Monthly Archives: May 2009

Taking a page from Google’s playbook, Hulu today launched Hulu Labs. According to Hulu, the Labs are “a place to try out experimental projects … and share your feedback while they’re still in development.”

It’s a great idea, and they started big.

Hulu Desktop: Hulu has taken video viewing out of the browser and onto the desktop. With native applications built for Mac and for PC, you can now use Windows Media Center remote controls or Apple remote controls, allowing you to navigate Hulu’s entire library with just six buttons.  It’s also handy without the remote controls. I’ve had various episodes of Kitchen Confidential playing in the background on my machine all day. Download

Video Panel Designer: Now when you embed a Hulu clip into your site, you can customize its appearance.

Recommendations: Hulu has now added recommendations based on shows you’ve watched and rated. You need to have a Hulu account to have recommendations, but they’re pretty accurate. Based on my love of quirky sitcoms, Hulu recommended 30 Rock.

Time-Based Browsing: I think this is the best of the new experimental features. You can now quickly scan videos grouped by original air date. As Hulu puts it, “whether you’re a TV junkie who remembers shows by the day of week they air, a budding media anthropologist curious to study TV’s evolution across the decades, or just a user in search of timely news clips, time-based browsing is another way to easily find more videos on Hulu.”

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Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
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http://blog.nileguide.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/iphoneblog-444×455.jpg

Travel site NileGuide has launched an iPhone application, making it easier to plan your trips and access your NileGuide activity while on the go. Called Guide To Go, the new, free NileGuide iPhone app offers all he main features found on the site.

Some features include browsing custom itineraries, exploration options for trip elements, and access to photos, comments and contact information. There are also maps based on planned activities, which also has each point of interest viewable in relation to a user’s current location. Each location also has a guidebook, with the history of that location, weather, best places to stay, eat and drink.

Just as on the NileGuide site, community features are available on Guide to Go. iPhone users can leave their own comments and reviews directly from their mobile phones. A recent feature added to NileGuide, which promotes travel information from local experts, is also accessible on Guide to Go.

I think this mobile app looks pretty comprehensive and is a great next step for NileGuide. The past few months have seen a wealth of upgrades from the travel site, and it’s good to see that the bulk of these updates have been included in the mobile application. Launching the mobile app was the next logical step in NileGuide’s ultimate goals central to the company, and I expect we’ll see even more mobile integration in the future.

For smart phone integration in particular, the customization of the Guide to Go app and its associated content is key for NileGuide. Connecting the main site and the iPhone app can really enhance a user’s trip-planning and travel experience at any point in the process. There are other iPhone apps that aren’t necessarily designed for travelers but offer user-based reviews on locations. Many of these apps are lacking the advantage of an integrated map based on your GPS location, or recommendations based on personal preferences.

So in that regard, the NileGuide app has an advantage for even those that aren’t planning an entire trip but would like to get information on any given point of interest. This means that the Guide To Go iPhone app essentially expands the use cases for NileGuide service itself, which will ultimately enable the company to grow in multiple directions for a very broad range of end users.

Twitter tends to be all over the tech news for days at a time. More often than not, it’s over interesting, but silly things. There was all sorts of confusion over the “Twitter TV show” yesterday.  In a series of clarifying posts, Biz Stone has stated that you don’t have to worry. Twitter is not becoming a reality show. Instead, he says,

Some Hollywood folks are developing something that leverages Twitter and they are extremely enthusiastic as evidenced by all the media hubbub yesterday and today. We have little to do with their efforts but we wish them success.

After the social-networking service Twitter announced Monday it was in talks to develop an unscripted series based on the site, two of the service’s most prolific users have expressed fear that such a jump would mean an unfair intrusion on their lives.

Really? Just using Twitter isn’t allowing everyone into your lives? I suppose the difference is the amount of control you have over what you publish yourself. That said, I’ve always called Twitter permission-based stalking. People laugh, but it’s true. You’re allowing people into your lives with every follow and every tweet. The opt-out? Well, you can be selective about it with a private account or you can just not tweet.  Of course, once you’ve campaigned for over 1 million followers to read your tweets, I’m not sure opting out is still an option.

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Sites: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

Yesterday, a new feature appeared in my Kindle account. Any notes or highlights I make in a book are now available online at http://kindle.amazon.com.

This is good, because it gives me a nice overview of what I’m doing in any particular book.

However, I can’t [yet?] share this information with friends. I’d love to be able to share my notes or highlighted portions. I wonder if it crosses into copyright issues. Amazon does have a habit of playing it safe.

As far as I can tell, these notes aren’t searchable from within my Kindle account either. If I’m looking for something in particular and I have a lot of notes to sift through, I need to search using the reliable old CTRL+F on my keyboard with Firefox.

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Sites: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

Digg has removed the Shout feature from its site, citing several reasons for the change, including user feedback and its own conclusions reached through crunching numbers. The Shout feature, which allowed users to send stories directly to other Digg users, is being replaced with share options for Twitter and Facebook.

Interestingly enough, Digg is also getting rid of the Blog This option, saying that the feature showed low usage from its userbase. In a sense, Digg has replaced both of its dropped features with share options for Twitter and Facebook.

But is the indirect sharing of Digg content with others across the social web any better than the Shout feature? It’s certainly less spammy. The way in which Digg has decided to modify the content sharing process also reflects the ability for third party social networks to provide conduits that can be considered useful, effective and agnostic.

The ability for Twitter and Facebook to be somewhat agnostic means that they can further become platforms for other sites and applications. And for both of these sites in particular, along with a number of other social media sites, the potential for such platforms are still exploratory but are integral in the long-term priorities of these companies.

And even if Digg users lose some of their “spamminess” the social bookmarking tool could in fact benefit from replacing the Shout feature with sharing options for other social media sites. Time will tell to what degree this could be helpful for Digg, and whether or not Digg users will just find a way to more directly reach other Digg users through the use of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. But we’re all watching, right?