Webride is a great new service that I’ve been enjoying lately that brings discussion to any website on the web. It is a solution to having discussion about any website, blog post, news article, or whatever it may be. Even more so, it is a solution for website owners to add discussion to any page on their website. What is it? You can look at it as a simplified discussion forum that is attached to any website where Webride users can read, comment, and tag the site. Webride is also a networking system in that you can make new friends, see who likes you, and even see who doesn’t like you (ouch). Let’s take a look, and while you read over it, why not open my review in a Webride discussion and give your say?

The main page of Webride get’s right to the good stuff, popular discussion. Similar to how your basic social bookmarking or digg-like site, the more activity a site gets, the more chance it has at getting on the popular page. In this case, websites getting the most discussion (comments) gets promoted to the main page. Aside from the main page, which is the popular section, you can browse to the New section for recently created discussions, Tag section to find discussions based on assigned tags, and lastly the Domain section allowing you to look at discussions for specific domains.

You will also find a field on the main page that you can enter any web address to start a new discussion. Just enter the address and that is all. Want to make things even easier to start a discussion? Webride also provides a simple bookmarklet that when clicking will take the current site and create a Webride discussion page for it.

Assuming that you found a discussion of interest from any of the sections or created your own discussion for a site, you will be directed to a new document with a split frame. This split frame includes comments from Webride users on the left and the website itself on the right. I like this format because users can read the website while keeping the discussion open on the left. It also makes it easier when commenting because you can easily refer to the website as you write. Taking a look at the left where the discussion resides, you will find links at the top to add a comment, view tags, and switch to discussion fullscreen or close it. You will also find an RSS icon so you can subscribe to a discussion in your feed reader. Current discussion is listed by date, much like how your basic commenting system appears, along with icons (optionally gravatars) for members. Clicking on a member will open a user info window where you can learn more about a user that you may possibly want to friend or track.

One thing that I found very interesting in the discussion area was the method used for adding tags to the website. On the top of a discussion, you will see a link to open the tags box. This is where you can view already assigned tags and add your own. What I found so interesting was how you can choose existing tags, which you see in a scrollable box, when assigning a tag to the website. You will see five options: My recent tags, My top tags, My tags (all), Top tags, and Recent tags. Selecting an option will then populates the box (using Ajax) with tags relating to the option you’ve chosen. I have not seen this method used before, and I must say, I really like it. I can view groups of tags (optionally, tags that aren’t even my own) making it easier for me to find the right tags and then select tags individually that I want to assign.

I mentioned that Webride also has some networking functionality where you can make friends, or as Webride puts it, “Meet intelligent and good-looking people at Webride” (it’s true!). You can find friends in discussions or in the users section of the site where you can view top and new users. Going into a users profile, you can view all discussions that have commented in and all websites that they have posted for discussion. You can also see tags that they’ve used and also their relationships with other users. And when I say relationships, I don’t mean just love. I’m talking love and hate relationships. If I don’t like a user, I can go to their profile and say I don’t like them and that user, along with anyone else, can see that I do not like that person in their relations section. Why would you say you don’t like a user? There are many reasons why one may do this, but maybe you two are contstantly having disagreements in discussions and you had enough. Otherwise, if you like someone, show that you want to be friends by saying you like them. Anyone can then see in your relations section that you like that person and they can also see friends that like you… or don’t like you back (Update: Only you can see who you dislike and not other users).

One last feature worth mentioning is Embedded Forums feature, which can be found in the tools area of Webride. Simply put, if you want to have a discussion actually embedded into your site rather then having visitors leave to Webride, you can do so! It is like sticking a small forum or comment system to any page of your website and it only takes seconds. Webride provides you a simple code snippet that you just paste into your site and a discussion box will appear next time someone views your page. You can even customize its appearance by overriding Webride’s CSS properties. For an example of the embedded forum, view the Tools / Website section of Webride. Still not enough to please you? Then be sure to check the Webride API that will allow you to integrate Webride into your applications. According to the projects section, they are already working on a WordPress plugin.

Overall, I really do enjoy Webride. Sure, external discussion services aren’t new, but I like how Webride is implemented. Anyone can easily start a discussion for any website or participate in a current discussion. Users hopefully can meet some new people while doing so as well. Users can post a website that they find interesting, a blog post, or maybe even a site they’ve recently redesigned and want some input on. Whatever the case is, if you want to discuss a site, you can. For more about Webride, Library Clips has a nice writeup.

Participate in the Webride Discussion for this review!

View Webride - Discuss the Web. (via MoMB)

I have seen an increasing number of companies releasing new methods of search all with common goals. Many simply organize results or increase functionality of major search engines and many create custom filters used against major search engine results. Whatever the case, it is always about relevance and how results are shown. Three search engines that have caught my interest are Gridwell, Scandoo, and Zeedex. They are all fairly new, each having interesting functionality that improves the way we search. I’ll briefly go over each one (ordered alphabetically).

Gridwell for Interface Improvement:

Gridwell is a search engine designed to make for an easier search experience by improving the common interface that results are shown in search engines. Your basic search engine displays results under a search form with paginated links below for more results. Gridwell on the otherhand immediately displays results on the top and search form on the right so all results fit without needing to scroll. Gridwell also shows website favicon’s for each result, pre-fetches pages of results, and has made navigating results with less mouse movement. What I like the most is how favicon’s are used on the left of all results. I can easily spot my most trusted sources and, for example, find results from Wikipedia without reading any descriptive information. Definitely a helfpul feature.

Scandoo for Secure Searching:

Scandoo is a search engine that extends functionality of major search engines (includes Google, MSN, Yahoo!, and Ask.com) by displaying security icons on the side of all returned results. Using its unique system, it scans each result and warns you when a website may contain malicious viruses and spyware or when a site may have offensive material. When searching with Scandoo, everything remains the same to the interface of the search engine you picked, except this time it will display their icons on the left of a result so you can easily spot trustworthy results. There are multiple icons, each meaning something different, but the main one you want to look for are the checks because they are the safe results. You’ll want to avoid red x’s or bug icons for your computers sake and second think results with question marks. I first didn’t think much of Scandoo, but after using it, I realized that it really does help and actually makes searching faster, and of course safer.

Zeedex for Filtered Results:

Although the interface needs work, the concept is a good one. Zeedex helps searchers find what they want by supplying them with relevant keywords from lists in which they can use to filter results. For example, if I were to search, “computers,” Zeedex will return lists of related topics (such as processors and computer manufacturers) with descriptions and images that I can select to narrow down on what I am looking for. Now, you may be wondering, where do these lists come from? Zeedex works much like a wiki. When you signup, you can easily add any list with different elements to any search term. For example, I added a list of client side languages and server side languages for the keyword, “programming,” and the lists now return when someone searches programming or any item I have in the list. Other users can edit lists and anyone can view the history behind a list. Searchers can also flag lists if they aren’t relevant or are inappropriate. Of course, there are benefits of having a wiki-style system, but getting users to contribute and not abuse the system is quite a task. As I have said, Zeedex is good in concept, but I feel it needs work with the interface and lacks some basic search engine functionality.

Overall

All three search engines have unique and helpful features, but will they win users that are already accustom to search engines like Google and Yahoo? Honestly, they won’t win me. They all have some great functionality but it is hard leaving the search engine I use many times a day, Google. It is what I am used to what keeps me stuck with Google. If anything, Scandoo would win me over because it’s simply extending Google’s interface, even at times making me think it is in fact Google itself. How about you? Can any search engine, other then the one you are accustom to, win you over?

Lastly, please feel free to share if you know of any other search engines. It’s always interesting seeing what companies cook up. Huckabuck is one that I am aware of and need to take a better look at.

I’ve been having a fun time playing a new web-based multiplayer game called, Sink My Ship. Sink My Ship is a remake of the classic Battleship, a game which I have seen many times before online. However, what makes this one special is its in game chat, drag and drop functionality, and the fact that it’s built with Ajax and Java to bring you real-time multiplayer action. Certainly, I can’t pass up a good ol’ game of Battleship, so I’ve played a few games with some friends (yes, I won… once), spoke to one of the four makers of the game, and have overall enjoyed playing the game.

The game features a lobby where everyone can chat, see who’s online, and accept challenges to play. If anything, this section actually impressed me the most out of the whole game because of all the real-time data and actions being made. First, you login to the game with any name without need of registering making it very quick to get in and play. Immediately you will see a main chat on the left in that everyone in the lobby can communicate. To the right you will see a listing of battles that are in progress or awaiting someone to join and right below that all online players - both updating in real-time as well. So, at this time there are already three constantly updated areas (chat, games, and online players).

Now, lets take it a step further and chat to an individual player. On the right of each player name is an comment icon that when clicked will bring up a private instant messaging window where you can talk one on one with the player rather then in the lobby chat. You can drag and drop, minimize, and close these windows at any time just like a normal Instant Messenger (reminds me much of the early beta stage of Meebo, which is a good thing). You can even open more then one Instant Message window and have conversations with each of your friends. All this while a main chat, games list, and who’s online list are actively updating in the background. There’s quite a bit going on in this one lobby, explaining why it impressed me the most. Now, enough about the lobby. Let’s take a look at the actual game play.

To begin a game, first login (no registration) and either click on the “New Game” button or wait for another player to battle. You will know a player is awaiting a battle because the Games list on the top right will show a “Join Game” button on the side of the players name when the player has activated a new game. You can talk to the player in the lobby before playing or you can simply wait until your game is set because there happens to be a private chat for the two of you during the battle as well. Once in a game you will need to setup your fleet of ships. Using simple drag and drop, place each ship in your area to the left. Once you’ve completed this you will continue to the game and await your opponent to complete their fleet. You then go one at a time until, well, you sink all their battle ships. Each move you make is processed in real-time to your opponents screen displaying attempted bombs and successfully bombed squares. When the game is complete, the winner will see a nice large winner’s graphic while the loser sees a fiery graphic. Then you end up chatting again and starting another game (yes, it gets addicting).

For the most part, Sink My Ship is great and I had a fun time playing it without problem. I was also happy to see activity in the forums from the Sink My Ship Team with posts on fixing bugs and making feature requests happen. There are a few improvements that come to mind, but they all seem to be mentioned in the forums already with response from the team members. The first thing is dealing with instant login and registration of users. Currently, there isn’t registration which is excellent because I love being able to play in an instant. But I think it would make for a much better game if it were an option to register because let’s face it, everyone loves competition and if I can login and view how many games I’ve one compared to my friends, I’d be a happy player. The second improvement that comes to mind is to increase the size of the Instant Message windows and make the message font a tad bigger because it’s a little difficult to read at that size. Lastly, and I’m not sure if it’s possible or not, but a computer player would be excellent because there were times that I wanted to play, but no players were available. Not only that, gives players something to practice with! I’ve seen the registration and computer request in the forum, so I know I’m not alone there.

The main thing that struck my interest with Sink My Ship was what it has achieved in a multiplayer sense using Ajax technology. It makes me wonder where the limit is with online games without the need of browser plugins and extras. Questions like, “How ‘real-time’ can one get with an Ajax multiplayer game?”, repeatedly comes to mind these days seeing one game stepping it up after another.

View Sink My Ship Battleship Game.

Note: Make sure to view the Sink My Ship Blog which contains development updates and some very helpful tutorials on Ajax.

Lastly, if you happen to check out the game tomorrow, keep an eye out for my name, “bbenzinger,” and we’ll chat and possibly play a game or two ;-).

BlinkLife, brought to you by the creators of BlinkList, is a new and innovative way of bringing friends and family closer. As far as I know, this is the first application of its kind combining blogging and email together making public and private one to one or one to many messages to family and friends. It’s a pretty neat application and It seems like a great way to keep everyone together. You post to your page much like you would a normal blogging platform, although the main difference is that you write the post in an email like interface where you can specify who can see the post. It then treats each post as a personal messaging system where if you make a post sent to “Billy” and he views your blog, he and only he will see that post.

Above is a screenshot of my BlinkLife Blog. Notice that in the screenshot you see two postings, but when you view my blog in your browser, you see only one (my test post). This is because the “What’s This?” post was sent by the BlinkLife Team to only my account. When logged in, I see the post and as you probably guessed, I don’t see it when I’m not logged in. That is what makes BlinkLife so unique. It’s a blog with a personal messaging like system. Now, lets take a different look at it. Say I am planning a trip with three friends of mine. I can make a post to those friends only and no one else can see it when they view my blog.

Login to your BlinkLife and you can can view all posts, or “emails,” sent to you in the Lifebox, compose a post, manage contacts, and modify the appearance of your BlinkLife. Viewing your “email” in the Lifebox, managing contacts, and composing posts works just like your basic email application and anyone familiar with email can easily pick up on BlinkLife. You can also attach images to your posts that anyone that you are sending your post to can see. One feature that I like about BlinkLife is that you can create groups of contacts making it easy for you to send posts to groups of friends and family rather then inserting each email address at a time. BlinkLife also provides a template system so you can customize your blogs appearance to your likings. There are 17 templates that you can choose from and if your not satisfied with the selection, you can modify the CSS of a template.

BlinkLife serves as a great solution for keeping in touch with friends and family. Anyone that is familiar with email can quickly learn how to use BlinkLife to start posting and staying connected. I’ve done some testing with BlinkLife but haven’t had the chance to use it with any relatives yet, but hope to soon. Everything seemed to work fine, with the exception of one error that seems to occur only in Firefox when submitting a comment to a post. But other then that, thngs went well and my blog is up and running and I hope to use it with my family in the near future. It will certainly come in use for planning all these summer vacations we’ve got planned!

One last note: If you’d like to learn more about BlinkLife and the folks behind it (MindValley), make sure to view their BlinkLife Team Blog.

BlinkLife - Connecting Family and Friends.

Update: Looks like I’ve jumped the gun a bit assuming BlinkLife was the first of its kind. Thanks to Razvan and Avdi in the comments, I now know that Yahoo! 360 and LiveJournal have similar functionality built into their systems in the form of filters. I’ll have to signup to those two systems to get a look at how they work.

Lately, I have been beta testing a new discussion system called, Vennt. Vennt is an interesting and new approach to your average discussion board site. However, it is not a discussion system that you download and use on your site, but a one location where anyone can go and discuss anything at all. It uses ajax to filter through posts and tagging rather then using forums and threads to organize content. The system is extremely minimalist and is designed in a way that anyone can get in and start a discussion.

What I like about the system the most though is that it is a personalized discussion system. When you register for an account, you are asked to provide tags of interest. I entered web 2.0, php, design, ajax, games, and so on. Once logged in to Vennt, I am directed to the main page, Discuss, which contains posts that only relate to my tags of interest. This way, I can immediately find discussions to jump into and read that I am interested in. You will also see all of your profiles tags along the top of the page. Select a tag will filter out all posts using ajax and immediately display them without refreshing the document, making the system very simple and fast to navigate. If you want to view posts outside of your tag selection, you can select the “Everything” tag at the top which will return all threads in the system, sorted by most recent activity.

Vennt also features your average discussion board functionality where you can search posts and users, manage your profile, and posts new threads. Although the main difference is that everything is organized with folksonomy so when searching for users and threads, you can search by tag. Because of this, it also makes it easy for me to find people with related interests and to follow their discussion simply by searching for users on a specific interest tag. I type in “CSS” and I get a list of members that are interested in CSS. Same applies to threads. Furthermore, you can also view a tag cloud in the Tags section so you can find new and popular discussions.

Believe it or not, Vennt is actually a final project for the University that the creator, James Hicks, attends! I must admit, it’s a pretty impressive school project. If I were the teacher, I’d probably give… an A-. It’s layed out well, unique, Web Standard, and takes advantage of new technologies (ajax). Although, there are a few things here and there that could use some improvement, such as navigating around the system (user search), activity summary in user profiles, and RSS feeds. Lastly, one thing that I would love to see, if possible, is Vennt released as a service where anyone can signup and use it for their own projects rather then installing support forums, like a hosted discussion system. Or if that’s a bit much, maybe turning into a downloadable script like many of the forum solutions we use today for our sites. Overall, I really enjoy using the Vennt discussion system. I was able to get going in no time and participate in discussions.

There’s already a fair amount of members and some great discussions including talks about the new Apple MacBook, Nintendo Wii, Web 2.0, and more. Vennt is a place where you can just… talk, and its great. Nice job on your final project, James. Hope you get a good grade!

Side Note: Other Tag-Based Discussion Boards/Forums
Since testing Vennt, I have searched around for other tag based forum solutions and have found a few. They are all worth taking a look: SayOutLoud, Talking Hub, and bbPress (Installable and by the makers of WordPress).