FriendFeed API: Bring on the WordPress Plugins

I just saw on Mashable that I’m getting credit (or blame?) for starting the whole "The Conversation Has Left the Blogosphere" discussion regarding FriendFeed, but they note that it was also Allen Stern on CenterNetworks who helped push the discussion forward with his blog post on the topic which generated a pretty big FriendFeed discussion thread.

And being the good little service that FriendFeed is, it wasn’t too much longer before the FriendFeed API was announced.

But it was Corvida’s post on SheGeeks that got me all excited - she notes that Glenn Slaven is working on a WordPress plugin for FriendFeed - which you can see live, in action on his site now! Check it out on this post here.

I can hardly stand the anticipation! Rock on, Glenn. Just don’t make us wait too long, OK?

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Brijit is an online community that offers up the world’s best long-form content by boiling it down to 100 word abstracts. You can then peruse the abstracts to determine what you what to read, listen to, or watch. The sources Brijit pulls from can be stories, like magazine articles, but they can also be radio or video shows, too. The summaries are sorted into 15 different subject areas like Politics, Entertainment, Science & Tech, Travel, Home, etc., each with their own RSS feed. Brijit’s list of sources is even larger, pulling in articles from popular print media like Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, The Economist, Marie Claire, GQ, Conde Nast Traveler, Details, BusinessWeek, and so many more. You can get involved at Brijit by writing abstracts for them. If yours is chosen, you earn $5 (or $8 for an audio/video source like a TV program. See, I was right - people do read, they are just doing it online. Awesomeness.

Love widgets? Can’t get enough? Then check out this collection of widget web sites for finding and/or creating your own widgets for use on your site, blog, social network, or desktop. Did I leave any great ones off? Let me know in the comments!

Search/Directories

• Cleverhippo - widget search engine
• Flickerdna -  flickr widgets
• Goodwidgets - photo widgets for your blog
• SpringWidgets - huge selection of blog widgets
• Snippero - widgets for your web site
• Spinlets - free web site/blog widgets - 2 galleries - Music and General, which features widgets for Twitter, digg, flickr, YouTube, and more
• Widgetoko - blog that tracks daily widget awesomeness
• Widgetbox - widgets for your blog
• Widgipedia - desktop and blog widgets
• YouCams - video cam widgets for your blog
• Yourminis - widgets for your web site/blog or desktop

Build Your Own

• Clearspring - widget platform
• Mashupmania - Build your own mashup widget in a virtual environment without coding
• Showyourself - Show your community & social media memberships
• SproutBuilder - online widget builder

RSS Widgets

• Feedflash - A free online tool to create web widgets, feed readers and place them everywhere on the web.
• Feednames - feednames is an advanced, automatic namecloud widget. Using artificial intelligence techniques based on LingPipe technology, feednames extracts the most relevant words from each article in the feed, and automatically creates a "namecloud" out of them.
• Grazr - RSS widget
• Opod - OPML & RSS widget
• Optimal - OPML widget

Stats Widgets

• Myustats - page rank & more
• Neoworx - cool stats widgets - even one that looks like an iPod

Desktop Widgets

• Amnesty Hypercube - move web widgets to your desktop
• Widgipedia - desktop and blog widgets
• Yourminis - widgets for your web site/blog or desktop
• Yahoo Widgets
• Google Gadgets

 SproutBuilder is a service that provides an easy way for anyone to build web content like widgets, banners, mashups, videos, music, photos, RSS feeds, calendars and even web sites. The SproutBuilder app is a WYSIWYG Flash/Flex-based editor where users can used included tools to create "sprouts," (not widgets!) of web content. In addition, the service allows for the addition of components from 3rd party services like Meebo, Ribbit, Yahoo Mpas, and PollDaddy. Even better, you can get started building without having to sign up first. SproutBuilder had been in private beta, but it’s live now, and totally fun.

Bambuser  is a new service that lets you broadcast live video from your mobile phone onto your website or blog. You can also use a web cam, but that’s not nearly as cool.

To get started with this new, alpha service, do the following:

1. Install the bambuser application on your phone. Download it here or point your mobile browser to http://m.bambuser.com.
2. Start the application and review the configuration options at Options » Settings.
3. Enter your username and password at Options » Settings » Credentials.
4. Start the broadcast by choosing Options » Connect.

With the new service from Luminotes, you have access to your own, personal wiki notebook where you can organize your own notes and ideas. You don’t have to know any special markup codes or install software - just start typing to use this online service. You can then make a wiki just as easily as if you were writing a document.

Your notes can be linked to each other as needed and you can invite friends to collaborate with you on your wiki. You can also download your entire wiki with a click and take it to go.

Free accounts include 30 MB of storage space, but no multi-user collaboration. The next step up offer 250 MB and all the additional features for only $5/month.

When I first heard about this service, I had to wonder if it could even be for real: the new online storage site, ADrive is claiming to offer 50 GB of FREE online storage. When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. According to Web Worker Daily, there is a catch to using the service, actually, there are a few: "their required registration includes your full address and phone number, their uploader is a java tool, and they reserve the right to share metadata about your files with partners - which implies context-sensitive advertising in the future."

It sounds just a tad invasive…I’m happier with the free, no-strings attached 5 GB from SkyDrive instead.

PDF Hammer is a website that lets you edit your PDFs online, for free. You don’t need to download any software - the PDFs are edited right inside the browser after you upload them to the site. Right now, you can re-arrange the pages (reorder them), delete pages, and append one PDF to another. Soon you will be able to rotate pages and apply watermarks and stamps to pages with this service. Although it would be nice to really edit the PDFs by adding or removing pictures and text, this service can still be useful for some basic PDF manipulation needs.

ShinyLetter is another way to use the web to send snail mail, which something that I love to do since I never have stamps. With ShinyLetter, you type out your letter online, just like it was an email, then you can send it anywhere in the world for $2.00. Although that’s pricier than a stamp, it certainly is convenient. Your letters can be up to four pages and there’s a nice selection of font styles to choose from. The letters are printed out on high quality paper, too. ShinyLetter is brand new, so there still might be some kinks they need to work out.

Things have been a little busy for me lately, but just because I’m not posting here, doesn’t mean I’m not blogging! Check out my latest on RWW:

Postalz & Scrapblog - Doing More With Digital Photos

When
you go on vacation, you no longer pack canisters of film for taking
vacation photos - you just pack a digital camera and a handful of
batteries. If the hotel has wi-fi, you might even upload photos from
the day’s activities to flickr in
the evening. However, when it comes time to send postcards back home,
you still have to browse through the assorted offerings from the gift
shop, emblazoned with hokey “wish you were here” sentiments overtop
images that look nothing like the place you’re visiting.

In this post we look at web 2.0 services that give you more options with digital photos - postalz and scrapblog.

Continue reading »