Clearing the Backlog of Stuff to Read
It has happened again, my “To Blog” bookmark folder has reached a size that is too big, so I need to clear some of it out, at least the smaller bits.
[twittearth](http://twittearth.com/) is a wonderful tool to leave running on your desktop and it seems an OS X screensaver is coming. By then I hope to hear about it again, because it would be a cool screensaver to use.
Want to have the photo application that will appear on MobileMe from Apple for yourself? Check out SproutCore, which is what it was based on it seems. I have to admit I still like Flickr, and the second part Funambol, could be the syncing part and push email service. I did try it shortly and I am not sold, as I am not fully sold on MobileMe. I like GMail because it is different and with IMAP I am close to push email. Contacts are synced with the Mac and then Phone and always with me, and calendar items are synced with Google Calender, … I am not sure what else I need.
Tried out Fluid already? Really nice. Create a browser for Gmail and one for Twitter, … and so on. When one crashes the rest stay up. :) you can also create a menu extra out of the browser. So if you create one for m.twitter.com and make it a menu extra you have your own little twitter app. Very cool.
There is a very good discussion on the future of social media right here. I do fully believe in the openness part, and it is actually the only way all the social part will really work, or at least the business models, but that means that execution counts and that is something that the big guys are really scared about. They also want a bit part of the pie and not a small part of a bigger pie, which is stupid and not how the internet works. But who am I to tell them.
[Is Etsy the next eBay](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/etsy_ebay_distributed_mass_customization.php)? Really old, and no, I don’t think so, but it is interesting to think about and there are some valid points. Congrats of course to DaWanda in germany for having picked the space and gone through hard times to get there.
The really important part in the above article though is this:
> We may be witnessing the historical high water mark of giant companies in developed economies. In 1955, Fortune 500 companies generated 1/3 of GDP in America. In 2000 that had risen to 2/3. If you prefer %, from 33% to 66%. Hidden in those numbers are the countless family farms that could not withstand the onslaught of Agribusiness and the Mom & Pop shops that closed when Wall Mart came to town.
> Imagine a world where the Fortune 500 share of GDP went back to 1/3 and small businesses got back the 1/3 they lost in the last 50 years.
THIS is something I truely believe in. The devide will get bigger. The Fortune 500 will get bigger and there will be a lot more smaller ones and the middle will thin out. There is still something called economies of scale but they changed a bit. This article on Re-Localization is another one that rocks. This is exactly the space we are attacking with Ormigo in that stuff if becoming more local, services are becoming more important, the the local/service/self-employed/SMBs need a system to really use online efficiently. We are learning a great deal through our customers and users each and every day, which makes this market very rewarding, as complex as it is.
Google has some new APIs for Translation. Just check out this bit for a bookmarklet. :) Check out the new Google Translate. Also Kayak is starting with some interesting APIs to their services.
To finish this off, check out “No Internet. Anywhere.” from Southpark.