Starting Wednesday, e-mail helper Cc:Betty has a new look. It now puts cc'd e-mail conversations in a threaded view, so you can look at past correspondence and catch up quickly. You're also able to sort out messages in each of those threads by person, attachment, and included links using filters that remain on the side of the screen.
The service has taken a similarly simplified approach to viewing both links and e-mail attachments by presenting them as thumbnails. This lets you very quickly parse through attached content without visiting your mail client. And using the aforementioned filters, you can choose to only see things like images, videos, or links from an entire conversation thread.
The simplified view lets you sort by attachment, as well as see items like photos and links with thumbnail previews.
(Credit: Cc:Betty)In a phone interview on Tuesday, Cc:Betty CEO and co-founder Michael Cerda told me the next big step for the service is to make it easier for its users to go through the motions of cc-ing Cc:Betty. Right now you have to do it manually every time you send an e-mail--a move that arguably gives users far more control over which conversations they choose to organize and aggregate, but can be a pain for heavy users.
To alleviate that, Cerda says some automation tools are in the works, such as browser and e-mail client add-ons that should give users the ability to make the cc-ing a part of the usual routine, or to choose which bits they want the service to keep track of.
Cerda also told me that he's looking forward to Google's Wave product since it's putting conversation management in the spotlight. "The Wave is a monster initiative," he said, "but I see us as being a simple, relevant, and invaluable version of what some of that wants to deliver. With the right mashup integration, there's a tremendous opportunity."
Cc:Betty continues to be a free service, although Cerda says that it will eventually get advertising. "We have instincts around (making money). How can we leverage the fact that Betty has a persistent view of all the data that is coming in and out. How do we not screw up the user experience?" he said. "When Gmail came out, and they put ads in it, people kind of freaked out at first, and all the ads aren't that great. There's an opportunity because of all the widespread range of all the data sources. It's not just about text, so we can present things that are potentially valuable for users."
Cerda says that long before ads make their way to the service, he wants to make sure his company gets it just right. And even when ads do arrive, he's not going to use the service to spam people with offers.
"Betty is this trusted persona," Cerda says, "so the last thing we want to do is violate that trust."
Cc:Betty starts by collecting messages in the e-mail threads you care about.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET Networks)Cc:Betty, launching at this week's Demo 09, is a clever online assistant that tracks e-mail conversations.
Using it is simple: you copy betty@ccbetty.com on an e-mail, and it creates a Web-based "mail space" for the thread. The system parses out dates and locations as downloadable calendar items and map links. It also creates catalogs of media items (pictures and videos) and files that are attached to messages.
The service catalogs the components of a conversation: the people participating, links, dates, images, files, and so on.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET Networks)There's nothing in a Cc:Betty mail space that isn't stored inherently in the e-mail messages themselves, but the system's cataloging and feature extraction makes mail threads more useful and much easier to navigate if and when they get convoluted with a lot of people chiming in.
Unlike the mail client add-ons (in particular, Xobni), Cc:Betty works with any e-mail system. Also unlike Xobni, it's useful to everyone in a conversation, not just those who have installed the Xobni add-on.
Using Cc:Betty reminds me of two different experiences: 1) Bug tracking system Bugzilla, which is a product some companies (like mine) use to track conversations around software development. 2) Tripit, the travel planning assistant that works like Cc:Betty: you cc it on your travel plans and it creates a useful record of all the related content for you.
Cc:Betty is missing a critical feature right now: it has no search function. That's supposed to be coming in about a week.
The service is free at the moment. Signing up is automatic if you copy a message to betty@ccbetty.com. A paid, premium version with additional features is coming.
In a move to make videos easier to understand without volume or for the hard of hearing, YouTube has given users the option of embedding closed captions that show up as semitransparent overlays. Caption files that have text dialogue synced up to the proper timestamps can be uploaded during the time of upload or afterwards, and YouTube has provided multiple language support to let viewers swap between different languages of a single video without having to leave playback.
Videos with closed captioning have it as an option in the lower right-hand corner menu; a part of the user interface that also houses the toggle to turn video annotations on and off. Even with the inclusion of closed captions you can continue to keep annotations enabled, although the two may overlap if annotations have been ledged on the bottom of the screen.
Videos with closed captions appear as on-screen overlays. You can also swap between multiple languages if the video author has provided that as part of the file.
(Credit: CBS Interactive)For now closed captions can only be seen on YouTube. Embeds do not yet have the option to have them toggled on, just like annotations are not yet available.
Also, no news yet on if this feature will be making its way to mobile versions of the site, particularly the iPhone application which does not yet have support for YouTube's warp or on-screen annotation features. Considering that the iPod Touch does not have an external speaker built-in, having closed captions on the go could make for a much richer mobile experience.
There's already a small handful of content providers including closed captioning in their videos, including CNET, MIT, and the BBC. Of the bunch I think the most useful is for video lectures, although for non-native language speakers, seeing a video in your own language (if available) is pretty darn useful. If you want to see it in action go check out this episode of Blassreiter which is entirely in Japanese--and awesome.
When I was in college, I took a film class. When it came time for postproduction on our action movie, my group and I scrambled to come up with some decent sound effects and ambient music without having to go back and rerecord new sounds, or create something catchy in Garageband. Most of the Web resources we ran into just didn't cut the mustard when it came to finding copyright credit. Our solution was to use the small assortment of audio CDs from the school library that contained short, public domain sound effects--a process that required first loading and unloading CDs into our computers, then ripping the tracks into various formats. This may not seem like a lot of work, but getting access to those CDs in the first place was the hardest part. My guess is that the novice podcaster, and other aspiring filmmakers have run into similar problems when starting out.
Enter SoundSnap, a database of public domain sound effects and audio clips that have been tagged, categorized, and created by users. Previews play right when you click the button, and you can download them right away in multiple formats (MP3, AIFF, and WAV).
There are all sorts of ways to track down sounds, either by category or tag. The categories are intelligently broken down into 16 thematic chunks, then separated again so you can drill down to find what you need. The tag cloud also makes it pretty easy to see what's the most prominent set of sounds per genre.
The social aspect is also fascinating. Registered users can show off their work on their profile, and keep a list of their favorites from other users. They also get their own tag cloud, and optional contact information--which could be useful if you're trying to credit them, or get in touch.
I really wish I had a service like this around when we were wrapping up our film. It really does just make things a whole lot easier. If you're into these services, it's also worth checking out The FreeSound Project, The Internet Audio Archive, and ccMixter.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
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