Archives for May 2006

Redhat has unveiled an open-source project called Mugshot that some bloggers are labeling a MySpace-style open-source social network product. The development team has supposedly gleaned all the best bits from the various social networking websites currently out there, mixed them together with some Web 2.0-goodness and created Mugshot.

The Mugshot team disagrees. In a post on the developers blog, they argue that Mugshot is not designed to replace MySpace, Orkut, et. al. at all. Instead, Mugshot complements these, and other, web services.

So what is Mugshot?

Mugshot consists of two parts; a client app and a server component. From the user’s perspective, it’s a glorified contact list, with some nifty extras that integrate with other sites. For example, to sign-in, you can use your AIM screenname. And with Mugshot, you could automatically publish your iTunes playlist history to your MySpace profile. Or you could share links, and comment on them — like Digg. The goal here is not necessarily to displace or replace the existing web services you already use, but to work with them and enhance them. This is true with links, music, IM and eventually other services such as Flickr.

While I agree that this approach is not an “open source MySpace” as some have sensationally hawked it, but it is a social networking tool. In fact, I’d argue that Mugshot ismore of a social networking tool than MySpace, in the purest sense of the phrase. Mugshot won’t get you thousands of so-called friends that you don’t really know. It leverages your real friends, and their friends.

Of course, being from Redhat it’ll run on Linux, but at least there will also be a compatible client for Windows.

The Mugshot beta is closed, but you can sign-up and they’ll notify you when they ready for more testers. Or if you’re the kind who likes to muck around in the code, visit the Mugshot Developers Wiki.

technorati tags: mugshot, redhat, social networking, myspace

Michael Arrington of Techcrunch reports that the Seattle-based real estate website Redfin is expanding into California, beginning with San Francisco but expanding soon into Los Angeles, San Diego and eventually nationwide. Arrington writes:

They have an intruiging and aggressive business model. Instead of providing useful real estate information to consumers and then pointing them to real estate professionals like competitors Trulia and Zillow, Redfin is doing their best to completely remove real estate agents and brokers from at least half of a home sale.

Redfin combines MLS listing information (homes for sale) with historical sales data (homes already sold) into a single map. If you find a home you like and want to place an offer, Redfin will represent you in the buying process (they have a call center with licensed real estate professioinals to guide you). Here’s the good part: They reimburse you 2/3 of the buy-side real estate fee directly on closing. The average amount reimbursed to the buyer is $11,402 (and that is based on relatively low Seattle home prices).

I agree with Arrington’s assessment of the real estate business. The real estate market is a model of inefficiency. This represents a huge opportunity, but with an even bigger challenge. Things that should be fairly simple, like MLS databases, vary from state to state.

Maybe we should just start over and build a whole new market in Second Life.

Yesterday I received a voice message via Yahoo! Messenger from Ian, one of the mentors over at BigBlueBall. In his message, he pointed out that Skype provides voice mail, but at an extra cost, where Yahoo! Messenger (and Gizmo Project, and others) provide it for free. Literally minutes later I got an email announcing V4S, a free service that provides voice mail for Skype.

My curiosity appropriately piqued, I clicked install, and discovered that V4S is actually just a plug-in for Orb; a free tool that lets your access live TV, photos, music and videos from any web-enabled device. With the V4S plug-in, not only can you add voice mail to Skype for free, but you can retrieve it from anywhere with web connection, including your web-enabled PDA or mobile phone. This sounded really interesting.

Of course, I’m already placeshifting my satellite signal using Slingbox. But Orb lets you do some of this (if you have a PC equipped with a TV tuner card) but it adds the ability to access MP3s, photos, videos and other media on your PC.

I gave it a try, and it works fairly well. I was able to access all my photos, music and videos on my home PC from my laptop and a remote Internet connection. Performance was excellent, although I had trouble streaming MP3s. I switched to my iPAQ hw6515 PDA and it worked like a charm.

Once you’ve authenticated, Orb does a network speed test to determine the optimal stream rate for media. You can retest or hardcode a bitrate, but if you set it too high you’ll get more buffering. You could also use Orbit to allow someone you trust to access your media, although there are some obvious risks. Orb helps mediate some of those risks; only one remote user can connect to your PC at a time.

The V2S plug-in that provides Skype voice mail was the feature that drove me to originally try Orb, and there are a few other plug-ins that come with it. One lets you view your favorites or bookmarks, another lets you access your contacts (from Outlook, Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, Opera, Gmail or Outlook Express). Neither of these plug-ins are especially useful to me since I already store most of my favorites on del.icio.us now, and my PDA phone syncs my contacts automatically. Even so, it’s a nice touch, and it could be useful.

Because of the TV tuner requirement, Orb won’t replace my Slingbox. But Orb is cool, and if you’ve ever wanted to remotely access your media, it’s worth checking out.

technorati tags: orb, skype, placeshifting, mp3

Yahoo has recently redesigned their homepage. Although I think the new design is an improvement, I’m not going to argue the merits of the redesign. What really impressed me, and what I’d like to hear your opinion on, is how they created a walkthrough of the changes.

I’ve put together a brief walkthrough with commentary. It’s a 4.6 MB Flash file (mainly due to the audio), so if you’re interested, read on.
[Read more…] about How Yahoo introduces their new homepage