Blogging

Apture is a new tool for bloggers to add a little more context to their posts. Like Yahoo’s Shortcuts it will go over what you’ve written and add little pop-ups in places where you link to other sites or media items from around the Web. The big difference is that Apture can either do all this automatically or let you to do the legwork.

It’s set up to work with popular sites like Flickr, Amazon, Wikipedia, and Scribd. Any link to one of those sites will simply enable whoever clicks on it to see the entire entry in a small expanding pop-up window that can either stay affixed to the link text or be dragged around the page like a floating widget. The effect is actually pretty neat–and manages to keep your readers on the page, even if you’ve got a heap of linked items. If you want to manually link up any word or phrase in your post you simply highlight it, and you’ll be given a huge list of items from photos, videos, audio clips and text links to link straight to it without using copy and paste or your CMS.

The site debuted back in mid-April with something called “the experience” which is basically what anyone can now do to their blogs. (Check it out here.) Supported are all the usual suspects like WordPress, TypePad, and Blogger. There are also simple script plug-ins for maybe some of the lesser known publishing tools like Tumblr, Ning, and Blogsome. The install itself is just a line of JavaScript no matter what platform you’re on.

What makes it a standout compared to some other services that do this is that each Apture link can be picked from a multitude of places. For instance, in my test account on a Tumbr blog I linked up a mention of Google Maps with a link to the service. I was also able to expand on that with a related media section that let me add all sorts of other items like the Wikipedia entry, a YouTube video, and a large screenshot. All of these things could be seen without me having to add additional links, and as a reader you can see all of this without venturing off my post.

Another service that does this without some of the eye candy pop-ups is Zemanta which I really enjoyed using. As I mentioned back when I reviewed it, tools like these make blogging far easier while simultaneously making the end product a richer experience as long as these pop-up links are used with some restraint. I think the last thing anybody wants when reading a blog post is to have things flying around the screen, which is why I hope Apture’s key improvements in the future include giving the readers a quick way to disable some of the eye candy that can make tools like this distracting instead of useful.

Check out the walkthough video of how to use the tool below.

See more here:
Add (useful) pop-up links to your blog with Apture

Here are some of the highlights from the week’s Web Tech action on ReadWriteWeb. On the product side we reported on Nokia’s buyout of the open source mobile OS Symbian, reviewed a “memory augmentation” service and a semantic search engine, and looked at what LinkedIn’s strategy tells us about the IPO market. On the trends side, we contributed our 2 cents to Yahoo’s board, investigated another Wikipedia controversy, analyzed the capacity of web 2.0 to bring about “change”, and explored the online video market.

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Web Products

Nokia Acquires Symbian; Takes on Google’s Android

Nokia isn’t finished with its acquisition spree just yet. This week the Finnish company announced a plan to acquire the 52 per cent of Symbian it doesn’t already own and make the platform open source. Nokia clearly aims to challenge Android, the open source mobile operating system of Google. Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo says that it wants to create “the most attractive platform for mobile innovation and drive the development of new and compelling web-enabled applications”.

See also: last100’s analysis and Setbacks for Google’s Android

Evernote Opens to All: Fantastic Promise, Disappointing Execution

The highly anticipated “memory augmentation” service Evernote opened to the public this week and you’ll probably want to check this service out just to see what it tries to do. We may change our minds after more lengthy testing, but so far this combination of a bookmarking, note taking and photo cataloging service with apps for the desktop, web and mobile - not to mention the Optical Character Recognition powered search - adds up to a whole lot of potential … and frustration.

Evri Beta Launches: Search Less - Understand More

Evri, a Paul Allen backed semantic search engine, launched into a limited beta this week. Evri was first shown publicly at the D6 conference. Evri’s CEO Neil Roseman likes to talk about Evri in terms of organizing content instead of calling it a search engine. At its core, however, Evri definitely is a search engine, though it adds a very sophisticated semantic layer on top of its results that emphasizes the relationships between different search terms.

Facebook Targets Chinese Market

Social networking site Facebook has launched a Chinese-language version of its web site. Users logging into the site from the Chinese mainland are now being redirected to zh-cn.facebook.com, where users can choose between a version in simplified or traditional Chinese.

See also: China’s Facebook Clones

LinkedIn and The Strange Case of The Disappearing (IPO) Market

Is LinkedIn worth $1bn? Yes. Why? Because Bain Capital says it is. The stock is not public, so you and I cannot trade it. The whole notion of the average punter trading tech stocks (or the average punter’s pension fund trading it on your behalf) seems rather quaint, from some bygone era. But why has the public market for tech stocks disappeared? Where has it disappeared to? Will it ever return? The LinkedIn financing offers some clues to these questions.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

Web Trends

Yet Another Unsolicited Yahoo Turnaround Strategy - YAUYTS

Watching Yahoo’s decline is rather sad. It is the result of nothing more or less than creative destruction. Meeting that challenge head-on is incredibly tough. Very, very few companies make the transition. IBM, led by Lou Gerstner, met the challenge of the PC era in his epic turnaround (described in the book Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance). Microsoft has struggled mightily to remain relevant in the Web era and they are as smart and driven as it gets. What’s so incredible is seeing the speed of these transitions - to see a big successful Web start-up like Yahoo marginalized by technology shifts.

Our Kids Are Failing - And It’s All Wikipedia’s Fault!

Talk about a knee-jerk reaction. This week news broke out in Scotland about how the internet was to blame for Scotland’s failing exam pass rates. According to the Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC), Wikipedia, among other sources, was cited as the reason as to why the students were failing. Is this a case of the internet making us stupid? Or do students just need to learn how to use the new research tools of the web a little more appropriately?

Bored With Web 2.0? Demand Change

In April, Umair Haque posted a manifesto on his blog on the Harvard Business Publishing web site where he called for today’s investors and start-ups to start building applications to “change the world” instead of just making apps that make money. He challenged Silicon Valley to find a problem to fix that will change the world for the better and then pledged that he would help by providing free consulting. Recently, he revisited this topic…

YouTube Continues to Destroy All Competitors in Declining Video Market

YouTube’s huge lead in market share over other online video sites continues to get bigger, even as the over all video viewing market continues a decline. According to traffic analysts Hitwise, YouTube now sees 75.43% of traffic to the online video category; that’s up 26% from it’s May 2007 marketshare of 59.95%. The nearest competitor is still MySpaceTV, which was down a whopping 44% to 9% marketshare. (Full chart of top 5 sites below.) In April we reported that YouTube’s dominance in online video was bigger than Google’s dominance in search (67%). The new Hitwise numbers raise a number of questions for us.

See also: The Top 40 Online Video Producers in May - This List Might Surprise You

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

See the original post:
Weekly Wrapup, 23-27 June 2008

Semantic search tool Powerset has put out a new iPhone app this week. Those looking to search on the go can now use the service’s plain English searching capabilities to scour the entirety of Wikipedia and Freebase (coverage). The app comes after months of Powerset staff fumbling while trying to use their own product on the popular mobile device.

The new tool will pull up everything the desktop version does, although I found performance to be a tad slower–even over Wi-Fi. Outline, one of my favorite Powerset features that gives you quick links to each section in a Wikipedia article, has also made its way into the pocket version. While not as convenient as the desktop version which sits beside the actual Wikipedia article, it’s a great way to skip down to a lower section of an article, which is normally an activity that makes you look like a complete idiot while you continuously drag your finger up and down the screen of your phone. There’s also a much needed search function, something the iPhone’s version of Safari is lacking from its desktop sibling.

I expect the company to come out with its own native app that will save past searches and let you store local content depending on how popular this version becomes. I’ve embedded some screens below. Also embedded after the break is a demo video of it in action.

Powerset iPhone Web App Demo from officialpowerset on Vimeo

See the original post:
Powerset’s iPhone app solves bar bets, makes you smarter

Next week game publisher Electronic Arts will unleash a cleverly packaged marketing device upon masses of hungry gamers awaiting the release of one of this holiday’s biggest titles–Spore. The software is a “creature creator” letting players put together 3D characters with an interface nearly as simple to use as Nintendo’s Mii maker seen on the Wii. The 300MB download will be available next Tuesday, though some diehard fans and “influencers” got their hands on it last night.

The upcoming game focuses on creating a species and taking it from the microbial stage of life all the way to multi-universe exploration and colonization–a mix somewhere between a science experiment and a game of Risk. The creature creator is the first step in showing potential users what they’ll be getting their hands on in just three months time.

What may be more interesting though is how publisher EA has begun to integrate the Web into its latest titles–Spore included. For instance, in this new piece of software you can take pictures of your creation and send them to buddies via e-mail. You can also record video that can be uploaded straight to YouTube–like the clip I created and have posted below. Last year’s Skate (also by EA) had similar features, although all of the content was hosted on EA’s servers.

Others seem to have taken notice of this trend. Last month Sony integrated YouTube into its developer tools to allow PS3 developers to code in the option to record and upload clips to the popular video host without requiring gamers to leave the couch. Microsoft has also had its own system for letting gamers grab in-game screenshots and have them post it to special mini game sites that are linked up to the user’s Live.com ID.

That’s not to say EA is letting other companies house all that content though. The creature creator and eventual game will go hand in hand with Spore’s official site which launched with limited functionality this past Monday. The company is touting the site as a way to build out your profile and discover other people’s creations, but it’s essentially a photo gallery full of in-game screen shots and creations people saved.

Sporemail is pictures of your creature captured in-game which can be sent to friends and viewed on Spore.com. Some shots double as character models you can pull into your software and re-tool to make your own.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

These photos have an additional use too–you’ll be able to drag and drop what you see from other members into your own software be able to play with that same creature. Users will also be able to send creations to third parties to put into things like online comic books, or to print out into a 3D mold. The company is expecting this to lead to people making small changes to their in-game characters, or browsing through other people’s creations while away from their home machine. These changes will sync up with their in-game characters the next time they play.

Each user created creature is also a piece of something larger called SporePedia. Not unlike Wikipedia it’s completely sourced and managed by players. They’ll be able to upload their creations to the SporePedia with descriptions and bits of game data which will completely searchable both in-game and from the Web. EA is hoping it will provide a way for novice gamers to very quickly discover new creatures created by others, or simply archive what they’ve made without having to worry about saving it to local storage.

Also thrown into the site are widgets people can put on their blog or social networking profile that showcase their latest creature creations and an RSS powered news feed of what your friends have created. The site is currently the only way to view in-game screenshots, which are hosted with ratings, comments and a tracking system that assigns special badges to popular or featured content.

In the end the creature creator is a far cry from the experience gamers will be getting in September. It’s a very svelte game demo that’s been packed with Web elements and the start of one of the stronger first party community sites I’ve seen.

I really would not be surprised to see more games take advantage of the Web in the coming years, not just for the marketing potential, but for the extra sticking power. March Madness and fantasy sports suck up absurd amounts of time from office workers because the Web has become a gateway to some of the things we do on our off-work hours. There’s not much keeping future games from doing the same if they begin to build up what players are able to do while away from their fancy hardware.

Related:
EA unveils ‘Spore’ tribal phase images, video

‘Spore Creature Creator’ to see light of day in June

Source:
Spore set to mold the future of Web 2.0-enabled gaming

Next week game publisher Electronic Arts will unleash a cleverly packaged marketing device upon masses of hungry gamers awaiting the release of one of this holiday’s biggest titles–Spore. The software is a “creature creator” letting players put together 3D characters with an interface nearly as simple to use as Nintendo’s Mii maker seen on the Wii. The 300MB download will be available next Tuesday, though some diehard fans and “influencers” got their hands on it last night.

The upcoming game focuses on creating a species and taking it from the microbial stage of life all the way to multi-universe exploration and colonization–a mix somewhere between a science experiment and a game of Risk. The creature creator is the first step in showing potential users what they’ll be getting their hands on in just three months time.

What may be more interesting though is how publisher EA has begun to integrate the Web into its latest titles–Spore included. For instance, in this new piece of software you can take pictures of your creation and send them to buddies via e-mail. You can also record video that can be uploaded straight to YouTube–like the clip I created and have posted below. Last year’s Skate (also by EA) had similar features, although all of the content was hosted on EA’s servers.

Others seem to have taken notice of this trend. Last month Sony integrated YouTube into its developer tools to allow PS3 developers to code in the option to record and upload clips to the popular video host without requiring gamers to leave the couch. Microsoft has also had its own system for letting gamers grab in-game screenshots and have them post it to special mini game sites that are linked up to the user’s Live.com ID.

That’s not to say EA is letting other companies house all that content though. The creature creator and eventual game will go hand in hand with Spore’s official site which launched with limited functionality this past Monday. The company is touting the site as a way to build out your profile and discover other people’s creations, but it’s essentially a photo gallery full of in-game screen shots and creations people saved.

Sporemail is pictures of your creature captured in-game which can be sent to friends and viewed on Spore.com. Some shots double as character models you can pull into your software and re-tool to make your own.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

These photos have an additional use too–you’ll be able to drag and drop what you see from other members into your own software be able to play with that same creature. Users will also be able to send creations to third parties to put into things like online comic books, or to print out into a 3D mold. The company is expecting this to lead to people making small changes to their in-game characters, or browsing through other people’s creations while away from their home machine. These changes will sync up with their in-game characters the next time they play.

Each user-created creature is also a piece of something larger called SporePedia. Not unlike Wikipedia it’s completely sourced and managed by players. They’ll be able to upload their creations to the SporePedia with descriptions and bits of game data which will completely searchable both in-game and from the Web. EA is hoping it will provide a way for novice gamers to very quickly discover new creatures created by others, or simply archive what they’ve made without having to worry about saving it to local storage.

Also thrown into the site are widgets people can put on their blog or social-networking profile that showcase their latest creature creations and an RSS-powered news feed of what your friends have created. The site is currently the only way to view in-game screenshots, which are hosted with ratings, comments, and a tracking system that assigns special badges to popular or featured content.

In the end the creature creator is a far cry from the experience gamers will be getting in September. It’s a very svelte game demo that’s been packed with Web elements and the start of one of the stronger first-party community sites I’ve seen.

I really would not be surprised to see more games take advantage of the Web in the coming years, not just for the marketing potential, but for the extra sticking power. March Madness and fantasy sports suck up absurd amounts of time from office workers because the Web has become a gateway to some of the things we do on our off-work hours. There’s not much keeping future games from doing the same if they begin to build up what players are able to do while away from their fancy hardware.

Related:
EA unveils ‘Spore’ tribal phase images, video

‘Spore Creature Creator’ to see light of day in June

Original post:
‘Spore’ set to mold the future of Web 2.0-enabled gaming