Filed under: News, Blogging, Social Software

Fav.or.it is a new kind of RSS aggregator, somewhere in between a pre-set collection of feeds like Alltop and a full-on Google Reader-style service. It had been in closed beta, but now’s it’s opening to everyone. It includes a set of 2000 of the most popular and interesting feeds, and provides recommended stories based on what you’re reading, how long you spend on it, and how you rate it. Basically, Fav.or.it tries to pay attention to what you’re paying attention to. Also, as we reported earlier, your comments show up in Fav.or.it and on the original story.

It’s no reason to abandon Google Reader, but if you’re not already reading RSS feeds, this is a good introduction to managing them. With it’s Top-Story-focused, categorized startpage, it reminds us more of Google News than Google Reader in some ways. Whether Fav.or.it gets a good user base is going to be depend on how happy people are with its recommendation algorithm. Even if you just think of it as site that exposes newbies to a couple thousand top blogs, it’s doing a useful service for the Internet.

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10 + tools to pimp out your Friendfeed

Filed under: Internet, Features, News, Social Software

We’re big fans of FriendFeed, the social network aggregator that helps you keep track of your friends’ activities across different platforms like Twitter, LastFM, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and about 1,000 36 others. If you’re a fan or if you’re just getting started, below are 10 tools to help you experience it just the way you like, after the jump.

Continue reading 10 + tools to pimp out your Friendfeed

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Filed under: Fun, Internet, News, Blogging, Social Software, web 2.0

Retaggr takes the concept of paper business cards and transforms them into Harry Potter like interactive cards. Beyond the benefits of not killing trees to leave your contact information, an interactive card is sooo multi dimensional. With your Retaggr card you can:

• Show your recent Twitter messages
• Link to your blogs, web profiles such as Facebook
• Display your online activity on other sites like FriendFeed, Flickr, etc.
• Add any web widget
• Allow others to get in touch with you via Skype, MSN, Gtalk, etc.

Whereas paper cards are static, your profile card instantly updates as you update information on your various social networks. Also, when you leave comments on other Retaggr enabled sites, your profile card is left there too. If someone mentions you in a post, they can link to you so your card automagically appears.

A profile card provides more context to what you’re about and what you’re up to. And that is the other edge of the sword. (Cue scary music). How much information do you want people to have at their fingertips anyway?

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Filed under: Fun, Internet, News, Blogging, Social Software, web 2.0

Retaggr takes the concept of paper business cards and transforms them into Harry Potter like interactive cards. Beyond the benefits of not killing trees to leave your contact information, an interactive card is sooo multi dimensional. With your Retaggr card you can:

• Show your recent Twitter messages
• Link to your blogs, web profiles such as Facebook
• Display your online activity on other sites like FriendFeed, Flickr, etc.
• Add any web widget
• Allow others to get in touch with you via Skype, MSN, Gtalk, etc.

Whereas paper cards are static, your profile card instantly updates as you update information on your various social networks. Also, when you leave comments on other Retaggr enabled sites, your profile card is left there too. If someone mentions you in a post, they can link to you so your card automagically appears.

A profile card provides more context to what you’re about and what you’re up to. And that is the other edge of the sword. (Cue scary music). How much information do you want people to have at their fingertips anyway?

Read

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Filed under: Fun, Internet, News, Blogging, Social Software, web 2.0

Retaggr takes the concept of paper business cards and transforms them into Harry Potter like interactive cards. Beyond the benefits of not killing trees to leave your contact information, an interactive card is sooo multi dimensional. With your Retaggr card you can:

• Show your recent Twitter messages
• Link to your blogs, web profiles such as Facebook
• Display your online activity on other sites like FriendFeed, Flickr, etc.
• Add any web widget
• Allow others to get in touch with you via Skype, MSN, Gtalk, etc.

Whereas paper cards are static, your profile card instantly updates as you update information on your various social networks. Also, when you leave comments on other Retaggr enabled sites, your profile card is left there too. If someone mentions you in a post, they can link to you so your card automagically appears.

A profile card provides more context to what you’re about and what you’re up to. And that is the other edge of the sword. (Cue scary music). How much information do you want people to have at their fingertips anyway?

Read

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Filed under: News, Social Software

Have you ever heard a public figure make a claim that seems a bit preposterous? In the year of a U.S. presidential election, more people are going to be scrutinizing candidates — and political bloggers — and wondering if what they’re saying is true, exaggerated, or just completely made up. That’s where Ameritocracy comes in. You can add a quote, and Ameritocracy users will rate its accuracy and its relevance.

We think this is great fun, because it takes a step toward realizing our fantasy of siccing Slashdot commenters on all of our nation’s politicians. Sure, the accuracy ratings might be questionable, but they should continue to improve as the site gains additional users. Ameritocracy is full of diverse issues and opinions, so if you can’t get worked up over the election, maybe you have an opinion on propositions like, “The mobile phone may be the most potent tool ever invented for the elimination of poverty.”

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Updated 7/17/08 at 11:16 am PST with additional pricing information.

It’s time that Opera Mobile got its due. Long overshadowed by Opera Mini–the light, server-fed browser for Java phones–Opera Mobile is a robust browser built on Web standards (and written with C and C++) that’s known for delivering a full Web experience to Windows Mobile and Symbian phones.

Yet even though Opera Mobile has made good as a much closer approximation of the desktop Internet experience, it traditionally hasn’t received the same developmental attention as Opera Mini. With Opera Mobile 9.5 beta, released on Thursday as freeware, things begin to change.

In many ways, this beta version of Opera Mobile is a fusion of Opera’s Desktop and Mini versions. It inherits certain tabbing, searching, linking, and saving capabilities from Opera Desktop 9.5, and Opera Mini’s search and display settings.

What follows is a full hands-on review of Opera Mobile 9.5 beta (also see the video) that takes into account the program’s newly redesigned interface, features, performance enhancements, Opera Dragonfly, issues, and what to expect from future beta builds, of which there will be several before the final release. We also won’t leave out availability and price.

Interface

The redesigned interface focuses on a small strip of navigational icons at the base of the app and concealed context menus that appear where applicable when you tap and hold. For instance, opening the context menu when hovered over a link gives you options of opening the link in a new tab, copying the URL, or sending the link to friends. The main context menu can be accessed by tapping and holding the white space, whereas the inverted ‘v’ on the navigation pops up a third options menu.

The icon-based navigation bar is seamless and clean, though generic.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

This new design replaces actionable menu items and helps boost clarity while reducing clutter. If you don’t see the menu option you’re looking for, you know you’ve mis-tapped. Without the familiar desktop icons, Opera Mobile 9.5 beta replaces the Opera-branded character with a generic sleek and modern look. You decide if that’s good.

New features

Only about two-thirds of the final features are present in this first 9.5 beta build (see the road map section below), but already surpasses version 8.65 in terms of the browsing experience–with one caveat.

This new beta version opens in the full-screen browsing mode by default, which lets users pick a starting point and zoom in for closer reading, and entire pages can now be saved for later. Like the 9.5 desktop version, there’s in-text search with Find in Page and text highlighting; a Google search bar when you tap to enter a URL, and an address bar fitted with auto-complete that harnesses your browsing history by suggesting compatible sites as you begin typing.

In this case, not all that is newer is better. While Opera retains its support for tabbed browsing, it replaces the true tabbing experience of Opera Mobile 8.65–ironically defined as “windows”–with a reversion to separate browsing windows, ironically called “tabs.”

In addition, the beta update appears to have lost some zoom granularity, though in a demonstration at Opera’s California office, Sales Engineer Brian Purdy explained that zooming features differ by handset manufacturers.

Performance

Opera Mobile 9.5 beta ditches true tabs in favor of layered windows.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Driving all the front-end enhancements is a new proprietary core rendering engine, called Presto 2.1, which improves on the speed and rendering quality compared with Opera Mobile 8.65. While Opera doesn’t yet have benchmarking numbers to share, I will say that the new version performed more smoothly than the old during testing and trounced Windows Mobile’s Internet Explorer in performance. While Opera Mobile itself may have gotten speedier, the browser is still only as good as the phone’s processor.

For developers: Opera Dragonfly

For developers, Opera has also included support for the open-source remote debugging tool nicknamed Opera Dragonfly. Using the computer’s IP address and Opera browsers for the phone and desktop, this cross-platform software syncs the two to test against errors on the phone, not just in the editor or emulator.

Known issues

Beta builds aren’t meant to be perfect and Opera Mobile 9.5 beta comes with its share of flaws and foibles. First, it’s an English-only build with support for other languages coming later. Users will also notice right away that Flash hasn’t been enabled, making this software version video-blind. Installing the application on a memory card may be rocky, so make sure you’ve got room for the 4.2MB requirement.

Links can be opened, copied, or sent three ways.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Fourth, you’ll want to refresh pages after switching between viewing modes, for instance mobile and full screen views. Finally, problems with custom input methods specific to certain phone models will be buggy or broken.

Road map: What’s next

As I mentioned, Opera’s center of command plans several more updates to Opera Mobile 9.5 before the final release. Google Gears, Opera Link, and Opera Widgets are slated to join the app in subsequent waves of development. A version for Symbian phones is forecast for Opera’s near future.

Availability and price

Starting Thursday, the touch screen version of Opera Mobile 9.5 beta will be available for free for Windows Pocket PC phones running Windows Mobile 5 or 6. A slightly different version of Opera Mobile 9.5 comes preloaded on the HTC Diamond. Opera Software has declined to comment on the pricing of Opera Mobile 9.5 going forward, but I’ve speculated elsewhere that there’s a good chance the product could remain free. The stable version, Opera Mobile 8.65, costs $24.

Source: www.download.com

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