Web 2.0 viral video

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then is a moving picture moving thousands? Or…maybe a picture of words worth thousands of pictures?
YouTube – The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version) In this short video (“a slightly revised and cleaned up version of the video that was featured on YouTube in February 2007″), Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, demonstrates the power of the web as a communication tool.

YouTube Video – Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

YouTube – Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us (~5 min.)
A short film by Kansas State Cultural Anthropology Professor Mike Welsh. In under five minutes, he takes a big bite of the Web 2.0 gestalt

“This is the 2nd draft, and I plan on doing one more final draft. Please leave comments on what could be changed or improved, or what needs to be excluded or included. Subscribe if you want to be notified when the revision is released.”

Scoble dislikes new media release?

I am grinning at the notion of Robert Scoble being paid top dollar to speak at a workshop by the local chapter of the Social Media Club — a group that has rallied around the Social Media Release during their last two meetings. In this blog post, Scoble supports Stowe Boyd’s plea to “kill the social media press release idea now.”

“He’s right. I hate that idea too. Just give us a damn demo of your product and tell us about it.

“…we need to pre-write stories for bloggers and journalists since they can’t write their own opinions or reports down, right?“

Maybe I should post that quote at the Phoenix SMC wiki?

Chat word frequency cloud

Here is a tag cloud generated from a recent online chat, courtesy of TagCrowd. Imagine having voice to text software peg an examination review into a cloud. Then, you could heads-up display it on your windshield on the way to class.

Was in a chat last night that would have made for a heady cloud, but was somehow lost from archiving… (Partner may have gone “off the record”).

Web apps: personal budget

Searched around Web2.0 for personal finance and budgeting applications (apps). After a little surfing, these apps seemed worth mention. The first may be the best for simple budget tracking…

PearBudget

“Keep in mind, you don’t need to know Excel to use PearBudget. Just look for the cells with the white background and fill in the info the program tells you to. Please don’t touch any cells that don’t have a white background.”
This looks like a user-friendly application; but, as with any tool, there is a learning curve here, too.

Wesabe

“Take control of your money, find the best values in your area, and reach your financial goals by joining the Wesabe community. Wesabe is a community of people who share our experiences with our money so we can help each other make better financial decisions.”
Note: This site allows actual management of accounts. Though you may not want to have all your financial information online, maybe one ‘utility’ account on this site would not be too much of a risk. The site offers a free basic account, and a free trial period for bells and whistles (four months). Site has apparent credibility, given the recommendations I found on other (familiar) weblogs.

Expenses Tracker

“Easily create your own category and sub-category. Generate reports. Track and analyze your spending with customizable reports.”
This app also allows bank account management (see note in Wesabe entry).

mo.neytrack.in

“a free online webapp that allows you to track all your expenses and income easily and without effort, thus allowing you to have a clear view of your financial situation. It intends to be a simple yet powerful online budget management tool.”

To try PearBudget, you’ll need to install it (you can do this!). This is a template for Microsoft Excel, so you already have the software you need to use this application.

1. Download the .zip file from the website (save it to your desktop)
2. Unpack it by right-clicking on the desktop icon and selecting to ‘Open’ or ‘Extract’ the file with WinZip (or whatever .zip utility you use).
3. Open the app from inside Excel (boot Excel, select File>Open, and navigate to the desktop, where you put the file).

If you like the look and feel of PearBudget, you could sign up for an invitation for the private beta that will be sent out when the web-based application goes live. The advantage of a web-based app is that you access it through your browser. That way, when you are at the library, or at a friend’s, anywhere that the Internet is available, you can access the application just as though you were on your desktop at home.

Yahoo! ajax eMail (beta)

AJAX makes for a slick interface in Yahoo! e-mail. With drag-n-drop ability and tabbed views as a bonus, the rapid response of an AJAX interface is an improvement worth mention alone. So, Yahoo! users, if—like me—you missed any hype around the release of the beta, now’s the time.