Q-Rated: Reviewing Web 2.0 and it's toys

Now as an avid web user i have to say i spend a lot of time wondering what to do with my time on the web.

One thing that i have found is that i want to assimilate and read as much information as possible without having to scroll through old tweeter posts or facebook posts. I also want all that information as up-to-date as possible.

This is where "web 2.0" comes in.

No longer is the World wide web a static page based thing.

Now it's ALIVE!!!


Not quite like Frankenstiens monster but it's at least a busy place.


So what's happening on the internet right now?

Well there's a search engine for that.

OneRiot.

It may only be starting out but it is a real time search engine. It follow's the trends of what everyone is searching for and is basically all about current News, Gossip and internet Meme's.

Ye know, the dreggs of the internet. And i approve of this idea.

It also is trying to role out location specific sites, So eventually there will be a OneRiot.ie....



Now how exactly do i keep up with my Facebook and Twitter-ing, well i have yet to decide.

There is of course the old way, the websites, but this can be slow and boring. And if you're busy then chat's can get annoying.

DIGSBY
 
For Windows Live Messenger(MSN to old foggies like myself), Google Chat and facebook you have Digsby.


Digsby is great for chatting. It even combines accounts. It notify's you of incoming emails and even has Twitter and Facebook capabilities. With the facebook recently updated.

It is rather impressive and customisable. It is invaluable sometimes, but due to my slower, older computer sometimes i don't use it.

YOONO
An alternative is Yoono, and its far more Twitter based, but it also has nicer pop-ups.

It sports Google chat, MSN, Facebook, Imeem, FreindFeed and twitter to name but a few. And it has some nice little sounds for notifying you. It's not intrusive and isn't as demanding of Processing power as Digsby.

It's tweeting and status updating is also really good.

It even has it's own internet browser built in to help you look at links when you want to. Although you can set this to your default Browser.

It also sports a shareaholic button on every tweet and newsfeed item, for those really excessive sharer's.

There is a really small twitpic intigrated into update's and notifications.So you can see pictures right inside the tweet, which is very handy, but they are small...

It even has a Re-tweet button.

I do love it, but sometimes i prefare Digsby for it's chat windows. No one is on my MSN too often and Facebook Chat isn't on Yoono Yet, which is the real kicker. Also i can't get Google Talk to work, i'm not sure why, but i think it's the whole "college email" thing.


TweetDeck

TweetDeck is basically one of the top ways you can tweet on Twitter. It's a rather good aplication. It even has Twitpic built into it so you never have to go to another page to view a picture. And they are full size which is very handy.


I view tweetdeck as my HARDCORE tweeting application. It keeps track of whats going on and has group functions and so on.

But if i want to read the tweets, i have to actually have the window open. This is a pain.

It only has a flash notification up in the corner of my screen, and this is nothing, it doesn't tell me anything, other than there is a new tweet.

Digsby and Yoono show you the tweet, Digsby shortens it if it's too long, but it shows it.


Tweetdeck now also has FULL facebook news feeds. But it's not as interactive. You can't like stuff and comment as easily as Yoono or Digsby.

TweetDeck has large proliferation and is used by a lot of twitter users. And you can see all the cool Tweeter's and Tweet-Celebs are using it.

The facebook is still weak, but it's a growth that can't be ignored. I don't use it however. Ever since this new build i've used it less.


Flock (internet Browser)

Other means of getting Twitter and Facebook and other services.

I won't deny the fact that i am a Flocker.

Flock is a "Social-Networking" Browser.

Under the hood, so to speak, it is just Mozilla Firefox, but it comes with it's own constant connection to your Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, Photobucket, youtube, Gmail and it also has it's own Media stream search tool for photo's and video. It also boasts a blog writting tool that i have used frequently.


 It also has a rather nifty Clipboard for Text and Photographs. You can literally drag a photo off a web page into the clip board and it save's it. You can then drag the photo into blog post's or emails and it does the linking and pasting for you. Which is rather handy.

 Facebook's chat and notification system is also built in. However this is bizarrely faster than Facebook.com itself. Facebook experiance's so many hick-ups from updates that it leaves out notifications sometimes, so i'm left staring at the one's i didn't click on in Flock, wondering what the hell?

However, despite it now being my default browser it's Twitter and Facebook functions lay dormant.
They just don't look as nice and the notifications aren't the same. Also not all actions stay in the Sidebar pane when you use them, like friend request's and other notifications.




It requires more user action instead of being hand fed the information. Which is what Yoonom, Digsby and TweetDeck all do on certain levels.


Flock however is a sturdy browser and can accept Firefox add-ons.

So Shareaholic, Stumble-upon Toolbar, Foximusic and Google Toolbar.

There's other little buttons and tweeks about the place that make it a very handy browser.

But it's not without hick-ups. My computer is slow, and thus isn't actually built to handle it. This won't be a hick-up for most people, but it sometimes leaves me pulling my hair out.


Digsby also can create this problem. Yoono however is rather low demand and is suitable for some people who have yet to embrace the power demands of vista or windows 7, or even still just have a pc thats 4 or so years behind.



In short, i just can't pick and choose!

Flock all the time, as it's my browser.

Digsby most of the time for chatting.

Yoono for reading whats going on as it happens.

And Tweetdeck when I want to do some hard core tweeting, which isn't too often.