Call Gmail Users Coming Soon?

Over at ZDNet, there is an article regarding a possible new feature in Gmail: the ability to call other Gmail users with a click of a button! This feature would work via the built-in GoogleTalk feature of Gmail. I wonder how long before we see this - it would be very useful!

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What is this new viral ad "Not For Noobs?" It seems everyone is asking the same question. And how stupid are we for putting in our email address when we don’t even know what it’s for! I guess everyone loves a mystery. I think it’s gotta be about Zune.

UPDATE: It was a new laser gaming mouse from Microsoft. YAWN.

Here are some of the cooler links I’ve been checking out lately:

• New features at Zooomr: Portals, a way of linking pictures inside one another. Amazing! Also, an annotation feature that lets you leave notes on pictures that are color coded by friend status; "people notes" which display Zooomr usernames of people hovered over.

• GoogleTalk to link up with AOL’s AIM, according to TechCrunch.
• LifeHacker points to a new bitTorrent site: ScrapeTorrent.
• PopSugar is like, sooo where the teenage/tween girls are going to be hanging out.
• Do we need a new way to communicate? (Maybe when those cell phone bills get too high!) Try Hullo instead.

Farecast, the new airfare prediction website, is now offering fares from 55+ cities. However, that’s not necessarily 55+ cities you can pick from as your destination — the actual number will depend on which city is your start city. For example, there are 15 cities I can choose as destination cities when my start city is Tampa. Too bad, since none of them are San Juan, but it’s a good start. I look forward to the time that this site can really compete with the big travel sites, since it’s such a great idea, is so easy to use, and could save me bunches of money!

Kevo is a lot like FanPop, but just focuses on famous people (actors, actresses, socialites, anyone in the news, etc). Each of these people have a profile and you can contribute media & information to their page as well as re-edit their info (a la Wikipedia). The site has a nice design, all Ajaxy and fun, but the community seems pretty small right now, or perhaps mostly male? How do I know? Because I searched for 4 very attractive actors and none had a profile page created for them yet...hmph…yet Paris Hilton is featured on the homepage...double hmph.

A metasearch engine is a search engine that queries other search engines and then combines the results that are received. This can be very useful when you want a wide variety of results from many different sources. There are several metasearch engines available on the net, but two to take notice of are TagJag and Gnosh. TagJag, formerlly gada.be, was developed by Chris Pirillo and still stands out as one of the better metasearch engines. Gada.be/TagJag has been around since October of 2005, and now lets you search over 200 sources & subscribe to the search results via RSS - a very nice feature. TechCrunch was reporting TagJag’s site redesign a couple of months ago, but I haven’t seen it yet, which is too bad because it looked really cool.

Gnosh is also a metasearch engine, and pulls from both search and social sites, including Google, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Technorati, Yahoo, and more. I like the layout of the Gnosh results, making it very easy to access a category of results like "shop" results, "blog" results, "news" results, etc. Also, there is a short summary beneath each link.

On the other hand, there is still something to be said for the results in TagJag, too - you get A LOT of results all on page because each result is just a one-line link (no summaries). I think it comes down to personal preference. Do you have a favorite between the two or do you prefer another metasearch engine altogether?

I have 3 more Vox invites, so the first three people who comment here can have them!

I’ve been a bit busy and have been behind on my tech news. First stop for updates, TechCrunch. I see that Microsoft has released a new blogging tool called Windows Live Writer, which is a desktop application allows you to compose and post to your blog whether it’s Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, Radio Userland, or one of many others. Live Writer offers a WYSIWYG editor, easy photo insertion, & the ability to add Windows Live Local maps into a blog post. What’s different about Live Writer is the Windows Live Writer SDK which allows developers to extend the capabilities of the program to publish additional content types. According to the site, some examples of what could be developed to integrate with Live Writer include: images from online photo publishing sites, embedded video or audio players, product thumbnails and/or links from e-commerce sites, or tags from tagging services.

Upon installation, be careful to notice that the option to install the Windows Live Toolbar is checked by default - if you don’t want the toolbar, uncheck this. As I began to write this post, I was at first almost confused as to where to type the text of the post. Although there was a circled text block that said “Enter Post Title Here”, there was no area that said “Begin Typing Your Post Here,” as you would expect. Apparently, you just type anywhere in the white space. I liked typing in the “Normal” view mode the best, as it felt more like writing a text document. I especially liked the “Web Preview” mode that showed what your website would look like when the item was posted. This preview is even better than the preview that TypePad offers - it looks just like you’re viewing your actual website with the new post already live. Adding the photo to this post took an extra step or two when compared to TypePad; by default, the “insert picture” link only looks for .jpgs and .gifs - I had to change to “all files” to see the .png I needed. Then, the picture was huge and needed resizing (manually). There was an option under the “border” settings to inherit the settings from my weblog and that made it look more like what I’m used to. TypePad still wins here, since the default settings in TypePad are just right, no editing needed. Adding photos was thing thing that finally turned me off to the blog editor in the Flock browser - it just wasn’t as good as TypePad…and if I can’t blog with Flock, then what’s the point? I decided. When it was time to publish, I could easily publish either as a draft or as a live post. Altogether, pretty easy to use. More useful than just using TypePad? Not yet, but maybe that will change as more things are developed for Live Writer. I look forward to seeing what those might be.

Social networking sites and services are dealing with a new threat - the U.S. government. The DOPA act (Delete Online Predators) is proposed legislation that was recently passed by the House of Representatives by 410 to 15. If the act is passed and made into law, this sweeping legislation will ban social networking sites and services from being accessed from schools. Not only would sites like MySpace & Friendster be affected, but the broad definition of of social networking in the DOPA act would ban access to any websites that meet the following criteria:

• is offered by a commercial entity;
• permits registered users to create an on-line profile that includes detailed personal information;
• permits registered users to create an on-line journal and share such a journal with other users;
• elicits highly-personalized information from users; and
• enables communication among users.

By this definition, sites live Blogger or LiveJournal would be banned, flickr & photo-sharing sites, instant messenging services, & basically any non-educational social networks, chat rooms, wikis, instant messaging, blogs and possibly even e-mail would be banned. Ouch. For a political party that by definition wants less "big government", it seems odd that party members & supporters would have no problem with this legislation, which is nothing short of letting the government do the parenting for you. Or perhaps they just want to ban the majority of the new Web 2.0 offerings so those darned poor people can’t access them and better themselves.

A short-sighted, knee-jerk reaction, ban everything! ban social conversation! law is not what this country needs. In fact, this legislation is not needed at all. As the ALA points out, "As libraries are already required to block content that is ‘harmful to minors’ under the Children’s Internet Protection Act, DOPA is redundant and unnecessary legislation."

The technical director, Ben Werdmullerh, at a new social networking service called Elgg, states that "this legislation is underpinned by backwards ideas about the Internet, and needs to be fought, sooner rather than later." Backwards ideas about the internet? Not our congressmen! Ha!

So Elgg prepares for the post-DOPA era…Elgg describes their offering as a "new breed of learning environment based around choice, flexibility and openness: a Personal Learning Landscape that firmly places individuals at the centre of their learning. With the freedom to incorporate all of your favorite tools within one environment, Elgg allows you to showcase your best work with as many or as few people as you choose." In other words, what they’re offering is a an open-source social networking service designed specifically for schools. Legal? Yes. As Werdmullerh notes, "Elgg installations at institutions or hosted on Elgg Spaces are provided by the institution, and therefore escape the legislation. In fact, Elgg may be the only social networking system school-age educators can use within the law."

I’m glad we have a backup plan, but I hope we never need it. Agree with me? Contact your congressmen and/or endorse the Joint Statement Opposing Internet Blocking Requirements in School and Libraries by emailing statement@onlinepolicy.org.