SOMEWHAT FRANK

What the heck is doof?

Dooflets. Doofspace. DoofPulse. Doof. What is doof? According to Wikipedia doof is a type of outdoor dance party in Australia. The Urban Dictionary defines doof as a foolish person. While I may be a fool, I am not in Australia and the doof I am referring to is actually a fun little social startpage built around casual gaming.

LinkDoozer Literally Put Me To Sleep

LinkDoozer, an online bookmarking startup, offers a way for users to easily add and save bookmarks in a startpage-like approach. Unlike typical social bookmarking sites that look for users to add as many bookmarks as possible LinkDoozer focuses on users adding only the sites they like the best and encourages users to rate and review site. With social networking aspects LinkDoozer lends itself to easy link sharing similar to other social bookmarking site.

BAAGZ Startpage Built On Social Search

BAAGZ launched this past week at the DEMOfall 2007 conference to offer a social take on the personalized home page or startpage built on search. Built on the idea that a "baag" is a collection of sites, feeds, notes, videos and photos, Baagz enables users to organize and share their favorite stuff.

Mixx: A Social News Remix

Mixx launched last week to offer up a social news site for the mainstream to explore. Founded by Chris McGill, formerly of Yahoo and USA Today, Mixx aims to offer a place for large publishing companies to get into the social media space. Mixx enables users to contribute and discover stories, video and photos as they blend their own mix of the Web.

3 Minimalist Bookmark Startpages

While there are a number of Web 2.0, Ajax, personalized home page products (myAOL, yourminis, iGoogle, Netvibes, etc)  that leverage syndication for content updates. I recently found three applications that seem to lean towards a more minimalist visual bookmarking startpage approach. In this article, I will take a closer look these products, so as to point out some alternative approaches to the classic personalized startpage.

Global Grind: Startpage For Hip Hop Gen?

Global Grind, currently in private alpha, is a New York-based web 2.0 personalized home page startup that is said to be focused on the "hip hop" generation. Being a "hip hop" listener I was curious to see what this intriguing value proposition was all about. Driven by curiosity, which was said to have killed the cat, I was expecting Global Grind personalized home page to bounce with a Jay-Z hip hop beat or something. That was not the case, Global Grind is a personal home page product with parity with a number of personalized home page products on the market (i.e. widgets, drag and drop, etc). I thought that some of its design element decisions and button placements were a little odd.

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.

AOL Named Top Site, myAOL Beta Released, Facebook a Fad?, Widgets Evolution and Formats, Tagging Tools, Blogging From Hobby To Fame and iPhone Hackers

Photo of the week: These green frog cupcakes were spotted and then were quickly devoured at the most recent TECH cocktail in Chicago.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.15.07

AOL Top Web Site Under New Ranking
Nielsen/NetRatings will begin reporting total sessions and total time spent on a site in order to figure out site popularity putting AOL on top of the rankings and bumping Google down to 5th.

AOL Launches Three New myAOL Products In Beta
AOL launched a suite of personalized products into beta: myPage (personalized home page), Mgnet (image-driven content discovery and recommendation engine) and Favorites (feed reader and bookmarking). All three services can be accessed via tabs on the main myAOL page.

Facebook and the Working Adult: Fad or Revolution?
Web Worker Daily investigates whether or not Facebook in the working world is just a fad or here to stay.

The Tagging Toolbox: 30+ Tagging Tools
Tags - for some, one of the best ideas on the web, for others, merely a visual distraction. Mashable investigates a number of tagging options.

Google Adds Mapplets: Widgets for Google Maps
Google is unveiling what they’re calling “mapplets". Mapplets are essentially widgets for Google Maps which can integrate and manipulate Google with HTML, Javascript and Flash content.

The Evolution of Web Widgets: From Self-Expression to Media Companies
Read/Write Web takes a look at how web widgets have evolved from cool, viral toys of self-expression to important big media tools.

Basic web widget formats
Anyone publishing widget content online should know a few basic concepts shaping their decision and choose the right mix of software and content based on their target. Niall Kennedy covers some of the basic advantages, disadvantages, and considerations for each type of widget content and bring you up-to-speed on a few current widget deployment options.

Google: Viacom's Built to Sue
Google's CEO Eric Schmidt took a swipe at Viacom Friday, saying the company was "built from lawsuits" and pointed to its litigious history. Schmidt's comments were made to reporters at a hotel bar at the annual Allen & Co. meeting of media moguls.

iPhone Hackers: "we have owned the filesystem"
This could be problematic.

Perez Hilton gets show on VH1
The sharp-tongued celebrity gossip blogger has apparently been meeting with someone over at VH1. Another example of how blogging creates a platform to do just about everything.

Turning Blogging From Hobby to Career
Richard MacManus runs the world's 28th most popular blog, Read/WriteWeb, from his home office in Lower Hutt. It's every blogger's fantasy. Mr MacManus started a blog on web technology as a hobby back in 2003. Blogging can pay. Congrats Richard, keep up the great blogging!

Personalization: It's All About You

Pimping your ride, ripping your jeans, popping your collar and putting lime in your water are all expressions of your personality. Thus you are personalizing your experience. Your web experience can also be personalized making it your web. Personalization is all about you.

Jen Consalvo, Director of Personalization at AOL, recently spoke to a group at Web Content 2007 in Chicago, Illinois on June 19, 2007. Jen presented on how to create a personalized web and gave a sneak preview of the recently launched myAOL personalization suite. You can watch some video tidbits from the presentation above.

iPhone Mania Turns To AT&T Activation Hell, Google Widget Payday, AOL News & CNN Redesign, Web 2.0 Tracking, A Tour of myAOL & French Web 2.0

Photo of the Week: I spotted this sole mushroom while visiting 'the country' in Illinois.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.01.07

iPhone Mania Turns To AT&T Activation Hell
The iPhone caused quite a stir and it appears Apple handled demands very well as it was almost too easy to get the iPhone in several locations. I was able to pick one up with no wait. However, since acquiring the iPhone I have yet to get it activated. It seems I am not the only one. Thus far it has taken over four hours, 2 phone calls to AT&T and one trip to an actual AT&T store. I am hoping tomorrow I will be able to get my iPhone activated but it will take at least one more call to AT&T support to help me transfer my number from my current service provider. Bummer. :-S

The French Web 2.0 Wave
France leads Europe in its enthusiasm for Web 2.0 startups, an industry that has doubled in size across the continent since 2005. Jerome Archambeaud examines the French market on GigaOm.

New CNN.com Goes Live - Google and Yahoo Both Search Providers
CNN re-launched its website as an enhanced multimedia site - packed with web 2.0 features such as recommendations and user generated content. In addition, CNN is using both Google and Yahoo for search.

Wimzi: AOL’s Answer to MeeboMe
AOL is widgetizing AIM with the new Wimzi widget: like other chat widgets, this lets you chat with your website visitors in real time.

Google offers seed funding for widget startups
Google is directly investing in small companies to expand the popularity of its iGoogle product. If this is not validation that widgets have real value then I don't know what is.

When You’ve Got To Go, Go To Mizpee.com
MizPee is a new service focused on delivering pertinent information regarding the location of nearby restrooms - cause when you gotta go you gotta go!

AOL launches new blog-like news site
AOL News launched its new design in a blog-like fashion, with excerpts of all the day's main stories laid out chronologically from top to bottom.

A tour of myAOL, a Personalized Aggregator
Jeremiah Owyang had us into PodTech to share the new myAOL with the PodTech team and live blogged it.

Keeping Tabs on Web 2.0
A great roundup of sites that are tracking Web 2.0 directory-style.

Blogging is Like Songwriting
Kent Newsome explains why blogging is like songwriting.

Robert Scoble & Fast Company magazine
Robert Scoble is now writing a column for Fast Company magazine and offers up his first column.

New myAOL Startpage Is Coming Soon

So you want to organize all your stuff on the web in one place? A new myAOL is coming soon. The current myAOL is solely a feed reader that offers some recommendations. The new myAOL offers a personalized homepage experience with some additional bells and whistles.

Aside from an Ajax customizable homepage with drag and drop widgets to give quick click and go access to content and applications, myAOL also offers a few additional pages as part of the first time experience. The additional pages are called Mgnet (pronounced Magnet) and Favorites. myAOL Mgnet is an image driven content discovery and recommendations engine which offers a fun new way to find new videos, images and stories on the web. myAOL Favorites, recently highlighted by TechCrunch, offers feed reader integrated with a solid bookmarking product making it easy to manage and share all your favorite feed updates and places on the Web.

I am the product manager for myAOL and I just posted the video (shown above) on the new myAOL Blog. It provides a sneak peek at the product. Check out what Mike Arrington from TechCrunch has to say about the new myAOL.

Facebook Opens Up, Google Buys FeedBurner, CBS Buys WallStrip, The Blog Search Engine King & What is Web 3.0?

Photo of the Week: This photo was taken by James Yu at Pier 38 in San Francisco on Thursday night (May 24, 2007) as part of the NewTeeVee and MetaCafe Pier Screenings.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 05.27.07

Facebook Moving to An Open Platform Strategy
Facebook has announced a new strategy to let other companies provide their services on special pages within its site, moving beyond its basic social networking service. Facebook is taking the total opposite approach than its competitor MySpace by making itself an open platform. Will this give personalized homepages a run for the money?

Bebo, Wall Strip, Feedburner - who is getting bought out?
Early in the week Om Malik was wondering which of the three rumored deals - CBS-WallStrip, Bebo-Yahoo or Google-FeedBurner - will come true? By weeks end two out of the three (CBS-WallStrip & Google-FeedBurner) are said to be done deals.

What is Web 3.0?
Dave Winer weighs in on what he believes is web 3.0.

Google Reader vs. NewsGator Online vs. Bloglines
Judi Sohn takes a look at the most popular applications for keeping up with all those RSS feeds in a browser window: Bloglines, NewsGator Online and Google Reader.

RSS in Firefox: A Complete Guide
If reading RSS feeds in Firefox is your thing, check out some of your options in this article.

The Rise of the Nontrepreneur
A new breed of visionaries who are not In It for the money. They want to change the world. This line of thinking reminds me of a little tech mixer event I started with Eric Olson called TECH cocktail - I guess you could say we are nontrepreneurs.

TV Guide Online Video Search
TV Guide now offers an online video guide that distinguishes itself from other online video search by focusing on professionally produced video content such as, movie trailers, TV shows, news clips, previews and programs across all genres and networks.

Every good domain is taken. Here's why.
Have you tried to lock a domain recently? It is not as easy as it might seem. Kevin Ham built a $300 million web company in Vancouver you've probably never heard of collecting domains and selling them for top dollar.

Blog Search is Dead and Google Killed It
A few years ago blog search was an important aspect to every bloggers routine and I always wondered where blog search would go and when Google would come in and become king. Steve Rubel thinks that day has come.

Pageflakes Announces 100,000 Pagecasts
Personalized start page service Pageflakes announced that their "Pagecasts" feature, which allows users to share their Pageflakes pages with the public or a specific group of users, has been used to push out 100,000 Pagecasts.

Google Coop Embeds Gadgets in Search Results
Google Coop has quietly expanded and now can embed data from gadgets (i.e. widgets) as subscribed links.

Movie Review & Start-up Commentary: e-dreams
Eric Olson highlights some movies that document the startup life.

Rootly Relaunches: Design Much Improved

Rootly, a news aggregator site, has relaunched with new site design and additional features. With the help of Marshall Kirkpatrick who has been guiding Rootly looks much improved. It now looks like a news start-page. 

The new and improved Rootly offers highly customizable RSS feed powered vertical news search based on about one thousand preselected sources plus sources added by users. As a number of users add the same source it gains trusted status and eventually enters the general index. Rootly offers some decent search result feeds as well as internal bookmarking. Additionally, Rootly has added the ability to accept OpenID. The site reminds me of the old version of Topix (minus images) before its recent relaunch.

According to Marshall, Rootly looks to continue to roll out new features which include OPML import - which has a whole lot of implications - and a customizable widget for personal startpages. One thing I would like to see though as they continue to improve is the addition of thumbnail images to each result.

Interestingly, Rootly sent me review request via ReviewMe several months ago and I had to decline. Back then, I just did not find it compelling enough to write about. The UI was terrible and it has some usability issues. I am happy to see Rootly has come a long way and offers a much improved its product.  It is just proof that if you create a compelling product experience  and people will talk about it.

 

Google Search Goes Universal, Microsoft Buys aQuantive, MyBlogLog Changes Coming, Enterprise RSS and TcDC1

Photo of the Week: This photo was taken by Brian Solis of a video camera recording Sarah Meyers interviewing someone at the May 2007 Girls in Tech in SF.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 05.20.07

Watch TV Stations From Your Web Browser
More and more services are popping enabling users to watch full screen videos right from a web browser. They kind of all have a similar television look & feel. It even looks like some of them inspired by Joost style.

Google Launches Universal Search
Google announced yesterday its new search system intended to bring together all of Google’s broad assortment of searches into format that should be more convenient for users. Google’s vision is to ultimately search across all of googles content and to

Did Microsoft go lose it head over aQuantive?
Just how wacky was Microsoft’s $6 billion bid for aQuantive? GigaOm tries to illustrate it in this article.

Who Will Be America's First TechPresident?
This challenge to all candidates was made on the TechPresident site earlier this week.

Windows Live Gallery partners program
Companies and brands may partner with Microsoft to highlight their Windows Live Gadget offerings for preferred inclusion in the Live.com personal homepage, Windows Live Spaces sidebar, and the Windows Vista sidebar.

TECH cocktail Takes On the Capitol City
Bub.blicio.us reports on the night that was a TECH cocktail in DC.

Google's Defensible Trump Card?
Google is betting the farm on personalization.

Feed Crier climbs into bed with IMified
By becoming part of IMified, Feed Crier will be able to offer more features to our users. Maybe reblogging alerts directly to your blog from your IM client. Or subscribing to alerts from sources other than feeds (think Google Calendar, To Do list reminder, etc.).

Enterprise RSS - 3 Major Vendors Show The Way
Forrester has just released a new report on Enterprise RSS. Specifically it tackles the issue of information overload in the corporate environment, now that RSS feeds are an important source of information in the workplace.

MyBlogLog to Rebrand and Make Significant Changes
MyBloglog is really only known amongst the first adoptors and blogosphere but it appears Yahoo will soon be positioning it for the mainstream.

Photobucket Sale, Facebook Classifieds, The Great Digg Revolt, iGoogle Communities & Last.fm Video Launched

Photo of the Week: While in Santa Monica, California this week for Twiistup I decided to get up early on Wednesday to go down to the beach and snap this shot.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits 05.13.07

Facebook to Launch Classifieds Service
Social network Facebook is set to launch a classified service to its users on Friday, according to the New York Times. The service will launch under the name 'Facebook Marketplace.' Makes sense, they are fishing where the fish are.

Are Search Engine Rankings are Dead?
With the advent of personalization and impending changes with the interface of search results, the notion of ranking seems to be on it’s way out. Lee Odden takes a closer look.

You're a Nobody Unless Your Name Googles Well
In the age of Google, being special increasingly requires standing out from the crowd online. Many people aspire for themselves -- or their offspring -- to command prominent placement in the top few links on search engines or social networking searches.

iGoogle Community Modules
Want to put a little piece of yourself on your friends' and family's homepages? The iGoogle team seems to launch little updates every other week but this one caught my eye. it’s a new category called “my community." With cookie-cutter templates you can create your own modules. Creating and sharing these Google Gadgets is as easy as filling out a simple form.

Last.fm Launches Video - Aims To Be The MTV Of Web 2.0 Age
Online radio station Last.fm is adding a video section to its site this week, enabling users to create their own personalized video channels - similar to how users can already create radio stations based on their music tastes.

RSS Feeds for Tags at Amazon.com
The new functionality has been soft-launched and isn’t currently available on all Amazon pages. Support will become available across the board in the coming weeks. Woohoo!

MySpace/Photobucket: User Overlap Is Nearly 100%
NewsCorp plans to pay half as much for Photobucket as they did for MySpace. Photobucket is going for $300 million, and MySpace was acquired for $580 million, back in 2005. Interesting analysis by Mr. Arrington.

What Happened at Digg?
The firestorm that erupted at Digg earlier this week over a censored post has led to a lot of discussion about the nature of censorship in a world where everyone is a publisher. Some are calling it the "The Great Digg Revolt,"  as it illustrates just how much power the web 2.0 movement has given to its users.

Gmail Users are Younger & Richer?
The latest stats show that Gmail users skew younger and richer than other mail products. I guess I am old and poor cause I don't use Gmail.

Five Twitter Tools We Love
Getting sick of Twitter? Maybe these five add-ons may help convince you to the service for a bit longer.

LinkedIn lets you see who is viewing your profile — sort of
LinkedIn has created a new feature that lets you see who is viewing your profile. So now you can find out who is stalking looking for you in the business world.

What is your favorite web tech conference in 2007 so far?
Don't forget to vote for a conference you enjoyed the most so far this year!