The Next Big Web Thing - Loving Teh Web !!!1!1!11

>> Return to The Next Big Web Thing Index

Saturday, July 15, 2006

The 9

Flash and video are old hat on the web, but clever people come up with lots of new ways of making them do new and interesting things and will continue to do so. There's good reason to push this medium - if the success of YouTube and the BBC's plans to offer more video online are just a couple of indicators of the future importance it.

This brings us neatly to The 9. If reading blogs or RSS feeds to get the latest web scud is just too much for you, then The 9 from Yahoo will be right up your street. It's also one such indicator of the way the web and video are going to increasingly collide in the future. Presented by an all American good girl, who was probably picked to appeal to certain stereotypical internet types, The 9 is a daily video round-up of what quirky things are hot on the net. It's quite a simple idea, well done. It's got a nice flash interface for starters and you can submit stuff to be featured. If watching the short video is too much, you can surf the links and quickly jump to the items that interest you. Us web types will no doubt love it and be frequent visitors.

Panjea

Since for ever my dream has been to create stuff and to earn enough money from it that I can devote more of my time to doing it. The web has become a great tool for doing just that. As early as 2000 I was earning a small bit on the late and lamented MP3.com with shaky bedroom 4-track recordings that I thought no one else would have any interest in. They did, and it was a buzz to share them and earn a few pennies.

Panjea is the latest in a line of sites that follow the original MP3.com tradition. What makes this one a bit more interesting is, not only does it allow you to make money off your music, but your videos and photos as well - it's covers a lot of potential creative outputs under the one banner. It's got all the social networking features you'd expect, and a nice clean interface and the usual tools. As to if the model is sustainable is one thing, but in the meantime, lots of creative people will be getting their content on it to see if there's money to be made.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Jade Fish

The power of social networking seems unstoppable. MySpace and flickr go from strength to strength. New networking sites with unique slants are popping up all over the place, in the hope they'll be the next big destination for fans of web socialising.

Jade Fish is one such new upstart. At first it seems fairly conventional, profile pages, messaging and all the special features you'd expect from any social networking site worth it's salt. However, what makes them special and worthy of mention here is that they're all about socialising with people who can help you learn a new skill, or tutor you in an exisiting one - some are paid, some do it for fun, but to my mind, this creative positivity is instantly more appealing than a million flashy buttons and friend trains.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Farecast

Any traveler will tell you, shopping for airfares on the web is a time saver and blessing. However, keeping up with ever fluctuating prices can be a job and a pain. Many have bought tickets at one price, only to see them cheaper not long after.

Farecast gives an early glimpse of a way of tracking this ever changing fare price merry-go-round. They predict whether it's a good time to purchase the tickets, or wait for them to drop down. They use a range of tracking tools and models from a large number of sources to build their predictions - and hopefully give the cost weary traveler a handy tool to get the best prices. Currently it's in beta and only covers two American airports, but with a bit of time, this sort of tool will grow in both coverage and popularity.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Itzle

One thing that the web does well is to easily give you a way to find people who like the sorts of things you do. There are many great examples of like-minded communities and ways to build up contacts people of similar tastes, but till now they've been missing one simple thing - the ability to walk around their sites and see who's hanging out there.

Itzle is a quirky way of navigating the sites you like. Get an account, get a little pixel person and begin to explore websites in a whole new way. Walk your figure around them, see if other Itzle users are their, meet up with them and get chatting. At the moment it's still in beta, but you can see it being a popular new alternative to the more static likes of MySpace or message boards.

Fortuitous

Online dating, contact building and communities - all examples of our love of building relationships online. Now, being the superficial creatures that we are, we often gravitate towards a certain set of physical appearances and characteristics in the sort of people we want to get friendly with.

Fortuitous is a new friendship building engine with a difference. You don't get to choose your contacts on appearances, instead, you get a random person, and an amount of time to get to know them based on their profile only. If you like them you can keep them as a friend. It's a simple idea, but in this appearance obsessed age, it's nice to see an online tonic to it.

Site design and maintenance by Day Trip Media © 2006 - 2010. The material on this page is protected by copyright laws and cannot be used without the express written consent of the owner. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.