Home of the CityChick

New iPods

Shiny Shiny http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2006/09/its_a_boy_i_mea.html have once again got great coverage of the latest Apple iPod announcements (with pictures). Check out the retro-mini styling of the new nanos, and the total funkiness of the new shuffle - gone is the white plastic Pez holder shaped box and enter the 21st Century aluminium mini thing. Hurray for new releases (now just get them in the UK shops please)

GigaOM : ? How Big Is Online Karaoke?

Link: GigaOM : ? How Big Is Online Karaoke?.

More talk on the online karoke sites. I like the commentary about converging with your home equipment. I want to be able to draw on a library of titles from my living room, using my Playstation singStar microphone and game software, then save my best efforts to a singstar site and have the public rate me.

Then of course i want to win the global sony competition and achieve worldwide fame.....

Welcome to BT Vision

Link: Welcome to BT Vision.

British Telecom's long-awaited video over broadband service, BT Vision, is due to launch today. Interested to see what will be available and how different/same the offering will be from HomeChoice. They've signed numerous content deals over the last year or so, which should indicate good content. The key will be in persuading their target demographic that video over the internet ("to your telly!") is a good thing (and - easy!)

SingDating

Link:
http://www.postbubble.com/2006/07/18/bix-turning-anybody-and-everybody-into-americas-idol/

Lots of commentary on the latest social networking / YouTube type product - online karaoke. As a big karaoke / Idol fan myself, I think it'll be very interesting to see if sites like SingShot and bix can produce the latest newest thing... theres a lot of people out there wanting to be heard! I wonder if it will converge into SingDating...

Last.fm - The Social Music Revolution

Link: Last.fm - The Social Music Revolution.

Happy to see Last.fm launching in multiple languages! A great example of social media, Web 2.0 concepts - collective intelligence of crowd kind of thing. Listen to recommendations of others based on what you like.

I'm wondering what will come next.....music recommendations based on shopping habits (people who bought handbags on eBay also listen to Madonna...)

Online Dating 2.0

Link:http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/23/online-dating-20-thirteen-sites-to-find-love

TechCrunch has a nice if heavily US oriented article about Online Dating 2.0
called "13 sites to find love". Personally I think theres a vague spectrum along which dating sites could be classed as Web 2.0 or not...based on quantity of information used to determine matches, use of mash-ups (eg Flickr streams) etc.

The Jason Calacanis Weblog

Link: The Jason Calacanis Weblog.

This is very interesting. As a wired in city girl Ive been keeping a casual eye on the evolution of Web 2.0 for a while now, and this is a bit of a forced attempt at a step change - in that by paying top bloggers to lure them to a particular site sort of undermines the 'natural selection' that has brought sites to top rankings in the first place. A lot of people who have commented on this story talk about "cool" - this shouldnt be underestimated in my mind! Web 2.0 is about cool. its about capturing the community imagination and sparking off genuine interest. If you want to pay people to round up news stories then fine - its called "reporters". Dont pretend to be something you're not.

Shiny Shiny: Google Picasa free web album launches

Link: Shiny Shiny: Google Picasa free web album launches.

For many of the Web 2.0 sites emerging there are still several potential "winners" with no clear indication of who will become the vendor of choice for the masses. This may differ e.g. by geography (consider LinkedIn vs Open BC). As a Flickr user, it will be interesting to see how Picasa uptake grows - although it is becoming the norm for Google products to rise rapidly due to the strength of their brand.

Sega’s iFish coming in 2006 - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Link: Sega’s iFish coming in 2006 - Engadget - www.engadget.com.

I think this is so cute. Its like Finding Nemo meets iTunes. Not sure where I'd put it though...can't see it on the desk at work.

P.S. Apologies for not writing a lot recently - Xmas season, quite hectic....

Google IG vs Live

Windows have released a customisable home page called Live (www.live.com) which is incredibly similar to Google's home page (www.google.com/ig) They are both clean looking, on a white background, and both allow you to drop in modules with your own content. No banners, no pop-ups. Modules include previews of your email inbox - for Google, this is Gmail, for Windows, Hotmail. Both also let you create your own modules using RSS feeds. For Windows, it seems slightly easier to find some feeds and harder for others (I tested using Dooce and Shiny Shiny). For me, Windows Live felt a bit harder to use, in a vague sort of way. Google looks a bit prettier. But really, there isn't that much difference - one looks very much like the other. I think it will be interesting to see how Google reacts to Live....what new "Gadgets" will they come up with??