Heads over heels

The social aspects of the Internet is huge! Pretty much everybody on the net has got a Facebook account, a Flickr account, YouTube, MySpace, Hi5, and/or a personal blog, etc. This is the main reason behind the existence of web browsers like Flock (briefly mentioned in an earlier post) and Minggl (and services like Mugshot). Multiple services collected into one handy package. I have tried Flock for a bit, but not as much as I should to do a "proper" review.

And now, Mozilla Firefox is getting on the bandwagon with Coop.

The Coop product will allow Firefox users to “subscribe” to friends in the browser, bringing those friends into a sidebar. Those friends can share content and web pages with you (receive content from you, and send content to you).

Adding a friend will mean getting access to a broad array of their published web content. Content will be pulled from that person’s Flickr photo feed, del.icio.us tag feed, MySpace status , YouTube favorites, etc. When you want to share content with that user, you simply drag it into their avatar.

This could be a hit. As mentioned, the social aspects of the Internet is huge nowadays. A tightly integrated feature that lets you track your friends' online activities big-brother-style (well, kinda:p), is actually something that I could find myself using. I have wanted to use Flock extensivly, but I have never gotten around to it as it would force me to use two separate browsers, each for it's designated tasks. And I'm just too lazy to do this.
But (luckily) I'm not reprecenting the entire user mass of the WWW. Reading a few comments, it would seem that a lot of users would prefer Firefox without more bloat like this. But I'm sure that this would be an optional feature when it's out.

You could argue that this feature is just a sofisticated address book with a smart RSS-reader attached, but that is just what I'm hoping that it is.

Is this bad news for Opera? Probably not. Will I swich back to Firefox again? I do not know. But what I do know for sure is that I wll take this new Firefox feature for a spin when it's finished.

Mockup of the new feature:

A rant on bookmarking in Opera and on bookmarking in general.

Read more...

Hi

My name is Trond Kjetil Bremnes (abbrivated to TK), and you my friend, might be watching the birth of yet another blog of mine.

This blog actually has a quite some history behind it, even though I'm technically starting this right this moment.
My first thought was to make a blog that focused mainly on digital music, it's distribution and maybe some hardware and software reviews related to this subject. The main reason behind this was my frustration with DRM, and the way the big record companies fails to get things right. Especially with the life-wrecking RIAA in the States, and with newly started public awareness groups like Piracy Kills Music here in Norway. But then I thought, "With thousands of blogs pinpointing this, not to mention big-wigs like Steve Jobs discredting DRM, it's not really worth the effort.", and thus I suspended the creation of this blog.

After a while, my fingers again started to itch. And thoughts and ideas about this blog again started to blossom. I do have another (rather neglected) blog in Norwegian, the SecondChanceHeaven, but I decided that I wanted to do something different than the road I'm trying to take with that blog. Plus, I wanted to participate in the My.Opera community.
I have an immense interest in just about everyting techology. I'm trying out new pieces of software regularly, and I pay attention to new, ground breaking innovations on this subject. In marketing terms, I'm considered independent, I do not mind doing things independently, and through my consuming differentiate myself from others. This also means that I'm not very loyal to brands and products, I like to try out new things, and am likely to disregard emotional bonds to brands and products if I find someting that's better or more suited to my wants and needs.

This is why this blog is probably going to be mostly about technology, reviews and stuff on the matter. I'll probably toss in some music here and there too, I guess. And ethics in the technology and music industries. But this is, of course, subject to chance. A work in progress.
The reason behind my choice of language is that too seldom get the chance to write in English, the reason behind my choice of blogging portal is the two truly excellent browsing tools that are Opera and Opera Mini (plus the My.Opera community seem like a very nice one). And then there's the underlying reason behind why I bother to write all this: I really enjoy writing (if I have something to write about, that is).


More about myself:
I'm a 20 year old male human being, and I'm currently studing market-communications in the lovely city of Trondheim, Norway. My interest are technology (yeah, shocking isn't it), music, travelling, and eating a can of sweet corn while watching sitcoms after a long hard day at school, among others. I do like to write, but unfortunately I posess a rather short attention span, meaning that things like blogs has a tendency to get forgotten and under-prioritized.
I'm a huge fan of fun-facts and popular science. I do play games, both video games and computer games, both new and old. To put it short, I'm a nerd/geek. But then again, I like it:D

Future goals is travel some more (no wait, a lot more), getting a good job in a company that innovates and creates a creative atmosphere for me to work in, and just the ability lead a good life in general.


This is TK, signing of.