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Ed. Note: The Richter Scale is a new series on Rev2. Following important announcements, we’ll be interviewing industry experts and featuring excerpts from their commentary on Rev2. We believe the insight of competitors and peers in the industry is essential in evaluating the significance and meaning of events.

Taking a cue from the vast movement of applications to the web, Adobe took a significant step today by announcing Photoshop Express, a free offering for those who “want to store, sort and show off digital photos with eye-catching effects.” The offering focuses a lot on simplicity, but features 2GB of free storage for all users. TechCrunch noted that Picnik, another online photo editor with slightly more advanced features, “is not scared” by Adobe’s announcement. Rev2 spoke to Avi Muchnick, CEO of A.viary, a “rich content creation and distribution” company that’s presently best known for their sophisticated Phoenix image editor. You can her more from Avi in next week’s Rev2 Cabinet, which will be centered around A.viary. In the mean time, he offers an excellent perspective on Adobe’s recent announcement.

Zach Sims, Rev2: What’s your take on Adobe’s announcement?

Avi Muchnick, CEO of A.viary: Let me just preface: I don’t think that Photoshop Express is competition for Aviary, because we cater to completely different markets. They decided to focus on the mass consumer with an offering that is good for red-eye reduction, rotation and some neat finishing effects. That’s great for the consumer level user who is uploading their works to Facebook and wants to do small correcting. Aviary is great for hobbyist level users who want to do advanced special effects. It has layer-based editing more akin to the desktop version of Photoshop, and targeted to more advanced users. This gives our users real access to do anything with their files, no matter how complex the desired outcome. Different markets.

The Sketch Filter in Photoshop Express, One of the App’s Simple Abilities

I also think that this is wonderful market validation for web apps in general. We now have two major publicly traded companies (Adobe and Google) getting fully immersed into the web apps industry. They have a finger on exactly where technology is headed, so it’s a safe bet that web apps is that place.

Rev2: Do you think Adobe stepping into the market will be a tidal wave that propels other players to follow suit?

Muchnick: Well, I hope that will be the case as it will just increase the market validation and force everybody to stay sharp, but I don’t know if this tool will singularly have that much of an impact on web development, any more than other Flash apps that came before it. Platforms are more appealing to me and traditionally cause “tidal waves” when they become opened up for development (Facebook as the case in point). What I’d love to see is for Adobe to focus on extending their platform development and let third parties build out exciting applications in new and innovative ways as a way to promote Flex/Flash. That is what will encourage more developers and companies to look to web apps.

Rev2: Do you think this is Adobe’s first step in assembling a suite of online applications?

Muchnick: I do love that they are offering 2GB of free upload space presumably to be shared between all of their applications. That is a positive sign to me.

Photoshop Express’ My Photos Organizer

Regarding Photoshop Express specifically: I do think this is the first step for Adobe (technically, their second, as they already launched Premiere Express in YouTube’s beta site a year ago). But that being said it’s not a full step in that direction. This is a hedged step intended to promote Flex, add headcount to their marketing efforts, bring in some upsell opportunities to their core products, but at the same time not compete at all with their core desktop products. That last part is unfortunate to the end user.

Adobe, a billion dollar corporation that also owns the Flash platform, ahd the resources to create an actual web-based port of Photoshop with layers, brushes, and selection tools instead of making a consumer light application that most people already have included with the purchase of a digital camera.  I can’t help but feel they deliberately limited themselves as they don’t want to hurt their existing desktop software sales with a coimpeting product.

Rev2: In our Rev2 Cabinet conversation [which will be posted next Wednesday], you mentioned that A.viary was for users who don’t really need Photoshop and do not need to pay for its extensive feature set.  Is this a sign that Adobe has realized the value in that demographic as well?

Muchnick: I think Adobe recognizes the need for a less advanced offering than Photoshop CS3, but I’m not sure they are comfortable hitting that mid-way point where the software really needs to go (and where Aviary currently resides).  Instead they catered to the least advanced type of customer and entered a space that is already well-served by Picnik, FotoFlexer, and other consumer-focused companies.

Conclusion, Zach Sims of Rev2

Adobe’s entrance in the market is symbolic, and Photoshop Express is one of many online apps Adobe is now managing.  Their increasingly large online portfolio, which includes apps like Buzzword, have convinced some, like Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb, to say that Adobe’s building an “online empire.”  Flex is becoming an increasingly important part of the rich internet application movement, and Photoshop Express is an interesting demonstration of its abilities.  We’ll be featuring another application, SlideRocket, tomorrow that also pushes the envelope with Flex, but in the area of presentations.

Avi Muchnick is the CEO of A.viary, a “rich content creation and distribution” company.  He is also the Founder and CEO of Worth1000.com, a Photoshop contest website.  He will be the focus of next week’s Rev2 Cabinet article and podcast.  If you’d like to read more from Avi, please visit the A.viary blog.

Bebo, one of the big players in the social networking arena, will be acquired by America Online for $850 million.  The company has seen tremendous success in non-US markets, like Ireland, where it is presently the top social network.  Its membership of 40 million makes it one of the more prominent sites of the day.  It currently ranks at number three in the United States.

The purchase will finally give the struggling America Online a massive new group of users and a new way to push its Web 2.0 agenda.  AOL CEO Randy Falco noted the importance of Bebo to AOL’s future in a press release, “Bebo is the perfect complement to AOL’s personal communications network and puts us in a leading position in social media.”  AOL.  Bebo was a pioneer in what the company calls the “social media networking” market, and has produced original content for their social network.

The company joined OpenSocial in November 2007 and has made a pretty large commitment to their Platform, working with Facebook to adapt their Facebook Platform to ease adoption of applications on Bebo.

The acquisition is part of AOL’s new social media strategy and will serve as a large boost for the company.  More analysis will follow later in the day.

Ed Note: Apologies for the delay in getting this up — we’re scheduled for every Wednesday but it was completely my fault. Also, apologies for being post silent for the last three days. I’ll be back tomorrow for sure. Thanks!

The Rev2 Cabinet is a weekly investigative series at Rev2 where we take an in-depth look into some of the leading companies, startups, and services. Along with a podcast interview with our associate editor Zach Sims (embedded below and in the RSS feed), leading executives and CEOs offer insights into their startups and services which we analyze with an in-depth writeup. If you’re interested in being profiled, please contact Zach.

[Download MP3] [24:36]

Online advertising is no joke. Recent estimates peg interactive ad revenues in 2007 at $25.5 billion, a 27% increase over 2006’s approximate revenues. The quick moving segment currently makes up approximately 6.1% of the global ad market. An IDC report sees a general pattern that “companies are redistributing advertising dollars from traditional media to online media.” That trend is visible almost everywhere, and what really excites analysts are the prospects of the future. Kelsey Group analysts predict that interactive ad revenues will grow to $147 billion in 2012, and that interactive media will comprise 21% of the global media market.

As companies rush to get in on what is veritably the internet’s own gold rush, there have been winners and losers. Early on, it’s clear that Google is the commanding leader of search advertising, and the company’s AdWords and AdSense dominate contextual advertising. With control of more than 60% of the search market, Google has begun to assert their dominance over other areas, like video. Their $1.6 billion purchase of YouTube has brought them deeper into the video market and introduced a new advertising product for video. As the company grows, so do its ad initiatives. Despite its best efforts, the company’s market share of the advertising market dropped half a percentage point between 2007’s third and fourth quarter to 23.7%.

Google’s Famous Sponsored Links Beside a Search for “Digital Media”

Other companies, seeing unfilled niches and opportunities for innovation, have jumped to fill the void left by Google and its competitors. MixerCast was one of the first companies to fuse together the interactivity of the internet with advertising to create an entirely new field. I spoke with CEO Jen Cooper to learn more about the company.

Social Marketing Solutions

MixerCast has its hands in several different areas of media production, with tools for both the consumer and the enterprise client. In attempting to define the company’s aim to me, CEO Jen Cooper said that MixerCast was meant to help “publishers of digital content” in new innovative ways. She calls the new creations social marketing solutions. In a way, some of MixerCast’s consumer offerings compete with other slideshow creators like Slide and the previously interviewed RockYou. MixerCast’s core product is a widget canvas, allowing users to easily include media from dozens of websites in one easily embeddable object. For example, one could make a MixerCast pulling in photos from Flickr, videos from YouTube, and additional photos from MixerCast partner Getty Images, all synched to music from Pump Audio, another one of the company’s many partners.

Scores of Options Are Offered for Sharing MixerCasts

The partnerships the company has truly set them apart from other widget producers. Their CEO, formerly of Yahoo! and a variety of other web companies, brought previous connections aboard to participate in MixerCast. Some of the more famous participating companies include National Geographic, Universal Music Group, Virgin Records, Warner Music, Warner Home Video, and more. These key partnerships allow consumer users to mix commercial content into something completely new. It’s not quite remixing the songs or pictures themselves, but it’s compiling them in new and different ways.

Starting Small

As with most companies, use cases determined the path of MixerCast. After a while, they discovered that it wasn’t just consumers using their terrific mashup tools. Instead, larger media companies had been using the tool to form interactive advertising campaigns. Noticing this, Cooper changed the company’s focus and began targeting larger advertising projects. The company is currently working with New Line Cinemas on Will Ferrell’s new movie, Semi-Pro. The MixerCast Semi-Pro widget, shown below, is an excellent example of the company’s future. It pulls together promotional content, like the official music video, with a new contest. Users download the music they need to make their own remixes from within the widget and then can re-upload their modified music video back through the widget. Those that interact with the widget can then view the submissions of others. All of this is contained within a large widget that can be easily embedded on dozens of different websites, all to promote the movie.

MixerCast’s New Semi-Pro Widget, Produced in Coordination with New Line Cinemas

For this particular project, MixerCast worked together with New Line’s ad agency, who created the concept. MixerCast helped the agency to make the vision a reality, and the widget is now embedded on dozens of different social networks. As soon as a new video is uploaded, each of the widgets have access to the new content as well.

New Directions

A successful experience with New Line has provoked MixerCast to look into targeting “social marketing solutions” for the enterprise market as their number one area of business. They currently have “projects with every huge movie studio,” said their CEO. The widgets to come, promised Cooper, will be more advanced than what was seen early on with the Semi-Pro widget. Real time interaction is only the first step. She imagines MixerCast used with political campaigns as well as with the entertainment industry. A partnership with Entertainment Tonight has taken their widgets in another direction. The ET news widget brings the latest photos, text stories, and videos together in one cohesive widget experience that can be embedded on any website. The possibilities, emphasized Cooper, are endless. Users are often given the option to “remix” some of the established widgets to their own liking as well.

Entertainment Tonight’s MixerCast, Incorporating Photos, News, and Video

The company’s initial experiences have led them to place more effort into building the creative and advertising areas of the company. A new branch for creative engineers is being established during the first quarter in order to respond to the creative needs of the media companies working with MixerCast. The company’s current focus is on supplying solutions to these new enterprise clients. Normal consumers can still use the tools provided by MixerCast, and can insert advertisements into mixers in order to revenue share. The big change, however, will come with MixerCast’s redesign at the end of the first quarter. The goal of the project is to “make the experience easy to use” for every customer, and to make it “more distributable,” with new ways of tracking interactivity.

A Onetime Pioneer Prepares to Blaze Trails Again

Down the line, the company plans to have a fleshed out pipeline for new widgets and lots of deployments. Their virtual team, located around the world in India, Belarus, Minsk, and elsewhere, will continue to work on the product. The company’s CEO, Jen Cooper, was one of the first evangelizers of streaming media at VXtreme, a company later acquired by Microsoft and made part of Windows Media Player. With time as Yahoo’s Executive Director of Business Development, Cooper brings a wealth of experience to MixerCast. She’s been part of the first online video revolution, and I’m confident that MixerCast will be an integral part of the burgeoning field of interactive marketing and social marketing solutions.

Mobile is the future. As we move closer to the much-hyped era of cloud computing, everything will be online. Desktops will serve little purpose but as gateways to the internet that holds our data and the bulk of our interactions. Mobile, however, will still remain an important platform front in the face of a new generation of Web 2.0 applications. As recent announcements by Apple and Google show, the war for control of your mobile phone is serious.

State of the Handset

As technology becomes more sophisticated, users are carrying more and more in their hands. Years ago, it would have been unfathomable for users to carry what amounts to a music player, a digital camera, and a PDA in their pockets. Now that’s possible, and there’s a whole lot more being done with the mobile platform. While much of it is still relegated to expensive phones like Nokia’s N95 and the Apple iPhone, technological advances are slowly seeping their way into the lower-class line of telephones that most consumers use. Bigger processors and batteries are needed to work with all of this equipment, and the processors in these phones are increasing in speed as well.

The new hardware has prompted a deluge of new, sophisticated software for mobile phones that helps users take advantage of the new technological power of their phone and increasingly widespread access to the internet. Truly sophisticated internet applications are run best with 3G data plans, which are just appearing on phones that top the lines of American carriers. It will be a little while before full adoption of 3G is achieved on the majority of mobile phones.

Presently, there are four players in the phone OS market, the Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Blackberry OS, and Palm OS. Symbian is a variant of Linux available on many Nokia, LG, and Sony Ericsson phones, and the functionality that it gives users is hard to find elsewhere. Oftentimes, however, it proves very difficult for the average user to interact with. Additionally, most Symbian phones are expensive and several must be purchased through the phone manufacturer and not through a carrier. Windows Mobile is spread out on a wide variety of phones on a multitude of carriers. It grants users a traditional experience and tight integration with both the desktop Windows and enterprise-level mail, calendar, etc. RIM’s Blackberry OS, limited to devices manufactured by the company, is in most widespread usage throughout the enterprise level. With incredible tools for the business market, they’ve seen rapid adoption in that field. Palm, who used to be the market’s heavyweight, has now been reduced to a small player.

Google

Noticing an opportunity to jump ahead of the competition, Google launched its own attempt at capturing the mobile platform several months ago with the launch of Android, an open source mobile platform designed to be distributed across a wide variety of phones. While open source endeavors have targeted the mobile phone, none have had much success. OpenMoko’s Neo1973 phone has been popular among hackers and programmers but hasn’t seen widespread adoption by other groups. Google’s Android platform launched with the support of industry veterans and companies that can truly help the company to make a change in the mobile industry. Carriers, hardware creators, and software creators have all joined the effort to make Android the predominant mobile operating system.

Demonstrations by Google show a smooth user interface and tons of capabilities that take advantage of new technology. Android finally makes an attractive, easy to use operating system available to the masses. That, at least, is Google’s hope. Google has stimulated development by creating a seed fund of money to invest in companies that develop for the Android OS. Winning control of the mobile phone is obviously a very important priority for Google, and they’re not playing games with Android. Scheduled to be released towards the end of 2008, it’s shaping up to make a huge splash in the mobile industry. The company is still in talks with many US carriers about becoming part of the project, and there’s no reason to suspect that the plan won’t be rejected. Mobile carriers have enjoyed control over the software installed on distributed phones for years, and ceding that control would change their business model, which currently places lots of weight on mobile downloads like ringtones, movies, etc.

Apple

The iPhone is without a doubt one of the most revolutionary mobile phones on the market (disclaimer: I’m a proud owner.). While other phones provide similar capabilities, none have been able to put everything together in a package as easily accessible and usable as the iPhone. Critics gripe about the iPhone’s poor camera and the EDGE connection, but it’s seen incredible sales and has received tons of praise from industry insiders. The Safari browser, perhaps the hallmark feature of the device, is the first mobile browser to allow users to peruse full websites, rendered nearly without any alterations. It’s not a pocket-sized version of the internet; it’s the whole thing.

Today, Apple took another step in an attempt to accelerate the iPhone’s sales and growth. Steve Jobs’ emphasis on web applications at the device’s launch have created a market of more than 1,000 of them, each created to fit on the iPhone’s gorgeous screen. Yet Steve Jobs acknowledged in October that the phone needed native applications. The announcement came today at an Apple event, where Jobs unveiled both a Software Development Kit, new enterprise features, and a roadmap for iPhone firmware 2.0. The enterprise features bring the iPhone up to the level of a Blackberry or a Windows Mobile phone for corporations. No longer is the phone just for consumers. That, however, wasn’t the biggest news. The new SDK allows developers to finally take advantage of the iPhone’s dozens of innovations - including the accelerometer and the multitouch technology - to build their own applications. Examples of applications included games by SEGA (Super Monkey Ball), a CRM application by Salesforce.com, medical information, and games by Apple and EA.

Perhaps the biggest news to come out of Steve Jobs’ event today was the iFund, a new venture capital fund designed to invest $100 million in development of iPhone applications. The fund, managed by venture capital legends Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, seeks to capitalize on what partner John Doerr claims is a “revolutionary new platform,” something that is “a rare and prized opportunity for entrepreneurs.” Kleiner Perkins claims the focus will be on “location based services, social networking, mCommerce, communication, and entertainment.” I wonder if the fund will be used strictly to pay for native apps, or if it can be applied to web apps that have an iPhone front as well. This new strategy, putting tons of money out there for potential developers, may lure more talent to the iPhone. With a great group of third party applications, Apple’s iPhone may truly become the “must have” device for the sophisticated mobile user.

A New Financial Trend

The establishment of the venture funds by both Apple (KPCB) and Google signals a new and different trend in financing for companies. Company-specific venture funds help to propel growth and encourage intense development. The interesting distinguishing factor of the two funds - other than the fact that Apple’s ($100 million) is ten times larger than Google’s ($10 million) - is the fact that Google’s has no strings attached. Apple’s, meanwhile, is a venture capital fund, meant to bankroll companies that have a shot at success in becoming a public company. Google simply is paying developers that create great products. It will be interesting to see if that leads to a difference in the types of developers attracted to both platforms. Regardless, the tremendous amount of money available to developers will no doubt help to spur further innovation for both of these mobile platforms.

The Big Question

So, at the end of this, who comes out on top? There are endless examples of how money doesn’t always solve problems (looking at Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid is a great example). Apple, despite all the money they have thrown at this iPhone SDK, still have only one device on which the software will run. If Google continues recruiting operators, handset makers, and other companies, they could have their software on dozens, or even hundreds, of different phones. If all a developer is looking for is sheer volume for their application, they would have to go with Google at this point.

The potential advantage Apple has is the quality of their hardware. The demonstrations given onstage showed sophisticated games that really took advantage of key iPhone features like the accelerometer. One game, made by Apple itself, had the

user steering a ship by using the accelerometer. It’ll be hard to do something like that for Android phones, when developers can’t be sure that the user will have a built-in accelerometer. Engadget has a great chart that compares the recently announced SDK with some other mobile operating systems.

The iPhone could be the impetus that gets mobile social networking started. If the SDK ships in June as it’s expected to, then it’ll beat Android to the market by several months (it’s projected to come around late 2008). The location-aware feature of the iPhone makes it one of the most widely deployed phones that is apt for location-based social networking. While it’s been available on phones like Nokia’s previously, the iPhone is the first to bring very sophisticated technology to a demographic that’s not always so technologically advanced.

Conclusion

Mobile is becoming more important each day, and a look at today’s kids show how important it will be for our future. Walking down the street, it’s impossible not to notice the number of young people with their heads buried in their phone, either texting or on the internet. When they mature, they’ll want to own a phone that does social networking, mapping, games, and more. The phone that will provide that is being developed now, and a battle is on for talented developers between Apple and Google, with countless others sure to join the battle.

The Rev2 Cabinet is a weekly investigative series at Rev2 where we take an in-depth look into some of the leading companies, startups, and services. Along with a podcast interview with our associate editor Zach Sims (embedded below and in the RSS feed), leading executives and CEOs offer insights into their startups and services which we analyze with an in-depth writeup. If you’re interested in being profiled, please contact Zach.

Most of the companies that get the most publicity are for personal use only. Yet others, whether they appeal to the commercial market or something else, help to form the very backbone of the internet. Idée Inc. is one of these companies. Idée is a pioneer in the field of image recognition and visual search. The company’s two hallmark products, PixID and Piximilar, target different areas of the market while utilizing much of the same technology. Products still in Idée Labs are also intriguing. I spoke with Idée’s CEO and Co-Founder, Leila Boujnane, about the company.

A New Field

In 1999, Leila Boujnane and Paul Bloore founded Idée with a flagship product called Espion, a framework that still serves as the base technology for the company’s flagship products. At the time, watermarking by Digimarc was the common standard. The technology added a watermark to the image in the form of film grain or noise, and then allowed the image to be identified with that watermark. At the time, most other companies were preoccupied with the process of digitizing their photographs and did not think of tracking them. The founders of Idée saw an opportunity and eagerly sought to create a product that could track clients’ images both in print and online. They proposed a completely new system, utilizing a form of image recognition that’s vastly different from the watermarking used by Digimarc. The technology enabled the company to track pieces of the image, images that have had their color changed, and images with various other changes. Idée Co-Founder and CTO Paul Bloore has an excellent overview of the technology and its immense depth at the Idée website.

In our conversation, Leila emphasized that the key difference between Idée and its competitors was Idée’s ability to scale. The technology, she noted, is “quite simple,” but it’s the index speed that makes Idée superior to its rivals. Faster processing, indexing, and searching speeds have helped the company garner high profile clients. The visual search system, which by most accounts is extremely accurate, “can scale tremendously.” Leila noted that it’s designed “for millions of images,” which she sees as the “future of image searching scale.” Paul Bloore has claimed that Idée indexes millions of images throughout the internet to monitor for clients’ photos. Scalability becomes extremely important with numbers like that.

After perfecting the original Espion technology, Idée formed the PixID product, used by many corporations around the world to track the use of their photos both in print and online. Leila sees image tracking as a field with “great potential,” and Idée has approached the market aggressively. Their largest clients, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, and Adobe, are some of the biggest names in their respective industries. After the rights holders upload their images to Idée, patterns are extracted from the image. Then, the patterns are compared to roughly 5000 publications and 200 million internet images. Finally, the company sends out automated reports to the Idée account each day to recount where the image has been spotted. The original and modified image are shown together, and the portion taken from the original image is highlighted. Additionally, PixID takes a screenshot of the webpage with the infringing photograph to preserve it.

A Match Found by PixID

Reports generated by PixID have a wide variety of uses, and allow users to track their images for billing, to track infringement, or for a variety of other purposes. Digg, the social news powerhouse, launched Digg Images with a partnership with Idée. Idée helps the company to identify duplicate images when they’re submitted. Just as with the company’s other visual search initiatives, it identifies images even if they’ve been modified.

Piximilar targets a different section of the market, providing “similar” images as opposed to finding those that are identical. If you’ve seen “Find similar images” buttons on websites, chances are Idée’s powering one of them. The service proves especially useful for stock photo sites. Masterfile, one such site, has integrated Idée’s Piximilar as SimSearch, allowing users to search their immense stock photo library for images similar in color, shape, theme, or a variety of other criteria. Fotofinder.net uses the idea as well, allowing users to mesh both “more like this” and textual search. Idée Labs hosts a bunch of other consumer oriented searches based on the Piximilar technology. The Multicolr app lets users search for Flickr pictures by clicking on a variety of colors they’d like to be included. Their visual search lab, meanwhile, lets you click a picture and find something similar, just as it’s implemented on stock photo sites. The best part, however, is the BYO Image Search Lab, which lets users upload their own photos and find pictures similar to it.

Similar Images Found With Piximilar

Fresh Ideas for a New Market

Idée is one of the industry leaders in the fields it currently is involved in with Piximilar and PixID. Those products, however, are aimed at a mainly enterprise-level audience. Idée Labs products like the BYO Image Search Lab mentioned above seem prime for the consumer market. Leila noted that Idée was exploring their options in the consumer field and would probably release a variation on their enterprise solutions for aspiring photographers. A hybrid between the BYO Image Search Lab and PixID would be perfect for semi-professional photographers and smaller companies who wanted to protect and license their images.

Leila also confirmed that Idée will be moving into the video market in the first quarter of 2008. As a logical expansion of their activities in the image realm, video features will operate in a similar manner to their image counterparts. “We have to continue to innovate,” said Leila, noting that there are “streams and streams of video” that Idée can be used with. The scale Idée currently can manage with photos will come in handy with video, a field which requires far more processing. Pilots are currently in progress with some of the company’s established clients.

Sound and text, meanwhile, are off limits to Idée. Those areas are “very different problems,” said Leila.

Unique

Idée’s comprehensive suite of photo tracking tools [and soon, video tracking tools] have not been matched by any competing product. I quizzed Leila on a bunch of potential competitors, including heavyweights like Google and Yahoo!. Those companies, she thought, were not threats because they “work in a specialized niche,” text searching. PicScout, meanwhile, tracks images like Idée but only in online mediums. It’s neither as comprehensive as Idée nor as well established. Attributor offers a service like Idée’s, but for text.

Refining Watch Choice by Visual at Riya’s Like.com

Riya launched to a lot of fanfare, and was called “the first true visual image search.” Originally centered around uploading photographs and autotagging faces, etc. the service has now transitioned most of its efforts to Like.com, a visual search engine for shopping. The service basically does what Idée’s Piximilar does, but for shoppers. Users can search using text, color, shape, pattern, and more to find the clothing item they desire. Leila saw a few critical disparities between Idée and Riya. Although they started with facial recognition, they have just moved into image search, and their searches do not, according to Leila, produce enough similar images. The issue Riya tackles with Like is a “very specific problem,” whereas Idée exists more as a software company for images. Idée licenses their technology to companies who themselves could, theoretically, create mashups similar to Like.com.

What’s Next?

Idée was a trailblazer in the field of image recognition, and they’d like to be recognized as such. They were the first to image tracking, and they’re racing to prepare for video tracking as well. Their entry into the consumer market will also be a big change for the company, but they have a solid platform to build upon. Leila told me that Idée strives to sit between “where content is produced and how it ends up being used.” The platform enables companies to collect sophisticated metrics as well, helping them to better target content production. Their roadmap for the future ensures that Idée will continue to be a pioneer in whatever field they choose, whether it’s video or images.

We all have bad days.  Facebook, meanwhile, had a bad month.  So, while it may be the first time in Facebook’s history that their traffic plateaued and declined, it’s not a sign that the company’s headed for bankruptcy.  The company has managed, in a few short years, to become one of the most popular sites on the internet.  To bearish commentators, the visitor drop is a harbinger of the company’s fall.  Yet Facebook, Silicon Valley’s darling, has nothing to fear.

The Shine’s Worn Off
Facebook grew in a field that was crowded predominantly by established players, including Friendster and News Corporation’s MySpace.  With its clean user interface and Harvard dropout founder Mark Zuckerberg, the company posted astounding growth numbers and quickly became one of the big players in the social networking industry.  Facebook became the “it” company, and they began competing with industry powerhouses like Google for engineers and executives, fueling a rise in the average engineering salary.  Executives flocked from Google and Yahoo to Facebook, leaving cushy jobs at the internet giants for a stake in a company that should be, by all indications, IPO-bound in 2009.  Now, Facebook’s established and, following a $15 billion valuation from Microsoft, doesn’t really qualify as a startup any longer.  Google and Yahoo both went through the same thing as they lost the shine of “newness.”  Both have suffered ups and downs in their histories as well.

Openness Prevails
Facebook’s greatest success, the launch of the Facebook platform, set off a field of commentators who believed that Facebook would become an operating system of sorts for the future.  While those predictions were perhaps a little optimistic, the application market on Facebook has rapidly become one of the most lucrative internet businesses.  Startups like RockYou and Slide that once relied on embeds on MySpace and blogs now see Facebook as one of their central traffic sources.  In mere months, an economy has grown around the Facebook platform, and dozens of new applications are created and added each day.  The platform has served as a model for a bunch of other social networking companies, and even has been the underlying platform for similar systems on networks like Bebo.  Google OpenSocial, launched shortly afterwards, is an attempt to bring the social network application market pioneered by Facebook to a wider range of sites.

The Weakest Link
While increasing openness in some areas, the company has kept an increasingly tight grip on the information of their users.  Mark Zuckerberg attempted to incorporate information fro mother websites into Facebook with the Beacon advertising program.  The initiative, originally opt-out instead of opt-in, culled actions from a wide variety of websites like Yelp and Amazon.  User reaction was stiffly against the program, as many users quickly found information they’d like to to keep private snet throughout Facebook to all of their friends.  Initial advertising partners like Coca-Cola pulled out of the program and left Facebook to completely revamp the program.  Articles in the New York Times highlighted privacy concerns as well with the program, and Zuckerberg quickly jumped to defend his pet advertising initiative.

The uproar over Beacon was somewhat similar to the users’ revolt when Facebook initially launched the News Feed and Mini Feed, both of which are now central to the Facebook experience.  Originally launched with little privacy controls, the Feeds report users’ activities to their friends.  After an apology to the Facebook community, Zuckerberg added fixes to the new features and they are now crucial parts of the social network.  Recently, Facebook has taken flak from the web from various media outlets for the difficulty of account deletion.  The controversy, which started after a New York Times piece, revolved around the difficulty of account deletion.  Originally, users could only deactivate accounts, with their information stored in case they would like to reactivate them.  After the outcry, the company has added new tools to faciliate easier and more complete deletion.

It’s a Utility
What the majority of Facebook users don’t realize is that the network isn’t a toy; it’s a utility.  Zuckerberg has managed to harness something real, our interpersonal connections, and give us a forum to digitally display and enhance them.  He’s using technology to seize our real life social network and put it on the internet, forming a “social graph” of sorts.  Facebook can be immensely uesful to those who use it productively.  While the “Hug Me” application may not do much for your business, the ability to collaborate on documents with applications like Zoho inside of Facebook with friends make it an indispensable tool.

For young people, it’s another extension to their digital lives.  While instant messaging and text messaging remain the centerpieces of teen communication, Facebook has rapidly replaced e-mail and other forms of contact.  Every year, with a new crop of high school and college students, Facebook will see lots of new users.  After they discover the benefits of using Facebook, they will most likely stick around.  As the BBC suggests, while adults may quickly tire of the site, teens are picking it up at a quick clip.

The Future is Mobile
The youth of today are more attached to their cell phones than Crackberry addicts.  The continual stream of texting and communication is beneficial to Facebook’s growth, and the company’s mobile strategy seems to recognize this.  Their iPhone site, for exampole, provides users with a clean interface (what Facebook is known for) and can also serve as an on-the-go phonebook.  Need a number, or need to remember what one of your friends looks like?  The place to go is Facebook Mobile.  As this generation grows up, it’s hard to imagine they will lose touch with Facebook until the “next big thing” comes along.

It’s Here to Stay
Facebook became famous as the anti-MySpace, with most people using their real name, clean backgrounds, and more.  Years later, those features remain and serve to make Facebook one of the internet’s most popular destinations.  Facebook isn’t going to stop innovating.  TechCrunch revealed yesterday thta the site planned to incorporate external information in the News Feed, making it a direct competitor to sites like FriendFeed and Plaxo’s Pulse.  Features like these could make Facebook the homepage and aggregator for the next generation.  Web 2.0 icons like Robert Scoble, always eager to make a mountain out of a molehill, make the situation sound dire with headlines like “Is Facebook doomed?”

The answer is simple. While pundits continue to analyze the latest traffic numbers, Facebook is focused on the future, where it should be.  Years down the line, traffic numbers from January 2008 won’t matter much to the company.  Its features, and its ability to respond to customer concerns, will.  The company’s failure to react to the buzz surrounding the release of the new metrics should symbolize their internal outlook.  Sure, Facebook’s traffic may have momentarily dropped.  Just wait, however, for the rise you’ll see in the coming years.

The Rev2 Cabinet is a weekly investigative series at Rev2 where we take an in-depth look into some of the leading companies, startups, and services. Along with a podcast interview with our associate editor Zach Sims (embedded below and in the RSS feed), leading executives and CEOs offer insights into their startups and services which we analyze with an in-depth writeup. If you’re interested in being profiled, please contact Zach.

Podcast
Interview with Jia Shen, CTO of RockYou!
[Download MP3] [50:56]

Now, nearly every website you visit has a widget. Almost everything is embeddable, whether it’s the delegate count for the US presidential election from MSNBC, or something as mundane as a moving cat. It’s hard to argue that they have not been a large part of the explosive growth of viral videos, web games, and more. The pioneers in this field were Lance Tokuda and Jia Shen, the founders of RockYou! I spoke with Jia, currently the company’s CTO, in early June for our Facebook roundtable. We spoke again in December regarding RockYou’s latest growth announcement, in which they boasted that their company was finally the number one widget provider, as tracked by both Alexa and Facebook.

Pioneers Become Mainstays

“We are the leaders,” Jia confidently told me, and it seems as if that’s been the case since RockYou was founded. The slideshow application, easily one of the most used across the internet, was created first by RockYou. Since then, the company has blossomed out to create widgets in every conceivable category, from horoscopes and birthdays to voicemails and “audio accessories.” The growth in the number of widgets RockYou produces has led to an immense hike in the number of hits RockYou’s widgets receive. At last count, more than 130 million unique visitors interact with RockYou’s widgets per month. It’s those kind of numbers that have kept RockYou far ahead of its competition.

A RockYou Slideshow [Kanye West themed], One of the Company’s Original Offerings

Competition Heats Up

A market as lucrative as the one RockYou is in wasn’t likely to see no new entrants. So it was no surprise when Slide launched as direct competition to RockYou. Many of RockYou’s applications seem to be duplicated by Slide, but the numbers RockYou puts out are consistently better than Slide’s. However, that certainly doesn’t discount Slide, which has done its fair share of innovation and stuck out as RockYou’s lead partner. The competition between the two companies is so great that RockYou called particular attention to it in their press release, remarking that RockYou led all application developers “including Slide” in audience. Direct head-to-head competition, between apps like Super Wall and Fun Wall on Facebook, have usually gone RockYou’s way. Today, however, Facebook’s statistics tell a different story, with Slide’s Top Friends and Fun Wall coming in slightly higher than RockYou’s competing application.

RockYou’s Super Wall, the Company’s Most Popular Facebook Application

A Lucrative New Opportunity

RockYou made its name with embeds on popular social networking websites like MySpace, and throughout other websites. The launch of the much publicized Facebook Platform, however, was an incredible new opportunity for widget producers, and most hurried to launch new applications for users. The results have paid off for RockYou, as they now hold many of the top positions on Facebook. Jia highlighted a specific example for me. Their Super Wall application, which allows users to put graffiti on someone’s wall, is far more popular than the app named “graffiti.” I wrote about the “MySpace-ification” of Facebook earlier in 2007, and RockYou is largely to blame for trends like these. Yet, while I’m not such a fan of the clutter many of RockYou’s applications cause, they know their key demographic. Jia claims that RockYou’s widgets help users have “more self-expression” on Facebook and elsewhere. Teens have been fiendishly adding RockYou’s applications all over their profiles, and it’s difficult to browse Facebook without seeing at least one of RockYou’s applications. Partnerships with companies like SNOCAP have given RockYou users access to music and more in their widgets as well. Jia conceded that Facebook was the company’s number one priority at the moment, but that Google OpenSocial would also be something RockYou would use heavily.

Just a Few of the Actions One Can Perform with RockYou’s “Hug Me” Facebook Application

More Than Widgets

It’s easy to generalize and say that widgets are all RockYou’s known for. Besides their exploits in the field of web widgets and Facebook applications, the company is responsible for a wildly successful Facebook advertising platform as well. While the focus is on app installs at the present, the ad network is a fairly large side project. One developer, said Jia, was making over $5,000 per day using RockYou’s ad network.

Ads Like These, Inside the Facebook Apps of RockYou and Others, Have Propelled the Company to Advertising Dominance

Moving Forward

The company is, by all accounts, tremendously successful in most of what they do. Jia claimed that the company’s “reach” was their greatest success. RockYou currently reaches over 100 million people per month, and their staff is miniscule. The company is not content to remain one of the top widget providers, however. Instead, their aim is to be the top provider on every major social network, and to obtain penetration greater than 60%. Their next exploits may come in the fields of e-mail, messaging, and more. And, as they’re primarily focused on the “younger, most viral” demographic, I’m sure there are many of us that will pan their applications as useless. But whatever critics say, it seems like RockYou knows best. Their tremendous success, and their bright future, is enough to convince me that the company is well on its way to achieving the goal Jia laid out for me.

The Rev2 Cabinet is a weekly investigative series at Rev2 where we take an in-depth look into some of the leading companies, startups, and services. Along with a podcast interview with our associate editor Zach Sims (embedded below and in the RSS feed), leading executives and CEOs offer insights into their startups and services which we analyze with an in-depth writeup. If you’re interested in being profiled, please contact Zach.

Podcast
Interview with Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist at Zoho
[Download MP3] [50:56]

Introduction
What does Zoho do? It’s certainly hard to define. No matter how they do it, they’re going about it differently than the majority of companies we write about today. For one, Zoho’s not even their own company. Instead, they’re a subsidiary of a larger, profitable company called AdventNet, which owns other web companies like ToonDoo. AdventNet, founded in 1996, works in the enterprise IT, networking, and telecom industries. In 2004, the company recognized the need for a transition to online applications and launched Zoho in September of 2005. Even though the company is a subsidiary of a far larger company, they act as though they are a startup. I spoke with Raju Vegesna, Zoho’s evangelist, about the company’s history and its future.

Raju Defined

Blown away by the diversity and depth of Zoho’s product line, I had to ask their evangelist, Raju, how he related Zoho to an audience of luddites. The pitch, he said, depended on the audience. Zoho’s wide range of services - including a word processor, a wiki creator, project management software, and more - appeals to a wide demographic. As such, Raju’s primary job is to “educate the market on web apps and collaboration.” From there, he could explain how Zoho fit into that niche.

Online Applications Defined

What, then, makes web apps better than a typical desktop application? In Raju’s mind, it’s as simple as the difference between a mobile phone and a telephone with a landline. With online applications, you can get access anywhere. That’s not the sole allure, however. Raju also noted that the invention of the mobile phone has brought new innovations, like cameras and the features that have come along with them. Before the invention of the mobile phone, photographs had to be given to friends or sent to them via mail. With cameraphones, users can simply click a button or two and the picture’s off to all of their best friends. Zoho brings similar innovations to the areas they work in. Sure, you can word process in both Zoho Writer and Microsoft Word, but Zoho gives you the ability to track your revisions and collaborate with others. Try doing that in Microsoft Word.

The Online/Offline Relationship

Still, not everyone’s ready to switch to online applications for all of their needs, even if the web apps can meet most of their requirements. It’s difficult to leave something you’ve relied on for years and to switch to something completely new and different. That’s evident in Google’s recent product announcement of Google Apps Team Edition. If a company’s not willing to adopt the new web tools that their employees are using, it’s easy enough for individuals within the company to adapt. Zoho, however, makes it much easier for prospective users to make the transition, whether within a large company or within their own house.

Two innovations, the Microsoft Office plugins and the Desktopize software for Zoho, make the jump from offline to online easier than ever. The Microsoft Office plugin, released by Zoho in November of 2006 to widespread approval, helps to make Zoho a storage space for users’ Microsoft Office documents. With the plugin, users can create documents in Microsoft Word or Excel and save them directly to Zoho, while saving an offline local copy if they wish. Additionally, users can edit documents that were started on Zoho within Microsoft Word. This update makes it effortless for users to finally combine what they’ve known with the revolutions of Web 2.0. When you’re at your home computer, you can use Microsoft Word to work on your documents. If you’re away from home, it’s as easy as signing into Zoho. Desktopize helped to create a single site browser like Mozilla Prism for the Zoho web apps. It minimizes to the system tray and acts as if it were a full office suite.

Opening a Zoho Document in Microsoft Word

Zoho’s also one of the company’s that has used Google Gears to make Zoho work offline in the Firefox browser. They beat Google to the punch, and in my experience, using Zoho offline is rather simple. While not as easy and accessible as the Microsoft Office plugin, it’s certainly another way to access a terrific online word processor when the internet is not available. Zoho has differentiated themselves from the pack by allowing users to edit their documents offline, a crucial distinction from the offerings of other companies which simply allow users to read their documents offline.

Raju called it “backwards compatibility,” noting that Zoho can’t leave its less tech savvy users in the cold. Still, he notes, the focus is on converting them to the online application. Raju described the distribution of Zoho’s efforts as 80% online and 20% offline. For a company that’s only putting 20% into their offline efforts, they’ve done some tremendous things for offline users. Their Microsoft Office plugin, the Desktopize browser, and the functionality with Google Gears make Zoho’s offline offering nearly as formidable as their online one. After all, said Raju, Zoho is “here for the long haul” and cannot afford to alienate any user base.

An Online Office? Not Quite…

Zoho does replace typical Microsoft Office products like Word and Excel. As I mentioned earlier, however, Zoho brings lots of new features to the table. In their traditional products, like Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet, the company adds online collaboration like competitors Google Docs and Buzzword. Version tracking is included as well. Pagination is a new feature that Google Docs doesn’t include, and the easy Zoho Start page is a good way to edit documents with a tabbed interface. Raju conceded that Google Docs offered simplicity, but he claimed that’s not what he was after. Instead, Zoho beats Google’s offerings in both breadth and depth. They offer more, and each of their applications includes more features. Switching to Zoho seems like a no brainer for me, and Zoho says that’s been the typical trend they’ve seen. Users typically find Zoho after experiencing something like Google Docs. Finding more features and more applications, they settle on Zoho.

Zoho Start, the homepage for all of Zoho’s apps

A good outline of Zoho’s offerings is available on their homepage, but it’s worth noting the sheer number of products Zoho’s working on. Some of their products, like Zoho Projects and Zoho Planner seem to compete directly with offers from the famed 37Signals, makers of collaboration and personal organization services Backpack and Basecamp. Among Zoho’s other offerings are Zoho Mail (a collaborative mail product), Zoho DB (an online database product), Zoho Meeting (Desktop Sharing & Web Conferencing), Zoho Chat, Zoho Notebook, and Zoho Wiki.

Ease of Use

Much has been said across the web about the Zoho suite, and we’re not the first to praise the service for its usability. I’ve used lots of competing services, like Buzzword and Google Docs. To me, Zoho is the more businesslike environment for word processors on the internet, and that’s advantageous. It’ll be easier for those who are looking for features, not good looks, to adapt. I absolutely loved the writing atmosphere in Buzzword when I tried it out, and Zoho Writer is far more sterile. Still, it provides more tools than Buzzword and, for those looking for more than a simple word process, is a much better option. As far as I’ve seen, Zoho is the only word processor that truly encompasses most of Microsoft’s features and should make it easy enough for typical users of MS Word to adapt to an online word processor.

Zoho Writer’s Interface

“Google is the best thing that happened to Zoho.” Wait, what?

I asked Raju about the fierce competition the company’s facing. Online offices are a dime a dozen nowadays, and competition’s heating up. Adobe just bought the Buzzword word processor (as part of a deal for Virtual Ubiquity), and other large companies like Google continue to add more features and applications. Why is it, then, that Raju sees Google, one of its biggest competitors, as “the best thing that ever happened to Zoho.” Before their entrance into the market, contended Raju, the online office market was simply a bunch of small players. As soon as Google entered the market, it was a recognition of the importance of the online office. As Raju told me, users may find Google Docs first, but when they search for a more diverse and full office experience, they will settle on Zoho.

Getting Down to Business

Zoho’s key demographic is small and medium businesses. The focus on this group is so great that Raju claims that Zoho’s ultimate goal is to “be the IT department for small and medium business.” Zoho’s products are designed for small and medium businesses, whereas Google’s are designed to be deployed by much larger entities. The different routes taken by the two companies could enable Zoho to triumph in their own demographic. Even in a head-to-head with Google, Zoho may have the upper hand. Raju’s estimates claim that Zoho has 20-30% more features than Google and 40-50% more applications than the search giant.

Zoho Business’ Beta Homepage

In response to the greater demand for a business-centric offering, Zoho has launched a for-pay program called Zoho Business. The core Zoho products remain free for users to use on a personal level. The new Business service, meanwhile, makes it easier to manage domains, users, and more, while deploying Zoho’s terrific set of tools.

Zoho’s Education

Zoho’s focus on business doesn’t mean there isn’t attention placed anywhere else. After all, Raju said that anywhere from 30-40% of Zoho’s users are students. Later this year, Zoho plans to launch a Zoho Education service. Zoho seems to have realized many of the tech problems that 21st century students face, and has a good grip on how to attack them. Only a few of the apps will make their way into Zoho Education, but new tools are supposed to accompany them. For one, students will be able to submit their homework to teachers. Zoho Education may be a few months off, but when it arrives I’m sure it’ll have a large impact on the sorely lacking education technology industry.

What’s Next?

Zoho’s done an incredible amount in its short history. Much of this is due to effective business practices. While the company isn’t profitable yet, it has the support of a far larger corporation, AdventNet, which gives it the ability to pursue whichever direction it chooses without interference. Zoho, which has many engineers in India, has a separate team that works on each application. Raju claims that the focus is for each individual team to “be the best in their category.” It’s been difficult for us to keep up with Zoho because of the incredible number of updates the company puts out. The Zoho Blogs are a great place to keep track of what the company’s thinking, along with the frequent updates.

Zoho’s iPhone Interface

Zoho is miles away from the competition. They’ve created a mobile interface for Zoho Creator, and iPhone users can use a nifty interface to read their Zoho docs on-the-go. There’s no interaction available for those documents yet, but Zoho plans to enable users to write from their iPhones in the near future. Zoho’s Facebook application may take the fun out of Facebook, but it’s there as a productivity option for those who want an office within Facebook. I think it’s a valuable tool that actually adds some productivity value to Facebook.

Raju said Zoho loves feedback. I’d give them some suggestions, but I find that there’s so little not to like, and so much to like that it’s hard to come up with anything. In concluding our phone call, Raju told our users to “give Zoho a try.” If you do, I know you won’t be disappointed.

Ed Note: The Rev2 Cabinet is a new weekly investigative series we’re starting at Rev2 where we take an in-depth look into some of the leading companies, startups, and services. Along with a podcast interview with our associate editor Zach Sims (embedded below and in the RSS feed), leading executives and CEOs offer insights into their startups and services which we analyze with an in-depth writeup. If you’re interested in being profiled, please contact Zach.

Podcast
Interview with Dan Cohen, CEO of Pageflakes
[Download MP3] [50:56]

Introduction
There was a time when reading from one source was enough for anyone.  The New York Times, or portals like Yahoo! captivated the attention of readers in the pre-Web 2.0 era.  In the modern day, however, the need for information can’t be sated by one source.  Instead, users traverse the Internet in search of dozens of sites that appeal to the niche they’re looking for information from.  RSS feeds, invented by web pioneer Dave Winer, are widely touted as one of the greatest successes of the “Web 2.0 revolution,” and with good reason. Since the creation of RSS, users have been able to read content without having to travel to each individual website.  It’s a productivity bonus for some, and it gives them the ability to read far more material.

The Creation of RSS
With new openness came new applications to manage the newfound treasure trove of feeds.  Desktop readers like NewsGator and NetNewsWire popped up, but Internet giants realized the importance of RSS at the same time.  As RSS went mainstream and high profile websites like The New York Times embraced the new technology, players like Google and Yahoo! got involved.  Personalized homepages like My Yahoo! and Google Personalized Homepage [currently iGoogle], began to help users centralize their content.  Dan Cohen was in the thick of the action as an executive at both Google and Yahoo!

A New Genre Emerges
Now, however, he heads up Pageflakes, an innovative and pioneering startup that seeks to best the offerings of Yahoo! and Google.  For the most part, they’ve succeeded.  Cohen has created a unique concept, the social personalized homepage.  Competitors like Netvibes focus solely on centering the information of their users.  Pageflakes, however, ensures that this information is shared with friends.

Not Quite a Social Network, But Definitely Not a Portal   
I had the opportunity to speak with CEO Dan Cohen regarding Pageflakes about a month ago, and I was pleasantly surprised at the impressive innovation occurring at the company.  Cohen was proud of his switch to Pageflakes, noting that it finally gave him the opportunity focus on the one product he loved.  Cohen bristled when I called Pageflakes a portal, and was quick to point out a couple of differences between Pageflakes and competing sites.  Simply featuring RSS, he explained, didn’t foster interactivity.  Including widgets is the first step, but Pageflakes’ uniqueness is instead derived from the idea of pagecasting, which Cohen claims “blends the social network with the portal.”  No, it’s not trying to be the next Facebook or MySpace.  Instead, users are given a simple profile with “very basic” information and asked to connect to others with.

Pagecasting
Podcasting, one of the crucial creations of Web 2.0 and RSS, focuses on the broadcasting of audio segments.  Pageflakes has experimented with a similar form of broadcasting, but with users’ personalized homepages instead.  The result is a pagecast, or a public page that can be created by any user.  Pageflakes, for example, featured an Election pagecast, with information pulled in from various news sources, and the candidates’ websites.  Users can also share “flakes,” tabs in their personalized homepage.

Standardization
I asked Cohen about Netvibes’ Universal Widget API as well, but he wasn’t nearly as receptive to the idea as many industry pundits were.  Instead, he claimed that it was just one of the latest standards that “come and go.”  Pageflakes, he said, was committed to adopting most current formats.  The “anything” flake, for example, lets users post code into a flake, like something created in WidgetBox.

One Page for Everyone
Most users pick up on the personalized homepage trend because they have accounts with Google or Yahoo! [and thus use iGoogle, or My Yahoo!, respectively].  For those who are registering with Pageflakes for the first time, however, the process is effortless and far easier than that at competitors’ sites.  Pageflakes asks users for interests they have and their location, and then populates the page with relevant RSS feeds, widgets, weather, movie showtimes, and more.  It’s easier than the setup of any personalized homepage we’ve seen so far, and we think it’s easy enough for a complete luddite to start using Pageflakes.  The default pages are constantly altered by a team of human editors and by the community.

For those who’d like to make their Pageflakes a little more personal, there are plenty of options.  Netvibes, Pageflakes’ key startup competitor, simply allows the use of themes that are prepopulated into their system and designed by Netvibes.  Pageflakes gives users the ability to create their own skins.

Addition and Subtraction
It’s easy enough to create a homepage, but how easy is it ot change once you’ve tired with the default choices?  Pageflakes makes it refreshingly easy to find new widgets, with a large icon in the corner of the screen that opens up the on-site gallery.  The gallery features highly rated widgets, feeds, and more that are constantly updated and organized by category.  For those who tire of the expansive offerings there, the full catalog of Pageflakes’ widgets is available through the “Browse All Flakes,” option, which offers a search to users.

Who’s Leading Who?
For users that maintain successful pagecasts, there remains only one way to incorporate advertising: through embeddable advertising in the “Anything” flake.  Pageflakes is impressed with the monetization of some portals but has been far more impressed by the endeavors of their users in the fields of education and small business.  Pageflakes, claimed Cohen, “will mutate in the hands of its users.”  A great example of this comes in education, where Pageflakes has recently launched new features at teacher.pageflakes.com.  As a student myself, I find the site incredibly easy to use and wonder why more districts aren’t adopting the easy-to-use solution.  It’s an easy way for students to centralize their homework, their schedules, and their out of school interests.

Conclusion
Pageflakes’ future is up to its users, who Cohen claims help to direct the company in new directions.  Education, for example, arose only after school districts and individual teachers e-mailed the company to tell them of their experiences.  Pageflakes is an innovative company, but competitors like Netvibes are hot on their heels.  Netvibes’ new Ginger release, which will go live in mid-February, has similar features as Pageflakes, including public “universes,” and a new social networking tangent as well.  Pageflakes’ features have had a longer time to mature, however, and are probably easier to use.  While it’s far too early to call a victor in the homepage war, it’s easy to say that Pageflakes is an easy to set up, easy to maintain personalized homepage that includes far more features than more commercial offerings like MyYahoo and iGoogle.  If you’re still reading this post in a web browser, we suggest you try reading it from Pageflakes.  It just might centralize your life too.

In my recent article about Adobe’s new Buzzword online word processor, I mentioned that dozens of different web desktops have launched, attempting to bring features traditionally confined to computers to the internet itself. Adobe’s Share is a corollary to Buzzword and hasn’t yet been released to the public. When it launches, Adobe plans for it to be a repository for your documents on the internet. They’re launching into a field of competition, and things heated up on Tuesday after Box.net announced their new OpenBox service.

Box.net is a standout among the crowded field of online storage providers. They face competition from the recently acquired Mozy, eSnips, OmniDrive, XDrive, and several others. Box.net provides users with 1GB of free online storage and gives them a well-designed interface to store their files in, complete with folder organization. I was introduced to Box.net through the earlier reviewed/previewed Mosoto service which, like many other startups, relies on Box.net for backend storage. Box.net made news earlier in the year by allowing users to open office documents in Zoho’s Office Applications. All this was an effort to make Box.net far more than a storage place for documents. Instead, it was starting to become a launch point for work on the web. Just as with Macintosh’s Finder or Windows Explorer, documents could be opened and edited immediately, without waiting for a download.

OpenBox: The Launchpad
On Tuesday, Box.net has announced OpenBox, allowing their users the ability to open any sort of file - music, office and more - in various different web services. I had the opportunity to speak with Box.net CEO Aaron Levie, who called the announcement a “complete 180? from their initial widget strategy. Levie also blogged about the new announcement on the Box.net blog.The new service finally makes Box.net the launchpad for users, allowing them to store all their data in one place and edit it using a variety of applications. Users can post photos to their blogs, edit photos with Picnik or Snipshot, edit documents with ThinkFree or Zoho, or do various other things. Launch partners include Autodesk’s Freewheel, Echosign, eFax, Myxer, Picnik, Scribd, Snipshot, ThinkFree, Twitter, Zazzle, and Zoho.

Adding Box.net’s New OpenBox Partners to the Services Menu

“Surprisingly Easy”
Other platforms, like Facebook’s, require developers to learn new programming languages in order to integrate their applications (in Facebook’s case, it’s FBML). Box.net’s CEO was eager to note that the process of integrating an application into Box.net’s online file storage system is “surprisingly easy.” Since Box.net doesn’t have a new API themselves, developers have the opportunity to build their API into Box.net itself, meaning they don’t have to learn anything new in order to participate in OpenBox. Additionally, Levie notes that the company is “trying to be very open” and attempting to match every company’s needs. Openness is nothing new for Box.net, which pioneered the use of APIs when it was one of the first online storage companies to release one in December of 2005. Prior to the announcement of OpenBox, Box.net could send and share files, but no access was granted to the file system itself.

The company is embracing the Web 2.0 concept of free data by allowing various applications to talk to each other, rather than using embeds. Box.net is also helping to standardize communications between apps. All of this is part of the search for seamless integration with other services and Box.net itself. Levie said Box.net would still approach companies for official partnerships, despite the availability of their SDK and API.

“As Complementary as Possible”
The ease of use for developers can only mean new and advanced features for users of Box.net. The release of the Software Development Kit on December 5 is sure to help Levie’s quest to create a “completely web based experience” in which users maintained a “core set of files online.” As I mentioned earlier, I share Levie’s view that Box.net can become somewhat of a “local file system,” hosting users’ files and allowing them to interact with them, as opposed to the typical backup and file transfer tasks that are usually reserved for online storage applications.

Creating a New Service with Box.net’s OpenBox

Box.net has also made sure that developers could keep a “consistent UI” for their applications, instead of forcing them to change the application’s design to match Box’s. When a user opens a photo in Picnik, they are transferred to the full application itself, not an embed in Box.net’s page. What I found most impressive is the ability of these applications to save the files back to Box.net. One can open a photo in Picnik to edit, make some changes, and then save the resultant file right back to Box.net. The desktop, literally, has become irrelevant.

Picnik’s UI is Consistent Throughout Editing with Box.net

Blazing New Trails
Box.net’s traditional competitors, companies like XDrive and OmniDrive, are suddenly being left in the dust with the announcement of OpenBox. Adobe Share, an application that ties into the earlier reviewed Buzzword, has yet to hit the market but promises easy and central storage of documents, but at the moment, cannot hope to compete with Box.net’s extensive offering. Levie, however, said he was thrilled to see Adobe getting involved with “online initiatives,” despite the fact that the company is now an “indirect competitor.”

Easy Integration with eFax

Levie’s favorite partner of the new OpenBox companies is Autodesk’s online CAD rendering, which he notes is “really rich” and all web based. CAD files, typically reserved for the realm of e-mail, are now available online and can be stored on Box.net for easy retrieval and viewing. Levie also impressed me with eFax’s integration. Now, it’s simple for users to fax documents directly from their local file systems. Clicking on the file menu brings up an eFax option, and users can choose a fax number to send the document to. eFax automatically renders PDFs, DOCs, and more. It’s an impressive step.

“Productivity Driven Solution”
Box.net finally allows users to upload files once, to a central location, in order to use them with a wide variety of web services. Integration with other third party services will not be available until December 5, but I am already amazed at the new features Box.net has added with its OpenBox partners. As Levie claimed, Box.net finally has become a “file system” for the web. The service is also not limited to technophiles; instead, it’s easy to use for even the casual user. Services are added via an “OpenBox services” menu filled with various checkboxes. To use the various services, simply right-click a file and go to the bottom, where OpenBox applications are available to interact with the file that was clicked on. The company currently boasts more than one million registered users. I imagine that number will skyrocket with this announcement.

Box.net’s Intuitive Services Menu

Box.net CEO claimed that OpenBox gives the company “more power to innovate.” I agree, and I believe that OpenBox has the potential to give the internet itself more power to innovate. The concept of a unified web file system, once nothing more than a pipe dream, is finally a reality with Box.net’s OpenBox. Box.net was once a simple widget platform for file storage. Now, it has the possibility to revolutionize our perceptions of the internet.