Tag Galaxy - a new way to search Flickr

TransferBigFiles

Obama Ads

Drop.io

Drop.io enables you to create simple private exchange points called "drops."

Viewzi

My money is on Craigslist

*More* button just added to Google Maps

firefly demo on scripting.com

PC World Reviews Email Center Pro

Applause: Blaine Cook

I'm clapping for Blaine Cook, x lead architect for Twitter, and I'd like to thank Blaine for all the hard work he put into making Twitter what it is today. Twitter may be experiencing some growing pains but I think Blaine is catching more flack for the problems this week than he deserves. Throw out a Tweet for Blain and thank him for all of his hard work - attach the hash tag #thankyoublainecook. Blain's website - includes phone number and email address if you're looking for his contact info.

Related: Silicon Alley Insider: Lead Architect Blaine Cook Out at Twitter

Email Center Pro Launch Week

In March, I blogged about a new product we're working on at Palo Alto Software called Email Center Pro.

I’m happy to announce that we’re officially launching Email Center Pro (ECP) this week. You can read more about the launch in my recent post on the Dead Simple Software blog. Or here, and here, and here.

If you missed the chance to grab a beta account, don’t freak out, you can still kick the tires by signing up for a FREE account. We're all very excited about this launch - so come on over and check it out.

Internet Tubes Plugged by 2010 Says AT&T

U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the Internet's current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010.

c|net AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by 2010

image from: Google Blogscoped

South Park Internet Stars Massacre

Email Center Pro

Palo Alto Software, the company I work for, is getting ready to launch a new product called Email Center Pro (ECP) next month and we're all very excited about it.

For more than a decade we've been focused on our business planning software product, Business Plan Pro, so some people will think ECP is a bit off course for us. So why did we decide to build it and take the chance? Simple. We think it can help people succeed in business and helping people succeed in business is what we're all about - it's our mantra. Business Plan Pro, for obvious reasons, has helped a lot of people succeed in business and we feel really great about that. ECP does it in a less direct way but it will help you improve the way you run your business and increase your chances of success.

Email Center Pro helps you manage shared email addresses like sales@yourcompany.com and info@yourcompany.com. It provides your team with easy access to these email accounts by creating web-based shared mailboxes that the whole team can access. You can assign messages, track conversations, add notes to messages, and use templates to respond to messages in consistent ways. You can efficiently manage more email and deliver better quality responses to your customers. See - it will help you improve the way you run your business. At Palo Alto Software, our customer services teams use ECP every day and our business is better for it.

You can learn more about the product by visiting the Email Center Pro website. If you're interested in a Beta account - leave a comment explaining why you need the product and I'll hook you up. 

twhirl

Google Apps - Sneaking up on MS Office?

I'm a big fan of Google Apps. If you check my browser history you'll see a lot of action around docs.google.com. I think Google Apps is sneaking up on the flank side of MS Office for the sneak attack - but I'm an early adopter and smart enough to realize that I don't represent the masses. MS Office still owns the lion's share of the office productivity market. Bernard Lunn, a self described "later early adopter," writes today on "Why Google Apps is a Serious Threat to Microsoft Office."

This is the perspective of a “skeptical, later early adopter”; the sort of person who Microsoft needs to retain and should have been able to retain easily. I don’t spend time on productivity tools that may at some date make me more productive, but which today are just a frustrating time sink. That describes the majority of people. MS Office can be annoying, but it does work. So any serious alternative has to offer a significant advantage and at the same time make adoption a total breeze. [continue reading]

In his post, Bernard does an excellent job of summarizing some of the key reasons more and more people are logging into docs.google.com. Collaboration, and mobile access are two of the key reasons.

Microsoft managers, patting themselves on the back for cooking-up a nice marketshare pie chart, need to keep one thing in mind - a lot of current Office users are dabbling in docs.google.com - at some point, the tipping point, they'll stop adding Office to the cart when they're configuring a new machine because docs.google.com is good enough. I have Office on both of my machines at the office and I spend more time in docs.google.com than I do Office.

More Photos on Facebook Than Flickr

Plaxo - Do you know You?

Do you know You? The Plaxo Connections system asked me that question today and I got a laugh out of it. It's a good question though in the context of the growing on-line "social" networking craze. How many of the Friends in your on-line social network really know You? Do you know You better as a result of the time you spend in on-line social networks? Unfortunately, I think most of today's on-line social networks, make it dfficult for you and your Friends to know You.

What's "Open Social" All About

If you haven't heard about Google's Open Social yet - you will shortly, it's launching tomorrow. Mark Andreesen's post today does a great job of summarizing what Open Social is all about. His social network company, Ning, is one of the participating "containers" so he's a biased but I think his post benefits from his "insider" perspective. I'm interested to see how Facebook reacts. Will Open Social strengthen or weaken your Friendverse?

-------------- 

In a nutshell, Open Social is an open web API that can be supported by two kinds of developers:

• "Containers" -- social networking systems like Ning, Orkut, LinkedIn, Hi5, and Friendster, and...
• "Apps" -- applications that want to be embedded within containers -- for example, the kinds of applications built by iLike, Flixster, Rockyou, and Slide.
  
  Source - BLOG.PMARCA.COM

--------------

Dare Obasango: OpenSocial: Google Proposes Widget & RESTful API Standards for Social Networking Sites "This is a brilliant move. - Dare Obasango"

Giga Om: OpenSocial, Google’s Open Answer to Facebook "OpenSocial attacks Facebook where it is the weakest (and the strongest): its quintessential closed nature. - Om Malik"

Anil Dash: Blackbird, Rainman, Facebook and the Watery Web "Think of the web, of the Internet itself, as water. Proprietary platforms based on the web are ice cubes. They can, for a time, suspend themselves above the web at large. But over time, they only ever melt into the water. And maybe they make it better when they do. - Anil Dash"

TechCrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/google/ 

palmit.commentary post: Friendverse Weakens

Updated 11/01/07

Mark Andreesen is back with another Open Social post today and this one includes an excellent screencast summarzing Open Social and what it's going to do for social networks by providing a real-world example. Additionally, Google announced today that MySpace and Six Apart are joing the growing Open Social network.

Screencast:

http://networkcreators.ning.com/video/video/show?id=492224%3AVideo%3A93279

Web 2.0 Patterns

PodTech.net produced an interesting interview with James Governor (RedMonk) and Duane Nickull (Adobe) at Adobe Max '07 in Barcelona where they talk about Web 2.0 design patterns and their upcoming book on the subject. Their discussion about design patterns and how they're used in the very dynamic Web 2.0 ecosystem is interesting and worth watching.

TripAdvisor Buys Facebook Application "Where I've Been" for 3 Million

Wow, it looks like travel site TripAdvisor has acquired Facebook application "Where I've Been" from creator Craig Ulliot for 3 million. Less than two months ago Craig could barely afford to keep the app. up. "I have 250,000 users, now what?"

In what is by far the largest Facebook application acquisition to date, travel company TripAdvisor has reportedly acquired Where I've Been from Craig Ulliott for $3 million. -- Inside Facebook

This acquisition is going pump a lot of developer talent into the Facebook platform. Congratulations Craig - the best programmer!

Scoble Inside Twitter Headquarters

Scoble gets inside Twitter headquarters. Scoble posted An inside look at Twitter yesterday, a video interview on the scene at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, featuring pretty close to the entire staff. There's a lot of good stuff in this interview. Scoble covers everything from their recent round of funding to the technology under the hood at Twitter. Worth watching if you're at all interested in Twitter and services like it - or Web 2.0 bubble companies for that matter ; )

My Twitter Profile. My take on Twitter and services like it - there's a future in the micro-blogging format but I don't really have a use for it in my life or work today. My Friendverse doesn't Tweet so that makes the service pretty useless as far as I'm concerned. Following events or popular people using the service just isn't my thing. Connecting it to SMS just makes my Q really annoying.

Internet Crash

I can't believe it - it actually happend - the Internet Crashed! Ted Stevens was right - the tubes just aren't big enough to handle it all. Sorry for the lack of posts lately folks - more important things going on at the moment.

Friendverse Weakens

There's a rift forming in your Friendverse and you need to close it before it destroys the social fabric that holds your Friendverse together. The Friendverse is the invisible bond that connects you with your friends - the people you really know, like, and trust.

friend n. - A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.

Yesterday, I was part of a blog conversation about the need for a standard that makes "Friend" lists more portable. Moving from one social network to another, Twitter to Pownce for example, can be a frustrating experience because you have to re-build your "Friend" list every time you move. Wouldn't it be nice if you could take your "Friend" list with you when you move to, or start ,a new social network? The experience is especially frustrating for the socialites that have thousands of supposed friends - people like Robert Scoble who boast "Friend" lists numbering in the thousands. Yes, a standard that makes these lists more portable would be nice but maybe we should be looking at the way we're "Friending" before we start developing a system to support meaningless "Friend" lists.

I've received multiple "Friend" requests from Twitter users that have "Friend" lists numbering in the thousands. The same thing happens to me on Facebook. I completely ignore most of these requests because I don't like the idea of "Friending" people I don't know, like, or trust. I should be able to invite a "Friend" over for dinner. A "Friend" would come to my funeral. Don't you want to know someone, at least a little, before you add them to your "Friend" list? I guarantee you this, Robert Scoble has people on his "Friend" lists that he wouldn't associate with in the real world.

I believe my Friendverse should be based on real relationships, a true reflection of my real world social network. I think people with "Friend" lists numbering in the thousands aren't respecting their Friendverse. Not respecting your Friendverse, letting that rift form, can have real world consequences. Your real world friends, that crucial support network, will weaken as your expanding and meaningless "Friend" lists consume your time, weakening your social network. Your real world friends will begin to question their value in your social network as they become one of thousands that call you a "Friend." If you have thousands of "Friends," what does that make them? A "special" friend, a "best" friend, a "real" friend? If you don't give your Friendverse the respect it deserves you'll end up with a very weak social network and few real world friends.

So perhaps we should stop looking for ways to expand and transport meaningless "Friend" lists and instead focus on building a meaningful and rich Friendverse. People we like, know, and trust.

comScore Releases Facebook Metrics

comScore recently released updated Facebook metrics. The 25-34 age group is growing faster than any other group - 181% year-over-year. Obviously, open registration and a very developer friendly platform are contributing to this growth. The Facebook crew has managed to almost double their unique visitors year-over-year - 26.6 million visitors in May 2007. I've started building my Facebook profile. Have you?

Father's Day Picaboo Photo Book

It's Father's Day here in the United States today and my most excellent family surprised me with a beautiful photo book from Picaboo.com. The photo book is hard-bound and the photo pages are excellent quality. My wife was able to insert her own custom captions and text to give the book a very personal touch. This is the 1st time we've used an on-line service for something like this and we're both impressed with the quality of the book and Picaboo's service as well. A friend passed a promotion code over to my wife last month so she gave it a shot - we got a $29.99 photo book for $8.99 including shipping - great deal. We're also planning on giving competing sevices like Scrapblog and Blurb a shot. I'd really like to get more of our pictures off of the computer and back into the real-world where people can enjoy it. Happy Father's Day Dads!

ZOHO Creator Rocks

Jason Calacanis - The Crisis We're Facing on the Internet

Well, I think the wisdom of the crowds is beneficial, for sure. But I think that there is a limitation to everybody having a voice in something. If everybody has a voice, then you end up with something average. If everybody participated in the making of a movie, it wouldn't be so good. But if you give Scorcese total control, it can end up brilliant - so there's really a limit to how far you can push the wisdom of crowds. -- Jason Calacanis

Techmeme vs. Scoble's Link Blog

David Sacks // It's the Bread, Not the Peanut Butter

David Sacks, the founder and CEO of Geni, wrote an interesting post for TechCrunch today titled The New Portals: It's the Bread, Not the Peanut Butter. David writes about the evolution of the "Portal" site and theorizes that Facebook and sites like it, where your social network provides you with relevant information, are the next step in the evolution of the "Portal" site. Interesting theory.

For the last several years, Yahoo, MSN and AOL have all suffered a declining share of pageviews, but that does not mean the portal is going out of style. Rather it has been redefined, first by Google, and now by Facebook in potentially even more profound ways.

Google Trends

Matt Mullenweg Interview - Webware

Craislist's Jim Buckmaster Interviewed // Refreshing

Jim Buckmaster, CEO of craigslist, did a fireside chat interview with BusinessWeek editor Jessi Hempel, at The Nantucket Conference. - Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

Craigslist's approach to doing business on-line is refreshing. For example I loved Jim's response to this question.

Craigslist could generate hundreds of millions in revenue and be a public company. Why haven't you done this? "You can't serve two masters. You either have to serve Wall Street or customers. We chose customers. Sure, we could generate more revenue, but we have enough to support the things we need to do."

Unfortunately, Craigslist shines the way it does because their approach to business is rare.