Privnote: turn every note receiver into Ethan Hunt

Written on 8th July 2008                                                                                                              3 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Alright, I’m getting in the mood for this post by turning on the theme song of Mission Impossible – as there’s now a web app which makes it possible to send messages that self-destruct. Privnote allows you to send somebody a message, which the recipient can only read once. After that, it will vanish and become irretrievable. Remember the notes Ethan Hunt received?

Although the comparison goes a long way, the actual destruction of the notes you send with Privnote isn’t that sexy. No exploding sun glasses or whatever, just a link that works only once.

On top of this, Privnote also supplies you with some insightful information. You can tell whether the link has been eavesdropped, and get a notification when the recipient clicks the link. But the best feature of all, you can withdraw the message if you suddenly feel sorry about it. How many relationships will that save?

Screenshots

The developers of Privnote have built the app by using Django and Python and run the service on a https-secured server. This looks all safe and sophisticated, but there’s one big security leak in the whole idea of Privnote, as recipients can just make a screenshot of the message – and save it for life. I don’t think there we’ll be a solution for that soon, so you might want to consider whether you really want to use Privnote for its original purpose.

Try the teenagers

To me, it more sounds like a way to have fun, or to give the message a little more weight. But I think there’s a target group that will be absolutely ecstatic when they hear about Privnote: teenage girls. Like they already secretly share notes in classrooms, they can now also send each other “secret” messages via the web. So this web tool is basically begging for a social network widget. I think the “send secret message” Facebook app will become a huge hit. And maybe Tom Cruise is still cool enough to be the mascot?

privacy, private messaging, privnote, web application

3 Comments »

Want to impress people with your Flickr pics? Use Animoto

Written on 5th February 2008                                                                                                              15 COMMENTS
Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick

I’ve been checking out a lot of new companies and services, but this was the first time I took out my credit card to buy a Pro account within 5 minutes! The service is called Animoto and my prediction is that it’s going to be huge! So I have to share this with you.

Animoto will turn your photos into a video clip that will blow your audience away. Yesterday I’ve made a videoclip for the Bowlr event of last Thursday. You can upload your photos or import them from a third party. Imports from Flickr, Facebook, Smugmug, Photobucket and Picasa are supported by Animoto. After importing your pics you can upload any mp3 file or choose a song from their music store.

Their software will analyze your pics and music and compiles a sweet, sexy and impressive video clip for you.

Check out my first video clip: Chaos @ Bowlr 2008 (feat Lupe Fiasco).

You can try it yourself and make a 30 second clip with a free account, but be aware of the consequences. There’s a big chance you get addicted to the service, grab your credit card, click the ‘I’ll pay you 30 dollars a year’ button and start making clips of your holidays, events, marriages and may be even your pet.

Is it all one big hosanna? Well no, it doesn’t support MP4 files meaning that music bought via iTunes cannot be used in your clips. The interface works fine, but you need to upload your photos every time you want to make a new video. All together this is still my favorite web app of 2008.

animoto, photos, Video Interview, web application

15 Comments »