While some have slammed Internet audio ads as annoying, some marketers admit that having a bit of sound can be a good way to bring readers’ attention to one ad amongst half a dozen banners. Do you like audio ads? Would you consider putting one on your site or blog? Or would you prefer using an audio ad for your online ad campaign? Below are 9 audio ad networks for websites, podcasts, and beyond.
Tell us how you feel about audio ad networks in the comments.
Podtrac
Podtrac is a popular ad network for podcasters. It basically acts as a sales representative for podcasters to advertisers. It also provides demographic analysis and targeting, third-party measurement, content ratings, planning and purchasing, creative rotation, and multiple advertising delivery options. Podtrac boasts of hundreds of top podcasts in its network including many from the iTunes Top 100 list.
Kiptronic
Kiptronic positions itself as “the first and only provider of downloadable media ad insertion to offer built-in support for DoubleClick’s DART for Publishers and Microsoft’s Atlas Publisher Suite.” It insert audio and video ads on podcasts, which work online as well as offline on iPods, smartphones, Internet-enabled TVs, game consoles, and more.
RadioTail
RadioTail is another podcast advertising network that provides podcast stats through its service called Ripple. Some of the features RadioTail provides to publishers include insertion of ads at specific times during the day, automatic insertion and rotation of ads, customized podcast statistics reporting, and more.
VoloMedia
VoloMedia boasts of some of the largest media houses as its clients, such as MSNBC, Forbes, Newsweek, Fox News, etc. VoloMedia adds ads on video and audio content online and on portable devices while providing statistics on the consumption of media. Ad targeting can be done geographically, demographically, and by time of day. It also provides publisher plugins for the iTunes Media Player and Adobe Flash to capture usage metrics.
VoodooVox
VoodooVox says phone calls are the new page views. What it does is insert short audio ads in phone calls generated by its network, which consists of hundreds of call publishers including calling card companies, 411 services, call centers, radio stations,VOIP providers, and Web applications. Each of these call publishers generate “approximately 300 million calls monthly.” According to VoodooVox, inserting audio ads in phone calls is better for the advertiser than Web banners since the ads are “delivered directly into the ears of the intended audience.”
Audio ads are something we take for granted when we call up a company’s customer service, like our mobile phone operator, bank, satellite TV service provider, etc. But can these ads can be served without interfering much on our phone experience?
NetAudioAds
NetAudioAds claims to have more than 46 million participating webpages and that seems like quite an impressive number to start with. The service’s ads are short 5 second audio ads, known as adlets, that are played whenever a visitor opens a participating webpage. Listeners can be targeted by demographic and by location. NetAudioAds also says that its ads are measurable, and audited and verified by accredited third party auditing companies. You can run the ads on your blog or on your MySpace page as well.
Google Audio Ads
According to Google Audio Ads, “22% of Internet users make purchases after searching for something they learned about on the radio,” and so it might be a nice idea to run a radio ad campaign for your online business or site. Success stories include Gifts.com, which “received 23% more visits and a 34% higher conversion rate in markets which ran radio ads.”
To learn more, simply login to your Google Adwords account and choose the audio ads tab. You can choose to run ads on 1,600 terrestrial FM and AM radio stations across the US, choose the top stations only, or choose by location or time of day. You can also search for a specialist at the Google Ad Creation Marketplace to create a custom radio ad for your campaign.
TargetSpot
TargetSpot starts off where Google Audio Ads finishes. It lets you run audio ads, video ads, and banners across hundreds of Internet radio stations. You can select stations by location and format, and target your ads by time of the day, region, or specific market. Will running an ad on an Internet radio station be useful? TargetSpot quotes Arbitron and Edison Media Research that “33 million people tune into Internet radio each week, and the at-work audience has grown from 12% to 20% in one year.” Also, “57% of users reported listening to streaming radio while buying at a website, according to RAEL’s Radio and Internet: Powerful Compliments for Advertisers.”
LocalVocal
LocalVocal is an audio ad network that places audio ads across free directory assistance services, radio, Web telephony, IVR systems, and calling cards. Setting up an ad campaign is very easy from the LocalVocal site and can be as low as $5. You can choose to target locally or across the US and pay only when your ad is heard or when you receive leads.
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read full story of "9 Audio Ad Networks for Websites, Blogs, and Beyond"
After having done two FriendFeed lists - the top 10 Web applications for FriendFeed and 7 essential GreaseMonkey scripts for FriendFeed - we thought we’d do one more to round out the collection. Here are 7 popular desktop applications for FriendFeed that will let you comment or like an item without leaving your application window, update to FriendFeed and Twitter, and much more.
Which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments.
Alert Thingy
Alert Thingy is a popular FriendFeed desktop application that has been around for quite some time. Check out our head-to-head comparison of Alert Thingy and twhirl. In it we discuss Alert Thingy’s nicer formatting, comment features, theme support, posting to FriendFeed and Twitter directly from the client without using two separate windows, and more. Alert Thingy is definitely one of the best in this bunch.
bTT
bTT has a few irritants while installing - it requires .NET Framework 3.5 and during startup it will take a minute or so ‘authenticating the application.’ If you can stand these, the rest is a breeze. The application allows you to comment and like an entry without leaving the main application window. You can show or hide comments and filter entries by number of likes or comments. There is a black theme and a paper theme as well. I also just love the way the application flips itself between the settings page and the main application window.
Feedalizr
Feedalizr brings in some interesting features like uploading videos from your webcam to your FriendFeed stream directly from Feedalizr, posting pictures to Flickr, and more. It also has impressive tab features including opening a new tab when you click on a friend’s name or icon to show entries from that particular friend. The application’s design is neat and very smooth - definitely among the best in this collection.
MySocial 24/7 AIR
MySocial 24/7 AIR is the AIR version of the MySocial 24/7 Firefox extension. Currently it is in its alpha and you might not find running the application very smooth. MySocial 24/7 AIR will let you update your Twitter and read your FriendFeed updates. You can like any FriendFeed entry, and bookmark and comment as well. There are separate tabs for Friends, Me, Everyone, and Twitter. The built-in movie/picture viewer is impressive and allows you to view content without launching a browser.
Posty
Posty is another AIR desktop application that lets you update your FriendFeed, Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr, and Identica. These services are displayed in tabs in the Posty application. However, Posty also allows you to update all these services simultaneously. Instead of going to each tab, you can simply go to the Posty tab, write your entry, select one or more services to update that entry to, and click ‘post.’ That’s all.
This application looks neat and simple to use, and is not cluttered. You can choose from six font colors, as well as font sizes. I even like its logo. However, you still realize the need for themes. Plus, whenever you open a new page, the page takes around 5-12 seconds to load and display the entries, which can be quite irritating if you are in a rush.
twhirl
twhirl has often been compared to Alert Thingy by many in the blogosphere. While it has all the basics intact, some of the features that set it apart, which we mentioned earlier as well, are that you can squeeze the twhirl window into a narrower width, hide it when minimized, and set the opacity, font, refresh times, etc. It also supports multiple FriendFeed accounts. While a normal FriendFeed user would be satisfied with twhirl, it is seen more as a desktop application for Twitter, which is also apparent from the number of features it has for Twitter like cross-post Twitter updates to other networks, post images to Twitpic, search Twitter, etc.
Fluid and Chrome
Fluid and Chrome, though not the typical FriendFeed desktop applications, allow you to create a FriendFeed SSB (Site Specific Browser), or a FriendFeed shortcut on your system’s status bar or desktop, using the FriendFeed icon. Fluid is for Mac, while the hot Google browser is currently working only on Windows.
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Most of us are talking pirate today, and if you feel like doing your part to get into the mood, here are 10 sites you can check out. These are our picks from the dozens available today.
Original Site For Talk Like A Pirate Day is the official site where you can learn all about being a pirate. There are details about how the Talk Like A Pirate Day started, the buzz, FAQs, party pictures, newsletters, books, games, T shirts, links to dozens of other pirate sites, and the crewman. Definitely a place for young pirates to learn from other seafarers. Here is the official British HQ site where you can get pirate ringtones.
Post Like A Pirate is a service that translates your normal speak to pirate language. You can also use it to directly post to Twitter and MySpace, or simply surprise your friend via email with some sea lingo.
Pirate Names lists dozens of pirate names in alphabetical order, and there are categories for both for the gentlemen o’ fortune and for the lasses as well. There are pirate names categorized by place of origin - American, Cuban, Dutch, English, French, Greek, Irish, and Portuguese. There are also cool pirate names, crazy pirate names, famous pirate names, fictional pirate names, and real pirate names.Take yer pick.
What’s My Pirate Name?, as the name suggests, is a Web service that determines your pirate name “scientifically.” You will be provided with twenty questions and based on your responses, it will arrive at your pirate name. Some of the questions are “Do others often call you things like odd, eccentric, or a raving psychotic?,” and “Do others fear your mad business skills?”
Pirates Jokes is the place to go if you are in mood for some pirate jokes to have a hearty laugh. There are Arr! jokes, Captain’s jokes, and one liners. You can submit your own as well.
Puzzle Pirates is an game site where you can have some fun time - if you don’t mind the funny looking cartoon pirates. There is even a forum, a news section, events listing, and a pirate wiki.
Buy Pirate Costumes is a place where you check out all the pirate costumes and accessories. There are separate categories like adult pirate costumes, child pirate costumes, sexy pirate costumes, etc. CoolPirateCostumes is another place you can check out.
ayePhone is an iPhone application that you can use to let your voice automatically change to pirate speak while speaking to your friends, just in case you don’t know much pirate speak or are just plain lazy.
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read full story of "Arrr! Here Be 10 Pirate Sites and Tools to Check Out, Matey!"
Though there are dozens of top lists of WordPress themes available online, we never seem to get enough. So after scrolling through hundreds of themes across the Web, we decided to come up with another of our lists of top themes that are a class apart in terms of uniqueness in design and visual appeal.
This is a collection of our top 12 in no particular order. Check them out. While most are free, there are few that are not, though they are too good to miss. Tell us about your favorite WordPress themes in the comments.
Infinity
Infinity makes you think you are looking at ultimate creativity in WordPress theme design. This three column theme has been put together beautifully with thumbnails, header and footer graphics, and a picture scroll. The color play is impressive. A great theme for designers and photo bloggers.
Red Passion
Red Passion has exquisite red floral graphics in the header area and one more in the background, and the combination of the two makes this theme a treat for sore eyes. The search box is located just below the blog title and description. There is also an RSS icon in the header area next to the search box.
F8
F8 is a magazine-like theme for photo bloggers who wish to also have their pictures do the talking. The clean white background gels with the black lines and the picture grid that run across the homepage. The theme can double as a portfolio site for designers and multimedia professionals. Note: F8 is not a free theme.
WP Coda
WP Coda is one of the most professional-looking themes in this collection. The color combination is fantastic. One thing that differentiates the theme from the rest is the sliding posts. The author says he had made this theme by modifying lots of existing code and using them with his design. The theme mimics the functionality of the popular coda website. Worth a look.
TV.Elements
TV. Elements is a neat Wordpress theme for video bloggers. There is a main video display and series of video scrolls on the right hand side. On the left side, there are ShareThis, subscribe, and comment links. Below the video window, you can add your post. The dark background gives it a necessary mystic look. Like F8, TV.ELements is not a free theme.
Wood World
Wood World is a neatly designed theme. I like how every post has been separated from each other. Each and every part of the theme, including a scrapedRSS icon and a search box with a wooden-look background, has been given detailed attention.
Notepad Chaos
Notepad Chaos is a vibrant, colorful, and floral theme with one of the most intricate designs. The sidebar elements have been done up with different post-it note designs, while the main posts are nestled in a white notepad design. The theme also has a handwritten search box, navigational links in the header, and sidebar headlines.
Agregado
Agregado is a another radical take on how a WordPress theme can be constructed. This theme suits your normal blogging requirements, as well as your lifestreaming requirements, served in a sidebar capsule. It has the snippet of the latest post shown on the home page, along with just the headlines of the older posts. The subcategories, pages, archives, search, etc. are tucked away so that the reader focuses on the latest content.
Intrablog
Intrablog is a theme with a very clean and fresh look. This is a result of the white and silver colors in the post and sidebar areas. It’s another unique take on WordPress theme design and suitable for personal blogs.
Hot Orange
Hot Orange has a red header with a neat floral design, a post area with a black background, and a silver color area that bridges the header and post area. Another good color combination and unique design.
Rainbow Feather
Rainbow Feather has shades of sky blue, yellow, blue, and pink colors joined together in horizontal blocks to form the header navigation area, main header, post area, and footer. This is one of the most striking themes that we have come across.
Motion
Motion is for those who are daring and can opt for a one column theme. There are three blocks of content that expand on a single click and contract when another is opened. There is a link to the older entries below these content blocks. The color combination of orange, silver, and black is attractive.
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Sometimes we discover interesting websites that we want to save to check out later because we’re busy with other tasks. For such occasions, there is a new breed of browser addons, bookmarklets, and special bookmarking services available to help save those urls and retrieve them easily later. Here are 11 of them.
Do you use tools like this, or do you prefer continuing to use normal browser bookmarking services like Delicious? Let us know in the comments.
FriendFeed Read Later
FriendFeed Read Later provides you with a ‘later’ button that you can use to save entries on FriendFeed for reading later. You can view these saved entries on a ‘Read Later’ tab on your FriendFeed page. Considering the noise level at FriendFeed, this might just come as a rescue for many.
Instapaper
Instapaper provides a bookmarklet for saving sites for later reading. You can view your saved site links on your computer browser or on your iPhone. Instapaper is a no frill tool and the bookmarklet is a breeze to use. It also provides you with an offline viewing feature and an RSS for your saved urls.
LaterLoop
LaterLoop is just like Instapaper, perhaps the only difference being that LaterLoop provides you with a Firefox and Internet Explorer addon, in addition to the bookmarklet, which allows you to save links with keyboard shortcuts. There are RSS feeds for your saved urls, offline reading support, iPhone viewing, and you can link up your Google account to register with LaterLoop.
LaterThis
LaterThis is like a carbon copy of Delicious, starting from the look and feel to the functionality. It provides you with a simple page where you can view the sites you have saved for reading later. You can tag and add comments on each site and there is an RSS feed for your links as well. Just like Delicious, there is a list of popular and latest LaterThis links.
ListMixer
ListMixer provides you with another webpage where you can save your throwaway links for 30 days, after which ListMixer will delete them for you. You can use the ListMixer bookmarklet for Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer to bookmark sites, with aditional options of adding descriptions and tags. There is also an RSS feed and a linkroll that you might want to use in your blog.
PushPopURL
PushPopURL provides you with a set of five browser bookmarklets that allow you to push a website link into your queue of read later links, take a site from the top or bottom of the queue, view the queue, or delete a link from the queue. There is a secret key that you need to use in case you want to add site links without logging in to PushPopURL. For those who are into simplistic designs, this one, with a plain white background and no special design, can be a good option.
Read It Later
Read It Later is a feature rich Firefox addon that enables you to save site urls and links for later viewing. Once installed, it will display a tick mark symbol at the end of your Firefox address bar, which you have to click on in order to save a site url. To save a link on a page, you can right click it and choose the ‘Read This Link Later’ option. In order to view saved links, click on the Read It Later icon on the Firefox navigation toolbar. You can sort and filter your saved urls by date, site name, tag, etc. You can also access your saved sites offline or from other devices, and there is a sync option as well in case you are using multiple computers. Read It Later also has an RSS reader of your saved sites, though I doubt many people will find this relevant.
ReadBag
ReadBag allows you to save urls using a simple bookmarklet and read them later on the ReadBag site from your computer or mobile phone browser, email, or feed reader. You can sign into ReadBag using your Google account. There are some other features like import from Delicious, and offline viewing support with Google Gears. ReadBag also has a Firefox addon and a Google Reader integration feature.
Taboo
Taboo is another Firefox addon bringing in two more interesting features. Firstly, it takes screenshots of webpages that you save, so that when you view your full list of saved sites, they are displayed in a grid just like in Opera starter pages. You can also view your saved sites sorted in a calendar format. Secondly, what makes Taboo interesting is that it remembers “session state information such as how far you’ve scrolled on the page and information in forms,” etc.
Tark
Tark is a Firefox addon that will provide you with five icons in your bookmarks toolbar - denoting 4 weeks, 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 week, and 0 week. So whenever you bookmark a site and want to set a deadline against that site, you can choose any of the Tark buttons. These buttons will replace the favicons of that particular site in your bookmarks and will keep changing as time goes by.
toread
toread provides a unique way of saving links by sending a cached version of the site to your email. Using toread is a breeze and all you need to do is install its bookmarklet on your browser. toread can also send you a text only version of websites on your mobile phone. There is a Japanese version of toread as well.
Image via Flickr/Emma Jane Hogbin
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read full story of "11 Tools to Help You Save Sites for Reading Later"
Over the last few months, a plethora of tools — addons, scripts, Web apps — have emerged using the FriendFeed API. Here is a list of the top 10 Web applications that you can check out to get the most out of the service.
Which do you use? Tell us more in the comments.
NoiseRiver
NoiseRiver adds some neat extra functionality to FriendFeed, like rating other users and shared items with keywords and descriptions such as ‘I love it’ or ‘I don’t care.’ Another nice NoiseRiver feature is that it gathers all the comments clusters about the same subject and groups them in one place so that you don’t have comments about one particular topic scattered all over. You can also share video and audio on FriendFeed.This is one of those applications that might tempt you to use it permanently instead of the normal FriendFeed site.
FriendFeed Spy
FriendFeed Spy is a fun and useful FriendFeed Web application. The site displays the FriendFeed public timeline with every new shared item appearing automatically on top of the page, without you having to refresh the page. You can choose to pause the scroll if you want. You can comment or like any shared item on FriendFeed Spy and it will reflect on FriendFeed. The scroll has a ‘filter by services’ option as well. For example, you can choose to see only items that FriendFeed users have dugg, twitted, or bookmarked in Delicious.
FriendFeed Links
FriendFeed Links is a meme tracker that finds all the links shared on FriendFeed and displays them neatly with the names of FriendFeed users who have shared them. There is a homepage section where you will find the links shared by the most number of people, a Digg section that shows stories dugg the most number of times, recently popular links, and recent stories. You can also customize FriendFeed Links by links shared with various services such as Digg, Google Reader, StumbleUpon, Netvibes, and Delicious; order by number of shares or item dates; keywords, or sorted by items in a specific time period.FriendFeedMachine
FriendFeedMachine is a neat FriendFeed Web application that displays your FriendFeed friends along with the icons of various services they use to share items on FriendFeed. When you click on one of these icons it displays the latest items that your friends have shared using that service. You can view that item without having to leave the site, thanks to a nicely implemented sliding window.
The basic idea behind FriendFeedMachine is that currently FriendFeed shows you the shared items of your friends chronologically and sometimes you might miss out on what your real friends have been posting. FriendFeedMachine seeks to resolve that issue by listing individuals instead. You can even choose to set your ‘Close Friends’ from your contacts.
MioNews
MioNews is another FriendFeed Web application with some nice features like bringing you stories according to the preferences you set, in a reading pane similar to that of MS Outlook. The left hand sidebar lists your topics of interest, FriendFeed rooms, and your friends. Your friends and rooms can be grouped in folders. You can also use MioNews to post entries to your blog, Twitter, and FriendFeed simultaneously. There is also a browser bookmarklet that you can use to share stories to MioNews.
FriendFeed Grid
FriendFeed Grid is a fun Web application that provides nice looking grids of the profile pictures of various FriendFeed users segregated by ‘20 most subscribed to users,’ ‘10 most commenting users’ and just ‘random users.’ When you hover your mouse on each picture, the profile names are displayed. There is also a list of 500 FriendFeed public rooms with the highest number of members, and a list of top 100 most linked to pages in FriendFeed. Then there is an interesting image comparison tool as well, though not useful, might make you smile a bit.
FriendFeed Like Compatibility Calculator
FriendFeed Like Compatibility Calculator, like the names suggests, calculates and displays FriendFeed users who have shared the most number of likes with you. Talk about who shares the most common interests with you on Friendfeed, use this tool to find out. You can filter the calculation by opting to include other commenters, posts you have commented on, and users whose posts you liked the most.
Frienderati
Frienderati is an Alltop page displaying the top FriendFeed users and their most recent shared items. As Alltop mentions in its site, this page can be a good starting point to find FriendFeed users who you can check out and follow, if you are a complete newbie on FriendFeed.
Moopz
Moopz is an interesting tool that aggregates separate conversations, links, and likes on a particular topic on FriendFeed and presents them in a single combined thread. Moopz also tries to provide a summary and image of each item and also tags each item automatically. There is also a list of most active conversations in the last 24 hours. This could be a nice way of reducing the noise on FriendFeed and choosing items to follow more clearly.
FriendFeed Embed
FriendFeed Embed, coming straight from FriendFeed, is a recently launched collection of widgets that you can embed on your blog or sites. The FriendFeed badge shows off your profile picture, number of likes and comments, and the various services you use. There is also a ‘Share on FriendFeed’ link and a feed widget, chiclet widget, and a status widget. The tool has been much awaited and soon we are likely to see many bloggers using these widgets. It’s definitely worth a mention on this list.
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There are a variety of time tracking tools available today. The first type are the ones targeted at businesses and professionals for tracking amount of time spent on a particular project so they can bill their clients accordingly. The second variety are for net junkies with a need to track time spent on a particular activity online, say emailing, blogging, micro-blogging, reading RSS feeds, browsing, or just plain social networking. We searched the Web for the second variety and present below six very helpful tools to track your time spent online that are free and simple to use.
Which one is your favorite? Do you use any other time tracking tools? Let us know in the comments.
8aWeek
8aWeek is a neat Firefox toolbar that tracks your online browsing habits. If you feel that your social media participation is becoming excessive and want to restrict yourself, you can get this toolbar, see which sites you spend most of your time on, and set the restriction timings for each. You can also use the toolbar to save sites that you can check out later. This time tracking tool does the work automatically so you don’t need to add tasks manually. That spells a lot of convenience.
Wakoopa
Wakoopa is a desktop application that tracks the time you spend using various applications like your browser, RSS reader, email client, games, and more. It also doubles up as a social networking site. Setting up Wakoopa is hassle free and once installed, it runs quietly on your system tray and collects information automatically.
You have an online profile page where you can view your tracked activitiy records, upload your pictures, add contacts and form teams, and write reviews. There are various widgets you can take advantage of such as ‘My top 10 software’ badge, ‘My recently used software’ badge, a Facebook application, etc. You can also view the most used software by Waakoopa users and check out other users’ stats. Wakoopa also displays interesting items such as ‘Software you might like,’ ‘People like you,’ ‘Reviews of your software,’ and ‘New versions of your software’ on your dashboard that you might find useful. When you go to a particular software’s individual page, you can see the software manufacturer’s details, versions, download url, usage stats by Waakoopa users, popularity chart, and reviews.
Rescue Time
Rescue Time is another feature loaded desktop application for Windows, Mac, and Linux that tracks your activities. What differentiate this from Waakoopa is that it helps you track not only applications but websites as well. You can set the number of hours you want to spend in a day on a particular site and Rescue Time will alert you on your email, RSS reader, or by SMS when you run out of time. You can create groups and compare your online stats with other users. There are Rescue Time widgets for blogs, iGoogle, and Netvibes. You can also create a white-list of sites that you want Rescue Time to pay attention to.
TimeTracker
TimeTracker is a simple Firefox addon that tracks the time you spend online browsing by running quietly on your Firefox status bar. You can see the time tracked by the day, since installation, or since your last reset. There are idle timeout, filter, and pause features as well. This addon basically shows your online browser time and doesn’t go beyond that, meaning you cannot track time spent on an individual site. However, for those seeking something simple, it might just be fine.
MeeTimer
MeeTimer is another cool Firefox addon like TimeTracker, but it also shows how much time you have spent on each individual website, in addition to showing your overall time spent online. You can also place site urls into various groups and configure MeeTimer to show you a warning message when you visit a particular group or site.
Online Stopwatch
Online Stopwatch is basically a neat tool that provides a timer and a stopwatch. The stopwatch creates an alarm bell after the countdown finishes. You can use Online Stopwatch on its site or as a Google gadget, Live.com gadget, or a Vista sidebar gadget. While it is as simple as any online timer can get and comes without any usage trends, the beauty is that you can use it in any manner you want, like setting a timer for your online browsing or monitoring how long it takes to draft a blog post.
[Image credit: Michel Filion (attribution)]
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read full story of "The Best Six Tools to Track Your Time Spent Online"
For those of us who are active Google Talk (GTalk) users, sometimes chatting is not enough. Luckily, there are tools to make your GTalk experience more interesting like VOIP, translations, and more. Here are 10 third party tools and special features that will help you get the most out of the service.
Which ones are your favorite? Know any more? Tell us in your comments.
Extended Talk
Extended Talk is a free addon for GTalk that brings in enhanced features such as making your chat windows transparent, changing font colors, message and typing areas, creating text filters, using smileys, and custom images. It also provides shortcuts to insert dates, time, IP address, email, etc. in your messages. Overall, the addon is non obstructive and fits quite well with the GTalk interface, while providing a few handy extra features.
Google Talk Shell
Google Talk Shell is another GTalk addon with some extra features that you might like. Firstly, it allows you to add several avatars and make them rotate in short intervals in your GTalk application. You can auto-hide the GTalk main window so that you have a large work area, or you can configure GTalk to always be on top of the desktop. You can also run several GTalk user names simultaneously using this addon. There is even an anti-boss hotkey to hide the GTalk window quickly.
Translation bots
Translation bots are described by Google as pieces of software that act as chat contacts and provide some fun or useful functionality. Whenever you need to translate any word or sentence from one language to another, you can send that as a message to one of the appropriate Google Chat translation bots. The bot then acts as a translator and replies to the translated version of your message. Of course you need to add the translation bot as your GTalk contact beforehand.
Currently there are 50 bots available in two language pairs. The names of the bots have been made of two letter abbreviations of languages, the English to French translation bot is ‘en2fr.’ To add the bots as contacts, you simple need to add the email of the specific bot in this format: name_of_the_bot@bot.talk.google.com. For example, for English to French bot, it’s ‘en2fr@bot.talk.google.com.’
Transliteration bots
Transliteration bots are somewhat similar to translation bots, but here they convert English sentences to scripts of various Indian languages like Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu. You can add the bots using their names ‘en2hi’.translit, ‘en2kn.translit,’ ‘en2ml.translit,’ ‘en2ta.translit,’ and ‘en2te.translit,’ ending with ‘@bot.talk.google.com’.
Chatback Badge
Chatback badge is a nice little tool from Google that you can use to chat with non-Google users. The badge can be put on your blog, website, or anywhere you can embed an html code, and it will display your online status along with a ‘Chat with me’ message in a nice chat bubble. You can create the chatback badge in different styles as well.
GTalk Sidebar
GTalk Sidebar is a convenient way of chatting with your GTalk contacts using the Firefox sidebar. Every chat window opens in a new tab in the sidebar itself. You can make the GTalk application pop out in a new window if you wish. Although GTalk Sidebar doesn’t provide any additional feature, it can be another nice alternative, just in case you don’t want to open a Gmail window on your browser and don’t have the desktop client installed. An alternative to this addon is to save the GTalk Gadget as your Firefox bookmark and set the bookmark to load in the sidebar.
GTalk Profile
GTalk Profile is an online service that you can use to find other GTalk users from across the globe. You can simply click anywhere on the world map provided at the GTalk Profile site to look for users in that area. You can also look for users using its search box.
Ping.fm
Ping.fm is not an exclusive GTalk application. What it does is update your status on as many as 21 of your social sites including Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Wordpress, Tumbler, Pownce, Blogger, Plurk, Xanga, Friendfeed, etc., and even Mashable, simultaneously. All you need to do is add Ping.fm as a contact in your GTalk application and send it to your status update as a chat message. You also need to create your account at Ping.fm and add your social profiles so that it can do the posting for you.
GTalk to VOIP
GTalk to VOIP offers a number of free and paid VOIP services that you can use with your IM tools including GTalk, Yahoo Messenger, and Live Messenger. These include incoming calls to your IM tools from any mobile, landline phones, or Web services; outgoing calls to SIP phones, Internet radio, video conferencing, offline messaging, IM interoperability, SMS service, etc. Payment can be completed through Paypal.
Inezha
Inezha allows you to use your Gtalk application as a feed reader. Simply send the RSS feed url to the Inezha bot on your GTalk and ask to be notified on all future updates. You can also access you online account at the Inezha site and add the feeds you want to subscribe to. There are also Firefox and Internet Explorer bookmarklets and widgets that you can add to your blog. Inezha also provides a social networking feature where you can add your friends and subscribe to their updates.
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Many of us prefer using online note taking applications for research, bookmarking sites, or quickly jotting down ideas. While there are many online note taking applications, we searched around the Web and compiled a list of those we felt were richer in features and usability. Here are the top ten, in no particular order.
Which note taking applications do you use and why? Let us know in the comments.
Evernote
Evernote is one of the most talked about online note taking applications. One special feature here is the drag-and-drop desktop version that allows you to see your notes and clips offline. You can use the Evernote mobile application for your Windows Mobile phone or iphone to capture pictures and record audio to send to your Evernote account. You can also email notes to Evernote using a secret email address.
Google Notes
Google Notes has some nice features including collaboration among multiple users, a publishing feature, integration with Google Bookmarks, the ‘Unfiled bookmarks’ link on the left sidebar of the Google Notes Web interface that sorts and displays all the urls you have saved, quick clippings of Web pages with the ’star’ button, and the export to Google Docs feature.
UberNote
UberNote works in the same manner as Google Notes. However, one neat feature here is that you can add your tasks in any note that you are working on. Later, you can view the ‘Open Tasks’ link on the sidebar of the UberNote interface to open all notes with incomplete tasks. Similarly, you can integrate your bookmarks with any note and find it later with the ‘Bookmarks’ link. Other nice things to know about UberNote are that it runs on AJAX and has a history feature that will save all the revisions you make on your notes. You can clip notes with the UberNote online dashboard, with the browser extension, email your notes to a personal email address, or from an AOL IM application.
Springnote
Springnote is an OpenID enabled online note taking application that takes a different approach than the ones mentioned above. This one is not for writing short notes and clipping websites, but longer notes, and comes out just a bit different than an average online office suite. The Springnote note editor is feature rich and you can choose from a variety of templates, plugins , and insert video and audio to enhance your notes. You can collaborate, share your notes with friends, or post them on your blog.
WebAsyst Notes
WebAsyst Notes comes with features for including attachments to your notes. You can sort the notes into specific folders and share the folders with your contacts. WebAsyst also has features to add files, photos, contacts, mail, projects, an issue tracker, pages, and a shopping cart.
Luminotes
Luminotes,a personal wiki notebook, as the site describes itself, is an easy to use wiki that lets you create notes. You can attach files to your wiki, and share them with your friends. Features such as automatic saving and revision tracking are very useful. Once you have completed your wiki, you can download it as well. This is not one of the conventional online notebooks but a key reason why you might want to use this is because of one feature that allows you to hyperlink one word or sentence in a notebook to another.
Stikkit
Stikkit wants to be a smart application without being clever. What it does is pick up specific terms from your notes and arrange your notes as to-do lists, calendars, contacts (peeps), bookmarks and tags list. Now is that smart enough? You can also choose to share your Stikkit notes with your contacts and receive comments. For quick Web clippings, it provides a bookmarklet for Firefox and Safari, and a right click menu option for Internet Explorer users.
Fruitnotes
Fruitnotes allows you to create notes by calling a specific phone number, though currently they have only listed a US and UK number. It also allows you to create your own profile and view others’, thus doubling up as a social networking platform. The note editor is feature rich and lets you upload images and videos. Once done, you can publish your note for everyone to see.
Notefish
Notefish is a simple online note taking application that allows you to drag and drop your notes, resize them, color them, tag them, and share with contacts. You can also move one note from a particular project to another easily. There is a Firefox addon that you can use to clip Web pages conveniently.
Zoho Notebook
Zoho Notebook is the most sophisticated and most feature-laden online note application of the bunch. Zoho Notebook provides you a palette where you can type and add image, audio, video, html, urls, RSS, files, sheets, and more. There are also various tools like the Line tool, Freehand tool, Select tool, Hand tool, and Shapes. There is a rich text editor with export, publish, and share features. You can record video and audios directly into the notebooks, integrate them with Skype for chats and IP telephony, or use the Firefox plugin to add Web clips easily. If you are the advanced online notebook user type, then you will find Zoho Notebook providing the solutions to almost all your requirements. I said ‘almost,’ as I couldn’t find a mobile phone support for Zoho.
[Image credit: Jacob Boetter (attribution)]
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For most of us, Gmail can be the simple answer to aggregating all of our emails together in one place. But for those who are looking for something new with a bit more spice, there are a whole new breed of email aggregators that promise to redefine the way we look at and use our inboxes. Here are 6 online email aggregators that do more than just aggregate.
Zenbe
Zenbe, “designed to be the world’s best email experience,” is the coolest new kid on the block and might just emerge as the big guy soon enough. The advertisement-free service offers you an email program, startup page, calendar, files directory, task list, your Facebook updates, Twitter, a chat application, Delicious, and address book all in one place. While you might be getting many of these features in other email programs, the presentation and flawless execution is what make Zenbe a clear winner.
The calendar, startup page, file directory, and email come in tabs in the center of the page. There is a right-hand sidebar that executes the Twitter, Facebook, chat and to-do list applications. Zenbe can get your emails from other email services like Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, and MSN using POP. What I particularly like about Zenbe is the start-up page titled “ZenPage” that will definitely change the way we look at emails and start-up pages. You can have members at your ZenPage and chat with them live from your account.
Orgoo
Orgoo is similar to Zenbe but in a much simpler form. If you take away Zenbe’s ZenPage, Facebook, Twitter, and a few other features, you are left with Orgoo. The service provides you with an inbox and a chat application on the right-hand sidebar, and aggregates your SMS messages, but what is really striking about Orgoo is its video chat feature. Orgoo’s video chat allows you to use any webcam and start chatting from your account page.
Fuser
Fuser, as the name suggests, simply fuses all your email accounts, including AIM, AOL, Comcast, POP3, IMAP, Gmail, Hotmail, Live, Netscape, Outlook, Yahoo, and more, in one place. Not only that, you can also get and reply to your MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter messages from the Fuser inbox.
TopicR
TopicR is not really about aggregating your emails from all of your other email addresses, but experiencing a whole new way of using email while still retaining your old email addresses. I can bet some of the features in TopicR will make you say “wow.” With TopicR you can send private emails that can’t be forwarded or copied. It also acts a file upload service where you can upload a number of pictures or audio files that your recipients can see online so that their inboxes don’t get clogged. You can mix music and pictures in your attachments and create a slide show. You can also create an RSS feed of your email.
TopicR acts as a social networking platform where you can browse through the publicly shared content and connect with other readers. What I find particularly interesting is the Activity Stream, which in TopicR’s words is “the stream of people’s activities around your email topics and contents.” Talk about the next generation of email - this could be close.
Goowy
Goowy is for the Flash fans out there. It provides you a Flash based webtop that includes features like email, calendar, contact management, a startup page, IM, file storage, and more. You can add your Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail accounts into Goowy using POP3. There are plenty of customization options that you can choose from, including dozens of inbox skins.
Jubii
Jubii not only aggregates your different email accounts but acts as a smart service that adapts according to your usage patterns. For example, it sorts out your incoming emails into your private and public inboxes and highlights important senders. It provides a file storage center with a 10 GB space for the first 1 million beta users and 4 GB per user thereafter that you can use to store any type of files and share easily with your contacts.
Jubii also acts like a social networking platform where you can see who is online and connect with them in real time. Instead of emailing, you can choose to call your contacts on landline and mobile phones using the service. The following countries are supported currently for the online telephony service: US, Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and United Kingdom. Jubii currently allows you to call and talk your contacts for 30 minutes a day or 3 hours per month for free. Jubii also provides an RSS feed reader feature that you might want to check out.
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