It’s time for Round 6 in Newsome.Org’s Web 2.0 Wars. The contestants and rules are here.

This is the final heat of the first Round. The playoffs will be next.

Other Rounds:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Here are the contestants for Round 6:

Theadcloud
Gather
Agatra
Bowsr
Oyogi
Cafepress
Renkoo
Standpoint
Pixagogo
Meebo
Extra Tasty
Last.fm

Theadcloud is a classified ad site. It’s free and, in true Web 2.0 fashion, is tag based. You can select a tag based on where you are or what you want. Craigslist, a cool company founded by a cool guy, is the king of this space.

We talked a lot about Gather already. I’m on record as a doubter, but there are a lot of smart people behind it.

Agatra is a free service that securely stores your passwords online so that they’re accessible from anywhere you have an internet connection. It can even log you in directly to most sites. Firefox already does a pretty good job of this.

Browsr is a “people powered directory” that categorizes content based on usefulness. It looks neat, but I’m not sure what it does the Technorati doesn’t do.

Oyogi is a service that tries to match questions with experts who can answer them. I asked “how do I get a link from boing boing?” It said “ask again later.” Not really.

Cafepress is a shopping site. It looks like you can make customized stuff like mugs and hats and sell them there. Why do these shopping sites never have an easy to find FAQ?

Renkoo has no information at all on its main page. Mike Arrington says it’s some sort of event/calendaring thing.

Standpoint was discussed here. It looks like a super-charged, improved version of the internet message board. Someone posts an opinion and others are encouraged to chime in. I like the idea.

Pixagogo is a photo storage and sharing site, similar to Smugmug, et al. Crowded space and others have more brand recognition.

Meebo is a ajax-based instant messenger application. You can access and manage various IM programs from the Meebo web page. I can see how someone who has to use various IM applications because of the lack of interconnectivity would like this.

Extra Tasty is a web site that lets you browse for drink recipes, by name or by primary ingredient.

I use Last.fm and I have talked at Fred Wilson, who turned me onto to it, some about it. It’s a very impressive social network focused on music. It has streaming music based on what you like and what those who like what you like like.

Before Today I’d Heard of:

3 out of 12

And the Winner of Round 6 is:

I have to pick Last.fm. Even though I use it, it still wins hands down. Standpoint finishes a solid second. The others lag behind.

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newsome.org web wars, web 2.0

It’s time for Round 5 in Newsome.Org’s Web 2.0 Wars. The contestants and rules are here.

This is the final heat of the first Round. The playoffs will be next.

Other Rounds:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Here are the contestants for Round 5:

iNods
Lulu
Rbloc
BR
Blish
Flagr
FireAnt
SimplyHired
Veoh

iNods is a shopping-focused product review aggregator. Neat idea, and the searches seem fast and reliable. I did some searches for some really bizare things and got lots of hits, so the database must be deep.

Lulu is a service that allows authors to self-publish and sell books, CDs, DVDs and other products. Lulu gets a 25% royalty, which seems reasonable to me. I haven’t tried the service, but I really like the idea a lot. I could see this taking off if it can be the leader in the space. Maybe I’ll write a book about why Darren should link to Newsome.Org.

Rbloc is a auction site where you can buy and sell services or products. It’s still in beta so there’s not a ton of stuff for sale yet.

I couldn’t find BR. They badly need a new name or a least a logo that gives a clue how to find them via Google.

Blish is a place to sell digital content, such as ebooks, photos, how-to guides, clipart, music, sound loops, video, design templates. It’s in beta and while there are quite a few things for sale, the inventory will undoubtedly increase over time.

Flagr is not yet live. I talked about it a little here.

FireAnt is a video blog directory and search engine. The downloadable client allows you to watch video blogs right from the FireAnt web site.

Simplyhired is a job search site, with some useful features like a link to LinkedIn that will let you see who you know at the company (if you use LinkedIn, that is).

Veoh is a service that allows you to create and distribute your own internet TV show. It claims to support full screen TV quality video over broadband. Maybe this is how I can get MacDaddy, Day Trader, my great idea for a reality TV show on the air. I know this guy from Philly. He is extremely nervous (his other nickname is MacNervous). He knows nothing about the stock market. So we somehow get him to pool his life savings with some producer-supplied money and make him immediately start actively day trading all day, every day while on camera. Trust me, it would be hilarious and better than anything currently on SpikeTV.

Before Today I’d Heard of:

1 out of 9

And the Winner of Round 5 is:
FireAnt nudges out Veoh, but only because MacDaddy, Day Trader isn’t on Veoh yet.

Technorati Tags:
newsome.org web wars, web 2.0

It’s time for Round 4 in Newsome.Org’s Web 2.0 Wars. The contestants and rules are here.

This is the final heat of the first Round. The playoffs will be next.

Other Rounds:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Here are the contestants for Round 4:

Zazzle
Tailrank
TagWorld
Nuvvo
Dogear
Yakalike
Grouper
Oddpost
Qoop

Zazzle lets you create and purchase customized products such as t-shirts, posters and stamps and then sell them to others. Neat idea, but please build an FAQ and put it where I can find it.

Tailrank is a meme tracker. I talked about it here and called it “part of the Big Three princes in Memeorandum’s kingdom, along with Megite and Chuquet.” Kevin Burton, the founder, told me that before too long, I’d be writing a post called “Reviewing the Tailrank chasers,” and he may be right. I like the site, and the screen grabs of the blogs on the list is a cool touch. I need to see a little more Newsome.Org up there, though.

Tagworld is a blogging, bookmarking, photo sharing, Web 2.0 rich social networking site, similar to MySpace, with a nice music angle.

Nuvvo is an online teaching platform for teachers. As an adjunct professor, I can appreciate anything that makes course planning easier. Nuvvo collects an 8% commission on the fees paid by students to take the course. I saw a course called “Hypnotic Mindcontrol Workshop.” Maybe I’ll take it so I can hypnotize Scoble and make him turn his blog into a Newsome.Org fansite.

Dogear is a bookmarking service. There is no information whatsoever on the main page, so that’s about all I can say about it other than it has a cool name.

Yakalike is a Firefox extension that lets you chat with other users visiting the same site you’re visiting. It adds a little chat box at the bottom of the browser window where all the Yakalike users reading the page at the same time can chat. That way you can chat with Om and Mike while you’re reading Newsome.Org.

Grouper is a video hosting, sharing and search site, similar to YouTube. It’s free but the FAQ says an upgraded, premium version may be offered at some point. Nicely designed site. The BrokeBack to the Future video (very, very funny and clever) was on the front page when I visited.

Oddpost is a web based email application which is owned by Yahoo. I suspect much of the Oddpost technology is evident in the beta version of Yahoo Mail which I talked about here.

Qoop is a site that I used to make wonderful and affordable photo books for Raina for Christmas, via Flickr. I have also ordered posters from Qoop. Great products all. Qoop also has partnerships with other companies, such as Buzznet.

Before Today I’d Heard of:

4 out of 9

And the Winner of Round 4 is:

This was the toughest field yet. I use Tailrank several times a day and I love Qoop. But once again, I have to go with one I likely won’t use- Tagworld. I’m too old to be into social networking of the online variety, but I think Tagworld has serious potential to win the social networking, music storage, hip site to call home race.

Technorati Tags:
newsome.org web wars, web 2.0

It’s time for Round 3 in Newsome.Org’s Web 2.0 Wars. The contestants and rules are here.

This is the final heat of the first Round. The playoffs will be next.

Other Rounds:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Here are the contestants for Round 3:

Blogniscient
TinFinger
Shutterfly
Mefeedia
PodDater
Feedster
Favoor
Planzo

Blogniscient is meme tracker. I talked about it here. I like the design. But this space is getting crowded and it’s hard to tell who, other then Memeorandum, will be the winners.

TinFinger is a human search engine. I don’t think it’s live yet. I searched around and a lot of the areas were not populated yet. I sort of like the idea, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Shutterfly was my photo site of choice until I discovered Flickr. I suspect it still has huge market share and brand recognition. It’s the photo site for the Internet Explorer generation, and while that sounds like damning them with faint praise, more people use IE than Firefox.

Mefeedia is a video podcast directory and search engine. This is the first site I’ve come across dedicated to video podcast aggregation. Neat idea.

PodDater is a personals meets podcasting site. You make a video profile and upload it to share with others. I’m about a thousand years too old to be interested in this, but it’s a unique idea and the web site looks very well designed.

Feedster is a blog, RSS feed and general search engine. I’ve used it some before, but not in a long time. The RSS feed search results seemed pretty quick and reliable, but I’m not sure it has kept up with the competition in this crowded field.

Favoor is a site that allows you to create you personal start page- similar to Pageflakes and Netvibes. It looks pretty good, but so far I see very little advantages between the various players in this field. Tech savvy people can create their own start page from scratch and others can use My Yahoo.

Planzo is a web based calendar, like many of the contestants in Round 1. You can add entries via text messaging and get a daily email with your schedule. The demo calendar looked good.

Before Today I’d Heard of:

4 out of 8

And the Winner of Round 3 is:

I have to go with the one I know I’ll never use: Poddater, just because it’s such an offbeat and compelling idea.

Technorati Tags:
newsome.org web wars, web 2.0

It’s time for Round 2 in Newsome.Org’s Web 2.0 Wars. The contestants and rules are here.

This is the final heat of the first Round. The playoffs will be next.

Other Rounds:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Here are the contestants for Round 2:

Scobee
Shadows
Gravee
YouTube
Zimbra
Furl
Smugmug
Newsgator

Scobee is an event planning service. I already reported on it here. My conclusion then: “too early to tell, but I’m not blown away by the concept.”

Shadows is a social bookmarking service. It looks like it’s shooting for a combination of Technorati and Delicious. I couldn’t find too many results for my test tag “memeorandum” without creating an account and logging in. There may have been more results had I logged in.

Gravee needs to change its logo because it looks like Grovee. It’s a community powered search engine that somehow shares revenue with sites that appear in its search results. It’s a pretty crowded field with some formidable competition and I can’t imagine the revenue share would be all that significant, but the search engine was fast and reliable based on my test tag and my test blog (Newsome.Org, of course).

YouTube is a video hosting, sharing and search service. It’s free and seems fast and reliable.

Zimbra is an open source collaboration tool. I don’t really understand the description, which means that a lot of other people don’t either. There simply must be a better way to describe itself than this: “Zimbra focuses on solving the cost and complexity for enterprises that run large email/collaboration systems. We accomplish this by combining industry-proven open source components with our experience in designing and operating large-scale messaging and mission-critical software systems….”. I learned the hard way in the last dot.com bust to avoid companies who can’t explain in simple terms what they do.

Furl is a information bookmarking and information clipping service that lets you store information you find on the web for easy access. It looks similar to Onfolio, but the information is saved online. I have an automated bookmark for it on my posts here, but I haven’t used it very much. It looks pretty cool, though.

Smugmug is a photo storage and sharing site, similar to Flickr. It lets you create a store to sell prints of your photos. Lots of people use Smugmug and it has both market share and brand recognition.

Newsgator is an online RSS feed reader, similar to Bloglines. The basic service is free. The premium services will soon include a synchronized copy of FeedDemon, a popular desktop feed reader. It’s a competitive field, but Newsgator has some market share and brand recognition.

Before Today I’d Heard of:

6 out of 8

And the Winner of Round 2 is:

YouTube in a battle. Lots of good contestants in this round. Some of the others suffered from an unlucky draw.

Technorati Tags:
newsome.org web wars, web 2.0

A larger version can be viewed at Flickr.

This aggregation of Web 2.0 logos has been floating around the internet today. I decided to count how many of these companies I have heard of (a low standard, since it doesn’t require that I know anything substantive about them) and how many I haven’t.

By my rough count, I have never heard of over half these companies, and I follow and write about this stuff. So either I’m in store for some treats as I learn about these companies (my wish) or there are too many companies chasing too little demand (my hunch).

Introducing the Newsome.Org Web 2.0 Wars

I like a good contest, so I am going to create my own little face off. Here’s how it’s going to work. I have divided the companies into groups based on the line on which their logo appears above. I will take a look at the web site of each company and then pick the one I think has the best prospects. There will be one winner for each group (no ties). After that, we’ll move to the semi-finals and then crown a champion.

Yes, I use some of these services now, and that may give those companies an advantage. But I will try to minimize that influence and I will mention it when I already use a service.

Without further adieu, here are the contestants for Round 1:

Spongecell
Hula
Kiko
Trumba
Eskobo
Mayomi
Pageflakes
Vimeo

Spongecell is a web based calendar. You can text message to add events, and it recognizes “Dinner with Om at 8:00 to discuss why he hasn’t linked to Newsome.Org in 513 days” as an event and adds it to your calendar. Sounds interesting, but it’s in a bit of a crowded space.

Hula is also a web based calendar. Novell has something to do with it. It is open source.

Kiko is also a web based calendar. Drag and drop functionality, but the demo (still in beta) has a less than appealing interface.

Trumba is, you guessed it, a web based calendar. You can get a free trial, but it costs $40 per year to use. PC Magazine likes it- says it would be a good choice for families and groups. It better be really good if they want people to pay for it (that may be sad, but it’s the reality of the Web 2.0 customer mindset).

Eskobo is not a calendar. It’s a content aggregator similar to Netvibes. It appears to be in early beta, as the “About” page is blank.

Mayomi is a “mind mapping tool.” I’m not really sure what that means, but it sounds like project or goal charts with a database sharing element.

Pageflakes is a content aggregator, like Eskobo and Netvibes. It looks very similar to Netvibes (I don’t know which came first). It seems further along than Eskobo.

Vimeo is a video sharing and search service. I can’t tell if they host video content (like Castpost) or not. There is very little information available on the front page.

Before Today I’d Heard of:

0 out of 8

And the Winner of Round 1 is:

Pageflakes in a squeaker over Trumba. I imagine Trumba is pretty cool, but there’s that money thing. None of them blew me away.

Technorati Tags:
newsome.org web wars, web 2.0