GO2WEB20 Blog

Killer App or Twitter Killer?

2009-07-04T14:20:00.008+03:00

I've been watching this video over and over again while trying to understand what these kind of "magic apps" are doing to Twitter. The only conclusion I came up with is that it's killing Twitter slowly now, fast in the near future.

The Traffic Machine service in the video above offers you more targeted followers to your brand. Now, your brand.. what that means? As far as I see it, everyone can be a brand today, and with a push of this service you won't have to do much in order to drive traffic to your site/blog/any other page you have on the web. Yes, I hear you: free traffic, what's your problem? Well, my problem is that sooner or later Twitter will become a spam swamp with no communication value. How can you have any communication or start a conversation when you follow thousand of people? (unless you're Scoble, you can't).

The other problem is the recognition Twitter community gives those people. Do they really worth the fame just because they use some system to generate more followers? What's next? Find one of these fake power users and ask them to submit your blog post URL? It's probably been done already.

In my opinion individual people who uses this service (or any other service alike) are just ones that manipulate twitter to gain more traffic no matter what content they submit their. Someone called it a crappy spam of a new generation, I agree.

Please answer this quick poll - Results.

Update: Find the differences

This is how Bill Crosby encourages you to use Twitter. and,
This is how Kevin Rose use it.

An Innovative Online Flash Game Platform

2009-06-30T23:32:00.005+03:00

Gambolio is helping gamers to create and manage their library of Flash games. The service contains a library of 6,000 free games from which you can build up your collection. With more control of your games, you decide precisely what games go in your library. And once they are in your library, they remain there (unless you decide to remove them, of course) - so basically your online game environment built from your favorite games (you can also create individual playlist inside this library)

Additionally, Gambolio turns your library of games into a social network where you can share your games with family and friends, read other people's advice on particularly tricky bits of games, track your performance on high score tables, win trophies and badges, and more.

The gaming experience with Gambolio is fresh, fun and addictive due to its innovative layout. Some screenshots below:

Digsby Major Upgrade Is Coming Later Today!

2009-06-24T17:13:00.017+03:00

If you're not familiar with Digsby, in short: It's a desktop client that lets you manage most of your existing IM, email, and social network accounts from a single place.

Later today a new and improved version is about to be released. The new update includes several significant improvements:

Performance: Digsby optimized performance from the ground up, reducing overall CPU usage by about 50%
Buddy List Search: Press Ctrl+F to easily search your buddy list or the web
Emoticons: Added four new emoticon packs to choose from
File Transfers: Improved the reliability of AIM, ICQ, and MSN file transfers
Over 100 other bug fixes and enhancements.

I guess the major news is the software optimization. Lots of desktop clients are cool to have but when it comes to CPU usage, some of them are unbearable and if you don't have powerful RAM in your computer, it is most likely that you won't use them anyway.

What I was hoping to see in this version actually, is a Friendfeed support, but unfortunately it looks like we need to wait to a next version for that to happen.

Online Banner Maker Platform for Brands

2009-06-23T17:47:00.007+03:00

I can't say I like banners, but I do love Flash and for a long period of time in my life I was struggling to understand how to build stuff in Flash, so I know how hard it is!

This is why I can appreciate service like BannerSnack. If you have a brand, you can quickly create amazingly looking Banners, with no previous knowledge, that can be easily placed in your website. It contains tens of transitions, effects and filters that will enable you to easily create text and image animations. In fact, BannerSnack is so easy to function, you may consider build something your own before paying a great deal of money to a professional designer. The service also provide easy tutorials to help you make those banners.

The app is free to use, but BannerSnack attached a small watermark on the bottom of your banner. If you want it to be watermark free, you can check the premium pack offered.

In general you don't have to use this just for banners, you can also create greeting cards, Myspace comments etc, just for fun. BannerSnack gives you the ability to share your creation in social networks, via email or just a link that can be shared with anyone.

I've created a short DEMO to show how it works:

Fullscreen

A Perfect Birthday Gift for your Friends

2009-06-19T14:05:00.007+03:00

If you're looking for a fun way to surprise your friends, you've got to try GreetBeatz! The service produce a highly personal, original song from your choice of lyrics, combined with the name of the friend you want to send it to. You don't actually have to write a whole song, you can also provide a few helpful suggestions to the artist, and the artist creatively weaves them into a song.

How does it work:

First you need to log in to your Facebook or Twitter account (with facebook/twitter connect), and pick a friend
Then you provide lyrical inspiration, and
GreetBeatz produces your special song in 3-5 days.

After a song has been prepared, you'll receive an email notification where you'll be able to preview the song first before you send it to your friend.

Listen to this cool example | More examples.

Grab your Twitter Follow Badge

2009-06-14T17:41:00.007+03:00

Since more and more sites and blogs are adding a twitter follow button, we thought it will be nice to have an easier way to do it, so we've created this "twitter follow badge" generator. It will allow you to simply create a nice looking twitter tab to place at your site/blog.

Just customize the design and position of the badge, and grab the code.

Please keep in mind that this is only an Alpha version of the badge so we're welcoming any feedback and suggestions. In fact we'd love to hear whatever you have to say about that :)

See examples on the site, and here on the blog.

This Twitter Search Engine is doing it Right!

2009-06-08T23:36:00.010+03:00

When I first wrote my impression of Twazzup, it felt like they were doing a better job than the rest of Twitter search engines out there. But lately I've noticed they've taken another step forward by collaborating with several events/conferences' organizers, such as Google I/O | JavaOne | WWDC09 and a few more, to build a personally customized Twitter search page.

The event pages have all the Twazzup search and real-time analysis features, but applied to a configurable sub-tweet stream (all tweets matching #javaone for instance, but it could also be any more complex query).

Featured queries can also be configured to make it easy for conference attendees to find information to specific sub-topics

Twazzup also has some specific modules that can be enabled on any event page:

Speaker Module
Feature the tweets from specific subject experts. It enable conference organizers & speakers, to make announcements using twitter.

Video Module
To feature official videos from the event (can be configured to pull content from any given users and hashtag)

UStream Module
To feature follow the UStream from events

Contributor Module
This module featured the people tweeting on the specific Twazzup query. By default for a conference it will show all the tweep tweeting about the conference. If you drill down to a sub-topic, it will show the people tweeting about that topic.

TV Mode
Twazzup also worked on an optimized mode for TV screens. This already enabled the organizers of Google I/O and JavaOne to feature the event tweetstream on a flat screens - you can see an example here.
In my opinion, it is way better to show only the tweets without additional models on the sidebar when showing on a big screen, it only causes distraction.

I believe that the more partnerships Twazzup will have, the more they'll add features and models to expand their service, but the real question is: can they back-up the tweets on the event page so it'll live longer than it live on Twitter today?

Update:

I've asked Twazzup a few questions about their event page availability, and here's what they had to say:

Q) For how long whould you keep the event URL?

A) Currently we can run up to 8 custom events in parallel, so we have been redirecting the old event URLs to www.twazzup.com as needed. In practice the traffic to an event page tends to die down quickly once the event is over.

With the new solution we are working on, we will make the process of creating an event page self-service, and we will not be limited with the number of concurrent events we can support.

Q) Twitter is not saving updates more than a year (maybe less), what about you? For how long the content will be available?

A) Currently, we have the same restriction as twitter. In practice so far, it seems like the interest is really more in the real-time access during the event, and traffic to the event page dies down quickly once the event is over.

On the other hand, conference organizers have been interested in getting metrics, and better reporting from what was said during the conference, so we are looking at an archiving solution that will most likely be targeted at reporting.

Introducing Expono - A Rich Social Photo Sharing Platform

2009-06-04T11:15:00.010+03:00

It's been a while since I've tried a true photo sharing platform that is not made by mashup of elements taking form other services on the web. Expono is much more richer and it looks like a safe place to store your photos, where you can organize and share picture/album with family & friends. A platform that is built with your privacy, data portability and security in mind.

So yes, there's a list of similar services: Flickr, Smugmug, Webshots, Photobucket etc, but there's definitely a room for a new player in this photo sharing arena. And moreover, Expono is connecting you through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed, something that unfortunately even Flickr is not doing. Post stories of photo activities, tag & share album and photos with your friends on Facebook, and Auto-announce photo uploads and activities, with your subscribers/followers on Twitter & FriendFeed. (I don't like Auto-updates on Twitter though)

With Expono your photos are stored in their original formats and sizes. Your originals are kept unmodified for backup and restore purposes. Photos uploaded are location tagged automatically if they contain GPS information. You define who can see this information in your privacy settings. You can manually tag the places where your photos where taken and have them displayed on a Google Map. You can also tag people in your photos in two ways, photo by photo or multiple photos at once. You may let other people tag faces in your photos too.

There are so many other features in this service, and to start with you get 1GB storage space for free. If you need more space, you can expend it to 10GB for $45, which is very reasonable price if you ask me.

The service is not open to the public yet, but Go2web20 readers can sign up through this special link! Visit my page at: http://www.expono.com/orli

Joost Media Player - An Excellent AIR Application!

2009-06-03T12:21:00.004+03:00

To be honest, I haven't used Joost so much before, but this Adobe AIR app is about to change that. Surprisingly, it's not an official application from Joost themselves. It made by brilliant Paul Yanez which also attempt to create the first Web Joost Platform, way, way back.

I know for sure that I'll use this Joost Media Player mostly because of its music collection (amazing one), but there's a massive list of great shows & films that wroth the download as well. The player, built with Joost API, has over 400 television shows, a library of over 10,000 music videos and a large selection of film.

In the instillation you can enter your Twitter credentials and the player will auto-update your Twitter account. While some of you may think it's a great feature to have, I found it annoying when you listen to 10-20 songs at once - that means an update to each song. I still want the Twitter integration, but I need to be able to control my tweets.

You can also search Twitter, by default the search term "Joost" is selected to let you see what others are viewing. But you can enter any search term you like. If you want to view your own Twitter timeline you simply click on the friends tab.

Though I like this player a lot, it misses two critical features:
First there's no search engine. You can search for content only by its gender or by a specific category, and it simply takes too much time to browser all the media channel options. The second missing feature is the ability to create a playlist.

But other then that, Joost Media Player is a real treat for your desktop!

Picture Your Dream Wedding

2009-06-02T21:09:00.003+03:00

If you plan to get married soon , you might need some inspiration.
Bridal Canvas has an ultimate database of wedding ideas. You can pick from the elements & pictures supplied by the site, or upload your own images that will build your dream wedding.

Additionally, you can sign up to the site and save your creation. Once you upload your canvas, people can comment on it, and share it in their site or blog. You also able to add your favorite music to each of your canvases.

Overall, a very sweet site. But might stress out people who haven't got married yet. I already spent way too much time on this site simply because it's fun to explore and create. It actually can provide occupation for those who are waiting for their upcoming wedding...

Passion for Purple by sweetheart

A User Friendly, Customizable Web-based Toolbar for your Site (or Blog)

2009-05-29T10:08:00.012+03:00

Wibiya allow users to customize a social toolbar with services, applications and widgets of their choice into their site or blog. The platform offers a one-stop solution for integrating, managing and tracking third-party applications without writing any code. Wibiya also gives you the ability to create a community using Facebook Connect.

This is not a downloadable Toolbar. All you need to do is to create your account, select a theme & apps, then Wibiya generates a code that you can embed into your blog template. The whole process takes a few minutes really, and you can change the Toolbar at any given time, it's 100% dynamic.

Currently Wibiya offers a fixed set tools such as Twitter search and trending topics, but will be adding more and more application through time, so I expect it to have a large directory of apps to place over your Toolbar.

Wibiya somewhat looks like Google Friend Connect Toolbar (which I have here in my blog), but it already offers more tools that your readers actually need: Translation, Blog Search, Post Navigator, Image Gallery, Web Notifier, Live alerts from Twitter, and more.

See examples of this Toolbar in action: here & here.

Wibiya is an Israeli startup company, founded in 2008 which is backed by Dr. Yossi Vardi.

50 Mixero Invites Available to Fast Decision-makers

2009-05-27T19:32:00.015+03:00

Mixero is the new cool twitter client on the block. It's based on Adobe AIR and designed to help you reduce the content overload that you're getting from Twitter. By creating groups, you'll be able to easily track your friends update. But moreover, you can also reduce the group list by creating an active list with only the people you want to read at the moment (you can change it over and over again easily).

The active list looks like an RSS friend list. What's interesting is the fact that the notifications are actually the number of updates you've missed, in the list view that you care about the most, RSS-ish.

You can do so much with the Mixero filter: First you can choose to see your twitterstream with or without replies (something that Twitter could learn from). You can show "unread" posts only, or mark everything as "read." One of the most important tools for me, is the ability to easily jump from one person to another and read his/her tweetstream in the most silkiest and easy way. With navigation so easy, you can be sure you won't miss updates from your favorite twitter friends.

I have to say that the UI is a winner in my opinion. You open Mixero and you see something else for a change... most Twitter clients, look pretty much the same, but with Mixero, you'll have a great user experience, I guaranty that.

There might be a problem, however, if you're following too many friends though, I don't seem to be able to see all of them, but I hope this is only a bug for me :)

I have 50 invites for you guys, grab them as fast as you can:
First Download Mixero, then enter this code - go2web20com

Mixero based in Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation.

A Real REAL-TIME Twitter

2009-05-26T18:25:00.009+03:00

I wrote about Tweenky when it first launched, and I'm happy to write about it again. The service let you see your twitter updates in real-time, exactly like in Friendfeed. In addition you can see your own tweets, replies, and private messages. Also, see the list of Twitter trend, or search for any terms you want.

You can of course send tweets, reply, send direct message and retweet any tweet. If you see a tweet that you like, you can Chirp.it, and it will automatically send to TopChirp which is kinda like Digg, but for Twitter.

Kudos @derek for the good work.

Fun Educational Online Platform for Kids

2009-05-26T12:09:00.007+03:00

Raylit is a new online service that entertains and educates kids with interactive games, videos and fun activities.
I liked the service right from the registration where you first sign up yourself, then write your kids name & age so when you log in to the service, Raylit knows to offer you different sessions suited to your kids age.

The site has been specifically designed for 3-7 year old kids in preschool, kindergarten and first grade, taking into account their mental and physical development. Three friendly characters will guide the kids through their daily sessions so parents don't have to babysit. Unfortunately, the characters voice generated from a text-to-voice service, so it sound really mechanical and not so attractive to hear. But if Raylit will fix that, it'll be a very pleasant site for kids to spend some time in.

Right now, Raylit has over 750 educational games, videos and topics. I went over the list of activities and it's absolutely impressive. Everything is clear and colorful, like you'd expect from a kids site. Kids only need to use the mouse during the sessions as it is natural and easy for them. There're also games that don't require registration such as: Coloring Pages, Printed Puzzles and Handwriting Workheets.

Finally, Raylit limit kid's session to just an hour a day to prevent addiction, which is, in my opinion, a very important and thoughtful feature.

Put A Poll On Your Twitter Page

2009-05-23T22:07:00.005+03:00

I usually use Twtpoll when I want to send a poll through Twitter, but I found PollYour Followers to be charming as well, and even easier to function.

With a same concept as in VidTweeter, all you need to do is to enter your Twitter name, ask your question, write the answers and get a link to share the poll, or tweet it directly. The poll displays on top of your twitter page where you track how many people view it. Example.

Manage Your Online Social Life From A Browser Sidebar

2009-05-23T12:01:00.010+03:00

First of all, if you're a MAC, this post is currently not for you... Gathera supports only Windows at the moment.

Gathera (experimental Firefox addon), organizes and integrates Web applications & services into the browser sidebar, and offers an easy user experience to you. You'll get a fast access to these social networks: Flickr, Facebook, Digg, Twitter (supports multiple accounts), Delicious, and Windows Live. As well as to email based services such as: Gmail, Yahoo! and AOL. You'll be able to seamlessly share, view and respond across all of those online services.

Additionally, you can search through your accounts all at once, or search through a specific source (Google, Wikipedia, Youtube, Twitter, etc).

Overall I thought it's a pretty nice sidebar to have, but it missed the notifications and real-time functionality. From the "My Place" area I can see the number of updates I missed, but when the streamline is open, the sidebar is static. You have to refresh it yourself to see new updates, which is somewhat useless if you want to keep an eye on friends activity while you're working.

Based on the information on their site, it looks like that previous version contained real-time notifications, but I couldn't find this function on the current version.

The Latest Member of the Bookish Social Network: Readernaut

2009-05-18T19:23:00.008+03:00

This is a Guest Post by Valerie Russo, the author of Literanista. Currently works at Hachette Book Group, scouts the ever-changing Web landscape & is working on her debut novel, among other things.

Late last Summer, a new contender to the literary social network arena, quietly moved into the somewhat already crowded space. Readernaut, joined the fray, albeit in Beta, attempting to perhaps rival the top three contenders, Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari, which was recently acquired by Amazon. Almost a year later, curiously there has been little coverage of Readernaut, which is still currently in Beta. We wondered "what's the hold up?" and so here's our attempt to change that and see if it makes a difference.

Currently, Goodreads leads the book set with 1.3 million unique visitors monthly, in the US alone, while Librarything is the eldest of the pack and probably has the most academic/professional cred. When Shelfari launched a couple of years back, it was touted as one of the prettiest and shiniest sites of the year but they've gone through various updates that have since drawn away from that aesthetic cool factor, at least for me. Of course, these are just the top three. There are many more in the book community space, such as; Booksprouts, Readingtrails, Weread, Filedby, Shortcovers, and even Barnes & Noble, the book retailer added social networking tools to their site with MyBN.com a while back.

So along comes Readernaut, created by developer and designer Nathan Borror (we learned after some Googling), who is quite active on the site, and it has the usual fare of book social communities: You can build your personal profile page, import and catalog your book lists, follow other members, add tags, write reviews or notes, see what others are reading or who owns the same books. Visually the site has gotten kudos for its simple and streamlined sparsity. However, I found it hardly made an impression on me personally, perhaps because I prefer content rich sites with lots of inter connectivity and easy navigation. It's a lot easier to unearth all the features that way instead of needing to hover over or click on various items to see what's being offered. At the same time, it's refreshing to see it changed up and be taken out of one's comfort zone.

While Readernaut seems to be lacking in the widget department (i.e., the 'grab your bookshelf' department) it does currently offer its own public API although I didn't see that on the site itself. I also like the fact that it allows you to import books from other book social communities, such as Anobii or by ISBNs. As someone, who is an avid reader and owns hundreds of books and has read thousands, there is no way I am importing my book collection manually so this scores cool points. It would be nice to also see an option to import books from accounts with book retailers as well.

Readernaut, offers more socializing aspects than on it does on the books themselves. It's main focus is on member activity, which can be viewed in Facebook feed status-like stream. As we have learned from Twitter and Facebook, this voyeuristic river of data can be quite addictive and entertaining. Members can see an overview of other members' activity or view a timeline, which offers that sense of 'knowing' them. Another interesting insight is offered when you click on some one's profile - you can see their stats; numbers of cataloged books, amount of lists they've created, notes, followers, comments and how many friends they have.

Perhaps my most preferred feature is the Reader Progress. Members are invited to manually update their reading progress on whichever book they are reading. While other sites have this feature, Readernaut goes one step further by offering a visual scale of the progress as a timeline, which also has specific book data. If you view some one's progress you can see whether they've been on the same book or page for three months or read a book a day. If this feature was converted into a widget or app, I can see many book bloggers adding this to their sidebar or site.

I'd love to see some added features on Readernaut to make it really out of this world: Currently, I don't see an option to import my friends or peers from any of my email accounts or any other social network, other than Twitter and Flickr. However, I do like how very easily I can find friends from those two, all you do is enter your username. It would be nice to get some interaction with Facebook or my blog, which is a literary blog. I also don't see any features to distinguish authors from regular members. Book authors don't have profile pages or a place to add any biographical information or blogs/twitter, etc., There isn't anything offered to book clubs in particular or any book data associated with the books on their profile page such as book description, book website, reading group guide. There is an option to buy the book but only through Amazon.com.

You also can't create groups or events nor can you list a book giveaway. That would also be nice to see. In addition, I don't see any option for publisher or author engagement. None of the latest look-inside widgets are offered, which allows readers to 'read' an excerpt of the book online. I also don't see a way to post any related media, like book trailers or author interviews.

On the upside, there aren't any visible ads, ugly or subtle ones nor any sign of a business model. Unfortunately, there isn't any contact information or "about us" either and none of the "press" or info links on the site work, making it seem like the just a forgotten pet project of the developer. We hope this feedback offers some useful data and we invite Nathan to give us an update on his plans for the site.

It would be nice to see all of the above needed features added and then also go beyond that beause otherwise it's just another place to see what friends are doing online.

Google Analytics on your Desktop

2009-05-15T14:24:00.006+03:00

Polaris, officially launched recently, is a fantastic free Air based application for everyone who manages one website profile on Google Analytics and want to keep data always instantly available.

The dashboard gives you nice overview of total visits, pageviews and other useful metrics. Other than that, Polaris has 7 different individual reports: Visit Overview, Map Overlay, Traffic Sources, Referring Sites, Top Content, Keywords, and Goal Value.

For those who are managing multiple profiles, the upgrade to the full version is $15/year. Both the free and the full version will get regular free updates with new functionality and features.

An Excellent Facebook & Twitter Desktop Client (Windows Users Only)

2009-05-08T23:55:00.013+03:00

Sobees just released a new desktop client called bDule where they integrated Facebook Open Stream API, Twitter and Twitter search all in one place. bDule is based on .NET and is installable on any Windows 7 computer as well as Vista and XP if .NET is up-to-date.

After downloading, you'll be asked to choose a template from a variety of options, then you can track your Facebook stream in real-time with some filters, likes and comments (update the status, likes and comments within the application). bDule also enables Twitter multi-accounts view, groups, single or multi-column view, and Twitter search topics setup.

Since I already had .Net installed in my computer, it was a real fast download for me, and at first glance I can say it looks amazing, has good usability and works smoothly and fast. But the important bottom-line is that you get to see all the activities & stuff you care about from a single view.

My only problem is the resources it takes from my computer memory.. (too high)

2BAR - Enhance your Browser with Daily Functionality

2009-05-07T21:40:00.006+03:00

Zoom in & out.

We created this toolbar to help people with their daily work & habit on the web. Simple as that.
And I have to confess: I was actually against that at the beginning, because I don't really like Toolbars (or at least I thought so), but after working with 2BAR for 2 month or so, I admit - I'm addicted.

Take a look at the picture above to see a full view of the features - We really tried to think about all users while created this one, so whether you need to get quick information about sites, update your friends, share links (or make short URLs), translate a page, listen to podcasts/music, search for whatever, and more.., this Toolbar is for you, and we hope you'll find it useful as we did.

2BAR brought to you by Go2web20 Directory, and powered by Conduit.

Twitter as an RSS Reader

2009-05-06T17:30:00.010+03:00

Steve Gillmore announced the death of RSS, yesterday in a very informative post at the Techcrunch IT Blog.

Being a blogger that's seeking the hottest tech news and needs to be on top of everything constantly, I tend to agree with most of Steve's post. Except for the fact that I don't think RSS is dead at all, I think RSS readers are not well-known by those who get used to getting updates delivered by their friends instead of by their favorite reader. I actually wrote a post about the same issue a year ago, where I explained why I'm wasn't using my RSS reader(s) as much as before. A year later, I can honestly tell you that now I don't even open my RSS reader anymore at all.

I'm sure some of you will disagree, probably because you used to reading your RSS reader once a day or so. But if you use Facebook or Twitter or any of those services that stream you & your friend's daily updates, you must've felt a change in the way you are reading & tracking content over the web.

It's also about what really interests you. If you've followed people that post stuff you care enough to read about, then you don't really need to build your RSS reader, the content will eventually show up in your main Twitter page. In most cases, this will be faster than anything else, and the best part is that the content is filtered inherently by your friends, and because good stuff is always retweeted over and over again, you can't really miss it.

But what about all the noise that has no relation to posts and stuff that you actually want to read? Well, from my experience, I just learned to deal with it. Sometimes, I ignore things that I don't care about yet show up in my twitterstream, and sometimes, I track a conversation just because someone else replies. Bottom line, you can't have a live conversation from within your RSS reader. Today, with Twitter, you see links posted by your friends and can immediately create a discussion around it. The web was never as accessible as it is today.

One last thing, in my opinion the biggest change over the last year, is that people are tracking topics instead of sites. From this perspective, Twitter still look & feel like RSS Reader, but really, you follow updates from your chosen topics, which can be a person, a brand or anything you care about. Screenshot of my twitter vision:

Bmlet - Your Source for Bookmarklets

2009-05-05T19:20:00.013+03:00

Bookmarklets are small application that stored in your computer browser. They are very easy to function (like any bookmark), and allow fast access to lots of activities & tools that can help you in your daily work. The best part is that you don't actually need to download anything to your computer, you just drag & drop your favorite bookmaklet to your favorite browser (even Chrome).

I found this useful Bookmarklet Directory today, and already spent too much time browsing through its content. It's kind of addictive though. I constantly upgrade my browser toolbar with more efficient tools, it never stops..

On Bmlet you can search, rate, share (directly to twitter & facebook), and comment on bookmarklets. You can also add new ones to the massive list Bmlet already has.

TidyRead Makes Webpages more Readable

2009-05-02T20:39:00.007+03:00

TidyRead extracts the text from almost any web site and displays it on an easy to read page that removes all of the clutter that can make reading on the internet so hard sometimes. The tool comes in the form of bookmarklet (or Firefox add-on), so all you really need to do is to drag the bookmarklet to your favorite browser (all supported), then click on it while you reading stuff over the web. Instantly, you'll be able to change the font size, choose your page style and adjust the margin.

TidyRead also works on iPhone or iPod touch, follow the instructions here.

Basically it's just a simply & smart tool that I don't see any reason why you won't use it in your browser (at least the bookmarklet). But personally I think TidyRead should enable people to grab the code for their own blog or site, and allow anyone who read them to simply click on a button for a better reading experience. I know I'd like to provide this kind of tool to my readers.

All-in-one Twitter Desktop Client (almost.. )

2009-04-25T14:38:00.013+03:00

It took me a while to understand all the features in this new twitter desktop client, but after playing with it for a couple of hours, i can say for sure that you won't be bored with this one.

Take a look at this massive list of features (and it's still in beta):

fully customizable color scheme
MP3 Playing from song.ly and tra.kz
Jamendo music search (free and legal)
Displays twitpic images in tweet
Youtube Thumbs
Twitter search moving Trends
Hashtags
Fast display filter
contacts groups
followable Twitter searches
notifications
URLs preview
image/webcam upload
image/webcam upload to twitter profile image
multi-account
search filters
short URLs (Twitter API)
encode/decode MinUrl and TinyUrl

What I liked the most actually, was the combining between Twitter to Jamendo music search. It simply turns this client to a music player that you can use completely regardless Twitter (it actually worth the download just because of this feature alone).

I've created a demo that shows some of the features. As you may see, the client is still a bit buggy but since it's all still very new, I'm sure some of its performances to be improved later on.

(better to watch in full view)

Place Youtube Videos on your Twitter Page

2009-04-25T11:18:00.008+03:00

I like those services who places a layer on top of your twitter page so it will look like you don't need to go out of Twitter in order to use them (you can check TwitterAnalyzer, BubbleTweet, and TwitZap for examples). YoutubeTweeter works on the same concept, it let you tweet YouTube videos, but when someone open the URL you tweeted, the video will play on top of your twitter page (like shown on the picture above).

The service is easy as one, two, three, and you don't need to give away your Twitter password.
Moreover, you get to see how many people view your submitted video (actually, how many saw your tweet).

Click the link to see it in action: http://yttwt.com/wughd