Jaiku Acquired By Google

Jaiku, the Twitter-like web start-up that's not even open to new user sign-ups yet (you can only join if you're recommended by a current user) has just been acquired by Google. Wow, I personally think that Google is slowly taking over the world. But I think that's a good thing, as long as they use their power for good. Haha.

Anyway, according their FAQs about the acquisition...

We are excited to welcome the Jaiku employees into Google. While it's too soon to comment on specific products and development plans, we'll be working with the Jaiku team over the coming months to expand their technology in ways we hope you'll find interesting and useful.

Lucky Jaiky employees, I wonder if they got a pay rise... hmm, technology that's interesting and useful huh... I'm intrigued. What's also interesting is how this is going to impact the simpler but more popular Twitter. I guess only time will tell, but I'm 70 percent sure that this will bring Twitter down. Let's wait and see.

My Mashable.com Top 5

I love lists and compilations. That's why I totally get Mashable.com. I could probably spend all day reading and just absorbing post after Mashable post. Although I haven't done that yet, I have already compiled a personal Mashable Top 5. These aren't in any particular order and subject to change at any time (haha)... enjoy.

1. 80+ Free 2-Column Website Templates - I'm a web designer and this is a great source for inspiration. Yup, I admit it, I've been to the point where I just can't get a move on a project due to the lack of a mind spark. Scrolling through this post gets my creative juices flowing in no time.

2. Download YouTube Videos - Let's face it, YouTube rocks. It's not just a repository of corny home videos and hilarious Japanese tv shows. Everyone is using it nowadays and it's virtually an unlimited resource for informative videos including gadget reviews, tutorials, even podcasts. However, it's biggest limitation for me is the lack of a built-in download feature. To the rescue are more than a handful of third party apps that do just that. Stan Schroeder from Mashable has made things easier for us by compiling a list of YouTube downloaders. Handy.

3. 50 Great Widgets For Your Blog - These are all great widgets for your blog. Keep it in mind though, it's great to have a few widgets on your blog, but don't overdo it. Choose the most relevant ones for your sites content and practice moderation.

4. 30+ Tools to Turn Wordpress into a Personal Hub - Although I'm using Blogger, I won't deny that Wordpress is a great blogging platform. It's very flexible and easy to use. These tools allow you to make your Wordpress blog into a virtual souped-up social network profile page. In this case, contrary to my advice for #3, I'd say go all out with the add-ons and have fun.

5. TWITTER TOOLBOX: 60+ Twitter Tools - By itself, Twitter is a simple microblogging tool. With these add-ons and tools however, Twitter becomes a messenging powerhouse. I personally didn't get Twitter when it first came out but as these tools slowly trickled out I realized that you control how powerful it can become.

Create Your Own Facebook

These days, everyone's crazy about the online social network Facebook. However, if you're tech-savvy (and even if you're not), you'd probably want to have your very own profile page or site that doesn't limit you to the boundaries of Facebook or other social networking sites. This article from Wired How-To's shows you exactly how to do that. I'm free to share the article under their Creative Commons Licence so I'll do exactly that. Here's the full article...

With a little savvy, anyone can create a page that hosts all of the essential stuff one would find on a Facebook profile that can be set up with the same plug-and-play ease. You'll have to store all of your photos, videos, and contacts elsewhere, but at least you'll be able to get to your stuff.

Start by setting up a blog. Say what's on your mind. Unlike your blog on Facebook or MySpace, everyone will be able to read it. From there, you can pull in your photos from Flickr--> or Zooomr -->, show off your impeccible musical tastes hosted at iLike --> or Last.fm -->, share your favorite web bookmarks from del.icio.us --> or Ma.gnolia --> and put up a list of your most recent reads using Shelfari --> or LibraryThing -->.

All of these services have open APIs, making it easy for third-party developers to build widgets for displaying public data stored there. As a result, many such tools exist.

Need to keep up to date with your friend's activities? Pull in a feed from their blog
or from their Twitter page. The Upcoming --> event notification service has a dead simple code generator that will create a widget listing all of the events you plan to attend, as well as those your friends are interested in. Like to chat? Meebo -->
offers an embeddable widget for AIM chatting, and Jaxtr --> does the same for SMS. You can even drop in a Skype --> button that lets your friends call you with
one click.

One of Facebook's unique features is the "everything in one place" feed service (Mini-feeds and News Feeds), but you can build such a thing yourself. Just create an account at one of the many feed re-mixing sites like Yahoo Pipes -->, FeedShake --> or FeedBlendr -->. Plug in all the feeds from the various sources you want to track and paste the resulting URL into a widget on your site. Voilà.

The free blogging software from WordPress --> has all of the functionality to let you embed these widgets and RSS streams. WordPress also has a thriving plug-in ecosystem, so it's likely a developer somewhere has done much of the dirty work for you.

An even easier option is to use a sharable and customizable start page from Pageflakes --> or Protopage -->. Pageflakes in particular allows you to build a customized chunk of cyberspace that aggregates all of your desired content just like Facebook, which you can then publish publicly (Pageflakes calls this a "Pagecast"). And beyond a simple user registration, Pageflakes doesn't lock in any of your personal data.

Although it looks complicated, with all these Web2.0 services popping up, it couldn't be any easier. It's really a piece of cake if you think about it... the possibilites are virtually endless. So go ahead and create your own profile page. Have fun while you're at it too.

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Twitter Productivity Hacks

Aside from broadcasting to people you hardly know whatever you're doing or whatever you're thinking at a particular moment, Twitter can now do so much more. Thanks to integrations like GCal and Remember the Milk, Twitter is no longer just the micro blogging service we thought it was.

Remeber the Milk is a Twitter integration that reminds you of stuff you need to do.

Just send (Twitter user) rtm a direct message with the name of a task and
(optionally) when it's due. The task will be added to your inbox, and RTM will
remind you about it later.

pick up the milk

call jimmy at 5pm tomorrow

return library books in 2 weeks

(You can send a direct message on Twitter by posting an update with d rtm your message -- by SMS, IM, the web update box, or a third-party app like Twitterrific. So, you'd add a task with d rtm pick up the milk.)

GCal is a virtual calendar that lets you add events and appointments to your Google Calendar thru Twitter. Check Twittercal for more info on this.

To get started, just add gcal as your Twitter friend and grant it access to GCal. Now add any events by sending a direct message to gcal

d gcal meeting with paul tomorrow at 7pm

d gcal meeting with fred on monday, 25th of june at 9am

Source: Lifehacker.com

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