SOMEWHAT FRANK

AOL Gets Goowy, Acquires Widget Startup

AOL has just announced the acquisition of Goowy Media, a San Diego-based Flash startpage, widget and desktop application startup. One of Goowy's bi-products is yourminis a slick startpage that I previously reviewed and named one of the best beta products of 2006. It is pretty rad.

Goowy's widgets can be distributed to just about any page or social network on the Web (as shown below) which is comparable to offerings by ClearSpring, Widgetbox and Gigya, which have also been getting buzz in the widget advertising space. These distribution capabilities will come in handy on myAOL as well as helping to syndicate AOL network content. Goowy also offers widget metrics in a dashboard that closely resembles the feed metrics dashboard of FeedBurner which was acquired by Google for $150 million.

Ask 3D Launches, Amazon Buying Netflix?, New AOL Feed Reader, WordPress vs. Movable Type, Web 2.0 Viral Growth Secrets, Gayest Sites & Widget News

Photo of the Week:  Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch from Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom by Josh Hallett was taken this week with the successful launch of the space shuttle.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 06.10.07

Major Relaunch For Ask: Ask3D
It looks very sharp. I like the way they allow users to personalize the wallpaper behind the search box with a few different colorful skins. Very innovative and 3D yummy design.

Will Amazon Purchase Netflix?
Rumor has it (coming from major news outlets) that movie rental company Netflix may be purchased by internet retail giant. Does it make sense?

Who Matters Now?
Business 2.0 Magazine invites you to vote for the business people who inspire, inform and infuriate you, from CEOs to entrepreneurs to media stars. Vote for Pedro Mike Arrington.

Secrets to Web 2.0 Viral Growth
Forbes.com has a short but informative article in which Roelof Botha (the Sequoia Capital venture capitalist instrumental in the success of YouTube and PayPal) shares two tips on how to have your service explode in membership using viral marketing.

Watchdog group flunks Google on privacy practices
In what looks to be brewing into a mutual smear campaign, London-based Privacy International has ranked Google among the worst top Internet sites for privacy protection, and Google is reportedly taking the watchdog group to task.

All New AOL Feed Reader Coming Soon
This new feed reader looks pretty sexy...I cannot wait to see it go live. :)

Clearspring Lands Major Deal With NBC
Clearspring, a Virginia-based company that demoed at TECH cocktail DC 1, announced it was chosen by NBC to be its exclusive widget platform for the next year. This is a major deal for Clearspring, and for NBC as well. The specific terms of this business arrangement have not been disclosed.

Yourminis Delivering Triple Widget Play
Yourminis delivers a triple play of widgets: online personalized desktop widgets, actual desktop widgets and blogs widgets.

What’s the gayest site on the web?
With June being Gay Pride month throughout the US and the World, Compete.com tries to uncover the gayest site on the web.

The Top Social Networks Where Alcohol is Allowed
Mashable looks at the various drink 2.0 web sites.

Feedtwister Lets You Mix Feeds
After registering with Feedtwister, members can begin adding their favorite RSS feeds. You can create as many lists as you like, and each list is a combination of the RSS feeds you selected.

WordPress vs. Movable Type
The interesting question is how the market will respond to an open source battle between the old blogger favorite and the new blogger favorite.

Search is history, says Yahoo!
Although Yahoo!, like Google, has talked before about developing a more personalised web, with relevant information delivered directly to readers, this was the first time that the company has said publicly that search will become less important.

Widgets Going Wild on Facebook, Freewebs & Yourminis

Widgets are hot. Widgets are sexy. Widgets, widgets, widgets. I previously have covered the widget craze but widgets now have a few new promoters.

With the Facebook open platform announcement last week there have been lots of new widgets and applications added to Facebook each day. Personally, I have already added Flickr, Slide and Twitter widgets to my Facebook profile. Nick O'Neill, who helped bring TECH cocktail to DC, decided to launch a new blog called All Facebook which will be covering these widget updates and other Facebook news, so you might want to check it out.

Freewebs, the Silver Springs, Maryland-based company that offers an open web personal publishing platform, has added a Widget Bank to their catalog of website building tools. The Freewebs Widget Bank gives members access to thousands of widgets that can be embedded directly onto a web site. Widgets can be added into Freewebs sites without having to copy, cut or paste code. Widget Bank will constantly update its extensive collection and include games, clocks, RSS feed readers, maps, video players and much more.  Freewebs has created its own widgets but has also reached to third party sites like YouTube, Widgetbox, RockYou, Miniclip, Gizmoz and others.

Yourminis has also taken an interesting approach which I have previously covered but wanted to reiterate. Basically, they are offering widgets that work on your home page, are snaggable for your blog or web site and extendable to your desktop. It is a widget trifecta!

Here are a couple of other blogs that are good widget resources:

Widgify - by Hooman Radfer of the widget marketplace Clearspring
SexyWidget - by Lawrence Coburn of distributed rating RateItAll.com
Widgets Labs - by Derek Anderson
StickiWidgets 

The web is definitely widgetizing. Can you dig it?

Are you ready to Twiistup?

If you are going to be in the Los Angeles, California area on May 9, 2007 then I would recommend you make your way to Zanzibar in Santa Monica to Twiistup. What is Twiistup? Twiistup, founded by Mike Macadaan, a friend and AOL colleague, is an event that aims to bring together the brightest minds in SoCal for an evening of conversations, demos and enjoyment.

There will be demonstrations from:

Buildv1
Verse Studios
goodreads
yourminis
Urbaniacs
mint
ooVoo

I am planning on being in attendance (unless my work schedule interferes) and it’s my birthday so I am going to take 50 Cent’s advice:

It's your birthday
We gon' party like it's your birthday
We gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday
And you know we don't give a f*ck
cause it's not your birthday!

I hope to see you there. I wrote about Twiistup on the TECH cocktail site and Mike offered up the promo code: techcocktail to save guests $10 per ticket - snag your tickets today.

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

What are the best betas of 2006?

Launching a product with the "beta" tag is the way of web 2.0, but the "beta" tag is not meant to be ever-present. I expect that eventually the ever-present "beta" will not be legally acceptable. In the meantime, Museum of Modern Betas recently polled its readers on the best beta's of 2006.

I interpreted it as the best betas launched in 2006, though I have to admit, it is difficult to recall when products actually launched as opposed to when they became popular. After revising my list to remove a few products that launched in late 2005, I selected:

1. Zillow
2. yourminis
3. MyBlogLog

Readers of Museum of Modern Betas encountered the same issue and so the poll results were weighted by year with older betas receiving less points per vote. According to the MoMB poll results the Betas of the Year 2006 are:

1. Flickr
2. Google Docs and Spreadsheet
3. Line Rider

What are your favorite beta products that launched in 2006?
What are your favorite beta products around in 2006?