Create a Tour of Web Pages with Agglom

 

Sharing web pages in a conversation shouldn't be as tricky as it is. Sometimes you're on the phone, or speaking to a group of people and there isn't a handy way to bring people along with you from page to page and then let them have easy access to those pages after the conversation is through.

Enter Agglom, a simple little service built by Italian developer Enrico Foschi. It's a Firefox plug-in that will make sharing a list of links far easier than it's been before.

How It Works

Agglom is a remarkably easy way to create a "slide show" of live links that you can share with other people. See the screencast demo we recorded below.
Forthose who prefer to read, there's a text description after the video.

After downloading the plug-in, you can click on the Agglom button at any time. It captures all the URLs from each tab in your browser. After making some admin decisions, including public/private or password protection, you receive one link that you can share with anyone else. They can then follow through the slide show along with you, access it later, get any changes made to it by RSS, leave comments and suggest additional links.

It's simple but looks quite useful.

Presentation Is Powerful

Earlier this month we wrote about five lightweight apps that are useful for web consultants and trainers. If we had known about Agglom then (we just discovered it today via Marjolein Hoekstra's blog CleverClogs) it would have made a great fit there as well.

The web is changing so fast and there's so much information available that providing accessible ways clearly show people what you're talking about is the best way to help friends, family and co-workers wrap their minds around the powerful new tools now available.

Agglom is simple - that's good. It also looks quite useful. That's a sweetspot for applications these days. Can you imagine using it? We can.

Courtesy ReadWriteWeb

Google Won’t Let Search Startups Grow Too Large

Czech search engine, Seznam is on the block for $1 billion, according to reports, and Google may be in the hunt for that country’s most popular search engine. And while it wouldn’t surprise me if Google did acquire Seznam to shore up its international influence, it points to a key issue that shouldn’t be overlooked: Google is so powerful and so rich that the chances of a small search engine growing to challenge its prowess are becoming smaller with each passing day.

There are a variety of search engines in the wild that all offer something new or unique. Some think Quintura will be a major player in the search space one day, while others believe Wikia, Clusty, or even KartOO might have a shot at slaying the Google beast. Each offers something unique and something that many people may be looking for, but do they have the staying power or popularity to grow under Google’s nose like Baidu, and utterly command the search market in one space? I doubt it.

Google is simply too big and too powerful to be challenged by a small firm. That ’s not to say that it’s better than Wikia or even better than Quintura, but it does mean that Google simply won’t let these services get too big before it’s forced to react.

The search engine space is increasingly becoming a three-horse race in the United States and even fewer are finding footing overseas. According to the most recent numbers, Google now controls 70 percent of the US market and Yahoo and Microsoft continue to lose ground. All the while, smaller search engines like Wikia and Quintura are not even included in that discussion. That said, they’re still growing, albeit at a much slower rate than Google.

But that doesn’t matter much anymore. Years ago, search engines would start up and have a fighting chance at reigning supreme. But in today’s consolidated market, there’s no such chance. Instead, the idea of creating a search engine has followed the Web 2.0 mantra that venture capitalists love and egotists that want to rule a market don’t: Make your search engine grow to a level where people take notice, do something unique, and in no time, Google or Microsoft will acquire it to shore up their presence online.

Powerset is a prime example of that idea. Sure, it only lets you search Wikipedia right now, but what it did do was provide a highly-useful way of inputting queries and getting relevant results to be returned. And in the process, Microsoft saw something it liked and acquired it before it became a threat or before Google had the opportunity to do the same.

It might sound naive to say that no company will ever really challenge Google, but it may be true. The way I see it, Yahoo is the only company that’s even close right now and it’s in such disarray that it’s not a threat to Eric Schmidt and the rest of his cronies at all. Microsoft is probably the stiffest competition because it has the cash to compete, but let’s not forget that its market share is barely relevant — it has yet to even hit 10 percent.

But that’s also where the smaller search engines come in. Smaller search engines don’t need to play the same game Google and Microsoft do and tend to be more successful when they break the mold and create a real user experience. The Web is littered with the remains of search engines like Lycos, Altavista, and dare I say, AOL, that tried to do the same thing as Google and failed, so why shouldn’t startups try something new and give the big three some ideas?

After using the myriad search engines on the Web, it’s abundantly clear that some — most notably, Wikia and Clusty — have a chance at growing into a search powerhouse. But in today’s environment where both Google and Microsoft make billions each quarter and have all the money they need to stop small search engines from growing too large and threatening their dominance, that’s simply impossible.

Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are probably here to stay for quite some time. And although I’d like to see a new company crop up just as much as the next person, the chances of another Baidu emerging are extremely small — Google or Microsoft would acquire it before that ever happens.

That said, it doesn’t mean innovation is dead and I fully expect Microsoft to lead the way in that regard. After all, if you’re trailing by such a wide margin, wouldn’t you want to try something new and hopefully coax more people to your service?

Courtesy of Mashable!

6 Online Email Aggregators that Do More Than Just Aggregate

 For most of us, Gmail can be the simple answer to aggregating all of our emails together in one place. But for those who are looking for something new with a bit more spice, there are a whole new breed of email aggregators that promise to redefine the way we look at and use our inboxes. Here are 6 online email aggregators that do more than just aggregate.

Zenbe

Zenbe, “designed to be the world’s best email experience,” is the coolest new kid on the block and might just emerge as the big guy soon enough. The advertisement-free service offers you an email program, startup page, calendar, files directory, task list, your Facebook updates, Twitter, a chat application, Delicious, and address book all in one place. While you might be getting many of these features in other email programs, the presentation and flawless execution is what make Zenbe a clear winner.

The calendar, startup page, file directory, and email come in tabs in the center of the page. There is a right-hand sidebar that executes the Twitter, Facebook, chat and to-do list applications. Zenbe can get your emails from other email services like Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, and MSN using POP. What I particularly like about Zenbe is the start-up page titled “ZenPage” that will definitely change the way we look at emails and start-up pages. You can have members at your ZenPage and chat with them live from your account.

Orgoo

Orgoo is similar to Zenbe but in a much simpler form. If you take away Zenbe’s ZenPage, Facebook, Twitter, and a few other features, you are left with Orgoo. The service provides you with an inbox and a chat application on the right-hand sidebar, and aggregates your SMS messages, but what is really striking about Orgoo is its video chat feature. Orgoo’s video chat allows you to use any webcam and start chatting from your account page.

Fuser

Fuser, as the name suggests, simply fuses all your email accounts, including AIM, AOL, Comcast, POP3, IMAP, Gmail, Hotmail, Live, Netscape, Outlook, Yahoo, and more, in one place. Not only that, you can also get and reply to your MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter messages from the Fuser inbox.

TopicR

TopicR is not really about aggregating your emails from all of your other email addresses, but experiencing a whole new way of using email while still retaining your old email addresses. I can bet some of the features in TopicR will make you say “wow.” With TopicR you can send private emails that can’t be forwarded or copied. It also acts a file upload service where you can upload a number of pictures or audio files that your recipients can see online so that their inboxes don’t get clogged. You can mix music and pictures in your attachments and create a slide show. You can also create an RSS feed of your email.

TopicRacts as a social networking platform where you can browse through the publicly shared content and connect with other readers. What I find particularly interesting is the Activity Stream, which in TopicR’s words is “the stream of people’s activities around your email topics and contents.” Talk about the next generation of email - this could be close.

Goowy

Goowy is for the Flash fans out there. It provides you a Flash based webtop that includes features like email, calendar, contact management, a startup page, IM, file storage, and more. You can add your Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail accounts into Goowy using POP3. There are plenty of customization options that you can choose from, including dozens of inbox skins.

Jubii

Jubii not only aggregates your different email accounts but acts as a smart service that adapts according to your usage patterns. For example, it sorts out your incoming emails into your private and public inboxes and highlights important senders. It provides a file storage center with a 10 GB space for the first 1 million beta users and 4 GB per user thereafter that you can use to store any type of files and share easily with your contacts.

Jubii also acts like a social networking platform where you can see who is online and connect with them in real time. Instead of emailing, you can choose to call your contacts on landline and mobile phones using the service. The following countries are supported currently for the online telephony service: US, Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and United Kingdom. Jubii currently allows you to call and talk your contacts for 30 minutes a day or 3 hours per month for free. Jubii also provides an RSS feed reader feature that you might want to check out.

Courtesy of Mashable