When you signup for an account on Foodist, you are presented with three choices: create a premade site with one of their starter kits, build your own restaurant guide or just enter the site and add your selections later on. Here is the demo guide I setup -- note that I just picked some pizzerias, these are not my favorites :).

Here's an example restaurant page which might actually be better than Yelp. I like the "I've been there" option which lets you keep track of where you have eaten.

There are widgets, an iPhone/Touch version, mini-social network and lots of cross-promotion from other members. I'd like to see Facebook and Twitter integration. And what about a tie into Savory Cities to include video overviews? And of course where is the news/activity feed? Lastly, tie in GoMobo (our coverage) for takeout ordering directly.

This is a direct competitor for recently-launched Bricabox (our coverage). Bricabox has more technical options but requires you to enter the content from scratch. With Foodist Colony, the content is already there as a starting point, what a brilliant idea. Both services could learn something from the other.

In my testing over the past couple of days, I am very impressed by how slick the app is. It has enough Ajaxy-goodness but not an amount that's overwhelming. The responses from the system are quick and the information is well presented. What I don't see is any advertising or costs to be a member, so I am not sure how they monetize the app. I have a message into the team and will report back.

IE8 New Features Shown At MIX08

I'm sure there are more features to be discovered, but the ones that were highlighted just now in the demo at MIX08 included the following:

Standards Compliance: There were hints that IE8 would be a remarkable offering on the IE Blog as they released tidbits about the browser's capabilities. For example, the announcement of IE8's passing of the Acid2 test (a test for standards compliance) marked a milestone in IE8's development. The standards mode was originally going to be turned off by default letting web developers code for it by including a "meta" tag to make use of IE8's new standards compliant mode. Later, Microsoft came to their senses and made the default the standards-compliant mode. Meanwhile, Firefox also claims to have passed the Acid 2 test, but an open bug on bugzilla.mozilla.org seems to say otherwise. (our coverage). One commenter on the thread notes, "So, we essentially do pass the test. However, in some situations, it might still fail, that's why this bug is open."

Facebook Integration: Yes, seriously! With a Flock-like feature as an unexpected surprise, Microsoft capitalized on their partnership with the popular social networking site, Facebook, to allow IE8 users the ability to get status updates from Facebook right from their browser toolbar.

eBay Integration: Like Facebook, this feature also uses IE8's new technology, called "Web Slices", which introduces a new way to get updates from other sites via the browser itself, without having to visit the web site. eBay will offer Web Slices, too, letting you track your auctions from the browser toolbar. Basically, Web Slices look like Favorites on your Links toolbar but they have a little arrow next to them - clicking on this arrow will show you a small window of live web content.

Live Maps Integration: Another Web Slice was integration with Live Maps. It appeared that you could even highlight text on a page, like an address, and then right-click and choose Live Maps from the context menu to get a web slice preview of that location on a map in a small pop-up window. How convenient!

Working with AJAX Pages: IE8 will offer better functionality when it comes to AJAX web pages. The example showed a page where you could zoom in using AJAX technology. Previously, hit the IE "Back" button would take you back to the last page you were on. Now, "Back" will zoom you out.

We can now find out what other features IE8 has to offer, since the beta is now publicly available for download. To get IE8, you can download it from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm.

GyPSii, a Netherlands-based company, sent out a press release today announcing the availability of its geo-location and social networking service on the iPhone. Though currently the service runs through a web site, the most interesting bit was buried in the press release.

GyPSii also confirmed that it would produce a “native” version of its application using Apple’s Software Developer Kit (SDK) which is scheduled to be launched later this week, providing seamless access for all Apple users, from the desktop, to the iPhone.

Now does GyPSii know something we don't? Apple has a special event slotted for March 6 and there is a good chance, if the GyPSii guys are right, that it might be the launch of the SDK. There have been rumors floating around that the iPhone SDK is going to be delayed for a few more weeks. GyPSii CEO Dan Harple is quoted as saying:

We’ll work with the SDK as soon as it becomes available and then we will be uniquely offering both web and native versions of our application for iPhone users.

In case you are curious to check out the app, visit their mobile page. Or see the demo here.

I had the chance today to chat with Zvika Netter, the CEO and co-founder of a new Israeli startup called Innovid that is working on technology that will empower video content producers to place interactive virtual items into their videos.

Innovid has remained in stealth mode up to this point and has only begun discussing its work now that it has raised $3M from Genesis Partners in a Series A round (previous angel funding came from Jeff Pulver).

The virtual items facilitated by Innovid are basically 3D objects that producers insert into videos post-production. They're intended to look as realistic as possible so that they blend in with the real physical environment recorded by the video. And yet, they can't go entirely unnoticed because users are encouraged to click and perform mouse gestures with them to derive additional functionality (for example, to view a popup description about the particular item with links to external resources).

The most obvious use of these items would be to simply drop branded items into user generated content. If you're looking to monetize your video, you could, for example, sign a deal with a beverage company and place their product on the table during an indoors scene. The virtual item representing the beverage could then respond to camera movements; when the camera moves around to the left, you also see the left side of the beverage appear. This is possible because the 3D object has been mapped to its calculated surroundings.

But with Innovid's object placement, you could also make it so that users who click on the beverage see a description of it and the stores in which it's sold. Or you could allow the user to even move the beverage to another location within the video or have it perform a special effect when clicked on. Whatever the complexity, the object becomes a more effective advertisement through its interactivity.

Since these are virtual objects, they can also be served up differently depending on the intended audience. Certain countries or languages could see their own types of beverages. And of course, things could be tailored to the individual as well depending on their personal preferences.

Netter isn't saying exactly when the company plans to debut its product or even show a demo to the public, but I had a chance to watch a video of these virtual objects and I must say it looks very compelling even at this early stage. The 3D items can be made to look realistic and their integration into video is quite seamless. This is a company that should be watched as the online video industry figures out how to monetize its content most effectively.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

In what looks to be a possible acquisition of some sort, Wordpress plug-in series BuddyPress is now under the Automattic umbrella. BuddyPress' main man Andy Pealting has written on his blog that he's now working for Automattic, and is currently moving the BuddyPress site over to them.

BuddyPress is a series of plug-ins that allows you to turn a Wordpress MU instillation into a fully functional social network. As Automattic has indicated that it would like to move into the realm of social networking from a platform perspective, it makes sense that it would look to a tool like BuddyPress, which has received praise across the web as a useful and easily implemented tool.

As we've seen with Prologue, Automattic is making some important changes in the landscape of its company's future, in part thanks to its recent funding. I think it's especially important for Automattic to explore these avenues, and it appears to be doing so in a way that still allows for a great deal of customization -that is, the framework is provided by Wordpress but many of the processes for execution are left to the larger developer community.

As more companies move into the social networking platform space, Automattic is surely looking to stay on top of these going trends in a fashion that's sensible for its product. Perhaps the fully integrated release of BuddyPress will be available in time for the Wordpress 2.5 version release?

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Google is bringing offline apps to mobile phones - and this has nothing to do with Android.

Google Gears, which allows developers to create apps that run on Firefox and Internet Explorer when offline, is supposed to launch later today under the name Mobile Gears. (Information for developers is already available here). It will support only Pocket IE running on Windows Mobile devices to start (Windows Mobile 5 and 6), but will expand to other mobile browsers eventually. (Presumably, that includes Opera Mobile).

At launch, several partners, including Zoho and Buxfer, will introduce mobile apps that can run on Pocket IE even when not connected to the network. Zoho Writer (which first went offline with Google Gears in August) will now be available for Windows Mobile 6, and it will have an offline capability as well thanks to Google Gears. (Here is a video demo). The offline mobile version is a read-only version. Zoho Writer already has a mobile online version for the iPhone, and was the first word processor to go offline with the desktop version of Google Gears.

Google itself has yet to offer a Google Gears version of Google Docs. But we understand that it's coming soon, as are offline desktop versions of Gmail and Google Calendar.

This announcement also means that it's game time for Adobe and Microsoft. They either need to come out with mobile versions of AIR and Silverlight or risk being left in the dust.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

I promised to post the results so people can get an idea of what 23andMe is offering (without paying that fee), and here they are. Also, as of last week 23andMe started allowing users to create free demo accounts. if you create one, add my username, TechCrunch, as a friend and I can share the data with you directly.

Results are below:

(more…)

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Amazon has quietly entered the video hosting and monetization game with Your Video Widget.

Your Video Widget allows any registered Amazon Affiliate to upload a video and then select products that can be displayed as the video progresses (demo above). Video content can be anything from a product review through to a holiday video, but there are some restrictions; users can not include a URL in the video, or feature availability, price, or alternative ordering/shipping information for any product in the video itself, on top of the usual porn and piracy restrictions. Users can pick any products they would like to be displayed, with Amazon suggesting only that they work better if they have some context to the video, and that no two products can appear within 10 seconds of each other.

Like all Amazon Affiliate related advertising, the ads served are paid as a percentage of generated sales, and are not offered on a CPC or CPM basis.

Maximum file size is 100mb, length 10 minutes, and accepted formats are avi, flv, mov, mpg, wmv.

Amazon Video Widgets do not come with a central portal where you are able to view videos YouTube style, so this product wont compete in that space. For those looking at new ways of monetizing their videos, be it either because they are unable to sign up to YouTube's program, or are not getting good results from YouTube, Amazon Video Widgets provide another path to video monetization.

(via Dave Zatz)

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0

The developer community for Wordpress and Wordpress themes is getting to be a pretty big and dedicated group, and Jeffro has come across an interesting Wordpress theme from The_dead_one (TDO), that essentially turns your blog into a forum.

If you head over to TDO's Demo Forum, you can see exactly how this works. You'll notice that post comments are in a forum reply format, giving site visitors an opportunity to create their own “entry” in response to the original blog post. From there, blog posts are then listed by the date of the last comment, instead of the original blog's publish date.

Any unread topics are highlighted so you can easily see where a good place to get some activity going would be, and the Pages and Categories can in fact be used as Tabs. Most importantly, however, TDO's Forum theme actually makes your blog look like a forum. It's kind of confusing at first, but if you're readily involved with forums on the web, then TDO's theme shouldn't be all that foreign to you.

Right now, TDO's theme operates through an external plugin, but he is still working on th code for this theme so it will be more reliable, less dependent on a plugin, and easily accessible to more Wordpress users. See here for more Wordpress themes.

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Yesterday, we looked at the growing tech populism trend in IT, now let's look in more detail at this specific example and see how WorkLight brings social computing tools into the enterprise environment.

What's WorkLight?

The WorkLight software is a secure, scalable, server-based application that is what allows workers to view their enterprise data in any of a number of web applications and forms, both inside and outside the firewall.

The WorkLight server, which would run in the customer's own data center, previously only worked on Linux platforms, but a Windows version is now available. (Note: their web site has not yet been updated with this information.) The architecture used to build WorkLight is standard Java and a J2EE framework, so it can be deployed on any J2EE-compliant platform.

How It Works

To extract the data from the enterprise applications and/or other internal data sources, WorkLight uses application "adapters." These adapters can be for common interfaces, like SQL or web services, or can be designed for specific applications. The software comes with many standard application adapters "out of the box," but an included API allows for custom-built adapter creation. Once the adapters are connected to the data sources, configuration is done, programming-free, via XML documents.

The company's employees can then display the data through tools like RSS, web-based homepages, desktop gadgets, social bookmarks, application mashups, and more. In total, WorkLight works with fourteen consumer technologies: MySpace, Facebook, iGoogle, Netvibes, Microsoft Live, Yahoo widgets, Apple Dashboard, Google Desktop, Windows Vista Sidebar, del.icio.us, RSS, Google Gears, and Adobe AIR.

WorkLight Gadget Accessing SAP Data

Solutions

The company, WorkLight, Inc., has developed four specific solutions using their WorkLight software:

• WorkLight for the Enterprise: This product is a scalable server-based application that can be customized for the business to deliver the enterprise data via tools like RSS, widgets, gadgets, personalized homepages, social bookmarking, and more.
• WorkLight for Retail Banks: Designed to allow retail banks to deliver personalized data to their customers, this product uses tools like RSS, widgets/gadgets, personalized homepages, and IM to communicate information like account balances and transactions to the bank's customers.
• WorkLight for SAP: Similar to WorkLight for the Enterprise, WorkLight for SAP lets employees perform SAP-related business tasks using the same types of tools as WorkLight Enterprise.
• WorkBook: This ingenious solution is a secure enterprise overlay for Facebook. This product combines Facebook's capabilities with the controls that need to be in place in a corporate environment. Employees can use WorkBook to find and stay in touch with corporate colleagues, publish company-related news, create bookmarks to enterprise application data and securely share them with authorized colleagues, get updates on status changes, and get general company news. With the WorkBook overlay, there's no danger of information leaking outside the organization or access being granted to unauthorized personnel.

WorkLight's WorkBook application

So, It's Secure?

The WorkLight solution provides security functionality so the enterprise data stays safe. WorkLight securely integrates the data with web-based aggregators, so no data is being stored on 3rd party servers. SSL encryption is used while the data is in transit and several different authentication methods are supported, including HTTP basic, form-based, multi-factor, or the company's existing authentication schemes can be used, like single sign-on. The cached data on the WorkLight servers can be encrypted, if desired, and user requests for information are logged with time stamps, user info, and identifiers of the data accessed.

Conclusion

With WorkLight's customized tools, businesses could increase employee productivity since the staff would either already know how to use the social applications and tools or would be able to learn them quicker than the traditional enterprise applications. Companies that choose to embrace this growing trend will ultimately be one step ahead of their competitors. Says Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMO, where WorkLight was on display in December of '07, "We are breaking away from putting technology at the center and we are putting people at the center who have the authority to influence technology." WorkLight is certainly proof of this new shift.