IE7 Beta 2 Ships

IE7 Beta 2 Ships

Microsoft just released Beta v.2 of IE7 and announced it on the IE blog. They?ve also announced toll free phone support and other feedback and support products for users of Beta 2. The English version only was released tonight. German, Finnish, Arabic and Japanese version will be released over the next three weeks.

We acted on a lot of the feedback and bug reports from the previous public releases. In particular, I feel good about changes we made based on reports from web developers around some CSS behaviors, application compatibility feedback, reliability data (yes, we do analyze the information that comes when you click ?Send Error Report?), and user experience feedback. People on the team will post additional details about changes over the next few days.

I was among a number of journalists and bloggers present at a Microsoft announcement dinner this evening. I?ll say this for Microsoft - they are taking the browser war seriously and without arrogance.

The key features are tabbed browsing (including ?Quick Tabs?, a way to see multiple web pages on a single tab), a continuation of the minimalist approach on the UI and toolbars, and enhancements to the RSS reader built into the browser. The team says they?ve made significant improvements in CSS rendering as well, a problem I noticed in the previous beta version.

IE7

[Via TechCrunch]

Google Grid ? Must watch!!!

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/epic

Baidu Baike: A Baidu?s Wikipedia

Baidu Baike: A Baidu?s Wikipedia

Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), the biggest rival of Google in China, is planning a new service called Baidu Baike (????, Baike is the pinyin for encyclopedia in Chinese), which is a wikipedia-like encyclopedia service.

The website of Baidu Baike has been available serveral weeks ago, but the service isn?t open. Today, more details of the service is disclosed from its faq(via Pose Show).

Baidu Baike allows registered users to create or edit any items in this encyclopedia, but all the new items and modification are obliged to be approved by moderators before they are published publicly. As wikipedia, users can edit any existing items and compare the previous version history.

The editors(users) of Baidu Baike are allowed to set tag for each item, but only limited to five tags per item. And the content of each item is limited to less than 20 thousand words.

Wikipedia is still blocked in China mainland. Baidu Baike is the latest company to China?s collaborative encyclopedia market without that powerful competitor. But I still hope Wikipedia can be accessed in China some day soon.

[via China Web 2.0 Review]

Rich Internet Apps - An Introduction

Rich Internet Apps - An Introduction

This post was written by Ryan Stewart, who is a R/WW guest blogger on Rich Internet Apps. Edited by Richard MacManus.

In the coming months we will see a new wave of Rich Internet Applications that will blend the web application and the desktop application in exciting new ways. There are three technologies on the horizon that will change the way people use the web: LaszloSystems' OpenLaszlo, Microsoft's WinFX (codename Avalon) and Adobe's Flex 2.

OpenLaszlo

OpenLaszlo is a very intriguing technology. Originally it was built leveraging the Flash Platform, but has since announced that applications built in OpenLaszlo will be able to compile into DHTML/AJAX as well as Flash. In fact the first option will be to use the DHTML version. The language is XML based with some JavaScript abilities, which makes building the applications very easy. The versatility of being able to leverage Flash or DHTML is also a major plus. It is entirely open source and the use of XML and JavaScript makes it a good way to get started building Rich Internet Applications quickly. 

If you're interested in seeing OpenLaszlo in action, they have a good demo app - LaszloMail.

Also check out Pandora, a 'web 2.0' application for finding music, which uses OpenLaszlo. The CTO Tom Conrad gave it great wraps in a blog post last August:

"Eight months ago when we sat down to figure out how were were going to deliver a compelling zero-install discovery and listening experience across Windows, Mac, and Linux in record time we considered everything you can imagine: plain old HTML, AJAX, Flex, OpenLaszlo to name just a few. In the end, Laszlo was the clear winner on all fronts. Mature, reliable, and the perfect tool for the job."

WinFX

WinFX, specifically the Windows Presentation Foundation formerly code-named Avalon, is the biggest question mark of the three. It is Microsoft's answer to the Rich Internet Application space, and it's interesting because in many ways it's the Bigfoot of RIAs. It uses the .NET platform and via an XML markup language (XAML) it provides developers with an easy way to build powerful user interfaces for all kinds of applications, both web and desktop. 

As with other Microsoft technologies it will be limited to Windows machines. However it opens up the Direct3D platform to developers - which is going to make for some amazing user interfaces. The .NET community is huge, and WinFX is going to be the backbone of Windows Vista, meaning that it will be an easy way to deploy applications for a brand new operating system. Real world examples are scarce because Avalon hasn't been released yet, but you can see it in action by downloading Microsoft MAX. There is also an interesting white paper on the MSDN site about using Avalon to create a North Face In-Store Explorer. You can also get the beta and see what WinFX has to offer.

Flex

The final technology, and the one I (Ryan) am admittedly most excited about, is Adobe's Flex 2. It too uses an XML based language (MXML) and as to be expected leverages the Flash Platform. Adobe/Macromedia's first foray with Flex required a very expensive server and had limited adoption. This time, Adobe has opened the floodgates and made the Flex 2 framework totally free. The new version of Flex will require a new Flash Player, and Adobe has rewritten the Flash virtual machine with a focus on speed and dependability. They're releasing the new player for Linux and Mac in addition to the normal Windows version, so the potential audience is huge. 

Adobe has built a Flex-AJAX bridge, which brings the best of AJAX and the best of Flash together to create some awesome potential. Adobe also has 'Apollo' in the works, which will allow developers to access desktop APIs using Flex or JavaScript to deploy desktop/web hybrid applications for times when data needs to be stored offline. Flash is grown up from the days of 'skip intro' and has the potential to provide a great user experience. 

Yahoo Maps - which recently got TechCrunch's vote as the best mapping framework on the Web - uses Flex 1.5. Also check out the Flex 2 Style Explorer, which provides a way to see the power and customization of Flex (requires the Flash 8.5 beta 2 player).

Summary

All of these applications are taking the tenants of Web 2.0 - the collaborative spirit, the user generated content - and combining them with a focus on the user experience, which is so important to the desktop. AJAX has done a stellar job of making people think about the web in new ways. The technologies above are going to take that to the next level, by providing a desktop-like interface to web users. 

Rich Internet Apps allow sophisticated effects and transitions that are important in keeping the user engaged. This means developers will be able to take the amazing changes in the Web for granted and start focusing on a flawless experience for the users. It is going to be an exciting time for anyone involved in building the new Web, because the interfaces are finally catching up with the content.

Ryan Stewart's blog is Digital Backcountry.

[via Read/WriteWeb]

Most Popular P2P Files: PeerMind

Most Popular P2P Files: PeerMind

Om Malik wrote about PeerMind yesterday, a site I hadn?t heard of before (even though it launched in January). It?s a regularly updated list of the most popular music, movies, games, software and ringtones being downloaded on theEDonkey 2000 and Gnutella networks. Once this includes BitTorent, which is apparently coming soon, PeerMind?s lists will be a much more interesting indicator of consumer demand for media than other top lists determined by more indirect methods.

PeerMind is published by Nareos, the creator of PeerBox, a mobile P2P file sharing application.

What are the most popular downloads? Well, PeerMind may be accurate but the results aren?t pretty: Maddona?s ?Hung Up? is the top song, and Ice Age 2 is the most popular movie. Yuck.

PeerMind

 

[via TechCrunch]

Tim O' Reilly?s seven principles of web 2.0 make a

Tim O' Reilly?s seven principles of web 2.0 make a lot more sense if you change the order

What is web 2.0? Because of my work with mobile web 2.0, I am often asked - 'what is web 2.0'?

This is often a genuine question - since there is a lot of confusion out there and many bandwagon seekers. Furthur, web 2.0 is a 'Soft concept' - it's not a standard, or a formula or a definition - which would have been a lot easier to explain.

I must be one of the few people who actually understand web 2.0!

To me, it's explained by the collective application of the seven principles of web 2.0 as outlined by Tim O' Reilly

So, my standard response to this question was to ask people their email address and then send them the O Reilly link.
If they had an interest in mobillity or digital convergence, I would send them my own work on mobile web 2.0 - which is based on the seven principles of web 2.0

Last week, I was discussing the seven principles yet again .. when suddenly it struck me - perhaps they should be in a different order!

I understand the rationale behind them - but not quite why they are in that specific order.

To me, it all makes perfect sense if the first and the second principles are switched over because all principles feed into the second principle!

Let me explain ..

web 2.0 can be described as the 'Intelligent web' or 'Harnessing collective intelligence'(which is the second principle of web 2.0)

The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge is intelligence. Knowledge is the sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned.

What kind of intelligence can be attributed to the web? How is it different from web 1.0?

IMHO - web 1.0 was hijacked by the marketeers, advertisers and the people who wanted to stuff canned content down our throat! Take away all that after the dot com bubble and what's left is the web as it was originally meant to be - a global means of communication.

The intelligence attributed to the web(web 2.0) arises from us as we begin to communicate.

Thus, when we talk of the 'Intelligent web' or 'harnessing collective intelligence' - we are talking of the familiar principle of wisdom of crowds

Merely managing a community is not web 2.0! as many web 2.0 masqeraders will find out no doubt soon.

In order to harness collective intelligence

a) Information must flow freely

b) It must be harnessed/processed in some way - else it remains a collection of opinions and not knowledge

c) From a commercial standpoint, there must be a way to monetise the 'long tail' - but thats the topic of another blog!

My essential arguement is - if we consider web 2.0 as 'Intelligent web' or 'Harnessing collective intelligence'(Principle two) - and then look at the other six principles feeding into it - it's all a lot more clearer

Since the wisdom of crowds is so important - lets consider that in a bit more detail from the wikipedia entry for the wisdom of crowds

Are all crowds wise?
No.

The four elements required to form a 'wise' crowd are
a) Diversity of opinion

b) Independence: People's opinions aren't determined by the opinions of those around them.

c) Decentralization: People are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge.

d) Aggregation: Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision.

Conversely, the wisdom of crowds fails when
a) Decision making is too centralized: The Columbia shuttle disaster occured because the hierarchical management at NASA was closed to the wisdom of low-level engineers.

b) Decision making is too divided: The U.S. Intelligence community failed to prevent the September 11, 2001 attacks partly because information held by one subdivision was not accessible by another.

c) Decision making is imitative - choices are visible and there are a few strong decision makers who in effect, influence the crowd

Now .. lets look at the seven principles again ..

1. The Web As Platform
The web is the only true link that unites us all together whoever we are and whereever we are in the world. Hence, to harness collective intelligence and to create the intelligent web - we need to include as many people as we can. The only way we can do this is to treat the web as a platform and use open standards. You can't harness collective intelligence using the
ESA/390 - however powerful it is!

2. Harnessing Collective Intelligence
Now becomes the 'main' principle or the first principle

3. Data is the Next Intel Inside
By definition, to harness collective intelligence - we must have the capacity to process massive amounts of data. Hence, data is the 'intelligence' (Intel)

4. End of the Software Release Cycle
This pertains to 'Software as a service'. Software as a 'product' can never keep upto date with all the changing information.
Ofcourse in the web 2.0 sense, we are dealing with code as well as data - so the service concept keeps the data relevent (and the harnessed decision accurate) by accessing as many sources as possible

5. Lightweight Programming Models
The heavy weight programming models catered for the few. In contrast, using lightweight programming models we can reach many more people(hence sources of information - to
enable data collection and a more intelligent web).
For example: from the seven principles

Amazon.com's web services are provided in two forms: one adhering to the formalisms of the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) web services stack, the other simply providing XML data over HTTP, in a lightweight approach sometimes referred to as REST (Representational State Transfer). While high value B2B connections (like those between Amazon and retail partners like ToysRUs) use the SOAP stack, Amazon reports that 95% of the usage is of the lightweight REST service.

6. Software Above the Level of a Single Device
More devices to capture information and better flow of information between these devices leads to a higher degree of collective intelligence

7. Rich User Experiences
A rich user experience is necessary to enable better web applications leading to more web usage and better information flow on the web - leading ofcourse to a more 'Intelligent' web.

And you need look no furthur than this blog .. itself a collaborative exercise and hopefully adding to the intelligence of the web itself

Thoughts/comments welcome at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com
Note: I first heard of the phrase 'Intelligent web' from Michiel de Lange's comment on another blog which referred to one of my older posts.
His entry using the phrase 'Intelligent web' is HERE

[via Open Gardens]

Google Calendar is Live

Google Calendar is Live

Google Calendar has officially gone live at calendar.google.com. A tour of Calendar is available here.

Dave Winer may have been the first to write about it on Scripting.com. CNET also has a story.

My first impression - It?s fast, slick and stable. Calendar is Ajax driven and, as I mentioned, very fast. Adding an event is as easy as typing ?Dinner with Keith tomorrow at 8pm? and Calendar structures the data properly and places a correct calendar entry. This entry can be dragged around the screen to a new day or time.

The Key features:

• Text recognition - In adding an event, or detecting a new event from Gmail, Calendar automatically detects event-specific words and suggests the adding of a new event with data auto-structured.
• Manage Multiple Calendars - set up multiple calendars (work, personal, etc) and view them separately or together.
• Heavy Gmail integration - Gmail recognizes when messages include event information, so when you get emailed about an event, you can add it to Google Calendar with just a couple clicks. Google Calendar links on the right side of the Gmail page.
• Sharing - Calendars can be shared with others, and you can subscribe to others? shared calendars. Read/write permissions can be granted on a per user basis. Calendars can be published via a web page or via RSS, so readers do not need to be on the Google Calendar platform.
• Importing - You can import events from other calendar programs, including Yahoo Calendar and Microsoft Outlook. Click ?Settings,? then ?Import Calendar?.
• Calendar Search

The key driver of Google Calendar is clearly going to be the Gmail integration. For users of Gmail?s web interface, it will be extremely easy to keep track of Calendar items on Google as well.

My overall impression: Excellent. The ability to share via web publishing or RSS shows Google?s commitment to an open stardard. And this application is impressive in its speed and stability.

Screen Shots:

Google, Google Calendar

[ via TechCruch]

Zillow Goes 3D

Zillow Goes 3D

A little competition is good - just two weeks after Zillow saw Real Estate ABC and Google Real Estate move into its territory, they launch a new 3D viewing application based on Microsoft Live?s ?bird?s eye view? feature. This is a perfect use for Live.com Local, allowing potential buyers to get a better view of the homes they are considering purchasing.

Zillow

[via TechCrunch]

Another China?s Web2.0 100 List

Another China?s Web2.0 100 List

In China?s Web2.0 Conference, which held in Beijing yesterday, China Computer World (CCW) announced a list of 100 most potential Chinese web2.0 sites in 13 categories, including blog hosting, social networking service, search, personal homepage, rss, podcasting hosting, specialized blog hosting, aggregation, classified advertising, wiki, social bookmarking and tools.

Just quick scanning the list, I have already found something really strange, for example, why they put Netease in the category of RSS, which Netease?s rss service they are talking about? They classifies Douban into category of specialized blog hosting service, together with Baidu Postbar, which is a BBS-like communities rather than a blog hosting service.

Maybe you will be interested in comparing two lists on China?s Web2.0 from CCW and from Internet Society of China respectively.

Update: Hopesome found that in the category of podcast hosting, there are two names(???? and ????) referring the the same site, they are just different domain name for a site( Now imboke.com will redirect to lifepop.com). Have they ever reviewed the nominees seriously before they finalize this list?

[via China Web 2.0 Review]

The Flickr Gunners

The Flickr Gunners

Flickr wasn?t the first photo sharing site, and it isn?t the most popular. In fact, it isn?t even the most popular photo sharing site owned by Yahoo - this is. But Flickr caught our attention and, at least with the technology-savvy crowd, it has become synonymous with photo sharing.

A whole new crop of services are gunning for flickr and the title of ?coolest photo site?. I call these the ?Flickr Gunners? and I?ve written about them often. Yahoo Photos and Webshots, two newly rejuvenated services, are also combining new and exciting features with their massive existing customer and photo base.

Photo sharing sites are sticky by nature. Once you?ve gone to the trouble of uploading your photos, tagging them and creating albums, it?ll take something very special to get you to move. Flickr had this ?specialness? - the social tagging and viewing features built a network effect that made flickr more valuable to a new user as it grew.

But Flickr has weaknesses. First, as I said they are not the biggest photo site. Yahoo Photos, Webshots and others dwarf them both in terms of users and uploaded photos. These larger services can afford to wait and see what works best and then duplicate it (and Yahoo Photos is rolling out new stuff that isn?t available on Flickr. Second, flickr hasn?t done much in terms of new features lately. They missed the video boat entirely, and YouTube now has a big lead in that category. And third, there are a number of UI issues that could easily be fixed but remain unchanged, stubbornly: the need for sub albums, better batch editing features and the ability to view more photos on a page. Yes, flickr has been working hard on scalability issues, but that shouldn?t stop them from evolving the UI and feature set.

And brand new or very young services are rolling out new features regularly. These small companies are hungry and obsessive and will do anything for market share. Here are four I?ve been tracking:

BubbleShare

I really like BubbleShare. As I?ve written before, it takes about 10 seconds from hitting the site for the first time to actually viewing pictures that you?ve uploaded. You don?t even need to create an account.

BubbleShare has added new features often since launch. Recent upgrades include Audio Caption, BubbleBar (a way to bring photos right to your desktop, similar to Slide or FilmLoop) and the less serious but really fun BubbleCaptions, (where you can add cartoon text captions to photos).

BubbleShare?s big weakness is that they do not allow tagging of photos, or photo search. This service isn?t about discovery, it?s about sharing photos and albums you?ve uploaded/created with others.

Ookles

Ookles is Scott Johnson?s (Feedster Founder) newest venture, and my expectations are very high for this yet to be launched photo service.

There aren?t many details yet, but Scott has described Ookles as Flickr+Riya+YouTube (click on the Zooomrtations on the bottom right sidebar). In a recent podcast with Gregory Galant, Scott called Ookles the ?next gen Flickr? targeted to people with children. He stressed that both the front and back ends will be compelling - a ?beautiful UI with everything Ajax?, and an intelligent, scalable back end. He also disclosed that the company has gotten to launch stage on just $75,000 in funding.

The hype machine is on. Scott, you have our attention. Please deliver.

Smugmug

All I am going to say about Smugmug is that it isn?t very web 2.0, but it is adored by lots of loyal users for having the best (and most customizable) layout for pictures. It also allows full quality archiving of pictures, and is the choice of many photo professionals for that reason. I am urging them to add the obvious web 2.0 features to round this out, starting with RSS feeds for photos and tagging.

Zooomr

Zooomr came out of nowhere a few weeks ago and suddenly 17 year old founder Kristopher Tate is the coolest guy at the party. Zooomr 2.0 is coming out next week and includes new features like ?inspector? (a quick view of photo details), ?smartsets? (dynamically generated albums based on rules, such as certain tags, dates, people, etc. - Yahoo Photos is doing something similar), geotagging improvements and more. Keep an eye on Zooomr - my bet is that it gets acquired quickly, if only so that one of the big players can get their hands on Kristopher. My original profile on Zooomr is here.

Bubbleshare, Ookles, Smugmug, Zooomr

[via TechCrunch]

Agassi: MySQL to support SAP this year

Agassi: MySQL to support SAP this year

(InfoWorld) - On the heels of its venture capital (VC) investment in MySQL AB, SAP is readying its enterprise software to run on the Swedish company's open-source database.

Shai Agassi, president of SAP's products and technology group, said Thursday he expects MySQL to be certified to run SAP applications by the end of the year.

"I'm sure [MySQL] will be supported," Agassi said during an appearance with fellow SAP executives Henning Kagermann and Leo Apotheker in Burlingame, California Thursday. Agassi and the rest of SAP's Executive Board were in town for their annual meeting, the second in a row the team has held in Silicon Valley.

Agassi responded to criticism that SAP is less friendly toward open source as a development model as some competitors are with a reminder that SAP "shipped our applications into the market with our source open to people for modification for ages."

That move brought mixed results, he said. "Sometimes it was great for the customers, sometimes it wasn't great for the customers," Agassi said.

It was from this experience that SAP came up with its strategy to re-architect its applications on a service-oriented architecture, which it currently is in the process of doing.

In this way, the company can keep its back-end application code intact, while giving customers a variety of options for integrating their business processes with SAP applications through open interfaces to them, Agassi said.

"We're finding a demarcation -- which areas should they touch and which areas they shouldn't," he said. "The service interface is the line under which you should not come in and alter the code."

SAP's venture arm announced its investment in MySQL in February. The investment was part of $18.5 million in Series C funding the Uppsala, Sweden-based company secured from investors that included not only SAP but also Intel Corp.

[via InfoWorld]

Pixrat Bookmarks Photos

Pixrat Bookmarks Photos

Bangalore based Pixrat, founded by three ex-Yahoo employees, is Del.icio.us for photos.

Functionality is straightforward: add their bookmarklet to your browser, and when you are on a page with photos and you?d like to bookmark one of them, click the bookmarklet and follow the steps to choose the photo and tag it. Photos can be sorted by recency or popular, or searched by tag. If you see a picture bookmarked on Pixrat that you like, you can click to bookmark it in your account and add your own tags.

That?s it. Pretty simple. I like stuff like this - If I was doing photo based research, this would be a very useful tool. What it needs: RSS feeds for tags, user accounts, and the popular and new categories. Why isn?t it there already?

Note that previously profiled Dabble (bookmarking of media files) says they?ll be going into the photo space as well. More on Pixrat from Jordan Running and Pete Cashmore. Pixrat blog is here.

Pixrat

Souyo: A New Chinese Blog Search Engine

Souyo: A New Chinese Blog Search Engine

Souyo is the latest Chinese blog search engine, which launched two week ago.

As it said in its homepage, Souyo now indexed over ten million blog posts from about 500 thousand blogs, that is average 20 posts from each blog.

Being a blog search engine, Souyo has most of the necessary functions, i.e. keyword search, tag search, link search and blog rank. In addition, Souyo has some interesting features, such as:

1. Quotation from blogs in their homepage: Souyo extracts random quotation from blogs to show in their homepage automatically.

2. Mini reader: In search result page, you can use its mini reader function under each result to read the post immediately, useful feature, I like it.

Souyo plans to launch a product review search function, but it is still under development and unavailable for test.

Souyo has decent design and well-applied ajax technology. However, for basic search capability, Souyo still has to improve much for it to be useful for users. For example, there are many miscoded Chinese characters you can find in the search result, and it seems Souyo has not fully indexed links of the post, that also makes its blog rank useless. I would suggest they release any new feature until it is really usable.

Anyway, I?m glad to see more blog search engine appear in China, it may press those experienced search engines, as Baidu, to pay more attention on this market.

Motionbox - Best Online Video Sharing So Far

Motionbox - Best Online Video Sharing So Far

There have been big changes in the online video space since I wrote a comparison post of the companies in the space (Flickrs of Video) last November.

Some things haven?t changed: Flickr still hasn?t released a video product, and YouTube (TechCrunch posts here) is still the reigning champ of online video with just massive traffic growth and mindshare.

But new tools are coming out to make sharing videos online even easier. Both Video Egg and Grouper (TechCrunch posts here and here) have downloadable clients that allow encoding to flash on the desktop (saving users from uploading very large files to the service) and some very basic editing features. Grouper also allows users to string together multiple video files (VideoEgg does not yet allow this). Also, while working from the desktop is easier than online, you must install the software. Grouper is not available on the Mac. VideoEgg has a Mac client that works with Safari, but I cannot get it to install on my new Intel based Mac.

New service Motionbox, which will launch in the next few weeks, goes way beyond all of this. CEO Chris O?Brien and investor Derek Idemoto came by to demo the service to me last week and, well, I?m impressed.

Motionbox doesn?t have a client uploader like Grouper and VideoEgg. You must upload the full video files to the service. And while those uploads are a pain, Motionbox has very good reasons for doing this.

To get what Motionbox is doing, take a YouTube and add a ton of really great editing, mashup and deep tagging features. Like YouTube, Motionbox transcodes files to flash to reduce file size and standardize viewing. But they also store the original files and allow you or those you authorize to download those files and/or purchase DVDs with the files.

Editing and Mashups

I also had a chance to test MotionBox?s video editiing tools. When editing a video, Motionbox breaks it down visually into frames (see picture above). Users can edit the file extensively, including linking several video files and removing any portion(s) of files. Mashups with other users? public or shared videos can also be created using this editing feature. Frankly, this goes way beyond what anyone else is doing, including VideoEgg and Grouper?s current offerings. All of these changes can be pushed back to the original quality files for downloading or DVD burning.

Deep Tagging

Like YouTube and other services, Motionbox allows tagging of video files. But they also allow deep tagging of parts of video files. Open a file (see picture above) select a portion of the video, and tag it. Viewers later will be able to skip right to that clip of the video by clicking on the tag. Longer videos can now easily be broken down into linkable pieces. This is a huge leap forward over competiting services.

Chris gave few details on pricing and limitations on files sizes, other than to say that any limits will be time based v. file size based like YouTube (which has a 100 mb file size limitation), and many or all of the restrictions will be lifted for premium users (expect a $25/year premium subscription fee).

Sign up to be notified of the Motionbox launch here.

Motionbox