Content and publishing

Piping in with Yahoo Pipes mashup builder

Ever think that we're just scratching the surface when it comes to mashing up Web data feeds? Yahoo apparently thinks so, too.

On Wednesday, the Web giant released a beta of Yahoo Pipes, a hosted development tool meant to make it easier to build mashup applications that combine different Web feeds. (See this CNET News.com story on Yahoo Pipes for more information.)

The idea is that people use a visual layout form to wire together a series of structured data feeds. Mashups, obviously, can be developed, but Pipes is supposed to make the process of developing them easier, … Read more

Full of hot air? Check out Helium

Wanna talk about the Iraq war on the Internet without igniting a flame war? Helium Debate could be a good choice.

A new feature of user-generated information site Helium, it tries to construct a forum for more civilized discourse on the Web. First launched in October 2006, the site has contributed articles on topics that range from the benign ("Bananas and Their Benefits") and banal (weight-loss tips) to highly inflammatory stuff like "Was the war in Iraq beneficial to U.S. interests in any way?" The Debate feature allows articles to be categorized by the writer'… Read more

OurStory tells your story with a little help from your friends

Want to make a timeline of your life, but can't remember every single detail? That's cool, if you use OurStory, an interactive Web timeline of, well, anything.

The site officially exited beta on Tuesday and launched Wednesday here at Demo 07. OurStory lets users collect and organize photos, videos, and blogs chronologically. It's a social timeline, because you can invite your family and friends to contribute their own content to your timeline or just add their comments. If you prefer, OurStory can be antisocial too; set it so no one can help you or see the timeline … Read more

Ink2 and SharedBook make printing online content a snap

The series of tubes is rife with rich content, but a few companies are finding ways to let us print it on demand.

Do you skip right to the blank-inside greeting cards like I do? It's not just that I hate the contrived sentiments preselected for me, but I want the power to customize. Ink2 could be a good option for extreme customization.

Any content you find on the Web is game. Choose an image, slap it on a card, calendar, or postcard. Fiddle with the layout, pick your text, font, color, size, style, and position. Add a photo … Read more

Blerts: pop-up RSS alerts

ThePort is launching Blerts at Demo 07 today. It's a new RSS application for your desktop. It pops headlines from your RSS feeds onto your desktop, instead of requiring that you go to a RSS page or fire up a standalone app to read your feeds.

The service can be configured to treat feeds differently--you can have some feeds pop up immediate alerts on your desktop, some just display a little icon on the desktop, and others stay quiet no matter what. It's similar to another RSS pop-up app that I like, AlertBear.

The challenge is making it … Read more

Video aggregators at Demo 07: ClipSyndicate and Magnify

Everybody's trying to ride the YouTube wave. At Demo 07, in addition to several video content publishing companies, there are two interesting companies that are working on video syndication and discovery.

First, ClipSyndicate. This site takes licensed videos from various professional sources and makes them available to Web publishers. Site managers can get very specific feeds. The Demo 07 example: a site for firefighters that gets an automatic feed of videos about fires. Looks like a useful service for bloggers and people running industry-specific news sites.

Magnify is similar, but focused on user-generated content (it pulls from YouTube, not … Read more

SplashCast: Share everything in one place

SplashCast, launched today at Demo 07, is a free service that allows users to combine all sorts of media into one master playlist. That playlist can then be embedded on Web sites and blogs or sent directly to friends and family with a simple URL. It's basically the online equivalent of a mix tape. It's similar to YouTube's playlist maker, but with SplashCast, you can also throw pictures, text, and audio into the mix.

What's really cool about SplashCast is that your already-shared media doesn't need to be uploaded again. Pulling videos or pictures from … Read more

Trailfire: More-evolved Web stickies

Trailfire, like the recently-launched ActiveWeave Stickis, lets you attach notes that other people can see to Web pages, and then link your notes together in a trail, like a old-fashioned Web ring. The product has been out since August, but at Demo 07 the company will show how it has evolved its product in a few smart ways.

Users can now leave comments on annotations, making them nice jumping-off points for focused discussions. Also, each "trail" gets its own Web page as a "trailhead." That's so Google will pick up the trails and index them. … Read more

Boxxet packages the Web for you

We recently covered Daylife, a beautifully designed (some would say overdesigned) guide to the day's news. We called it the "anti-Digg," due to its editor-driven content and its focus on design. Today, another content packager launches: Boxxet.

Boxxet collects information on popular topics--sports teams, popular TV shows, consumer products, and so on. Each Boxxet topic (or set) gets links to related news stories, photos, stuff to buy, a Digg-like list of bookmarks, forums, and its own RSS feed.

The organizational scheme is good, and the pages are easy to navigate considering the amount of info they … Read more