Scopetech

Shvoong Homework is a peculiarly named, privately owned and funded web application that aims to help students keep track of their class notes and homework and share with friends. It’s part of Shvoong, a site that featurs summaries, reviews and short essays on a majority of topics.

The site claims to have 120, 000 registered users worldwide and supports 34 languages, hoping to expand with Shvoong Homework.

Timetable

TheTimetable feature of the site enables users to create a timetable for multiple schedules, such as personal and academic obligations. The timetable is linked to their “notebook” on the site and allows for easy access between the two. The timetable will also send alert emails students for upcoming events.

My Notebook

Students can create multiple notebooks, allowing students to write homework or notes for each subject. Notbook size is unlimited and features the uploading of word and .txt documents. Not everyone will be using these formats, so the site should consider more formats for upload.

The site is really pushing for this application to be used it seems, as they’re having an essay competition for American high schools from grades 9 - 12. Students will vote for the best essay on the topic “If you were elected President of the United States, which issue would you work on first?” How democratic this will be is left to be seen since I can’t see students in grades 9-12 reading through multiple essays on the same topic to find the one they like best.

The site is obviously going after a different market: school children. Shvoong may have to approach schools and pitch the idea of using this tool to them. I think it could very well be useful for students, but I’m not sure how students are going to find this and if they will be so inclined to use it.

Digital Inspiration has a story on bringing in your Orkut account into Facebook. All you need is the URL of your Orkut account and you can import the data. The first issue I’m thinking - how secure is your Orkut account? I’ve never used the service, but I can only hope and assume that you can adjust privacy settings preventing people you don’t want to see your account from doing so. The second thing that comes to mind - does anyone really need a social network inside a social network? Isn’t that a bit meta?

We’re taking a look at Wixi, which has been gaining a lot of attention recently.

What is it?

Wixi is sort of like a WebOS, what sites like MyBooo and Jooce are trying to be.

How does it work?

After logging in, users are taken to their own “desktop” if you want to call it that. The long and short of it is that it’s pretty much a virtual desktop through your browser. You can choose a wallpaper, create folders, upload music and pictures, etc.

You can check out other people’s Wixi page, who are your friends, and copy their files to your page if you want. To get a decent idea of it, you’ll definitely have to try it out yourself. If you don’t see a need for an Operating System inside your browser you probably don’t need one. Sites like these seem to be more confusing than anything.

While the use of these sites is to allow you to access your data anywhere, having to figure out a whole different WebOS may not be too appetizing to some, especially when you can use a simplified site like box.net to store your files online if needed. With that said, if you think the WebOS is something you might be interested in, I’d suggest checking out Jooce, which we’ll take a look at more in the future. It has a bit more polish. For example, right clicking with Jooce allows you to perform desktop-like actions, Wixi does not. Maybe when Wixi launches in December we’ll see changes, but so far in the WebOS race Jooce may come out on top. That’s not to say I can’t see people getting into Wixi more - they have their own vibes to them and using Wixi or Jooce may be akin to using Opera or Firefox.

All Facebook has a story on updating your Facebook status with Twitter updates. I’ve always thought that Twitter could be a good buy for Facebook considering there could be a totally different community based on just the updating status. Then again, maybe not. This will certainly be of use to some people who use Twitter religiously.