Content and publishing

Zoho Notebook ate my homework

Zoho released its Notebook service today, better rounding off its suite of Web-based productivity tools. Zoho Notebook (more here) is really more like a scrapbook than a notebook. You can add spreadsheets and word processing files from your Zoho folders. Even more fun is Zoho's capacity to hold songs and video--as well as Web pages and RSS feeds--from a hard drive or from around the Internet.

The capability to share your stuff with other people makes Notebook a potentially cool tool for group projects at school or work. Chatting with other users in addition to recording and playing audio … Read more

Justin.TV relaunches, zzz... [Updated]

Editor's note: This post has been updated from first publish. See note below for more.

This morning Justin.TV has relaunched itself as a live video platform. The site is planning to enable video livecasters to build out their own video broadcasting page, complete with a custom URL, branding, and chat room. Unlike uStream.TV, which has made similar functionality available to anyone and everyone for several months now, the initial crop of broadcasters who want to use the platform will be handpicked by Justin Kan and crew. Eventually it will be opened up to anyone.

For viewers, Justin.… Read more

Microsoft's Popfly: Mashup creation for the masses

Microsoft on Friday morning launched Popfly, a service for creating mashup applications specifically designed for people who don't know how, or want to, write developer code.

The free service, which is now in private alpha, provides a visual way for constructing mashup applications and widgets which can be embedded in blogs or personal pages. Once a project is written, people can share and modify other people's mashups.

People can drag and drop icons that do things like display photos from Flickr in a photo gallery. Or they can combine these blocks to display photos tagged with the word &… Read more

Sneak peak at Mogulus: new live blogging platform

I got to take a sneak peak at a new video broadcasting service that opened its doors to a select few this morning. Mogulus is a live video broadcasting service the likes of uStream.tv, but with a twist: Multiple people can work on live video feeds at the same time. Each user can create their own branded channel, and fill it up with video content either from their hard drives or pulled in from YouTube. Each contributor can also command the broadcast using their Web cam, complete with customizable over-the-shoulder graphic overlays and a scrolling CNN-style news ticker. The result is a live blogging experience that's visually stimulating to the viewer, and completely customizable for the amateur content producer.

Mogulus is giving its producers two ways to share content--either embedding the live feed, or linking to their own custom URL. All public channels go into a listing for live feeds a la Kyte.tv, so casual users looking to tune into things that are live or interesting will be able to browse through and find something they like.

Managing broadcasts in Mogulus is handled completely inside of a Flash-based application. Content is clumped together in small management units called "storyboards," which can be inserted into any broadcast almost like video playlists. Producers queue up content, mix and match the order of video clips, and can break in at any time to broadcast live from their Web cam. Power users have a lot to play with, as it actually feels like a professional video-editing app with a ton of options for tweaking and fine-tuning.

Mogulus plans to roll out its service with two models, one free and one paid. The free version requires inserting a short advertisement for every 10 minutes of broadcasting, while the pro version lets producers go ad-free in exchange for paying a fee for every gigabyte of bandwidth transferred. My hunch is that many casual users will be OK with the advertisement model, with what Mogulus is tentatively planning to keep at around 10 seconds per ad.

More on Mogulus as it leaves private beta. Until then you can sign up and check out an explanatory video here. More screenshots of the interface after the jump.

… Read more

Wizard of WordPress, part two: When open source fails

In part two of my interview with Matt Mullenweg (see also part one) of WordPress and Automattic, we discussed the release of WordPress 2.2, including its new widgets and Ajax-enhanced interface.

I asked Mullenweg what his favorite widgets were and although he said he "doesn't like most widgets," he did call out some of the blogosphere utilities like Sphere (review) and Technorati.

No conversation with Mullenweg would be complete without a discussion of the WordPress antispam utility, Akismet -- a service inspired by the young developer's mother. I also find it interesting that while Mullenweg … Read more

MySpace launching branded video channels, possible Joost killer

MySpace will soon launch more than a dozen branded video channels, featuring content from big names like the National Geographic group, The New York Times, and Reuters. Users will be able to access the video content on branded content microsites similar to YouTube's partner channels with the BBC, NBC, and CBS. MySpace is allowing content providers to customize their content interface, with special backgrounds and color schemes. Expect something similar to Trailer Park, which MySpace launched last month.

The new service will tie in to MySpace's current videos platform, although there's no word yet on whether or … Read more

Matt Mullenweg: Wizard of WordPress, part 1

I sat down last week with Matt Mullenweg, co-creator of WordPress and kingpin at Automattic, the company that runs the blog host service WordPress.com. As you might expect, Mullenweg has an well-formed perspective on blogging. So what's the state of the blogosphere? He sees the field as "nascent," despite the presence of large and influential blogs that are well on their way toward challenging incumbent media (including CNET).

We talked about blogging, freedom of speech, and how candidates' blogs in the U.S. are usually not much more than platforms for "pre-canned ideas." However, … Read more

Two Flickr eye-candy tools for your Monday

The Flickr API has opened up a lot of fun tools over the years. This morning we got a tip about Image Mosaic Generator, a free service that creates neat-looking picture mosaics of uploaded images. The service uses Flickr images to make up each mosaic and lets users save the end result to their hard drive. Images have a fair bit of variation, although you're likely to see a few repeats close up. The service doesn't link back to the original Flickr images, which is a bit disappointing, but as a result, handles the conversion from image to … Read more

Microsoft Tahiti gets new name, goes open beta

Microsoft's Tahiti project (not to be confused with the forthcoming Fiji update for Vista), has been given a new name this morning. Now known as SharedView, the 3MB download is available to anyone who wants it, assuming they've got a Windows Live ID, a Windows PC, and collaborators willing to install it.

It's a little early for a hands-on with SharedView, but it feels polished for a work in progress. Here are my impressions so far:

Sending invites to join SharedView is fairly simple, although Microsoft assumes you're using their services, including Windows Live Hotmail and … Read more