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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?

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.

Thoof is a digg-clone that makes me scratch my head. It’s a site where, get this, people submit stories but it’s better than digg because it avoids the whole “angry mob” effect controlling what gets on the front page. So, I’m guessing that’s a spin on “users vote for what they want” and instead they have no real say, or maybe anything that is submitted goes to the front page. Whatever their whole shtick is - the bottom line is the site doesn’t make me want to leave digg. Why?

1. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of content. Chalk it up as a “clean” interface or a clear indication that nobody uses this site.

2.  No categories, just tags. Wait, so how do I just get entertainment stories? What about world news? This is one time when tags to way more harm than good. If digg had tags instead of categories it would be chaotic. Digg, even without tags, allows you to really get news on the topics you care about, customizing your experience to show just what you want. No categories categorically blows.

3. Stories constantly loading. What is it that when I go to the site and scroll down it’s still loading more stories? Pretty annoying “feature” of the Web 2.0 generation.

There is no real incentive to use the site. I have no real thought provoking analysis to add, it pretty much is uninspiring.

Maybe their target audience are those people who want to use something but netvibes, but rather the words “global” and/or “grind” be in the URL they have to go to, to get to the site. Long story short, it’s a Netvibes clone and considering you have the Netvibes Universe, you’re probably better off going with Netvibes.

Audio Previews - Now when looking at albums to vote on, you can get a preview of the music, something the site should have launched with.

Updated profiles - Users can now message each other. A standard feature of any social network now.

Revamped New Release Section.

To see all the new features, check out the site’s blog which has the rundown on all the changes.

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