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Posts Tagged ‘Web Today’

With New Features, Seesmic Web Blurs the Line between Web and Desktop Twitter Clients

Seesmic will release a major update of its web-based Twitter client Seesmic Web today that will introduce a number of new features like drag and drop list management, TweetMeme integration, threaded conversations and a new way to view and manage your retweets. Seesmic Web now also includes a very handy new contact manager for Twitter.

With this new version, Seesmic Web continues to blur the line between desktop and web-based Twitter clients.

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Drag and Drop List Creation

The nicest new feature in Seesmic Web is the ability to drag and drop contacts to any list. Compared to TweetDeck and other desktop tools, this makes managing and creating lists a lot easier and makes for a more efficient workflow.

Contact Manager

Another interesting new feature is the contact manager, which allows you to quickly get information about your followers. The contact manager displays the basic information from the user’s profile: number of followers and tweets, favorite tweets and information about the lists this user follows. In addition, Seesmic also displays the names of this user’s top 3 most publicly contacted friends on Twitter.

Better Integration with Third-Party Tools

One area the Seesmic team has focused on for this release is the integration of third-party tools. A small icon appears next to every shortened link now and clicking on this link will bring up some basic information about the link, including the name of the site the link will take you to and the number of retweets (powered by Tweetmeme).

Seesmic Web now also allows users to share pictures from the web interface and also offers picture previews right inside the app for pictures that were shared on most of the popular Twitter photo services.

Geolocation

As long as you use a browser that supports Google Gears, Seesmic Web now also makes it easier to share your location. Whenever you write a new tweet, you can choose to attach your location to this message. Just make sure you have the location feature turned on in your Twitter settings. As we reported last month, only a very small number of Twitter users currently makes use of this feature, which isn’t a surprise, given that only a handful of Twitter apps currently support this functionality. It’s good to see that Seesmic is making this feature a priority in its apps.

Verdict

Overall, the experience of using Seesmic Web comes very close to using a desktop client. There are a few features that are still missing in the web version (resizable columns, for example), but otherwise, Seesmic Web is a very good replacement for a desktop Twitter client.

Using a web-based client brings a number of advantages with it, including the absence of any Twitter rate limits. If you like the Seesmic interface give it a try in a site-specific browser like Fluid on the Mac or Mozilla’s Prism.

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Box.net: New Features and a New Phrase for the Cloud

Box.net acquired a young company last October called Increo Solutions. The features that this young company provided allow for viewing content of most any file and the ability to share and embed files across the Web.

Today, Box.net is announcing the integration of these features. Available today is the ability to upload and view most any file inside the Box.net environment. This is a feature similar to what is provided by Google Docs.

What appears to be a bit different is the embedded viewer, which allows people to share and embed all types of files anywhere on the Web.That feature will be available over the next few weeks.

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The experience for the new service is pretty smooth. The viewer loads nicely. You can see all the files, much like you would in Google Docs.

We’re curious about the ability to embed files anywhere on any web site. It seems like we are seeing the next generation of the extranet, where files and documents can be shared in a player that people can access online.

This can be helpful as most anyone can access online documents. But to download them poses issues for the enterprise and end user.

The enterprise does not always want its documents to be downloaded. Often, the person viewing the document would prefer just to view it online.

The workforce is changing. More people are working at home. Smartphones make it easier to get to documents, email and all the productivity and collaboration applications available to us. At IBM’s Lotusphere conference, we talked to one senior IT executive who said that collaboration applications are a necessity as about 10 percent of its 380,000 employees now work at home.

And that’s the value and huge potential for services such Box.net, Google Docs and the any other number of offerings from both enterprise collaboration companies and enterprise content management providers.

The people at Box.net have cleverly coined a new phrase for this new hybrid environment that allows for content storage and collaboration. They call it “Cloud Content Management.” It’s jargon for sure. We’re getting to that point where buzz word bingo can make you go nuts if you have to endure it for three days at a conference.

But for now, it seems to work.

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Cartoon: Friends With Benefits

The debate rages on over whether social networks (and Twitter, and YouTube, and, and, and) have any legitimacy in the workplace, fueled in no small part by people who sell tools to block them.

But employers who turn their noses up at Facebook et al. may well discover that their coveted Millennials (a.k.a. Generation Y, a.k.a. those damn kids who won’t get off your lawn) are happy to return the favour when recruiting time rolls around. Blocking access to Facebook looks a lot like those IT departments that wouldn’t install web browsers on your computer a decade ago… or external email access a few years earlier.

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And like those tools before them, the social web today is increasingly being used by companies and organizations for productive, collaborative work. So it’s not just a question of denying your HR department a hiring pool of cool kids. Blocking social media from your company can mean cutting yourself off from an important potential source of productivity, innovation and increased efficiency.

Of course, that’s an argument I like to make to people who haven’t just received a dozen Farmville notifications.

More Noise to Signal.

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Thumbtack Takes On RedBeacon As It Looks To Bring Local Service Providers Online

Last month we saw the launch of TechCrunch50 winner RedBeacon, the startup that lets you book local service providers directly from the web. Today it’s getting some strong competition from a new startup called Thumbtack, a local service booking engine that’s looking to offer both a comprehensive directory of providers and a greater degree of trust than you can find elsewhere.

Featurewise, Thumbtack is a mix between RedBeacon, Yelp, and OpenTable. Like RedBeacon, it lets you sign onto the site and issue a request for a service, which service providers can then bid on. CEO Marco Zappacosta says this portion of the service is nearly identical to RedBeacon, complete with a bidding engine for providers to set pricing. But Thumbtack also offers provider profiles, where these providers can list some of their specialties and price points. There’s also a section where you can book a service directly from a profile page as you would on OpenTable, complete with an availability calendar.

One of the biggest issues with local services like Thumbtack is the chicken-and-the-egg problem. These sites generally launch with a relatively small number of services, which means that users can have a hard time finding what they need (and without users, providers have little incentive to join the site). Thumbtack has tried to address this by spending the last year recruiting providers – at launch, the startup says it already has 10,000 of them, ranging from tutors and handymen to rap teachers and henna artists. Thumbtack is also using some clever incentives to get companies to sign up, like offering discounted business cards and other marketing materials. Zappacosta explains that Thumbtack can order these goods in bulk because they work with so many companies, and then pass the savings on to businesses that sign up.

The other big issue with this kind of site is the creepiness factor – many of these services involve inviting these people into your home (say, to fix a sink) or to a private event (wedding caterers). Along with user reviews, which are standard for this space, Thumbtack is taking a few extra steps. If a service provider is licensed they can post that in their profile, which Thumbtack will verify for free. Thumbtack is also giving providers a handful of premium verification options, such as electing to undergo a background check by a national agency (prices vary from $8 to $49 depending on the level of verification). Providers who successfully pass these checks are rewarded with badges on their profile pages, giving users more confidence in their service. Every provider is also run through the DOJ sex offender registry.

Thumbtack plans to make money by building a payment system off of PayPayl’s adaptive payments API. They’ll take a cut out of each transaction that occurs on the site, and for services that require in-person estimates (like plumbing) they’ll take a lead-gen payment. They’ll also be taking a cut every time a provider elects to get verified through one of the third party background check services. Thumbtack is offering its service nationwide beginning today, but as with RedBeacon their primary focus is the Bay Area, with plans to expand down the road.

Thumbtack is doing a lot of things right with its site – I particularly like the idea of having providers verified through background checks, which helps differentiate it from sites like Angie’s List, Craigslist, and RedBeacon (which lets providers display their licenses but doesn’t do background checks). That said, Thumbtack faces the same challenges that RedBeacon will have. For one, it’s going to have to train users to turn to their computers rather than their yellow pages for these local services. And while 10,000 businesses is a good start, it’s going to take a long time for the service to build up a robust community of users and reviews. The background checks are a nice touch, but they don’t do much for helping users discern which providers offer a high quality service.

For another service that’s taking a different approach to matching users with trustworthy service providers, check out Workstir, which provides suggestions based on your social graph.

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

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How Demand Media Produces 4,000 Pieces of Content a Day

In August we reviewed Demand Media, one of the largest producers of content on the Web
today. Wired Magazine recently compared Demand Media’s content business to Henry Ford’s production line for cars. Demand Media currently produces 4,000 new pieces of content a day. What’s more, it’s increasingly syndicating this content to media sites outside of its own network of vertical websites. In other words, Demand Media is becoming a very large content production factory for third party sites such as Yahoo.

In this follow-up post, we dive deeper into Demand Media’s content production model – and ask questions about the quality of the output.

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This article is based on an interview I conducted with several Demand Media executives, including founder Richard Rosenblatt, at the Web 2.0 Summit in September.

Will Demand Media Soon be a Household Name?

In our previous posts, we’ve noted that Demand Media is rapidly rising up the comScore list of the top 50 web properties in the U.S. – in July it was #24, in September it was #15. At this rate, Demand Media will soon be one of the top 10 Web properties in the U.S. – right up there with Amazon, eBay, Apple.

Think about that: how many of you had heard of Demand Media before this year? Amazon, eBay and Apple are all household names. Demand Media (along with another fast-growing mega content site, Answers.com) could be a household name soon too, if its current growth rate continues.

Behind this remarkable growth is a very large output of content each and every day, fueled by thousands of freelance writers and content creators.

So how does Demand Media produce so much content every day? 4,000 new articles a day is a quantum leap above the 20-30 new posts a day that the most feverish of professional blogs pump out.

About Demand Studios

Demand Media produces so much content with a system it calls Demand Studios. It’s a proprietary editorial system which is part human-processed and part automated.

The system starts with an automated process, crunching data and running it through an algorithm to identify story ideas that have the best chance of success. The algorithm factors in audience type, ability to attract advertising and potential for traffic.

For a written piece of content, human editors will then check the top story contenders. Potential titles are placed into a pool for writer selection. Once a writer picks up a story, it gets written up, goes through a fact checking and copy editing process (including a plagiarism check), and finally the editorial team approves the completed article. The article is eventually published and the writer gets paid.

This is a simplification of the Demand Studios process, which happens 4,000 times every day! The system appears to be an efficient mix of automation and human labor. As we’ll see on Page 2 of this post, the editorial process isn’t foolproof. But even so, the scale of this system is impressive.

As at the end of October, Demand Studios had created more than one million original pieces of content, both text articles and
videos. There are more than 6,000 active Demand Studios freelance creators – including writers, filmmakers, title proofers, copy editors.

In my meeting with Demand Media executives at the recent Web 2.0 Summit, I was told that an average of 11 people – and 15 unique roles – touch a piece of content as it flows through Demand Studios. The company argues that this, along with community rating of content, produces quality content.

But does it, actually?

Next Page: The Quality Question…

1,500 Newspapers Could Soon Support the AP’s Controversial hNews Microformat

Earlier this year, the Associated Press, together with the Media Standards Trust, introduced hNews, a new microformat for describing news content. HNews allows publishers to easily attach machine-readable news semantics to content on the web. Today, the AP announced the completion of the first draft of hNews. In addition, TownNews, announced that is will support hNews in its BLOX content management system, which is being used by over 1,500 newspapers in the US.

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The hNews Microformat

HNews, which is an extension of the hAtom format, only requires content users to specify information about the source organization. In addition, publishers can specify geo-information, a dateline element, license information and information about the code of ethics that governed the behavior of the author of a given site. At its most basic level, hNews, just like other microformats like hCard or hCalendar, allows search engines spiders to identify and read semantic information that would otherwise be buried within a text and would be hard to identify for search engines.

The Good and the Bad

It’s interesting that the AP, which has had a rather contemptuous relationship with the Internet, would push this standard, which would only make it easier for search engines and mash-up tools to discover and classify content. At the same time, though, hNews is also a central part of the AP’s controversial ‘news registry’ project, which is meant to track AP content across the web and to make sure that it is not misappropriated.

While the hNews microformat is definitely an interesting development, we can’t help but wonder about its role in the AP registry project. It’s interesting to see that today’s hNews press release makes no mention of this project (unlike the press release that announced the registry), so there is definitely some hope that the AP has given up on this scheme or is at least trying to downplay hNews’ importance in it.

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Facebook Connect expands beyond iPhone to mobile web

Facebook Connect is continuing its march across multiple mobile platforms as the company endeavors to make itself the primary identification system for the web.

The company announced Facebook Connect for the mobile web today at Nokia World in Stuttgart, giving app developers outside of the iPhone an easier way to reach the social network’s users and their data. The company released the first mobile version of Facebook Connect for Apple’s iPhone, but naturally had its sights on other devices as well. Availability on Nintendo’s DSi came earlier this month.

Facebook Connect, which was launched in 2008, is a way for outside applications to access a person’s profile information when they register or use a service. It makes it easier to sign-up for new programs, because you don’t have to re-enter all your information. And because Facebook has always emphasized real identities, it’s more likely to provide the developer (and advertisers) accurate information about user demographics. The more applications Facebook Connect can bleed into, the stronger the company’s chances are of building an advertising platform across the mobile web where they can connect brands with apps or sites fitting a target audience.

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Why The Brain Behind Hadoop Left Yahoo

Earlier this morning the Internet was buzzing with news first reported by The New York Times Bits blog: Doug Cutting was leaving Yahoo. In specific, he was leaving Yahoo for Cloudera, a small startup.

Cutting was one of Yahoo’s best and brightest, especially in the area of search and software infrastructure. He got to work on the largest installation of his wildly successful software Hadoop, an open source solution for dealing with huge data sets. Both Yahoo and Cloudera use Hadoop, so the work is the same on the most basic level. Why would he leave to join a 20-person team at a young company?

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Blame Bing?

The gut reaction of many, including Ashlee Vance in her Bits post, was to speculate about the effect that the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal had. With Bing now in charge and Yahoo search gutted, was it the reason behind Cutting’s departure?

In a phone conversation, Cloudera CEO Mike Olson staunchly denied any connection with the deal. He stated that the discussions with Yahoo about Cuttings move predated the search deal announcement.

While Yahoo representatives were unavailable to confirm the claim, Yahoo will definitely continue to do much of the work with Hadoop that was Cutting’s job, even if Bing is now front-and-center. In other words, the deal doesn’t affect him that drastically.

But if it wasn’t the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal that caused Cutting to depart, then what was it?

The Question of Scale

Both Yahoo and Cloudera use Hadoop for mission critical work. The latter built an entire business around it, and for Yahoo it’s become key to their operations. The difference is in scale.

In his blog post explaining the move, Cutting specifically states that he joined Yahoo in order to get the resources needed to scale the system so it could process the full Web.

Today, Yahoo uses what it claims is the largest implementation of Hadoop in the world, and a lot work that goes into it revolves around the scaling problems that so many clusters bring. Cloudera, on the other hand, is a relatively young startup working with a greater variety of clients. “Going forward, Cloudera presents an opportunity to work with a wider range of Hadoop users,” Cutting said.

A Proving Ground for Hadoop

Working with Cloudera might mean working on a smaller scale, but it presents the opportunity just about every passionate developer wants: an exciting (and potentially profitable) proving ground for their work. That proving ground is the appeal that a startup like Cloudera has, and it’s what serial entrepreneurs get addicted to.

Photo by Tim Bray, via Wikipedia

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