Smugmug is currently beta testing the latest version of their photo gallery interface. After playing around on the beta server a little, I’m cautiously optimistic. There are some features that are almost a huge improvement, and some that are a nice step up, and one downsides to the new interface. As is, the new interface is a nice incremental improvement. With a few tweaks it has the potential to be a really impressive step forward.
Techcrunch just covered Loopnote, a new service that allows users to subscribe to information on a given topic so they can “stay in the loop.” Publishers are allowed to create the “loops” that provide information on a particular topic to interested users. As the first few people to comment on the Techcrunch post are quick to point out, Loopnote doesn’t provide any new technology. You can get exactly the same functionality using a hosted blogging package, Yahoo! Groups, an announcement only mailing list.
Techcrunch just posted a story about Pikeo, a new photo sharing service attempting to compete with Flickr and Smugmug. Pikeo is doing a couple of things to set itself apart from Flickr: (1) trying to to capture the non-English speaking market by operating the site in French and Spanish in addition to English, (2) tying your pictures and the photo sharing experience to maps more centrally, and (3) providing a rich client-like interface.
An instant messaging blog posted a preview of the next release of Trillian yesterday. As a longtime user of Trillian, I was interested in what the folks are Cerulean are working on. A single multi-protocol IM client is essential. My friends, like most, aren’t just using one IM network and seem to be spread across AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, and Google Talk. When I chose Trillian it was the only game in town for multi-protocol IM and I was really happy that the folks at Cerulean recognized the need for such a product. Recently, I’ve been a little less enthusiastic.
Below is a brief roundup of the leading six feed to email services. This is a rapidly changing space; two years ago there were no feed to email services, nine months ago there were over a dozen, and today there are six meaningful services.
I found an interesting Alexa graph comparing web traffic for the top five services — Feedburner isn’t isn’t in this chart because the majority of traffic to Feedburner’s website is related to their feed syndication service. The Alexa chart should be a reasonable indicator of market share for these providers.
This article talks about two new additions to the Hitachi TravelStar laptop drive lineup — a 200GB 7200rpm drive and a 250GB 5400rpm drive. If you combine that 250GB drive with the Nexto OTG enclosure you have the ability to shoot over 14,000 10 megapixel raw images without having to carry a computer — just a tiny laptop drive. The buzz on the Nexto OTG is very positive, and I know of at least one person using it without problems.
