. There were people in from all over the world. I met TECH cocktail co-founder and friend, Eric Olson at the event who flew in from Chicago (though weather delayed him for three hours). Jeff Pulver and Chris Brogan dropped in for awhile. I got a chance to meet Greg Galant the popular voice of the VentureVoice podcast. I even ran into old Tribune colleague Matt Terenzio who was nice enough to bring Mike Arrington a pretty sweet stogy. Digg CEO Jay Aldeson was also in the house but unfortunately, the crowd around him never died down enough to chat.

TechCrunch 8 was held at BED New York, a comfortable but swanky nightclub made famous by its mainstream placement in episodes of the popular sitcom, Sex in the City. BED is usually filled with a number of beds, hence its name, but many of the beds were removed to accommodate the large crowd and lend to comfy conversations about web 2.0. The guys from Fleck flew in from the Netherlands to launch at the event - of course, I signed their white suits. HitTail had decked the place out with balloons and other schwag and demonstrated their publisher metrics system. While Compete showcased its consumer facing metrics offerings and gave out interesting bobble head schwag including a Mike Arrington bobble head – a nice touch. Me.dium showed off an interesting browser sidebar product which I will talk about in more detail soon. Eurekster, a company I have written about previously, was previewing some new features and even had the Somewhat Frank logo in its slide deck. You can see Eurekster in action in the right rail. PartyStrands seemed to feel right at home at a party since its product offering is a SMS controlled collaborative social jukebox. They had had logos flying all over the venue. CozmoTV also explained its personalized TV product. There were a number of other companies as well which are mentioned in this TechCrunch article.

For more details on each of the companies that demonstrated  check out this TC8 wrap-up by Read/Write Web. Valleywag has posted photos and a wrap-up here. Check out public photos from TechCrunch 8.

Bottom-line: TechCrunch 8 united web companies from across the globe to a swanky NYC club to an entertaining evening of mingling and checking out the latest product offerings.

Tagged: techcrunch8, techcrunch 8

Fleck: Add Your Notes To The Web

Fleck has officially launched (November 16, 2006) to allow users to attach post-it like notes to any web site. Fleck is a privately funded company, founded by  Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Patrick de Laive and Arjen Schat. I first heard about Fleck back in March of 2006 as I reached out to Boris and found that they were in stealth mode. Taking a page out of Diddy's book, the Fleck team was at the TechCrunch 8 event at the posh NY nightclub BED dressed in white suits. If you signed one of their suits you were granted a free premium Fleck account.

Fleck introduces a toolbar that overlays the webpage. The toolbar enables users to annonate a web page with notes and expandable bullets. You can then share this page via email or by posting a link to your blog (Fleck is working on integrated with most blog platforms). Fleck also keeps track of annotation metrics and displays them on the site similar to how some social bookmarking sites display the most popular saved links. By saving a Fleck page that has been updated with notes a user can access them again later via a new Fleck URL.  Fleck has a history feature which allows users to revert back to different saved views.

Above  is a screen-shot of a page I annotated while Fleck was in beta. I enjoyed exploring the various features as Fleck has created a product with unique web interactivity.

UPDATE: TechCrunch has also reviewed Fleck.

Techmeme & FeedBurner Help Publishers To Get Found & Synidcated

Techmeme, an aggregator of tech related news content founded by Gabe Rivera, pulls together a real-time clusters of the hottest technology related content on the web. How does a publisher get content highlighted on Techmeme? Gabe recently answered this question by saying:

1.) Focus on content
2.) Enable discovery of your posts
3.) Refer to a one of the meme sites

If you follow Gabe's advice you might be on Techmeme quicker than you think.

FeedBurner, a Chicago-based feed management company, recently launched a new blog focused on helping publishers with all of their needs called FeedBurner Publisher Tips. The vision of the blog is as follows: 

"...regularly updated site filled with pointers, little-known features, reminders and links to tutorials to help you leverage FeedBurner services to their fullest." 

FeedBurner handles content feeds for over 280,000 publishers so they have lots of experience with helping publisher of all walks of life. Glad to see they are offering up additional information in a weblog format.

Quintura Gets Funded By Ex-Skype Backer

Quintura, a Russian hot search startup, has reported they have received funding from Mangrove Capital Partners of Luxembourg. Interestingly, Mangrove Capital Partners was also an early investor in Skype. I have highlighted Quintura a few times on Somewhat Frank but most recently due to the launch of Quintura as a web-based visual search engine application. The deal is the first Western VC investment made in an Internet company from Russia.

What does Quintura plan to do with the money? Yakov Sadchikov, co-founder and CEO of Quintura had this to say:

"We plan using the venture capital to take the Web by storm and reach millions of web users globally when launching the Quintura visual find engines for various user communities. We are also starting an affiliate program for most popular web-sites and blogs such as Digg, Netscape, and others where they can easily make their current tag clouds very interactive."

I cannot wait to see Quintura's unique interactive word cloud on these other social media communities. It should be rather intriguing. For other blogosphere perspectives check out Read/Write Web, Mashable and Go2Web2.

Super Fans Can Unite & Share on FanPop!

Fanpop is a web site devoted to making the web a happier place for passionate fans by creating a spot for them to connect, discover and share. Fanpop launched in August 2006, and has been making the rounds in the Silicon Valley area to showcase the product. I recently attended a demo by founder David Dave Lu at a SF NewTech Meetup at AOL HQ and was pleasantly surprised with this new startup.

Guy Kawasaki explained the Fanpop feature set nicely by saying:

"The site combines a little bit of everything: polls, social bookmarking, social network, news, and forums."

Fanpop organizes a fan community by calling each a "spot." Each "spot" is moderated to help eliminate duplicate spots. Once a fan spot is created and approved users can add content in the form of links, videos, game and other comments via forums or the soapbox feature. The soapbox feature allows users to express their feeling by writing an article - it is like a group blog feature. Fanpop has social aspects as fans can find, connect and share with other fans. There are already a number of spots created but if you don't find what you are looking for you could create your own today.

Fanpop is extremely topical and therefore a perfect billboard for contextual advertising. Though it may not be a huge cash cow immediately, with time and traffic increases Fanpop could prove profitable.

There are a number of ways to discover new spots on Fanpop. For example, Fanpop lists the top 100 most popular links across all spots on the homepage. You can also search to find just about about any kind of fan spot. As a Family Guy fan, I searched and found the Fanpop Family Guy Spot. I browsed the links, shopping options and videos thought this Family Guy video was pretty hilarious! On a more serious note, I found a web 2.0 fan spot filled with blogs, links and web sites. I also noticed that with Fanpop, similar to MyBlogLog, you can create a community around a blog like the TechCrunch spot and the Mashable! spot. Of course, you can join the Somewhat Frank fan spot!

Bottom-line: Fanpop leverages the long tail by enabling users to create a fan spot for just about anything that comes to mind. It offers a number of features web 2.0 features to help connect passionate fans online.

Niche Job Boards Galore: Here's One More

There have a been a flurry of niche job boards developed recently to help connect employers with the right niche employees. Paul Stamatiou has previously highlighted the job board boom and had this to say:

"In a nutshell, these small job boards are great places to start looking for your next career or find your next employee."

I couldn't agree with him more. Here a is a quick list of the various niche offerings and listing fees:

37 Signals Tech Jobs - $300 for a 30 day listing
Authentic Jobs - $250 for full-time (30 days)  $75 for freelance (15 days)
CrunchBoard - $200 for a 30 day listing
GigaOM Jobs - $200 for a month listing
Problogger Job Board - $50 for a 30 day listing
TECH cocktail Specials Job Board - $30 for a 30 day listing - FREE with code

With the design and development assistance of Phraction, Eric Olson and I launched a job board at our last event TECH cocktail 2. The goal is to help better connect our supporters with niche tech/biz  opportunities - or as we like to call them TECH cocktail Specials (techcocktail.com/jobs). Though the site says it is only $30 for a 30 day listing (about a dollar a day), I wanted to make it clear that we only are charging to help keep the riff raff (spam listings) off of the site and raise money to help support our TECH cocktail events. However, we have a promo code that we can give you and you can post as many job listings as you would like for FREE! Yes, you read that correctly, post your job listings for FREE!

If you have a job opening and would like to place it on the TECH cocktail Specials Job Board, please email us:

Frank [at] techcocktail dot com
Eric [at] techcocktail dot com

You are probably wondering why we would want to jump into such a competative, segmented market of niche job boards. Well, it is simple: after the first TECH cocktail event both Eric and I received a number emails asking us to help them connect with developers, designers and product gurus. So rather than play HR matchmaker, which could be a full-time job, we decided we would launch a job board. Eric and I really want to see this board grow to help better connect the tech/biz community. So please feel free to reach out to us for that promo code and post a TECH cocktail Specials job listing today!

Related Links:
CrunchBoard: Find A Job In The Valley
Blogger Job Board Launched