Bitty Browser

Found this on the web today, and I recalled my conversation with Neil Kumar of Yelp in SHDH8 over this weekend. With the blog explosion, a lot of companies have developed "blog blings" (Neil's exact words) or a few lines of javascript code that people can cut and paste to their blogs. The result? Some fancy new features. I think Flickr started it with their Zietgiest, and Del.icio.us came up with the Linkorama. So here's a new one that can be customized for different effects: the Bitty Browser.

The Bitty Browser essentially allows you to embed a baby browser within your browser. So what? Well, for some web-surfing activities, you can prefer to stay in the same page (e.g. news, search, etc.). It's pretty cool and helpful, especially if you stick it into your blog (which is becoming everyone's homepage these days) and use it to navigate other sites.

Speaking of blog blings, Rrove has the Rrove Roll. Its essentially a list of the last locations you've been to. Yes, you should put that in your browser.

Here's an example:

Google Calendar

I came about an article on the Google Calendar while surfing Digg. Seems that this is something people are talking about (although there is an update that this pic might not be the real thing).

The interesting observation here is not so much that there is a Google Calendar, but the fact that people are talking about it. I don't think you'll get the same interest level if it was Real Networks or Napster who released a new product/service/feature. (Yes, Apple would get the same hype.)

It reminds me of the big Gmail buzz that happened a couple of years back. People were scrambling for invites, some where actually auctioned off at eBay for $100. Imagine that.

And yet, I don't it was done on purpose. I think that it was just a way to control expectations. It probably was also done because a lot of people will have signed up, and Google wasn't ready for the load.

(It's also interesting that alot of companies are doing something similar today. A lot of companies under-the-radar have a 'Coming Soon' front page and a little "leave us your email address and we'll tell you when we are ready." Somehow, it's not going to work. Btw, do you see a "coming soon" product from Google?)

The point is - I think Google's marketing success is because they have great engineers (v. marketing geniuses running around). I guess their success has created a 'halo effect' on their next projects.

(A final note - not all Google products are successful. Take Orkut, Froogle, among others. Yet their good products are more, and have really blown the market.)

Web 2.0 Lists

It's a bit shallow, but Rrove's inclusion to these two lists is nice.

Stabilo Boss's Flickr picture of Web 2.0 companies (click here for a bigger picture).


Sanjeev Narang's list of 900 Web 2.0 companies

Where 2.0

With everything having a version 2.0, it shouldn't be a surprise that the location-based services that are coming out would have the same. Enter Where 2.0 - the future of mapping and local search. This should be a good event; local search is estimated to be a $4 billion dollar business and is a fastest growing component of the Internet search advertising industry.

Of course, Where 2.0 is an O'Reilly conference. In other words, its expensive. Early birds pay $1,100 while late-comers pay $1,700 or something like that. I wish Rrove would get an invite. I think we can provide insights from the last months that we've been running the project.