Interactive Angle

Google SideWiki Adds Social Media Component to Every Web Page On The Internet

Google Sidewiki is a way for a visitor to comment on any content within a Web site.  When you use side-wiki, you have the ability to leave your comments and associate them with a Web site whether or not the Web site owner has enabled commenting.  Since the comments are maintained by Google, there is no direct relationship with the website.

Why am I bringing this up?

The impacts of Google SideWiki are far reaching, now every web page on the internet is social and can have a consumer opinion –both positive and negative.  At the same time this tool has the potential to shift the control over any Web site to the consumer.

Below are some other resources to help you better understand the potential impact of this new tool:

• Google Blog - Help and learn from others as you browse the web: Google Sidewiki

• Jeremiah Owyang - Google’s SideWiki Shifts Power To Consumers –Away From Corporate Websites

• Tech Crunch - Google Steps Where Many Have Stumbled: Sidewiki

• Read Write Web - Annotate the Web: Google Launches Sidewiki

Google Social Search Overview

Fotomoto - Instant Photo Commerce Solution For Your Web Site or Blog

Fotomoto is an essential online photo commerce solution that enables photographers to sell their photos and while focusing on what they do best, taking pictures.

The online solution enables anyone with photographic content to sell their photos directly from their Web site or blog. From the order processing to shipping a photo, Fotomoto is able to handle the purchase transaction simple by adding a couple lines of code to your Web site or blog. In addition through the Fotomoto control panel, a user is able to set the pricing and availability of their photos, manage their orders and even track analytics data such as how many times a photo has been viewed.

So how does Fotomoto make money? - Only when a purchase transaction takes place.

Once a transaction takes place Fotomoto asks for a 15% commission fee to cover cost and payment processing fees. Simply put you only pay if you are making money as well. This means there are no monthly fees or licensing costs.

Sources:

• Fotomoto Web site
• Fotomoto FAQs
• See Fotomoto in action - Chromasia, Daily Dose of Imagery 

Wolfram Alpha - Computational Knowledge Online Engine

New computational knowledge online engine, called Wolfram Alpha, is meant to answer specific factual questions in a far more precise way than any search engine. For example, it will parse questions like “What is the GDP France?” or “What is the temperature in Chicago?” and rather than simply pulling up sites that have the answer on them it will compute answers and relevant visualizations on the fly. The visualizations include the display of factual data, histograms and/or other related dynamic charts.

Wolfram Alpha was created by Stephen Wolfram's company called Wolfram. The computational knowledge online engine will be launch later this month.

Sources:

• Wolfram Alpha - Computational knowledge online engine
• Wikipedia - Stephen Wolfram
• Wired Magazine Article - The Man Who Cracked The Code to Everything
• More information about Stephen Wolfram
• Wolfram Corporate Site

American Well Inc. - A Doctor's Visit Is Now Online And In Real-Time

In January, American Well Inc. went live with a Web service that allows patients to communicate with doctors via online video, text chat or phone. The service is currently available only in Hawaii and Minnesota. If insured by Blue Cross patients pay $10 for a 10-minute visit; uninsured or non-member patients pay $45 for a 10-minute consultation.

Key features of this online service include:

• No need to make an appoint
• Doctors available 24 hours a day
• Immediate access to primary care physicians and a variety of specialists from home, securely, privately, and in real time
• After conversation summary can be sent to regualar physician(s).

Source: American Well Inc.

ExecTweets.com - Find, Follow And Engage Top Business Executives

With the growing popularity of Twitter, more and more C-level executives are finding the time to share their insights about their industry and the world around them.

For C-Level executives this trend makes sense because an executive’s time is so valuable, micro-blogging takes much less time than blogging and the public sees it as a great view of a company communicating with its users, shareholders and customers. With over 100,000 C-level executives on Twitter today it's difficult to know how to find them. Well thanks to Ferderated Media, Twitter and Microsoft this is not the case anymore.

In March 2009 Ferderated Media, Twitter and Microsoft launched a site called ExecTweets.com. The Web site is a real-time tool that helps you to find, follow and engage with the world’s most successful business executives on Twitter. In addition to following their tweets, ExecTweets.com aggregates tweets into industry verticals like Healthcare, Retail, Finance and more. Below are some of of the executives that are followed:

• Adam Brown, Coca-Cola

• Alex Chriss, Intuit
• Alex Yoder, WebTrends
• Barry Judge, BestBuy
• Barb Iverson, Weber Shandwick
• Bart Cas, Pepsi-Cola
• Billy Sanez, American Airlines
• Brad Smith, Microsoft
• Craig Newmark, Craigslist
• Daniel Rasumus, Microsoft
• David Armano, Critical Mass
• David Sifry, Technorati
• David Williams, MedPharma
• Don Dodge, Microsoft
• Doug Ulman, Lance Armstrong Foundation
• Evan Williams, Twitter
• Georgy Colony, Forrester Research
• Jason Buss, Ameriprise Financial
• Jay Adelson, Digg
• John Battelle, Federated Media Publishing
• Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems
• Kevin Rose, Digg
• Marc Monseau, Johnson & Johnson
• Marcel LeBrun, Radian6
• Margret Schmidt, TiVo Inc.
• Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks, HDNet
• Mark Relph, Microsoft Canada
• Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
• Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
• Pete Blackshaw, Nielsen Online
• Pete Cashmore, Mashable
• Phil Johnson, PJA Advertising
• Pierre Omidyar, eBay
• Randall Rothenberg, Interactive Advertising Bureau
• Richard Binhammer, Dell
• Tony Hsieh, Zappos
• Tony Uphoff, TechWeb
• Veronica Fielding, Digital Brand Expressions
• Vivek Ranadive, TIBCO
• Warren L. Habib, MTV
• Werner Vogels, Amazon.com

Sources:

• ExecTweets.com
• Federated Blog Post About ExecTweets.com
• Full list of executives followed

Free Color Themes To Inspire Any Type Of Project

A colleague of mine recently introduced me to a tool created by Adobe called Kuler. Adobe Kuler is a web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. The online tool lets you browse other users' themes or create your own using a drag-and-drop color wheel and/or numerical settings (RGB, CMYK, etc.). You can title, tag, save and publish your themes, and download them for use in other Adobe applications.

In addition to creating generating and searching for color themes the tool has an application programming interface (API) that allows developers to create new services using Kuler themes. The only requirement for using the API is developers are now required to get a developer key.  For more information about the developer key click here.

It looks like this tool has been around for sometime, but I guess it is better late than never. Thanks Andy for the recommendation.

Sources:

• Adobe Kuler Application
• Adobe Proudcts Page 
• Adobe Developer Connection - Kuler

Free Video Lectures By World Leading Scholars

One thing that I truly love about the digital world is that it feeds my hunger to learn. Each time I have free time to surf the Internet I am truly amazed about  how Universities across the world are coming up with new ways to market themselves on the Internet while also sharing valuable information about their programs.

First there was iTunes University which features free audio & video downloads from dozens of universities across the United States and around the world. The cool thing about iTunes University is users can easily search, download, and play education content just like they do music, movies, and TV shows, however, it does some have limitations. The iTunes University channel can't be access through the Internet. In order to access the channel you must either install iTunes on a computer or purchase an iPhone. With more mobile users actively surfing the Internet for content universities are coming up with other online avenues to share valuable information about their programs. One online avenue I have recently found is called Academic Earth.

Academic Earth is an organization that is currently building an online user-friendly educational ecosystem that gives internet users around the globe the ability to find, interact with and learn from full video courses and lectures from the world’s leading scholars. As of today there are over 1,500 video lectures currently available on the site, covering economics, entrepreneurship, history, law, medicine, religion and the sciences, among many other topics. Their goal is to bring the best content together in one centralized location while at this same time creating a dialogue of insights around the content to make it even more valuable.

Source: Academic Earth

Useful Online Tools To Convert A File Or Download An Online Video

Converting files from one to another format can be a complex task, especially because not many users have the necessary tools handy. Here are some online file conversion tools which provide an easy way to convert files of various types and formats.

• Zamzar - convert files from one format to another.  I use this to download videos from Youtube.
• Media Converter - Convert a video directly from various portals
• Convert Tube - Download online videos direct to PC, iPod, PSP, Mobile
• Vixy - convert online videos to download onto an iPod
• Media-Convert - Convert PDF documents to Word format, music and video files, and more

 

Customize The Width And Height Of An Image, Try mypictr For Free

Mypictr is a free picture resizing service, which allows you to create a custom profile for your favorite social network. Best of all you don't need to install any programs, plug-ins or any other software, just upload your picture, resize it online and download it from our server.

Source: mypictr