chuggnutt.com

I finally broke down and have been checking out a couple of Web 2.0 apps the past few days. Sooner or later I'll catch up and be trendy. Maybe.

twitter

Okay, so what's the big deal exactly? I guess it's kind of like micro-blogging, which seems interesting. You can use the service on your cell phone, via SMS, if you're into that kind of thing (I'm not). And I have yet to "follow" enough people to make it compelling. But hey, you never know. My profile is here, so you can check it out, follow me, whatever.

Anywhere.FM

This sounded interesting when I read about it: they host your music library for you, and it's available, er, anywhere via a browser with an internet connection. Basically, like iTunes only hosted on the web and accessible from any computer. I'm not a die-hard music guy, but if nothing else this is a good service to put my MP3s on, and so far it's free and unlimited.

(Oh yeah, it also has friend lists and free music and that whole social networking aspect... maybe you can listen to friends' music? Not sure yet.)

Only, it's basically one big Flash app and seems buggy yet; one day last week the thing kept restarting itself for "updates" in the middle of the day, so was basically unusable. Beta software, I guess, but it seems to work well (when it works) and the music sounds fine. It has promise, but I can't help but wonder what's going to happen when the other shoe drops and it's no longer free and unlimited. Which we all know is inevitable, right? Right?

The tech and "Web 2.0" section of the blogosphere is all a-twitter over the alpha launch of the new "people-powered" search engine, Mahalo, by Jason Calacanis (of Weblogs, Inc. and Netscape-relaunch fame). I've been checking it out a bit, and have some comments...

There's definitely no mystery under the hood, technology-wise, here: it's simply a locked-down wiki software. MediaWiki, in fact, the same wikiware used to run (and developed by) Wikipedia. Pretty smart, actually, because there's no reinventing the wheel going on, and MediaWiki provides a really slick platform overall. Plus, it's not like his other endeavors have been built on developing new tech—they have, in fact, been people-oriented and built upon existing technologies, which is what he seems to do best (and is successful at it).

On the other hand, this is not a new idea: Mahalo is "guide" driven, by people who filter through the best results for top search terms and build pages for them. I can't help thinking that this makes it just another About.com (at least, from the early days of About.com—a clone without all the cruft that About.com has accumulated over the years), or, even more apt, just another Open Directory Project (which pretty much has been doing the exact same thing for years).

So I'm kinda split. I guess the real question is, "Would I use it?" And generally, the answer is no... since they're only covering the top search terms, and not the esoterica that I'm often searching for (for which I primarily use Google), I don't see it happening. I like the concept, though.

TechCrunch lists some companies they'd like to see move into the online space, kind of a wishlist of Web 2.0 technologies. The list is making the rounds on various tech blogs like it's the Second Coming (which I can't figure out, it's not that revolutionary a list), and while overall it's a decent read, I do have one point of contention:

2. Blog/website Email Lists

People can visit my site, and get the content via RSS, but I know of no quality service to allow people to subscribe to my site via email.

...I want people to have the option of getting an email every post, every day, or every week.

I also want to know that I and I alone control these email addresses so that they will not under any circumstances be misused. If I change services, I want to have an easy export feature to take these with me (OPML would be nice).

I also want access to real time stats. The number of emails, type of subscription, how often they are opened and what things are being clicked on.

And users need a very easy way to stop the emails.

I'm willing to pay for this. Probably as much as $20 per month. A free version should be offered too that's add supported and maybe doesn't have the analytics.

I read this and I thought, "Uh, hello? The 1990s called, and wants its listserv back."

Seriously, why the hell would anyone want to receive website updates via email these days? That just seems so backward-thinking.

On the other hand, there's a couple of the other items that I like: Portable reputations, and tailored local offers via RSS.

And Richard MacManus follows up with a similar post, and in particular I like his first idea: more Web 2.0 products for eBooks. I'm not sure specifically what he has in mind for this, but I have some ideas. None that I'm gonna share here, though. :)