There have been a lot of lists on this site lately. That’s not really a considered choice. I guess I’m a little short on time and have a lot of easily itemized stuff to talk about. In any case, here’s another one. Nothing really blew my mind this year, but these are a few sites and technologies that piqued my interest:
- Seeqpod – “Playable search”. As far as I can tell, it’s a search engine that finds rich media files and enables you to play them directly from the results page. Here’s a sample search for Sufjan Stevens. I’ve only tried it briefly, but it works as advertised.
- Minekey – A content recommendations widget. I haven’t tried it yet, so I’ve really got no opinion on this one. Mind you, this sounds like a solution in search of a problem. Finding stuff to read isn’t something I struggle with.
- Palm Foleo – A “mobile companion for your smart phone”, which sounds like I can rent one by calling a number in the back of the local arts weekly. In essence, it’s a kind of micro-laptop that’s halfway between a standard laptop and an iPhone. In fact, here’s a photo that shows their relative size. It’s incredibly light at 2.5 pounds, and has only solid state memory (no hard drive). I’d imagine it as an ideal device to take on a longterm trip where you wanted to blog, store photos, send email and so forth, but didn’t want something as big or expensive as a laptop. Of course, it’s yet another piece of tech with a misspelled name, but that phenomenon is so common it’s hardly worth complaining. Here are some comments and a video on the device from Matthew Miller.
- PolarRose – “Discover who’s in any photo”. They’re in private beta at the moment. They were a Gnomedex sponsor, but I somehow managed to slip through their net of beta invitations.
- LapWorks Laptop Desk 2.0 – It’s a sophisticated, folding chunk of plastic that’s supposed to improve the ergonomics of using a laptop on your lap or on a desk. I’m just trying it now for the first time, and it appears to work as advertised. I’ve got it configured so that the laptop slopes towards me, with the front of the keyboard part lower than the back.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
PolarRose sounded interesting, so I click on your link to it, and this is who I see as the most recently identified person.
Heh, how odd.
Glad to see that Minekey made your Gnomedex list. Myself and James Ryan, both from Minekey were there.
The Minekey widget helps bloggers provide their readers a way to discover content outside of search. The recommendations are personalized based on the context of the page and each individual’s surfing history so no two people looking at the widget will see the same recommendations. It can also be set up to manage a personalized blogroll. Complementing the list of blogs that you read, you could provide headlines from those blogs that are personalized to each reader, which in turn will increase the chance that they will click through.
So we add a lot of value to blogs for their readers and in turn the blogger – we increase pageviews to your own blog as well as increase the traffic you might be sending to other bloggers. You really need to try it out and you will get a much better understanding of the value especially with our analytics. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback. You can email me at rajiv at minekey.com
Rajiv: Thanks for that, and I may try it out as time becomes available.
That said, I don’t feel you responded to my comment: I don’t have a content discovery problem, and I don’t think my readers do, either.
I’m also not sure I want to point my readers at things which I haven’t explicitly linked to.
So, it’s probably not the right widget for me.
The laptop desk looks cool, but I quite like my little XT-Stand laptop stand. It folds up nice and small, and while it won’t work on a lap (without a book), it does a good job on any flat surface.
Here are another lookat it.
I am sorry that I missed the original comment. I do understand your point that you already read a lot of blogs and don’t need more content. The widget is more for your readers in the same sense you might find value in it if you visited other blogs with our widget. For example you visited a travel blog and reading an article about Paris, France and get recommendations for other articles related to Paris on that blog and other blogs, if the blogger chooses.
Now as for your regular readers, they will be already deep within all your content but still a context based recommendation can be useful but the blogroll widget may be the most appropriate for them. And the widget adds the most value to people who don’t visit your blog regularly or for a first time visitor. They are only being shown the latest 10 posts. The widget allows older content from your blog to come to the surface that is relevant to them without the need for search. You will also have some control over the contents within the widget, as the widget creator chooses which feeds to provide recommendations from though it’s not explicit control. I hope that help clarifies how our widget adds value in different situations.
darren,
sorry that your beta invitation somehow slipped through. the email address we received from chris was yourname at capulet.com.in any case, i’ve just resent the invitation to the email address you have listed on your contact page.
/n
ps. the gnomedex people gallery is at http://www.polarrose.com/events/gnomedex07
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