Web 2.0 Expo wrap-up video
The Web 2.0 orgy known as Web 2.0 Expo being finally over, Josh and I thought it'd be good to pick out the most interesting new products and services on display here.
You'll find two of our picks fairly obvious (watch the video to see them), but I bet a lot of people will be confused by our third pick, AirSet. This is a virtualization product. It's a complete cloud PC that you can pour calendar info, Web sites, wikis, blogs, etc., into. Who needs it? That's a good question, and the company's pitch, which claims that nearly everyone is aching for their own virtual PC in the cloud, really misses the mark. But the concept here is important, and AirSet is one of the first companies to try to deliver this type of service for non-geeks. The team still has a ton of work to do before this service has a chance at getting traction, but it's worth watching.
Best swag from the show was at the Instructables booth. Watch to see why.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe.
I've been using airset.com for a few months now and find it a great place to collaborate. The main benefit for me is the sync'ing to Outlook. Here are the four uses I have so far:
- a family group between my wife and myself. She can simply add items to her calendar in outlook, tag it with the appropriate category and it automatically syncs to my outlook. It's an easy way for her to let me know when she needs me home or to cover an appointment with the kids.
- my business partner is not technically inclined at all. I post our appointments and tasks in airset and it sends her a nightly itinerary via email so she is aware of our schedule. We also post pertinent links and synchronize our business contacts. (I have all of our business contacts in Outlook, which syncs to my "personal" group, I then tell airset which ones to sync to our business group automatically. Thus again, I make a simple change in Outlook and my business partner has the changes automatically.
- A friend and I are going on the Mongol Rally in 2009. (www.mongolrally.com) but we live in different areas of the country. We use airset to set milestones in the calendar, share documents and store links to pertinent information.
- Another friend and I are tech fanatics. We use airset as our private del.ic.ous to save interesting links, blog ideas to each other about solutions we're using etc. (He now has a group with his family, including teenagers, that helps keep their schedules in sync)
Although I agree there are some areas airset needs improvements in, the best thing for me is I'm collaborating with four different people, in four different manners, all from one tool. It simply integrates with Outlook, and I can look at all data across the groups in one simple click.
Between my wife, business partner, rally partner and friend, everything is coming together in one spot. If the functionality continues to improve then I won't need a lot of other services like Evernote, del.ic.ous, google calendars etc. I'm for any tool that elimates redundancy.
Obviously I think it has tons of potential. Just so you know, I'm a simple end-user with no connection to airset whatsoever. ;)
Dean
Cochrane, AB, Canada