Report: Microsoft-Yahoo deal may go hostile Friday

Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported early Friday that the world’s largest software maker may be preparing to go straight to Internet pioneer Yahoo’s shareholders. An announcement was “likely” to come Friday, according to the report, though the newspaper said its sources cautioned that Microsoft may delay.

Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told employees in a company assembly Thursday that he knows how much he’d spend to buy Yahoo and accelerate his company’s Internet play.

“We’re willing to pay for that at some level, and beyond that level we’re not willing to pay for it. I know exactly what I think Yahoo is worth to me,” the executive said. “I won’t go a dime above, and I will go to what I think it’s worth if that gets the deal done.”

But he didn’t offer a figure, and he didn’t say whether Microsoft is considering raising its unsolicited bid, worth $44.6 billion at the time it was made in early February.

The offer is currently worth about $42.4 billion, or $29.48 per share, based on Microsoft Corp.’s closing stock price Thursday. Yahoo Inc. has rejected the offer, saying it undervalues the company. Microsoft’s board has been considering whether to raise the bid to as much as $33 per share, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Ballmer didn’t provide any new insight into the company’s efforts to buy the Silicon Valley pioneer during the meeting at Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters, but he did indicate that an end to months of speculation was near.

“We ought to announce something in relatively short order,” Ballmer told employees.

His comments were first reported by Silicon Alley Insider, an online technology news site, and confirmed by a Microsoft spokesman.

Ballmer added that buying Yahoo is just one of many moving parts in the software maker’s strategy to compete with Google Inc. in search and Web advertising, and that if neither a friendly nor a hostile deal “look good,” he’s willing to walk away.

Microsoft’s board met Wednesday but reached no decision on a next step, the Journal reported. The software maker had given Yahoo until last weekend to agree to a deal or face the prospect of an ugly proxy fight.

Meanwhile, Yahoo is exploring a possible advertising partnership with Internet search leader Google Inc. or a merger with the online operations of Time Warner Inc.’s AOL as possible defenses if Microsoft tries a hostile takeover.

Impressed by a two-week test completed last month, Yahoo could firm up a long-term deal within a week, according to the Journal. Any alliance between Yahoo and Google would face intense antitrust scrutiny, however, because the two companies control more than 80 percent of the U.S. market for search advertising.

Yahoo and Google hope to allay those concerns by structuring their deal so their rivals, including Microsoft, could participate in an auction-based system, the Journal said.

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In January, everything went a little crazy because of a Facebook application that (if you believed the hype) force installed Zango, hijacked your PC, set fire to your house, killed your pets…..well, you get the idea. In actual fact, the truth of the matter was a little more convoluted. All I could see was that this application opened up a popup, which (every now and again) would just happen to be an advert for Zango. Hardly Earth shattering, but of course it did switch people on to the fact that they needed to be careful which applications they gave permission to access their data while on Facebook.

Well, a few months on and it looks like the BBC had a coder create an application (in three hours or less) that could swipe a whole pile of data on both you and your friends, before mailing it back home to base. I can’t stress enough - when it comes to social networking sites, NEVER post anything you wouldn’t feel comfortable posting on an otherwise open and accessible site such as your blog, personal website, whatever. I have pages on Myspace, Facebook, Orkut and a whole bunch of others - and there is NOTHING on them that you couldn’t find elsewhere. There is no hidden treasure trove of data to mine, and so I don’t care what happens to it because it’s all out there in the public domain anyway. This is what I’ve been telling people for the longest time, and it works.

The hacker in this case has been able set up a malicious application that can steal details of not only your information but the people you’re connected with. This is because in Facebook, applications have permission to ‘walk the tree’ of your friend contact details, letting the apps do things like populate the list of people for you to forward to, when you choose to “forward this and see what happens.”

We have discovered a way to steal the personal details of you and all your Facebook friends without you knowing.

The article is worth reading. Wow, good job British hax0rz! I won’t say “the sky is falling” because this has been pretty well-known among the geek-o-rati for a long time. BBC notes MySpace apps run on MySpace’s servers, giving MySpace a much clearer idea of what an application is doing with the data.

Perhaps the media attention this is sure to draw will move FB to a more secure model. One can hope.

A team of engineers at the University of California at Berkeley has developed a technique for transmitting medical images via cellphones. This potentially could bring medical imaging to the ‘three-quarters of the world’s population which has no access to ultrasounds, X-rays, magnetic resonance images, and other medical imaging technology.’ The lead researcher said that this new system would make imaging technology inexpensive and accessible in non-industrialized countries. As medical images are usually pretty large, I was a little bit skeptical when I first read the UC Berkeley news release. But as the researchers have found a way to reduce these images to a mere kilobytes, it can actually be feasible. But read more about this brilliant idea…

You can see above the system configuration used for “the breast cancer tumors patient self-test screening. Outlined arrows indicate optional reporting of results to the patient.” (Credit: UC Berkeley, link to a larger version)

And you can see above how this technique could be used for breast cancer detection. On the left, you can see “the DAD [data acquisition device] of the system with two types of gel representing a breast cancer tumor surrounded by normal breast tissue.” The right part shows “econstructed result as it was displayed on the screen of a commercial cellular phone. Warm colors represent higher conductivity regions that are typical of breast cancer lesions.” (Credit: UC Berkeley, link to a larger version)

This research has been led by Boris Rubinsky, professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, who also works at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. By the way, this university also has issued its own news release about this imaging technique. Rubinsky worked with PhD student Yair Granot and post-doctoral researcher Antoni Ivorra.

Before going further, let’s first look at how medical imaging is done today. “Most medical imaging devices, said Rubinsky, consist of three essential components: the data acquisition hardware that is connected to the patient, the image processing software and a monitor to display the image. When these components are combined into one unit, machine parts often become redundant, substantially increasing the cost of the device, he said.”

This leads him to break this model. “Rubinsky and his team came up with the novel idea of physically separating these components so that the most complicated element — the processing software used to reconstruct the raw data into a meaningful image — can reside at an offsite central location, presumably in a large center where resources are available for its operation and maintenance. This central location would be used to service multiple remote sites where far simpler machines collect the raw data from the patients.”

And this where the cellphone comes in. “The phone, hooked up to the data acquisition device, would transmit the raw data to the central server where the information would be used to create an image. The server would then relay the image back to the cell phone, where it can be viewed on the cell phone’s screen. ‘This design significantly lowers the cost of medical imaging because the apparatus at the patient site is greatly simplified, and there is no need for personnel highly trained in imaging processing,’ said Ivorra.”

This new medical imaging technique has been published on April 30, 2008 in the open access journal Public Library of Science ONE (PLoS ONE) under the title “A New Concept for Medical Imaging Centered on Cellular Phone Technology.” Here is a link to this article, from which the above images have been picked.

Please read it to discover the potential limitations, such as cellphone compatibility. Here is the final summary. “This study demonstrates the feasibility of using a cellular phone as an integrated part of a medical imaging system in which a robust and independent DAD is connected to the imaging processing site through the cell phone. We believe that this concept has the potential for decreasing the complexity of operating the imaging system at the patient site and make state of the art diagnostic imaging as well as interventional imaging available to people and places that do not have adequate medical imaging now.”

Finally, here is a link to a short video (2 minutes and 30 seconds), in which Rubinsky tells how his team conceived and developed “a new device that uses cellphones to make medical imaging much cheaper and more accessible to the poor.” (Video produced by Roxanne Makasdjian, UC Berkeley Media Relations).

Sources: University of California at Berkeley news release, April 29, 2008; and various websites

Using search for analyzing social and cultural trends

The search engines have become an integrated part of our lives. Each and every day billions of searches are made all over the world, reflecting stories of work and leisure, strife and passion, and the interests of millions of Internet searchers.

If you could tap into this enormous amount of data, you could draw maps of fashion, cultural trends, political shifts and anything people are concerned about right now.

The search engine databases are kept under lock and key. The search engine companies hate the thought of loosing the trust of their users. Nevertheless, some aggregate data are available, and on this page your find links to some of the search trend sources found on the Web.

Google Zeitgeist and beyond

Google has a service called Google Zeitgeist that brings up weekly top 10 lists of the most popular searches in several countries and world wide.

With Google Trends, you can compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched for on Google over time.

Lycos has a weekly top 50 list, while Yahoo presents various search trends at Yahoo Buzz.

Blogs, bookmarks and folksonomies

Note also that the growth of social networking and bookmarking sites has given as a new wealth of search trend data.

There are actually companies out there that monitoring and analyzing fashion and trends on the basis of social media such as blogs and discussion forums

Some statistics are free, though. The blog search engine Technorati will, for instance, give you a list of the most talked about topics in the blogosphere right now.

Site popularity

There are actually no trustworthy numbers on what sites are the most popular at any given time. Alexa, which bases its data on the habits of its Alexa toolbar users, may give you a certain indication though.

For these and other web trend sources, see the categories on this page.

Popular search terms in search engine marketing

Reading lists of the most popular search queries is entertaining. Social scientists ought to love the stuff. So far, however, it is the marketing people who has made the best use of this search information.

The search trends tell them what people find interesting right now, making it possible to adapt product and service development to what’s fashionable or upcoming.

This certainly applies to search engine marketing experts as well. Do you want to know what kind of affiliate program to go for and what product to sell? Look at what people search for and make sites and web pages covering these topics.

Internetnews.com reports, “AOL plans to roll out open voice APIs today for developers and device makers to integrate the company’s AIM Call Out service into the hardware and software used to make phone calls over the Internet.” AOL “said that the Open Voice APIs will allow its VoIP service to run on softphones, the software that enables computerized calling, SIP-enabled devices, as well as cell phones with Wi-Fi connectivity.” The move “follows AOL’s opening of its hugely popular instant messaging program to developers, and echoes many of the announcements rival portal Yahoo has been making about opening its core services to developers.” The piece continues, “Just as with Yahoo, openness for AOL is a company mission. ‘Amongst all of AOL we’ve been challenged to open up,’ Brent Newsome, AOL’s director of voice services, told InternetNews.com. ‘Every product is working on bringing things out into the open.’”

Om Malik wrote at GigaOm, “If Yahoo is turning to Jajah for Voice on IM, then AOL wants to offer others an ability to integrate AIM Call Out service via its Open Voice APIs into softphones, as well as SIP-enabled hardware and cell phones with Wi-Fi connectivity. AIM Call Out is a pay-as-you-go outbound voice calling service built right into AIM.” He continued, “Jajah, AOL Open Voice, Ribbit and scores of others are taking a platform approach to VoIP, hoping that adding voice to applications will drive up minute volume and turn them into a viable business.”

TMCnet.com reports, “Many users are loathe to run multiple IM clients, so many switched from AIM to Skype because they could get IM, plus voice & video — all in a single client. Why bog down system resources with multiple IM clients? I will say AOL has done a good job of beefing up the feature-set of AIM, but one has to wonder if Skype’s momentum is unstoppable.” The piece continues, “In any event, Steve Murphy, Senior Vice President, AOL said, ‘By opening up our voice communications gateway to developers we’re furthering the mission of AIM which is to facilitate the world’s real-time conversations. We’re building on the popularity of the Open AIM program and opening up the AIM Call Out platform, enabling open standards voice communication services to proliferate in the marketplace.’”

AUDIO 2.0

• Bebop - Compare music calendar against your iTunes catalogue. www.bebopular.com/
• Clickcaster - Record, license, publish & promote your radio show. www.clickcaster.com/
• Difm - Radio community. www.di.fm/
• Dottunes - Share your iTunes. www.dottunes.net/
• Enablr - Transcribe podcasts, Text2Snailmail, … www.enablr.com/
• Fluctu8 - Create & share your sourcelists. fluctu8.com/
• Gcast - Podcasting tools & hosting. www.gcast.com/
• Genie lab - Explore, recommend & rate music. genielab.com/
• Itunes love - Share your music tastes. www.ituneslove.com/
• Jamendo - Review, tag, rate & share music. www.jamendo.com/en/
• Lastfm* - Profile your taste, share, personalize your radio. www.last.fm/
• Mercora - Search music & get recommendations. search.mercora.com/
• Muiso - Track your taste, get recommendations. muiso.com/
• Music mobs - Share your tastes & find music. www.musicmobs.com/
• Music strands - Tag, share & post music community. www.musicstrands.com/
• Odeo - Record & share audio. www.odeo.com
• Pandora* - Personalized radio. pandora.com/
• Plurn - List, listen to, create & share music. www.plurn.com/
• Pod bop - Listen to bands that visit your city (Eventful mash-up). podbop.org/
• Podomatic - Create, find & broadcast podcasts. www.podomatic.com/
• Poperti - Save your mp3 on a pop email account. www.poperti.com/
• Predixis - Discover, manage & enjoy music. www.predixis.com/
• Purevolume - Music community. www.poperti.com/
• Radio time - Personalize radio. myradiotime.com/
• Streaming Radio Stations - Choose a type/style/gendre of tunes. www.friendlycanadian.com/mp3s/
• Streampad - List, listen & share your music (= several mash-ups). www.streampad.com/
• Upto11 - Discover & share music. upto11.net/
• Webjay - Playlist community. www.webjay.org/

Mashup ecosystem (Click to see full image)

BLOG2POD 2.0

• Talkr - Converts blog text to podcasts. www.talkr.com/

BLOGGING 2.0

• Bitty - Embed content from Web services. bitty.com/
• Blogburst - Syndicate blogs to mainstream media sites. www.blogburst.com/
• Blog code - Start blog & find similar ones. www.blogcode.com/
• Blogger snap - Add your webcam snapshot to any blog. www.bloggersnap.com/
• Blog goggle - Categorize & rate pro bloggers. www.bloggoggle.com/
• Bloglet - Notification2email. www.bloglet.com/
• Blogs - Notification2email. blo.gs/
• Blurb - Turn your blog into a book. www.blurb.com/
• Cocomment - Track back your commentosphere. www.cocomment.com/
• Feedblitz - Notification2email. www.feedblitz.com/
• Freevlog - Set up free video blog. www.freevlog.org/
• Lifetype - Blogging software. www.lifetype.net/
• Measure map - Blog stats. measuremap.com/
• Qumana - Edit your blog. www.qumana.com/
• Structured blogging - Create, edit & maintain all posts. structuredblogging.org/
• Textamerica - Mobile blog. www.textamerica.com/
• Xanco~ - Mobile phlog & vlog. www.xanco.com/
• Blip - Get video & podcasting on your blog. www.blip.tv/
• Blog ladder - Create & maintain your blog. www.blogladder.com/
• Blogniscient - Rank & read blog articles. www.blogniscient.com/
• Bloxor - Maintain & use your blogroll online. www.bloxor.com/

BOOKMARKING 2.0

• 9rules - Validate & share links to content. 9rules.com/
• All your words - Associate & share words with links. www.allyourwords.com/
• Blinkist - Social bookmarking. www.blinklist.com/
• Blogmarks - Social bookmarking. www.blogmarks.net/
• Blummy - Manage your bookmarks. www.blummy.com/
• Bmaccess - Social bookmarking with thumbs. www.bmaccess.net/
• Buddy marks - Social bookmarking. www.buddymarks.com/
• Butterfly~ - Bookmark & annotate. www.butterflyproject.nl/
• Chuquet* - Find buzzes. www.chuquet.com/
• Clipmarks - Social clipping. www.clipmarks.com/
• Common Times - Social bookmarking & clippings. www.commontimes.org/
• Connotea - Social bookmarking (for reseacrhers). www.connotea.org/
• Delicious* - Social bookmarking. del.icio.us/
• Digg* - Social bookmarking. www.digg.com
• Diigo - Social bookmarking on steroids. www.diigo.com/
• Dogear - Social bookmarking. www.eigology.com/dogear/
• Feed marker - Social bookmarking for news. www.feedmarker.com/
• Furl - Clip, store & share web pages. www.furl.net/
• Hyperlinkomatic - Social bookmarking. www.hyperlinkomatic.com/
• Icio - Social bookmarking & rating. www.icio.de/
• Jeteye - Clip & share (parts of) web pages. www.jeteye.com/
• Listible - Folksonomied software & code search. www.listible.com/
• List Mixer - Social bookmarking (temporary links). listmixer.com/
• Live Marks - Live update of Delicious. sandbox.sourcelabs.com/livemarks/
• Look later - Private bookmarking. www.looklater.com/
• Lookmarks - Social bookmarking. www.lookmarks.com/
• Magnolia - Social bookmarking & voting. ma.gnolia.com/
• Mylinkvault - Social bookmarking. www.mylinkvault.com/
• Onlywire - Social bookmarking aggregator. www.onlywire.com/
• Philoi - Social bookmarking. www.philoi.com/
• Qoosa - Social bookmarking. www.qoosa.com/
• Searchfox - Social bookmarking. www.searchfox.com/
• Shadows - Social bookmarking. shadows.com/
• Simpy - Social bookmarking, tagging & search. www.simpy.com/
• Socialmarks - Social bookmarking. www.socialmarks.com/
• Spinspy - Social bookmarking & ranking. www.spinspy.com/
• Spurl - Social - Bookmarking & search. www.spurl.net/
• Startaid - Manage & share your (thumb) bookmarks. www.startaid.com/
• Stumble Upon - Social bookmarking (random sharing). www.stumbleupon.com/
• Surftail - Share your click paths. www.surftail.com/
• Taggle - Social bookmarking, tagged (German). www.taggle.de/
• Tagtooga - Social bookmarking. www.tagtooga.com/
• Tendango - Top 10 social bookmarking. www.tendango.com/
• Thumblicio.us - Displays thumbs of most pupular del.icio.us sites. thumblicio.us/
• Yahoo Myweb2 - Social bookmarking. myweb2.search.yahoo.com/
• Yoono - Save your bookmarks and manage your feeds - www.yoono.com/

BROWSER 2.0

• Camino - Mozilla power & Mac style browser. www.caminobrowser.org/
• Flock - Lightweight browser. www.flock.com/

CALENDAR 2.0

• 30boxes - Manage & share calendar. 30boxes.com/
• Calendar hub - Create & share calendars. www.calendarhub.com/
• Eventful - Create & share events. eventful.com/
• Eventicus - Create & share events. www.eventicus.de/
• Event sniper - Mix your event calendar with feeds. www.eventsniper.com/
• Hipcal - Manage & share calendar & to do lists. www.hipcal.com/
• Meet with approval - Arrange meetings & events online. www.meetwithapproval.com/
• Mosuki - Arrange meetings & events online. mosuki.com/
• Planzo - Arrange meetings & events online & thru sms. planzo.com/
• Skobee - Arrange meetings & events online. www.skobee.com/
• Sponge cell - Arrange meetings & events online; with a.i. spongecell.com/
• Tilika - Share calendars. www.tilika.com/
• Trumba - Create& share events. www.trumba.com/
• Upcoming - Create, manage & share events. upcoming.org/

CHAT 2.0

• 3bubbles - Add a chatroom to your blog. www.3bubbles.com/
• Ajchat - Create chat rooms. www.ajchat.com/
• Campfire - Permalinked chat. www.campfirenow.com/
• Chatsum* - Chat with & leave messages same-site-visitors. www.chatsum.com/
• Conversate - Create your own chat. www.conversate.org/
• PeekoChat - Make every site a ‘place’ (Firefox plug-in). peekko.com/chat/
• Zohochat - Create your own chat room. zohochat.com/
• Ekklesia - CMS for churches. www.ekklesia-systems.com/
• Loudblog - CMS inc. RSS. www.loudblog.de/
• HIVchat - www.hiv-aids-chat.com/
• Pmachine - CMS. www.pmachine.com/ee/
• Tinymce - Wysiwyg editor. tinymce.moxiecode.com/

COLLABORATION 2.0

• Askeet - Ask & answer it. www.askeet.com/
• Asoboo - Find people & places in your city. asoboo.com/
• Favorville - People helping people. www.favorville.com/
• Foldera - Organize & share all work based documents. www.foldera.com/
• Hubpages - Share your genius. www.hubpages.com/
• Ifolder - Filesharing for groups. www.ifolder.com/
• Jotspot - Take one set of notes, live. www.jotlive.com/
• Lime - Help & inspire eachother. lime.com/
• Mayomi - Mind map & share. www.mayomi.com/
• People2pray - Manage & share prayer requests. www.people2pray.com/
• Qype - Find & recommend best spots in town. qype.com/
• Rally point - Share knowledge. www.rallypointhq.com/
• Redlettr - Tag & comment the bible. www.desertfather.com/micah/
• Rel8r - Tag, read, search blogs. www.rel8r.com/
• Rrove* - Save & share places. www.rrove.com/
• Say-So - Share problems & get advise. www.say-so.org/
• Socialight - Share pictures & notes with your cell phone. socialight.com/
• Standpoint - Share & evangelize convictions. www.standpoint.com/
• Study buddy - Share notecards. www.studybuddy.info/
• Tracbac - Share, comment, revise & collaborate. www.tracbac.com/
• Vizu - Create, share & vote for polls. www.vizu.com/
• Webbrush - Collaborative drawing, charting, etc. www.stanfy.com/dev/webbrush/
• What should i read next - Share your bookshelve. whatshouldireadnext.com/
• Wobblog - Rank & share blog postings. www.wobblog.com/
• Zimbra - Work & communicate together. www.zimbra.com/

COLLECT 2.0

• Librarious - Catalogue your collection. lib.rario.us/
• Librarything - Catalogue & share your library. www.librarything.com/
• Unalog - Share what you read, in groups. unalog.com/

COMIX 2.0

• Comics - Create & share comics. www.mainada.net/comics/
• Comic Strip Generator - Personalize cartoon strips. www.comicstripgenerator.com/
• Quicktoons - Create & share comics. www.quicktoons.com/

COMMUNICATION 2.0

• E-messenger - Ajax messengers. www.e-messenger.net/
• E-messenger - Integrates several messengers. www.e-messenger.net/
• Gtalkr - Google Talk, Flickr, YouTube, feeds. https://gtalkr.com/
• Iglance - Push-to-talk videoconf and screen-sharing. www.iglance.com/
• Imeem - Share words, files & people (on messenger). www.imeem.com/
• Imvu - 3D messenger. www.imvu.com/
• Iotum - Sorts & processes calls on relevance. www.iotum.com/
• Jabphone - Messenger2phone. www.jabphone.com/
• Jumpclaimer - Inform your relatives about your whereabouts thru sms. www.jumpclaimer.com/
• Kopete - Universal messenger. kopete.kde.org/
• Mabber - Mobile messenger. www.mabber.com/
• Meebo - Integrates several messengers. www.meebo.com/
• Skylook - Record & store all Skype communications. www.skylook.biz/
• Skype - Call, conference, messenger, file sharing. www.skype.com/
• Slawesome - Add voice to your email. www.slawesome.com/
• Soonr - Mobile 2 web & v.v. www.soonr.com/
• Stickam* - Multimedia communication tool. www.stickam.com/
• Tello - Locate & collaborate with your key contacts. www.tello.com/
• Userplane - Chat, messenger, record. www.userplane.com/
• V4s - Add voice to your email. www.orb.com/skype/
• Vyew - Web based video conferencing. vyew.com/
• Waxmail - Add voice to your email. www.waxmail.biz/
• Web2messenger - Send messages from web 2 messenger. www.web2messenger.com/

COMMUNITY 2.0

• 43people - Tag based matching & dating. www.43people.com/
• Ask Me That - Public help forums. www.askmethat.com/
• 43places - Publish & share stories about places. www.43places.com/
• Blogtronix - Blogging & corporate community software. www.blogtronix.com/
• Communitywalk - Share places & routes (map mash-up). www.communitywalk.com/
• Consumating - Tag based dating. www.consumating.com/
• Create & Participate in communities. www.towncrossing.com/
• Dodgeball - Hook in with your mobile & meet friends. www.dodgeball.com/
• Doostang - Community for professionals. www.doostang.com/
• Facebook - Student communities. www.facebook.com/
• Frappr - Put your group on the map, share photos. www.frappr.com/
• Friendster - Connect with friends. www.friendster.com/
• Groups - Create groups & share content. grou.ps/
• HIV/AIDSforum - www.hivforum.com/
• HumanPages – Philanthropic “LinkedIn-Like” People Search. www.humanpages.com/
• Ikarma - Document & promote your reputation. ikarma.com/
• Linkedin - Manage and share your cv. www.linkedin.com/
• Livejournal - Join or create your own community. www.sixapart.com/livejournal/
• Lovento - Find friends & events. www.lovento.com/
• Mapmix. Find your friends (map mash-up). www.mapmix.com/
• Meetro - Find friends nearby (thru messenger). www.meetro.com/
• Meetup - Find common interests & organize meetings. www.meetup.com/
• Mologogo - Share where you are. www.mologogo.com/
• Mozes - Share information & people thru your mobile. mozes.com/
• MySpace - Communicate with & share content with your friends. www.myspace.com/
• OpenBC - Community for entrepreneurs & professionals. www.openbc.com
• Opinity - Manage your reputation. www.opinity.com/
• Orkut - Connect to your friends. https://www.orkut.com/
• Partysync - Meet & sms people. group.partysync.com/
• Peerprofile - Publish & share your profiles. www.peerprofile.com/
• Peertrainer - Buddy up, slim down. www.peertrainer.com/
• Phusebox - Community for sophisticated people. phusebox.net/
• Piczo - Create & share website. piczo.com/
• Placesite - Wi-fi portal & location communities. www.placesite.com/
• Plum - Collect, share, connect. www.plum.com/
• Poddater - Create vodcast & connect. www.poddater.com/
• Pooln - Schedule your car pooling. www.pooln.com/
• Rabble - Create it & share it mobile. www.rabble.com/
• Tagalag - Tag & map your contacts. www.tagalag.com/
• Theblackstripe - Upload & share photos. www.theblackstripe.com/
• Tinfinger - Search persons. www.tinfinger.com/
• Towncrossing - Find & Link to Friends. towncrossing.com/
• Twocrowds - Share & vote for predictions. www.twocrowds.com/
• Vcarious - Travel community. www.vcarious.com/
• Wallop - Phlog & interact. mywallop.com/
• Xanga - Blog rings. www.xanga.com/
• Zaadz~ - Network of inspired people. www.zaadz.com/
• Ziggs - Index of professionals. www.ziggs.com/
• Zoominfo* - Search persons; create your own page. www.zoominfo.com/

CRM 2.0

• 24sevenoffice - Web-based crm & erp. www.24sevenoffice.com/
• Helpspot - Wen nased help desk software. www.userscape.com/
• Pushcrm - Web-based crm. pushcrm.com/
• Simpleticket - Helpdesk solution. www.simpleticket.net/
• Userscape - Web based help desk portal. www.userscape.com/
• Zohocrm - Web-based crm. www.zohocrm.com/

DATABASE 2.0

• Turbodbadmin - Online dbase in Ajax. www.turboajax.com/turbodbadmin.html/

DESIGN 2.0

• Betterdesktop - Share usability tests. www.betterdesktop.org/
• Sign Generators. www.customsigngenerator.com/
• Flickrlogomakr - Make Flickr-like logo in a second. flickr.nosv.org/ (cf. this group’s logo).
• Online Logo Designer. www.text2logo.com/
• Desktop Wallpaper Creator. www.wallpapergenerator.com/
• PreviewHTML - Preview your HTML source codes. www.previewhtml.com/
• Netcocktail - Share color schemes. www.netcocktail.com/
• Custom Banner Advertising Ads. www.bannergenerator.org/
• Neurosky - Bionic interface technology. www.neurosky.com/
• OK-cancel. Collaboration on interface design. www.ok-cancel.com/
• Warning Label Maker. www.dangersigngenerator.com/
• Typetester - Compare screen type. www.typetester.maratz.com/
• Hide Text From Spambots. www.txt2png.com/
• Wufoo - Build & host forms. www.wufoo.com/
• Watermark Images www.signgeneratormaker.com/

DICTIONARY 2.0

• Visualthesaurus - Find & visualize synonyms. www.visualthesaurus.com/

ECOMMERCE 2.0

• 12 Wists - Share shopping lists. www.wists.com/
• 43deals - Find best deals. www.43deals.com/
• Adgenta - Add ads to your site, blog or rss feed. www.adgenta.com/
• Amazon* - Shop, sell, review & rank. www.amazon.com/
• Auctionmapper - Map Ebay auctions. www.auctionmapper.com/
• Bigcartel - Start, review & recommend online shops. bigcartel.com/
• Blish - Buy & sell digital things. www.blish.com/
• Broadbandgenie - Find best provider. www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/
• CafePress - Free to design, sell, buy custom products. www.cafepress.com/ (join affiliate program)
• CafePress Live JavaScript Feed. www.web20appz.com/cafepress/javascript.asp
• Carbonmade - Publish & manage your portfolio online. www.carbonmade.com/
• Clipfire - Shop search engine & community. www.clipfire.com/
• Closo - Start & advertise your online shop. www.closo.com/
• Cooqy - Find things faster on Ebay (client). www.cooqy.com/
• Coverpop - Mash-ups of everything. www.coverpop.com/
• Darmik - Sell & share profits with charities. www.darmik.com/
• Ebay* - Sell, rate & buy; auction. www.ebay.com/
• Etsy - Buy & sell handmade things. www.etsy.com/
• Flyspy - Graph all of your choices in air travel. www.flyspy.com/index.php/
• Fotogopo - Animated local route map; Google Maps & Geocoder mash-up. www.fotogopo.com/
• Froogle* - Local shopping search engine; Google Maps mash-up. www.google.com/sellonfroogle/
• Garbagescout - Find treasures on NY streets; Google Maps mash-up. www.garbagescout.com/
• Gumshoo - Auction analyzer; Ebay mash-up. www.gumshoo.com/
• Hawkee - Tagged price comparison. www.hawkee.com/
• Homethinking - Search, find, contact & review realtors. www.homethinking.com/
• Hotpads - Houses for rent. hotpads.com/
• Inods - Shopping review aggregator. inods.com/
• Insideflyer - Convert loyalty points. insideflyer.com/
• Judysbook - Review & rate your neighbourhood. www.judysbook.com/
• Kayak Buzz - Find cheap destinations; Google Maps mash-up. www.kayak.com/h/buzz/flights
• Licketyship - Home-delivery supermarket; retail & couriers co-operation. www.licketyship.com/
• Licketytrip - Last minute vacation rentals (map mash-up). www.licketytrip.com/
• Lopico - Social business directory. www.lopico.com/
• Mapeire - User generated lowest price finder; Google Maps mash-up. www.mapeire.com/
• Motionmall - Design & insert webads. www.motionmall.com/
• Paguna - Travel booking with 1 page Ajax interface. https://www.paguna.com/
• Peerflix - List & trade DVDs. www.peerflix.com/
• Pricenoia - Amazon price comparison. www.pricenoia.com/
• Qoop - Publish & sell photos & photo products. www.qoop.com/
• Redtoucan - Share photos & review products. www.redtoucan.com/
• Reevoo - Review & buy electronics. www.reevoo.com/
• Revver - Upload, share or sell your videos. www.revver.com/
• Savedsearchpro - Find Ebay deals easier. www.savedsearchpro.com/
• Shoposphere* - Create & share pick lists. shopping.yahoo.com/shoposphere/
• Site flavored Google* - Tailor adwords to your site. www.google.com/services/siteflavored.html
• Sofortpreis - Mobile shopping assistent. www.sofortpreis.de/
• Souki~ - Local shop search. www.souki.com/
• Spymedia - Publish & sell news photos. www.spymedia.com/
• Stylehive - Get recommendations fitting your product interests. www.shopify.com/
• Tenbills - Design & buy your T. www.tenbills.com/
• Thandora - Tag based search in yellow pages. www.thandora.com/tagit.do/
• Tictap - Price comparison for mobile. www.tictap.com/
• Tnook - Build, manage & trade your collections. www.tnook.com/
• Wazima - Coupon aggregator. www.wazima.com/
• Web20milliondollarhomepage - Pixel ads. www.web20milliondollarhomepage.com/
• Wists - Social shopping. www.wists.com/
• Wuraweb - Find local prices & credentials. www.wuraweb.com/
• Yelp - Find, review & discuss local restaurants etc. www.yelp.com/
• Yub - Meet, hang & get discounts in shopping mall. www.yub.com/mall/
• Zazzle - Design, sell & buy custom goods. www.zazzle.com/
• Zillow - Get your home valuated (map mash-up). www.zillow.com/
• Zipingo - Find local business based on community input. www.zipingo.com/

ECONOMY 2.0

• Aidpage - People help people. www.aidpage.com/
• Associatedcontent - Produce & publish content, get paid. www.associatedcontent.com/
• Billmonk - Manage debts. https://www.billmonk.com/
• Castingwords - Get your podcasts transcribed. castingwords.com/
• Couchsurfing* - Home swapping & holiday dating. www.couchsurfing.com/
• Daylo - Contribute to local yellow pages. daylo.com/
• Democracy2.0* - Consumers/Citizens unite! d2.stevemagruder.com/hub.php
• Donorschoose - Donate to schools. www.donorschoose.org/
• Elevatorpitch - Upload, read & rate pitches. www.yourelevatorpitch.com/
• Fundable - Pledge for funding. www.fundable.org/
• Gather - Share passions & get paid. gather.com/
• Givebobadollar - Begging. www.givebobadollar.com/
• Givemeaning - Give or take fundraising community. www.givemeaning.com/
• Givezilla - Create fundraising storefront. www.givezilla.com/
• Google answers - Get your questions answered for money. answers.google.com/answers/
• Ikarma - Document & promote your reputation. ikarma.com/
• Lendmonkey - Trade everything. www.lendmonkey.com/
• Listsomething - Share any list to buy & sell things, services. www.listsomething.com/
• Million dollar homepage* - Buy pixels to finance study. www.milliondollarhomepage.com/
• Mturk - Complete simple tasks & get paid. www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome/
• Myfreelanceauction - Buy or sell web services. myfreelanceauction.com/
• Oolsi - Share links to free things. www.oolsi.com/
• Prosper - P2P lending. www.prosper.com/
• Rawsugar - Social bookmarking directory & revenue sharing. www.rawsugar.com/
• Secondlifeboutique - Buy real things with virtuaa money. slboutique.com/
• Smarkets - Stock markets for products. www.smarkets.net/
• Smashmyviper - Buy pixels to destroy car. www.smashmyviper.com/
• Stuffopolis - Keep track of things you lend or borrow. www.stuffopolis.com/
• Swabba - Online garage sale (German). www.swabba.de/
• Zopa - P2P banking services. www.zopa.com/

E-LEARNING 2.0

• Elgg - Open source e-learning software. elgg.org/
• Nuvvo - On demand elearning. www.nuvvo.com/
• Medical Portal. www.medchecker.com/

EMAIL 2.0

• Dropsend - Email large files. www.dropsend.com/
• Mail2RSS - Inmail2RSS. www.mail2rss.org/
• Myemail - Check email anywhere. myemail.com/
• Newsletterarchive* - Store & share your newsletters. www.newsletterarchive.org/
• Onesens - Send teasing webmail messages. www.onesens.com/
• Quickmail - Email2RSS. quickmail.johanfitie.com/
• Sendspace - Email large files. www.sendspace.com/
• Tempinbox - Receive inmail anonymously. www.tempinbox.com/
• Trustmymail - Spam filter based on your circle of contacts. www.trustmymail.com/
• Yousendit - Email large files. www.yousendit.com/
• Irows - Web based spreadsheet. www.irows.com/
• Numbler - Excel spreadsheet online. numbler.com/
• Numsum - Collaborate online on spreadsheets. numsum.com/
• Sundera - Collaborate online on spreadsheets. www.sundera.com/

FILESHARING 2.0

• Bittorrent - Share files & bandwidth. www.bittorrent.com/
• Civilnetizen - File swapping. www.civilnetizen.com/
• Lphanr - Multi compatible P2P file sharing. www.lphant.com/

FINANCIALS 2.0

• Blinksale - Web-based invoicing. www.blinksale.com/
• Dimewise - Manage your finances. www.dimewise.com/
• Frugalbetty - Manage your spendings. frugalbetty.com/
• Ioweyou - Manage loans & shared expenses. www.ioweyou.co.uk/
• Networthiq - Track, share & compare your net worth. www.networthiq.com/
• Secondsite - Web-based invoicing. www.secondsite.biz/
• Secondssite. Finance tools. www.secondsite.biz/

Read the Part 2 of this list here: Web 2.0’s Top 1,000 List - Everything 2.0 - Part 2

Read the Part 3 of this list here: Web 2.0’s Top 1,000 List - Everything 2.0 - Part 3

Daniel Terdiman wrote on the “geek gestalt” blog at CNET, “I’m sitting here, reading my morning e-mail and what pops up but a press release for a new dating site that purports to be ‘exclusively for intelligent people.’ Called, wonder of wonders, IntelligentPeople.com, the site says that to sign up you must first ‘pass the IQ test required for admission.’” Terdiman continued, “Well, snark aside, this is an interesting notion, this dating site for smarties. I suppose it’s no surprise. After all, there are plenty of affinity networks out there already, social networks for people who went to this college, or who play that game or who like to dress up as giraffes. So why not throw dating and high IQs into the exclusivity mix? Of course, as anyone who’s ever dated a smart person knows, intelligence isn’t any kind of guarantee of a good date. Sure, smart people generally prefer to date other smart people because it probably makes for better conversation, and the potential earning power is greater. On the other hand, would you really want to date someone who would be inclined to limit their partner trolling to a site that restricts anyone who doesn’t pass an IQ test? Perhaps this was actually someone’s clever notion of how to wall off a really annoying demographic from the rest of the dating pool.”

Quoting from itnews

“A new dating site caters exclusively for “intelligent” people and requires potential members to pass an IQ test in order to sign up.

Mensa restricts membership to the top two per cent of the IQ bracket, but IntelligentPeople.com will include the top 15 per cent.

The site’s developers said that people with an IQ in this range are “highly intelligent” and communicate and interact best with other intelligent people. IntelligentPeople.com hopes to give these people the opportunity to meet and form relationships with similar individuals, regardless of location, education and social status.
“Intelligent people usually want a partner who is also intelligent. Everyone wants someone they can talk to,” said Trine Jensen, founder of IntelligentPeople.com. At general dating sites you have to spend time and energy sorting profiles to find the ones that match your criteria. At IntelligentPeople.com we already make that sorting for you.”

The IQ test required for admission is a multiple choice, pattern recognition test consisting of black and white images and is designed to test intelligence while minimising cultural or educational biases. The site also has a more general community section designed to help members meet other people with high IQs, find a business partner or make new friends.”

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo here Thursday, Yahoo CTO Ari Balogh revealed how the company is transforming itself into an open and social platform from the ground up. It is opening its Web platform to developers and moving closer to a Facebook-style social networking concept. Ari Balogh also said that while Yahoo already has open APIs for some services, it will expand the open API concept to other areas and make it more consistent for developers, while boosting the ’social’ aspect of its services for its members.

“We are taking open to a whole other place,” Balogh said. “We are rewiring Yahoo from the inside out with a developer platform that will open up the assets of Yahoo in a way never done before, making the consumer experience social throughout and provide hooks to developers.” He noted that Yahoo has 10 billion latent connections across its properties, such as mail, messenger and fantasy sports.

Balogh discussed the technical architecture–known as YOS, or Yahoo Open Strategy–including an application platform that will allow developers to create apps for consumers to keep their data protected and to chose what data to share and with whom. In addition, Yahoo will unify all profiles for users and developers, which will allow the company to leverage the 10 billion relations and 500 million users to create the social graph of relationships and to manage the event stream.

“We are not creating another social network. We will rewire the entire experience to make it social. We don’t think of social as a destination but as a dimension,” Balogh said. Along with Google and MySpace, Yahoo is a member of the OpenSocial Foundation, which is developing a specification for building social applications.

The underpinnings of Yahoo’s effort include development tools, an application platform, a social platform that unifies all profiles throughout Yahoo (again, like Facebook or MySpace, this is a social graph that lets users make connections and view events) and the total rewiring of properties to make all this possible.

Yahoo’s new architecture, called YOS (Yahoo Open Strategy) proves that the Internet is made of tubes (Source: Yahoo)

The heady plans are smart but, quite likely, come too late.

The Wall Street Journal (4/25, Steel, B1, 2.06M) reports, “A yearlong effort by AOL to transform its content Web sites into crowd-pleasers is beginning to pay off.” The Journal continues, “Traffic to the sites — including AOL Money & Finance, entertainment, and the male-oriented Asylum — grew 15% to 56.5 million unique U.S. visitors in the first quarter from a year ago, according to comScore Media Metrix. Measured by traffic, some of the sites even top the charts for their categories.” AOL “still hasn’t translated the surge in visits into higher ad revenue. But the news is positive for the Time Warner Inc. unit, which has struggled with another initiative — building AOL into a major digital ad-sales firm.” The content push “is part of AOL’s bid to reinvent itself as an ad-supported Web company following its August 2006 decision to make its Internet-access service free. Visits to AOL’s Web sites slowed as a side-effect of that decision. … To draw visitors back, AOL redesigned sites in the news, sports and health categories. It also created a half-dozen new sites that don’t use the AOL name, such as a technology-focused site called Switched, a hip-hop site called BlackVoices, and a Web trend tracker called Urlesque.com, as well as Asylum. Dropping its name was an acknowledgement that the brand wasn’t hip enough for the consumers AOL was trying to attract.” AOL “also adopted some common tricks of the trade, such as making its sites appear higher in search-engine results.”
Time Warner To Announce Quarterly Results On Wednesday. MarketWatch (4/24, Wilkerson) reported, “Analysts will be anticipating higher profits at several large media conglomerates such as Time Warner Inc., Comcast Corp. and Viacom Inc. next week, but will also be on the lookout for signs that a shaky U.S. economy is having an adverse effect on spending by advertisers and consumers.” Time Warner announces its quarterly results Wednesday morning, and analysts see the company “earning 23 cents a share on revenue of $11.4 billion. In the year-earlier quarter, excluding discontinued operations and special items - including the effect of accounting changes — the company would have earned 22 cents a share on sales of $11.2 billion.” Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes “will surely have to field questions about speculation that AOL could hook up with Yahoo. … As usual, analysts will be monitoring advertising growth at AOL, which has been declining for several quarters.” Time Warner “has pointed out that AOL has discontinued several ‘nonprofitable’ sponsorships, and that ad demand is shifting to third-party networks.”

By now you’ve probably already seen that some prankster XSS’ed U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s community blog redirecting visitors to political rival Hillary Clinton. Fortunately, for whom I’m not quite sure, the hack wasn’t terribly malicious in nature as it could have easily been. The mind can easily wander about what could have been done. Hi-jack login sessions, usernames and passwords, disrupt donations are organization efforts, and possibly even monetize some of the traffic.

You know XSS has hit the mainstream when it reaches this level of visibility.

(It is unclear who the prankster supports in the campaign)