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New Media News Every Morning

Calacanis hunts displays and keyboards are getting expensive

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I like to treat myself to an inspiring work area. That’s why my office has a nice red couch, gaming consoles although I don’t review much anymore, great speakers for my computers and stuff like that. I want to feel inspired to do things when I sit down in the morning with my coffee.

I also like to have great tools to save time as well as make it more fun to work. Let’s face it, it’s a lot more fun blogging on a MacBook than it is doing it on a crappy PC from 2001, with a flickering CRT monitor and a yellowish keyboard that should’ve hit the garbage bin years ago. [Read more…]

Originally posted on May 21, 2007 @ 3:27 am

Aggrega’s Pandora for Videos

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Aggrega - music video sharing

Aggrega‘s concept is great: a Pandora for music videos (it also has a photos section that I haven’t tried). Unfortunately, while it’s home page looks inviting, and its playlist page is cleanly laid out, it’s “create channel” algorithm is sorely lacking. Pandora’s algorithm shines, being able to offer very relevant suggestions when you specify an artist name or song title. Aggrega’s not there yet.

For example, I entered two artists from the 1980s as “seeds”. (They were not obscure, but I can’t remember what I used.) Aggrega came back with a ginormous list in two very widely separated columns. It was painful trying to checkmark and scroll down, checkmark and scroll down. This is the first thing that has to be fixed, followed by better relevance. This morning, though, I tried “U2, Elvis Costello”, and it produced a list of about 4 artists, including U2 twice. Not sure what that’s about, and there were no recommendations for additional, similar artists. Except that one that I’d never heard of. Surely there are other artists to recommend. I can think of half a dozen British acts that match Costello’s “angry young man” years.

Yes, I know Aggrega’s in beta, and yes, I really think I could love Aggrega, but not just yet. For now, it’s just flirting with me, teasing me with what could be. For the time being, I can produce a more compact visual content using SplashCast and YouTube, building a complete music video channel in a single player, with auto-forward between videos.

However, if Yahoo and Microsoft are on acquistion sprees, to keep up with Google, here’s my suggestion. One of you pull out your wallet and buy both Aggrega and Pandora, then combine their functionality. Do that, and you’ll have one of the coolest applications online. If these video “channels” can be transferred to a portable video device, even better. And if you merge, like the Friday blogospheric buzz indicated, then you can’t lose. Right?

Originally posted on May 7, 2007 @ 1:42 pm

MindMeister Mindmapping Tool Goes Live

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mindmeister.jpg

MindMeister, a web-based mindmapping tool, has finally gone live as of last week. As a hardcore mindmapper, I’m always big on trying out these new tools. Mindmapping is ideal for brainstorming as well as planning, and can be both a business and personal productivity tool.

While MindMeister is nowhere nearly as full-featured as standalone mindmapping apps such as Mindapp, MindManager or ConceptDraw Mindmap, what it does have is collaborative features: sharing of maps, email messaging, and text message alerts via Twitter. Other features include copy/paste between maps and import from MindJet MindManager maps. (There are several new features, but I’m not linking to the page because for some ridiculous reason MindMeister makes you login to see the change list. Instead, here’s the premium features page.)

If you want to check out MindMeister, the free basic version will remain without restriction of features until May 31st. After that, you’ll need to pay to get premium features. Cost is US$4.16/mth (Eur 3.21/m).

Can MindMeister survive against web competitors Bubbl.us and Mindomo? Well, Bubbl.us is a bit lacking in advanced features at present, and Mindomo is far more featured. However, Mindomo doesn’t have have all the same collaborative features (you can share). Of course that may change. At present, Mindomo has the slicker interface, closer in resemblance to standalone mindmapping.

The premium version of Mindomo is listed as Eur 4.99/m, so MindMeister has the cost advantage. For casual mindmappers, either one is more cost effective than spending US$199-$349 for a standalone package. (If you’re really on a budget, try the free Freemind. Both MindMeister and Mindomo can interact with Freemind maps.) With the exception of collaboration features, however, none of the web-based tools are powerful enough for hardcore mindmappers. Not yet anyway, and not for me.

If you want to see MindMeister in action, DemoGirl offers a how-to-use MindMeister screencast.

Originally posted on May 7, 2007 @ 1:27 pm

Still Twittering? More Plugins and Apps

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twitter.jpgIn addition to Twitter alternatives, the Twitter-based apps and plugins keep coming. Stan Schroeder at Mashable lists 8 Twitter-related plugins for the Firefox browser. Didn’t think Twitter had enough functionality for all these? Many Twitter-based third party apps are either “watchers”, “extenders”, or “posters”. In this list of eight there are some variations I haven’t come across previously.

One is TwittyTunes, which is put out by the same folks who offer the very cool FoxyTunes Firefox extension. With TwittyTunes, anytime you listen to a song or watch a video on iTunes, it’ll post that info to your Twitter stream. Personally, I think that’s a bit much. It’s one thing to use an app like Last.fm or iLike (and the iLike sidebar), which show your recent listens in a couple of ways, and still another to commit your tastes into a stream of tweets. Some people will no doubt consider this as a type of Twitter pollution. Others will like it. It depends on how you Twitter, and what you expect to see in the tweet streams of those Twitterers you follow.

On the other hand, Twitbin and Tweetbar simply take Twitter functionality and encapsulate it into the sidebar of Firefox. Download Squad describes Twitbin in more detail.

Want Twitter on the go? Check out their new mobile interface. Word is that a number of existing web services sites have started implementing functionality similar to Twitter. No doubt mobile Twitter clones are next.

Originally posted on May 7, 2007 @ 1:10 pm

Your Space, MySpace, Barack’s Space

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Senator Barack ObamaSome people consider 2008 Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama to be the most “wired” candidate in either major political party. That is, he has utilized online social networks and even streaming video channels to his advantage – showing that he’s hip and understands a younger generation. He even has a MySpace page profile that had 160,000 “friends”. An Obama supporter has been running it for nearly three years, with the blessing of the Senator’s campaign team. They suddenly decided, though, that they were uncomfortable with an “outsider” running the page, which of course represents Obama’s viewpoints, etc.

The campaign team wanted control of the profile page, and the supporter, Joe Anthony, a paralegal, was fine with that, though he wanted nearly $50K in total fees to do so, which the Senator’s team said no to. Big mistake. At $50,000 of effort put in by Anthony to build 160,000 friends, each “friend”, and no doubt supporter of Obama, cost only about thirty cents. The stink that ensued caused Myspace to step in and decide that the Senator’s team could have control and Joe Anthony could take the contact info. All 160,000 friends. So what if it was supposed to be volunteer work?

Does this translate into 160,000 lost future votes? Maybe. Maybe less, maybe more. Who can know? The fact is, there are now only just over 21K friends. Obviously, it was a monstrously stupid move for the campaign team of a seemingly well-loved, charismatic candidate who has been a historic figure and may continue to be. Someone on the campaign team should be fired. It’s not like the campaign money isn’t there. But even more to the point, Anthony obviously was a good buffer and did a tremendous job building goodwill for the Senator.

Will the MySpace page be the same with the official campaign team running it? I doubt it. However, the Senator phoned Anthony to offer his apologies and try to win back his vote. Had the campaign team invited Anthony to be part of their team, everyone would be way ahead.

Originally posted on May 3, 2007 @ 2:29 pm