Written on 1st July 2009
6 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Twitter has made a number of subtle changes to your following and followers lists. The changes make it easier to see information about the people you’re connected with.
You can view people in list view or expanded, and next to each profile is a settings option to disable or enable mobile phone notifications (or an option to follow the user if you’re not already) as well as links to mention, unfollow/follow or block a user.
Considering the very few changes Twitter generally makes, this is the equivalent of a design overhaul!
Written on 24th June 2009
8 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Literally seconds after Facebook announces the launch of public updates and media sharing, Friendfeed pushes an update which sees it enter the realm of file sharing.
As Friendfeed notes in their blog, this is a particularly useful feature for sites and organisations (such as ourselves) who use Friendfeed groups to discuss our business and content.
Currently the file types are limited to documents (PDF’s, spreadsheets) and mp3’s, unfortunately video (more…)
Written on 24th June 2009
21 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Facebook today announces the relaunch of its Publisher tool; the photo, video and status updating field available to you above your news stream and profile pages.
Up until now, you have only been able to share content amongst your Facebook friends. Today, that changes with the release of an option called “who do you want to tell?”.
The option makes it possible to share your posts with everyone – not just your friends – but even more interesting however is that (more…)
Written on 22nd May 2009
2 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
RSS is far from dead. Google have continued to show their commitment to it by frequently adding new features and updates to a product with minimal advertising (for now), a whole lotta usefulness but an enormous long term potential.
The app’s most recent update sees Google Reader make it oh so very easy to share your favorite sites. You can share them individually or grab entire (google reader) folders and make them available to anyone.
I recently wrote a post sharing essentially my entire tech blogs and news sites list. I spent a good hour compiling the list into an easily digestible OPML to share with you, our readers. Had I waited, I could have simply drag and dropped that list within Google Reader and copied & pasted the OPML URL, for you to import into your reader of choice.
To create your own bundles to share with the world. Click on “Browse for Stuff” in the Google Reader sidebar and follow the instruction – it’s painfully easy.
It’s a wonderful development and whilst some tech pundit are claiming the days of RSS are numbered, I stand firm in my belief that we are a long long way from it.
If you’ve created any bundles you’d like to share with the world, feel free to post them in the comments.
Written on 21st May 2009
5 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Google are clearly taking the speed factor very seriously and have just upped the ante with their latest release of Google Chrome, this update is apparently 30% faster than the previous. Additionally, over 300 browser crashing bugs have been fixed making the browser more stable than ever.
According to the announcement, other features that have also been integrated include:
Improved New Tab Page: The most requested feature from users was the ability to remove thumbnails from the New Tab page. Now you can finally hide that embarrassing gossip blog from the Most Visited section.
Full Screen Mode: If you’ve ever given a presentation or watched a large video using Google Chrome, you might have wished you could use every last pixel on your screen for the content. Now you can hide the title bar and the rest of the browser window by hitting F11 or selecting the option in the Tools menu.
Form Autofill: Filling out your information in forms over and over again can be tedious. Form autofill helps by showing information you’ve previously entered into the same form fields automatically. If at any point you want to clear out your information, that’s easy to do from the Tools menu.
Below is a video from Chrome Product Manager Brian Rakowski detailing the last update:
The major update we’re all waiting for is the OS X release of the browser. According to reports, the browser will be available towards the end of this summer, but you are able to test early versions of the browser here.
Written on 12th May 2009
0 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
During their annual Searchology event, Google announced a number of new updates to their core search product as well as a couple of new side projects.
Filtering
Users will now be able to filter results by content time, date, type, media, forum discussions, reviews and more. Whilst much of this has been available to users via Google’s advanced search page, the new features will be built into the core product offering.
Google will also offer the ability to view search results visually in a “wonder wheel” which illustrates the popularity of certain search terms and their related items.
Marissa Mayer has specified real time search to be Google’s most pressing and difficult challenge. Interestingly, startups OneRiot and Tweetmeme have made it their focus to search and index the real time web beginning with Twitter (neither of which are really real time search).
Google Squared
Google has also announced the launch of a Google Labs product called ‘Google Squared’ which lets users search for a particular topic and reveals a list of all information related to the topic – a vertical search engine of sorts. Results to Google Squares are presented so users can easily filter and remove certain results, leaving only the content you were looking for. Google Squared will launch in the next few weeks.
Written on 29th April 2009
1 COMMENT Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Friendfeed’s co-founder Bret Taylor has officially launched the new Friendfeed at Friendfeed.com. There’s been a fair bit of controversy over the new release, particular on the UI front, but overall the feedback has been positive.
So what’s new?
A fair bit actually. Most significantly, the new UI and a focus on real time notifications. Friendfeed have also introduced more complex search features and the ability to save these providing an awesome way to filter content shared.
Friendfeed have also provided a space to enter profile info into your Friendfeed profile, an enhanced reshare option, keyboard shortcuts and more.
Whilst the new Friendfeed has been available to all via beta.friendfeed.com, ‘Friendfeed by Email‘ is a brand new feature released just today.
Taylor explains:
Post new items to your FriendFeed by emailing share@friendfeed.com. You can post to groups by emailing groupname@friendfeed.com, and you can direct message your friends by emailingusername@friendfeed.com.
You can also choose to get your FriendFeed posts and comments delivered directly to your email inbox (see your email preferences), and even comment on entries simply by replying to messages.
While we’ve been testing this new feature, we’ve used FriendFeed groups to completely replace all our internal mailing lists. And we’ve loved it! It’s been easier to share screenshots and links, and we’ve loved being able to post and respond to all entries from the comfort of our email inboxes. Try it for yourself instead of a mailing list.
There’s bound to be plenty of neat new features even we have yet to discover so for now, we recommend visiting Friendfeed.com to check it out and read the new FAQ’s.
Written on 27th April 2009
18 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
As we noted just earlier today, Facebook have released an API for the newsfeed making it possible to essentially recreate your Facebook news stream elsewhere. Personally (as a geek), I’m delighted. Deep down however, for the average user, I’m concerned.
See, the news is likely to generate a mass of new interest from geeks and web enthusiasts, many of whom had hoped access to their personal streams would be available outside of Facebook. This of course is wonderful for Facebook and wonderful for other tech heads like me too.
For non-geeks however, the news (once they find out about it) is likely to confuse and quite possibly scare. Most non-geeks simply won’t be aware of the fact that their updates, which include media, are actually going to available to users outside of Facebook.com. Most non-geeks aren’t even aware of the fact that they can customize their Facebook privacy levels to a tilt, and even if they are, they’re unlikely to know how to do so.
The Difference
There’s an enormous difference between Facebook and Twitter which Facebook appears yet to realise, or has simply forgotten. Facebook stores an incredible amount of information from peoples daily lives, including media, personal and contact information. Whenever any of this changes, it appears on your friends news streams BY DEFAULT. Pardon the capitals, but the point needs stressing, Facebook members need to therefore realise that virtually everything they put on Facebook is now going to be made available outside of Facebook, destroying this private network of sharing they have all come to expect and appreciate. (more…)
Written on 27th April 2009
3 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Facebook have just announced news of a dramatic change to Facebook’s core offering, the news stream.
Via the new Open Stream API, developers can create applications to read and interact with the stream, as you would do on Facebook.com.
“With these new methods, you can access the stream on behalf of a user and then filter, remix, and display the stream back to that user however you choose, wherever you choose, in the manner most relevant for the user experience. Other new API methods will allow users to both publish into the stream and to add comments and ‘likes’ to posts in the stream.”
This means desktop applications like Seesmic Desktop (who already have it (partly) integrated) and web based apps like Friendfeed can interact directly with the Facebook news stream (via a single API call apparently).
Written on 15th April 2009
1 COMMENT Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Launched just a few days ago, the DiggBar was initially met with some excitement, however it wasn’t long before excitement turned to frustration and people began voicing theirs.
Digg, despite its size and on many levels proving the DiggBar to be a success, have once again listened to their users and made alterations to exactly how the DiggBar works.
Here’s the run down:
1. If you are a Digg member and have selected not to see the bar (in settings), you will never see the bar.
2. If you are not a Digg member, you will never see the bar.
3. If you are a Digg member but not logged in, you will never see the bar.
Need to give credit where it’s due, Digg have listened and with just a small change to how the bar actually works, it should leave most users content that they can control whether they see it or not.
I expect further customization options to appear soon. The ability to only see the DiggBar when one of your (Digg) friends have Dugg the post or when the post has already received over 300 Diggs for example would be a welcome addition. That should ensure you’ll only need to view the DiggBar on Digg worthy content.
Note. Although confirmed, you should see these changes should be implemented over the next few days.
Written on 1st July 2009
6 COMMENTS 
RSS is far from dead. Google have continued to show their commitment to it by frequently adding new features and updates to a product with minimal advertising (for now), a whole lotta usefulness but an enormous long term potential.
Facebook have
Launched just a few days ago, the DiggBar was initially met with some excitement, however it wasn’t long before excitement turned to frustration and people began voicing theirs.
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 
