Webware

Webwag is a single-page aggregator that's been around for nearly a year now. Like other similar services, it lets users create one or more customized start pages, filled with modules of content that update continuously throughout the day. These feeds can be searched and browsed through a fairly large directory, along with the capability to drop in any old RSS feed. What's a little cooler, however, is Webwag's Widget-on-Demand tool, which will let you grab a live snippet of any Web page, and turn it into its own widget. If you're familiar with the Webclips service on the upcoming Leopard OS from Apple, this does exactly the same thing.

Webwag's mobile version is a simple smattering of widgets

(Credit: CNET Networks)

In addition to displaying widgets on your browser, Webwag also lets its users access widgets on their mobile phone--assuming they have one of the eight supported handsets. There's also the option to send an optimized version to generic phones based on screen resolution. The mobile version provides small, thumbnail-size versions of each widget, which can be rearranged ad hoc via the mobile module on Webwag. Users can click on any of these on their phone to see the entire feed.

I ran into only a few problems trying out the service this morning. The first is that things can be slow going. Having a few of the Widget-on-Demand modules going at a time can get a little laggy, since Webwag is continuously rendering that part of the site, instead of working on something small and simple like an RSS feed. My other quibble is with module rearrangement, which requires users to hover over the zone they want to drop a module until a little red box shows up. If you don't, your module will be relegated to a zone in the bottom of the page where you must pick it back up and restart the process. It may be a small inconvenience, but when you're trying to work with 15 or more modules, the one- to two-second delay is off-putting.

Small quirks aside, Webwag is a really solid aggregation service. It's feature competitive with some of the big boys such as Netvibes and Pageflakes, although it's a bit lacking on some of the extended theme support, module directory, and customization you get on the others. Is it worth using over the other two? While the Widget-on-Demand feature is pretty neat, ultimately it comes down to speed and the module directory--both of which leave me wanting more.

See also: Roundup: single page aggregators

Webwag's Widget-on-Demand service will grab any snippet of a Web site, and turn it into its own widget. In this case, it's the front door of CNET.com

(Credit: CNET Networks)

SpaceTime is a new tool for searching the Web in three dimensions. You can search using Google and Yahoo, or dig deeper into niche services like eBay and Flickr. Results show up in a swirling sky-like environment where you can sort through rendered pages in stacks, similar to Windows Vista's Flip 3D window-shuffling effect and the upcoming Time Machine in OSX Leopard. You can maneuver around any page, and zoom back and forth. To see any result up close, just double-click on it and it will revert to a customized browser window that's running a shelled version of Internet Explorer.

SpaceTime installs as an extension, and is by no means a lightweight Web app. The minimum hardware specs will likely put it out of the range of most computers that are over two or three years old. In our testing, we found it to hog a considerable amount of RAM and CPU, so unless your machine is beefy, you're likely to have an undesirable experience. It's also limited to Windows machines, so Mac users are out of luck.

This is by no means the first venture into the world of turning the internet into 3D. 3B, which launched at last year's Web 2.0 conference, turns bookmarked pages into walls in a Doom-like 3D world. Users of the popular MMORPG Second Life are also able to put up live Web pages inside the virtual world.

Frankly, I really don't find a use for these services. When I am searching for something, I want it to be as quick and easy as possible. If I have time to dedicate to a search, I'm often using multiple search engines or the built-in search on Web sites. While SpaceTime is visually appealing, the amount of resources used and slow search speeds make it too prohibitive to take the place of something like your browser's built-in search box.

Yahoo search results show up as a stack of windows. Users can drift through them, or double-click on a window to view the page in their browser.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

YourMinis, the popular single page aggregator service, has launched desktop integration with its library of over 14 million widgets, using Adobe's Apollo technology. After installing the Apollo runtime and the YourMinis Apollo plug-in on your PC or Mac, you can simply click on any widget in the YourMinis library and click "Add to Desktop." Likewise, there's the option to send any widget to the Web if you'd prefer it to stay on one of your YourMinis pages. It's really well-done.

Once they're on your desktop, you can drag them around, change colors, transparency levels, and various settings for each widget--the usual features that come with a full-fledged widget application.

Mac users likely will be uninterested with the new feature, as they've already got a built-in widget engine with OS X's Dashboard. PC users, on the other hand, now have another free way to put widgets on their desktop besides Yahoo Widgets and Google Desktop. As we've mentioned before, Apollo is still pretty early on in development, and the YourMinis widgets are RAM-hungry. With just four open, they were taking up more CPU cycles and memory than Microsoft Word and Outlook combined. It will be interesting to see how Adobe addresses this problem further along in Apollo's development.

See also News.com's take on how Apollo is 'one-upping' Ajax.

(Credit: CNET Networks)