Emergintex

I did a post here some time ago, demanding the industry to come up with LifeStyle Changing products, which I termed as LifeStyle 2.0 wave.

One of the services I was looking for, was when can we start integrating all the web services in our daily lives. Outside the PC/Laptop, but on our breakfast tables/coffee tables. How about getting your e-mail as regular snail mail: on your breakfast table.

TV Compass is one such startup from Chicago, which is moving towards the above goal. From what I can gather from the sources, is that they are trying to integrate some intelligence in otherwise dumb TV remotes. I hope at the minimum, it is WiFi enabled, runs Windows Pocket PC OS, and lets you get on your WiFi. Cool!

Throw in a small e-mail client (POutlook) and you have mail on your coffee table! Get TV listings on the remote screen itself, without disturbing the TV program by bringing up the guide on the TV. You scroll and select the programming on the remote and then commit it to the TV. Snap!

I am excited on this product, as it promises to break the barrier. Possibilities are endless on this one. I am trying to get in touch with the people involved in this, to get more details about the vision they have (if someone from the inside is reading this, send me an email).

Some fresh air in the stale Web2.0.

Burrp! is an online service for reviewing restaurants, bars, cafes etc… from your local neighborhood. The idea was given birth when five of the founding members travelled to Mumbai, India and had a tough time fniding good places to hangout.

The service was luanched in alpha(‘Ka’ as they called it!) late July. I have had a chance to review the service at that moment, but didnt have much to review earlier. Now the service has gone live for Mumbai here. Its a neat way allowing users to add their favorite place under burrp and write a nice review about the ups of the place. Users can also upload photos of the place they are reviewing and burrp! does a nice job in showing up the images.

User interface is neat and non-cluttered. The pages transition nicely giving the service a faster feel to it. By the time I was in for a review, I see lots of people signing on for writing their own reviews of their favorite places in Mumbai. One thing I could not figure out was the ‘Add a Establishment’. I tried adding an establishment to the system, but once I was done adding the establishment details, it prompted me to upload a picture of the place. I didnt have one, so I was looking for a cancel option. I was not able to find one, and then didnt have a clue to go back to my establishment. Maybe this is not a public feature, as it would cause a flood of establishments being added, or the establishment is kept in buffer for moderation before it shown up under the system. I am sure I am missing something there. If anyone from the team is reading this, please leave a comment.

Overall, I see the service providing a nice way to find better places to spend your evenings at. Expanding this to other cities in India and eventually other countries is I am sure, certainly on the plates of the team @ burrp!

I am not sure how the service will be monetized, but I guess once it gains a momentum, establishments can pay a little fees to be listed and reviewed by a in-house burrp(er). Another way I can think of is integrating some discount coupons in the search mechanism. The way I would see it work is if you arrive at a particular establishment via their tag search mechanism, the user would be given a X% discount coupon to be used at the establishment. I am sure the establishments wont mind giving the small discount, especially when they have customers coming in from a search result.

All in all, I am certainly checking them out in near future, and absolutely before I travel to Mumbai! As the team at burrp! says, Onwards and Upwards!

I have been out of touch with my blog for a long time, and thought that I will start out by doing a post of various shortcomings in IE7 beta2, as and when I see them through my daily usage.

First one I just noticed today, and which prompted me to post this is to do with the drop down of URL’s in the address bar. Under some unique scenarios, the icons associated with each URL entry in the drop down list are vanished and nothing appears in place of icons. A screenshot explaining this is below:

Technorati tag: Ie7

Wait a minute! The urbanDictionary has a entry on schwag as follows:

adj. Term used to describe low grade marijuana

If you look further down it makes sense…it has another entry for you geeks (for those who werent covered in the first entry, above!)

Any free or extra goods, usually given to employees or workers

ValleySchwag, started this unique concept of sending you schwag from the Web 2.0 wave. If you are watching this wave close, you need to get your hands on this schwag package.

for a monthly fee of $14.95 you get a load of schwag delivered to your doorstep, ruggedly bundled in a sack. The team at ValleySchwag promise to keep the stuff fresh, non-repeating, and no evil!

Currently only paypal transactions are allowed, and you get subscribed for every coming month, unless you go back and cancel. I did end up placing up an order, but before I submitted, I turned back, looking for an option for a one time buy. I wasnt ready to be schwagged every month yet. It would have been nice if one time transaction was provided in addition to monthly subscription. I would go for it right now.

Technorati tag: schwag

Riya is out in public beta. I did some reviews when the service was in private beta, here. I will soon write up my experience with the new public beta soon.

One thing off the bat to Riya team, if anyone is reading this. Whats so different (or hard) to implement IE7 support? Is it a big thing? Lots of people are using IE7 now since its Beta 2 announcement. I am using it exclusively on all my machines, and Riya doesnt support Ie7 yet.

Technorati tags: riya,soalphaithurts,riyarocks

IE7 Beta2 looks better. I had some reviews of the earlier release here.

Incidentally one issue I reported at that time, is still a issue. Not a show stopper but a cosmetic issue. It is described by the below screen shot:

Technorati tags: IE7

I did a post here about Google Updater some time back. It looks now to me that this distribution vehicle is gaining more software applications.

I think this is one dormant area where Google’s advances could become something huge in coming time.

Google Updater,Software Installation

Out with autonomous blogging. In with Democratic blogging ! Well atleast thats what I can think of after seeing BlogEverywhere after reading about it for 10 minutes. Idea of Sabeer Bhatia, who struck gold with Hotmail in 1995.

The idea is simple. To allow readers to blog about a site, article or a blog post. Basically anything that is identifiable by a URL. The small download (yes there is a download) installs a Browser Helper Object (IE only at the moment) that enables a small window at the bottom of the browser, where you can add comments about a URL currently active in the browser. These comments are actually stored on the BlogEverywhere site, with a reference to the URL. Users can later on search for a URL and see if someone has a comment posted about the URL. Other users can again write comments on that URL and everything is aggregated around that URL. It is good in the sense that it will allow for more user views revoloving around a static URL, and that too in a centralized fashion. Apart from that, what is the real usability, I am not able to decipher at the moment.

When you browse to a URL in the browser, the BlogEverywhere BHO senses the URL and detects if anyone has already made any comments on this URL. It then shows the number of comments on this URL as a alert in the BHO toolbar as shown below:

The BHO has a built in Ticker for RSS feeds that you have subscribed to. Here is a screen shot showing posts from my blog:

The service also claims to have a built in Hotmail enhnacer, which I guess at the moment logs into your Hotmail account and caches the e-mail messages on your PC, for faster access. More screenshots when I use that.

What could be the business model for this service? Guess we need to wait and watch, if there is any.

BlogEverywhere was developed by KPIT systems, Pune, India.

BlogEverywhere, Sabeer Bhatia