Are you familiar with the ultimate Web 2.0 directory online Go2Web20.net? I sat down from my parents home in Chicagoland to chat with Orli Yakuel from her home in Israel. She recently left AOL where she acted as a Web 2.0 analyst and is now in search for the “dream job.”
Continue reading "Video Interview: Orli Yakuel Go2Web20.net" »
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. :-)
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:
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.
I am pleased to announce that Go2Web20.net has been officially unveiled by Orli Yakuel, a talented Israel-based web 2.0 blogger, enthusiast and friend. The site offers visually driven directory to companies and applications of web 2.0 glory. It was developed by Eyal Shahar a fabulous web designer. I received sneak-peaks of the application several times over the last few months as it was prepared for the big time so I am happy to see it finally launched.
Go2Web20.net offers a one page representation of web 2.0 companies and applications. You can sort through the companies by tag, alphabetically or by date added in addition to searching by keyword. Hovering over a logo in the left pane presents additional related information in the right pane area. If you notice products or companies that are missing from the directory you can suggest a company or application as well - I just submitted a few. Finally, an RSS feed is offered for the entire directory so you can stay on top of its latest updates. Currently, the RSS feed is not being handled by FeedBurner so I have contacted Orli to recommend she present a "Browser Friendly" FeedBurner feed rather than the current RSS page since it offers a better user experience and will provides feed metrics for the feed.
Bottom-line: Bookmark Go2Web20.net and subscribe to the feed!!! It is an excellent living aggregation of web 2.0 activity. Well done Orli and company - this will be an extremely useful application.
UPDATED 9/16/06: Go2Web20.net is now using FeedBurner to manage its feed which can be subscribed to here.
Startup Mixology: Tech Cocktail's Guide To Building, Growing & Celebrating Startup Success by Frank Gruber
