ShareThis - Bringing the Social Web Together

I just saw this when trying to share a post on FMyLife.com (the post was hilarious, and I'd quote it here, but they removed it) when I saw the "share this" button in the corner. I've seen it on other sites but not used it. Upon going back to those sites, they seem nice but the multiple buttons kind of puts me off and reminds me how much consolidation is needed in the social web space. Honestly, somebody needs to pony up some cash and buy out their competitors, integrate their strengths, and becoming powerful. Anyway, so this button is clear, has all the sites, and works quite well! It seems there's one called "AddThis", which is similar but seems less powerful. I'm guessing these have been around for a while, but not so much on the sites I frequent - Ars Technica, the NYT, the WSJ (which has a weirdly limited set), even Lifehacker! I highly suggest any bloggers out there to include this in their site, and for the time being allow easy expression through any medium, until some consolidation occurs. 

Why Can't Google Break Out Its Apps?

All the important Google apps that I use every day are all offered on my iPhone - Calendar, Docs, Gmail, [Reader]). But they're all stuck in that stupid Google Mobile app. Why? It's sure nice to have them all in the same app, nicely locked away, but by iPhone 3.0 (which should allow app grouping/folders), I'm pretty adamant that Google gets its act together and makes it a one-touch click to any one of their apps. I don't care about a two touch to all apps as much as one-touch to a select few. What's the point of having GReader on my iPhone if it takes approximately 5 seconds to open up Google Mobile and then another three to load the non-offline supported GReader for iPhone? They should be separate apps (or offered as both) and Reader should be more like the third party apps that offer sync through it (Byline, Feeds, Gazette, Doppler). Or just dead-simple and sleek like NetNewsWire. Don't even get me started on how ugly GReader web looks compared to NewsGator online. Functionality is better in Google's, sure (with sharing and tagging, etc.), but I love to read the news when it looks nice. 

Nuevasync

MobileMe without the hassle or stolen $100/year! Nuevasync is still in beta, but it provides Exchange-based over the air sync to your iPod Touch/iPhone/other web-enabled device (they focus on Nokia smartphones). It's easy to set up and for a relatively small company, they're doing a good job. They are very nice about posting on their blog when servers are down for maintenance/bugs etc., but since it's happening somewhat often (once a week or so), I'd recommend adding them to your RSS feed so you know when not to completely rely on it. They're still working on getting GMail running through Exchange, but for now I have an over-the -air sync for Google Calendar and Contacts. The only downside is I thought I could sync back into Outlook when I sync my iPod but it [the iPod] won't do both over-the-air and Outlook sync. 'sall good! I have free OTA syncing and it works great!

Google Chrome is out!

Somehow, Google's most daring product release ever (I think) is getting very little press. Well, besides the NYT and all. I just downloaded Google Chrome, the new browser straight from the doers of no evil. It's impressively fast, and it makes sense why - if you get through their entertaining but verbose 25-page comic. They've built it from the ground up for Web 2.0 and webapps that take full advantage of new features in browsing. While the features on the surface are nothing new, the infrastructure beneath allows this browser to run very fast and be rock solid. IE8 is supposed to be very much like this with the sandbox structure to keep malware from crashing the browser and other such features, but given that this is open source and will certainly have plenty of plugins, I'm looking forward to my next few weeks testing this baby out.

Songza

Looks like this summer is going pretty well with the discovery of new music through Pandora when suddenly I run across Songza, an online service that lets me create playlists and listen to any song I want! It seems to be using YouTube (or so I've read). Anyway, I can even listen to the new Metallica single, "The Day that Never Comes" from their upcoming album, Death Magnetic. They have pretty full and complete collections from the artists I've typed in so far, and it seems like a quick and easy way to get a playlist going when you go over to your friends house and want to show them some new music but you forgot your iPod. Furthermore, it works (decently) on my iPod Touch - maybe on other mobile platforms as well. Of course it's not as nice as the Pandora app, but it has more functionality - as a result of fewer deals with record companies and such.

I Want Sandy

I usually don't like to make pitches even for cool products, because I often cant 1) afford them or 2) really make good use of them. But Sandy is an exception, and no I'm not personifying my Crackberry or something. www.iwantsandy.com is a web-based personal assistant service, and free for those of us who aren't CEOs. You can email Sandy with any reminder, to-do item, appointment, or whatever. My dad has a recurring reminder to sleep at 1 AM every day, which can be sent via email or text. The texting function is especially good because with the amount of email most of us get, we tend to ignore it (especially those people who have real assistants). It seems trivial, but it's actually really nice to just type something really fast than use the sometimes clumsy interfaces of digital calendars, which are the main reason people don't use them. Bits and bytes of text have not yet replaced chicken scratch on the backs of envelopes for many, mostly for speed. Typing and digital tools are great for things that would otherwise be time-consuming (typing a book or report for example), but not yet for the really fast things. An analogy is that it's easier to walk to the corner store than jump in your car and have to find parking too. Anyway, a quick email is all it takes, and there's a mountain of sync options:

1) Sync with Outlook calendar and to-do list through iCalendar
2) Sync with any other calendar like Google calendar that can support a web-feed
3) RSS feed (then open up new/old entries on your mobile device - including iPhone/Touch)
4) Through either outlook or web-based Google calendar or RSS, you can check it on your mobile device. Friends who use it can also set reminders for shared appointments, etc.
5) Absolutely the coolest, though it's gonna be fee-based starting next week. Jott Pro links up with Sandy so you can actually talk with your assistant with your voice!

I have already missed several meetings at work because I've been engrossed in another one meeting and been late for another, more imporant one because I wasn't at my desk to get the Outlook reminder. If I had gotten a text, it would've been awesome! You can also edit the email address to be something to your liking, and also enable other email addresses (your work and personal email for example) to set reminders/tasks/appts. This way, you can keep everything else the way you like it with the same software but not let things fall through the cracks!

http://www.iwantsandy.com/

Powerset

Last summer I had the chance to visit a pretty cool company called Powerset through a series of free lunches at various companies in the Valley, titled "Lunch 2.0". I started reading their blog which chronicles some of the issues which they are tackling and some oddities about language, which struck me as interesting. Now they've come up with something for their sematics-based search function called "Factz", which links the search to various related Wikipedia articles and shows you where the word came from in the sentence. For example, a search on epigenetics, which I'll be starting some research on soon, links to "Factz" under a subtopic of "factors". Impressively enough, clicking on that actually mentions exactly what I'll be researching - epigenetic phenomenon and their relation to the causes of senescence.

You can also search questions, which seems to be the strong suit of Powerset's search tool over most other mainstream ones. For example, a search of "What did Dwight Howard win" links to Factz about the Slam Dunk contest and the 2008 All-Star Game.

Check it out it's pretty cool!