Pulse is a hosted web app that gives you the basic of statistics for your website available as a RSS feed or through their site. Simply sign up and add the JavaScript to the footer of your site’s (x)html to start tracking visits, incoming links and search keywords. Then log in and subscribe to the RSS feed using your favourite reader and check out the stats while reading the headlines and drinking your morning coffee.

With the data available in xml format too, I am just waiting for someone to develop a Wordpress plugin. Stats available in your dashboard would be very handy.

Best of all though….. its FREE and with more features to come it can only become more useful.

I have been looking at Virb in some more depth through the beta phase recently. I am a sucka for well designed sites, and Virb fits nicely into this criteria. Certainly Virb offers an awful lot for the designer in us all and has been developed from the ground up with this in mind. Complete customization of the front and backend like this, has not been seen before in popular social network and should encourage many people originally put off by the blinding customizations popular in MySpace. Structured ‘Modules’ incorporating content from third partied like YouTube and Odeo can be created and placed in your profile and as a user you have control over the html and CSS – heaven! No more div overlays!

Conversely, most social networks downfall, the ‘MySpace design effect’, is alleviated in Virb with the simplest solutions; a ‘remove customization’ button prominently placed in the header. Clicking this button restores the original, clean, simple and most importantly neutral default theme that ‘ships’ with each new profile and is remembered when you return to the profile.

Labeled by Christina Marie, “MySpace for Grownups”, Virb certainly fits the bill. With de-facto social networking features and advanced abilities to come like importing blog posts via RSS, Virb has done an awful lot right.

So where does it fit in? My thinking is that currently the MySpace monolith might be too big at the moment but in the future there are going to be a lot of existing users from Facebook and Bebo that may move as the site snowballs. One thing I am sure about is that there is space for a mature social network in this crowded marketplace. Vox, the closed social network or social blogging platform, had better watch out.

For those that don’t know, Box.net offers 1GB of free online storage or for just $4.99 per month you can have up to 5GB. Seriously cheap storage so where’s they catch? Well there doesn’t seem to be one. I have used the service now for a fair few months both in professional capacity upgrading and troubleshooting systems (it’s much handier than a USB key when working remotely!) and from a personal point of view sharing files with friends and family. In this time I have only found the site to be unavailable once which was for pre-planned maintenance and both download and upload speeds have generally been good.

This isn’t the first online storage to become available but what they do, they do very well. Since the much needed re-design Box.net now has the interface and feel that compliments this reliable file storage service. What it lacks is the killer app to convince people of this valuable service which might not be immediately apparent….. fortunately this isn’t too far away!

I have been privileged to get my hands on a couple of early pre-releases of the ‘Box.net Desktop’, a small app that enables you to backup files to your account. Sitting fairly unobtrusively in the task bar the ‘Desktop’ can be scheduled to backup or ‘sync’ certain files or folders, acting as an automatic off site backup system.

The application also acts as an extension of the Box.net site in the form of a quick uploader that, as you can set it to load on start up, is always logged in and doesn’t require you open a browser to upload or share a file. Further the ability to check your capacity and access your account at the quick click of a button gives additional value to this little app.

Most importantly for this excellent service is how reliable the backup app seems even at this beta stage. This latest version is yet to crash through normal everyday use and the peace of mind with critical files stored offsite and accessible at any internet connection is invaluable.

While the ‘Desktop’ app is not finished yet, and no confirmed release date, it’s unlikely to be far off with this current feature set. With intuitive design, backing up turns into a 3 click process of adding a ‘sync’, selecting the folder and clicking ok to be safe in the knowledge it will be stored reliably offsite.

While well designed and easy to use, the system is still has the odd bug and UI issue though. For instance on booting, the app opens and requires you to close the window even when there is no other requirement for user intervention. Further there doesn’t seem to be a way to remove old ‘syncs’ that you have set up, only to alter what is being backed up. Perhaps most importantly is the upload speeds I am receiving, though passable as a backup running in the background, the speeds are significantly slower than when uploading through the website. These are relatively small issues though and hopefully will be simple to fix.

Essentially this ‘Desktop’ add-on for Box.net makes an already excellent and popular service quite simply priceless. Full credit should go to Aaron Levie and the team for the work they have done making this service as accessible as they have. If Box.net doesn’t already own the online file storage market upon release of this app they soon will.

Riya is a service that automatically recognizes people in photos and groups them. Add a tag to the person and all of the photos are tagged with that name. As your friends and family join Riya too, many of their pictures will automatically be tagged with your data (and their other friends’ data) too.

Riya, as they go to much length to stress is still very much in ’sobetaithurts’ mode and that’s a fair point. Many sites and services are very keen to jump on the ‘beta’ bandwagon that worked commercially so successfully with many of the Google products they miss the point of beta testing. Riya seem determined to state that its an unfinished product and that the feedback from this testing will result in improvements to the service as a whole. This adds value to the user in knowing that a service can greatly improve from first use and personally I look forward to seeing the benefits as the system and technology grows further. Facial recognition in video anyone?

After signing up and downloading the ‘uploader’, immediately the difference between Flickr’s services is apparent. The uploader appears intrinsic in beginning the facial recognition process, highlighting some of the faces of each photo as it uploads. Uploading can take a while though, with Riya stating that it takes 24 hours to upload 4000 photo’s, and it does require some system resources though it doesn’t appear to be too intensive on my setup.

Once uploaded, the process begins with manual training, adding names and email addresses (for further distinction between people of the same name) into your account and correlating these to the faces the system recognises. Once completed you can further refine the recognition process by highlighting faces that Riya has missed through direct training (though if the quality of images are good the number missed is low). Auto training takes place next by adding contacts from Yahoo Mail and Gmail to your address book or searching for users by name.

Though less headline grabbing, auto recognition is but a tool in the process, the most important part an online image storage service is the actual sharing of photos. While Riya’s interface is both clean and fresh, it’s a little way behind more established services like Flickr in terms of usability. I think many people while appreciating the technology, would struggle to utilise it properly at the moment. This is what a genuine beta is for though and I would expect a more intuitive and better documented UI to be available upon launch.

When the system becomes open and friends and family in the same social circles upload their photos, the real value and benefit of this service will become apparent. My obvious concerns with recognition between people with similar facial structure or skin tones like with family members thankfully doesn’t seem a big issue. Though I need to upload significantly more photos to be sure, I am pleased to say the accuracy of the face recognition technology appears surprisingly high and the hype looks well deserved. The future looks bright for Riya!

What really hit me when looking at the beta is the antiquated search system of the current site. The beta search is a real improvement, adding much needed functionality (and’s, not’s etc.) even suggesting what it thinks you mean if you spell something wrong – class. The ability to further refine your search with tabs is really intuitive as well, nice use of Ajax / Dom scripting. Equally as impressive is the advanced search box, though the placement needs work.

From a usability perspective, what occurs to me is the closing of the advanced search if you change your mind. This requires clicking on the cross though the more instinctive choice is to click again on the advanced search button. There are of course accessibility issues with browsers that have JavaScript turned off; the advanced search ceases to function though the tabbed ability to refine your search simply reloads the page rather than instantly allowing more refined choices. 

The menu in the header is an added convenience and speeds up browsing and though there is the odd general layout glitch it is to be expected due to this being beta.

After using the beta it reinforces how far behind the existing site is compared to many online retailers such as Play and Amazon and adds weight to the decsision to invest in the redesign.

This is a massive improvement and credit must go to the design team behind it. Developing Ebuyer’s interface only further strengthens their move from a PC enthusiast site to a consumer electronics reseller where usability is a key factor in buying habits. 

Utilising RSS feeds like the one found on this blog or any content producing site, Edgeio aggregates items you list with specific tags or categories and displays these in one easy to use website. Add the tag, "listing" to your post and Edgeio will trawl your RSS feed and list the item on their site in a matter of minutes. You’ll receive a track back to you blog informing you the fact the item is listed and you can then claim your blog by adding a couple of lines of code to your site, much in the same way Technorati works. At this point you can easily add any other important information your audience may need such contact details and price to the listing.

Edgeio offers many advantages specifically the cost involved with selling you product on the internet. Edgeio is free to list at the moment, though a fee based service is planned. From a buyers perspective it is very easy to pick up and use and selling is in fact easier than listing on EBay and should pose no problems to anyone already blogging or publishing content.

This is where the problems might lie with the service though. Firstly it immediately limits the service to quite a niche selling market, those who publish in one for or another and produce an RSS feed. This is of course easier now than it has been in the past with quality free CMS or blogging solutions such as Wordpress.com or Blogger, though still requires some technical knowledge to set up. Secondly tag spam, the inevitable abuse of the ‘listing’ tag that is already in evidence by publishers with their test posts on the site. Though there are self governing measures in place at the side of the listings, it still requires human intervention and is its self open to abuse. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly is the long term future for the product in a crowded marketplace that is competing not just with the established names but now Microsoft’s Expo, a free classified service that launched yesterday. It’s also a concern that their revenue model is not clearly exposed at this stage as introduction of paid services further down the line will instantly dilute the as yet unknown effectiveness of this service. How Edgeio hopes to generate revenue successfully will influence the whole site from both a buying and selling perspective and could upset the balance.

As a way to list your product its a fantastic idea and deserves to succeed though whether it is sustainable as a business model on its own remains to be seen.

First up, when I built my current PC I made a positive decision about going for Intel on the bases I can stick with on board graphics thus allowing myself to drop in a PCI-E card if I wanted. The intention was good, by not having the ability to play games, I would be productive (which I have been) and still have a quick PC that is a pleasure to user with Photoshop etc. The trouble is its been probably been three / fours years since I played UT and to a lesser extent Quake III with any real conviction or intensity and I began to get the cravings.

One (middle of the road / entry level, value for money) graphics card later, an ATI Radeon X800 GTO, and a weekend where I don’t think I saw daylight, it almost feels as though I haven’t been away!

Time for the games and hell, things have improved.

Quake IV – Like an old school action movie from the 80’s, Quake IV is a sheer adrenaline filled strogg-fest (bad pun). Seriously entertaining in my opinion and desperately under rated by the gaming community, this does what you’d expect really well. There is a reason why the money in professional gaming is in this game, its simply the best pure shooter out there and tremendously entertaining to boot.

F.E.A.R – Really slick, graphically intensive FPS that while the setting is a bit clichéd, really does send a shiver down your spine. To say that I was reluctant to get sucked into this as a feasible genre is an understatement. But they have proved that FPS/Horror works when done well. This is incredible!

FarCry – Considering this is the oldest of the four, it still looks stunning in every aspect. Must have been absolutely stunning when this came out. Though I have played this the least out of the four I can’t wait to come back to it!

Call of Duty 2 – Having not played the first, I was hesitant about this. How good could a historically accurate (ish) game based 60+ years ago could be? Well, the first level sums it all up! A sheer mind blowing experience that really makes you feel as though your on the front line. Seeing the gunfire raging over your head as you duck behind ridges, gradually making your way forward as you and your squaddies advance is undeniably entertaining.

I am sure I have missed some gems but to be quite honest when I have made my way through these and Battlefield 2 (next on the list) I think I’ll be ready to go quietly back to CSS and Dreamweaver!

Offering a number of different pricing plans to suit your needs there is a free 30 day trial available that offers up to 4 chatters and 10 MB of space. It appears that they are sensibly limiting sign ups to 500 a day to monitor performance, although I was fortunate enough to try this while spaces were available.

Signing up you choose the account type and being web based pick your url, www.yourname.campfirenow.com. Next send out you invites to your url via email and create your ‘chat’ rooms. All chats are stored online and space is available for uploading files for sharing with the people you are chatting with. Images are previewed within the chat window and other files are have an icon representing them. While uploading your chats can continue and while I haven’t tested the service with the maximum people allowed (up to 40 in the premium package) there doesn’t appear to be any lag or performance drains while all this is taking place.

Clearly a 37 signals product, Campfire has a simple, clear layout and intuitive interface offering a well thought out service. The system is incredibly simple yet offers much of the functionality that you could want. While 37 Signals don’t release products in the ‘beta’ guise this is still a first release yet the service is completely functional and does what it offers. With incredible potential in an internal business model for brainstorming, problem solving and as an alternative to email it can also be of benefit to as a support service for your customers. My only personal gripe might be if the system is intended to be used as real-time chat based support for your products it appears to lack any ability to add company branding and so might be commercially inappropriate.

It is interesting that this is the first service to only offer a 30 day trial not a permanent free service like Backpack or Basecamp. As a service clearly aimed at businesses this trial is understandable, though I would expect them to make made the basic tiered features permanent once the level of people trying this product evens off. With a permanent free based service you are always going to find people signing up after 3, 6 or even 12 months of use as their business expands and grows.

Much like Backpack, the productivity gains of Campfire become immediately apparent from the first time you use it if they are not already. This is another 37 signals product that shows their acute understanding of business services that can increase efficiency yet still be incredible value for money. I look forward to their next offering.

I personally haven’t had a good enough chance to make the most of the preview yet so can’t make an informed comment though this is an interesting read. 

This version has addressed some of the originals bugs, added some basic missing features such as draft support and improved on the feature set as a whole with customisable ping support and further integration with technorati and del.ico.us.

Originally released back in December the extension didn’t really ignite my imagination though. Still now I am finding the interface isn’t intuituive enough; I want the basic things to be immediatly obvious. For example, why are the publishing options a setting to turn on and then you have to flick the button to toggle the panel on and off? Most people don’t have more than a couple of blogs, for me I’d like to see the options at the bottom of the ‘Blogs’ list on the right hand side.

More importantly though, I seem to have an issue with the ‘Post to Draft’ option, highlighting this and clicking publish actually published this unfinished draft to my main page! I rarely finish a post at the first attempt and was very happy to see it had been added as a feature, but this needs to be fixed before I consider using this seriously.

I am also doubtful about the benefit to me of the Technorati and Del.icio.us integration. Currently I have a ‘Technorati This‘ favelet in the quicklinks bar at the top of my browser which has the same functionality and is one click away. Added to that I have my favelet for bookmarking in Del.icio.us that gives me my tags with ‘recommended’ and ‘popular’ tags all on the same page – functionality this version of the extension doesn’t offer.

With the current trend of people adding ‘beta’ labels to products, I can’t help but feel that this would have been one of those cases where this tag would have been warrented. Performancing 1.1 is an improvement though and at this rate there will be another release before the end of February which will further build on this. For me though I can’t use this as my blogging editor much in the same way I can’t use Flock’s. Both are products with massive potential but in my opinion they still need work.

If you havent checked out the Performancing site, you should. Its an informative site from experienced and informed bloggers about building specifically your blog as a commercial site though much of the advice could be channelled into any site you want to make money through.