Although not strictly Web 2.0, I had to link to this piece at HongKiat.com: Top 100 Alternative Search Engines. There are some obvious Web 2.0 services in there - such as Blinkx and digg - and obviously no Google or Yahoo! How many of these would actually be used on a regular basis is another matter.
TechCrunch reports on Yahoo's Brand Universe service now rolling out. It does appear to be a way of amalgamating content from Yahoo's virtual properties, rather than being unique in itself. "Expect over 100 by the end of the year" is Yahoo's message. Of course, all this auto-pulling could be open to abuse.
Read/Write Web writes an interesting article on what web 2.0 services mainstream media are using:
"perhaps surprisingly, many publications have incorporated web 2.0 services into their sites."
The BBC could be seen to be lagging, not offering users the chance to digg or be del.icio.us. Of course tech-savvy users can simply do that bit themselves.
Eric Nelson picks up on a new Microsoft blog:
[Armadillo is] "A Microsoft UK blog aimed at next generation software development strategies, software and services". Actually - its far more fun than that description sounds - reflecting the authors ever cheerful presence around Microsoft.
There's a very interesting group interview of 9rules members over at fadtastic, which includes references to accessibility and Web 2.0.
Dave Sifry explains a bit more about the (elusive) new Technorati WTF feature. Despite the rather dubious txt-like acronym alternative, the service sounds interesting. "Where's the Fire" is:
When you see a top search with an orange flame next to it, it means at least one person from the community has written their view as to why that topic is hot - right now. The community is also invited to either write their own explanation or vote on the WTFs they view as most helpful. Based on a combination of number of votes and timeliness, the top WTFs by search topic appear on the top of the results page.
But it isn't just for the hottest searches or the stuff with the biggest buzz - in fact, one of the things that I like the most about WTF is that you can write an explanation about any search or topic, and if you get the most votes, your explanation goes in at the top of the results page for that search. You can write a WTF on any topic that someone would search for, and provide information and resources to them about that topic or subject. So, you might want to write a WTF about yourself or your friends names, or your company (or maybe even your competition!)
If you think that you've got a better explanation than the one that shows up on top of Technorati search results for a term, no worries, just go and write your own, and get your friends to vote for it. When you write something great, tell your friends to go and vote for it
It will be interesting to see how Technorati users respond to this. Previous new TR innovations have been met with 'fix the core functions first', which is fair enough. Let's hope that WTF doesn't cause basic TR functions that many of us rely on to break or slow down to a crawl.
Vodafone have launched Betavine, "an online public, collaborative research and development space looking at encouraging the further convergence between the mobile phone and the internet." In his blog, Daniel Appelquist describes it:
The idea of the site is to be a resource to the developer community, especially individual or small company developers working on mobile and communication-oriented applications across a range of platforms. There are other developer portals out there, but they tend to be either platform specific or otherwise tied into a commercial process. Vodafone Betavine is an R&D effort and as such is pre-commercial in nature. Its aim is to stimulate the developer community and thereby encourage growth of the whole ecosystem. Stuff that gets uploaded to Betavine remains the property of the contributor. It’s a place to get people to download your applications, test them, comment on them, etc… Likewise, we hope it will become a place to go to find great, innovative apps that you’ll want to download and test.
The site itself is still in the Beta phase, but will continue to improve over time as we keep rolling more features into it. This project is being run like a Web 2.0 startup within a big corporate. As such, continual releases and improvements as well as direct feedback from and communication with the site development team will be a key aspect.
Pew Internet have done a study that shows 28% of internet users have tagged or categorized content online such as photos, news stories or blog posts. Presumably the others either ignored tagging or just left their digital stuff in a big, uncategeorise heap.
TechCrunch pick up on ConvinceMe.net, a site that allows you to have an argument in any of three ways:
ConvinceMe lets members talk about anything and ranks them based on how many “convince” points they get from user voting for their argument. Private debates are issued as public challenges from one member to another and end when one site has gained the agreed number of votes for their side. For public debates, each side’s arguments are ordered by the number of votes the arguments have. “King of the Hill” is a twist on the challenge debate, with each member only able to submit one argument for their position. The first argument with 100 votes wins. The final type, public debates are ongoing, with the votes for one side or the other marking the overall opinion of the community on the subject.
OK. Monty Python sketch anyone?
The Online Marketing Blog has scooped an interview with CEO Scott Rafer from MyBlogLog about his background, offering 500 free pro accounts, growth, and issues around speed of the service (it's slow!)