ReQall is a telephone-based service that records notes you speak into it. I saw a demo of this service at Demo 07 and just recently got access to the private beta. It's like an automated secretary: You talk into your phone, and it transcribes what you say and sends it to you as e-mail. The service could be very useful--if it learns to play well with other products.
Talk about a late lunch...
(Credit: CNET Networks)As is, it's still handy. If you're driving and remember something you need to do, you can just speed-dial ReQall on your cell phone, dictate a note, and when you get back to the office you'll see the task in your e-mail. In my tests from a new cell phone, the voice recognition was spot on (I used a Samsung BlackJack, which is known for good voice quality). It took several minutes for voice notes to get transcribed and sent, though, and I didn't try it from a moving car.
And although ReQall knows the difference between tasks, notes, and appointments, it doesn't do much with that information. All voice notes are sent to your e-mail and flagged with their type, but they're not otherwise packaged as appointments or tasks. So, for example, to make a ReQall note like, "Lunch today with Sam," into a meeting, you have to create a new meeting in your PIM and copy the text over. It would be much better if ReQall knew what calendar you used and either sent you the appropriate attachment (for Outlook users) or logged into your Web-based calendar (like Google or Yahoo) and added it for you. Also, note to ReQall programmers: Lunch is usually at noon or thereabouts, not 12 a.m.
Update: I'm told that ReQall's speech-to-text engine isn't wholly automated. "We use a combination of automated speech recognition technology and human transcription," a company co-founder told me. Which means there may be someone listening to your notes and to-do items. Yikes!
Iqzone is a new service announced at Demo 07 that allows you to post classified ads to the Internet using the camera on your cell phone. Users can create text-only postings or add pictures. The entire process is done by sending your photo and item description in a mixed media text message.
Iqzone is free, and all listings end up on the Iqzone's classifieds Web site. I'd like to see Iqzone build in some sort of integration to post to Craigslist and eBay. The service is being promoted as a quick way to sell things, but I can't help but think that no matter how easy it is to post to--it's going to be an uphill battle to get people to start using yet another classifieds site.
Sample Nexo site
(Credit: Nexo)Pitched as "MySpace for groups" at Demo 07 last week, Nexo is a new Web publishing service that makes it gratifyingly easy to create a site for a club, team, or group of any sort.
There are a lot of easy ways to get a free site on to the Web right now, from MySpace (not a bad solution if you want to advertise your group to 40 trillion teenagers) to Wiki services like Wetpaint, but Nexo's focus on group dynamics pays off. The site is a good option if what you need is to keep a group of people informed and in touch with each other.
Once you set up the framework for your group site by adding elements like a home page, a calendar, and a forum, you can then invite people in your group to participate and contribute to the site.
It sounds humdrum, but Nexo has a good blend of structure and openness. For example, it's easy to set up a simple-to-use photo page, and it's also simple for anybody in the group (who has permission) to add to it, either by uploading their own pictures or by pointing to their Flickr images. Videos work in a similar way.
Nexo supports many item types.
(Credit: Nexo)There are nice little Web 2.0 touches in Nexo that delighted me when I tried the service. Two examples: First, comments or journal entries that people leave on a page are updated in real-time for all to see; you don't have to reload a page. Second, the photo upload tools gives you a quick zoom-and-crop option when you add pictures. It's a little thing, but it makes adding a portrait to your profile page much easier.
If you want to set up a family site, you might want to use Vox, which is based on a blogging platform. But anyone who works with a group or club that could use its own Web site would be wise to check out Nexo.
PreClick announced its photo-messaging service last week at the Demo conference. The free app, called Instant Photo Messenger (or IPM) lets you share photos with others using a simple drag-and-drop interface. On the receiving end, users with the IPM software installed get a taskbar notification letting them know photos have been sent their way. They can then view the shots without leaving the program.
(Credit:
Preclick)
IPM doubles as an e-mail program of sorts, letting you send photo messages to any e-mail address. You also have a contact list, as you would on any other instant-messenging client. Contacts are added automatically after the first time you send them some photos.
IPM also automatically resizes your photos, making it simpler to fit more photos into one message and stay under the 10 MB cap of most Web mail applications. It also lets you view received photos as a slide show. If you use Apple's Mail program, then you're likely used to these features.
PreClick's IPM service is an interesting take on sharing photos. I find it effortless to send shots to friends using regular Web mail, but I can see how some might find it difficult on the receiving end if they're not sure how to view attachments. Another option is to use a photo-sharing service such as Webshots, Flickr, or Yahoo photos and send your friend or relative a URL to that photo set. PreClick's IPM may make it easier to share and view photos, but requiring a Windows-only install on the recipient's side to enjoy some of the cooler features such as slide shows is a big barrier to entry.
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Devicescape)
Devicescape is a free Wi-Fi helper service that was announced at the Demo 07 conference this past week. It's designed to take the struggle out of connecting to various commercial Wi-Fi hot spots while on the go. After downloading the low profile Devicescape application to your PC, Windows Mobile smart phone, or Wi-Fi-enabled handset, you can instantly connect without having to manage log-ins or remember passwords.
The Devicescape client works with a number of Wi-Fi services, most notably T-Mobile's HotSpot service, which can be found in over 8,000 locations (mostly Starbucks). Devicescape is at work on interoperability with Wayport, the Wi-Fi service you find at McDonalds, Hertz, and hotels like Hilton and Marriott.
Devicescape is an ideal service for road warriors and prepared travelers. Managing several different hot spots (airport, hotel, coffee shop) can be a pain, which is why automating the log-in process is a great idea. It's also a nice prospect to pair Devicescape with a VoIP handset since managing log-ins on a 12-digit keypad can be a struggle. There is one catch to using Devicescape: You have to know which services you're planning to use and the log-ins for each, which is why it's a service aimed at the prepared among us.
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's position on the issue.
Helium readers can share the articles they like, invite others to join and, perhaps most importantly, rank the content. It's not just a simple click to vote, a la Digg. Instead, readers who want to rate content are given two randomly generated articles on the same random topic and asked to say which is most helpful. Contributors to Helium get a five-percent cut of the ad revenue from their articles, which is a nice incentive to say informative, rational stuff, or at least yell really loud.
Demo 07 is over. Erica Ogg and I scoped out almost all of the 68 introductions at the show, and it was hard to pick out the best. But we did it anyway. Here are our favorite products from Demo:
Vuvox: Gorgeous multimedia presentation creation tool, designed for the MySpace and MTV crowd. Best demo of a Web app I've ever seen.
Jaman: Indie film site. What makes this service so good? Is it the HD quality, or the community? Nope. It's the content. The team is jetting to all the good film festivals and buying up the streaming rights to the good movies.
Adobe Apollo: Very important cross-platform software platform that will get Internet applications out of the browser. Apollo apps should start showing up this year.
Zink: Prints without ink. Printers can be small enough to fit on a camera. The founders don't want you to say "thermal paper," but that's what it is. Just in color. Or put another way, "Polaroid 2.0."
Eyejot: Supersimple video voice mail. No client required. Both Erica and I are actually using this new service.
Where's the fire?
(Credit: CNET Networks)We still have to finish writing up a few of the new services we saw at Demo 07. There's also a Top 5 list coming tomorrow. In the meantime, check out this slide show from the conference.
Need more Demo? See all Demo 07 coverage from Webware as well as ZDNet's excellent business-focused coverage.
Embeddable video is getting pretty cool. Static preview images seem to be a thing of the past. Blinkx, which is showcasing its service today at Demo 2007, is announcing a new widget called 'Blinkx It' that crawls your blog or Web site to deliver contextual video content. Think of it as Google Ad Sense with videos and no advertising. For example, clicking the 'Blinkx It' widget below will bring up videos related to News.com stories:
This is nice and unobtrusive, but the results aren't necessarily pertinent. In most cases, I was unable to get a smattering of relevant videos with URLs from CNET, Apple.com, and even the NFL. There are some options to tweak how well the widget scrapes for data, but this involves changing code on your Web site, or giving your posts metatags.
What's far cooler--and pulls up slightly more relevant results--is Blinkx's embeddable video preview 'walls.' These let you group together several pieces of video content in one embedded array. Clicking any of the motion thumbnails will take you to the site where the video is located. I've put together one for CNET-related results at the bottom of this post
It's easy to create walls like this. You can quickly choose how many rows and columns you want right from the Blinkx search results. Clicking these thumbnails takes you to the video's source. Also neat is the ability to scroll through pages of content, letting you pack more videos into one embedded array. When using Blinkx's search engine, you can watch the first 30 seconds of each video without leaving the results.
For another multivideo embedding tool, check out SplashCast which we covered yesterday.
I just completed a remodeling project on my house. While I'm pleased with the results and our contractor was conscientious, managing the information around the project was a trial. DesignIn, a new service launching here at Demo 07, is designed for people like me, and the hundreds of thousands of other folks who embark on residential remodeling and construction projects each year.
The two big elements on the site are a collaborative blueprint editing system--where you can sketch out your remodel layout--and a system that lets you collect or "clip" items from the Web and connect them to your layout. For example, if you see a ceiling lamp you like on Restoration Hardware, you can place a link to it at the right spot on your plan. I used the Web clipping service JetEye for this during my remodel, and it worked well, but I like DesignIn's focus.
The DesignIn team also is collecting its own catalog of home improvement goods from around the Web, to make searching for appliances and the like easier.
The service is, of course, collaborative. You can share your ideas with your spouse, friends, your architect, or contractor. What I really like about this service is that the homeowner can kick off the collaboration, instead of waiting for his or her contractor to sign up for the service and start the process.
