After a long time of beta testing, Joost finally opened to the public on the 1st of October. I was a beta tester for a long time, and have to say that while I agree that Joost lacks must-see content like Mathew Ingram wrote in The Globe and Mail this week, so do almost all [...]
At the end of June I wrote about how Google Maps is adding street views of some US cities to its service, but that currently there’s no street view service for Toronto. Little did I know – a service called Virtual City has been online for a while now. The site looks like a relatively [...]
While looking for an apartment in Toronto last week, I wished that there was some web service where I could see pictures of the whole street where the apartment I was looking at is located. Since I’m currently in Helsinki, I can’t go and check out the hood myself – I’m limited to online resources. [...]
Last week I noticed that Apple has now put Spotlight, the powerful OS X search tool, on its main website as well. While the Shortcut-based functionality behind the online Spotlight doesn’t yet give all the right results, further development of the online version of Spotlight can be one interesting way to base the whole navigation [...]
YTV, the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council, has created a new version of its popular Reittiopas/Journey Planner service, Journey Planner for Cyclists. It’s an enhanced version of the old Journey Planner, and looks like a Google Maps mashup, but instead of Google it seems to be based on Affecto’s Genimap service. To plan a cycling route, [...]
If you’re fluent in Finnish, check out Eero Holmila’s blog Oikeita totuuksia (~”Real truths”), which focuses on Finnish web 2.0 type of services. I find it a very interesting read – Eero has managed to find a lot of new services besides the most popular ones, and he analyses his finds very well. Karri Ojanen
I’ve seen several websites that offer many of the same features, but I think WalkJogRun is my favorite yet because it’s so very simple. It’s a mashup using Google Maps to plan running routes and to calculate distance, speed and calories. The search for addresses by zip/post code works only for the US and UK, [...]
“Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) Charles S. Knight has compiled a list of the top 100 alternative search engines. The list includes Artificial Intelligence systems, Clustering engines, Recommendation Search engines, Metasearch, and many more hidden gems of search. People use four main search engines for 99.99% of their searches: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com (in that [...]
In regards to my post earlier (in December) about services like Last.FM, iLike and Pandora, here’s a new service where the basic idea is about the same, but the UI is quite different: Musicology. While I like the colorful design, mindmap-like approach and the ease of use, the music collection isn’t nearly big enough to [...]
Skype founders’ Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis project Joost (formerly called ‘The Venice Project’) promises fullscreen P2P TV, like Babelgum, which is loaded with several handy features in its UI. Both projects are now in beta testing, and Joost say it’s already expanded into a global venture employing more than 150 people. While the content [...]
Conceptology is the personal blog of Karri Ojanen, an interaction design leader, usability consultant, creative director and digital marketing strategist. The posts cover a wide area from advertising to corporate culture, mobile technology to social media, and product design to design techniques. . Subscribe via RSS »
