Happy 3logDay

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Blogday project created to allow an easy way to explore new blogs from all over the globe. Basically all you need to do is to link to 5 new/favorite Blogs that you find interesting.

Needless to say that I think it's a supper idea and a great way to discover new and good content. My choices:

1. TechCrunch - The best way to stay updated with the latest news on Web 2.0.
   
2. SomewhatFrank - The world of Web 2.0 through Frank Gruber eyes.
3. Literanista - A blog about Hispanic books and authors - a place for a multi-cultural dialogue.
4. Duesentrieb - It's a blog that offers you a short tracking of Internet widgets, web2.0 applications, social networks, social movement, open music and much more for you to gobble down on a daily basis.
5. JR says - Ideas, opinions, how-to's, and other discoveries related to virtually any product, and often web products. (written by Jonathan Rochelle)

My bonus blog (in Hebrew) - Eyal Shahar Blog
Eyal is my partner at Go2web20 but in additional he's also a great blogger with some extremely interesting insights about the Internet life - Then and now.

Tribute:

A Tempest In A Teacup?

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Today I saw a video response to a video I've posted earlier this week: content aware image resizing. Personally I think it is a bit exaggerated based on the fact that no one actually knows what this product is designated for..

Facebook vs. Facistsbook

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Ouriel posted an important post on his blog today about - Anti-Israeli causes on Facebook
I just want to point to the fact that the hate doesn't stop there, many racist groups exist and are active on Facebook. I was particularly shocked from this video:

Please report when you see such hate pages.

Go2web2 TechBites 08/28/07

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Here are some updates that have been accumulating lately:

First off, I'm proud to say that Go2web20 now has a nice Facebook application which allows you to stay updated with the entire site's latest content. The application powered by Dapper.
Dapper provides a framework for powering Facebook applications (those that utilize Dapper), called the "Facebook AppMaker." This means that anyone with a website can use Dapper to create their own (automatically updating) Facebook application - with no programming necessary. If you want your own application, apply for the beta at facebook@dapper.net



Israeli based FoxyTunes chosen by Mozilla to be a part of back to school with Firefox - special Firefox edition. FoxyTunes connects your music and the Web - allowing users to control their favorite media players without ever leaving the browser and allows users to explore the Web and learn more about the music you are hearing.
Congrats Alex!

Kudos to the guys at Metacafe! They have joined forces with Digg and created a channel on their site that highlights the most Dugg Metacafe videos.



The weekend of September 1st and 2nd is going to be Europe's most hectic vlogging time in combination with the Podcamp UK and VlogEurope in Germany. If you can't attend these events, be sure to tune in to blogTV and watch the LIVE streams from these unique unconferences. You can participate in the blogTV chat and even become a vlogging co-host.

New sites from Go2web20:

Maxtango is an Ecard service created for the design community to engage, participate and exchange in the fun of sending Ecards. Ecards are Conversations. Communication has become one of the most important and effective entities in digital media, being highly effective and indispensable. Ecards carry a message, emotion or feeling.

FilesTube is a search engine designed to search files in various file-sharing and uploading sites. As a file-sharing search engine FilesTube finds files matching your search criteria among the files that have been seen recently in uploaded sites by the search spider. This information is accumulated in a database. When you execute a FilesTube.com search it delivers results from the database.

Simplify Media Simplify Media software connects people directly from within their favorite desktop applications, without having to upload and download files via a website or enter a new user interface. The first version of Simplify Media lets you listen to your home music from any computer or browse and play your friends' music over the Internet, all from
within iTunes. The software connects people directly from within their favorite desktop applications without all the unnecessary steps.

I'll finish this post with a little request to Facebook team: Please, please take out the word "is" from the status update and, the period at the end of the sentence. It's annoying!

Fascinating! Content Aware Image Resizing

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This is a video presentation on content aware image resizing. It demonstrates a software application that resizes images in such a way that the content of the image is preserved intelligently.

This unique algorithm developed by Dr. Ariel Shamir and Dr. Shai Avidan (Adobe)



Source (Hebrew)

Digg

Watch Full Screen, On-Demand TV on Your Web Browser

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tubecast.tv (alpha mode), makes a successful attempt at merging traditional (passive viewing) television broadcasting with the active nature of the web.

Essentially, this means that you can sit back, relax, and enjoy whatever is showing next on the channel of your choice. The active nature comes into play with the 'opportunity' to rewind, fast forward, pause or skip the current show.


Watch

The site still needs to work on it performance though, most of the channels that Tubecast offers have horrible resolution, especially the music channels (although, there is quite a nice listing there.)

However, there are a few programs, which have high resolution and excellent streaming and are worth watching, such as the BBC Comedy channel, or the Ford Models channel, for example.


Watch

I think we are going to see more and more similar projects that allow us to watch television online as if we are in our own living rooms. I will not be surprised, if Youtube takes the same approach soon and changes their layout in a way that will offer us the ability to see a full screen video with all the active features right on top of the video itself. Seems like this step is now necessary for them or they will undoubtedly suffer the consequences, but I seriously doubt they can create such a thing in combination with their low-quality content.

Digg

Add a Video to your Blog Post (Blogspot)

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I've just noticed a new and simple feature which allows you to add video right to your blog from blogger itself. Surely it will save some time for bloggers that use to upload their video somewhere else.

Note that you can save your post and return to publish it when video processing is complete.


Yesterday BTW, it was Blogger's eighth birthday!

Search and Play Audio Files with SkreemR

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SkreemR is a search engine for locating audio files on the web. SkreemR crawls the internet for audio tracks and then provides the information for you to listen, download, or find out more about audio that you are interested in.

SkreemR goal is to make this content as searchable and useable to the internet community as possible. Although SkreemR not enables you to embed the file into your blog, it has some other cool features that makes this service worth the try: When you find something you really like, check out some suggestions of where you can buy the music and support the artists. Visit the sites that host the audio content and read what they and others are saying about the music you love. Find out facts about the artist and their songs, find concert tickets, and share your experience with your friends.

Easy to find and play podcasts:



SkreemR also have a Facebook application that lets you search across millions of audio files and save the music files to your SkreemR playlist as well as to post them to your profile.



More goodies:

• Songbird Add-On - This Add-On lets you search SkreemR right from the great Songbird media player.

• Firefox Search Plug-In - Allows you to adds SkreemR search to your Firefox Search Bar.

Introducing FranceRadio: New Music Search Engine

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FranceRadio is a new search engine that lets you listen to free music right from your browser. It brings together at the same time Google, Yahoo! Live and Altavista results. Also it enables to grab the song code and embed it in your blog or site.


franceradio.net

What can I say.. Music applications are the best!
I love the fact that you can play music on the Web, no need to wait- immediately hear your favorites songs, anytime, anywhere!

I'm kinda happy I found this cool search engine. I was looking for something that works well with MXplay new web plag-in, and this site does the work perfectly! While FranceRadio displays your search results, MXplay will recognize all the song on the page, and will play them within their sexy widget.

Create Professional Looking Site with Freewebs

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Freewebs is one of the easiest site building tools around that helps you create professional good-looking site for your family, friends, customers or just for yourself. I was really pleased with the site functions and performance, that leads to good results.

First choose your template-Freewebs have more than 300 templates to choose from in order to give your site the look you want. Then start control your site with the Site Manager. You can control how the site look and how the page organized.

Easily add and display images to your site, whether they're stored from photo sharing service Photobucket or on your computer. Freewebs allows you to drag files or folder into their special uploader. After this been done, you can edit (crop, color, resize, rotate, etc.,), your own pictures with Picnik service in real time and right from Freewebs page. Also add image titles and captions, select album styles and colors and add background music or special effects.

The site offers fo many more features such as: video sharing, blog platform, customize page with widgets (Freewebs owns a unique Widget bank), form builder, community forum, etc,.

Users are given 40MB free space and 500MB bandwidth per month. For additional space, check out Freewebs premium service packages:


Overall Freewebs very impressive and useful Website creator/builder, and if you are familiar and use good services like: Weebly and Jimdo, you may find this one even more powerful.

Twitter - Jaiko Mashup

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I've enjoyed testing Twitku2 this morning . It is a simple web app that lets you monitor your Jaiku and Twitter accounts on a single page.

Features:

• Simultaneously post a single message to both accounts
• Compact URLs (e.g., tinyurl.com, rurl.org, etc.) are shown as their full original URL
• Turns URLs (e.g., http://dougworld.com) into clickable links
• Flickr photo page URLs show thumbnail
• Foreign characters supported

I really wish they'll add Pownce and Facebook (for status updates), to their page soon. I recommend them to go with Meebo look & feel to allow communication with ALL of these services from one place.

Upcoming Israeli Event - iDrink#6

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iDrink#6 will take place in Tel Aviv this Thursday 16th/08 at 7.30pm
All details are on iDrink.ning.com. All you need to attend is to register at iDrink.


If you have a new cool feature/service/company you are about to launch and want to present it to a group of internet savvy guys and potential investors, you have 2 days to send your request to this email: idrink.israel@gmail.com

The Best Social Bookmark Links and Tags Generator

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Keotag has some great tools for bloggers. It's a service that easily allows you to discover links from several bookmarking sites based on your search terms. Just enter a key word or pick one from their tag cloud, then choose where you want to display the results (del.icio.us, bluedot, technorati, google blog search, bloglines, digg, reddit, twitter and many more), and Keotag will show you only the latest/relevant results (up to 15 links.)

The service was born in early 2006 and since then they’ve changed the interface, and added some new features.

Personally, I liked the tag generator (great help if you own a blog.)
Just type any keyword with spaces in between and click on Technorati button and immediately get an HTML code and place it in your blog posts.

Keotag also has a links generator that enables users to create stuff like this example:

Add to: | blinklist | del.cio.us | digg | yahoo! | furl | netvouz

in no time!

BTW, I'm so happy I saved this old screenshot, it makes it easier to show the difference between then and now:

Watch and Share Porn - Web 2.0 Style

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User generated content is probably the most powerful term that describe what's Web 2.0 best. One of the Web issues that people don't like to talk about out loud is porn. But hey, if you're watching porn on the web, you might as well be doing it in style. (and without too many annoying banners that bug you while you're watching)

I've been exploring this area lately in order to find some good social porn communities, since I think it is part of Web 2.0 that people avoid from. Surprisingly, I can't say I saw lots of services that worth the mention but the one that I'm about to recommend to you, are certainly worthy. In addition, I was trying to put emphasis on services with social and sharing features, user generated content and of course, clean layout.

MEGAROTIC is is social network built from file online storage and video hosting, shared by users. Visitors within this site can browse, play and rate uploaded videos. Basic activities such as: watch a video, rate, comment-on,etc, are free of charge. However, MEGAROTIC limiting the number of videos you can watch per day (non members:10 - members:20). If you wish to play unlimited videos with highest streaming, as well as to upload your own content (maximum file size 5GB), plus download any video that you play, you'll need to upgrade your account to premium. Pricing: $9.99 a month - $69.99 per year (not cheap)
This service is powered by MEGAUPLOAD (one of the oldest storage file services)

Fantasti.cc looks pretty much like any other Web 2.0 community I know - Different content though..
No limitations on this site, everything you'll do is for free. Users can search, watch and download more than 60,000 videos uploaded by people on the internet and the site owners index new videos every day. Also you can rate, review videos you like or dislike and create your own collection.

NippleByte - Digg alike for adult content. If you see hot, sexy or cool link you'd like to share others with, all you need is to submit it to NippleByts. If people like it, they'll spank it, and it'll get voted to the homepage. currently takes only five spanks to get it up there.
More easy than get a story on digg ;-)
Browse site content by popular link list or top 50 tags. Very clean interface.

If you wish to discover new porn content everyday, download StumblePorn toolbar (IE or FF add-ons). StumblePorn helps you find quality porn that was submitted by your peers and rated likewise. Allowing you to view only media formats you wish (Pictures, videos, live webcams, or stories.)
As more as you stubmle sites that you like, as much as you'll get relevant content to your picks.

PornoTube is one of the best user generated porn content site I know. The site was redesign lately and nice features added to it. Registered users can post media and embed other media to their site or blog, rate worthy videos, comment and mange their favorites. You don't need to sign-in to be able to watch unlimited videos. PornTube have sexy black interface with original player, which mean it won't redirect you to sites loaded with ads and banners.

Digg This Read This

Twitter Hall of Fame

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Did you know that the most followed user on Twitter have 7,690 followers?? (hmm.. do you really care?)
If you're addicted to Twitter, you may be happy to know that TwitDir - A Twitter Directory, enables you to find statistics of the Top 100 followers, Top 100 followed, Top 100 favoriters and Top 100 updaters. It also works as a search engine for Twitter users, which mean you can find any user information by searching his name.

Get Ready for BlogDay on August 31st

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Blogday project created to allow an easy way to discover new blogs from all over the globe. On this special day, bloggers recommend new blogs to their blog visitors.

Take a moment on August 31st to write about 5 of your favorite blogs. Write a short description and place a link to the recommended Blogs.

I already know which are my 5 faves blogs.. will recommend them on the end of this month.

SPREAD THE WORD!

Learn Magic Tricks

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YUDOmagic's is a niche community offering a network for magic lovers. Their main focus is community produced magic performances and tutorials. This service allows you to watch, learn and share cool magic tricks. Community members can share their performances by uploading their own magic videos to the site. However uploaded performance videos will be reviewed by site administrators prior to availability in the YUDOmagic Player.

YUDOmagic is partnered with the Internet TV service provider Brightcove, which is great because they really enable users to watch videos in high quality.

I personally like magic tricks (always works on me), so I really hope this service will get more publicity in order to get more content into the site.


To bad you need permission to embed the player code to your blog..

Create MP3 Player with your Favorite Music

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A very neat application called Ivoon enables you to:

• Search for your favorite songs or upload music yourself
  
• Quickly create a playlist, and..
  
• Copy & paste the code into your Myspace, web page, blog, etc,.

Awesome result - Very good streaming!