web2.0

Mini-Review: Threadsy – a unified communications client

Communication in today’s computer networked world comes in different forms and most of us have use more than one: e-mail, Facebook, IM, RSS feeds, etc. Many times, we have multiple accounts. I know I do! Checking them all can be daunting or at least near impossible as more of them gain more real-time streams.

threadsy logoStartup Threadsy aims to consolidate this comm into a single web-based client. I had a chance to test out Threadsy and found a slick app, that unfortunately was pretty ‘busy’ due to the number of streams that it tried to consolidate. But that’s no fault of Threadsy.

I set it up to check 1 e-mail account, Facebook and Twitter. Threadsy does what we all do – prioritize. In their case, they prioritization translates directly to screen real estate. Email takes up more space than my Twitter feed, although Twitter direct messages come through in my larger consolidated feed, which I like.

You can reply to messages directly from the Threadsy interface, although I did notice there was no way to mark an e-mail as spam.

Threadsy is great for people who want to simplify, but I’m not about to give up the power I have with Gmail, or Facebook’s interface. I already (at least subconsciously) prioritize my different communication streams, and like the separation I have. In time, if an app (or perhaps Threadsy) can incorporate that power and ‘learn’ from my usage how I prioritize streams, then perhaps I’ll switch.

I’ve got 10 invites that I can send out, and am posting them to my Twitter account. First come, first serve.

Livemocha – learn a new language online

livemocha online languageLooking to make that backpacking trip to Europe you’ve been talking about for years, but would like to learn some of the languages first? Take a look at online language education site, Livemocha, which has a number of free online courses in 36 different languages as well as more advanced, premium courses.

Livemocha takes your native language into account when determining how to ‘teach’ you.

PS> You may learn the language well enough not to need these translation glasses!

Readability Bookmarklet for Web Reading

While cleaning up some old bookmarks today, I ran across a company that was acquired by Twitter which lead me to one of the owners Twitter’s feed. The last item in the feed then pointed me to a brilliant web experiment called Readability which is a arc90 lab experiment that provides a bookmarklet that you simply copy to your modern web browser’s toolbar. As you surf the web and find an article really worth reading, click on the bookmarklet and the article reloads in a reader friendly interface providing options to return to the original page and email or print the article. …

Google Rolls Out Realtime Search Results

Google has thrown their hat into the realtime search arena, joining other services such as Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook. Although those Web2.0 websites have had real-time search for some time, Google has been surprisingly absent until now. Google announced this today at their Search Event conference.

However, at this point in time, not every single Google account has the realtime feature turned on. To check whether you have this feature, visit Google’s main search page, and enter a search term. Once the results appear, click the Show Options link at the top, at which point you will (or won’t) have the “Latest” option in the time parameters section. The search results will now start updating automatically in a very similar fashion to those on Facebook or Twitter.

If your Google account does not have the realtime feature, you can see a video captured by TechCrunch:

BillShrink helps you save money on credit cards, gas, cell phones and savings accounts

A new online service that aims to help you save money has popped up on the ol’ Interwebs – BillShrink. BillShrink tries to help you save money in a few key areas: credit cards, gas, wireless (a.k.a. cell phone) and savings/CDs.

It asks you a few questions about your current usage, including your current plans, sometimes your address and then give you alternative options for other services that you could be using to save money.

BillShrink has a pretty clean, Web 2.0 site and is easy to use. We’re not sure how they plan to make money in the future, as this service is currently free, but they do request an e-mail address to get your results. I guess e-mail addresses are the new ‘gold’ for many online companies today.

Facebook attracts an older crowd too

Web 2.0 is coming home to older users as Facebook’s demographics show that for example, women over 55 are one of its fastest growing groups.

Not surprising as Facebook has become the solution to a problem people didn’t really think they had – how to keep in touch with friends and family without expending a great deal of time and money.

200 million users currently and growing at a tremendous pace, it also wouldn’t surprise me to see FB get targeted by governments for various reasons – reigning in/keeping an eye on their citizens, law enforcement, propaganda, information dispersal, etc.

kwiry adds new features: Facebook app, e-mail, photos, more

Remember kwiry, the text-to-webpage service that we blogged about late last year? Well, they’ve been hard at work building and rolling out new extensions to their basic service.

For starters, the kwiry Facebook application lets you change the privacy of your kwirys and manage your kwirys without leaving FB.

Now you can send photos to your kwiry account from your camera phone by e-mailing [email protected], and then you can use your mobile phone to view those photos and the rest of your kwirys at m.kwiry.com.

If you want to stay abreast of kwiry news, subscribe to their blog.

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