Google Tries to Get Some Buzz for Wave With ‘Wave This’ Feature http://bit.ly/cQn1uE
Remember Google Wave? Before Buzz came along, Google Wave was the hot new social networking feature from the world’s largest search company. It launched with much fanfare at Google’s I/O conference last May, but has since failed to get much traction, in part because no one could figure out what to do with it exactly. Then along came Buzz in February and grabbed the spotlight from its Google cousin, in part because of the furore that arose over the service’s approach to privacy. Now Google Wave is rolling out a feature that it clearly hopes will catch the imagination of some web users and maybe jump-start Wave’s popularity.
The new feature allows users to add a bookmarklet to their browser that will create a new Wave from any web page, embedding a link inside the Wave so that other users can discuss it. If the page contains a video or image, that will be embedded as well — in a playable format, in the case of videos — so that users can check it out before discussing it. And Google has also provided web designers with an easy way to add “Wave This” buttons to their pages, and/or to produce clickable URLs that will generate a new Wave discussion.
Whether this new feature will bring in any new users for Google Wave is difficult to say. So far, the service’s biggest problem seems to be a lack of awareness that it even exists — since the initial attention around the launch died down, there has been little or no public discussion of the service (although it does have its fans), and Buzz has drawn much of the attention given to social networks at Google. Wave has been invite only until recently, however, and if the Wave This button starts showing up all around the web, it’s possible that it might get more popular interest. But then Buzz is fighting that battle too, and the king of the hill at the moment is Facebook and its global “like” button. There may not be much room left for Wave to capture a lot of social mind-share.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Google’s Social Scheme Hinges on Fears, Not Fortunes
A post to Facebook by Ryan Merket (former Facebook employee, founder of Ping.fm, and now founder of Appbistro) inspired me to check out a new Facebook App by Zach Allia that lets you “dislike” any website on the internet. The app is simple – you add a little bookmarklet to your browser and connect it with Facebook. Now any website you visit you can “dislike”, and your dislike appears on your Facebook Wall for all your friends to see.
Merket and I had a little fun with the app. He would dislike one political figure’s Facebook Page, and I would then go and dislike the opposite political figure. Or, he would dislike something and I would go “like” his recent dislike. I even went to one of his dislikes, clicked the permalink for the dislike, and disliked his dislike! (Have a headache yet?)
The app doesn’t just work on Facebook. You can go to any website on the internet and click the little “Dislike” bookmarklet and your dislike will appear. In addition, you can go to http://likebutton.me and get a similar like bookmarklet to like things on the internet in a similar manner.
This is a totally cool idea, and great example of the simplicity of Facebook Graph API. I predict it will be very popular due to Facebook and other sites’ lack of a “dislike” button for the network. I hope he can find a good way to monetize the concept. In a recent environment of negativity on the internet, this app could just provide a little level of fun and positivity to Facebook. ”dislike” is the new “poke”. 
Check out, and “like” the app at http://dislikebutton.me/
Do you “like” the concept?
I Like This – a Facebook “Dislike” Button for the Entire Web
- Niklas Sjostrom
We’ve already taken a look at how to find popular content from different sources online, but there’s no denying the magnitude of content that can be found in just one place – on Twitter. There are countless ways to filter through the noise, and find the content that matters to you, whether it’s based on a specific topic or based on popularity.
In part one of this article, we’ll take a look at search Twitter for the most popular stories by the number of retweets or favourites a tweet receives, as well as how to find specific kinds of interesting information on Twitter.
There are a variety of services for finding the most retweeted blog posts, stories and articles linked on Twitter, the most popular and influential of which is TweetMeme. Stories on TweetMeme can be browsed by the most popular from all categories in the past 24 hours, the past 7 days, or by specific categories including Entertainment, Comedy, Gaming, and Technology amongst others.
Content can be further broken down by News, Images and Videos. TweetMeme also allows you to keep up to date with the content on their site by subscribing to their RSS feeds. TweetMeme is also searchable if you want to find the hottest stories on specific topics.
Logging into TweetMeme with your Twitter account will then enable you to retweet the stories that you want to share with your followers directly from within their website.
TweetMeme also have a few extra goodies for users including a bookmarklet, a retweet button or chicklet for your blog posts, and plugins making it easy to incorporate the button on your blog.
DailyRT takes a similar approach to TweetMeme, by ranking the most popular Tweets in the past hour, 24 hours or 7 days. The difference however, is that the content is not limited to blog posts and articles, but also includes the most popular tweets in general.
This does have its downside of course, as the most popular tweets are not necessarily the most informative. Using their search feature however allows users to harness the information found on DailyRT and get the most out of it. One interesting feature found on DailyRT includes the ability to search for the most retweeted items from specific users.
Logging in with your Twitter account allows you to retweet directly from the website, but gives you no choice in the wording, and each retweet includes a direct link to the DailyRT homepage. DailyRT has a list on Twitter of the 50 most retweeted members on Twitter.
Thoora is another site that plugs into the information on Twitter letting people know what the most popular stories are, but it also gets its statistics from the number of blog posts and news articles covering a certain topic. Each article is accompanied by the number of retweets as well as the number of articles or blog posts found online.
Information is broken down into categories including Business, Controversy and Sci/Tech, amongst others. Stories can also be browsed by the newest developing stories, stories that are currently popular and by those that have been popular for the past week.
Signing up for an account allows you to share the content on Facebook, Buzz, Twitter and via Email, and discuss the stories on the website. Opening up any given story is where Thoora truly excels in comparison to other similar sites. It provides users with statistics on the story, recent tweets about it, links from blogs and official news sources.
Another method of tracking popularity on Twitter is keeping track of how many favourites any given tweet has. Favstar does just that. This might not necessarily lead to a wealth of information and links, but it’s interesting and funny nonetheless. The website gives users a way to pass some free time, reading jokes, interesting witticisms and commentaries on current affairs, and you’ll even find the occasional link to an article or video.
Tweets are divided into popular, rising and new. Signing in with your Twitter account allows you to quickly follow interesting users featured on Favstar, add tweets to your favourites, and even retweet. Favstar should however come with a warning that it is not at all PG. Favstar also has a three lists worth following – Tech and Social Media Tweeters, Celebrity Tweeters and Funny, Entertaining or Insightful Tweeters.
You can also search Twitter for specific users to see which of their tweets have received the most favourites. The website is available in English, German and Japanese.
Micro.Vois features tweets relating to freelance work. Tweets listed on the site are divided into users looking for freelancer work, and users who are looking to hire freelancers – and it does so in a very simple way. Micro.Vois uses Twitter’s hashtags to label the tweets, using #havework or #wantwork to distinguish the tweets from the rest of the chatter online.
The listings can also be further narrowed down by profession, with web development, programming, graphics, writing and miscellaneous jobs.
TweetyJobs is another site that features job listings mentioned on Twitter. One main difference between Micro.Vois and TweetyJobs is the fact that the latter is searchable. You can search for a specific job title in a specific city or zip code, and filter the results into either listings from corporate sites or Twitter.
TwitShop is another listings site that uses Twitter’s hashtags to aggregate its information. If you have an item for sale, appending the hashtags, #forsale, #4sale or #auction, will ensure that your tweet shows up on the site.
TwitShop is searchable, so if you want to buy something in particular from another Twitter user, it’s easy to find.
CheapTweet, like TwitShop, aggregates items that are for sale on Twitter. It features listings in a variety of categories including Tech, Food and Home & Family, amongst others. Not only does it provide you with listings, but users can also vote on how good a deal each listing is.
We Are Hunted is a slick site which combs Twitter, along with other social media sites like Facebook and MySpace to give you a list of the 99 most popular songs at the moment. If you want to listen to all 99 songs, simply start at number 1, and it will automatically play through the entire list. You can also limit the results to only the songs that are popular on Twitter.
It also allows you to share any given song on Twitter, Facebook or via email. If you want a more extensive list of what music is currently popular on Twitter, check out David’s article on using The Hype Machine to do just that.
In the second part to this post, we’ll take a look at more ways to search Twitter to get the most out of the content, including finding out what new movies are popular on Twitter, how to find personalised content for you, and sites that list all the information available on specific topics.
How do you find the content that matters to you on Twitter? Let us know in the comments.
Image Credit: Dave Smith
Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
Find The Content That Matters To You On Twitter [Part 1] @diptychal http://muo.fm/9WwgGn /via @MakeUseOf
- Steve RubelDon't Bore Your Twitter Followers: Link Different http://bit.ly/cWtrTk
As we noted yesterday, Twitter isn't so much a social network as a broadcast medium. For most Twitter users, broadcasting information mostly means sharing links. Whenever you share a link, however, there is always the lingering question if your followers haven't already seen this link in their streams before. Thanks to Link Different, you can now easily check if any given link has already appeared in your followers' streams.
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To get started, simply head over to the project's website, connect your Twitter account to Link Different and drag and drop the bookmarklet into your bookmarks bar. Then, whenever you want to share a link, simply click on the bookmark and Link Different will tell you how many of your followers have already seen this link in their stream. In addition, the service will also give you a bit.ly link.
Of course, you can never be absolutely certain that any of your Twitter followers actually saw a link - and there is also some value in repeated postings - but if you want to make sure that everything you post to Twitter is as original as possible, give Link Different a try.
This project is the work of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign grad student Eric Gilbert. Gilbert told us that Link Different, which performs a distributed crawl using Twitter's APIs, should scale well for accounts with large follower numbers.
Discuss
This the typical article to not share since it might have already been so by other followers. Right? ;-)
- lelapinDon't Bore Your Twitter Followers: Link Different http://bit.ly/betWnz -> Nice!
- Dieter SchwarzAre you contributing to the echo chamber or adding value? Link Different http://bit.ly/as5ttN
- Tac AndersonHey I got a bookmarklet working on my iPad. http://r2.ly/yymx
[Direct Link]HowTru Looks to Bring Accountability to Commenting and Journalism http://bit.ly/9Ad0Pl
A few weeks ago we mentioned an open door of opportunity for startups that could provide a solution to one the Internet's longest enduring problems: comment management. Shortly after that article was published, I received an email from Toma Bedolla, a Denver-based founder of a startup that was looking to provide a unique commenting service to online media outlets. This week I'm travelling in the Denver area for Boulder Startup Week, and Toma tracked me down at a tech meetup last night to tell me about his startup Veracious Entropy and its first experiment, HowTru.
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Anyone who follows any form journalism knows that there is a growing disconnect between valid reporting and incredulous reporting. Studies have shown that a majority of news consumers don't believe everything they read, watch or listen to. HowTru wants to help both online media outlets and the community of commenters on those sites to increase their credibility with a tool that will incentivize validity in both reporting and commenting.
When a HowTru user reads a story online, the click of a bookmarklet will give them the ability to either verify or refute the validity of that story, as well as leave a comment providing their reasoning. Users will have their identities tied to their HowTru accounts via OpenID or Facebook Connect, and based on how well or poorly the story is rated, their own validity scores will improve. The most reliable news outlets and journalists will see their scores climb as users validate their work.
Bedolla says that he receives enormous support when he introduces his startup at tech meetups because the product is not a new technology, but rather it is a paradigm shift in a market that is aching for a solution.
"The inspiration for the company is based on an altruistic focus," says Bedolla. "As we reach critical mass, we can counter the effects of misinformation. And in doing so we have a proven market, the credibility market, that has an unlimited upside. For investors, it's compelling because it's not just a needed product, but because it also has altruistic qualities."
Just as home buyers need a solid credit score to secure a loan for a house, commenters and journalists can also benefit from having measurable veracity, as HowTru calls it. Commenters are incentivized to leave thoughtful and valid comments because their own personal veracity score depends on it. If a user validates a story, and several others agree and also validate it, the overall score of that story will rise over time, and that change in veracity funnels back to the commenters that supported it. On the other hand, if a commenter validates a story that the majority of users refute, the commenter loses points in their credibility score.
As the personal brand of journalists becomes increasingly more influential in how readers choose which news they will consume, a service that can provide a metric for validity of authors and outlets could have a huge impact on online journalism. Online outlets have been trying to solve issues surrounding anonymity and accountability within their comment systems, and HowTru's proposed innovations could be an excellent solution.
Based in Denver, Bedolla has enthusiastic help from pro bono employees from San Francisco, California to Portland, Maine. They've even managed to outsource some of their early development to coders in Ethiopia while they bootstrap their company. They currently have nearly $400,000 in funding, but through a deal with their investors they have agreed to not touch the money until they raise $500,000.
Personally I find HowTru to be a truly intriguing idea, one that could weed out poor journalism while promoting the most credible writers and commenters. Their initial success also provides a valuable lesson to early stage startups: the best ideas are not always completely new concepts, but rather practical solutions to existing problems using existing technology. A quote by financier and presidential advisor Bernard M. Baruch displayed on the HowTru website does an excellent job of summing up the company's motivation.
"Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong in his facts."
Discuss
@robinwauters I made a bookmarklet for twitter blackbird: http://bit.ly/aL4QVG (3 steps instead of 9 to embed a tweet), could be useful 4 uWed May 05 07:18:34 via Tweetie
Xavier Damman
xdamman
As we had noted earlier, Twitter yesterday launched a new tool that allows you to easily embed tweets into a website or blog post. The tool, called Blackbird Pie, simply asks you for the URL of a tweet and lets you “Bake it,” meaning you get a preview of how it will look on the Web and a box with the code you need in it. Simple enough as far as I’m concerned.
But as Xavier Damman from Publitweet points out, it takes eight steps (not 9 like he says in his tweet) to use Blackbird Pie for embeddable tweets, and that is just unacceptable. Well, it’s acceptable, but there should be an easier way.
Enter Xavier’s bookmarklet, which you can drag to your bookmark bar and click whenever you’re looking at a tweet you’d like to embed. Three steps instead of eight. Will save you a couple of microseconds. No need to say thanks.
Also cool: if you use the bookmarklet instead of Blackbird Pie, the embedded tweet will display the exact date and time of tweets instead of “X minutes ago”, which is admittedly rather pointless as it doesn’t update the timestamp going forward.
Bonus: when you open a Twitter profile (say @TechCrunch) or a list (say the @TechCrunch team), you can click the bookmarklet to make new links appears alongside all tweets on that page. Simply click that link and voilà, the embed code appears.
Here’s An Easier, Faster Way To Embed Tweets
- (jeff)isageekSocialMash:> Here’s An Easier, Faster Way To Embed Tweets - @robinwauters I made a bookmarklet for twitter blackbir... http://ow.ly/17h13U
- Jim WilkersonSocialMash:> Here’s An Easier, Faster Way To Embed Tweets - @robinwauters I made a bookmarklet for twitter blackbir... http://ow.ly/17h13V
- Jim Wilkerson
Online bookmarking tools haven't really changed much over the last few years. Most services still present you with a basic list of tagged links. Pearltrees, however, is taking a radically different approach. The Paris-based company organizes links as a collection of "pearls" that are connected by a mind map-like tree graph. Starting today, you can also embed these collections in your own blog posts.
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The company, which launched a new beta version of its service last month, notes that these new embeds will give bloggers and journalists the ability to present their readers with a new way to explore a topic in depth. The Flash-based Pearltrees embed opens up new links in an overlay, so readers stay on your site while they are exploring your links.
A tool like this can come in handy when you want to show the research that went into a longer article, for example, or whenever you want to give your readers more background and context than you could pack into a simple list of links in a blog post. Embedding your Pearltrees map is as easy as copying and pasting a short code snipped from the service's embed dialog.
Pearltrees also gives you the ability to share links with other users in real time and to subscribe to other users' collections. This makes it easy to collaborate with others and it also allows you to mash up the research collections of other Pearltrees users.
To get started, simply sign up for an account here. Pearltrees offers plugins for both Firefox and Chrome, as well as a basic bookmarklet that is compatible with all other browsers.
For more details about Pearltrees, also have a look at our in-depth review of the service's features.
Discuss
How to "Like" Anything on the Web (Safely) http://bit.ly/aODKvv
Worried about Facebook "like" fraud? You should be. Thanks to Facebook's overly simple implementation of the new Facebook Like Button, anyone can post a "Like This" button on their website pointing to any URL of their choosing. In other words, users can be tricked into liking websites they're not even on. You can bet that enterprising spammers have already figured out how to use this technology for their own nefarious purposes.
If you want a safer solution, there's a new Facebook "like" bookmarklet you can use instead.
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The bookmarklet was created by Kyle Bragger, formerly the CTO of Cork'd, a social networking site for wine lovers, and now working on his own project, Forrst, an invite-only community for developers and designers.
Not only does using the bookmarklet he created protect you from "like fraud" as described here, it's also a handy way to like anything on the Internet - even if there's no "like" button available on that page.
To use the bookmarklet, just drag this link to your bookmarks bar in your web browser: Like-o-matic.
Once there, you can click it anytime you're on a page or website you like.
Like ReadWriteWeb, for example? Click the button. Although there's no "Facebook Like Button" for the website as a whole (you can, however, find us on Facebook), you'll be given the opportunity to "like" ReadWriteWeb.
After clicking the bookmarklet once, you'll see a message appear at the top of the screen: "Be the first of your friends to like this." Click the button with the thumbs up on it and it will register your like on Facebook and post it to your News Feed.
That's all there is to it.
By using the bookmarklet instead of the like buttons on the websites themselves, you can be sure that your Facebook "like" will be pointing to the real thing. Plus, it allows you to "like" anything you want - even a site that isn't using Facebook buttons. Nice!
Discuss
RT @rww: How to "Like" Anything on the Web (Safely) http://bit.ly/aODKvv
- industwetrustHow to "Like" Anything on the Web (Safely)
- Sarah PerezHow to "Like" Anything on the Web (Safely) http://j.mp/bhgFrG
- Maddie GrantA simple bookmarklet to add Facebook Like button functionality to any page you’re visiting. Nice.
RT @sachaqs: Testing the new Nambu beta for mac: browser bookmarklet and global helper. Awesome features! http://bit.ly/9XHWJs
[Direct Link]Back in Windows XP there was an important Power toy created to enable ClearType for users of LCD screens. Now it’s standard in Windows 7, but you may not know about it. So let’s take a look.
Access Clear Type in Windows 7
Click on the Start Menu and type cleartype into the search box and hit Enter.
It should be enabled by default, but if not just check the box to enable it.
Now, in the next step, you can enable it for two or more monitors if you have them. Or you could select an individual one if it works best for one but not another. Some people might want it turned off if they have a CRT and a LCD monitor for example.
Now you can go through the wizard and pick out what resolution works best for the monitor(s) you choose.
Just select the text in each step that looks best for you.
Then finish it out…
This is a cool trick you may not have known about that already exists in Windows 7, and it can definitely help you get the best look of the text on each screen if you’re using different monitors! You may have to experiment with some different settings to get what works best for you.
If you’re using Vista or XP check out our article on tuning clear type font settings in Vista/XP.
| Similar Articles | Productive Geek Tips |
| Latest Software Reviews | Tinyhacker Random Tips |
"Back in Windows XP there was an important Power toy created to enable ClearType for users of LCD screens. Now it’s standard in Windows 7, but you may not know about it. So let’s take a look."
- LANjackalIf you’ve encountered a problem where your Firefox installation no longer scrolls when you use the up or down arrow keys, and even the Home or End keys don’t work anymore, there’s an easy fix.
When this problem happens, you’ll notice that moving the arrow keys around just moves the cursor around the page. Annoying!
The problem is because you tripped the Caret Browsing feature at some point, and accidentally hit Yes.
To fix this, you can just hit the F7 key again. Or, if you want to do it the about:config way, filter by accessibility.browsewithcaret and make sure it’s set to false.
Remember, you can double-click on any boolean value to toggle between true and false.
| Similar Articles | Productive Geek Tips |
| Latest Software Reviews | Tinyhacker Random Tips |
"To fix this, you can just hit the F7 key again. Or, if you want to do it the about:config way, filter by accessibility.browsewithcaret and make sure it’s set to false."
- LANjackalRT @hansveld: @davewiner I've added the Readability bookmarklet to the iPad using the steps described here: http://bit.ly/ahWoT0 Works great...
[Direct Link]
Create Instant QR Codes with a Bookmarklet [Bookmarklet]
- Mark O'Neill15 iPad Apps We Can't Wait to Download http://bit.ly/bzrkVp
Slightly ahead of schedule and to the surprise of many developers, Apple opened up the iPad store earlier today. As of now, there are already over 2,000 iPad apps available for instant download in the store. Some or iPad-only apps, but there is also a large number are of universal iPad and iPhone apps. Here at ReadWriteWeb, we are obviously very excited about the launch of the iPad store and have been scouring the App Store for the most interesting apps. Here are some of our favorites apps so far.
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One caveat here, of course, is that we haven't been able to test any of these apps. 
We plan to test them all over the next few weeks, but for now, our recommendations are mostly based on the reputation of the developers and the screenshots that are available in the App Store.
Wall Street Journal (free download; $17.99/month subscription)
We want to test this app, if only to see the Wall Street Journal's subscription model in action. While the app will feature some free articles, full access will come at a hefty price: $17.99 a month. The design is very close to a standard newspaper layout.
New York Times Editor's Choice (free)
There is no full-blown iPad app for the New York Times in the store yet, so for now, this is the closest we will come to seeing the NYTimes' strategy for the iPad. This app will only feature a selection of stories.
Instapaper Pro ($4.99)
Instapaper is a long-time favorite of the RWW team. A bookmarklet or browser plugin lets you save the text of any newspaper article or blog post you find online and lets you read it offline in a distraction-free, text-centric view. The iPad app is basically a bigger version of the iPhone app (with the necessary layout changes). That's really all it takes to make us want to buy this app (though if you already own Instapaper Pro for the iPhone, this is a free upgrade that's probably already on your computer).
NetNewsWire ($9.99)
At $9.99, NetNewsWire, a very popular feed reader for the Mac and iPhone, is rather expensive. On the other hand, reading feeds on the large iPad screen is surely going to be more fun than on the iPhone. NetNewsWire syncs with your Google Reader account.
iWork Apps ($30)
We assume that other developers will soon offer similar office suites for the iPad, but for now, Apple's own iWork suite looks like a winner to us. Being able to do Keynote presentations from the iPad will surely win over quite a few skeptics.
Roambi (free)
We really liked the Roambi iPhone app when it was released in early 2009. The company allows business users to connect and manipulate sales data while on road (including Salesforce.com integration. On the iPhone, this was already a very visual app and judging from the screenshots, the iPad app will be even prettier and - we hope - even more functional.
Things for iPad ($19.99)
Things is a great to-do list app with a focus on the Getting Things Done methodology. It's a perennial favorite on the Mac and iPhone and the new iPad app looks like a winner as well. The additional screen estate makes it much easier to switch between lists and move items around, for example.
Currently missing from the iPad in the to-do list category are Todo for iPad and Omnifocus for iPad. Maybe these will come in a later update before Saturday.
Twitterific for iPad (free)
Twitterific was an early favorite on the iPhone, though the latest version of Tweetie stole some of the Twitterific's user base. Tweetie hasn't made an appearance in the App Store yet, but Twitterific is already getting a lot of positive press and the screenshots in the App Store definitely make it look like the must-have Twitter app for the iPad
Netflix (free download; monthly subscription)
Earlier this morning, we weren't sure if a streaming video app from Netflix was just an April Fool's joke or real. Well - now we know and this looks like it could be one of the killer apps for the iPad. After all, if the iPad is really a device for surfing the Internet on the couch, what better way to compliment that by just using it to watch TV shows and movies on the couch, too.
ABC Player (free)
Speaking of watching TV shows. Thanks to the ABC app, you can now catch up on the latest (and last) episodes of Lost without having to turn on your TV.
Head over to the next page for our favorite music, blogging and star-gazing apps.
Groove Maker (free and $9.99 version)
The iPhone fostered a small scene of underground cell phone musicians and the iPad's larger screen and faster processor (for creating those virtual synths) should make for an even better experience. Groove Maker is a loop-based app for creating electronic, dance and hip-hop, but other developers are also working on piano apps and complex virtual synthesizers for the iPad.
Pandora (free)
Thanks to the iPad's bigger screen, Pandora's iPad app will give you more info about the artist you are listening to. Besides that, no computer is really complete without access to Pandora.
WordPress (free)
Even though WordPress and others released blogging apps for the iPhone, the device's screen and keyboard were just a bit too small for a full-blown blogging application. On the iPad, however, screen estate is not an issue and the WordPress app now looks like you could actually compose a full blog post on it. Copy and paste, adding links and pictures might still be difficult, though.
Weather Station Pro ($1.99)
Without a doubt, there will be quite a few weather apps for the iPad. We like this one because of its minimalist design (and, we have to admit, because the developer also created our iPhone app and is currently working on an iPad app for ReadWriteWeb as well).
Star Walk for iPad ($2.99)
Augmented reality astronomy apps were already a hit on the iPhone, but Star Walk shows off the potential of these apps on the iPad as well. Visually stunning.
Brushes ($9.99)
A screen this big is made for drawing apps and Brushes looks like the prettiest of the bunch so far. We are also looking forward to seeing more photo-manipulation apps and other drawing and sketching apps on the iPad.
15 iPad Apps We Can't Wait to Download
- Sarah Perez15 iPad Apps We Can't Wait to Download
- Sean McBride15 iPad Apps We Can't Wait to Download
- Mike FruchterFiled under: Utilities, Productivity, Mobile
Instapaper might be your reason to buy an iPad originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Fliptop Makes RSS Easy, More Configurable http://bit.ly/aUsqwf
Fliptop, a new content subscription service, is one of several companies presenting at this week's DEMO conference in Palm Springs. Among a large group of startups, this was one of the first to catch my eye, making me think "wow, I need that!" In short, what Fliptop offers is a simple way to subscribe to a website's content. But unlike traditional RSS feeds, which just offer a direct feed which must be added to an RSS reader like Google Reader or FeedDemon, Fliptop's service provides more features, like the option to filter content by keyword, follow only select topics or categories and the ability to receive email digests of the just content you're interested in.
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The Fliptop service is available in two formats - one designed for website publishers and another designed for web surfers. The first provides an embeddable button that publishers can add to their site. When clicked, this button prompts the user as to which topics they want to follow. A sports site could set it up so fans could just check boxes next to their favorite team names, for instance. Another option below the checkboxes lets you further refine the content you choose by keyword filters. So, here on ReadWriteWeb.com, for example, you could follow news about "mobile, real-time web, apple" etc. (Keywords are separated by commas).
After picking your options, you click "Next" and then choose how you want to be alerted - either via a traditional RSS feed or by email, Twitter, Facebook, or SMS text. If choosing the email option, you can even configure how often you want to be alerted - once per day, once a week or immediately.
However, you don't have to rely on publishers to begin using Fliptop before you can try it. A browser bookmarklet is available which lets you drag-and-drop a Fliptop button to your web browser's bookmarks. Click the new "Subscribe" button it creates when you're on any page that has an RSS feed (look for the orange icon in the address bar of your browser). When clicked, you can configure how you want to follow that site. At the moment, your only options here are email or RSS.
The service is simple, incredibly easy to use and useful for anyone who feels overwhelmed by their news feeds. (Gadget blog readers, rejoice! This product is perfect for you!).
The only downside to the service as it stands right now is that it requires you to fill out CAPTCHAs when signing up. These spam blocking tools force you to type in the blurry words you see into a text box before confirming your subscription. And if requesting an email subscription, you then have to click yet another confirmation sent to you via email to assure Fliptop that you really did want to subscribe. We appreciate that the company is looking out for us, but two confirmations is at least one too many for what should be a speedier service, in our opinion.
The real question now is whether something like Fliptop will encourage more people to follow a website's content via an automated mechanism, be it a customized, filtered RSS feed or an email digest. The idea of subscribing to a website directly via an RSS feed is one that, for whatever reason, never quite caught on with the general public. However, those same folks probably use RSS without even knowing it - like when they follow their favorite blog on Facebook, for example. The updates they track there are, in most cases, automated via RSS technology.
Fliptop could potentially reach these same sort of non-technical users too, thanks to its simple terminology (publisher buttons say "follow" not "subscribe"), a clean layout and easily understandable filtering options. Now it's just a matter of waiting to see if any web publishers pick this up and place it on their site.
Discuss
Fliptop Makes RSS Easy, More Configurable
- LouCypherFliptop Makes RSS Easy, More Configurable
- Sarah PerezFliptop Makes RSS Easy, More Configurable
- Niklas SjostromGoogle is replacing SearchWiki with stars in Google search. The stars sync with Google Bookmarks, so you can get access to them wherever you go. Once you star something, it shows up above the search results:
Pretty cool. But I discovered an extra little tip. If you go to Google Bookmarks, you can find a bookmarklet that will let you bookmark random pages as you surf. Then you can edit the bookmarks — for example, I added the words “Chrome market share” to three different metrics companies that I check each month:
The cool thing is that if your search matches the text that you added, that bookmark will show up in your search results:
This can be really handy. For example, at the start of every month I do the search [chrome market share] to bring up this blog post I did so that I can find the links to the three metrics services. But now I have those services bookmarked and I can access them right from the search results. Good stuff.
By the way, did you notice that unusual Google logo in the image above? There’s a great Chrome extension that lets you pick a custom Google logo. Right now I’m using the Google logo for the Tapati Rapa Nui festival in Chile. (Full-disclosure: a member of my team, Tiffany Lane, wrote the Chrome extension to change the Google doodle.)
Google stars for bookmarking
- Adam Sherk
We are crawling the Internet all the time; monitoring the latest trends and technologies, seeking, discovering. If you’re like me, during your web travels you often come across treasures you want to share. Some deserve a tweet; some belong on your pro blog; others on your personal blog. But sharing what you find can be time consuming and hinder your productivity.
Posterous takes care of this problem for you by making it extremely easy to post content to the social media apps you use.
Doriano previously described how you can use email to share photos through Posterous, but I’m going to talk about how easy it is to use the Posterous bookmarklet to share any content across multiple platforms.
To create a Posterous account, you don’t fill out a registration form, you send an email. Then you get a confirmation email that will take you back to Posterous to add your social apps accounts to the service.
Once you’ve added the accounts to which you want to be able to post, the next thing I recommend you do is install the bookmarklet. On the “Manage” page, under the “Posts” tab (the default) scroll down and find the “Posting” box. Click the bookmarklet link and follow the very simple instructions to add the Posterous bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmark toolbar.
Now go to some content that you want to share and click the bookmarklet in your bookmark bar. In the window that pops up, you can customize the info you’re about to post:
Posterous grabs images, videos and sometimes text from the site and lets you pick which you want to use. You can add your comments and click “Post” if you want this item to go to all your social media accounts, or you can click “Advanced Options” and pick and choose which accounts to post to. For example, I only want this link to go to my Twitter account and a personal blog:
Tips: If you want to use a specific text excerpt from an article, select the text before clicking the bookmarklet, and it’ll be added to the image/excerpt options. Choose it, and it’s neatly inserted as a blockquote. If you want to send the item to a blog where you have categories, in the title field, type ((tag: Category1, Category2)), for example, and it will automatically be categorized on your blog.
Note: Unless you want the cute puppy video you sent to your family blog, the excerpt of the article on agile programming you sent to your pro blog, and the photo of Freddie Mercury in an eyeball suit you just tweeted all to appear together in sweet cacophony on your Posterous site, you need to create multiple Posterous sites. This is easy to do, and you only have to add your social media accounts once. Then when you choose Advanced Options in the bookmarklet, a drop-down lets you pick the Posterous site you want the item to appear on:
I have only tested sharing with Posterous to a blog, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you post something to Twitter or LinkedIn, Posterous inserts a link that takes people to your Posterous site, not to the original site online. I assume the same is true of other social media apps, too. On a blog, the links go to the original item wherever it appeared online. I recommend testing Posterous a little bit at a time to see how it works for you.
I’ve only talked about the bookmarklet here, but do check out the email options. The first thing I did with Posterous was take a photo with my iPhone and email it to Posterous, which automatically autoposted it to every service I’d added. Doriano explained how to email content to specific sites in his article, so check that out as it’s actually kind of hard to find the info on the Posterous site.
Have you tried Posterous yet? What tools do you use for social sharing?
Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Social Media in the Enterprise
Google dips its toe into TV programming searches, netbooks' market share is growing, Twitter and Facebook gear up for geolocation, and researchers make the case for fat as a sixth taste sense.
Love it!
- Jesse Staycool! extension's first success!
- FranciscoWell, not sure it's working :-) I'm running OS X Chromium nightly, and clicking it doesn't seem to do anything.
- Jesse StayBut I like having the FF logo next to my URL bar, so that's a success :-)
- Jesse StayIt's right next to the Facebook logo
- Jesse Stayheh, um. not sure how to um, debug it?. As I said it's very simple. it loads a background.html page containing a few lines and the orig. bookmarklet: chrome.browserAction.onClicked.addListener(function(tab) {
var action_url = "javascript:void((function(){var%20e=document.createElement('script');e.setAttribute('type','text/javascript');e.setAttribute('src','http://friendfeed.com/share/bookmarklet/javascript');document.body.appendChild(e)})())";
chrome.tabs.update(tab.id, {url: action_url});
});
// EDIT: ok that's messy. here: http://tinypaste.com/6081b Anybody know hoe to make it work on OSx?
- FranciscoWorks fine on Mac OS X 5.0.335 dev channel release. It looks like extensions are disabled on the extensions website and on Chrome internal pages, but if you go to like http://google.com the bookmarklet pops up just fine. You can try to remove the %20 in the action_url string, but removing it didn't seem to affect my usage either way.
- Mark TrappGood work, Francisco.
- MicahWorks GREAT!
- Reformed GoadkickerFriendfeed Bookmarklet Mock - Google Chrome extension gallery
- Kol Tregaskes"Just a cute-looking button for that bookmarklet we love."
- Kol TregaskesThanks, Micah.
- FranciscoActually, it seems to work, just wasn't working on the link to the extension. Seems to work fine on other pages though so I think we're good.
- Jesse StayNeat
- ♻ ǝuǝƃnǝGreat to hear, Jesse. Btw. What does the facebook button do? :-)
- FranciscoFrancisco, here's the Facebook one: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/lkdedmbpkaiahjjibfdmpoefffnbdkli - from what I hear it was written at a Facebook hackathon by an intern there.
- Jesse StayI really like the small scrolling bar they styled there. Sweet.
- FranciscoIf you could combine FFcheck with the bookmarklet, that would be very useful
- Shey, Jamaican of FFand friendfeedTranslate - if someone does this, I suggest using kynetx to do it. It will give you one jquery-based language to write extensions with one code base across most browsers: http://kynetx.com
- Jesse Stay*ears perk up*
- MicahJesse, are you an advisor to kynetx (I see they're based in Lehi)? Do you know what their business model is - have they stated anything as such publicly. It certainly looks interesting.
- MicahMicah, I am not an advisor, nor do I have any vested interest. I just really like what they're doing. Their business model is in building custom apps for brands interested, or in consulting. I'm not sure what other types of deals they do. Their developer platform is free though. You can ask @windley or @fulling on Twitter though and I'm sure they can answer more detailed questions than I'm aware.
- Jesse StayOf note, @windley wrote the Digital Identity book for O'Reilly, and has a very strong identity background. I fully expect them to go full force into the identity realm with what they're doing. Imagine completely customized context (such as this extension, but even more), through extensions, action cards, and bookmarklets, across all browsers.
- Jesse Stay@Shey do you have a link to ffcheck? never heard of it. I think it is doable. ;-) as for ff translate ...
- Francisco"This applet will have access to your private data and web history on all web sites" .... err, no thanks, lol
- Freudian SlippyLol, if it's doing so, I had no idea. @Slippy
- FranciscoObviously it's just a bit of poorly-worded google boilerplate. "will have access" should probably read "may have access"
- Freudian SlippyWow, just what i needed, thanks Francisco!
- Majento@Slippy ¬¬ haa I should have seen it coming! I'm glad it's useful, Majento.
- Francisco
You probably already knew about IMDB for its movie reviews on upcoming, recent and even older movies, but when you have that wide of a movie selection available, it’s good to have more streamlined ways to help you narrow down which films are worth your while and which most likely aren’t. Good starting places would be movie recommendation sites (such as Criticker or Filmaster), places that aggregate movie ratings from different sites, or reputable sources’ guides to the best and worst movies of all time.
Here’s our list of the latter, which includes the better known sites (that you read about on Saikat’s skillfully written free e-book, The Awesome Internet Guide to the Movie Addict) where you can find great lists to the top (and not-so-much) movies.
The site name refers to movies that suffer from a rating of less than 60%, while the movies that get good ratings and reviews are called fresh (tomatoes). Since it has such a large number of reviews, it of course has compiled lists for movie buffs who are eager to watch excellent movies, and want to know which are the worst movies of all time.
For superb films, RT has ranked the best 50 films of all time in the form of a countdown to keep you more excited (though you can skip clicking on Next 49 times with PageZipper’s bookmarklet).
RT also has the top 50 TV series-to-movie adaptations of all time in the form of a countdown as well.
RT also honors every year’s best-reviewed movies (by users and RT staff critics) with the Annual Golden Tomato Awards. On this page, you can browse best-reviewed movies by year, genre, release site (UK, Australia, limited release) and user rating.
Now when it comes to bad movies, RT knows terrible films so much it even made a whooping list of the worst 100 films of the 2000-2009 decade, titled Worst of the Worst.
For a list of each year’s least favorably-reviewed films, RT’s Golden Tomato Awards, which were mentioned above to honor best reviewed films, apparently also honors Moldy films; which are the worst of the worst for a specific year.
If you visit RT frequently, be sure to make use of RT’s feed which will bring you the latest on upcoming movies and release dates.
IMDb features a gigantic list with the 250 best-reviewed films by IMDb user votes. While RT and IMDb both take into account users’ votes to create these lists, IMDb also packs 200 more films in the list and features commercially successful movies so you can browse the lists of box office-topping movies in the U.S. and UK by week and of all time. You can also browse movies by most DVD rentals, by decades and even gender.
IMDb also has a list, named IMDb Bottom 100, of the 100 lowest-rated movies that have gotten the most votes from IMDb users.
If you frequently check Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, check out these Firefox addons which are designed to liven up your RT and IMDb visits.
Metacritic offers a Metascore (where the maximum is 100) for each movie based on reviews by national critics, and also displays user scores (with a maximum of 10) for each movie. However, for the lists the site compiled to present the best movies of the decade and of all time, MC only takes into account the Metascores.
This list of the best movies of the decade actually contains many foreign and indie films so MC also supplies us with a list of the Best-Reviewed Wide-Release Films of the Decade, 2000-09, and also a second part of the article that’s dedicated to sorting the best movies by genres and categories. And now onto the list of all-time winners.
While this is an impressive list with 200 of the all-time high scoring movies, the site also compiled a humongous list of the 200 worst-reviewed movies of all-time (since it’s actually 100 more than either Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb’s terrible movie lists, now you have more movies to avoid).
As if those lists from the sources above aren’t enough, New York Times’ Film Critics have published an astounding alphabetical list on NYT’s website, which is actually extracted from a book, The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.
If you’re into classic movies, you will definitely enjoy this list as it seems to include a lot of older movies (there’s only about 37 or so titles from the 2000’s).
When it comes to moving and thought-provoking films, the Academy (of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) might know a thing or two. Its official site lists all the movies that have earned the award of Best Picture from 1927 and on.
Two TIME magazine film critics created this easier-to-manage list of 100 best movies, sorted alphabetically here.
If you want a general list with reviews of the best movies aggregated from different sources, check this Wikipedia article.
Maybe you’re trying to avoid wasting your precious time, money and effort the next time you get a movie, or you’re looking to have a fun night with your friends laughing at some bad acting. Whatever your reason, you won’t be disappointed with Empire’s guide to the 50 “most disastrous films ever made.”
According to its site, the Golden Raspberry (Razzie for short) Awards have been presenting “dis-honors for Worst Achievements in Film since 1980.” Although voters include journalists, film industry professionals and users of the website, the Razzies are meant to be a “light-hearted parody of award shows in general (and the Oscars in particular)” according to the author’s site. Either way, the list of the movies that got recognized as Worst Pictures is worth a look.
Here’s a general list of the worst-reviewed movies on Wikipedia, aggregated from a number of sources.
If you’re feeling as excited as I am after such a variety of movie recommendation sites, you can start watching movies on the web (if you can’t play those movies on legal movie sites such as Hulu because you live outside the US, read this piece on how to solve that), create your own Top Movies of All Time list and even blog about your movie-watching experience. Believe it or not, this man was recently featured on ESPN for trying to watch IMDB’s top 250 movies in 1 year.
Feel free to comment on your own list of recommended movies and have fun watching!
Photo credit: Andres Rueda
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Top Guides To The Best And Worst Movies Of All Time
- ◄ani625Ξ
Twones started life as a FriendFeed-type service that aggregated various music services into a single stream, which we dubbed a social music feed when we first caught wind of it.
Problem was, the startup says, since users generally couldn’t play the music on their site and were constantly being directed to third-party websites and apps for streaming, people never really got that FriendFeed experience that would compel them to come back.
The Dutch company figured they needed to do something else, and the result of their overhauled strategy will be going live in alpha mode this morning. The short version: it’s Delicious-type bookmarking meets StumbleUpon-type discovery for online music.
The service will be going live within the next few hours, but here’s what I gathered from the demo they gave me last night.
Essentially, Twones will now focus on what it refers to as the “Music Bar”, a browser add-on / bookmarklet that lets users bookmark music that is being streamed on other websites or MP3 blogs and discover music others have bookmarked in a fun way. The Music Bar will debut as a Firefox extension, but Chrome and Internet Explorer versions are near completion, I’m told.
When installed, you can use Twones to bookmark music on thousands of supported websites, manage your virtual collection in a sidebar that looks a lot like Delicious, and share music with others in Twones or on services like Twitter and Facebook. In addition, any music you stream can be scrobbled to Last.fm so you can keep track of it there.
Finally, there’s an ‘Explore’ button that basically lets people jump to any random track that is in Twones’ database – no need to install the Music Bar even for that. This can be a great way to discover new music, but arguably there is a need for some kind of controller that lets you explore tracks within a certain genre, at least.
The problem with Twones is that, since it revolves almost entirely around music that’s being shared online elsewhere, you’re never quite sure if the songs you’re so carefully bookmarking are going to be there tomorrow, because the source could be gone for whatever reason. The startup says it’s working on ways to downsize that issue.
Twones aims to make money from advertising, affiliate revenues, maybe a premium version down the line, and/or as an analytics service for online music sharing (kind of what Bit.ly does for general links today). They haven’t really figured out which path to take right now, but the startup says the $500k seed funding it raised earlier is enough to buy them time to do so, as they are very ‘cost efficient’ in the sense that there’s no need to store a gigantic amount of music on their servers, seal license deals or run a complex content distribution network.
All in all, I could see myself using Twones for sure, but it feels more like a feature than a solid business to me. We’ll see if the next iterations of the service will make me change my mind.
The New Twones: Delicious Meets StumbleUpon For Online Music http://bit.ly/9hnxNH
- Mike HochanadelThe New Twones: Delicious Meets StumbleUpon For Online Music
- Mike Hochanadel
Google Tries to Get Some Buzz for Wave With ‘Wave This’ Feature
- Kol Tregaskes"The new feature allows users to add a bookmarklet to their browser that will create a new Wave from any web page, embedding a link inside the Wave so that other users can discuss it. If the page contains a video or image, that will be embedded as well — in a playable format, in the case of videos — so that users can check it out before discussing it. And Google has also provided web designers with an easy way to add “Wave This” buttons to their pages, and/or to produce clickable URLs that will generate a new Wave discussion."
- Kol TregaskesThis sounds like an interesting feature, so will these posts automatically become public posts?
- Kol TregaskesHow do you make Google Waves public now? Is it not by adding public@a.googlewave.com to the wave any more? When I do all I get is "Some participants are from outside googlewave.com.".
- Kol TregaskesAh it's public@a.gwave.com instead.
- Kol TregaskesFirst wave shared with the new bookmarklet: https://wave.google.com/wave/waveref/googlewave.com/w+LmD-KrZkMZw
- Kol Tregaskes