Not a week has passed since the official release of Apollo, a platform allowing web applications to run outside a browser, and they’re already in trouble (i.e. there’s competition), reports TechCrunch. Here are three services that offer pretty much the same experience that Apollo does:

1. The third iteration of the popular open-source browser, Firefox, will allow similar functionality through enabling offline access to local datastores
2. Dekoh allows you to bring together the web and your desktop by allowing developers to create applications on their platform.
3. Lastly, Slingshot, let’s developers to create applications that similarly work online as well as offline.

For a look at the differences between the various applications, technical overviews, and more commentary, head on over to TechCrunch.

Originally posted on March 23, 2007 @ 2:10 pm

When it comes to blog or website rankings, you have probably used either Alexa or Technorati. Stan Schroeder proposes a new methodology for ranking that has already piqued the interest of many A-list bloggers.

They have the data. They have the capabilities. Yet, they’re not maintaining any sort of top list of feeds with the most subscribers.

With 600,000 feeds in their roster, the service he is talking about is of course Feedburner. In the absence of any such formal list from the service itself, Stan has compiled a list based on the number of subscribers for each site. Certain conditions and limitations apply.

Here is a list of the chart topping 5:

1. BoingBoing
2. TechCrunch
3. Simply Recipes
4. Interesting Thing of the Day
5. 43Folders

Check out the complete list from Mr. Schroeder.

Originally posted on March 25, 2007 @ 2:48 pm

(With apologies to Krug for using the term ‘Web 2.0’)

There are of course those sites that you know of (Digg, Netscape, and so on) but what’s the point in covering those? Instead, take a look at this thorough list of sites that are generally and unfortunately often overlooked.

In order to separate the wheat from the chaff, I’ve spent the last 3 weeks visiting and trying out over 500 of these sites, and have compiled a list of the top 10 under rated Web 2.0 sites.

1. Reddit.com
2. Linkfilter.net
3. Shoutwire.com
4. Furl.com
5. Mag.nolia.com
6. Blinkbits.com
7. Simpy.com
8. StumbleUpon.com
9. Blogmemes.com
10. Squidoo.com

For more information on each of these sites, don’t forget to check out this article.

Originally posted on March 25, 2007 @ 10:48 am

Yahoo! Widgets (read: Konfabulator) 4 has been made available for download. This version includes many new features for both the developers as well as the end-users. Here’s a brief look at the updates:

1. Widget Dock: Allows you to manage your widgets.
2. Updates: If there are updates available, Widgets now automatically update.
3. Widgets Discovery: If you get tired of the Widgets you already have, you can browse a gallery of over 4300+ more with just one click.
4. Improved User Experience: Many changes and simplifications have been implemented based on feedback from users.
5. Improved Performance: Decreased memory consumption by 40%.

For more details on these enhancements, and a look at many other changes, visit the Yahoo! Widgets Blog.

Originally posted on March 23, 2007 @ 2:31 pm