Google talks to Jabber
Google Talk service is now connected to the XMPP network which means, amongst other things, it talks to Jabber now.January 18, 2006
Google Talk service is now connected to the XMPP network which means, amongst other things, it talks to Jabber now.January 17, 2006
Google enters radio advertising space
Google's latest acquisition - dMarc Broadcasting, makers of software for radio broadcasters to insert audio advertising into their broadcast streams - marks their foray into audio advertising. As Fred Wilson points out, this shows how media is a big direction for Google. I'm also curious to see how advertising in the mobile devices space pans out this year.January 16, 2006
Ahh .. YubNub
I had forgotten about YubNub until this post on MobileCrunch reminded me again. But this time I can tag it on del.icio.us and this time safely forget about it again :)
Still love the idea. Best part .. it's built on rails. Can't wait to write my own first RoR application.
January 12, 2006
MobileCrunch is born
Michael Arrington from TechCrunch just announced a new TechCrunch network blog - MobileCrunch, written by Oliver Starr, a serial entrepreneur with experience in technology,wireless and fiber optic telecommunications, mass distribution, e-commerce, biotechnology and alternative medicine. If MobileCrunch can do for the mobile/wireless space what TechCrunch does for Web2.0, this is good news.
January 10, 2006
Yahoo acquires WebJay
According to the Yahoo! Music Blog, Yahoo yesterday acquired the online music playlist publishing company WebJay. I've never used this site myself, but it's an interesting concept. They use an open XML format for sharing playlists called XSPF (pronounced "spiff"), which should soon be available as part of Yahoo Music's already existing open APIs.
Also reported on Techcrunch and an IM interview of Lucas Gonze, the creator of WebJay.
Riya raises second round funding
According to their blog and also at Techcrunch, Riya has managed to raise $15 million from Bay Partners for their second round funding.
These guys have some really cool technology as noted in the original review. Also covered earlier was Google acquisition rumors.
January 08, 2006
My new AJAX desktop
NetVibes. I've been using it ever since I saw it on Web 2.0 companies Michael Arringto couldn't live without, and I absolutely love it. Lots of new features are in the works as per their blog.
Not sure where the image is from (couldn't find it on NetVibes website) .. I just stole it from the Techcrunch post.
December 23, 2005
Alexa opens up API
This is huge, and I hadn't ignored it, just didn't get the time to blog it sooner. Alexa, the search company owned by Amazon has decided to open its API and make its index available for anyone to query. It is available as a set of web services through the Alexa Web Search Platform and integrated with Amazon Web Services. The first 10,000 requests per month are free. As John Battekke notes, their databases have about 5 billion documents in its index - about 100 terabytes of data. This will allow creation of all kinds of new vertical search engines.
Also covered on Techcrunch and Wired, and discussed on Slashdot.
December 21, 2005
Virtual NYC Tour
Navigate through the streets of New York while viewing thousands of pictures, visiting hundreds of stores and reading the city’s famous history.
That's Virtual NYC Tour, a Google Maps mashup that was recently launched by a good friend of mine. The virtual trails (17 as of now) were painstakingly created by taking thousands of pictures on the streets of New York (a dangerous proposition as every New Yorker would know) and compiling information on hundreds of city stores and landmarks.
There's a lot coming where this came from, so stay tuned and take a virtual hike. Also covered on Google Maps Mania and Programmable Web.
Google Modules
Get your Google personalized homepage widgets at December 14, 2005
Widgets
Google announced on their blog, a new Google Homepage API for their personalized home pages that allows users to create custom widgets. Some of their own, and 3rd party widgets can be found in the gallery.
Yahoo had recently announced an upgraded widget engine built on Konfabulator that Yahoo had acquired earlier. Unlike Google's and Microsoft's live.com (covered earlier), Yahoo's widget engine runs on the desktop rather than in a browser .. exactly like Mac OS X dashboard widgets. Yahoo incidentally is also offering a Mac version of their widget engine.
Google's widgets discussed on Slashdot here, Yahoo's here.
UPDATE: Google widgets also covered on Techcrunch.
December 13, 2005
Windows Live Local
MSN Virtual Earth service was relaunched as Windows Live Local. New features include birds eye view which are arial photographs taken at an angle and make more sense in identifying landmarks.
Michael at Techcrunch has a review, as does Charlene at Forrester.
Yahoo! acquires Del.icio.us
This is my favourite news from last week. Yahoo! has acquired the kick ass Del.icio.us.
The above logo borrowed from Pete Cashmore's Mashable. Also covered on Techcrunch.
November 30, 2005
Yahoo adds RSS support to mail and alerts
November 22, 2005
Two-way RSS
Microsoft announced yesterday the specification for Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE) that "extends RSS from unidirectional to bidirectional information flows". Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's CTO talks about it in his blog. The spec itself is available on MSDN as is the FAQ.
A VC calls it the second coming of RSS, as does Richard MacManus from Read/WriteWeb. Dave at Scripting News likes it as well. Dick Costolo from Feedburner also has a good post on the subject. Michael Arrington from TechCrunch thinks it's cool and also that new companies will be built with SSE.
I guess this needs to be checked out!
Gotta dig diggdot.us
digg + slashdot + del.icio.us = diggdot.us .. pretty cool :) TechCrunch was amongst the first to cover it of course. Digg covered earlier here and here.
November 17, 2005
Google to acquire Riya?
Techcrunch is reporting on rumors that Google may be looking to acquire Riya, previously discussed here.
Digg to bury Slashdot?
Wired is running a piece on how Digg might bury Slashdot. Pretty bold statement, except that I don't think that's going to happen. Just because it's catching up with Slashdot in site traffic doesn't mean users are migrating from Slashdot to Digg. Plus the professional editorial board at Slashdot adds a huge value that Digg will never be able to provide.
Previously discussed here. This is also being discussed on Slashdot, which in turn is disussed on Digg :)
November 09, 2005
What is the Digg!
TechCrunch reports that Digg might soon overtake Slashdot in website traffic. Pretty neat considering it hasn't even been a year since the site was launched. Slashdot is still my personal favourite, but I also like Digg's more Web2.0 concept. What is Digg? From the website:
Digg is a technology news website that employs non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allowing an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.
October 31, 2005
Going digital
Google started it, now Microsoft teams up with Yahoo to follow suit. I think this is a revolutionary idea.
The Internet provided the platform to connect the already existing digital repositories and made them available to everyone. Web 2.0 brought in a new era of collaboration and online publishing. This effort goes a step further by opening up content locked in zillions of books around the world. I say this is huge.