Archived entries for Web 2.0
Social Language Networking – Learn Foreign Languages for FREE
Recently, I’ve seen two new Web 2.0 startups in the ‘learn foreign languages’ segment. These companies are targeting an audience that is specially interested in learning/teaching foreign languages. The concept sounds cool ’cause there are many people who are interested in learning Spanish, Russian, German, French, etc., including myself and when there is someone ready to teach you these languages for FREE, the concept automatically becomes super cool, doesn’t it?
And these two sites are:
I started using Mango Languages about 13hrs ago and so far, I’ve liked its Flash based Spanish lessons. In its current state, Mango Languages can’t be called a social language network though. It still has many powerful features that make language learning a fun experience. The main features are:
- Color Coded Translations
- Audio of Native Speakers
- Interact With Individual Words and Phrases
- Speaker Icon at the Beginning of Each Full Sentence
- Phonetics
- Relevant and Real Conversations
- Note Slides
- Memory Building Exercises
These features should be more than enough for any person who wants to learn any foreign languages. Personally, I find the color coded translations pretty helpful. I completed a few lessons in less than 3hrs and was able to chat with a friend in Spanish for more than 10 minutes. In the end, she said: “Wow! I didn’t know that you can read/write Spanish so well. I’m impressed.”
There is one more site that can be pretty useful. I’m yet to start any lesson on this site though. This social language networking site is:
I joined Livemocha after reading this Profy blog post titled Livemocha: A Social Language Learning Experience. Livemocha has many language courses designed to make you an expert in any foreign language. You can also add friends who are interested in teaching you their native languages.
Everything is free so the only thing that you need is the passion to learn any foreign language.
IT Exam info for IT students
642-382, Cisco certification exam is very assistive to enhance the practical knowledge of Cisco Channel Partner Field Engineers. 642-642, certification exam is designed to assess the inherent technical skills of IT professionals. 642-825, The Implementing Secure Converged Wide Area Networks certification exam is a qualifying exam for CCNP. 642-552, cisco certification exam is very accommodating exam to uphold the professional status of IT personnel. 642-812, the Building Converged Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks (BCMSN) gives the perfect knowledge to the candidates how to build switching and routing system efficiently.
Pownce Gets New Features
Pownce, the creation of Digg founder Kevin Rose, has introduced some new features:
- Upcoming Event Notifications – In the right column of your Pownce homepage, you’ll now see the next five upcoming events you’ve been sent. It’s a handy way to make sure you don’t miss something.
- Inline Video Playback & Inline Image Previews – Now if you place a video link in your notes, Pownce will automagically display the video player right there in your notes.
Pownce will now display image thumbnails if you host your images @ Zooomr. Other image hosting services (like Photobucket and Flickr) will be supported in the future.
- Display Your Social Networks & Links – Now add your social network/bookmark profile links in your Pownce sidebar. There are options to add your personal website link and Instant Messenger IDs as well.
- New Preferences Settings – You can now open links in a new window by default. There are a few other interesting options available in the ‘Preferences’ tab.
Visit the official Pownce blog to read more about the new features. People who haven’t received Pownce invites yet, let me know in your comments. I’ve a few invites left.
Streamy – The Grand Daddy of ‘Em All Web Feed Readers
Note: This is the first part in the AVINASH 2.0 Streamy Series. I’ll be posting next parts when I’m not busy with other stuffs.
You may have seen lots of buzz about Streamy in the blogosphere. Streamy received so much hype, so much hype that there was no way left other than giving it a try. Fortunately, I’ve been a lucky Streamy private beta tester for more than a week because of Mr. Russ Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Russ!
What’s Streamy?
Streamy is the next generation feed reader developed by two awesome developers, Donald Mosites and Jonathan Gray. It’s a mixture of beautiful UI and powerful social media features (Instant Messenger, Groups, etc.).
You’ll experience a wonderful use of Ajax in this application. Everything seems to have the ability to get dragged and dropped. Wanna share an article with your friend? Just drag the article title and drop it on your friend’s name. You’re done.
Want to chat with a friend? Just drag your friend’s name in a chat window and you’re done! To be honest, I’ve never seen such an intelligent use of Ajax in any other web 2.0 application. Streamy has been developed to make reading blog feeds an enjoyable experience. Because of its social nature, you won’t feel bored reading hundreds of articles, e.g., you can chat with your friends while you’re reading an article.
It allows you to read an article in a click. No matter if the article is in your “Saved” section or on your profile page, a single click on the article link will show you the complete article. There are a few Hot Keys that make reading, saving and sharing news articles a fun experience.
Currently Available Features:
- Add/Remove/Share Feeds
- Ability to create category folders
- Upload OPML files
- Interact with other Streamy members via different Streamy Groups
- Create Streamy Groups (public or private).
- Make friends and chat with them
- Ability to see what your friends are reading
- Create Feed Filters
- Leave comments on articles
- Pull data from 9 Upstream sources (Google Reader, Twitter, Pownce, Digg, del.icio.us, YouTube, last.fm, Jaiku and Facebook) and show ‘em on your profile.
- Create and save personal notes
- Discover new blog feeds
- Search Streamy member database, blog entries, feed resources and groups
- Ability to see how many other Streamy members are subscribed to the same blog feed. Something like MyBlogLog communities.
Some bloggers called it a ‘Digg killer‘, some called it ‘Alt Digg‘ but as soon as I joined Streamy, I realized that there was no ‘Digg Killer’ present in the member’s area. Even calling it an ‘Alt Digg’ is wrong because Streamy is not a Digg alternative. I repeat, Streamy is NOT a Digg alternative. I wonder why people can’t think of Streamy as an amazing invention. Is Digg everything? For me, Digg is a completely different thing. Streamy has nothing to do with Digg.
I’ve spent most of my free hours over at Streamy since the day I joined it. Added over a thousand feeds, read hundreds of articles, created a few Streamy groups, created tons of feed filters and tested almost all the available features that I could access. There are a few minor bugs that I came across but the two awesome developers (Don and Jonathan) are working hard to make Streamy a perfect platform for everybody who loves reading blogs.
Even after spending hours heavily testing Streamy, I don’t think that it’s an Alt Digg. Streamy is a completely different application. Don’t compare it with Digg. It doesn’t intend to kill Digg either, it just can’t. In fact, the developers have already posted a blog entry over at the official Streamy blog that Streamy won’t, and don’t intend to kill Digg.
Killing Digg is not our goal. Our goal is to bring you personally relevant news in an engaging, collaborative environment. That is not by any means mutually exclusive to a voting model.
Donald has clearly written in the blog post that:
we do intend to kill the dry, boring RSS reader. I’m talking about the inbox-style RSS reader that is not intriguing, not social, and makes little or no attempt at personal relevance. We have created a system that aggregates syndicated content, channels it through your new and existing social networks, and creates a sum that is greater than its parts. Otherwise, as an aggregator, we do not replace tools – we mesh them into a new experience.
In my opinion, if you compare Streamy with Digg because it ranks articles on the ‘Start’ page according to how popular an article is, you need to think again. Digg is basically a voting system. It doesn’t rank articles on the Digg home page based on article visibility. Gazillions of Digg fanboys vote for an article to pull it on the home page.
Only thing I can say is that once Streamy goes public, it’ll badly affect other feed readers and startpages. Mr. Google Reader is NOT gonna stay safe either. Google Reader used to be my one and only favorite feed reader before I joined Streamy as a beta tester but at this very moment, I think that if Google Reader is a bomb, Streamy is an atom bomb. I deleted over one thousand feeds from my Google Reader because I’m sure that I’ll not be returning back to Google Reader ever again. I’m loving Streamy’s social environment.
I’ve covered each and every Streamy feature in the AVINASH 2.0 Streamy Series. You can think of this series as a complete Streamy guide. I’ll start with ‘What’s Hot’ because something tells me that many people started to call it a Digg killer when they saw this section.
What’s Hot:
What’s Hot is one of many cool features of Streamy that can be found on the Streamy ‘Start’ page. The What’s Hot section randomly shows pics from popular articles and it’ll certainly send lots of traffic your way IF your article is present in this section.
Streamy Chat:
Streamy chat and a few other internal Streamy applications make me feel like Streamy is a Web OS. You can not only minimize/maximize the internal application windows, you also have the freedom to drag ‘em off the screen area.
Whenever your Streamy friends send you an instant message, a chat window will pop up. Because of the intelligent use of Ajax, everything works so smoothly that you won’t feel pissed off when the chat window appears.
Member Profile:
Your Streamy profile displays how many friends you have, what feeds you’ve been reading recently, the groups that you’ve joined, your 5 latest feed filters, your saved and commented items AND your personal notes.
By the way, if any Streamy developer is reading this post, you can see that the ’search box’ disappears in Safari/Win.
To Be Continued…
See you in the next part of the AVINASH 2.0 Streamy Series with lots of screenshots. There are many Streamy features still left to discuss so stay tuned.
For now, check out this article for more screenshots. A Tour of Streamy – It Looks Could Kill ( Digg )
5000 Web 2.0 Logos in 333 Seconds [Video]
In this past June, I wrote about Simple Spark, the Web 2.0 catalog site. SimpleSpark had more than 3000 web apps in June itself. Today, Read/Write Web reported that the company now indexes 5000 Web apps. To celebrate their milestone, the folks at SimpleSpark created a video showing the logos of all 5,000 companies in 333 seconds:
Sites like Go2Web2.0 and SimpleSpark show us how rapidly the Web 2.0 industry is growing.
SeeqPod – A Mind-blowing, Playable Music Search Engine
SeeqPod is a new kid in the Web 2.0 city, highly focused on the music niche. It’s a music search and recommendation engine for the people who spend hours listening to and discovering new music tracks.
SeeqPod travels the web indexing all the music files it finds, and then offers them for playback direct from the original location. I’m afraid that because of this feature, SeeqPod is gonna teach all the website owners a good lesson who store music files on their domains.
The home page is simple and easy to navigate. SeeqPod has a flash widget on its homepage that displays a sample of current music being indexed by its engine. I gotta say that SeeqPod is all Flashy inside. I enjoyed my 1/2 hr trying its many cool features that I’ll discuss about in this post.
SeeqPod Homepage
Now let me show you something that I found inside the member’s area:
SeeqPod Member’s Area
As I mentioned earlier in this post, the SeeqPod Member’s area is Flash powered but I really liked the way my Firefox browser stayed calm. Normally, Firefox starts acting up if you feed it any heavy Flash-food.
SeeqPod member’s area has two columns. You’ll be using the left column to either search your favorite music tracks or discover new music. The right area hosts audio and video players as well as your music playlists. It seems like you can create unlimited playlists.
If you have an account, you can create, save and share playlists. SeeqPod also allows you to add all music tracks included in the search results to a playlist. Later if you don’t like any music track, you can remove it from your playlists. Cool, eh?
SeeqPod Music Search
SeeqPod Search Results
This ‘Playable Search’ is made possible through biomimetic search & discovery technology, a method that mimics the way the human mind might use context to make and recall associations, an approach which relies on context by finding the hidden relationships in digital content and data.
There are so many options available for music tracks that you might faint! SeeqPod offers numerous options for interacting with a track. You can share your playlists with others. Whenever you want to add the playlist on your blog, just click the ‘Embed’ button available in the right column and SeeqPod will present you the code. You can also buy some tracks on Amazon.
SeeqPod Music Track Options
Add to Playlist
Easy, no?
SeeqPod not only indexes music files, it also tracks music videos hosted on many video sharing sites like YouTube, Veoh, etc.
SeeqPod Video Player Screenshots
Press the video button to watch the music video of any particular track. If video is available for any track, SeeqPod will let you enjoy it.
Videos from two different video sharing sites. You can expect videos from many more video sharing sites.
If that was not enough, SeeqPod also has a SeeqPod Media Search, Recommendation and Discovery Services (SMSRDS) API that offers public access to its technologies. SMSRDS enables third-party developers to easily integrate SeeqPod technologies into social networks, ad networks, and other consumer applications, and improve their user’s experience in new and novel ways.
Now, see this:
SeeqPod Audio Player
I’ve collected 8+ songs in my playlist while I was writing this post. If this site doesn’t get sued for helping the music piracy rate grow, many people will be spending more time downloading music tracks than listening to last.fm radio.
[tags]SeeqPod, Music, Music Discovery, Music Download, Web 2.0[/tags]
StumbleUpon New User Profile (Beta) – It’s Da BOMB!
A wonderful news for every StumbleUpon user! If you already haven’t noticed, StumbleUpon has redesigned its UI. The new UI is damn sexy but you gotta visit this page to wear the new skin. ;) The new look is completely Web 2.0ish.
There are so many new feature additions that I need to spend sometime playing with the new UI before I write a detailed article on the new look and feature additions. A few main additions/changes that I’m able to see right now are:
- Integration of a WYSIWYG Editor – Cool for the people who love making their StumbleUpon profile colorful. ;)
- A few new themes have been added.
- The addition of a “What’s New” section where you can see what your friends are doing. [Hey my cool SU friends! Excuse me if I start spying on you. ;oP]
- Now, if you visit your “About” page, you can see your details, friends, tags, groups you have joined and your interests on a single page.
As I’ve already written that I need to spend more time playing with the new UI design, I’ll soon be posting a more detailed review. Stay tuned.
[tags]StumbleUpon, StumbleUpon New Profile, Web 2.0, StumbleUpon Redesigned[/tags]
Time to Sing The Pownce Song – Invites Available
Yeah, boy! Mr. Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, wrote the Pownce song and now people are singing it. Though I’ve read about Pownce on all the big and small blogs, I’m yet to test how it works for power users of Twitter and similar services.
This week, I’ll be writing a detailed review on Pownce and how it works but before you are able to read the review, I’m giving you a chance to try Pownce. Most of my readers should be aware that currently, Pownce isn’t offering open membership. You can only be able to register if somebody invites you to try Pownce.
I’ve 5 invites available. Leave a comment if you wanna try Pownce. :)
P.S. Eric of Young Go Getter was kind enough to send me an invitation. Thanks, Eric!
[tags]Pownce, Pownce Invites[/tags]
Simple Spark – The Web 2.0 Catalog for Power Surfers
Simple Spark is a catalog of cool Web 2.0 applications. Currently, this catalog lists more than 3000 web apps organized in 7 main categories (Media, Living, Office, Organization, Travel, Marketplace and Finance) that contain lots of sub-categories. There is also a search feature that allows you to enter a keyword of your choice (e.g. Design) if you don’t have enough time to browse the catalog.
The cool thing about this catalog is that you have the option to pick web applications of your choice and add ‘em in your own list. This option makes it a lot easier to remember your favorite web apps. You can also review the web apps that you like.
Here are a few screenshots:
Search
I searched for “Design”
As you can see, I’ve searched for the keyword ‘design’ and the system is showing 102 results.
And you’ve the option to browse the catalog…
Application Profile
Bookmarked applications
Visit an application profile and if you like the application, the system allows you to add the application profile in your Simple Spark ‘My Apps’ area or you can simply click any of the social bookmark buttons to add the profile to your favorite social bookmark site.
I’ve got to say, these guys came up with a really simple and neat idea. Feel free to share your own opinion about Simple Spark.
[tags]Simple Spark, Web 2.0, Online Applications, Internet Tools, Tools[/tags]
Graphic Design Links: Keys of Success (I)
10 external links for graphic designers.
- How Web 2.0 Logos are drawn (Photoshop) – Hongkiat.com
- Ultimate Web 2.0 Layer Styles for Photoshop – Deziner Folio
- Crystal Clear Icon Set – Wikimedia Commons
- 77 Vector Buttons hot of the press – liquidicity
- Cool Business Card Designs – creativebits
- Free Photoshop Brushes and Patterns by Brusheezy
- Free Vectors by Vecteezy
- 50 Awesome Logo Design Tutorials – E Logo Design
- How To Think Like A Client – Vitamin
- Freebies Roundup: Icons, Buttons and Templates – Smashing Magazine
A wonderful article if you want to learn how to design sexy Web 2.0 logos in Photoshop. This article will teach you how to use Photoshop styles to create stunning Web 2.0 logos.
An awesome collection of highly useful Photoshop styles. Don’t forget downloading ‘em if you are a Web 2.0 designer.
Tons of icons to download. All for free!
Recently, I posted about tons of free vector icons by liquidicity. They have once again something amazing to offer. Yep, this time, they have released 77 stunning vector buttons and you are invited to download ‘em for free!
A collection of cool business cards collected from these places.
Looking for high res, Photoshop brushes and patterns to download? Brusheezy is the place to go. Tons of brushes and patterns to download. All for free!
A daily updated index of Free Vectors available for download by some of the best designers around the world.
The folks over at E Logo Design have compiled a list of 50 logo design tutorials that are the best logo design tutorials on the internet, according to ‘em.
A wonderful article written by Paul Boag on commercial web design. He points out that when it comes to commercial web design, it’s all about the business case.
I included it in this post because it’s an important read for every designer.
The guys over at Smashing Magazine always come up with an awesome list. If you don’t trust me, visit the link #10 and see for yourself.
That’s it for now. I hope you find these links useful because I tried my best to pick only the best lists/articles links.
[tags]Graphic Design, Design Links, Web 2.0, Web Design[/tags]
The Freelancer’s Toolset: 100 Web Apps For Everything You’ll Possibly Need
A list of 100 highly useful Web Apps.
Running a business for yourself means you have to be inventive and always on the lookout for a new and better way to get things done. Innovation junkies, take note: the Internet has a lot to offer. From invoicing to marketing, these are tools that freelancers need to know about.
[tags]Web Apps, Web 2.0, Online Tools, Bookmarks[/tags]
