Tele-Services

RawSugar

This service is basically a bookmarking service. It allows users to upload and create bookmarks. It seems that one can only create a bookmark through a button in the browser (which is a bit to limited).

There is however a strong emphasis on searching as well. Users can browse some predefined searches (top 10 people, searches) or do a free search on the entire database. A user can search through his own bookmarks based on tags (a few are suggested) or do a free search on his own bookmarks.

• Structured MicroContent - YES, bookmarks;
• Data Outside - NO, although one can upload bookmarks from the browser or import from del.icio.us
• Licenses - NO;
• Feeds Galore - YES, there are some of feed possibilities;
• Web API’s - NO, not that I am aware of;
• Desktop Integration - NO;
• Single Identity - NO;
• MicroWeb - NO;
• Wild Structure - NO;

tags: microcontent; type; bookmark; service; wildsugar;

Jeteye

Jeteye is a combination between a search service and a bookmarking service.

The search service allows users to do a free search, which uses Google, but one can change to other search service providers. The search service also searches the Jetpaks created by users. Jetpaks are collections of links, images and notes. These Jetpaks are created by users of the bookmarking service. Search results are shown in reverse time-order. Each item shows the title, a summary and a link of the Item. A user can expand an Item to see the full web-page.

The primary service seems to be a bookmarking-service. A user can create collections called jetpaks. A jetpak can contain bookmarks, image urls and notes. One can assign a title and tags to a jetpak. The most interesting feature however is that it is very easy to add a search result to a jetpak: just clicking a button.

• Structured MicroContent - YES, it recognized bookmarks and images;
• Data Outside - NO, it is not possible to subscribe to other bookmark services.;
• Licenses - NO;
• Feeds Galore - NO, where is the RSS of a jetpak?;
• Web API’s - NO, not that I am aware of;
• Desktop Integration - NO;
• Single Identity - NO;
• MicroWeb - NO;
• lc Structure - NO;

tags: microcontent; type; bookmark; service; jeteye;

The Personal Bee

This Service Providers delivers an information service based on the blogosphere. It provides several Public Bees, which cover a subject area. For each area the user can see the relevant tags and the relevant blog items. Clicking a tag, the user gets the associated news items. The user can also get a RSS-feed of a Personal Bee. The main difference with a normal search service is the fact a human being helps with the aggregation.

It is also possible to signup as bee and create your own channel.

tags: microcontent; type; blog; service; thepersonalbee;

Technorati

Technorati is a search engine, but has a limited search realm: only blog space.

The basic search service allows a user to do a free search (with booleans) in the blogs they aggregate. Interestingly also the bookmarks from del.icio.us/furl and the images from flickr are presented in the results. The results from del.icio.us/furl and flickr are however based on the tags related to those microcontent types. This search service is also geared towards MicroContent as one can search just for tags (or multiple).

A variety of predefined searches can be carried out: the most popular, tags, related tags, popular blogs, books, news, movies.

On the publisher side they have an interesting feature that allows them to close the loop: claim your blog. This allows publishers to add a photo to their blog.

The results are presented in inverse time order: the most recent items appear first.

• Structured MicroContent - YES, it uses blogs, images and bookmarks, but they also recognize reviews for books and movies;
• Data Outside - YES, all the data is aggregated either from users of third party service providers;
• Licenses - NO, they only have a license for the whole site;
• Feeds Galore - YES, the user can create a watchlist from any query and get it delivered through rss;
• Web API’s - YES, developers can interact in a variety of ways;
• Desktop Integration - YES (reluctantly), it is just standard blog-format, so any RSS reader can be used;
• Single Identity - NO;
• MicroWeb - YES, it uses the tag-field in three MicroContent types to bring it together;
• lc Structure - NO;

tags: microcontent; service; search;

Consummating

This is a service that brings supply and demand together. It is a Broking Tele-service. The product that is brokered is the user themselves. It can also be called a dating site. The service combines two service sets: one for the supplier and one for the demander. The interesting thing about a people broker is the equality between demander and supplier. Each demander is a supplier and vice-versa.

The supplier service set is actually an Enabling service. A user can set up a profile with information on himself and pictures. One of the most important items is that is part of the profile are the tags.

The demander side allows the user to browse profiles and add comments on profiles. One can add someone to his hotlist and add tags to persons. This is similar to bookmarking. The service also recommends people based on their tags.

The service is not very Web 2.0. Only the fact that there are profiles are Web 2.0.

tags: microcontent; people; service; consumating;

Zniff.com

This Service Provider offers a free search service into the aggregated bookmarks of Spurl.net. A search query covers the url, title and description of a bookmark. It is however not possible to specify which fields must be included in the query or how. It is possible to specify boolean queries.

The results list the title, the description, the url and the number of times it was bookmarked. The results can be ordered by relevance or time. The results can also be viewed as RSS-feed.

Due to the existence of RSS-feeds, it gets a Web2.0 rating of 1/10.

tags: microcontent; type; bookmark; zniff;

Spurl.net

The Service Provider Spurl.net offers a combination of multiple services.

The basis is a bookmarking service. This service allows publishers to enter bookmarks and publish them to the world.

The other service offers viewers the ability to browse and search the aggregated bookmarks.

tags: microcontent; type; bookmark; service; spurl;

Flickr

Flickr is a Service Provider with two types of users: publishers and viewers.

A publisher can upload and publish his images on Flickr. With each image there is a variety of fields that can be filled: title, description and tags. Most interestingly is that one can create hotspots in the image with comments. This can be used to describe who is who on the image.

Viewers can search for images based on the most popular tags, groups or people or interestingness. Some free search options are available as well.

• Structured MicroContent - YES, images;
• Data Outside - NO;
• Licenses - NO;
• Feeds Galore - YES, there are a lot of feed possibilities;
• Web API’s - YES, there are several API’s;
• Desktop Integration - YES, I use an extension to iPhoto to upload images;
• Single Identity - NO;
• MicroWeb - NO;
• lc Structure - NO;

tags: microcontent; service; flickr;

Feedster

TechCrunch reminded me that I never looked at Feedster into much detail. So I had a look to see whether it had something interesting.

Feedster’s basic service is searching the blogosphere. It seems pretty good, so I subscribed to the search RSS-feed. It also allows you to find out who is linking to you. The service allows you to locate relevant feeds based on keywords. I get the impression that a keyword is a word that one finds in the descriptions and/or title of a feed.

The service allows you to look for job opening based on a job title. It gets these mainly from craigslist.org. Do they have a feed just for jobs? I guess this sounds like a need for the definition of a MicroContent type for job openings. Would be great to have aggregators around this.

Feedster also offers a news aggregation service. They have something like feedpapers. This allows you to create a feed based on other feeds. This is a great way of remixing MicroContent Items. It also allows you to create other feeds, such as an ego feed. I think that this is most interesting way an aggregator can go: remixing existing content in an intelligent way to create new feeds.

tags: microcontent; service; feedster; type; blog;

Scuttle

Scuttle is an intermediairy site in that has two types of customers: publishers and viewers. The service revolves around bookmarks.

The viewers are offered a guided bookmark services: recent bookmarks, recent tags. The results can be sorted by date, titlke or url. It is also possible to view the bookmarks of a publisher. And on a publishers bookmark-page it is possible to do a free search on that page. As a registered viewer it is also possible to watch bookmarks (although I did not find out what it does).

On the publisher side a user can add bookmarks or import them from the desktop or del.icio.us.

• Structured MicroContent - YES, bookmarks;
• Data Outside - NO, although it is possible to import;
• Licenses - NO;
• Feeds Galore - YES, it is possible to various RSS-feeds;
• Web API’s - NO, not that I am aware of;
• Desktop Integration - NO;
• Single Identity - NO;
• MicroWeb - NO;
• lc Structure - NO;

tags: microcontent; type; bookmark; service; scuttle;

HotorNot map

Google Maps Mania pointed me to the HotorNot Google Maps mash-up. Interestingly HotorNot has a Web-API. Yet another application of adding images to a map.

I guess that all images on any provider need to incorporate a geographic location. Then one should be able to create a rss-feed of images based on a complex search query, which one could then put up on a map. Guess I have to look into Google Maps to see how easy things are.

tags: microcontent; service; hotornot; type; image;

LinkTracker @ IceRocket

Techcrunch notices the LinkTracker service @ IceRocket. It is a piece of code a user has to put after each blog item. Using it will transfer the user to IceRocket and show the blog items that cite that item.

I think that this is an interesting service. It gives another way to recreate the (broken) comment by showing the links between blog posts. I guess the implementation should be enhanced, so that really the threads between blog posts are seen. And LinkTracker supports the DataLibre idea of staying the owner of what you write. Everything stays on your blog, even comments.

tags: microcontent; datalibre; service; icerocket; linktracker; threading;

Collaborative Rank

Collaborative Rank is an experimental service based on Del.icio.us. It allows to see the ranking of users (I an at 5168). I am not sure how the ranking is determined. It seems to be that the first one to bookmark something, which is subsequently followed by others gets a higher ranking. Also interesting is that an area of expertise is determined bases on tags used. For me it is the tags: tags, tagging, bookmarks, web2.0 and social. Sounds a bit strange collection to me. If you search for a tag, you can see the corresponding bookmarks and the tagging sequences, i.e. the users that tagged that bookmark in sequence.

tags: microcontent; del.icio.us; service; bookmarks; type;

Dinnerbuzz

This service allows users to enter reviews of restaurants. This is the hosting service.

Users can search or browse for restaurants based on location (cities), tags, rating or authors. The user also sees restaurants closeby.

NewsGator

The service offers an online client for reading RSS-feeds.

Import through OPML.