Amazing (new) things with Picasa

Two new things worth mentioning about Picasa.

1. Face recognition: now I can put a name to every face in my photo collection. It automatically scans all of them and let's me tag them easily. Every new photo I upload will be automatically tagged. Now I get to search (yes, SEARCH!) for photos of Elvis and the Guru Pitka too. Couple that with my collection of (thousands of) photos, and you get... thousands of "meaningful" photos. Love it!
   
2. Upload photos by email: nothing revolutionary, but new for Picasa. Nice add-on, as I can now send photos straight out from my phone using MMS. Uses the secret key approach, e.g. nickname.secret@picasaweb.com
   
3. Picasa 3: a new desktop client which lets me sync up all my album edits on my desktop (e.g. changing captions) with my web album. Another item taken off the must-have list.
   

OK, that's three new things. It's been a while since I last posted something geeky (cool).

Can you break dance like these guys?

Ever wanted to learn how to do the break dance? No better way than learning from my buddies. They've been working on their routine for a while now. I can't wait to hit the dance floor with them!



What do you think?

Make a comments widget in 10 minutes

I've updated the Recent Comments widget on the sidebar. Given the limitations of my Blogger template, I made use of the Blogger comments RSS feed + Yahoo! Pipes + Google Reader's clip. It now displays the author's name, followed by an excerpt of the comment (still dont' know how to extract X number of words from a feed element in Pipes - anyone know how?)



Is this widget better than the previous version?

Advertlets.com hijacked - Update (1)

Advertlets is back online. They had an "issue" with their domain name.

I've decided not to put them back on my blog.

Related post: Advertlets.com hijacked

Advertlets.com hijacked

Ranga pointed this out a few minutes ago (thanks "bro").

If you've tried to visit my blog over the last 24 hours, you would probably have been redirected to Adbaaz.com, a notorious advertising network. Unfortunately, this was due to the Advertlets banner that I had running in the sidebar - my apologies!

Turns out that the guys behind Adbaaz have hijacked the Advertlets domain name (advertlets.com) after it expired on January 3, 2008. This is a terrible crisis that could have been avoided for no more than US$10 - that's how much it costs to renew a domain name.

It's strange that this crisis has hit Advertlets. One of the founders, Josh Lim, was the man behind the WhoIsAdamKing.com "coup" in 2002. I guess karma does bite you back in the ass.

I think this may spell the end of Advertlets, especially in terms of reputation; but let's wait for them to give their side of the story.

Startup tip: Live on the edge!

Jason Fried of 37signals answers the question: "Will you ever hire more people?"

Absolutely. We could use another person or two right now, but we also like feeling the stretch. The edge is where you are forced to be creative. It's where your decisions are sharper and more informed. You make calls because you have to, not because they are convenient. "We can't do this right now because that is more important." Being at the limit forces you to think about value and we think that's a great place to be.

(*p/s: reminder for myself when I get back into the fray -- can't wait!)

Top 20 Facebook apps

As of October 5, 2007:

1. Top Friends (Slide)
2. FunWall (Slide)
3. Super Wall (RockYou!)
4. SuperPoke! (Slide)
5. Video (Facebook)
6. X Me (RockYou!)
7. iLike
8. Movies
9. Graffiti
10. Likeness (RockYou!)
11. My Questions (Slide)
12. Quizzes
13. Mobile (Facebook)
14. Free Gifts
15. Booze Mail
16. Compare People
17. Honesty Box
18. (fluff)Friends
19. Vampires
20. Scrabulous

Stats compiled by O'Reilly Media. Download the top 200 (Excel). Also read the Techcrunch analysis.

*p/s: Ranga, Vicky - please stop bashing each other up in the Fighters' Club!

Want a Pownce invite?

I have 3 invitations to Pownce.

What is it?

Pownce is a way to send messages, files, links, and events to your friends. You'll create a network of the people you know and then you can share stuff with all of them, just a few of them, or even just one other person really fast.

It's a startup co-founded by Kevin Rose, one of the guys behind Digg.

First-come, first-served basis. Leave a comment on this page, linking back to your blog. An invite will then appear in your Inbox within 24 hours.

Map of Online Communities

...and related points of interest. Very cool, don't you think? I think Facebook is bound to invade other territories soon.



Thanks to xkcd.

Is your website worth more than mine?

Mine's worth a paltry US$508 according to dnScoop.

I doubt this can serve as a final authoritative value, but it does give a good overview of what is valuable. It provides an illustrated report detailing the estimated value based on your website's pagerank, Alexa traffic rank, inbound links and number of indexed pages.

Go ahead, beat mine!

Related links:

• dnScoop: Domain name value, history & stats tool

The next revolution for images on the web

Sometimes it's the simplest innovation that sparks a (gold)rush. I like this new technology from AdBrite which is aptly called the BritePic. Likewise, Techcrunch claims that the technology will redefine the img tag. Check out the demo video below:



What all this means is that you can now embed additional *stuff* on images / photos, which would mean more ways to monetize one of the greatest bandwidth-hogging items on the Internet. Watermarks, logos and ads beneficial to advertisers / copyright owners, and additional community features such as sending to friends, linking, embedding and zooming (nice!)

Here's one I just created. This is a photo of my buddy, Edmund, who celebrated his birthday yesterday. He had a blast of a party in KL! Try zooming in to see his sweat beads.


Related links:

• TechCrunch: Redefining the img tag
• BritePic: official website
• AdBrite: official website

Want a Joost invite?

Update: Ivan got the invite for being the first one. Thanks to everyone that sent me an email. I'll be sure to dish out invites to you as and when it's made available to me.

---

Prashant reminded me that I can invite friends to Joost. I've got one invite left. Keen? First person to emailme [at] praveenrajan [dot] com, "wins" the lucky invite.



Marketing 101: Scarcity is a great way to create buzz!

Beta testing Saturday with Joost

Just tried out Joost -- TV that runs on a P2P network (and that I can put on standby!). Beta version seems decent, although limited in channels for now. I've been watching National Geographic for the past hour without any lag.

Wired Mag covers Joost in their February edition. A must-read as it also provides some details on the technology which they sum up to be Lego-like -- about 80% of the technology is based on open-source / open standards which reduces the time to build and market.

Joost is the brainchild of the makers of Skype. World domination? Probably.



Related links:

• Joost: Official website
• Wired: Here comes trouble

Why I wouldn't take seat 38K on a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 747-400

SeatGuru provides good information on the best seats for most of the major airlines. Check out the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 747-400 -- it explains why seat 38K is not a good seat. Here's a screenshot of the Malaysia Airlines seating capacity:



Here's an excerpt of SeatGuru's features:

• Detailed seat map graphics
• In-depth seat specific comments denoting seats with limited recline, reduced legroom, mis-aligned windows
• Color-coding to help identify superior and substandard seats
• In-seat power port locations
• Galley, lavatory, Exit Row and closet locations

Related links:

• SeatGuru: Malaysia Airlines Boeing 747-400
• SeatGuru: Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400

Smart way to get users to complete their profile

Here's how Geni did it. Simple and sweet!

Geni indicates your progress in completing your profile by displaying it in a large percentage format, e.g. -- Your profile is 30% complete.

Profiles are usually lengthy and cumbersome, but this seems to be a simple way to incentivise users to complete it. I like how they've gone the extra mile to tell me how I can complete it faster, with breakdowns of what they consider to be important sections.

Nice work, Geni -- keep it up!



Related links:

• Praveen Rajan: Tracing my family tree with Geni

Tracing my family tree with Geni

I've just started using Geni, a new service that allows you to trace your family tree. The application is really easy to use, and is one of my new benchmarks for Web 2.0 apps.

Here's how they describe it:

Geni lets you create a family tree through our fun simple interface. When you add a relative's email address, he or she will be invited to join your tree. That relative can then add other relatives, and so on. Your tree will continue to grow as relatives invite other relatives.

Your family tree is kept private at all times, and is only accessible by those within the tree. It's extremely viral, as it sends an email to every new family member. There's no complicated registration process; just the basics of a family tree in a neat Flash app.

I've spent the past hour adding my immediate family members, and those on my father's side. I've just realised that I hardly know much about my mother's side of the family. I'm addicted to it now, and hope that others in my family will continue to update the tree.

My hunch is that the technology seen here will explode on to the mainstream soon as it simplifies the method of creating a structured network to show how everyone is related. We could possibly replicate this to many different social circles, especially those where the types of members are easily defined and constricted to a set. Expect to see lots of new innovations centred around Geni soon. I sense a commercial API on the horizons, despite the privacy concerns.

Related links:

• Geni: Official website
  
• Techcrunch: Geni Launches (read the coverage & comments)
• Wikipedia: About Web 2.0

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Better known as the Amazon EC2. Somehow I missed the coverage about this innovation back in August 2006. In my opinion, it's a revolutionary product.

This amplifies the fact that the cost of building a web-driven business is dropping significantly. It makes more sense now to bet on reliable services built to scale and be readily available 24x7 -- $72 for a workhorse server is value for money.

Excerpt from Techcrunch:

Amazon Web Services are readying their latest service called EC2 which will allow users to setup and run servers and computing capacity in the cloud. Users of the service can setup a server instance which is hosted with Amazon, and then access and use the servers they setup just like any other. With EC2 there would no longer be a requirement to source and setup physical hardware and the virtual server instances are charged back to the user based on the CPU, storage and bandwidth usage.

The pricing of EC2 is 10 cents per instance hour (which comes to $72 per month for a server that is always available), 20 cents per GB of bandwidth and 15 cents per GB of storage (storage is with S3). Compared to traditional server providers such as ev1servers this may not be priced low enough (especially the bandwidth cost, considering most hosting providers include 2000GB or more of bandwidth) but it may prove to be a good solution for some users.

Now all we need is a robust geographical spread of such facilities to cater for customers outside of North America. With the recent Asian Internet crisis, it is imperative that businesses aim to cater towards their local / regional target markets first.

Related links:

• Techcrunch: Almost Exclusive: Amazon Readies Utility Computing Service
• Amazon: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
• BBC: Asia communications hit by quake (26 Dec 06)
  

Nice spin to a private beta

I like how Flikzor has added some fun to the private beta application process. Everytime you hit http://flikzor.com, you will see a counter indicating the number of passes left. That's a nice spin, even if it's trivial. Here are some screenshots of the application process that leads to a registration page.








I've registered and explored the range of features in the beta -- they've got some good stuff brewing. I haven't been able to publish my personal video greeting yet, as the playback seems to be timing out frequently. Will post one of their widgets once this issue is resolved.

Related links:

• Techcrunch: Flikzor Could Get Viral In A Hurry

Person of the Year - YOU

Time has named the Person of the Year in their Dec 25th issue. It's YOU (and me!)