Webware

PowerReviews: Cleverest user reviews site so far

Found at the Silicon Valley New Tech Meetup last night: PowerReviews, yet another site that collects user reviews (see also ViewScore, Wize, Retrevo, DigitalAdvisor, and TheFind). But in a diabolically clever way: The company's first product, which has been out for a while, is a technology platform that online retailers use to collect user reviews for the items they sell. Businesses using the technology include J&R Electronics, Adorama, Ritz Camera, and Walgreens. PowerReviews provides user reviews technology free to these and other businesses. In return, it gets rights to repurpose the reviews on its own aggregation site. … Read more

Amateur photographers can try their luck with CitizenImage

At last month's NY Tech Meetup, I heard about Urbis, a peer-review community for amateur writers that also aims to improve their visibility to potential publishers. At the January NY Tech Meetup, the audience was treated to a presentation from CitizenImage, a local start-up that has a somewhat similar aim, but for amateur news and creative photographers. Unlike Urbis, the focus of CitizenImage is less on review and more on publication and monetization. The site allows photographers to upload their images, and then handles the process in which third-party buyers--optimally news outlets and publishers--purchase the photos. Additionally, news outlets … Read more

Change the present in more ways than one

Come to think about it, it's surprising that the current wave of Web trends hasn't moved more into the realm of the nonprofit. You'd think that the focus on "people power," citizen media, and user-generated content would have sparked the imagination of some Bono acolytes with Web development skills. And indeed, there are a few sites out there--Care2 comes to mind--but most of them actually existed well before anyone was talking about "Web 2.0."

But that all could change with Changing the Present, which was one of the presentations at last … Read more

Can Bitwine succeed where Google Answers failed?

At last night's NY Tech Meetup, one of the New York Web start-ups showcased was BitWine, a networking service based on providing paid advice; or, as exec Alon Cohen put it, "a market for knowledge." A Web user may come to BitWine looking for advice that ranges from how to train for a marathon to how to pitch a new company to investors; experts in all subjects may come to BitWine to find a way to cash in on their esoteric and not-so-esoteric knowledge. The site was established about a year ago and launched in full about … Read more

Weblog Awards Nominations: Deadline TONIGHT!

As we posted last week, nominations are out for the 2007 Weblog Awards, or Bloggies. If you like what you're reading on Webware, we'd be more than honored if you'd consider us for the nominations round. The deadline is 10 PM Eastern time tonight.

Webware is eligible for the following categories:

Best American Weblog Best Computers or Technology Weblog Most Humorous Weblog Best Writing of a Weblog Best Group Weblog Best New Weblog Weblog of the Year (if you really love us!)

Apple. Google. Yahoo. Strange bedfellows?

It's pretty obvious: Everyone's talking about Apple's iPhone, from its touch-screen interface to the "close to the ear" sensor to the fact that it's actually called the iPhone (since Linksys did get there first.) But from our perspective, one of the most fascinating and least-talked-about aspects of the just-announced iPhone is Apple's collaboration with Web giants Google and Yahoo on some of the new device's features.

More specifically, Apple has teamed up with Google to bring two of its most popular Web applications to the iPhone: Google Search and Maps. Google's … Read more

At the NY Tech Meetup, animation lessons and iPhone worship

Last night, while CES and Macworld were both raging on into the after-dark hours, I was at the Great Hall of NYC's Cooper Union for the first NY Tech Meetup of 2007. The monthly event was hosted, as usual, by Meetup founder Scott Heiferman, who proudly announced that the NY Tech Meetup had spawned parallel events in 20 cities, and that in the month of January there would be around one thousand meetups held across New York City that ranged from yoga enthusiasts groups to political activist organizations. While some meetups number only a handful of people, this one … Read more

inChorus tries to harness the wisdom of the crowd

Last August, I covered MyCroft, which was making a unique service that broke down tasks, such as translation, that could only be done well by humans. It spread out these tasks as challenges on advertising banners. Cool idea, but it was so way out there that it was unlikely to succeed. And indeed, is hasn't. The company has renamed itself inChorus and launched a new service with that name that takes the original MyCroft concept in a new direction. I got the skinny at last night's Silicon Valley New Tech Meetup.

Now, instead of challenging random users to … Read more

Pinger: When you want to talk at, not with

At the Silicon Valley New Tech Meetup tonight I got a demo of Pinger, a cool little voice messaging service that works on your cell phone. You dial the Pinger number, speak your message to the service, say the name of person you want to get it, and it sends an SMS to your recipient. The recipient gets a text message with a phone number attached to it. The recipient selects and dials that number to hear the message immediately and can respond immediately by voice, too.

It sounds an awful lot like voice mail, doesn't it? It is, … Read more