Scopetech

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.

Since my french goes no further than saying “I get along well with the cat in the house.” I can’t tell you too much about MyBooo. From what we gather, it’s an entry into the developing WebOS arena and…that’s all we got. It seems to at least function but it is unclear if they are going to even be going after an English audience.

The main site is in English and the blog is in something that could be described as English. Once we can get more information on this product we’ll be sure to report on it. As it is, we’re not sure if this is a serious entry into the Web2.0 world. When we can get our hands on a product such as Jooce we’ll be better positioned to make an assessment.

Stix.to is a website and Firefox extension allowing users to leave messages on other sites. When users sign up and install the plugin, pressing the button in Firefox pops up two boxes where you can leave messages which can then even be read by anyone else who has the extension installed and visits a site which has comments on it.

Using it I was quite annoyed to see the messages people put as I was hearing the automated voice attempting to read the gibberish people put up. While it’s an interesting concept the interface that you deal with is not very appealing to the eyes and for such a thing to make a real impact a lot more people are going to have install it and find use for it. The site says that it could be of interest even people who want to vandalize sites when in reality this “vandalism” won’t affect people who don’t install the plugin. It seems that for anyone who might be interested in such a thing may be better of checking out Fleck.

Bloglines is still the preferred RSS reader for some even though it has been pretty much outdone by Google’s Reader product feature-wise. Now, Bloglines has finally come out with a Beta that could quite possibly shake things up a bit. The interface is very appealing to look at, almost Mac-like.

While services like Google Reader and Bloglines are considerably different from sites like Netvibes or Protopage that line is now being blurred as Bloglines now allows for you to track specific feeds with drag and dropt boxes very much like Netvibes. It’s an interesting mash-up having the functionality of both sites.

Bloglines’ beta now also features the one thing I have been clamouring for: the ability to drag and drop feeds into folders as you want. For some reason Google thinks it’s labeling is better when it serves to do nothing more than confuse me. The beta can be used by anyone and may actually get me to switch back to Bloglines…again. Check the beta out here.

Online software options grow with the development of Flowchart.com. Searching for a new way to enhance documents or to create charts for business needs? Flowchart.com has several options you can use for that and more! Unlike some applications that need plug-ins, other software, and/or require a download Flowchart.com has an easy to use interface and nothing else is needed! Just register and you are ready to start creating your charts.

Chart Manager

Upon logging in, you will be presented with the Chart Manager. This section organizes your charts, displays thumbnails of new and existing templates and shared charts.

Design a new chart or use one of the several existing templates:

Engineering
Flowcharts
Mind maps
Networks
Organizational charts
Project Management

Within each template category, there are thumbnail samples that can be seen by hovering over each one. If you design a new chart, you can make it a template, too. Once you choose a chart, then you are given options to customize it such as add a chart name, choose options for page size and set the DPI.

My Images

My Images allows you to upload images for your charts and for sharing with others. You can also browse and choose images uploaded from other users. Uploading JPEG images is discouraged in favor of using PNG for bitmaps and SVG for vector graphics. This area seemed very lacking in content, but I assume once live this deficit will disappear. Users can even add a price for their images if they choose. If you do not have a need for charts, you could make some money by selling your images! However, the terms and conditions have not been added yet, so I am not certain as to the specifics.

Design Area

The design area is a real time editor and it displays typical word processing options with additional flowchart features for lines and shapes. Since I felt a little let down in the My Images section, seeing the large selection of clip art and other objects was appealing.

The collaborate feature was pretty impressive. Individuals working on team projects, especially when they are not located in the same area, should find this convenient. When collaborating, the changes one user makes can be seen by the other and they can discuss it in the chat environment.

Another nice feature was the preview window, in which the document remains intact as you move the preview window around to view various areas. The inability to see the entire document in the design area was frustrating, but the creators of the site assure users that they are working on a fix to this for version 2.0. This feature also has a Properties tab for details on selected images/objects such as position and size. The History tab is a nice addition to the application. After getting carried away with too many changes/additions, having this feature is reassuring. With one click, you can go back to a certain point and the changes are erased. For most instances like that, this can be a lifesaver.

The features were user friendly and the site design simple but effective. There is a nicely developed demo on their home page, I recommend checking that out for a visual demonstration of the features of Flowchart.com. Overall, the benefits seemed to outweigh the drawbacks. Once the site goes live I expect users will find few, if any, negatives. This application should enhance user experience in creating flowcharts without the need to purchase new software, download plug ins or any type of file.

Sharogle is an interesting search engine that gives users money for using the search engine. According to their About page - the search industry is a multi billion-dollar industry, so the money is there and instead of wasting money on advertising, more will be gained by giving people money to use the search engine which will in turn make you get more people to use it.

One gripe I do have with the service though is that the search results look like Google’s adsense advertisments.

For starters, the homepage isn’t too much to look at, going with a green and white colour-scheme.

A referral system will be put in place to help you make money through doing that as well as through doing searches.

As of this writing, the company blog has not been updated since July 11th, 2007, but it’s still good that there’s actually one since I’m sure some of you reading may be wondering about the legitimacy of the site. Admittedly, we did not try making any money with the site but it seems like an interesting take on making money with search. If anyone sees it fit to try out and want to report back to us, contact us and let us know.

Natuba is a new way to follow everything happening in your friends’ life online. The site links to all the social networks that you are part of and pulls your latest blog posts, YouTube videos as well as pictures from Flickr and Photobucket with the option to pull information from many other services.

I had a chance to try out the site briefly and was rather impressed. The front page of the site greets you with a very Twitter-like feel and has automatic updates of what’s happening on Natuba at that very moment. Upon logging in for the first time, you’re asked to build your page where you add your content from the many different services like MySpace, Twitter or Blogger. Integration with these services appears to be seamless with little to no time establishing a connection with each one. Where does all of this content go? You’re presented with a highly customizable page that you can share with your friends, where you can edit and change just about anything to suit your preference.

Natuba handles a lot of things very well; the customisation of your page, the seamless integration with each service and the easily navigated interface. It seems great for the kind of person that’s a part of many different networks and just wants to share their content at one place only, and for those who prefer to have a blog, a service like Tumblr offers just as much functionality with the option to display whatever content you wish, rather than everything. Natuba is definitely a service worth checking out if you’re interested in keeping everything in one place, especially if you want seamless integration and great functionality.

We’re giving away invites to Natuba, if you’d like one, please leave a comment with your name and email address and we’ll send one your way as soon as possible.

Before all you Trekkies get overly excited - we’re talking about the latest in searching for people online with Spock. On a basic level, Spock is a people search engine that allows you to search for people and information about them based on what the site has indexed. All of this sounds intrusive but the more I think about it the more it becomes clear: this could actually be a very useful tool in today’s web culture.

I had to try this out for myself so after some time waiting on my invite I was able to give the site a look. Sign in was quick and the interface was pretty basic, seeming simple enough to use and luckily it functions exactly as you would imagine. The first thing I did was what I assume anyone using the service will do: search for myself, and it gave me the information I put in when I signed up. The way this works is most of its information comes from indexing information online and obviously with celebrities having more information out there, their Spock results have significantly more detail. Of course if you don’t turn up on the results you can enter your own information on your profile which then gets listed within the site.

There is really only one kind of search result you get from Spock, lists upon lists of people. They seem to have results for literally every kind of query. So whether you search names, locations, dates or anything you get a list of people related to the query. It even allows tags and relationships to be attributed to queries as well as links associated with whatever you searched for. How does all of this work? Simply by indexing information from websites in the same way Google does. There is also an option to add websites, tags and relationships yourself.

Now this is already a pretty neat service as it is but what I see here are a lot of possibilities among the many networks we have online. With social networking being the main focus here, if a site like this was to merge with another social network such as Facebook, Twitter or Pownce it could be the ultimate social networking tool. You could quickly and easily find a friend and add them to all the various networks and from there find their brother, sister, cousin or any of their friends. With the addition of WHOIS information, blogs and more social networks Spock could effectively have results for everyone listed online making it the most efficient ‘people search engine’ on the web.

Spock really does have a lot of potential and with the constantly growing social networks of today’s web culture it could expand to much more, the beta service is already pretty good but unfortunately isn’t pulling enough information for you to find much more than you can find with a quick Google Search. Keep an eye on it, it’s definitely a service worth checking out.

We’re giving away invitations to Spock.com, leave a comment, include your email address and we’ll send you an invite.

SportSnipe has launched into beta, offering a customizable Ajax homepage specifically targeted towards sports fans. The site boasts 1300+ RSS sources (according to it’s ‘Site Features‘ page) and allows users to easily add their own feeds to the mix. They also offer a commenting system, attaching a thread to each individual item in each feed.

Check out a screenshot of the SportSnipe front page.

Some curiosities exist, in that while users can drag and reorder the modules in each category, they’re unable to actually customize or collapse them, only allowing you to rearrange them. In order to view the custom RSS feeds you’ve added, the user has to browse to a different page specifically for those added feeds called ‘My Page/Added News’. Additionally the comment system gives no indication of how many comments are actually in each thread. A user has no clue as to which items have hot or ongoing conversations attached to them without individually entering each one. The site’s header toolbar does offer a ‘Top Comments‘ page that highlights the most commented on stories but still doesn’t give any indication of how many comments are in each thread.

The site doesn’t offer nearly the fulfilling experience of some of it’s competitors like Pageflakes or Netvibes, but as mentioned before, it’s still in beta and an early one at that. Check back here for a more in-depth review of SportSnipe in the future.