SOMEWHAT FRANK

AudioSnacks: Bring Voice To Your Travels

If you are into traveling to explore new places you are going to love what AudioSnacks has to offer. AudioSnacks, a Chicago-based company founded by Michael Salvatore, offers a catalog of user-generated audio tours. So if you are traveling to Scotland you could download an audio tour to accompany you as you tour Edinburgh which could add some insight to your experience. Also if you are a Scotland expert with tour guide aspirations you can create an audio tour and add it to the AudioSnacks library for others to enjoy plus make money doing it.

If you are looking for audio tours to download and take with you on your next trip you can search or browse the various options as explained in this AudioSnack demo. If you are interesting in contributing an AudioSnack tour to the community there are a few different levels at which you can contribute. They include simply writing out the tour for AudioSnacks to produce to actually producing the AudioSnack yourself. Which ever method you choose to contribute you can set the price of the download and get paid for your efforts. To find out more information about how to start contributing be sure to check out the AudioSnack tour creation guide.

I am not sure if I would ever take the time to contribute an AudioSnack myself, but I did find a number of tour options while searching the extensive AudioSnack catalog. I also think it is worth mentioning that AudioSnacks offers College Campus Tours as well - which would have come in handy this weekend at Stanford if it weren't for the rain. If you are a college student and well-versed in campus history you might look to make some extra money by creating an AudioSnack of your school. I would think educational establishments would also look to create their own "official" campus AudioSnack to represent their school.

Bottom-line: AudioSnacks offers user-contributed audio tours. Users can download or contribute an audio tour to bring a guiding voice and organization to your next tour.

Megite Improves Personal Aggregator

Megite, an online news aggregator created by Matthew Chen, which I have highlight previously has improved its personalized news aggregator, My Megite by allowing users the ability to manage their own feed reading lists via an OPML file. Megite previously allowed users to create their own personalized news aggregator by sending in an OPML feed reading file in to Megite via email which was a very manual process. Though a great idea the previous process did not scale well as it created management bottleneck as users were not allowed to make their own OPML file updates. The new My Megite has eliminated this bottleneck. You can see mine here: Frank Gruber's Megite Personalized News Aggregator.

ClickStar: Movie Debuts In Your Home

ClickStar, a startup co-founded by actor Morgan Freeman and backed by many Hollywood icons, is set to launch the first ever first run movie distribution site on the web in a few weeks (December 15, 2006) with release of, 10 Items of Less. ClickStar users will be able to purchase a movie for about $20 and watch it on the computer or a TV set with the help of a add-on device. Additionally, ClickStar will enable users to play a movie while it is still downloading. Lori McCreary, ClickStar co-founder, had this to say recently in a USAToday CEO Forum:

"ClickStar is a broadband entertainment service where you can get every movie that you can get on any other broadband entertainment service, but more. We've got first-run movies while they're still in theaters, like 10 Items or Less. You also have artist-created channels, so we're working with some of Hollywood's best-known personalities that have a deep-seated interest in a particular subject. For instance, Danny DeVito is a huge fan of documentaries, so Danny will be the voice of (the channel) Jersey Docs."

With everyone and their brother jumping into the online video market ClickStar's key differentiator will be in the strength of its content. Personally, I would pay to see a first run movie in the comfort of my living room  the day it is released but some are skeptical of the opportunity. Additionally, I think there should be an option to buy to own, similar to purchasing a download to burn a DVD as $20 is about the price of a DVD these days.

Would you use ClickStar to download to watch a just released movie?

Bottom-line: If ClickStar can offer first run movie titles at the click of a button I am pretty confident that they will be successful. However, its pricing and ownership details still need to be tweaked to the liking of the general public as some companies offer users the ability to download to own the movie content to burn to a DVD the day of DVD release.

Related Articles:
ClickStar ready for movie download retake
Q&A With ClickStar's Lori McCreary
A Start-up Fueled By Star Power

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.

Widgets Live! Everywhere

Widgets Live! was a fabulous day of festivities (November 6, 2006) which attracted the thought leaders of the web, mobile and gadget industries to discuss one of the hottest topics, widgets. Companies like AOL, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, Adobe all had representatives contributing details on its latest widget endeavors. A number of startups like FeedBurner, Six Apart, Wordpress and Photobucket contributed to the conversation.  While widget startups like Widgetbox, Clearspring and Snipperoo explained the way they are approaching widgets. The event was appropriately kicked off by an insightful keynote address by Arlo Rose, the founder of Konfabulator, a desktop widget suite that has often linked to the recent widget craze.

I decided not to live blog the event as I have done in the past with conferences like Supernova and Syndicate but AOL colleague Stephanie Bergman and Liz Gannes of GigaOm did. While John Panzer was on the Blog Sidebar Widget panel representing AOL and blogged about it here. James Ward explained how Adobe's Flex could be used for some slick widgetry. The folks at Snipperoo also generated some live blogging coverage and ProgrammableWeb.com did a wrap-up. I took some photos that can be found here.

There were also number of companies that used Widget Live! as a launching pad for announcements:

• AOL launched a revamped development site at: dev.aol.com
• Fox launched Spring Widgets which combines web and desktop widget functionality into one product
• FeedBurner announced the partnership with Fox Interactive Media to help control the display of widgets in the Spring Widgets product
• NVIDIA acquired PortalPlayer
• Freewebs announced Mooglets a web widget dashboard
• Goowy unleashed yourminis a slick flash-based web dashboard
• Clearspring launched a revamped widget marketplace
• Netvibes founder and ceo Tariq Krim gave insight into the growth of the personal homepage and communicated plans at expand the site to be localized in60 countries
• The virtual chumby was introduced as the actual chumby (see what is a chumby?) has not yet been released for purchase

Additionally there were event wrap-ups by Niall Kennedy, Emily Chang and Mike Jones who hinted at the level of innovation in saying:

“ Om + Niall's Widgets conference was good today - potentially even more forward thinking than tomorrows Web 2.0 conference.”

If having a conference dedicated to widgets wasn't enough to highlight all that is widgety, Steve Rubel reports that the W3C has introduced a draft proposal for a new Widget standard. The most interesting section of the proposal is the Widget autodiscovery section which, similar to feed autodiscovery, enables a webpage to tell a browser and other applications if  there is a widget associated with the page. I am glad to see the W3C taking a crack at standardizing widgets  asking for input from the widget generating community.

RIP Pluck Consumer RSS Feed Reader

Pluck, a Austin-based social media company that I have mentioned several times on Somewhat Frank, has decided to kill its popular consumer-facing RSS Feed Reader. This is an interesting development as Pluck built its business on its RSS Reader but has since moved in other social media directions. According to an update on the Pluck web site:

"All versions of Pluck's RSS readers for Internet Explorer, FireFox and Pluck's web edition will be discontinued on 1/5/2007. The RSS Readers have served our community of end users well for several years, but with Pluck's focus in other business areas, the venerable RSS readers are set to be retired from our product line."

About a year and a half ago Pluck was my favorite RSS Reader but I felt like the product did not evolve as other products kept improving. However, the shutdown could be attributed to a number of changes in the RSS space which include the launch of IE7 with integrated feed reading, Firefox live bookmarks and lack of a solid revenue model for a feed reader -  RIP Pluck RSS Feed Reader.

Six Apart Business Blogging Event In DC

Yesterday (October 19, 2006) I had the opportunity to represent AOL at the Six Apart Business Blogging Seminar in Washington, DC. The event was a half day seminar focusing on politics and advocacy. It was supposed to be lead by Six Apart's Anil Dash but unfortunately, Anil was ill so he could not make the engagement. It was unfortunate but Marissa Levinson and the rest of the Six Apart team did a good job filling in. Joe Loong one of the major bloggers also was in attendance. Jake Parrillo spoke on behalf of FeedBurner about leveraging feeds for politics and advocacy. Jake is a politician himself so speaking at this seminar was a great fit for him.

The event spoke to all levels on blogging and feeds. I have written several posts on Somewhat Frank (a Six Apart Typepad hosted blog) about business blogging, feeds and how to get started with blogging, so I thought it might be helpful to point some of the most popular:

• Naked Conversations: Blog Success Tips
• 8 Tips To Promoting Your Blog
• BusinessWeek Talks Business Blogging
• Technology Evangelist 'The Innovators' Series Visits Somewhat Frank

While all the speakers did a wonderful job presenting, I definitely was more interested in the questions the audience had to ask since it offers some insight into the understanding of blogs and feeds outside the tech community. Photos from the event can be found here.

Wallstrip Videoblog Profiles Hot Stocks

Wallstrip.com, a videoblog that integrates stock culture with pop culture, launched earlier this week (October 16, 2006). Using a similar format and feel as the popular videoblog RocketBoom, Wallstrip looks to harness a few minutes of your attention to profile one popular stock per day by taking to the streets to determine why it is doing so well. Wallstrip is produced by Howard Lindzon and hosted by Lindsay Campbell. Just three episodes in, Wallstrip has showcased, Apple (AAPL), Research in Motion (RIMM), and Chipotle (CMG) - all of which produce very popular mainstream products. 

In watching the first couple of episodes I thought Wallstrip was well written as it successfully presents details about each company in easy to remember bits of information. After each episode Wallstrip carries the conversation onto the web with both inline comments and Wallstrip Conversation which is a seperate area of the site that has enlisted a number of professional investors like Fred Wilson to write a blog post about the showcased company of the day. Wallstrip also has created a pretty slick video widget that can be embedded into your blog or personalized homepage.

Bottom-line: If Wallstrip can continue to produce quality daily videos profiling popular stocks in creative "mainstream" terms then there is no doubt in my mind that Wallstrip will also become extremely popular. Furthermore, Wallstrip could become an excellent educational resource for anyone trying to learn more about the stock market.

Tailrank 2.0 Aggregator Rolled Out

Tailrank, the blog post aggregator, has launched a slick new interface redesign and a few additional features. According to the Tailrank blog:

"The majority of the work on this release has been on our ranking algorithms. Tailrank now breaks stories faster, cluster them better, and generally does a better job at finding the hottest news in the blogosphere."

The new Tailrank also enables a user to track each story via RSS or by AOL Instant Messenger. This could be a helpful feature with stories that get a lot of coverage and are worth tracking via IM alerts. Tailrank also introduced archives for the most popular stories of the week which could come in very handy if you miss a day or two of news. In addition to the algorithmic changes and story tracking features Tailrank is looking to expand to add new categories, like entertainment, with more to come soon. Finally, Tailrank hints at a number of new features within the next couple of weeks. It will be interesting to see what Tailrank 2.1 will bring.

Bottom-line: The new Tailrank looks much improved and will probably give Gabe Rivera's Techmeme some solid competition.

Related Link: Aggregators: Multiplying Like Rabbits

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.

The White House Has RSS Feeds & Podcasts

With my recent move to the Washington, DC area I have been exploring what the new city has to offer and I noticed that the White House has RSS syndication feeds and podcasts. Yes, it's true.

It is great to see the government supporting the web 2.0 movement leveraging syndication feeds to get the White House updates out.  I'd love to see how many subscribers each feed has. I wonder if they are even capturing those metrics?

Of course, my favorite offering is a video podcast starring first pup, Scottish Terrier Barney.

Attensa 2.0: Free Enterprise RSS Reader

Attensa, a Portland-based company, has continued to improve upon its enterprise RSS feed reader solution which I highlighted previously, by releasing Attensa 2.0. Attensa believes that an Outlook integrated feed reader is a core requirement for large corporations.

Attensa 2.0 offers all of the same features of the previous 1.5 version including the ability to leverage "attention" click stream data to fight information overload as the most influential information is bubbled to the top. Attensa 2.0 offers the ability to set desktop alerts to deliver server alerts, out of inventory updates, pricing changes or other specify needs. Attensa responded to feedback from its Attensa 1.5 corporate integrations and now offers audio and video podcasts inline. Inline audio and video enabled corporations to easily enable podcasts for corporate training and other internal uses as enclosures do not send users to external sites or intranets sites for playback. The screen-shot to the left shows an audio file being played inline.

Attensa 2.0 is being offered with forum support and a PDF user guide for free! Additional support and access to the Attensa knowledge base can be purchased for $24.95 per year per client. For more information on Attensa 2.0 check out these articles on TechCrunch and the Attensa Blog.