One Step Forward for Internet Censorship, A Step Backwards for Israel

Usually, I don't write about or get into political views on my blog, but this issue concerns me as a blogger and as citizen in a country such as Israel.

To make a long story short: More than a year and a half ago, Parliament member, Amnon Cohen suggested that all internet service providers should filter internet content for anyone who does not identify themselves as adults. The process was meant to be done via biometric identification and at the server level.

Now the proposal is due in Parliament after it received support from the government and passed the preliminary vote (out of three). According to this proposal, all internet users will either have to install filter software or use service-side filtering unless they identify themselves as adults willing to consume adult content (this is the place where the Minister of Telecommunications may decide how to identify users).

If this proposal is approved and gets full support from the government at the end of process of three votes, these will be the consequences as the result of this matter:

• Blogs, Forums and other group discussions could be blocked by default;
• Censorship is to be activated on News sites (pictures, videos, etc.,) and they will lose their freedom of expression;
• LGBT communities will be probably blocked as well;
• Israeli companies that contain user-generated content are at a major risk because surely this kind of content will be hard to monitor.

Speaking of which, what will become of the Israeli Internet industry?

If you familiar with the web 2.0, you must know then that there is an enormous growth when it's come to Israel's Internet Industry, a step like this will hurt lots of companies.

Frankly, I can't believe that in an advanced country like Israel, the government itself would have a hand in bringing down its own economy. Moreover, I can't even imagine a situation where content from my blog or worse, my whole blog is being censored. It's sounds nightmarish and like the plot of a doomsday sci fi story.

However, this is just one side of a bigger issue which seems to be more and more a matter of political power and control over Israeli civilians. In a democratic country, an undemocratic law that gains support by the government, may open the doors for other unreasonable similar low blows that could endanger more of our freedoms on the future.

What's scares me is that most of the population naively sees this action as something that will protect their children from being exposed to inappropriate content and do not fear its ramifications on all of us as a whole. If a parent wants to, and they should protect their kids, it's his/her personal decision to place a filter that will block access to adult content on their computer. It's their choice as an individual and that simple.

Please take a minute to read the full story on this blog and feel free to spread the word because your help is needed! Don't allow our rights to slowly slip away. Let's move toward progress!

You can also show your support in the Coalition against Internet Censorship group (via Facebook).

Go2web20 TechBites 02/29/08

Due to lack of time, I've gathered some news and updates to one (probably long) post.
Starting with some useful recommendation from Go2web20, here are my personal picks for this TechBites issue:

SendAlong allows users to send large files like a regular email. Just enter email addresses to send the files to, choose the files to upload, and click to send. Sound too easy? Well that's the whole point.

Fliiby owns a large web-library of shared files. You can preview and download Images, Audio, Video, Flash, Documents and Packed archives. You can also create your own file library, and upload multi files up to 100 files at once, when file size limit is 100MB per file. Easy describe, categorize and manage your uploaded files, make them private or disable download for audio and videos. Read more on Download Squad and here.

Both Fixmymovie & Fullpix will provide you with tools to help you fix and improve mobile and online videos. I would love to see video editing options like these on Youtube. May be a must when it's come to their video quality.

A new visual client WaveMaker, helps users create simple applications without any scripting knowledge, while developers can easily add Javascript, HTML, CSS, and Java code to create complex application behavior. Watch their DEMO for more.

Some highlights from the Israeli sphere:
YaData which provide marketing manager with an automated BI tool for self discovery of customer micro segments, purchased by Microsoft for $20-$30 Million. Full story on Techcrunch.

Omgili, a vertical search engine for forums and other group discussion based resources, is now combines the Omgili results over Google's. Basically other than searching on both Omgili and Google, it provides discussions info about the Google Results. For example, if you search for Facebook, You get the Google's results, but also the discussions that link to the result, a deep conversation about the site you received.

A round of $5 Million for Outbrain, announced this week. Outbrain is a leading content rating & recommendations platform, for blogs, RSS (in partnership with Feedblitz), and news. Read all about it on Ouriel's Blog.

Scheduly (new Israel-based company), offering smart online appointment scheduling engine where individual, group or small business can communicate with its clients efficiently, relieve resources from time consuming whilst increasing their business availability.
Still in private beta though.

Some Global updates:
Picnik is by far one of the finest online photo editors there is today. I'm using them constantly as a premium user. But as from this week, everyone can get the premium benefits for free, so you might as well grab this offer while it's there. More on Somewhatfrank's Blog.

i-Lighter is a fully web based application and includes a one click to post content to blogs and social bookmarking services like del.icio.us and digg. A number of enhancements have also been added to make i-Lighter even more stable and streamlined. Included in its new release is Twitterlights where Twitter users can instantly highlight snippets of web content and send Tweets while storing the highlighted content to the user's online account for future retrieval.

Announced GoogleSite, upgraded the Toolbar on GoogleDocs, which BTW is now available in Hebrew and Arabic, and about to release GoogleHealth.

The new JIWA is out! Among the new features:

- A new User Interface and a new Flash player
- All the Jiwers network to suggest you songs and playlist you will like
- Better performances
- and more...

Also, new embedding player:

Favorite Songs

Apparently Facebook has some Cleaning to do

Like mushrooms after the rain, Facebook application list is growing enormously. Currently the correct apps number is 17,108 (and it will probably change by the time I'll finish this post). However, I came across two applications that are not working anymore yet still listing as actives. So I wonder, how many like them are out there, and how Facebook can track that? Because I love for them to inform me about these kind of things. Maybe, the users themselves should report about that.

Anyway, I advice you to check the application discussion boards first, before you run and download yet another application to your prfile.

I found about this one when I couldn't enter their web site. (but I really, really hope it's only a downtime)

inTunes.fm announced their users.

List of Adobe AIR Applications that you may or may not need...

Adobe AIR released its beta back in June 2007, but it was only yesterday that they finally launched their finished product. This must be important news for developers because according to Adobe - they can now use familiar tools such as Adobe Dreamweaver , Flex, Flash, or any text editor to build their applications and easily deliver a single application installer that works across operating systems. For those who don't develop (like me, for example), the most interesting part will be to wait and see what others will build with this upgraded technology.

Anyway, it looks like the perfect time to recommend some AIR applications that were already built with the beta version. Since there is quite a long list, I've gathered apps that I think are truly unique and worth the try. Moreover, I'm sure you can find some applications on the list that may come in handy especially if you use the Internet on a daily basis.


If I needed to choose the most impressive music service that I know of, Finetune would be it. When it's comes to personalized recommendations, it simply has it all: A web-based application, iTunes integration, Finetune for Facebook/Wii, and of course: A Finetune AIR application for your desktop. The AIR application syncs all your web playlists and allows you to hear your favorite music right on your desktop, even if the browser's closed. With one click you can switch from your Finetune favorite artists to your own music collection from iTunes. Most of Adobe AIR applications has this kinda shiny, clean look (like widgets) so it's very lovable, and the experience is just soo good. Finetune has one of the best 'AIR look' I saw.

Password Keeper is a light, yet powerful application that has the capability to save all your passwords in one place. When you select a data row the password for that row will automatically be copied to your clipboard and you can paste it anywhere. Download here.

Fotobooth is a fun application for people who love Flickr and themselves :-)
Users can quickly snap pictures using their webcam, then upload to Flickr right from their desktop. Moreover, FotoBooth comes with a great set of editing tools, which allow you to take a snapshot of yourself, edit it on the spot, and send your creation to your Flickr account. Very sweet.

The Google Analytics Reporting Suite brings Google Analytics to the desktop, with a host of features that help you understand how your website is performing and where you can improve it. From tracking your visitors, referrals and campaigns to viewing your AdWords ROI metrics. You can see the feature list and lots of screenshots by clicking here.

Usually, if you use Twitter, you prob. don’t use Pownce as well (and vice versa), so I'll just recommend them both, and you get to choose which one to install:

Pownce: You can send and receive notes from your desktop as if it was from the website itself.
Tweetr is a twitter client that allows you to send and receive twitter messages but has cool features including: Support for taking photos with your webcam , and sending files to your friends (up to 10MB),

Kuler is adobe's color scheme generator. It enables you to quickly search, create, and share color themes online. You can either do it from the web or from the desktop. You can also built an application yourself based on kuler APIs.

I had a bittersweet experience with the last application on my list. It's called Snippage and amazingly it allows you to cut interactive parts from any web page and place them on your desktop!
Why sweet? Because I can cut code from everywhere and see it live on my desktop. (except Flash). Why bitter? Data not saved when the application closed! And unfortunately links opens with IE...

Still, I think it's HOT! I just cut my Blogroll and place it on my desktop:

Be sure to check this DEMO for more (or just skip it, and click on the download button)


Even though I enjoyed playing with these AIR applications, I can't help myself from thinking that it actually feels like I'm going backwards. Over the last two years I've tried to avoid activities from my desktop, and frankly most of my work today is from the Web. Why would I want to go back?

I've just noticed a very relevant post on ReadWritWeb that worth your visit!

Click on the thumbnail to get adobe's pixel art, created by eboy!

Audiko helps you to create Ringtones in a Snap!

Now this is what I love about Web 2.0: Tools that are easy as One, Two, Three. Audiko is a new Ringtone Maker that don't required registration, and you won't need to download any software/plugin to your computer. Really, no hassle what so ever.

Just upload your favorite song, or supply Audiko with URL that ends with MP3 format. Then choose the part you want to cut from the song, the time you want it to play, and that's it.
you can download your new Ringtone to your computer, then to your mobile.

It's so easy, I've created two Ringtones myself:



Update: Now Audiko offer full Ringtone support for iPhone users:

Ever wondered who's the artist behind Google Doodles?

Here's a quick video that shows Chief Google Doodler Dennis Hwang draw a Google Doodle from start to finish. He creates a doodle that commemorates the Lunar New Year and invites students to join the Doodle 4 Google art competition.

CrunchBase Information

Dennis Hwang

Information provided by CrunchBase

Blogger + Picasaweb = Inefficient

I've only recently discovered that Blogger automatically stores all my blog images into my Picasaweb account. They didn't informed me about this action, but accidentally I found about it myself. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great, obviously Google saving me valuable storage space, but here's what I don't get: All my images stores on Picasaweb yet I can't use these images again since there's no integration between the two services. Worse, instead of giving me this option, Google sending me to Flickr on their learn more about using web images explanation. I love Flickr but why do I need to upload photos that are already on my Picasaweb?!

Trying to search for more helpful info as I'm writing, I just realized I need to pay more attention to the little words:


Bottom-line: I really don't mind paying Google for more storage if I'll need to, but they seriously needs to do something about this Blogger-Picasaweb integration, it's just not useful as it is now.

Share your Personal Media with your Facebook Friends

doubleTwist, is a free desktop application for sharing, and syncing personal media. After downloading the software to your computer, doubleTwist syncs all the media from your computer: Photos, Videos, and your iTunes music collection. Then you can share your files with anyone via email, or with anyone from your Facebook friends (there is a 10MB limit per file). Once your friends are using doubleTwist, sharing with them is as easy as dragging & dropping the files you'd like to share. Your friends will receive a notification that you've sent them files. They'll have two weeks to download files you've sent them before they expire. Also, doubleTwist lets you sync iTunes playlists with several mobile phones, MP3 players and game consoles.




I've test it, but I'm pretty sure I will not use it at the moment - It is just too slow for me. I'm guessing it's because the long list of Facebook friends that I have. However, seems like doubleTwist already working on a better version that will fix some of the problematic issues, so I might going to test them again in the nearest future. (and post my insights of course)

In the meantime, you can check their DEMO for more information:


Thank you Olanrewaju Ogundero for sharing and testing this with me.

What your Twitter/Flickr/Facebook/Digg Friends are Doing?

Flotzam is a mashup application that gathers info from Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Digg and blogs, then lets you see the data from your friend's web activities, all in one page. To be honest, I'm not a big believer in this kind of visual apps, the experience is always interesting at first, then you realize it's easier to track your friends by simply visit the networks themselves.

Anyway, I had to test it of course :-) pretty cool, yet a bit useless for me.

Try it here - IE only.

Looking for File? Try Fliiby

Fliiby owns a large web-library of shared files. At first glance it kinda looks like Youtube, only for all kind of file formats. You can preview and download Images, Audio, Video, Flash, Documents and Packed archives. You can also create your own file library, and upload multi files up to 100 files at once, when file size limit is 100MB per file. Easy describe, categorize and manage your uploaded files, make them private or disable download for audio and videos. (All mp3 are disabled for download by default)
As part of Fliiby community network, you can search files and browse through hundreds of file categories, user pages and folders.

Since Filiby is Flash-based application, the whole experience is different and unique - It's simply fun to navigate through the files. Being a Flash fan myself, I'm guessing it's not easy to create this kind of platform that will behave as fast and smooth as this one, so beside the fact that I was happy to see that it's built with Flash, I was pretty happy with the results as well.
Check out some of the embedding options:

Music:

Photo:

Video:


You can also embed your whole folder (Every user can have 25 folders, and unlimited number of files):

New Songs on Facebook Hit List

Seriously, Facebook can release a CD from all these music material on the Web.

500 Pageonce Invitations for Go2web20 Readers

Pageonce created a massive management that gathers all your personal accounts into one organized page. From this page you can track your Finance accounts (American Express, Citibank, Fidelity etc.), Cellular bills (AT&T Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile etc.), Email accounts (Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL Mail), Airlines (American Airlines, Delta, United Airlines, El-AL and more), Shopping online accounts (eBay, Amazon), Social services such as Facebook, Myspace, Linkdin, and Friendster. Except for that, Pageonce contains many more accounts so it's most likely you'll find what you need (especially if you live in the U.S). However, if you don't find something, you can simply ask Pageonce to add it. I've asked them to add Twitter and Pownce accounts because it's really good for me to track all my social networks from a single page. (Pageonce will add them in the nearest future)



Though it have the look & feel of Netvibes page, it is truly a different product. Pageonce is all about you and your personal stuff. You probably noticed that every day people are sharing more and more things on the Web, and of course I think it's great but I also think it's necessary to have a private place for all the stuff that you don't want to share.

There is an issue that can be an obstacle for Pageonce and it's the privacy & security matters. Surely it's hard on a user to trust a young company with its bank accounts, end even though their "how we keep you safe" policy looks good to me, it may take some time until people fearlessly update this specific data.

However, I do suggest that you try this management. You can get your invitation by clicking here

More insights on the product, in TechCrunch post.

Create Great Photobook from your Online Photo Album

Mixbook allows you to create good looking photobook from your photos online: Flickr, Facebook, or photos from your own computer. Design your book alone or collaborate with others to design custom books that Mixbook will print and ship right to your door. (very reasonable prices)



Lately Mixbook added a brand new AutoMix feature. AutoMix creates a professionally printable photobook in seconds with just one click of the mouse. All it takes is 3 easy steps - select a theme, select your photos from your computer, Flickr, Facebook, and MixBook then will create a finished photobook that you can share on the web or have printed. After AutoMix creates your book, you have the opportunity to personalize it any way you want by rearranging photos, adding text, etc. With this new feature, Mixbook are changing the way people make photobooks and making them available to everyone.

Quick preview:

View this book full size or get a printed copy at Mixbook

Printable photobooks are great way to preserve memories, and I'm sure everyone would love to get them as a present.

Valentine's Day Special (Web 2.0 Style)

Valentine's day is about to take action in three days, so if you're still looking for ideas of 'how-to' surprise your partner, here's a list of recommendations that may come in handy, especially if you're a web 2.0 geek...

First, if you don't have a partner (YET!) you can join LiveSpeedDating events online (special for Valentine's day), and meet up to 10 people each session:

1. Feb 13 - Find that match and maybe more for Valentine's day!
2. Feb 14 - Not too late, meet a match on the day St. Valentine intended.
3. Feb 15 - Were you too busy to meet someone? You still can meet great matches with livespeeddating.

Don't worry, you don't need to download anything to your computer, or to fill out long profile page, just quickly sign-up and enjoy the company.

In case you want to send out different and creative Valentine greetings, check out Wix newbies: http://www.wix.com/love/valentine.

Upload your love story to YouTube and share it with the rest of the world. Not sure what to say? You can get some inspiration from the greatest love story contests powered by 1-800-flowers.com and YouTube.

Blogtv will offer some Valentine's Day activities on February 14th. On that day you can record stories, songs, live shows, etc., about lovey-dovey stuff and tag them under 'LOVE' tag, so it will be easy on everyone to follow the love scene on this day.

carded.tv is a free video e-card service that has a funny video list for Valentine's day. All you need to do is to pick a video, customize it and send it over to whomever you choose:

Care to say it with pictures? Flickr is by far the best place to find the most lovely pictures ever. Click here for more.


trustedplaces have some romantic ideas for you. If you wish to take someone special to somewhere special, be sure to run a 'romantic' search on their site.

Sweets for my Sweet is not just a song, it's also a way of showing your cooking skills :-) if you feel creative, go onto allrecipes and find tens of good looking recipes for Valentine's day.


Need more information, suggestions, recommendations for this special day? Quintura valentine's search may help you find what you're missing:

CrunchBase 2 (0) - Collective Database

Crunchbase released today its second version and it simply looks good. The site has a large database that contains information about companies (covered on Techcrunch), people, and investors. On the first version users couldn't do much except enjoy the info, rate and/or comment on a company, but since the new version is more like a Wiki style, users can edit an existent content, or even add new companies themselves.

Also, there are lots of new feature that making the search experience a whole lot better than before. (try the tag cloud for example). Personally, I loved the fact that anyone can add a person to the database (if they are associated with a company), definitely point to the fact that our identity matters. It also making it more social and friendly to use.

Of course I've added myself :-) duh!


kudos to Techcrunch team - Great job on this one.

Go2crunchbase to see our page.

Familiar with Superwall & Superpoke? Meet the SuperTagger

It is actually OK that Facebook themselves are not supplying us with too many features on their own applications, because we'll probably going to see it coming from someone else anyway, and it's always interesting to see how far creativity goes. Let's take "Poke" for example: I really liked it at first, but after using the Super-Poke application, I never went back to plain poking. Same case with the Superwall application, it seems like people prefer to send friendly messages through there, instead of using the wall that comes as default in everyone accounts.

Speaking of which, there's a new Super-application that can definitely become more popular than the one we're using now. It's called SuperTagger (powered by pulver.com and partners), and it's allows you to tag anyone and anything in a photo. It can be a person, an object or a place. When you tag an object for example, SuperTagger then automatically gives you some relevant e-commerce results that you may or may not need. But here's the interesting part, by choosing one from the offered tags, you actually added an ad-tag to the photo and I wonder what will be the next level of this action. Revenue sharing maybe? Anyway, currently the owner of the application is not making any money off this e-commerce Mashup.
BTW, I'd like to know when someone add an ad-tag to my photo, other wise it can get out of hand.






The thing I liked most within this application, is that people can comment on each tag separately, which means that every photo can have multiply conversations.



Like every application on Facebook, the more users will use it, the more it will get better. If you're looking for something that goes beyond just tagging your friends, try SuperTag them.

Yahoo! PhotoSoup - Flickr Based Word Search

PhotoSoup puzzle is a sweet Flickr tag based game, powered by Yahoo! The idea of this game is to find all tags hidden in the puzzle, before you run out of time. It can be generated through either specifying a topic, or a Flickr username. Each puzzle consists of maximally 17 photos, and for each photo a tag is hidden in the PhotoSoup puzzle. Going with the mouse over one of the photos will enlarge that photo, such that you can take a closer look. Clicking on a photo will direct you to the Flickr page for that photo. You can also generate a code for the puzzle and embed on your site or blog.


Definitely a time-killer.

How to Negotiate - Tips for Yahoo!

"It's all about negotiation - negotiation!"

Hilarious!

Can your SKYPE do that?

Israel-based startup ooVoo, is a face-to-face client desktop communication. It's combining emails, IM and Internet phone all together, and allowing the users to simply enjoy a much more real conversation with friends, family etc. Like with SKYPE you can start a video conversation with whom ever you want, but unlike SKYPE you can do it with up to six people at once (you can even text chat with them all). Users can record and send video messages to other ooVoo users or friends who don't have ooVoo yet. The video messages can be played on any computer. ooVoo than organizes all your video messages in your very own special management so you can always go back and check previous messages.



Also, all the video calls can be saved on your computer instantly, so for example, if it is a business conference that you're making with more than one person, you can be sure you won't miss a thing because you can simply go back and play your video call over and over again.

Today ooVoo added the ability to make calls from their service - yes like with SKYPE but as for now, it's free:

• FREE calls from ooVoo to a landline or mobile phone in the
  USA or Canada.
• No credit card required.
• Add phone participants to your ooVoo video call.
• Introductory period includes up to 120 minutes of FREE
  phone calls.
• FREE phone calls to the USA and Canada available
  through March 1, 2008.

And if that isn't enough, ooVoo added the video effects feature, and this for itself worth downloading their software:




In this point ooVoo are not giving any info about the call prices, but for at list now I know that they do have a business model.

Check out Techcrunch review about the product.
Update: You can also read Centernetworks post from earlier today.

Visual Search Engine

RedZee trying to provide the most relevant results possible so that you'll find what you are looking for fast, and they're doing that while giving you a different kind of search experience. Type your query and browse through the content simply by drag & drop the pages left to right and vice versa.
Not sure how useful but the navigation is refreshing.

Just because we use Twitter, doesn't mean it's Perfect!

So I've started to use Twitter on a daily basis only 2 month ago, and it's just amazes me to see how many people use it regardless the fact that it's actually suck in terms of technology (features, design etc.) So of course, nothing can beat those free SMS but why the hell Twitter not giving this much attention to their Website? Basically, most of the action is done over there.

So I've picked some of the things Twitter should add or change in my opinion:

• Get rid of the @ + user name and just let users to comment right from a status page, like at Plaxo or Pownce:

• Allow users to embed favorite statuses to their blog/site, and share via email. For example, if I like the next status, why do I need to create a JPAG/GIF file to be able to share it here:
• Reply or send personal notes would be so much easier form home page. Why do I need to visit a user page just so I could send him a message?!
• Currently there are 3 tabs on a user home page: Archive, Replies and Recent. Why not add Inbox and Sent to the same page as well?
• Characters available: 140 - wishful thinking: 200 characters.
• Let me be more social and allow me to add more info about myself, links to other networks that I use.

I seriously think this can make Twitter a better service.

Create your own Online Store with the PayPal Storefront

A new service from PayPal Labs, which is called storefront that allows just about everyone to become an online vendor. Pretty much like eBay, but only through a widget that you place on your blog or Webpage.

So how does this thing work?

First, you need to personalize your widget by choosing themes and colors, a title and a logo. Then upload products pictures, set prices and start selling item(s) on your website or blog.

The storefront widget does not currently calculate shipping costs, but this is a feature that's coming in a later revision of the widget. In the meantime, just list items at a price that includes shipping costs. You can make buyers aware of this ahead of time by placing the information on your Store Policies page under Shipping Information. I couldn't find anything on payment issues, but I'm assuming that it is like if you're buying anything else on the Web with PayPal, so it should be simple payment processing.

Example:


Will it be successful? Well, it's hard to know at this point, but the fact that you can create a merchandise widget that is powered by PayPal can definitely make you feel more relaxed when dealing with money transaction online.

Currently, the storefront widget is not supported on MySpace or Facebook but I'd love to see how this could work on my Facebook account.

Yahoo! Earned FoxyTunes. Literally.

Best news this morning is the Yahoo!-FoxyTunes acquisition. Yahoo just made a GOOD choice by buying this little company and not just because they have an awesome service which allow users to stream music from their browser as well as to search for information about any artist on the FoxyTunes Planet service, it is also because they have one of the best innovative person I know - Alex Sirota.

Here are some links:
First, the breaking announcement on Techcrunch following by the official one of FoxyTunes Blog.

Way To Go guys!

New LabPixies Wikipedia Widget - Powered by PredictAd

Always interesting to see two companies doing stuff together, this time it's LabPixies and PredictAd which are also accidentally Israel-based starups. LabPixies is a leading provider of personalized Web content and technology. Their mission is to provide the ultimate personalize online experience, bringing together the most advanced web technologies and services in a customizable, easy to use interface (widgets). Somehow we don't hear about this service so much and maybe it's because they don't have a wide gallery of widgets, but they definitely have an interesting one. Among their widgets you can find : Delicious, TechCrunch, ODEO, Top News and more.

Their newest widget is Wikipedia which allows you to search for any word or phrase in any Wikipedia dictionary or site, it will also auto-complete your search while typing, and for that they have collaborated with PredictAd, a company that enables users to set their auto-complete service for any search box on their site or blog.

Gadget by LabPixies.com

What interesting is that both of the services are giving advertising solutions: LabPixies integrates ads inside widgets:
For Gmail:

For Fox:

And PredictAd integrates them inside their search. So maybe they can think how to leverage that as well.

Read more information in here, and keep your eye on LabPixies (I know I will).

Go2web20 Hits 2K Logos!

We're very happy to announce that we now have 2,000 services listed on our directory! It wasn't a race to get there, but we simply did, and of course we'll still be updating it as long as we can.

Here are some facts that you may know or didn't know about us:

• The directory is managed by two passionate, yet busy people: Eyal Shahar and me.
• We really wanted to upload a new version of the site, but being so busy with other stuff, it's just not possible yet...
• The directory is updated on a daily basis, you can subscribe to its RSS here or follow us here.
• Our URL has been saved by 17,778 people on Delicious! We're very proud about that. Thank you all!
  
• We know about services that using us as their Resource. We're happy you do, but please give us a credit if you found something at our site. It's highly important to us.
• When we've started the site, Web 2.0 was a pretty hot name, therefore we called the site Go2web20, But we do realize that we don't need to say it anymore, it's just there.

Bottom-line, the directory is growing because of your email suggestions, so please, keep them coming!

Thank you all for the support - This what's drives us.
Go2web20 Team.

Interesting Trent: Facebook Elements inside Facebook Applications

We all familiar with Facebook terms such as: Poke, Wall Post, Gift... these terms has gotten so popular, we even use them in conversations outside of Facebook. But lately I've seen and used some Facebook applications with the ability to do part of the activities that we use to do on our Facebook profiles, only separated from there. It's kinda like having another Facebook alike profile. For example: you can post on someone application wall etc.

I'll focus on two applications that allowing this:
First is: What's My Theme Song which is an application that lets you pick and share your own Theme Songs for almost any situation that life presents – at the same time, you can easily dedicate theme songs to your friends that best describe their personality or best fit certain events of their lives. 'What's My Theme Song' is pretty new and already has 18,484 daily active users. It's also powered by Qloud which similar to iLike - Both didn't succeed much as a Website but as a Facebook application, they're doing quite fine!

Anyway, a users can create a list of their all time theme songs, share music on Facebook profile and with friends, see friends activities and more. On your friends activities section, you'll be able to rate thumbs up or down on favorite theme song, exactly as you do in your Facebook's mini-feed:

Or leave comments on the song wall:

Other then that the application has a Facebook look & feel which I guess make it easier to use. But the true value must be the simple yet powerful database they are building around users favorite music which can also help them to connect friends based on their music taste. (Hopefully they'll add this feature soon)

The second example is Friends For Sale application which let you buy and sell your friends as pets. You can make your pets poke your other pets, send gifts, make comments on users wall, and many more. Make money as a shrewd pets investor or as a hot commodity.



The idea may sound a bit silly, but I've been playing with this application more than two month now and not only I worth 247,158 plus tax (heh!), I also enjoy the power of buying my friends and make them my own pets. Believe me, it's pure fun and once you start with it, you can't stop :-) Addictive something...

There are more examples for applications that toke features or ideas that works on Facebook and integrated them inside them, like the famous Superpoke app. It is no wonder that those applications are so successful, because if people like to poke people on Facebook, I don't see why they won't like to poke them from any inside application as well.

Search Inside Twitter Content

Tweet Scan is a real-time search engine for Twitter posts. Just enter your term plus a user name (optional), and the system will scan Twitter to show you the results.

More benefits of using this application:

• Get updates via email, RSS, or use the Click button
• Use it to find lost or multi-user replies.
• Scan up to five phrases for daily or weekly delivery
• No ads or spam.
• Turn it off at any time.