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Thursday, December 27, 2007

The Top Web Applications 2007

I did not find many substantial new web apps this year. So my list looks a bit like last years "The Top Web Applications 2006". Here are the new entries and some noteworthy changes on top of the tops (and tops that flops):
Web Office:
Google - best integrated within Google Apps which is free for personal use, else you can mix it by yourself with Gmail, GCalendar, Docs, Presentation and Spreadsheet. The ZOHO Suite looks much nicer and is a close runner, but some of the functionality lacks behind Googles. (You can forget all other web based offices, they are not worth a try at the moment.)
This years spoiler:
My 30Boxes calender was replaced by Googles. I don't like the strategy of the 30Boxes folks: "More socializing, integration to Facebook has priority and don't do anything to improve the core apps, the calendar."
Photo Editing: We got a lot of competition within this area this year and their are many good apps out their. My no. 1 is definitely Picnik. Simple interface, simple to use + some astonishing advanced features and it integrates nicely to the most common picture sharing sites.
Educational:
Mango is §1. A really good language training system. Innovative, easy and simple to use. Thumbs up!
Brain Health:
Lumosity is definitely the best brain exercise programm / game on the market right now, but its rather expensive (80 $ for one year). This price scheme is only possible because of the hype that this area has for the time being. A free alternative is brain-tune.com

Instant Messenger:
imo.im! For me its not meebo or another of the well known competitors. imo.im is still in "Alpha" but already the best (multi protocoll) online instant messenger around and if this product keeps on developing that well, than... Hey - just check it out.
Internet TV:
They have done it again. Front runner is Joost. (Lets see how this adventure will evolve. Until know its entertaining ;-).)
Web Operating System: No winners here. This are all loosers, sites which are doomed to fail because their are no benefits for the user, or am I missing something here?
Honorable mentions
to the splendid
Google Reader, Bubbleshare (still alive and kicking), Netvibes, Zamzar and to OpenID.
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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Use Translation Bots with Google Talk

Google announced the introduction of translation bots to their chat software Google Talk. For instance, invite en2zh@bot.talk.google.com, open a chat with it, and then whenever you type something in English, the bot will repeat the same in Chinese (say e.g. “hello” and the bot correctly translates to “你好”). This feature might come in handy in group chat when you talk to someone with another native language. For more languages, just add any of the 29 other translation bots. They're named using two-letter language abbreviations as "[from language]2[to language]@bot.talk.google.com", and the supported language pairs are: ar2en, bg2en, de2en, de2fr, el2en, en2ar, en2de, en2el, en2es, en2fr, en2it, en2ja, en2ko, en2nl, en2ru, en2zh, es2en, fi2en, fr2de, fr2en, hi2en, hr2en, it2en, ja2en, ko2en, nl2en, ru2en, uk2en, ur2en, zh2en. So, for French to German translation, talk to fr2de@bot.talk.google.com.
This was seized 4 u at Google Blogoscoped & Google Talk blog
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