SecondBrain: CMS for the ordinary

By Vivek | April 30th, 2007 at 10:23 pm ET     1 Comment »    

How much so ever Google, Yahoo, Microsoft try, and and how much so ever you want, there will always be a mix of services and applications that you would eventually use from each of them. If you are not using apps from one of these biggies, you would definitely be using services from smart startups like Editgrid or Peepel or …..Eitherway you will have your documents and files located around the web, with no possible way to access them easily. OpenId solves some problems, but only if you want to login to those sites. What if you just want to manage your online content from one place? More so like your digital media center where all your digital content stays put.

Well, SecondBrain is working since last year to tackle just this issue that will make your media management lot easier. SecondBrain(S|B), which is in private beta as of now, is taking the concept of content management system and applying it to all the online apps and social media sites we use. S|B is working on set of services that can access your online information from likes of Flickr, Youtube, del.icio.us, GoogleD&S, Picasa, and Bluedot with more services under works. In other words lot of work against APIs of external services to get your content into one place. And if you need to add more stuff to your library from your PC, S|B always has the regular upload option. Once you have all your stuff up there, you can arrange them neatly in your Library, create collections, and eventually share them with your friends online.

In some ways S|B feels like Koral or maybe Egnyte or maybe eSnips or maybe BlogBackupOnline. Nevertheless a good mix of features.

My concern is that as the service launches and grows and so does the amount of documents and files stored by each user, performance of the service would eventually depend on the search capabilities. Being able to search for spoken words in Videos and Podcasts, keywords in EditGrid spreadsheet, keywords in Microsoft Office docs, tags in your del.icio.us bookmarks….. and more situations like these would bring out the real utility of the service. Being able to build one such comprehensive search engine would be a massive undertaking in itself.

Besides the search side of things, being able to preview documents online would be definitely required. This is another integration nightmare especially when you have numerous services delving the same solution. Koral did ppt previews before getting snapped by Salesforce, while we have the big CMS mashup coming early in May that utilizes all Office20 apps at once. Not sure how far down S|B would like to go on this.

On the whole, if looking at entirety of all these features, S|B definitely has lot of work in store. Not easy to get done with, still worth watching how they go about solving each/any of the real-real problems.

Links:
SecondBrain

Yahoo’s second big deal for the day

By Vivek | April 30th, 2007 at 09:28 pm ET     3 Comments »    

Comcast, which had been making some noise lately about it’s relationship with Google and the amount of money it is making, today made a definitive move to explore more options. Comcast and Yahoo announced that they have entered into a new multi-year partnership for online display and video advertising services on Comcast.net. Comcast.net supposedly is one of the top 10 online site with more than 2.5 billion page views, more than 80 million videos viewed and 15 million unique visitors per month. Definitely a big deal for Yahoo, which has struggled to gain investor confidence in the recent months even after the launch of Yahoo Panama.

The Yahoo+Comcast integration goes live sometime later this year when a redesigned Comcast.net will be launched.

As I had written in my previous post, I had not really expected Comcast to switch the search engine provider ’cause that is an area which no one is good at, except Google. Getting Yahoo or Microsoft to provide that service would be a bigger loss for Comcast users and in turn Comcast than any other party involved. As compared to that, this advertising deal makes perfect sense for Comcast since Yahoo has broader experience in selling graphical ads across it’s online properties.

SharedCopy - more web annotation for everyone

By Vivek | April 30th, 2007 at 03:50 pm ET     10 Comments »    

Not that we didn’t have web-annotation options, still SharedCopy is a good choice to have if you were looking for such a solution. SharedCopy gets you annotating, marking, commenting on web pages quickly without you having to bother about installation or saving content onto your local machines. Once you have the SharedCopy bookmarklet on your browser, you can easily start saving content to your account via on page SharedCopy toolbar floating on your page. If you are one of the social kinds, you can make you saved content public, or you always have the option to make your content private. Some other cool features - copies are version controlled, RSS feed for your saved pages, and of course sharing you content with other people.

SharedCopy today launched another smart integration based off it’s API that lets you post your saved comments onto other services like Basecamp. So, now your TODOs can end up in the right place they need to be instead of the copy-paste operation that never works, at least for me.

Few other services operating in this space - I-Lighter, and Fleck.

Links:
SharedCopy

Appirio brings Salesforce to Google IG

By Vivek | April 30th, 2007 at 03:23 pm ET     5 Comments »    

Appirio today launched it’s first set of widgets that bring your Salesforce data onto Google Personalized Page. A quick check reveals that no one had worked on this integration. Strange but true. I would have expected Charlie Wood to get to this, but nevertheless Narinder+Team@Appirio are celebrating the launch right now.

Appirio widgets deliver you Accounts, Opportunities, Contacts, Cases, and Tasks data from Salesforce directly to your Google homepage. As a user you will get access to latest updates on your account with added ability to filter and view details, while drill down takes you to Salesforce.com.

Appirio has similar widgets available for Yahoo Widget engine.

Etelos is another startup working on building CRM right on the top of Google IG. Would be an useful option to have for non-Salesforce users.

Links:
Opportunity Knocks
Task Watcher
Case Watcherr
Sales Sleuth

Are you ready for Headplay?

By Vivek | April 30th, 2007 at 12:51 pm ET         

Over the weekend Headplay quietly went live with it’s new site. It’s not another MMPOG or game fan site, if you are thinking of one. Actually, the website is not the real stuff Headplay is out to sell. Sometime in the next couple of months, Headplay will be launching it’s Personal Cinema System that streams movies right near your eyes. Supported with headband and sitting right in front of your eyes, Headplay hooks into your existing movie or gaming devices to stream content to the Viewer.

Headplay has couple of devices working together with Viewer to deliver the 52-inch TV experience. This includes Liberator, which has the video processing engine and I/O ports, and Navigator, which obviously delivers the user control like volume, program selections,…. Headplay claims a battery life of 6 hours or you can hookup the device to power outlet.

All this comes for just $499. Whoa! Will Headplay sell for that high a price?

Price aside, do consumers want to add yet another device they need to charge and carry along to consume their content 24X7? I am already lost in the number of devices I need to put back on charger overnight. Adding another to the list is a big no no. And Headplay would be one device that you won’t really use on regular basis if you are not the traveling kind. And even if you are the traveling kind, you need to remember to carry your iPod or Laptop that can stream content onto Headplay. You know what, carrying the peripherals is not enough. Make sure your iPod or laptop has couple of movies in them that you haven’t watches before….Too many if/elses? Well that is the real life. I would, there are just too many point of disconnect.

Still can be great buy for video iPod fans, if they can go through the above described hoops.

Links:
Headplay