ReadWriteWeb

After a short private beta test, JS-Kit just announced that Echo, its new blog commenting platform, is now available as a public beta. Echo aggregates conversations around a blog post from across the Internet and allows users to share their comments on Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed. Echo offers a number of well-designed and unique features, including real-time updating and the ability to capture social gestures related to a blog's content like star ratings and 'likes' from across the Web. In addition, at least for the time being, JS-Kit also offers good spam and obscenity filters.

In the old days, somebody running a business had a cadre of middle managers who aggregated data about the performance of different parts of the business. They would typically write monthly reports highlighting trends, issues, and exceptions. In a modern, web-enabled, web-centric business, this role is served by the online dashboards provided by various services. The challenge today is aggregating and integrating those services. I see this challenge in the real world from running ReadWriteWeb's business operations. This gap seems like a good start-up opportunity. Perhaps somebody is already filling it?

If your taste in online video-watching goes beyond the viral videos of mass appeal that include things like this drugged-up kid, Where the hell is Matt?, or even the latest internet phenomenon Susan Boyle, then you're going to love the new site called Nizmlab. While its name may be a bit funny, its content is pure sophistication. Instead of just counting down the most popular videos across video-sharing sites on the net, Nizmlab is run by editors who pick the most interesting and unique creations to showcase on the site.

Today at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, a company called Nomee is revealing a new software application for the purpose of aggregating all your social networking sites into a single desktop experience. In a way, this software is somewhat reminiscent of the web-based PeopleBrowsr in the sense that it's attempting to pool all your networks and identities into one single window. However, unlike PeopleBrowsr, Nomee is not just aggregation software - it also functions as a social identity management tool, letting you control which identities are shared with which people. That makes Nomee more like a next-gen social address book than anything else.

Bebo, AOL's social network, added a lifestreaming feature today that allows users to pull in updates from Twitter, Flickr, and Delicious, as well as from Facebook and Myspace. Bebo also introduced another new feature called 'Lifestory,' which displays your updates in a scrollable and zoomable timeline that is somewhat reminiscent of ThisMoment. With LifeStory, you can quickly create new events on your timeline and add photos, videos, and text. This feature, however, is not integrated with your lifestream.

Techmeme is a semi-automated site that tracks the hottest conversations among tech blogs each day, with updates every five minutes. It's one of the most innovative efforts in news gathering today. In December, Techmeme hired its first human editor, freelance writer Megan McCarthy.

McCarthy tends the gears of Techmeme, makes sure the content on the site remains of high quality and helps ensure the inclusion of new and important voices. It sounds like an awesome job and one that has probably never existed before - a half woman, half robot, news gathering machine. How can you get your blog on Techmeme? What's in the future for the site? We asked Megan in the following interview.

How will the semantic web be monetized? How about in the form of monthly reports tracking restaurant reviews on Yelp, CitySearch and hundreds of other websites, for sale to restaurateurs for just $25 per month? That's what semweb startup BooRah is betting on with its new product, the BooRah Restaurant Reputation Report.

When we say that semantic technology has a whole lot of awesome potential, this is a fun example of what we're talking about. If it can be done for restaurants, we expect similar analysis of online sentiment can be sold for all kinds of different real-world sectors.