No ShrinkWrap Web2.0 Reviews

Thanks to Profy’s article on ShoutEm, I tried out their beta Twitter-esque service. Profy’s got an invite code that should let you in the doors, too.

ShoutEm describes their service as “Ning for Twitters.” While features are light, that’s a pretty good description – with ShoutEm, you can build a themed gated community following Twitter rules (140-character-long messages, public timeline, etc). The expectation, of course, is members will primarily talk about the theme. As an example, you can see the educational technology ShoutEm site I set up, and Svetlana’s profy ShoutEm site.

Setting up the site is easy. ShoutEm walks you through three steps, starting with the name, headline and web address you’d like to use. Unless you’re a paying customer, your web address uses the form *.shoutem.com. Next, select the theme and features and you’re ready to roll out your new gated Twitter.

I know this service is still in beta, so I expect some missing functionality and hitches. Some features, however, strike me as such glaring oversight that I wonder if ShoutEm intends to not include them, or include them only as part of a paid subscription. For instance:

• After creating edtech.shoutem.com, while I could upload pictures to modify theme elements, like background and header images, I couldn’t select a new theme.
• More frustrating, once I created edtech.shoutem.com, I couldn’t change the network features, like automatically accepting new members or enabling subscriptions.
• After creating a ShoutEm account and setting up a new network, my login credentials did not work for Profy’s ShoutEm site. I’m sure this is a “feature, not a bug,” as the intent is to provide gated communities. Still, I don’t understand why I can’t carry my single ShoutEm profile from one community to another.
• Also, I don’t see a way to aggregate the public timelines for all networks I belong to.
• Finally, there’s no directory of public communities. I imagine this is a feature missing due to ShoutEm’s beta status, as any social network relies heavily on the “social.” If I can’t discover new friends and networks to join, I have very little motivation to continue checking both ShoutEm and Twitter.

I see two benefits to using ShoutEm over Twitter. First, the themed network helps find members with interests I share, and sets an expectation we’ll be talking about that interest. While some Twitter directories exist (for instance, Jane Hart maintains a list of educators on Twitter), and Twitter clients like Tweetdeck allow you to create groups, it’s still a crapshoot to discover people to follow that discuss topics interesting to you. By creating themed gated communities, ShoutEm attempts to sort people out by interest, guaranteeing a group of people you (hopefully) connect with.

Second, ShoutEm allows for private, invite-only networks, possibly very useful for companies and organizations in particular. However, if Twitter is smart, gated communities (or at least groups in some fashion) is their next step to monetization, which could affect ShoutEm’s future. Also, ShoutEm competes with several other similar services, such as Twingr, Yammer and Present.ly. Each network currently has its niche, but it won’t be long until they’re poaching on one another’s features.

Laconica, on the other hand, presents an interesting alternative to all of these hosted services, including Twitter itself. Built on PHP and Jabber protocols, Laconica’s open-source, self-hosted nature is exciting all on its own – but there’s more. Laconica is built from the ground up to support federation, the ability to share public timelines between Laconica sites. Eventually, not only will Laconica support pulling messages from other Laconica networks, but it will also pull messages in from other networks, like Plurk, Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku. You can see Laconica in action at Leo Laporte’s TWiT Army and Identi.ca, and read more at Identi.ca’s FAQ page.

Micro-blogging is becoming the Wild West of Social Media, with new entrants circling the monetization wagon. Twitter has its tremendous following and large number of third-party clients adding features; Laconica brings the kitchen sink full of “I wish Twitter did …” features and innovation. Perhaps there’s room for a a few more big players in this space, capitalizing on features Twitter and Laconica choose not to support. In any event, this will be an interesting space to watch from the sidelines.

CNet’s Webware has posted a poll where users can vote for their favorite Web 2.0 apps. The apps are split into 10 categories, with 25 apps listed in each category – holy overload, Batman! While the list includes some non-Web 2.0 apps (Internet Explorer!?!? Come on….), it does include some services worth reviewing. I thought I’d start by listing the contestants by category, pick the one I think is the winner, then start reviewing some of the more interesting services. We’ll see if my picks change after taking a hard look at some services I’ve not yet joined.

Webware’s choices are split into the following categories:

Browsing
They’ve included several non-Web 2.0 apps here, including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. I still use Bloglines, but most of the masses seem to have moved on to Netvibes or Google Reader. LeapTag is an interesting project, StumbleUpon seems to have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, OpenID is gaining traction (but I fail to see why it’s a Web 2.0 app), and Yahoo Pipes is a potentially revolutionary app. This is a tough one, but I’d have to pick Yahoo Pipes.

Communication
Several non-Web 2.0 apps here, along with some heavy-hitters – Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Twitter and Skype are all likely candidates in my book. While there are other interesting projects on the list, like Zimbra, Jaiku and Meebo, they don’t have the popularity of the heavy-hitters. The widget-based platforms like Netvibes and Pageflakes (where’s iGoogle, by the way?) show a lot of promise, but aren’t simple enough to attract non-techies yet. My pick – either Skype or Gmail, although that perplexingly-popular Twitter will probably win.

Community
Not so long ago, this would have been an easy category to narrow down to a short-list between MySpace, Del.icio.us and Digg. With Facebook’s recent re-launch and the resulting exodus from MySpace, that may be a serious contender as well. I’ve used DeviantArt for years and never considered it a Web 2.0 app, but I suppose it does have some of the characteristics. Bebo seems to be picking up steam, and MyBlogLog is gaining popularity after Yahoo announced some upgrades. Other recognizable services, including Ning, LinkedIn, Reddit and Netscape, don’t have the popularity to beat the top three. My pick – Digg.

Data
There’s some pretty innovative stuff here, like Swivel’s data-sharing and exploration tools, and BlinkX’s video search. Most of these services are pretty esoteric though – you’re pretty much guaranteed to be a techie if you know about them, let alone can use them. Popularity and service recognition will be a problem with most of these services – except one. Winner – Google. ’nuff said.

Entertainment
Where the hell is Joost?? It can’t be excluded due to beta status – several other included services are in beta as well. And it can’t be because it’s “not Web 2.0 because you download a client” – they included IE7 for Pete’s sake! This is a weak category – a bunch of game sites, video blogs and party planners. Really, what makes watching Major League Baseball or some dude with a hat-cam Web 2.0? Most entries are neither innovative nor useful; some, like Midomi are innovative but not really useful and others, like Upcoming are useful but not really innovative. ABC and CBS have large audiences to pimp their apps to, but I doubt most members of that TV audience know of or care about this contest. My vote would go for MyPunchBowl for combined usefulness and innovativeness, but the Kevin Rose effect will probably carry Revision 3 for the win.

Media
A lot of ground-breaking services have entered this space – it’s becoming overrun, in fact, with startups concentrating on video and photo sharing and editing. We all know about YouTube, particularly after the buzz surrounding Google’s purchase and Viacom’s lawsuit. Flickr is another popular service with recent buzz. Right behind those two in name recognition are Pandora (who recently announced deals with Sansa, Sprint and Sonos), PhotoBucket (who was recently blocked, permitted and bought by MySpace and now has a Facebook F8 app), Napster (who was insanely popular during the wild-west days of filesharing and has been trying to capitalize on that popularity ever since it turned legit) and Amazon’s UnBox service. Several entries have created apps for Facebook’s new F8 platform, including Photobucket, iLike, Mog, PikNik and Slide. For sheer name recognition, media attention, popularity, Google’s backing and features, my pick goes to YouTube.

Mobile
I have to admit, not only do I not know many of these services, I don’t care to. I recognize cell phones as the next unconquered territory, but I use mine for calls and that’s it. Besides, whatever company signs on with the iPhone will be the next big thing. I see a few interesting entries like Google’s free 411 service (it’s interesting that Jangle’s service is not included in this category), Google Maps Mobile, KushKash (a money-management app that recently received $11M private investing), TellMe (another free 411 service) and Yahoo’s OneSearch. Personally, I think any service that relies on GPS (which I suspect most cell phone users still don’t want to activate) or provides media (music, games, movies, etc) isn’t a good bet just yet – not enough people want to participate in that sort of stuff. Market penetration into this category of consumers requires something useful, practical, easy to use and not requiring a user to install an app on the phone – thus, my pick goes to TellMe.

Productivity and Commerce
Wow, here’s an open field with a lot of strong contenders. Google’s got three entries with Adwords, Calendar and Docs & Spreadsheets. eBay has two entries with eBay and PayPal. Other entries backed with gobs of name recognition and popularity include Amazon, Microsoft Office Live, , Yahoo Calendar and . Even some of the lesser-known services are heavy-hitters in their own right: Zillow and Trulia offer real estate tools and searches; Craigslist has a huge following of people looking for local job listings and classifieds; business apps SalesForce and BaseCamp (which hails from 37signals, known for Ruby on Rails and other business-centric apps); and other Docs-style apps, including Zoho, ThinkFree and EditGrid. One interesting entry has no competitor entries: Farecast, an airfare-comparison app I use quite a bit, but doesn’t have the name recognition of most other entries. This is a tough category to call, and you have to take into account the types of people who will vote for their app-of-choice – business people, for instance, aren’t likely to take the time to vote for Basecamp or Salesforce. Google and eBay may have huge followings and multiple entries, but considering none of the most popular services are advertising the contest on their sites, and taking into account the viral nature of Amazon’s community, my bet’s on Amazon.

Publishing
Is there a Google stone left unturned? Blogger, Feedburner (you did know Google bought them, right?) and Google Analytics all make the list. Adobe’s Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight (why didn’t Adobe’s Apollo make the cut) round out the big names, and many services known to few non-bloggers (including Vox, Widgetbox, Tumblr and the infamous PayPerPost) vie for eighth place. This category, however, is all about Drupal vs Wordpress – both have large followings, are directly and indirectly advertising the poll to their users (Wordpress is advertising here) and are supported by incredibly viral and loyal communities. Backed by the Wordpress.com community, my money’s on Wordpress.

Reference
Map and local search apps get a strong showing – Ask.com (who has adopted some viral marketing lately), Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all have entries. Venerable IMDb and WebMD are present. Some recent upstarts gaining news also make an appearance, including Geni (family-tree startup by PayPal’s former COO David Sacks, gaining news and funding), Instructables (funded by Tim O’Reilly’s OATV and frequently featured on Lifehacker) and RapLeaf (a reputation tracker who made the first Facebook F8 cut). However, my bet’s on Wikipedia, who should have the recognition beyond web-heads and viral popularity to handily win this category.

Conclusion

There are some interesting entries that definitely deserve a review. It would also be interesting to see a breakdown of entries by owner and funding source – maybe I can throw one together over the next couple of days.

Who are your picks? Tell me in the comments below.