Appify

Use Search Feeds and Netvibes to Organize Current News on your Company or Brand

2008-09-09T23:11:00.006-04:00

If you're like me and subscribe via RSS to Google News and Blogsearch search results to track recent blog posts and news items regarding topics, companies or brands, more than likely you have lots of feeds to aggregate in a reader. And even more likely, you'll never have time to read them all. And even more likely, you're not the only one who wants to read them.

Enter Netvibes. Netvibes has been around for a while. It's a kick-ass start page service that lets you fully customize all things web oriented on one page for your browser home page pleasure. If you don't use it as a start page, you should. You can add content like RSS feeds super fast, and via drag and drop placement, arrange boxes and tabs however you'd like them to be displayed. But Netvibe's start page service is not what this post is about.

Netvibes has a public facing page that is fully customizable, just like their regular start page. This site is a perfect alternative to a paid company start page. For instance, it can be used to aggregate Google News and Blogsearch feeds and organize them by brand, or topic. In addition you can have constant YouTube searches, embed some HTML, or countless other things.

I find organizations tend to hate most feed aggregators out there, so giving them a start page that contains all of this information can be priceless, especially since there's little to no maintenance involved- one time set up and you're good to go.

Check out the video tutorial.

The great thing about this is that it's a one time set-up process and you're done, as it's all just search feeds. In addition, to get branding or customization out of this, use the HTML or Image widgets to pop in your company's logo. Just remember though, that this is all public information that gets indexed by Google, so keep the information you put on it to content that anyone can access.

Here's the one I created for Appify.

How else would you use Netvibes' public pages for your company?

Subscribe to the Appify RSS for more ideas like this one.

Ten Free Web Apps to Increase Productivity at the Office

2008-09-07T17:17:00.009-04:00

Anyone who has worked in an office environment (especially larger ones) knows that it's a miracle anything gets done on time or even at all. Here's 10 free web apps you can start using immediately to increase productivity, improve collaboration, get things done, and slay the Rancor- all in a day's work.

1. Drop.io - Simple file hosting

Have email file size restrictions? Create "drops" with semi-custom domain names and send them out. Bonus features include password protection, date when the drop will be deleted, unique drop email address, phone numbers for voice mails that get stored on the drop, conference calls, the list goes on. Check out my review of drop.io here.

2. Zenbe Lists - Take Your To-do List to the Web

Create multiple to-do lists with the speed of a mongoose. Add tasks, set dates, get it done. Plus there's a free iPhone app that syncs with your account, direct link to download here.

3. 24im - Enterprise-wide Group Chat

Decent alternative to Campfire. Separates chat rooms out by department, allows for guest chat and includes 1GB of file storage as well.

4. Twiddla - An Online Meeting Playground

If your business does international work, or you have many offices across the country, or even if you can never get anyone in the same meeting room at the same time, Twiddla solves those problems by providing a place to chat, draw, and show web pages to show others. No sign up required. Video walkthrough and review here.

5. Posti.ca - Digitize Your Sticky Notes

If your desk (or desktop) looks like it's been peppered with a Post-it note shotgun, give Posti.ca a try. Review and walkthrough here.

6. Google Presentations - Quit Screwing Around with Decks

Highly under utilized is the presentation capability that Google Docs has. If you're in an organization that has many people who all have to have their say on what to put into a deck or Powerpoint, don't email it around and create a version tracking nightmare- just share it with everyone on Google Docs. When you have the content nailed down, export it as a Powerpoint file and then make it look pretty.

7. Backboard - Get Quick Feedback and Approval

Another thing that can blow a deadline is just simply getting approval from the right people. Backboard allows you to collect and track feedback and get approval on images, web sites and text. Review and walkthrough here.

8. Gliffy - Create and Share Charts

When a bunch of people all need to be able to see the latest version of a flow or org chart, don't bother sending it around to everyone, only having to change it and send it around again. Make your chart in Gliffy. It's not as robust as some offline programs like OmniGraffle, but it's hard to beat free.

9. HitMeLater - A Snooze Button for your Email

There's no way you're going to remember every damn email that gets sent to you during the day, especially if you don't even have time to check your emails. Just forward an email to "10min@hitmelater.com" or even "wednesday@hitmelater.com" and you'll get that same email resent to you at your designated time. Review and walkthrough here.

10. Privnote - When You Don't Want A Papertrail

Let's face it, sometimes things need to get communicated, but you can't have them being read more than once, or by the wrong person. Privnote allows you to send private notes that self-destruct after reading. Review and walkthrough here.

Got any others apps that are useful at the office?

Chew on the Appify RSS to catch future tips on productivity with web apps.

Metrics Throwdown Part 3: Quark Base

2008-09-06T13:13:00.008-04:00

This is part three of a three post series on free metrics data. In case you missed earlier parts, here's Part 1 and Part 2.

Previously on Appify, I covered Compete.com, and stated that it was top-notch when it comes to providing traffic data. In today's post, I'll cover a relatively new contender to the mix: Quark Base (results for Viddler here). Quark Base covers a lot of ground at first glance, and provides information that you really don't get at Compete or Quantcast.

When you search for a URL, it dynamically pulls the most recent data regarding your entry. I tried a few domains and Quark Base had to pull almost all of the data for that site because no one had searched them before.

A typical search returns a tremendous amount of data about the actual site. You get a screen shot of the landing page, an introduction area, social popularity, traffic, names and positions of the top people at the company, blog posts, and technical information on the site. The introduction section contains a description of the site, domain information, related sites, and a few extras. Social popularity displays how many delicious bookmarks, diggs, articles on reddit, popular pages within the site (for yesterday and all time), as well as top feeds.

The traffic data section, in my opinion, is where Quark Base hiccups a bit. They pull in Alexa graphs onto their site, and we all know how I feel about Alexa. I wonder why they don't pull from Compete.com? Or anything with hard numbers for that fact.

But, Quark Base redeems itself with its Spotlight section. If a blog post references the URL you searched for, Quark Base lists that post in this section. Part One of this series on Quantcast shows up in the Spotlight section when you search for Compete.com, so it's pretty sensitive to any new blog posts, which is killer for getting an up-to-date feel on what's going on in the blogosphere around a specific site.

The Company section is a great bonus feature that lists key people at the company, external profiles (ie. Wikipedia) and any job openings the company may have. However, the job listings are pulled from Indeed based on the company name, so for instance, if you're searching for Compete, any listing with "compete" in the title or description will be listed...which can be kind of deceiving, so I wouldn't rely on this data too much if you're job hunting.

And finally, the Technical section provides a detailed breakdown of technologies used on the site, such as the language and framework, what sort of server it's on, number of iFrames, and if there's flash elements within the site. Also in this section is hosting information like IP address, geographic location and nameservers.

So, how does Quark Base score:

Traffic Data	4
Demographics Data	1
Social and Blog Data	10
Bonus Features	10
Overall	6.25

Honestly, I wish this score was higher. It should be an 8 or a 9 because this site kicks so much metrics-ass. But, truth is that the site doesn't offer any sort of demographics data, and the traffic data is really sub-par.

Suggestions for the site to make this a 10 would be: 1). pull traffic data from Compete and 2). pull demographics data from Quantcast. These two things would make Quark Base your one-stop-shop for competitive metrics.

What do you think about Quark Base?

Stay tuned via the Appify RSS for the thrilling wrap-up on this series.

Lifetick: New Features

2008-09-04T20:01:00.006-04:00

Lifetick, the app that tracks your personal life goals like a ninja, recently upgraded their app to include free access from your iPhone as well as iCalendar/Google Calendar integration. Screenshots of Lifetick on the iPhone below:

Metrics Throwdown Part 2: Compete.com

2008-09-03T19:08:00.013-04:00

This is part two of a three post series on free metrics data sites. If you missed it, here's part one.

So last time we learned that Quantcast was damn good at delivering demographic profiles, but could use some tweaking. In this post, we'll learn about Compete.com, a free traffic search that puts Alexa to shame. Alexa, while giving stats on some of the largest sites on the Internet, totally forgets the little guys, and by little guys, I mean only a few thousand uniques per month. To some, this number is measly, to others, it's a bad day at the office. Plus, to make matters even more inconvenient, Alexa displays all of its data as a percentage of total Internet traffic. So you may get a traffic swing of .001% per month, but it may mean thousands and thousands of visitors.

This being said, enter Compete. Compete delivers very solid traffic results, and allows for easy comparison between up to three sites without registering as a user. You can then export this data as a CSV, copy a permalink, or embed the graphic as a linked image of varying sizes like the one below:

Compete.com is really about checking out your competitors traffic stats. It breaks down traffic into monthly uniques, monthly rank, daily reach ("Pro" only, pricing here), or totally monthly visits. Also, they measure engagement via daily and monthly attention, average monthly stay, monthly page views (Pro), pages per visit, and visits per person (Pro).

No demographic or social reach information is provided, however they do have two extra features that makes Compete.com a place to visit often: a Firefox toolbar that displays all Compete data of your current website, and a search analytics tool. With the Search Analytics tool you can track site referrals, keyword destinations, and compare sites.

Let's score this thing:

Traffic Data	10
Demographics Data	1
Social & Blog Data	1
Bonus Features	10
Overall	5.5

It is a little bit unfair to have those other two criteria in the score when judging, but for categorical sake, I'm leaving them in there.

Compete is all about raw numbers in traffic, and with that in mind, I give the crew at Compete a huge amount of respect, as Compete takes the cake when it comes to traffic numbers. However, it does lack on a few of the other points that a site like Quantcast can offer. If you really want to learn about your competitors, you're not going to get everything you want to know just by looking at how many uniques they have on a monthly basis.

What do you think about Compete.com?

Subscribe to the Appify RSS to snag the final part of this series on free web metrics.

Find part three here.

Metrics Throwdown Part 1: Quantcast

2008-09-01T17:14:00.011-04:00

This is part one of three part series comparing free metrics data sites.

Reliable data is hard to come by for free when it comes to traffic data. Companies like Nielsen sell detailed metrics data to corporations for tens of thousands of dollars a year. The data, however is incredibly detailed and in-depth, but to be honest, there's only so granular you need to get to be able to still grasp the traffic of a certain site. For instance, I do not need to know that 0.03 percent of the people who come to my site donated to Save the Pandas last year. But I do need to know how many people came to my site (or almost equally as important, a competitor's site) last month.

The three kings of free data are (in no specific order): Quantcast, Compete and Quark Base. For all thee three sites I have chosen Viddler as the control data source. I have purposefully omitted Alexa from this because the third, and newest contender, Quark Base, uses Alexa traffic data.

First in the line up is Quantcast (Viddler.com data here). Upon doing your first search, you'll first notice they have very detailed demographic data... almost surprisingly detailed demographic data. Quantcast boasts detailed, percentage based, gender, age, race, children, income and education level breakdown. It compares them with the Internet average and gives you an index number that shows which people visit the site more than others.

Right next to demographic information is traffic frequency profiles, as well as monthly uniques. One column over more is a really nice automated summary of the site. For Viddler, it generated the following summary:

This site reaches approximately 60,293 U.S. monthly people. The site is popular among a slightly more female than male, 50+ audience.The typical visitor visits consolecheatcodes.com and reads Engadget.

While traffic data is really just limited to monthly uniques with time frame comparisons, demographic data is incredibly detailed. To make the data even more digestible, Quantcast provides an easy visualization of the noteworthy top-lines in each demographic category. But take note, these top-lines aren't whatever the greatest number in the category is, it's simply the highest index (relationship to the rest of the internet) number in that category. So for Viddler, it displays in the education breakdown that the top-line is "Graduates and Post-Graduates" with an index of 141, when the highest crowd in the category is "No College" with 40% of all traffic and an index of 100.

Personally, I wish Quantcast just show the greatest number in the category as the top-line, instead of the highest index. For example, let's say 1% of my site visitors are pink bunnies, and the rest aren't. However, the total number of pink bunnies that visit my site on a monthly basis is way above the Internet average with an index of 190. This would be the graphical top-line that Quantcast displays, even though it's a nearly useless statistic.

Onto the scoring:

Traffic Data	7
Demographics Data	9
Social & Blog Data	1
Bonus Features	8
Overall	6.25

What's your opinnion on Quantcast?

Subscribe to the Appify RSS to catch parts two and three of this series.

Find part two here.

Twiddla: Get Your Virtual Meeting On

2008-08-27T21:01:00.005-04:00

With companies and personnel being dispersed across the globe, it's a miracle anything gets done...ever. In order to communicate certain points, often one needs to be able to physically show someone with a pen and paper what an idea looks like. However, it can often be horrifically difficult to get the right people in the right room at the same time. Twiddla provides a space for detailed meetings and brainstorms to happen regardless of location.

Twiddla is a virtual whiteboard and meeting room that allows you to draw, load web pages for others to view, and voice chat- all asynchronously and in real-time. If used right, you can almost accomplish everything you normally would in a meeting that's face-to-face.

Check out the walkthrough (direct link to video):

How functional is the app?	8
How intuitive is it to use?	8
How simple is the design?	8
How innovative is the app?	8
Overall	8

I feel like this app is only three-quarters of the way there. Excellent idea, however, the execution is somewhat half-baked. The chat system could be more robust, the drawing portion should be vastly improved and be easier to illustrate points, they should have a large number of stock images on hand, and a user should be able to download the full whiteboard that you have spent time creating to your own machine, not just to your Twiddla dashboard.

I think they've added some nice functionality since launch, but haven't cleaned up and debugged fully. I had some problems just adding in a simple text box. Also, as popular as AJAX and DHTML is, support should be provided for this while viewing a loaded website.

But, I don't know of many other sites out there that supply this sort of functionality, so for what it's worth, this app is damn good.

Do you think this would be a viable replacement for a face-to-face meeting?

Subscribe to the Appify RSS for more scrumdiddlyumptious reviews like this one.

Hulu: Stop Paying for TV

2008-08-26T21:49:00.003-04:00

TiVo spoiled everyone, and officially killed television commercials. However, it's those ads that are solely responsible for bringing free TV shows (and current ones at that) to the world. If you haven't heard of Hulu yet, you will. Hulu launched last October and is the result of a joint venture between News Corp. and NBC.

Hulu isn't so much of an app as it's the next generation of entertainment media distribution hubs. Streaming free TV shows and movies has been around on the Internet for years now, however, it all has been an "off the books" sort of thing, and entirely illegal. To top off the shadyness, most shows you were able to find online might as well have been filmed with a cell phone camera from 1999.

A streaming TV show and movie savior has been delivered unto Internet, and it's name is Hulu. What ABC and NBC is doing with their shows on their respective sites, Hulu is doing with every show regardless of network. With no subscription required, Hulu brings you entire seasons of tons of current and popular shows for your viewing pleasure at a decent 320p, with the option to play at 480p.

The only downside is that about every 5-10 minutes a :15 second to :30 second ad will play, then normal programming resumes. But the site is exploding, check out the Compete stats:

So relax marketers, the :30 spot isn't dead yet, it's just changed locations. People don't mind sitting through a quick ad if it means they get to watch free TV. It really makes sense though, why would I pay $120 a month for TV shows that are full of ads? Someone is getting screwed in that deal. Hulu's business model puts the power back into the consumers' hands and provides a more balanced way of distributing premium content like TV shows.

While Hulu's movie selection is relatively sparse, it's growing wildly, so give it some time, and you'll have more than enough sweet films to keep you glued to your computer screen for an unhealthy amount of time. Oh, and for anyone who's seen the light, Hulu already has the entire series of Arrested Development.

So stop playing outside in the fresh air, and come watch some free TV on the interwebs.

Subscribe to the Appify RSS for more sweet crunchy goodness.

A New Rating System, Normal Programming Resumes Tomorrow

2008-08-25T21:01:00.004-04:00

After slight deliberation and a Saturday afternoon's worth of time on my hands I was able to slightly revise the way I rate a app. See below for the new ranking system:

How functional is the app?	10
How intuitive is it to use?	10
How simple is the design?	10
How innovative is the app?	10
Overall	10

I dropped the repeat use thing because I felt like it was rather arbitrary, and also it varies greatly from person to person, as well as app to app based on one's needs. Also, I changed the wording of each of them to not be "yes" or "no" questions, to better accommodate the 1-10 scale.

Hopefully this will allow me to be a bit harder on these apps.

Regular programming resumes tomorrow night to the chime of an online meeting center and whiteboard tool.

Flikr Related Tag Browser: Does What It Says

2008-08-22T13:19:00.006-04:00

Recently, Friday's have been for data display apps that are more for aesthetic purposes than practical ones. Keeping with that trend, today Appify brings you a review and visual walkthrough of an app simply called "Flickr Related Tag Browser". The entirely flash based app coded by Felix Turner at Air Tight Interactive is phenominal.

It parses images that are the result of Flickr tag searches and displays them in a really simply way. The interface is quick, agile and ridiculously easy to navigate. Since this app is less about data visualization and more about image visualization, there isn't much display about a pictures relationship to another picture. However, it does display a ring of related tags that one can click through to other tags.

This video is best viewed full-screen, to the sounds of Saru "Waking Up":

I decided to stop rating data visualizers the same way as other apps because it's like comparing ninjas to pirates, two different realms entirely. However, with this app, I would like to see visual cues of how each of the tags relate to each other.

What's your favorite Flickr visualizer?

Stay tuned for a new app rating system, a five-part series on the best free project management utilities, and monthly recaps. Subscribe to the Appify RSS feed so you don't miss it.

HitMeLater: A Head-Smackingly Great Idea for Reminders

2008-08-20T08:00:00.009-04:00

Ever forgotten something that you had to do, even though you had every reminder in the world set up so you wouldn't forget? Or how about forgetting to set up reminders in the first place? If you have trouble finding time to urinate during the days you work, odds are, both of these things has happened to you.

HitMeLater is a "snooze button for your email". This is an app with absolutely no web-based functionality: it's entirely email based. Simply forward your email that you know you're going to forget about, or need a reminder set for, to 10@hitmelater.com, where "10" is the number of hours later you would like the email resent to you at the email address that you send it from. To go one step further, you can send an email to friday@hitmelater.com and you'll get the email resent to you "first thing" Friday morning.

Like most terrific apps that I admire, this has no sign-up feature, so you can try it out right now if you'd like.

Check out the fabulous walkthrough (direct link to video):

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	10
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	10
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	9
How re-usable is the app?	9
Overall	9.5

My only critisism with HitMeLater is that I think they could add more functionality to it. For instance, if they added a unit of time to the email address it would allow users to get more precise reminders. So if I wanted to be reminded in 10 minutes, I should be able to email 10min@hitmelater.com. A specific time would be great as well, such as 8pm@hitmelater.com.

But the big picture is that an app like this should have been made a long time ago. Its simplistic and highly useful functionality is so wonderful, I can tell you I will certainly be using this at work tomorrow.

If you liked this post, subscribe to our RSS for more reviews of the latest web apps.

UPDATE // 8.20.08 @ 5:29pm: HitMeLater creator Philip "Pud" Kaplan commented stating that certain features such as including units like minutes, weeks, and months is accepted in the email address, so 10min@hitmelater.com works, thus upping the awesome level of this app to "ninja". Hm, I think I just got my idea for a new ranking system. Thanks Pud!

Carbonmade: The Online Portfolio App you Should be Using

2008-08-18T08:00:00.002-04:00

Several months back, I was called in for a job interview in New York City, but the night before the interview, I was asked to be able to show an online portfolio the very next day at 10am. The position wasn't design oriented, but I do have plenty of design experience, and my resume stated accordingly.

Needless to say, I was a little bit worried about pulling something together, considering my hosting contract with GoDaddy had just expired and I was unable to throw anything online in that short amount of time and have it still look professional, and devoid of any other brands other than the brand name that is "me".

I had remembered that a few months before that, I had recommended a certain app by the name of Carbonmade to my girlfriend, in case she ever needed to put a portfolio online; little did I know that I would be using it to save my own ass in the near future.

In short, for artists needing a portfolio, Carbonmade is an absolute life saver. After a fabulously short registration page, a self-designated Carbonmade URL, and a few quick clicks on the admin page, I had my portfolio customized to the look and feel I wanted. Fortunately, there's only a few customizable options. I say "fortunately" because when an app has a plethora of options for customization, it causes unnecessary stress on the user and lowers the ease of use.

Here's the walkthrough:

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	10
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	10
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	9
How re-usable is the app?	9
Overall	9.5

This app saved the day for me, but because a lot of my design work was web-based, I had to take screen shots and upload them. What would have been better was if they offered an iframe to display your web page in. However, they have since began offering video, and Flash hosting services, and for anyone whose work is primarily in Flash, this is a god-send.

But to end my story, I banged out my portfolio, and the next day had a job offer...thanks Carbonmade! If you're in a jam, and need to get out of it fast and free, Carbonmade is made of win.

Twistori: how are people on twitter feeling?

2008-08-15T21:54:00.007-04:00

Last Thursday I reviewed an app called WeFeelFine which, in my eyes, is the new bench mark for creative data display. It is very apparent that there is so much out there, and now with the rise of certain technologies like RSS feeds, proper visualization allows one to harness individual streams of thought. When done properly, the effects can be mesmerizing, overwhelming, and touching.

Twistori is an homage to WeFeelFine that pulls phrases from twitter feeds that contain the words love, hate, think, believe, feel, and wish. When a word is selected, sentences from countless unnamed twitter feeds flow in in large text. Essentially, this is all the application does.

This app is less about inter-relational data display, and more a pretty way to browse and see what people are saying surrounding whatever user-defined emotion. Check out the walkthrough, set to the sounds of Dosh "O Mexico":

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	10
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	10
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	8
How re-usable is the app?	5
Overall	8.25

I am using WeFeelFine as a basis of comparison for pushing the limit of innovative data display, and because of this, I gave this app low re-usability/innovation scores. I think it's a gorgeous layout, and has similar emotional effects as WeFeelFine, but lacks the stunning visualizations. However, Twistori isn't about data comparison, it's simply just about streaming content centered around certain emotions, and for what it is, it accomplishes the task simply and beautifully.

Backboard: A feedback management system

2008-08-12T19:52:00.006-04:00

For anyone whose ever worked a day in their life, you know that getting the right feedback and approval from the right people can be an enourmous pain. This pain is then worsened when revision after revision has to be made by multiple people, and often revisions are revisions of someone elses revisions and so forth.

Backboard essentially solves this problem, or at least, will cause a few less headaches. A "backboard" is a landing page, a unique URL (with optional password protection), that displays a graphic, website, or block of text, and allows for people to leave and track comments as well as "approve" of whatever the backboard is centered around.

It's as simple as that really. The only thing you get for having a paid account is the ability to have a backboard be "invite only", using email as a way of verifying whether or not a user can leave feedback. Feature comparison here.

Have a look at the walkthrough:

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	9
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	10
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	9
How re-usable is the app?	10
Overall	9.5

I think Backboard does a good job of solving a big problem that many teams have, and this app almost makes the Perfect 10 cut. However, I just feel like the commenting system could have been a little more feature rich. Perhaps throw in a tagging system similar to Flickr that allows for specific areas of an image/site to be mapped out and commented.

But I think repeat use is very high for this app, and I myself will be back to use this again for sure. Check out the backboards I created here, and leave a comment to try it out if you'd like.

Privnote: notes that self-destruct after being read

2008-08-10T17:12:00.004-04:00

Privnote brings Mission Impossible's "this note will self-destruct in 3 seconds" to life on the web. Privnote allows a user to create one-time read-only notes that delete themselves after being read. Each note is given a unique URL that, when accessed once, will be forever lost to the sands of the Internet.

Privnote doesn't require a registration to use- which I'm always a fan of. This app's one added bonus is the ability to enter in your email address and have Privnote notify you once the note has been read, to ensure that your information gets into the head of it's recipient.

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	9
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	10
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	8
How re-usable is the app?	6
Overall	8.25

As with most niche apps, like Mobaganda, this app has limited use potential. Yes, confidential information does frequently get exchanged on the internet, via email and IM and other various means, when it probbably shouldn't. Due to the fact that security is a risk here, I dug through Privnote's privacy policy to see how serious they are about a note's security. Privnote claims that things are pretty secure, and that notes are encrypted in the database, ensuring that not even their admins can read them. Also, you might have noticed that landing page itself is encrypted and verified byGoDaddy . It wasn't until I read their privacy policies that I began to feel slightly more comfortable with using this site for confidential information.

My one criticism would be that they should include some sort of data guarantee on their landing page, something to make users feel a little more comfortable. In addition, it would be nice to have this same service, only with the option to upload files and have them only be downloaded once, then destroyed.

WeFeelFine.org: A visual state of human affairs

2008-08-07T23:04:00.005-04:00

Today I thought I would break the stream of reviews of apps that are for pure functionality only and head down the "just-for-fun" road.

Data display is an absolute art form. There exists a multitude of dynamic data in a relatively standardized format spread across the wide network array that is the Internet. More importantly, this data is generated by people, who- with their innumerably complex emotional spectrum- let the world know the intimate details of their day-to-day lives via blog posts, Twitter updates, comments, and various other digital mediums.

And it is with great pleasure and awe that I bring you a visual walkthrough of WeFeelFine.org by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar. If you haven't seen this site, you've been hiding under a digital rock for the last (insert however long this site has been live here) months.

WeFeelFine is a graphical display of the state of human affairs and emotions. It aggregates lines of text posted by people from all over the world that begin with "I feel..." and displays them in a way that's exploratory and yet incredibly easy to digest. It correlates these "data points" (lines of text) with geographic location, gender, age and weather at the time of the post. On top of this, it also pulls in photographs associated with each one-liner.

The result is astounding. Each and every click leads to customized works of art that are, in their own respects, incredibly moving.

Here's the walkthrough- but for the full effect, you have to spend at least 15 minutes on WeFeelFine.org, walkthrough set to the sounds of Joey Fehrenbach's "Behold".

I feel bad having to rate this app, but for coherence purposes, I will.

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	10
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	10
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	10
How re-usable is the app?	10
Overall	10

Though this application serves no objective purpose, it provides an incredibly humanitarian view of the world and what people are thinking, feeling, and doing. At times, the experience can be dauntingly depressing, invigoratingly uplifting, or dramatically odd and humorous. The purpose is a subjective one, and with all of the people in the world wanting their voices to be heard, WeFeelFine gives them that chance.

Jotform: A WYSIWYG Form Generator

2008-08-04T18:58:00.005-04:00

Sunday, I had an overwhelming need, nay, desire, to upgrade my suggestion section with an embeddable form. So I headed over to my dear friend FeedMyApp and poked around. Instantly, I found Jotform, a WYSIWYG form builder.

User registration was relatively quick and simple. And within a few clicks I had a form completed that I wanted to use. To be honest, the longest part of creating this form was figuring out what I wanted to call each field.

The source was easily embedded via an iframe (which I wasn't too keen on, would've rather it have been in a div, though divs lack the functionality that an iframe possesses- but severely I digress). In about 5 minutes I had a customized form embedded in a post using about 3 lines of HTML. All-in-all, I was impressed.

But such high functionality comes at a cost unfortunately- Jotform limits the number of entries your form can receive to 100 per month, unless you upgrade to a premium account (feature comparison). The price structure is nice, there's only two subscription types: free, and paid. Paid is $9 a month, and includes unlimited form submissions and a 1000mb from upload cap. At just over $100 per year, and it may seem a little high for those of you who can write a script to do this in about 15 minutes. But if you're using a free blogging system like Blogger, and don't want to spend the time (or don't know how) to reference remotely hosted form handling scripts, this is a godsend. For now, needless to say, I'm sticking with the free version. And quite frankly, I don't think my submissions per month will go over 100 for a little while, so I'll just have to wait and see. But I do wish there was a sliding scale for pricing, and I would probably pay $1 per month to have a 200 submission cap, and $2 per month for a 300 submission cap, etc...

I must say though, Jotform is really pretty powerful. I was astounded at the number of features that were easily dragged and dropped into my form. There's even six (yes, 6) different payment methods that you can put into a form. The PayPal module setup goes ridiculously quick and doesn't redirect you away from the Jotform site. Plus things like word verification are a huge bonus.

Check out the walkthrough for a feature overview:

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	9
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	8
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	7
How re-usable is the app?	10
Overall	8.5

Though the interface seems a bit too tight and squeezed at times, this app really impressed me. I'd consider it next time you have to do a form with a tight turnaround and a lack of resources, Jotform could save your ass. It saved mine. Check out the live version of the form here and submit an app you'd like to see reviewed.

Mobaganda: Simple event management

2008-08-01T20:33:00.004-04:00

This app rocks. Mobaganda.com is about as bare-bones as you can get- no login, no sign-up- beautiful. Mobaganda is a way to promote, publicize, and manage an event. However, it does this all at a very simple level. All at your own custom domain, it tracks attendees via email addresses, notifies them of changes, generates an RSS feed of event attendees and details, creates a group email address- and all without login.

A great little star-sticker bonus to this site is the ability to pick a template for your event page. It offers two flavors "cool" and "cute". I love this idea. Naming your templates based on a description of the template and not an arbitrary name like "Midnight" or "Minima" has such a nice way of advancing a user through the experience of the application.

And onto the brief, yet awesome, video walkthrough:

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	9
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	10
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	10
How re-usable is the app?	7
Overall	9

My only comment on this app is that social networks like Facebook are far more effective at running and managing events because of the ability to search and add your friends. However, everyone has an email address, and not everyone has a Facebook (or check it frequently).

Also, as far as re-usability goes, people only have events once in a while, so I don't see this app being a regular in someone's répétoire. Plus, with apps that are too niche-oriented, people tend to forget about their existence when the time comes for them to actually use them. So I guess bookmark this one, and promise me you'll come back to it.

All-in-all, this app gets a big ol' thumbs up from me. Check out my event page I created here.

Lifetick: Accomplish your goals

2008-07-30T19:35:00.007-04:00

There is so much emphasis in many web apps placed upon business productivity that often personal productivity and life goals get pushed aside. Lifetick.com is very refreshing. Lifetick is an incredibly well thought out and nicely designed application that allows its users to create, maintain and complete their personal life goals.

After a quick verification email (cough), users are instructed to designate their "core values" or whatever things they hold highest, such as "Happiness" or "Career" or "Finances". There is a pretty tight word limit on this, which was a bit annoying, but I can see why they want to keep this to one or two short words. A pie chart then segments out each value as you add it, which is a neat visualization.

Once core values are set, specific goals can then be created and tied into each core value. This is where Lifetick shines. You remember back in kindergarten, or at some random point in your youth when your teachers sat you down and you wrote down goals? That was simple and easy...but you then later learned in high school that goals didn't mean crap if they weren't specific, had dates, we're reasonably able to be accomplished, and all that business? We'll that's what Lifetick does, it puts your goals into perspective in such an efficient way that a goal as daunting as "Get out of $100,000,000 debt" would seem simple. Oh, and you can set email reminders so you don't miss a thing. You really do get a warm and fuzzy feeling that you get after you have put all of your ideas that you dream about under one clean interface.

There's two other features that I didn't get a chance to test because they were blocked off by a "You need to pay to use this" pop-up: Status and Journal. I find it interesting (and quite silly) that these two features require a subscription ($20/yr), as they aren't a crux of the app. The Status section gives reports on when things were completed, etc...and the Journal is a log of all your activity on Lifetick (ie: Log-in times/goal creation dates). You still get all of the functionality you need just by using the free version.

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	9
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	10
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	8
How re-usable is the app?	10
Overall	9.25

Overall, Lifetick is great. It executes goal setting and lays out goal completion in a really simple way, regardless of the size of the goal. I won't pay to use their "premium" features, but I'll probably use it to plan out the next few years of my life- if I can only find the time to put in all of my goals.

UPDATE // 9.4.08 @ 8:24pm: Lifetick has new features, post here.

Posti.ca: Online sticky notes

2008-07-28T21:44:00.004-04:00

Posti.ca is an online sticky note app that allows for minimal collaboration, and enables all around organization. I am a gigantic fan of Post-its, and I firmly believe they are the best invention in over 100 years- screw the CPU or the Internet. Furthermore, sticky notes have been in the digital world ever since computers could display colors...and people use them. I've used them, I know many people who rely on them to keep themselves organized.

But the essence of a sticky note is one of mobility, easy accessibility and rapid organization. For some, this idea translates quite nicely onto a PC, and it is for those people that I would recommend the use of Posti.ca- a place to create and house online sticky notes.

Sign-up is quick, no verification required. When you login, you're presented with the opportunity to create your first sticky. There's a 140 character max to any note, which makes me smile, because personally I believe that notes and tasks, should be short and concise. There's also a standard color selector, and a bonus of uploading a little file. Then the collaborative aspects are brought into view by typing in a person's email address to share the note with.

After creation, you see a visual representation of the note, which you can -in proper Web 2.0 AJAX fashion- move and place anywhere within the massive amount of whitespace on the Posti.ca homepage.

A nifty little feature for those who tweet is the ability to send messages to "Postica" on twitter and have it post as a new note directly onto your dashboard of notes in Posti.ca. It's really easy to set up- just enter in your Twitter username in the Posti.ca settings and then find the Twitter user "Postica" and send them a message and presto- the note appears on your Posti.ca dashboard with all of your other glorious stickies.

Now, how useful is that? Unless you have the message page book marked, or have the clip set up as a dashboard widget in Leopard, I think this feature is an extra step that tries too hard (and kind of fails) at getting added functionality.

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	7
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	8
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	5
How re-usable is the app?	6
Overall	6.5

I see room to improve in this app. There's lots of semi-great functionality that allows Twitterers to update from virtually anywhere, but in order for Posti.ca to meet the same functionality of a pad of Post-its, they need to expand the number of ways that you can post stickies even more. I don't see myself using this in the near future, as I have explained before in previous posts that I am rather analog when it comes to to-do lists and task maintenance. But for people who use the Mac program Stickies or whatever the Windows equivalent is, seriously consider converting those to Posti.ca, it'll make you're life just a tad bit easier.

Drop.io: My new online file storing obsession

2008-07-26T11:26:00.010-04:00

My current obsession in the workplace is drop.io. Wow, why hasn't someone thought of this before. I'm a huge fan of office productivity tools, and drop.io is perfect for companies who a) don't have an internal file server, or b) have a max file size on their outgoing emails. Plus, its password protected. Plus, there's no registration required. Plus, it's free.

Any downsides? As with any file hosting app, obviously there are restrictions for non-paying users (max free upload size is 100mb), but this app couldn't be more user friendly. Anytime I don't have to hand out my email for verification purposes is a time when I break out the champagne.

A huge feature is the availability to choose your own sub-domain on drop.io where your files will be stored. This sub-domain acts as a directory of sorts where all of your files will be hosted, so a user can select a few files and drop them all in the same spot, under a password (no user name required) and viola, instant protected file nougat-y goodness.

And wow, is the user interface wonderful. A proper UI should be intuitive, and never require explanation to anyone. Drop.io accomplishes this flawlessly, even co-workers with little application experience should be able to get the hang of this site without an explanation or how to use it.

Here's the walk through:

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	10
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	10
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	10
How re-usable is the app?	10
Overall	10

Yes, a perfect score.

Drop.io is pushing the limits of what it means to host files online. Not enough space? They have a snazzy calculator that caters to incredibly customized file storing solutions; ie. 1 yr * 1 gb * 1 use = $10. Yes, I can get more space for free one other sites, but for this sort of functionality with the added benefit of password protecting your private data, I might just skip dinner tonight and get a drop.io account.

Got an app you'd like to see reviewed?

2008-07-23T22:03:00.012-04:00

Just stumble across a great new app? Shoot us an email at appify[at]gmail.com and let us know about it.

Or you can fill out the form below:

Or if you'd like, simply leave a comment on this post with the name and URL where we can find the web application, and your suggestion will be put into our lineup.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the reviews!

Remember The Milk: An Online To-Do List

2008-07-22T22:07:00.008-04:00

RememberTheMilk.com is an online based task management utility. Sign up, create different to-do lists, and mark them as complete when you're done. More or less, it's that simple. However, you've probably seen (or heard) of apps like Basecamp that are simple project management utilities, but Remember The Milk is a bit different. It's not so much project oriented as it's just task oriented. But, the team who developed RTM truly did push the limits of what it means to manage a to-do list.

Features like task tagging, which is similar to tagging on del.icio.us or a blog post, enables easy sorting of tasks. Users can also separate out their to-do lists into different lists, such as Work and Personal. In addition, tasks can be assigned due dates, designated as repeating tasks, given time estimates, locations and even be associated with a URL.

What makes the application great though is it's ability to be accessible from the iPhone. At its heart, a to-do list is something that needs to be portable, and go everywhere you go. Granted, some people may work at a laptop all day, but regardless, everyone has to leave their screens and take a break at some point or another and it's often during those hiatuses (bathroom, eating, etc...) that the mind is allowed to wonder and think about all things non-computer related. It's during those moments of mental sauntering that one remembers other things that perhaps they hadn't whilst their hands were glued to their keyboard. But, upon returning to their work, their mind shifts back to what they were doing, leaving that wonderful nugget that they had remembered on the side of the curb, depressed and alone, as you drive off without it.

RTM can link up with your Google Calendar (and iCal as well), providing a much needed tasking function that gCalendar lacks. An additional function I would like to see is the "Quick Add" function that is similar to the one in Google Calendar. So for instance if I typed "Mail letter to Rachel at 10am tomorrow", it should add a task called "Mail Letter to Rachel" and the due date as 10am tomorrow. iPhone functionality is available, but you have to pay. It's only $25 for the year, so that's not too bad. But if you're like me, and even your electronic bank accounts have moth's in them, then it's hard to beat free.

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	8
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	8
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	9
How re-usable is the app?	6
Overall	7.75

Personally, for to-do lists, I use the "Hipster PDA": a stack of 3x5 index cards and a binder clip. I carry it around everywhere and schedule my day based on whatever's on that card. I go through a card a day, and carry over incomplete tasks to the next card. I also designed a snazzy PDF that prints out a template onto the back of the cards. But because I like to hold a physical and portable object that displays my to-do's, the fact that I couldn't have this to-do list on my iPod Touch, but on my computer only, was what made me stop using this app.

However, a stack of index cards is about $4, and I go through a stack a month. So, overtime, I'll end up spending more on cards than I would have on a RTM subscription... so maybe I will buy it. Overall, the verdict on Remember The Milk is this: it's the most in depth to-do list app I've seen to date. But until I pony up the cash for the Pro version, I'm sticking with my index cards.

Guerrilla Mail

2008-07-21T00:23:00.009-04:00

So I started out trying to think of which web application I should review first, and then it came to me: Google Apps suite. However, I wanted to show the apps in a state that is untouched by a user. This would 1. show a view of the app that a first time user would normally get and 2. I really didn't want to show everyone my personal documents, user names, and password lengths...

Which lead me to http://mail.google.com to begin an Appify Gmail account. However, I didn't want to use my current Gmail account and I instinctively went to a site that I frequent when I am in need of a temporary email address- GuerrillaMail.com. And it was at that moment that I realized my first review should actually be about this wonderful staple of an app.

Guerrilla Mail provides its users with a temporary email that self-destructs after about an hour. The best thing is that there's no password, no sign up, and if you return to the site after you leave/close your browser and you're still within the one hour time limit, Guerrilla Mail automatically returns you to the inbox you were originally designated.

Check out the walk through.

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	10
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	7
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	9
How re-usable is the app?	10
Overall	9

A 9 out of 10 isn't bad for a simple web app. I'm almost pushed to say that this is a 10, but the only thing holding me back is the User Interface, it's cluttered. Put all of the things that a user doesn't absolutely need to access on a separate page, available within a one click reach. This way, if a user wants to know more, they can choose to get more, as opposed to having it forcefully spoon fed to them.

From a functionality standpoint, this app is king. A temporary email address is literally one click away if needed. And who doesn't love a site where no registration is required to use its features? Overall, GuerrillaMail.com gets the job done with near perfection.