SceneCaster, which will launch later today, was on our radar, but we didn't really know enough about it to include it on our list. This morning I got a chance to check it out, and after playing with it for the past hour I don't think it really is aimed at Second Life. SceneCaster is about creating 3D, virtual spaces, but it's not a virtual world.

Is SceneCaster a virtual world?
No. SceneCaster contains fragments of virtual world like spaces but purposely avoids the complexity of virtual world experiences. SceneCaster is designed as an accessible form of immersive 3D media.

Unlike in Second Life, you don't walk around scenes created in SceneCaster, and they're not connected into a fluid 3D world. Curiously, SceneCaster's website includes a number of pictures of characters walking around together in spaces, but there really doesn't appear to be any sort of utility for actually interacting with others inside scenes, and they imply that there isn't one in their FAQ.

SceneCaster touts itself as a "3D Web community." More precisely, it is a simple 3D scene layout program that lets people easily create three dimensional mockups of rooms that can be shared and displayed on the web. "SceneCaster’s mission is to mainstream the 3D Web by lowering the barriers to adoption," said founder Mark Zohar in a press release. "We’ve built it from the ground up by combining the very best the Web has to offer today -- search, eCommerce and social networking -- with a rich, immersive 3D experience that is accessible within a standard Web browser."

There isn't much in the way of social networking to SceneCaster, beyond leaving comments on scenes, but creation of scenes is really the main thrust of SceneCaster, and is as simple as advertised -- if occasionally frustrating. Using SceneCaster involves installing a plugin for either IE or Firefox. I tested it out in Firefox 2.0.0.7 and ran in to a few stability issues, but in general it was a pretty painless process.

Creating a scene involves dragging premade 3D objects onto a blank canvas (or starting from a template). The application supports Google Sketchup files, which can be imported into your scene via the Google 3D Warehouse. I couldn't actually get it to work -- the app crashed every time I tried -- but theoretically that means you could add anything you wanted to your scenes. That makes SceneCaster potentially useful to creative professionals, like architects or interior decorators, who want to easily create and share on the web with clients mockups of their plans.

SceneCaster also includes a bunch of branded content from companies like Kohler, and SmartFurniture. Though there are obvious commercial applications to their technology (i.e., an advertiser could create a remixable space around a specific company), SceneCaster is monetized via ads that appear inside the scene creation app. There are also tie-ins with eBay and Amazon allowing scene creators to purchase the real-world objects that they place in their scenes.

Conclusion

Second Life it is not, but SceneCaster is an interesting product. If they work out the bugs in their scene creation and viewer app, and improve on the controls (changing camera angles or the angle of objects wasn't as easy as it could be, for example), the app certainly could find a market among creative professionals and 3D enthusiasts. Their mention of social networking in their press release makes me wonder if SceneCaster may be planning more social 3D interaction tools that could be aimed squarely at Second Life.

The Content Engagement Platform is a complete widget solution that delivers authoring, distribution, monetization, and analytics. MuseStorm CEO Ori Soen says their platform can help businesses "take syndicated content to the next level."

MuseStorm is aiming their end-to-end platform at enterprise-grade deployments. In their press release announcing the platform, they tout a partnership with Simon & Schuster books, which used the Content Engagement Platform to create and deploy widgets on their BookVideos.tv web site. According to MuseStorm, the book publisher is using their advanced analytics module to track individual plays of author video within their widgets. Simon & Schuster is a subsidiary of CBS, who we reported in May was working with MuseStorm to create widgets. A breakdown of the four pieces of the MuseStorm widget syndication platform is below:

• Authoring - MuseStorm's widget creation application (Widget Studio) simplifies the platform of creating cross-platform widgets that can be deployed on the web or desktop. The company says their app makes building a widget "as easy as creating a PowerPoint presentation." A screenshot of the Widget Studio is above.
• Distribution - The distribution arm of MuseStorm's platform can deploy widgets in a variety of formats, including to almost any web page, start page, blogging platform, or social network. Widgets can also be deployed on the desktop (Dashboard widgets, Windows gadgets, Yahoo! Konfabulator) and on mobile phones or over instant messaging systems. MuseStorm says that they're always adding new distribution channels and are currently seeking partnerships with start pages and social networks.
• Monetization - The Capitalize module of the MuseStorm platform integrates ads into widgets. The module supports a variety of ad networks, says MuseStorm, can deliver contextual, action-triggered, and rich media ads and can integrate with the analytics module for tracking of ad campaigns and user engagement.
• Analytics - The crown jewel of their widget platform, MuseStorm's Total Analytics package gives publishers complete usage and interaction statistics.

"With our technology, companies can interact with their audiences via the Web on their browsers, desktops, or mobile devices to better understand and respond to their preferences," said Soen. "We believe that there are limitless opportunities to capitalize on this strong audience engagement." MuseStorm is based in Israel and was founded in 2005.

Let us know which companies you are most looking forward to seeing present and what you think of our picks in the comments below.

Marshall: Dimdim is an open source web conferencing application that I profiled for TechCrunch last year when the company released its alpha version. Cross platform performance is always my first test, and if it works, then this could be awesome.

Josh: I've had my eye on Dimdim since Marshall's preview last year. Anyone who has ever attended a webinar using WebEx knows that the experience could be improved upon (WebEx isn't bad, but there is certainly room for improvement). Dimdim's site currently says the software can support "seminars with hundreds of attendees." I hope it can scale higher -- I can't wait for the day when I can virtually attend all the great conferences around the world that I can't always get to physically.

Marshall: A recommendation engine that's raised $10m, which we profiled here. Potentially similar startups launching at DEMO include Your Truman Show, a cross-social-network media recommendation widget, and mSpoke's FeedHub, an RSS suggestion tool. Recommendation engines always catch my eye.

Josh: Diigo is a web-based tool for what the company is calling "social annotation." It lets users highlight, annotate (via sticky notes), and clip information from any web site. What I think makes Diigo potentially very useful is that you can share your annotations, clippings and bookmarks with a group. For students and professors I think Diigo could help groups organize their thoughts and research for team projects. Marshall reviewed them a year ago for TechCrunch.

Marshall: I like Diigo a lot, but I haven't kept using them in the time since I first reviewed them. The new Webslides feature looks like it could come in handy and the groups looks solid, if basic, but I don't know how many more features this product needs. There are already so many! I think they need to focus on finding distribution channels for what they've already built.

Josh: Earthmine is creating a competitor to Google's Street View maps. Rather than using video, Earthmine will use "laser range-finding and still photography" (via Webware), which will result in perspective-correct photos that are more detailed and complete. Earthmine claims they can capture entire towns in just weeks using their camera set up, and they plan to extrapolate 3D data from the photos. It also looks like they plan to tag real-world objects within 3D panoramas to give their "geospatial inventories" context.

Marshall: This looks like nothing but 'wow' - not truly useful. Even people interested in espionage are likely to do their street-level reconnaissance in person if at all possible. Give me a view from the sky and a set of directions to get somewhere and I'm more than happy.

Marshall: MetaRader is a media feed viewing platform. Making media feeds easy to view, with chat and other forms of communication, is something many people are working on doing. MetaRadar has a beautiful interface that could make a strong showing.

Josh: I don't see sharing media I find online with my friends as currently being all that difficult, so for me the usefulness of this software will hinge on whether it can make it easier to find things of value to me. It is beautiful, though. When I first loaded up their site I thought they were making a hardware MP3 player (and a very pretty one, at that).

Josh: MotionDSP makes software that cleans up low quality video. Generally useful for cell phone videos, it corrects lighting and clarity to greatly increase the 'watchability' of poorly compressed video. The demos on their site are impressive, especially the book demos, which clean up a very pixelated image of books on a shelf to make the titles on the book spines readable. With the prevalence of cell phone cameras, I could see this software being useful. I would think it also likely has law enforcement applications.

Marshall: At DEMO MotionDSP will be launching a new consumer-facing site called FixMyMovie, where anyone can use their service. They are funded by and do work for the CIA, so watch out!

Josh: Fluid Innovation helps large companies like Microsoft and Lockheed Martin license in-house developed software to other companies, and at DEMOfall they'll be unveiling their new Virtual Ventures service. Virtual Ventures has been described as a fantasy venture capital game to help companies gauge interest in real world ideas. This reminds me of Spigit, which is also presenting at DEMOfall this week.

Marshall: It looks like this company already has big customers. I'll be curious to see what exactly they show at DEMO. I like services and if this one has been proven already then I'm tempted to keep my skepticism to myself. I wonder, though, whether innovation is truly too fluid for even Fluid Innovation to turn into a part of the regular supply chain.

Marshall: Shoutlet is a front end for widget and feed publishing and management for marketers. Apparently general consensus is that marketers aren't as smart as other people and need dumbed-down tools to perform basic web 2.0 activities. If that's true, and it may well be, Shoutlet could be perfect. It was built by marketers themselves, or at least they hired someone to build it.

Josh: Shoutlet is certainly a pretty package, and all-in-one tools can make things a lot easier. But they have to hit a home run on all fronts to win converts, in my opinion. When you already have great tools for widget creation, podcasting, RSS metrics, content management, etc. it's hard to make an argument to switch to inferior tools just for the sake of convenience. I'll reserve judgment until I see Shoutlet in the flesh, so to speak.

Josh: PlanHQ is a business plan creation tool and keeps on top of milestones that you've set for your business. Though some VCs don't think business plans are necessary anymore, I think PlanHQ can be a helpful way to visualize where you want your business to go and to keep on top of your goals. Even if you're not using it to create a formal plan, figuring out your goals and keeping track of them can be helpful.

Marshall: Maybe, if you're in a sector that still requires business plans... I'm sure this kind of thing could be helpful to anyone.

Marshall: Yuuguu is a cross-platform screensharing and remote desktop control tool with IM and voice. Sounds great, but we couldn't get it to work.

Josh: Last month when I wrote about Kyte, I got a demo from the company's CEO, Daniel Graf, and he used Glance so that I could watch his desktop in real-time while we chatted on the phone. It was neat, but I think it has fairly limited applications (training, demos, presentations).Yuuguu seems to be promoting itself as a consumer product, which I don't really see it as.

Marshall: Patients fill out info electronically in doctors' waiting rooms while viewing ads on a digital clipboard. Their pitch is that it makes checking in at the doctor's office quicker and easier. I find this interesting but wonder about the influence of medical ads in the waiting room. I'm probably being very naive about that.

Josh: I'm not really up on this idea. I don't think I'd trust some device that is showing me ads with my medical information and wouldn't really be happy if my doctor asked me to use this instead of a pen and paper. I think privacy issues might be too big to overcome for anything that tries to monetize your personal medical history. Digitizing the check in process at the doctor is a good idea, providing relevant medical info to patients is a good idea, mixing personal medical information with commerce is a bad idea.

Marshall: Livemocha is a language learning social network with heavy hitting investors. Livemocha says that 95 million people immigrated to other countries in 2000 and that number is set to explode over the next 10-15 years. That's their market. Internationalizing the web is hot, so Livemocha could make a splash. (Disclosure: Marshall is currently consulting for a pre-launched competitor in this sector).

Marshall:Qumranet summarizes themselves succinctly on their website when they say the company "is the proud sponsor, maintainer and catalyst behind the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) project, a global open source effort focused on integrating robust virtualization capabilities into the Linux kernel. The KVM virtualization solution has been officially included in Linux 2.6.20."

This virtualization project is backed by Sequoia, who funded Google and YouTube, and they seem to be seeing some important early success. I'd say betting on them would be smart.

The reason behind FeedHub is to help users who can't keep up with all of the feeds they have subscribed to, by filtering for relevancy. Say you've subscribed to 100 feeds in Bloglines; by using FeedHub you can create a single feed that filters those 100 feeds. Ideally the resulting single feed will deliver you only the most relevant posts - and you can continue to 'train' FeedHub to refine this process.

Memes

Feedhub is built on mSpoke’s "mPower Adaptive Personalization Engine", which the company has a patent pending on. The key to training a Feedhub feed is the concept of a 'meme' - popularized in the tech blogging world by news aggregator Techmeme. FeedHub will discover new memes for you and learn "meme weights" by noticing which posts you click on and interact with. You can manually adjust the weights associated with a meme. For an idea of how the algorithm works, here is mSpoke's explanation:

"Each meme represents some characteristic of a post - for example it's topic, popular tags in delicious and number of Diggs. Each meme also has a weight associated with it that indicates how predictive FeedHub expects it to be in choosing content you'll like."

How to use FeedHub

The first thing you do is upload your OPML file (or perhaps a selection of it). From that FeedHub builds a set of initial memes, based on your feeds. That gives you a single "individualized" feed such as this:

That's a lot of info, but you can also filter it down by adjusting your 'preferences'.

If we stopped there, FeedHub wouldn't be overly interesting - because adding that 'individualized feed' to your RSS Reader is (when it comes down to it) just another feed to track. However, it starts to get compelling in the next steps, when you interact with your feed from within the Feedhub website. Clicking on the 'Memes' tab displays this:

FeedHub monitors which posts within your personalized feed you read, and which you ignore. You can also provide negative feedback, by clicking on the links within your personalized feed to tell FeedHub "don't show items like this" or to "drop this source." Also by clicking and dragging memes, you can quickly and easily change your preferences. If you want more items from a given meme, you can drag the Meme to ‚ÄúYes, Please‚Ä?. Or if you‚Äôre tired of reading about something, you can drag that Meme to ‚ÄúNo Thanks‚Ä?. You can also add new memes manually, in addition to the ones FeedHub learns automatically from your behavior within the personalized feed. For example, you can tell FeedHub to recommend content to you that is popular on digg or delicous (e.g. the 'delicious hotlist'). FeedHub can also learn about the topics you personally tag in delicious or submit to Digg, if you choose to share that information on the digital identity discussed above.

Conclusion

We've said for some time now that filtering RSS is the next stage in the evolution of information processing. FeedHub is the latest attempt at this. It's not as integrated into my daily RSS reading experience as I'd like, but what you can do within the FeedHub website just about makes up for that. Also the concept of a meme set is compelling and goes beyond what I've seen other RSS filtering products do.

However try it out for yourself and let us know if it delivers the right results for you. In the final analysis, what counts isn't the methods of filtering - but whether it delivers relevant results.