8 posts tagged “web 2.0”
Of course this is just my opinion but here is the list:
1. YouTube - An easy to use video webapp that didn't sacrifice power for looks.
2. flickr - A simple interface and ease of use brings flickr to #2.
3. youos - Nothing is more web 2.0 than bringing the desktop online!
4. digg - Digg incorporates many features and technologies that many other web 2 sites use, but digg really makes it look good while doing something useful.
5. Virb - the new social network really tries to hand you th keys when it comes to being able to make your homepage look good.
These were judged on a basis of application of latest technologies and the actual usefulness and user experience.
I stumbled across stikkit.com a while ago. It is a service that intergates all your calander and TODO stuff together and allows you to email yourself to dos, calander events, and Contacts. It is a very easy to use program and it being actively developed in Ruby(I personally think PHP would have been a better choice).
Go ahead and Try It
Netvibes has been around for a while now but take a minute and think about what Netvibes and it's rivals have done for the Internet as a whole. For those who haven't been paying much attention lately, Netvibes is a customizable portal much like protopage and Google Homepage. The portal unofficially died when the dot-com bubble burst. So whats so great about Netvibes? Netvibes is a twist on the portal idea, Netvibes lets the users create modules that other Netvibes user can use. These modules include GMail, RSS reader, sticky notes, and a lot more, some created by users and some by the Netvibes staff. What really makes Netvibes different is it lets you stay in one place and check out whether or not something is worth viewing or not, if it is you just fly away to that site.
Google Blogger Beta went live today in place of the old blogger. This new Blogger is great and all for the very new bloggers but Vox kicks it's ass and so does wordpress for those that host their own blog.
As the world moves toward everything on the web(again) we are still fearful of online storage solutions. While web-based operating systems allow you to store anything. And place like flickr store your photos and YouTube hold on to your videos, you see we are really already moving our harddrives on to the web. Now when you think about it much of your data is on the we already. So is online storage safe? I don't know but here is an evaluation of some of the major online storage providers.
Box.net
Box.net is a well known online file storage provider. They provide a free 1G account which is what I will be testing. But there are other packages:
- 5GB storage for 4.99$/month or 49.99$/year
- 15GB storage for 9.99$/month or 99.99$/year
Score:9/10
Xdrive
Xdrive, a service of AOL, offers you a free 5GB account. Already you think "A service of AOL. huh? Not really that safe", yes I think the same thing. But it does have some promising features. Instead of being entirely web-based, Xdrive has a downloadable client that allows you to acces all of your files from your desktop(gee, sounds awfully familiar). This feature alone makes it a very enticing service. The site itself looks nice, although it really does scream "AOL was here". It is worth a try but I would not use it for anything remotely important.
Score:8/10
Conclusion
I will probably review more of these services but for now these seem the major competitors(filexoom may be reviewed later). You have basic over view of the services. Just remember storage is the same, it is the tools and reliability that matter, then storage space. Always look at tools and reliability first.
Goowy is a web-based operating system. Written in Flash, Goowy has been designed and developed by four developers since March of 2005. It is a closed system that seems to try to build off of the mac UI(with bouncing icons and such). It comes complete with an instant messenger, email, contacts, calander, news/rss, and file storage. It even gives you your own email address. username@goowy.com. Sounds like A great deal? Well lets look at it:
Plus side of Goowy(compared to other webOSes)
- Easy to use GUI
- Useful applications
- Good amount of storage(2GB)
- Easy way to access email
Down side of Goowy(compared to other webOSes)
- No current way to develop for it
- Not many applications
- Requires Flash(it makes it look good but it is easier to use other webOSes such as eyeOS or YouOS
Conclusion:
It is a very nice service and the developers have put a lot of work into it. It really is a nice experience. With that said there are flaws such as you cant develop for it, leaving the developers with the server side, user end, and all the apps. It is worth a try but before settling on anyone WebOS please check out the other Weboses(we have previously reviewed eyeOS and YouOS)
Screenshots:
File Storage:
Goowy Dashboard:
YouOS is a web operating system developed with JavaScript and uses the dojo toolkit. YouOS is one of the most interesting projects I have ever seen. It combines A web desktop with web storage. When you sign up you get 250 megabytes of storage and one gigabyte of storage. Along with many very interesting application that the YouOS developers have created, the community has developed the vast majority of applications with the integrated development environment. The amazing thing is: the whole thing is completely amazing. It runs on a few servers in San Jose and relies on the ingenuity of four developers in California. They have just become open to businesses so that they may run their own YouOS network.
Now there are a few flaws in the design. The most notable is that JavaScript is not really being developed anymore. Now I know there are still an extremely large amount of JS devvers out there and I am one of them. And I know that web2.0 is almost literally running on JS.
YouOS seems to have a future. All it has to is play its cards right...
I have been using WordPress for several months but I have never found it very exiting or interesting. I was not posting much and the amount of people coming to view my blog was declining rapidly. The I found Vox. It is my impression that Vox is here to get people to Blog often. Here is my first look at Vox:
Registration
The registration process was easy and was very quick. It started by asking for my email address. Then it sent me a conformation code which I copied then pasted into the registration page letting me move on. Then it took you to your normal average registration form which I found no flaws with and no set-backs. Then It asked me if I wanted to tell anyone about my new blog and had me fill in all the email addresses of them. I also picked other blogs to link to, this came up in registration as well. Then I was finished with a very simple registration.
Total time spent: About 5 minutes
First Take
Vox seems very well written and the interface was beautiful. It makes you want to post all over again just because it looks so damn nice. When I first entered I was brought to a page showing several links to do things like edit my profile, edit picture, post content, etc. The whole process was fairly easy(setting up profile and avatar etc.). The online word processor that is the Vox posting mechanism reminded me of Writely. Its interface was beautiful and it let you get right down to the point instead of wating time trying to have things show up where you want them.
Conclusion
Vox is one of the best written and most intuitive blogging engines I have ever seen. I highly recommend trying it or at least checking out more Vox blogs to see how Vox lets you personalize your blog!
