Video services are really taking off this year! Leaders in this arena include Seesmic, 12seconds.tv, Flixwagon, and Qik. Here at ReadWriteWeb we're fans of these services and keep an eye on innovative services looking to enter this particular space. So it should come as no surprise that we thought this next service was pretty neat. If you're a fan of SmugMug, video services, or emoticons then you're going to love Smirk.
Cropping, editing, resizing, and adding text to images are various actions that bloggers and photographers constantly perform. The most popular tools used to perform these actions range from high-performance products like Adobe Photoshop to the free-for-all Paint.NET and GIMP applications. However, the start-up times for these products can waste precious seconds if you only need to perform one action. Here are three great programs for Mac and Windows to resize images on the fly.
We really wish Twitter would have implemented threaded replies into the service when it first launched. This would've made it much easier to track conversations across Twitter. Instead Twitter users have to rely on a host of conversation tracking services to fill the void that Twitter has left wide open. Summize, now Twitter Search, is one of the best services for tracking conversations on Twitter. While many tools exist, only a handful correctly deliver on their promise. Tweader is the latest Twitter conversation tracker to hit the market. However, it doesn't deliver on its promise correctly either.
It's time for our weekly summary of Web Technology news, products and trends. This week we surveyed the leading online banking products and 10 recommended photo sharing sites. We also checked out a new 'deep web' search tool and reported on Joost's move to the browser. Our prediction question this week was about the controversial 'Twitter for enterprise' app Yammer - check out the results below. On the trends side, we looked into a report about "super influencers", gave you some suggestions for quality social media consultants, reported on the latest Tim Berners-Lee foundation, and analyzed how the economy shake-ups this week affect the tech sector. Last but not least, we bring you the latest from our new Enterprise Channel.
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The Web 3.0 Conference & Expo is happening October 16-17, Santa Clara, CA. ReadWriteWeb is a media sponsor of the event.
Web 3.0 Conference and Expo will explore the strategies, tools, technologies and the big ideas necessary for building impactful, socially relevant, and profitable Web 3.0 products, services and companies. So whether you are a designer, developer, entrepreneur, strategist, or venture capitalist, if you are thinking about the next generation of the Web, the Web 3.0 Conference is the place to be.
This week we reported that Cognition had announced "the largest commercially available Semantic Map of the English language." In our interview with Cognition CEO Scott Janus, we asked him to compare Cognition's technologies to those of other semantic search companies Hakia and Powerset. Janus pointed to their large Semantic Map as the main differentiator. Indeed he told us that semantic search companies "must include a comprehensive semantic map" to be successful.
Is this true? We sought a response from both Hakia and Microsoft-owned Powerset on this semantically charged question.
Cisco announced today the acquisition of Jabber, Inc., a provider of presence and messaging software. It's important to note that Cisco has acquired the company called Jabber (jabber.com), not the open standard Jabber (jabber.org) which we have written about extensively in the past. The Jabber protocol, now called XMPP, is an open standard for Instant Messaging. The Jabber company builds products on, and provides support for, the protocol. In many ways Jabber.com is similar to what Red Hat is in the Linux community. See Marshall Kirkpatrick's description of Jabber the standard below.
Apple has had a string of bad luck lately. Today, the company announced that it is recalling the power adapters for all iPhone 3Gs sold in the United States, Canada, Japan, and all Latin American countries that use American style plugs. Apparently, the metal prongs on the adapters can break off and remain stuck in the power outlet, creating a serious risk of electric shock. Users can either exchange their adapters in an Apple store, or order a replacement online.
This week I attended the Web 2.0 Expo New York, on behalf of ReadWriteWeb. Summing up 4 days of conference with all the amazing conversations is pretty hard. So before the conference, as I was walking to the Javits Center, I decided I wanted to come away with three things:
- One big negative impact of the market mayhem on the start-up world.
- One big positive impact of the market mayhem on the start-up world.
- One trend that seemed to be everywhere.
In other words, like Twitter and 37 Signals, I was deliberately reducing, cutting out, eliminating, restricting to ONE thing in each case. So here goes...
