Microsoft Popfly goes beta

October 18, 2007 at 10:02 am · Filed under RIA, Web Applications, Programming

Microsoft has moved Popfly from Alpha to Beta. What’s Popfly? It is a web-based, Silverlight environment which allows coders and non-coders alike to create and share web mash-ups (think along the lines of Yahoo Pipes), gadgets, applications and web pages.

From Microsoft’s press release:

Popfly goes public. Microsoft today announced the public beta release of Popfly, a tool built on Microsoft Silverlight, which provides a fun and easy way for anyone to build and share “mashups,” gadgets, Web pages and applications. Popfly provides anyone — even those with no programming experience — with a simple way to make creations without code and share them on social networks such as Windows Live Spaces and Facebook. Popfly enables users to do the following:

• Add some pizazz to their Facebook profile, blog or personal Web page by adding games, slide shows, “Halo® 3” stats or eBay auctions.
• Build a Web page for a club or organization, such as a soccer team page that would include a schedule, photos and videos from past games, directions to upcoming matches, and more.
• Leverage blocks from Popfly partners, such as Twitter, Facebook and Dapper, to drive site awareness and traffic.

Initially saw this mentioned in Erick Schonfield’s post on TechCrunch.

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Do you Twitter?

March 18, 2007 at 3:12 pm · Filed under Privacy, Events, Mobile, Social Networking

At the SXSW conference, there was a phenomena I was exposed to called Twitter. Twitter is described on the Twitter site as “A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?” Twitter allows you to let the world (or your select group of friends) know where you are and what you’re doing via phone, IM, or online. I signed up to give it a try, and, well, I’m not a Twittter.

There definitively is a movement that is not only comfortable, but highly motivated to share the details of their life. Down to the minutia. As often as not with complete strangers. Everyone has heard of Flick’r, MySpace, Instant Messaging and blogs. Twitter is focused on a different level of information provided on a different frequency of updates; quick-hits of information, where you are and what you’re doing, provided as frequently as the Twitter user wants to provide it. An Instant Messaging Blog in some ways.

I’m not a Twitter for a few reasons. First, the people in my life may use Flick’r here and there or post some interesting marketing or technology tips to their blog, but they aren’t on the edge of the curve running towards the lifestreaming movement. Second, I don’t have the desire to share minute-by-minute (or hour-by-hour) detailed information of what I’m doing or where I am with my circle of friends, never mind the Internet community at large. To be honest-I don’t understand it. More than anything, what’s intriguing about Twitter and the state of online social networking is how rapidly the online social networker’s outlook on privacy, security, and transparency is changing.

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