Content and publishing

Microsoft Labs' Deepfish: iPhone for everyone

Microsoft announced Deepfish , a new mobile browsing technology from itslabs group. Deepfish is a small, downloadable application for Windows Smartphone users. The app presents Web content the same way you'd see it on your computer's Web browser. If you've seen the mobile version of Apple's Safari on the upcoming iPhone, then you have an idea of how Deepfish works.

Deepfish is designed like an array of photo thumbnails. To zoom into a section you want to see in more detail, you just select it with a "magnify box" controlled by your phone's directional pad or pointer. If you want to zoom back out, the original version of the page will still be loaded in your phone's memory cache--which should save a considerable amount of time (and data usage).

In our brief hands-on with it today, we noticed a few quirks.… Read more

News Roundup: Original Signal, Google Mobile, eJamming

Original Signal rolls out meme tracker. The single-page aggregation service has added a new front page to their Web section. The page displays the top 10 most popular stories at any given time. The new service uses an algorithm that decides when a story is worthy of being on the front page without any additional user interaction required beyond browsing the site. Something similar was done with Spotplex, which we checked out last month.

eJamming launches. The virtual garage for musicians to 'jam' in different geographical locations launched their AUDiiO service this morning. The app has versions for both Windows … Read more

Tumblr: Microblogging done right

Tumblr blogging service, which launched last month, gives people the chance to publish brief or full-length, media-rich posts using their browser or mobile phone. It's a happy medium between a tidbit posting service, such as Twitter, and a full-fledged blogging tool, such as WordPress or Blogger. Tumblr is aimed at folks who feel they may not have enough content or time to write a full blog, yet still want to write and share links and media.

Each Tumblr user gets their own "Tumblelog," a short-form blog that contains one of six types of media: word posts, photos, videos, quotes, URLs, and IM conversations. Each type of content has its own visual style and corresponding form for publishing. It's delightfully simple, and within minutes you can add a wide range of content. There's also a bookmarklet for your browser's toolbar to post items without having to navigate to Tumblr's home page.

Tumblr comes with some pretty advanced options for power users. You can give your Tumblelog its own domain, and even set the length for stories on your RSS feed. There are five themes to pick from, and you can customize the color of every aspect of the interface. If you are integrating Tumblr into your blog or Web site, there's an option to paste in your CSS.

What really sets Tumblr apart is its speed. It's blazingly fast. According to founder David Karp, the service gets in excess of 10,000 posts an hour, something you can visually track using an in-house tool called Radar. Currently in alpha, it shows the last 20 pieces of content published to the service. It's a little bit like Digg's DiggSpy, but without autorefreshing.

If you're on the fence about blogging or just want an easy way to publish interesting tidbits you find while browsing, give Tumblr a try. Our semiofficial Tumbleblog can be found here.

Note: From 2003 to 2007, Tumblr creator David Karp was a partner and CTO of UrbanBaby.com, now owned by CNET Networks, publisher of Webware.com.… Read more

Other uses for Google Spreadsheets: Word-find puzzles?

An amusing entry in the Google Docs and Spreadsheets Blog highlights a neat use for the online app: word-find puzzles. The idea came to Jonathan Rochelle (a Google Spreadsheets product manager) when his son came home pining to create his own puzzle like the one his teacher had given his class at school. Rochelle's solution? Google Spreadsheets, of course.

You won't get complex auto-creation and custom publishing tools like you'll find in standalone software apps. You could also achieve similar results using Excel. What makes Google Spreadsheets neat is the ability to embed for sharing. Your embed … Read more

Blogosphere amplifies the bad (and good) parts of humanity

Tech bloggers are outraged tonight over the taunting and death threats that one of our own, Kathy Sierra, received on her blog and elsewhere (see News.com blog post). In reaction to these threats, Sierra has canceled a trip to the ETech conference that's on now, and called off a presentation she was scheduled to give.

Is the blogosphere unsafe? Is it hostile to women? As Chris Pirillo writes, "The problem isn't with the blogosphere. It's with the human race." That's indeed the core problem. But the Internet amplifies human behavior. With it, bullies … Read more

Adobe shows off six flavors of CS3

Since Adobe bought Macromedia nearly two years ago, rumors have flown about what mutant offspring might emerge from this marriage of software makers.

Although a leak on a blog revealed bits of this closely guarded secret about a day early, Adobe has officially taken the wraps off the pricing and packaging of its Creative Suite 3--most of which will work on Intel-based or PowerPC Macs, as well as with Windows Vista and XP. (See our coverage of the CS3 Master Collection to start.).

The six flavors of CS3 are built for different types of digital designers. So far, we've … Read more

Citizendium: Wikipedia 2.0

Citizendium, the new wiki project from Larry Sanger (one of the co-founders of Wikipedia) launched publicly yesterday. Citizendium is a lot like Wikipedia, but with more emphasis placed on responsibility and the policing of content--two things arguably lacking in Wikipedia. Before you can contribute to Citizendium, users must apply for access, and it's not just a casual name and e-mail address; you actually have to provide your real name and sell yourself to the service's content cops in 100 to 500 words.

The site's content is managed and controlled by community moderators called "constables." After being screened and chosen even more carefully than ordinary contributors, constables are given the power to manage user submissions and general content. Constables aren't paid or given compensation for their services, it's purely a volunteer gig. Likewise, contributors receive nothing besides the prestige of creating and editing content for the service.

There are just more than 1,000 entries on the site. This pales in comparison to Wikipedia's 1,700,000 plus, but Citizendium just launched. Wikipedia's been live since early 2001.

Citizendium is an interesting experiment (a term coined by its founders, not me). It's too early to say whether or not it will become a serious competitor to Wikipedia. To my mind, Citizendium is setting itself up for problems.… Read more

Zoho adds Google-like collaboration to spreadsheets

Zoho, who was at Under the Radar last week, upgraded their spreadsheet application, called Sheet, on Friday. The team added Zoho Chat integration and the ability for multiple users to work on a spreadsheet at the same time. Users of Google Spreadsheets will be accustomed to this functionality, and with the update, Zoho joins the fray of online collaborative tools (see our Under the Radar roundup of this category.)

Also new with the update is support for OpenDocument Sheet, which allows users of OpenOffice to work on and freely exchange documents.

Zoho Sheet still doesn't have the option to … Read more

TwitThis: Twitter + social bookmarking

This morning I came across yet another online utility for Twitter called TwitThis. It's the equivalent of the Digg and Reddit buttons we have below our posts, and allows users (like you) to bookmark things you like and share them with other Twitter users. It also turns Twitter into a social-bookmarking service, letting you share links with other Twitter users in real time.

The system uses TinyURL, a URL shortening service, to tighten up ungainly lengths so they'll fit within Twitter's stringent 140-character limit. They also provide a bookmarklet, and a plugin for WordPress users to add … Read more