Category: Web 2.0

I never used AIM in my internet history path since I started surfing in 1995 and I always had the feeling that AIM was mainly used by people living in the US, while at that time ICQ was “the next big thing”.

When I was introduced to ICQ by a friend, his ID number was a 7 digits starting with 5 and I got mine which was also a 7 digits but starting with 9, and I used sometimes to feel proud that I am an ICQ user with a 7 digits ID, while most of friends I introduced to ICQ where in the 8 digits field, at that time, ICQ was not really carrying about the screen name or ID of its users, so the system allocated random numbers as your ID.

Then lately I wanted to have an AIM account, so i went to discover this online messenger and got surprised that your screen name can not be more than 16 characters. And it really reminded me of those email early days when your email address could not be more than 8 characters, also it reminded me when you were not able to put a dot in your hotmail email address, while you were able to use an underscore.

I have the same username or screen name on Skype, Yahoo, Hotmail & Gmail which is [myfirstname.mylastname] a total of 18 characters including the dot while I had no chance to have the same for my AIM because it is limited to 16 characters and it really made me wonder what are the reasons behind this limitation.

While all the other players are flexible with your username choice, I still wonder how can AIM limit itself in the WEB 2.0 age!

Invitopia.com will make you stop begging for your invitations. All you need is to visit and post a comment to the website you want to have an invitation to, people carrying those invitations will be nice enough to send you one.

Nowadays Facebook is everywhere, facebookists are around the corner, facebookism is in the air and Facebook applications are by thousands now. I even launched the blog www.facebookism.com to cover anything related to this phenomenon.

The more I am digging around this new social network, the more I am discovering people rejecting it without reason.

Then this morning while turning my laptop on in the office, my Skype was signing in and I wondered why some people who reject Facebook, do use Skype?

Skype has many features that are similar to Facebook and Skype was there way before Facebook. I will not count the option of both of them, but your profile on Skype have many identical fields as Facebook, you can have your picture attached, you add friends from anywhere in the world, you can have voice chat, you can have video chat, you can even search for people by very small details (age, gender, country, etc…)

Lots of people are having social networks on Skype or MSN or Gtalk or other messengers without even noticing it, but I don’t really understand why they reject Facebook in an era where the internet will move soon from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0.

If some people are afraid about their privacy, they should know that everything is controllable and that on September 8, 2006 Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook) apologized from many upset Facebook members who responded with outrage and he offered many privacy options.

My small conclusion, Skype and Facebook are almost the same in many issues and different in others but at the end, you can make your networks on both.

New York based Simple Spark aims to make finding web applications easy through an extensive catalog of online application sites.

Over 3000 web applications are tracked and categorized with screenshots, icons, feeds, reviews and concise summaries. Applications are indexed in over 70 categories including Spreadsheets, Workspace & Wikis, Education, Fashion, Green Living and Family & Kids

The Simple Spark search facility is also language friendly, a search for delicious or Flicker delivers the correct results of del.icio.us and Flickr; we’ve all misspelled Web 2.0 application names before.

Each competitive space can be tracked by RSS feeds based on individual categories, searches or the newest additions to the catalog.

Keeping up with the numerous competitors in each space can be difficult for even people working in the industry, let alone an outside observer. I find myself impressed with Simple Spark, as the name suggests it’s a simple idea that I can definitely see myself using in the future when researching a product category.

Source: techcrunch.com

I am not really sure about this Facebook.com gift thing and who is going to pay a stupid 1$ to buy a virtual gift to appear on your facebook profile side bar. I am sure lots of members are doing it and facebook is generating some money out of this.

They introduced a feature that lets you send “gifts” to your friends, like candy hearts and Teddy bears. “Wow, that’s pretty cool” you might say. “I’d like to click a button on Facebook and have some candy automatically mailed to my girlfriend on Valentine’s Day”, you might think but these Facebook gifts are JUST PICTURES! That’s right!! Stupid Pictures!!

After turning down a $1 Billion offer from Yahoo to buy Facebook, I think they are underestimating their audience.

Cameroid.com is new online application specifically for your webcam, to take snapshots, add effects, and save them to your desktop.

Cameroid directly accesses your webcam in order to collect snapshots and let you choose from their menu of special effects to be added to your image. You can change the color of your photo, morph its shape, or place it in a scene template like Mona Lisa’s face, or on a hundred dollar bill. All images come with their own unique URL for sharing and viewing purposes.

You can also email or bookmark an image with Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or BlinkList. There is no Cameroid community (you don’t even need to register to use its service), so you can’t save your work unless you download or email it for yourself, nor can you can’t see other users’ Cameroid images.