Layers.com is a soon to launch Web Annotation service.
Another one?
Yes, another one.
There have been countless efforts to create a usable Web Annotation service. Diigo is one, Fleck is one (our own version) and there was the once popular Third Voice. Nobody seems to have found the right combination of scalability, user interface, compatibility and viral growth that you need to turn such a service into a widely used successful service.
“Imagine if you could pull a transparent layer over any webpage and then you could create upon it. You could annotate, draw graffiti, embed video, photos or do whatever you want. Then, by providing a link, others could see your layer (with the original content beneath it) and you could see layers created by other people. You could follow your friends and see all the layers they create. You could go to any webpage and see any of the layers that have been created over that site.”
They are still in closed beta but the preview video looks amazingly cool and looks like exactly the service you would want to use. Check it out and sign up at Layers.com with invitation code “create1108” for an account.
Mashable just reviewed the new Fleck Lite service we launched this weekend. Because we are the founders of Fleck and the feature was, well, Lite we didn’t post it to TheNextWeb.com right away. But if it is good enough for Mashable it is good enough for us!
Fleck Lite is really just a “Tweet a link to Twitter” bookmarklet with a few simple extras:
One, it turns your URL into a shorter URL.
Two, it gives you a field to enter a custom message for every URL you want to tweet.
Three, we will start offering stats for every URL you tweet (click-through) soon.
Four, every tweeted url is saved in Fleck so you can easily find it later.
But don’t take my word for it. Watch this entertaining movie by Patrick explaining everything in less than 1:15 minutes:
Michael Arrington launching Fleck.com in New York.
The reason this blog exists is because we started a conference a few years back to promote our start-up: Fleck.com. Out of that conference grew this blog and a lot more beautiful stuff that keeps us occupied every day. Today, I want to give you an update on where we stand and announce some news.
We started Fleck.com in August 2005 and have been working on it ever since. We have a loyal, but small, group of users and great technology. Fleck is an Annotation Service with an important Sharing component. You can easily add notes to pages and share these annotated pages with groups you set-up or with Friends via email.
Our goal was to build a service that would make it extremely easy to share interesting content online within smaller, and bigger, companies. Sharing the “collective wisdom” is what we used as a pitch to the companies we talked to. It all works and it is scalable!
After three years however it is time for a change. Fleck needs a new home where it can flourish. It would be a great addition to a company that already has a loyal user group and would like to offer these users an exciting tool to tie them into their brand. We have talked to a few companies about such a deal but so far we haven’t been able to finalize anything.
So, now we are going public: Fleck is for sale! We know now that it won’t make us millionaires and our investors understand that they won’t see a great return on investment on this one. Our goal right now is to find a good partner and make sure Fleck gets another chance.
Firefly is officially a chat service but could just as easily be describes as ‘Twitter on other sites’. Site owners add two lines of Javascript to their pages and get a widget that gives their users the option to add little floating text balloons on pages.
The service looks very simple to use and extremely cute. All images are shiny and well designed and installation and usage are very simple. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that contrary to Twitter the chat is extremely fragmented. Competitors to Twitter never take off because everybody keeps coming back to Twitter. Firef.ly is everywhere an might as well be nowhere.
Then there is the debatable value of the comments. It is a problem that affects a lot of annotation, (DISCLOSURE: I started Fleck.com, another annotation service) chat and comment services. Given the chance to say something it often turns out that most people don’t actually have anything to say. As you can see in the screenshot a typical Firef.ly enriched site generates a bit of uninteresting buzz on a page but hardly any meaningful conversation.
That doesn’t mean the whole service is useless though. If you have a site with a large userbase and tight community it might be interesting to see what happens if you add Firef.ly to your website. Give it a try and let us know how it works for you.
No, this has nothing to do with tasty fish, the name of this service refers to the process of fine tuning a design. Irish design agency Spoiltchild Design came up with a handy tool that helps you and your colleagues to address every detail in an image, without bothering to describe the spot you’re talking about. You just put a note on the desired spot and email the image to a colleague, who can also easily edit the picture as well.
This can come in particularly handy when discussing a site design. I know from my own experience that instead of sending a 3-page email, you just paste some notes on the design. One minor thing though, this experience comes from using Fleck. This Amsterdam-based service offers you the possibility to note specific places on any web page with a bookmarklet or fancy flash browser tool. A disclosure is in order here, as Fleck sponsors this blog. I think though, that for tech-savvy users, Fleck is the better tool. Yet for people who just want to add some text to an image, Finetuna is a good alternative since it’s really simple.
A bit too simple maybe, as Finetuna could use some extra features like an embed option and Twitter integration. Speaking of which, I’ve praised web development companies in the past who make Twitter mash-ups to promote their services. These companies add something to the web, while working on their PR. It’s probably the same story with Spoiltchild Design, as there are no advertisements on Finetuna, nor do visitors have to register. The consultants of Spoiltchild just needed a tool like this and then decided to make it publicly available. And before you know it, some blogger mentions their company name three times.
One thing I enjoy most about services like Twitter and Friendfeed are the interesting links people post. Whenever I’m in a desperate need of some inspiration, I head over to social bookmarking sites such as Stumbleupon, delicious and some Dutch version. Yet there are more services like this, all offering different ways to present or save interesting finds on the web. Though they’re not that well-known. Let’s change that. Here are sixupcoming tools to share and find interesting links. Start sharing!
Photo by F33
1. Iterasi, save your webpages (private beta)
So you’re now checking out a list of social bookmarking services, yet I can already tell you that not one looks as fancy as Iterasi. It’s a browser-based service that not just saves a link to the preferred page, but includes ALL the information – even links and images. After logging in to Iterasi, you can just scroll through those pages you wanted to save for later. One of the most important advantages is searching through the text. So searchability doesn’t just depend on your tagging skills anymore. For more info I gladly refer to Eric Eldon from Venturebeat , who has published a review. www.iterasi.com
2. Fleck, annotate the web (beta)
Full disclosure: I’m sitting next to talented developer Lenniez (he’s a good photographer as well) whose actually responsible for this groundbreaking tool. Inspired by Kevin Kelly’s story We are the Web, three entrepreneurs in white suits have started this service that offers you the possibility to note specific places on any web page with a bookmarklet or fancy flash browser tool. Comes in very handy when you are reviewing a website or if you want to point out a spelling error, to name a few examples. I specifically use it to enrich my links on Twitter (example of the Twitter integration here). www.fleck.com
3. Socialmedian, social news aggregator (private beta)
New kid on the block by Jobster founder Jason Goldberg that got some blog coverage last month. It’s a social news aggregator which allows you to clip interesting stories. Browse through various News Groups and share relevant links with other news group members. Perfect for folks who want tips from like-minded people. Read the review by Mashable’s charming Kristen Nicole to learn more about this service. Oh and by the way, according to our UK WebTipr David Petherick, it “might be a next big thing”. www.socialmedian.com
4. i-Lighter, save parts of the Internet
Remember that yellow marker you used in high school and university? Well, I certainly can recall hours of highlighting important stuff in my textbooks. Now there is a digital equivalent to mark text and images you want to save or share. Just download the Windows or Apple desktop app and relive that yellow marker experience for your social bookmarking convenience. The traditional press – such as The New York Times – love this service, probably because the yellow highlighter is such a familiar tool. They’ve probably ignored the useful Twitter integration, as they didn’t use that in highschool. www.i-lighter.com
5. Bemba
The two kind guys from Bemba aim for people who don’t why complicated services, they just want to get the job done. After these people have installed the Bemba plugin — there’s no bookmarklet — they can share anything entertaining they find on social networks with just two clicks. I interviewed the CEO Aaron Peters a couple of weeks ago and he told me that “Bemba provides the easiest way to share web content with friends, on any social network or (micro)blog. This way we make the web more fun.” So they’re basically competing with the Share option of Facebook. Read the rest of the interview for more info about this challenge for Bemba. www.bemba.com
6. Instapaper
Instapaper helps you to get rid of the ‘2read’ tags in del.icio.us by offering a simple bookmarklet and even simpler website. Developer Marco Arment left every fancy function out and focused just on the basics: temporary storage for long articles. Therefore, the site is easy accessible – even with my crappy mobile phone and iPod Touch. After I wrote about Instapaper on April 1, I started using it a lot and browsed to the web page every Saturday for some serious reading. www.instapaper.com
So that’s it for the new and upcoming sharing and saving tools. Now it’s up to you — which service will you use? Or did I forget your favorite one? Please share it in the comments, so we can create one helluva alternative social bookmarking list.
This question was asked by Evan Williams during Le Web 3. Loyal readers of the Next Web Blog might recognize this quote, since I’m referring to it quite often. Williams’ presentation have been fascinating me for quite a while now. It often spooks through my head when reviewing a service.
So when I stumbled upon new bookmarking service Instapaper, I was immediately enthusiastic. The thing is, I’ve been using Delicious for a while to save long articles for later. Yet despite some heavy ‘2read’ tagging these links often escaped my attention.
There’s hardly any chance that I will loose any links on Instapaper.com. Developer Marco Arment left every fancy function out and focused just on the basics: temporary storage for long articles. Therefore, the site is easy accessible – even with my crappy mobile phone and iPod Touch. It’s just a matter of saving the articles with a bookmarklet and looking them up through the site or RSS.
So from now on, when I have an hour of spare time, I just browse to Instapaper and read the well-written content that otherwise would have never got my attention. After doing that, I can always share them on Delicious or Fleck.
Written on 4th January 2009
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Written on 10th June 2008
So you’re now checking out a list of social bookmarking services, yet I can already tell you that not one looks as fancy as Iterasi. It’s a browser-based service that not just saves a link to the preferred page, but includes ALL the information – even links and images. After logging in to Iterasi, you can just scroll through those pages you wanted to save for later. One of the most important advantages is searching through the text. So searchability doesn’t just depend on your tagging skills anymore. For more info I gladly refer to Eric Eldon from Venturebeat , who has published a 
Full disclosure: I’m sitting next to talented developer Lenniez (he’s a good 
New kid on the block by Jobster founder 
Remember that yellow marker you used in high school and university? Well, I certainly can recall hours of highlighting important stuff in my textbooks. Now there is a digital equivalent to mark text and images you want to save or share. Just download the Windows or Apple desktop app and relive that yellow marker experience for your social bookmarking convenience. The traditional press – such as The New York Times – love this service, probably because the yellow highlighter is such a familiar tool. They’ve probably ignored the 
The two kind guys from Bemba aim for people who don’t why complicated services, they just want to get the job done. After these people have installed the Bemba plugin — there’s no bookmarklet — they can share anything entertaining they find on social networks with just two clicks. I interviewed the CEO Aaron Peters a couple of weeks ago and he told me that “Bemba provides the easiest way to share web content with friends, on any social network or (micro)blog. This way we make the web more fun.” So they’re basically competing with the Share option of Facebook. Read the rest of the interview for 
Instapaper helps you to get rid of the ‘2read’ tags in del.icio.us by offering a simple bookmarklet and even simpler website. Developer 
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
