Google Apps Email

I just signed up for Google Apps to get free email for a domain I plan to turn into a Wordpress Multi-User blog. So now with each subdomain created people could have:

1. Gmail Accounts
2. Google Talk
3. Google Calendar
4. Google Page Creator

If you are not afraid of Google getting up in your business go: Google Apps

Posted by admin 31.Oct.06 Web 2.0 Read more Comments (0)

Writely Beta Meter

The Writely Beta Meter is currently at 62%, this is an interesting idea by Google, poll people inside the program to see if they are liking it, smart! They also do this within other programs like Google sitemaps.

The higher the beta meter, the closer we get to ending the beta period and officially launching Writely. – Google Writely

One thing is for sure this program is damn cool and will have multiple uses.

It is also interesting that they are not rushing it out of beta to compete with Windows Live Writer.

Posted by admin 21.Aug.06 Web 2.0 Read more Comments (0)

About Writely

I guess I have not been paying attention, when did Writely come online? I got no email telling me that it is now ready to use? Did Writely come out before or after Windows Live Writer that I posted about recently? Was Google listening to me when I said that they dropped the ball on this one? Anyhow, let’s write in it now and see if we can post to blog.

The interface is cool, like a good text editor.

It has HTML, Revisions, Blog, Publish and Collaborate Buttons but my main interest is posting to blog so here goes, wish me luck!

Update: Worked like a charm but it did not give me the choice of holding this post inside the Wordpress admin console to add tags, and check my spelling one last time. I am sure the feature is there I just missed it.

Another Update: Strange stuff, the post status in Wordpress was “published” but for some reason the post didn’t show? I am deleting it and re-posting within Wordpress, hrm.

Will have to also checkout the Collaboration feture for future use, it might be cool using it to write something with someone else for a change.

Sign up for Writely and check it out yourself and see if you like it better than Window Live Writer.

Posted by admin 21.Aug.06 Web 2.0 Read more Comments (0)

Windows Live Writer

Here we go, Windows if offering a beta program called Windows Live Writer today which I just finished installing. It installs with Windows Toolbar for Internet Explorer but if you use Firefox it can be a standalone editor.

I chose to install it with the Windows Toolbar which I kind of regret now, I dislike toolbars and prefer minimal firefox browsing BUT clicked “blog this” anyhow and it asked if I needed a Windows Live Spaces account. If you have your own hosted blog somewhere else you are asked for a URL, login and password, done!

I have been using w.bloggar to post to blog and was saddened to see that their domain was suspended for lack of payment but maybe it is a sign of the times? Windows Live Writer is almost exactly like W.bloggar but it’s well funded and will have staying power. Hrm, what the heck happened to Google’s Writely? Did they drop the ball on this one? Is Microsoft learning how to compete by filling in the gaps that Google misses? Well, this is a HUGE one!

Anyhow, just ran spellcheck in Windows Live Writer before I post this to blog and it needed to be trained, it doesn’t have “Firefox”, “Typepad” or “Digg” in it’s database, hehe.

Windows Live Writer Features:

WYSIWYG Authoring – True WYSIWYG editing.

Photo Publishing – Pretty basic stuff, easily add photos to blog.

Map Publishing – Cross promoting junk we don’t need? I can not think of a reason to embed Windows Live Local maps into blog can you? (See Marketing 101 – How much is too much?)

Writer SDK - Geeky developers can now work within Writer’s code doing whatever it is they do.

From the Windows Live Writer website we see that Microsoft has really studied how to get in the game. They have a blog, forum, easy access for developers and even are asking us to give them a Digg if we like it? Wow, that is over the top!

Thoughts: Will this cool looking blog Writer interface bring people back to Internet Explorer or keep those left from leaving?

I will now post this Writer beta test as a draft to webmaster404.com and see how it does, it is almost identical to w.bloggar but more refined and minimal looking, if you like Windows and are a bloggar, you will love Writer!

Posted by admin 14.Aug.06 Web 2.0 Read more Comments (0)

Yahoo Site Explorer

Yahoo Site Explorer looks good so far, I added a few blogs to it tonight to give it a go. It always bothered me that Yahoo had no Google Sitemaps like console. What also troubles me about Yahoo! is it’s unpredictable page ranking. Yahoo’s SERPS are pot luck, you can have an entire website and only a few pages ranking in their index. All the Amazon.com’s of the internet own in Yahoo! and they do not look out for the little guy like Google currently does. Maybe Yahoo Site Explorer will change things?

Yahoo Site Explorer Suggestions:
Having one site key for multiple sites would help, thank you!

Posted by admin 11.Aug.06 Web 2.0 Read more Comments (0)