Sr-ultimate.com | Web 2.0 & Me

FeedBurner (http://www.feedburner.com), the market-leading Internet feed management provider, has acquired Blogbeat (http://www.blogbeat.net), a Raleigh-Durham-based provider of blog analytics.Blogbeat functionality will be integrated into FeedBurner’s existing suite of free Internet feed management services. Blogbeat founder, Jeff Turner, has joined the FeedBurner team as Lead Engineer, Web Analytics. He will remain an integral member of the development of feed-driven statistics services. Additional information about the Blogbeat acquisition is available on the FeedBurner Web site at http://www.feedburner.com/blogbeat.

Itzle is web gadget that allows you to walk around websites as if they were physical locations. Itzle allows you to browse websites while having a chat with your friend. You can browse any website with itzle, just save the bookmarklet, you will be shown a minimizable Itzle toolbar with chatbox, URL, friends list, Connection etc. You can choose to talk with any of your friends or review the current website. Currently it’s in Beta Stage and supports only Firefox. Itzle along with bookmarklet also provides status indicators for Blogs / Websites .

Itzle makes it easy to explore photo albums and other expansive sites with your friends. When you click on a hyperlink while Itzling, your friend will see you walk over to it and fade away. Then a small message bubble will appear in your place to tell him where you’ve gone, and give him the option of following you to your new location.

Normally, in order to communicate about a certain web page friends have to either leave static messages (in the form of comments or forum posts) for their each other to read later, or switch back and forth between their browsers and IM clients. Neither method allows a seamless shared-browsing experience. With Itzle, group surfing is not only easy, it’s fun.

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EditGrid is the new kid in the Online Spreadsheet Comunity. Not even months after Google Spreadsheets was released, EditGrid is now released by Team and Concepts. iRows and WikiCalc where two popular applications in the same category which works with great user interface and features. Even though EditGrid does not have the user communication feature like Google does but it sure states itself better than Google, WikiCalc and even legendry Microsoft Excel, which I think is be true. Perhaps its not a kid after all ;) . Apart from the usual uses of Online Spreadsheets, EditGrid allows users to post spreadsheets to blogs and websites. It allows exporting to OpenOffice.org Calc format (.sxc). And many more features.

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Empressr is a Ajax/Flash-based web application that lets you create, share and store presentations online. It goes beyond current presentation applications by enabling you to incorporate rich media features, like streaming video and animation, to create and share the most dynamic presentations possible. The Flash UI of Empressr is quite impressive and looks good on eye.

Though it is not the first one as it claims, is it ? Online presenations like Thumbstacks, Zoho Show, iRows and Google Spreadsheet are some other applications which does almost the same work. (more…)

Kool IM (http://www.koolim.com/). is an all new web based instant messaging service. Though in Alpha stage it supports 6 instant messaging services all together - AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, ICQ and apart from all that jabber. AJAX is used in the application very well and Kool IM hardly have any known problem. It has a registration option which enable to take advantage of saving and managing user’s network accounts and more. Meebo and e-messenger were the two most popular web based IM services which are ruling from last few months.
Meebo and e-messenger in recent months have developed a new problem of banishment in some schools and colleges by authorities in order stop children from using Instant messaging. Well, Kool IM can be a great solution for them ;) . A support forum and a blog is also available. As per what I checked, Kool IM is supported on Internet Explorer 6, Firefox 1.5.0.4 and Opera 9.0 .

Instant Messaging directly out of the browser using AJAX based technology. Consumers and Business users alive will have the capabilities to hold real-time conversations with friends and co-workers. KoolIM is a generic IM solution, the initial version will support access to 12 IM networks and 4 Content Channels.

imeem is a new online service that combines the best of instant messaging and social networking.

What do use for intant messaging ? Y! mess., MSN, Gtalk ? or do you use the third party softwares like trillian, Gimp ? imeem is not some software that usually comes out every other day and flops, it is indeed a wonderful combination of services.

Instant Messaging
Use any and all of your IM services from one application . imeem can take up any number of Gtalk, Yahoo! messenger, MSN messenger and AIM Id’s on its IM software, much like trillian but trillian only supports gtalk on jabber client which is only supported in their pro version. The UI is pretty neat and looks good on eyes. Instant messagng is the best feature of the imeem.

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Gabcast ( http://www.gabcast.com ) is a podcasting platform that offers an easy way to create and distribute audio content. Most people will use a phone to make their recordings but we also provide worldwide access to the service through VoIP. Once you have made a recording and have published it, a newsfeed is immediately and automatically updated to alert subscribers to your channel.

What can you do with Gabcast ?

• You can embed a flash audio player into your personal or corporate website/blog and communicate with your friends/family/colleagues/customers
• You can voice your political opinions or use it as part of a political campaign
• You can record Greetings
• You can be a Citizen Reporter
• You can conduct Interviews
• You can use it as an Educational Tool
• You can use it for Get-togethers
• You can Speak Your Mind
• You can use it to describe an item for sale on Ebay.

The free account gives a disk space of 200 MB per user but the paid accounts have much more space with many features like Enhanced Publishing Features, “Hidden” Episodes & channels, Uploading Episodes etc. You can also post audio content to your blogs. Gabcast is integrated with popular blogging software like Blogger, TypePad, WordPress and many more.

Seems like a lot of web 2.0 application are being copied ( or perhaps I should say “Inspired” ;) ) with few extra features or modifications. Multimedia sharing became very popular from the start of file sharing websites like youtube and rapidshare. With increase in demand and lower server costs the “file sharing” websites have gone way up, multimedia sharing seems to be taking the same pace. Though the style is a bit different, the use of the app remains the same - Sharing. Microsoft’s Windows Movie Maker like web 2.0 application, eyespot did a wonderful start, it provided online video editing with good use of Ajax in the interface apart from sharing. Then comes Grouper which apart from sharing also allows users to use directly connect to each other using P2P technology.

WikiUpload : A simple sharing website which allows upload any files .. documents, videos, images, mp3s, ebooks, shareware upto 5GB. A notable feature is that WikiUpload generates RSS feeds of files based on tags or your account so you can get the most popular files or search based on tags. The website is free for using all the features like tagging / bookmarking and RSS feeds with a 5 GB limit, for an increase you will need to pay a little. The file existance on the server is like rapidshare - 30 days, No use and the file is gone .

FileMobile : is a a but different from Wikiupload. It is a service for storing, sharing and creating media files online. Like WikiUpload the site supports video, photos, audio and documents. There’s a flash uploader, email by phone and the capacity to record video directly into your Filemobile account through the Flash app. The starting free alpha accounts include 250 mb storage and 25mb item upload limits. Though the premium accounts will only be availble from september..