Webware

Later, gator.

Google has announced the shutdown of Hello, a sort of photo-messaging service that became part of the Mountain View family when Google acquired Picasa in 2004.

"All good things come to an end," a placeholder on the Hello.com home page says. "So it is with sadness that we say goodbye to Hello." Guess they weren't so sad that they felt the need to steer clear of goofy plays on words. Hello will fade away on May 15, though Google's photo-sharing service Picasa remains otherwise intact.

"We originally embarked on a mission to make photo sharing easier and more fun with Hello," the message on the site explains. "We plan to keep carrying that torch in new projects to come." That could be interpreted as a hint that Hello's technology may be seen in future Google projects--or not.

As Google Blogoscoped notes, Mountain View now has the domain hello.com. And it's not like Larry, Sergey, and the gang need to sell it for beer money.

Earlier today I had a great demo with Webjam, a do-it-all publishing service that launched at the Le Web conference in late 2006. In many ways it was ahead of its time with a platform that lets you create your own social network, blog, online shop, or iGoogle alternative.

Like Ning (which picked up $60 million in funding last month), it lets users build pages out of various components without needing to know any coding. The twist is that if you come across someone else's design of modules that you dig, you can copy the entire thing to your own page and make it your own. The same goes for individual modules, which can be ported over to any of your Webjam pages, complete with whatever feeds or standalone content they contain.

Like someone else's Webjam? Just grab it and make it your own. If you've created something special you can also set it to private so other users can't take it and make it their own. (click to enlarge)

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Co-founder and CEO Yann Motte, formerly of Yahoo Europe thinks his platform's got what it takes to rise above the noise of other platform services, social networks, and blogging tools because it can do nearly all of those things nonexclusively. "[Users] don't have to split their activities between several Web sites," he says. "It works for you and me, and other people in this industry, but it does not scale for the average user." Does that mean he wants people to give up their Facebook profiles? No, but Motte believes that Webjam offers the average user more possible combinations to post and discover quality content than the competition.

The service has already seen accelerating growth in the U.S. over the past few months. Motte says the site has been growing 10 percent a week and is seeing users spend more than 12 minutes on the site (according to Compete), something I think is due to the page creation tool, which is really well done. If you've ever used Netvibes or Pageflakes it uses the same system; you simply have a bunch of different boxes you can drop down onto a blank editing canvas, which can be skinned and re-arranged to your liking. Motte says that in many ways his system is like Facebook's except more open because you get more control over the privacy controls of each box, as well as the data that goes with it.

These extensive privacy settings might be one of the most complex bits of the service. Each module has its own settings for viewership and editing. Users who visit your creation can become members, and in some cases co-contributors to the content that gets pushed out for others to read. Motte's example was to show me a page where a Webjam user had two different versions of a blog--one for everyone in the world to see, and a member's-only version.

Add new content to your site with little modules. There are tons to choose from, you can even drop in ads. (click to enlarge)

(Credit: CNET Networks)

One thing I'm not sold on is that people would pick Webjam as a blogging platform over a more established service like WordPress or Blogger. Motte acknowledges that Webjam's blog editor does not offer as many tools or the same level of community interaction, but comes back to say that if you decide to change the focus of your site later on it's not limited to being just a blog, and that's not a freedom most users are used to having. One service that took that idea and ran with it was Tumblr, which lets people change course if they get tired of writing things, and simply lets them republish photos, videos, audio, and IM conversations.

When it comes down to it, I found Webjam's creation tools and skinning to be far easier to use than the ones that come with Ning. I think the results looked a little better too, at least with some of the themes you can apply which are on par with some of the really simple and beautiful ones on iGoogle. What's not as established as Ning is the business model, which for now is simple text ads. The good news for power users looking to potentially get a little cash off of the hosted sites is that the service is rolling out a premium plan in July, which is currently being offered for free until then. Premium members get all the usual perks of services like this, with domain mapping and the option to remove or place banner ads.

To see some examples of popular Webjam pages you can go here. You can also check out a quick demo of the site maker in action after the break.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--YouTube users soon will see some new advertisements around their online videos.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the company is working on new ads for the video site in a meeting here with reporters before Google's shareholder meeting, but he was cagey with details.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt

(Credit: Elinor Mills/CNET News.com)

"We have new ad products that are not pre-roll and post-roll," he said, referring to ads that show up before and after videos. "We have new approaches. Think of them as ads that are in the context of YouTube. They use the page around YouTube in interesting ways."

The new ads will launch "over the next few months," Schmidt added.

Schmidt has made no secret of his desire to make more money from YouTube, the dominant video site on the Internet; Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion. In an interview last week with CNBC, he said about YouTube, "We're working but have not yet in my view gotten a breakthrough around monetization...We're working on that. That's our highest priority this year."

For what it's worth, Google last year experimented with overlay ads that pop up within the YouTube video player itself for a few seconds. They didn't go over too well with some viewers.

Google, which bought YouTube in October 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock, makes the vast majority of its money from text ads that show up next to search results, but in particular through its acquisition of DoubleClick, it's working to improve its business in display ads.

"We are not the leader in display ads. As far as I can tell Yahoo is," Schmidt said.

And of what will make Google's display ads different from the rest of the market, he said, "We always want to be the most targeted. Greater targeting leads to greater advertiser value."

MagToo is a service for creating really simple slide shows and interactive panoramic photos you can share on your blog or social-networking profile or by e-mail. To help put what you share into context, MagToo also throws in geotagging, letting you stamp any of the content you've added with a specific place where it was taken. Other users can then browse through the items on a large world map like they would photos and videos on Flickr.

Of all the tools my favorite is the panorama maker. While I couldn't get any of the three tests I did to look as good as the example shot, the site offers up a small guide to help get your panoramic-photo-taking skills up to snuff.

Like software that comes with some digital cameras, MagToo will take up to five photos across and several down and stitch them together into a single image. The final result goes into a small viewer that will automatically scroll back and forth, or let you casually pan around with your mouse. It's quite engaging, especially with large photos that have a lot of detail.

One snag I ran into is that it's nearly impossible to add other panoramics you've done into a single slide show viewer without first saving them as their own photographs, then plugging them back in. It's kind of irritating, but easily fixable. Otherwise get used to making panoramics one at a time. The panoramic tool also requires Internet Explorer, as ActiveX fuels the photo-stitching tool.

The service isn't nearly as jaw-droppingly beautiful as ViewAt.org, a geotagged panoramic photo viewer I looked at in September of last year, but it's far easier to compile casual shots into some really beautiful panoramic pictures. You could also just shell out for a DSLR with an $800 panoramic lens, but MagToo will let you get by with that point and shoot you can fit in your pocket.

(Via SociableBlog and MoMB)

Update 3:30 p.m. PDT: A correction: Although only travel modules could be sponsored at launch, now all can be. Also, there's no display ad opportunity at present, though the sponsorship can mean more prominence than text ads. Update 11:45 p.m.: I updated with new detail from Yahoo, further information from the site, and some analysis.

Yahoo Glue Pages build a mini-portal around search results. It's in testing in India.

(Credit: Yahoo)

Yahoo has begun testing Glue Pages, a major new way to present search results that caters to its strength as an Internet portal.

Glue Pages, which the company began offering in beta form to Yahoo search users in India, combine traditional search results with a wealth of other related information. Traditional search results appear in a strip on the left side of the page, while other modules appear that spotlight sponsored links, recipes, medical information, Wikipedia entries, stock charts, Flickr images, train schedules, restaurant lists, news, and even Google blog search results.

Yahoo's Indian team developed the feature and so far there are no plans to bring it to the United States or other areas, said spokeswoman Kathryn Kelly.

"We encourage other regions to develop things that work for their regions," Kelly said. "If it does get traction, potentially something like it could launch in the United States."

Yahoo pioneered Internet portals, all-purpose sites where people can find everything they need, but Google found a much stronger business model through an effective search engine that presents bare-bones results with text ads alongside. Yahoo, though, hasn't given up, even though it continues to lose search share; In March the gap widened a bit more, with 59.8 percent of U.S. queries at Google and 21.3 percent at Yahoo, according to ComScore.

The search is interesting for other reasons besides Yahoo's portal strengths.

• First is display ads, the graphics that typically are used to tout brand names and logos. Google's cash engine is built on text ads today, and Yahoo has relative strength in display ads.

Glue Pages have prominent sponsorship opportunities, though not yet display ad opportunities, Kelly said. Glue pages launched with the ability to sponsor travel pages, but now all modules can be sponsored, she said.

• Second is the attempt to be more competitive with Google in its efforts to move to "universal search." Google today sometimes mixes other information such as photos alongside the traditional list of links in its search results, part of an effort to expand to provide a broader answer to what people are looking for.

Yahoo's guide to Glue Pages

(Credit: Yahoo)

• Third, Glue Pages will dovetail with the Y!OS, aka Yahoo Open Strategy, attempt to more tightly wire together its Web site while opening it up to outside programmers as a foundation.

"Glue will leverage the Yahoo application platform...in coming months," Kelly said, though today it doesn't yet. "We will eventually open it up, so developers could develop customized search results for Glue Pages the way we're doing it for Search Monkey."

• Last is the idea of vertical search, in which search results are tailored for a specific domain such as health. Vertical search sites aren't as plentiful in India than in the United States, Kelly said, so Glue Pages can provide a more tailored entry point to the Internet.

There's no date set yet for the feature coming out of beta testing, Kelly said.

The service is definitely in beta, though. I'm not sure why a search for "violin lessons" would produce a blank five-day stock chart from Yahoo Finance, for example.

(Via Search Engine Land)

I finally got a chance to catch up with Avi Muchnick, the CEO of Flash software maker Aviary and of the art contest site it spun out of, Worth1000 (a Webware 100 winner).

Aviary is an ambitious project to create a full suite of online applications for creative professionals. The first application, the image editor Phoenix, is now in private beta (read to the end of this post to get an early invitation). The second, pattern maker called Peacock, was recently added.

Coming up after these applications will be Toucan, a color swatch program for designers (like Kuler on steroids), a 3D-sketching program and modeler, a vector-based editor, and a smart image resizer.

Who needs software? This is a layer-based image-editing application running in a browser window. It's pretty snappy, too.

(Credit: Rafe Needleman / CNET)

After the graphics applications get some traction, the team plans to ship video and audio editors as well.

There are two goals driving Aviary's development. The first is Muchnick's belief that design tools need to be more collaborative. He's trying to build a Google Docs for designers, it appears. While you can't yet do simultaneous editing in Aviary applications, the fact that all the files are stored online, along with all the raw graphics materials that went into them, can greatly simplify the games of "Photoshop tennis" that designers, artists, and their clients have to deal with during the design-and-review process.

The second is economics. Muchnick is trying to bring Photoshop-quality tools to all designers. He points out that the high price of Photoshop--the Design version of Creative Suite 3 retails for $1,799--is "not fair" for freelance designers, most of whom make less than $35,000 a year. Also, the wikilike versioning and revisioning capabilities built into the Aviary suite will enable all contributors to a media project to get their due credit and, if appropriate, to get their share of revenues from a project.

Everybody who sees the Aviary product calls it ambitious. But the ambition to build a Flash-based competitor to Adobe's tools is only half the story--and half the ambition. Muchnick is trying to enable a new economic system for creative professionals. I think that he's onto something and that he's reflecting the reality of creative work today, rather than trying to ram through his own utopian vision.

Internet economics are changing other creative endeavors: music, photography, and writing. The graphic-design field is also in turmoil, and it needs not just new tools, but also new systems.

Aviary is still in private beta testing, but the first 200 people to sign up here can get priority access to the tools. Note that you must click this link from Webware.

Previous coverage: Flash apps are taking over. Phoenix is proof.

This post was updated at 10:34 a.m. PDT.

News Corp.-owned social-networking site MySpace has announced a new initiative called Data Availability, a way for members to share profile data with other social and community sites across the Web.

Co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe, Chief Operating Officer Amit Kapur, and vice president of technology Jim Benedetto announced the new development in a press call Thursday. DeWolfe called it "an innovative offering to empower the global MySpace community to share their public profile content and data to Web sites of choice throughout the Internet."

Inaugural partners in the project are Yahoo, eBay, Photobucket (also owned by News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media), and Twitter. The program, available to MySpace's users worldwide, will be rolling out to a full version in the coming weeks.

"Historically, social destinations on the Internet have operated as independent, autonomous islands," DeWolfe said. "Today, MySpace no longer operates as an autonomous island on the Internet...We're hoping to create a significantly more social experience across the Web."

This is a huge deal.

When rival Facebook, then far smaller than MySpace, opened its platform to developers last year, the bigger social network started to fall from favor among the tech-savvy set. But Facebook has been reluctant to partner with other sites outside of allowing them to create developer applications, only recently allowing RSS feeds from partners like Digg and Yelp into its members' "news feeds." When popular blogger Robert Scoble tested a script that exported his Facebook contact information to a Plaxo address book, Facebook temporarily banned his account.

Facebook still hasn't caught up in user accounts--it has about 70 million, while MySpace is over 100 million--but MySpace was in need of some tech cred regardless. Signing on to "open Web" initiatives could be what keeps MySpace relevant, and it's clear that some engineers over there are tuned in. It was one of the biggest partners when Google announced the OpenSocial developer application standard last year, and one of the "founding partners" along with Google and Yahoo when OpenSocial was spun off into its own nonprofit organization.

"Socially dynamic Web destinations should be portable," DeWolfe said, "and should allow users to import and export aspects of their platform."

Amit Kapur said that Data Availability is "founded first and foremost on allowing users to have comprehensive control over their content and data." Partnerships with Yahoo, eBay, Photobucket, and Twitter will give MySpace access to more than 150 million U.S. Internet users, he explained, with an 85 percent reach in the U.S. Web user market. Smaller sites, as well as other large social networks, are invited to join the program, too.

That public profile information consists of information like photos, videos, and profile content like favorite movies and music as well as friends' lists. Changing data on one profile automatically changes it on the partner sites as well, which users can opt into "connecting" to their MySpace profiles by clicking a button. "This is incredibly powerful and makes an entirely new social experience available to our users," Benedetto explained. MySpace will be rolling out a central control panel to handle it. "A user can update their profile on MySpace and dynamically share that information with the other sites they care about," Kapur said.

All authentication will be handled through OAuth (Open Authorization), and technology director Benedetto said the company is looking at other "open and nonproprietary standards." Currently, OpenID is not supported, but he said that MySpace is exploring the possibility.

MySpace is also officially joining the social-networking project known as the DataPortability Workgroup, which contains members from many other major social sites across the Web.

JavaScript and server-side controls will be released over the next few weeks for partner sites' administrators to have access to public MySpace data. Benedetto said that MySpace will be "aggressive" to make sure that profile data is not exploited by third parties.

The big question: Will Facebook want to be a part of it? "This project is open to any site out there that wants to work with us," DeWolfe said, "so we're happy to work with Facebook if they want to join up with us on this project."

This post was updated at 11:02 AM PT with comment from MySpace.

Facebook on Thursday reached a user safety agreement with the attorneys general of 49 states and the District of Columbia, much as rival MySpace.com did several months ago.

"We've agreed with 49 states and the District of Columbia to set up principles around Internet safety," Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly explained in an interview with CNET News.com. The agreement is centered on "largely features that (Facebook) has in place already, but that we've committed to continuing and to enhance over time," Kelly said.

In the deal, the social network has agreed to develop age verification technology, send warning messages when an under-18 user may be giving personal information to an unknown adult, restrict the ability for people to change their ages on the site, and keep abreast of inappropriate content and harassment on the site.

While the agreement is with U.S. state authorities, Kelly said that the tools deployed will apply to Facebook's international users as well. More than half of the site's 70 million users are outside the U.S.

The only state that did not agree to Facebook's plan was Texas, which likewise did not sign on to the plan that News Corp.'s MySpace created in conjunction with the attorneys general in January.

"Texas continues to have concerns in the area in general, but we do continue our dialogue with the state of Texas," Kelly said. "We had a long, fruitful set of discussions with them, and we plan on continuing them."

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based social network, which was launched in 2004 as a side project for then-Harvard undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg and his friends, first began publicly dealing with state attorneys general last October. Andrew Cuomo, the New York state attorney general, subpoenaed Facebook after his office conducted an undercover investigation that he said yielded a slow response from the social network to complaints of harassment and inappropriate conduct.

Later that month, Facebook reached an accord with Cuomo's office, in which Kelly admitted that Facebook had "slipped a little bit" in its vigilance toward user privacy.

MySpace, meanwhile, agreed to an extensive social-networking safety plan in January that involved the formation of an Internet Safety Task Force on the part of the attorneys general. This followed months of subpoenas and press releases about the safety of minors on MySpace, which grew popular long before Facebook became the current poster child of social media. Kelly said that Facebook has signed on to the task force, but that MySpace is not a part of Thursday's announcement.

He added that the two partnerships with authorities are inherently different. "The MySpace agreement was very focused on a number of site changes that they needed to make, and this is focused on the deployment of technology that we've been in discussions with the attorneys general for quite some time."

As for why it took more time for Facebook to make its announcement, Kelly said, "Sometimes it just takes longer to come to an understanding of the framework."

MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam released a statement Thursday in response: "We commend the Attorneys General for their continued leadership to make the Internet safer," he wrote, "and are pleased that Facebook has followed suit to implement many of the safety standards that MySpace pioneered."

For a massive social site like Facebook (or MySpace, for that matter), negotiations with the state attorneys general inevitably go beyond child safety. Security and identity theft, such as the threat of malicious "phishing" for personal information, are also hot issues. "There is a specific provision in the agreement around phishing, and antiphishing tips, which we've already implemented," Kelly said. "We've been very focused on that as a potential issue."

And when questioned about what the authorities think of Facebook's controversial "social ads"--which some have held up as a violation of user privacy--Kelly's response was general. "We're having a variety of conversations with them at all times, and we obviously want governments to understand at all times," he said. "We always have discussions on those with the attorneys general and other government agents."

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Elliot Schrage, vice president of communications and public policy at Google, had been hired in a similar role at Facebook. Dealing with legal authorities will be a major part of Schrage's role. He called Schrage a "wonderful addition" to Facebook's staff.

"I think that we have been building a great capacity to have discussions with governments and various public bodies," Kelly said, "and we're excited to have him on the team."

Traditionally, Web search has relied on words or queries to scan massive indexes of pages for results. Searching for images can be a little trickier though. You're often relying on the competence of whoever uploaded the shot to provide the proper file name--and in a very small percentage of cases extra hints in the metadata to help the search tool get its hooks in.

In the real world, this isn't always the case, which is why the creators of a new image search tool called TinEye have approached image search the other way around--letting you search for sites using image files you've stored locally.

Sure this seems a little backward, but the idea is to find content related to whatever pictures you've got stored on your computer, or simply discover variations of that same shot around the Web.

Wondering where else an image has appeared? TinEye will let you know. In this case it's a shot from the Fail Blog (click to enlarge).

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The tool works best with popular or otherwise well-known images. Nearly everything else I tried didn't produce much. Some of the searches with the most results have been compiled in a "cool searches" section, but typically feature well-known art or photography. The company expects to have a better set of results as its index increases in size.

One of the more interesting uses for this technology is tracking down stolen intellectual property. We often find our posts put up on small blogs that cut out the bylines and take credit. If the blogs reused whatever screenshots we've added, a tool like TinEye would track them down even if they're using slightly altered text.

While we probably wouldn't go to such lengths to hound down a screenshot, there are photographers and other content creators who would. The company has already spun its technology off as a product called PixID, but it's geared more toward larger content rights holders than small-scale bloggers.

For users who want to spend a little less time (and bandwidth) using TinEye, there's a Firefox plug-in that will add a "search for image on TinEye" option when you right-click on any picture you come across on the Web. Users can also just grab the URL and enter it, which can be helpful if you don't feel like ferrying image files back and forth.

Several sites are already using the technology behind TinEye. Digg uses it to help search for duplicate story submissions on any post that contains an image. Adobe also uses it in PhotoShop Elements to look up related images that match the colors found in your photos.

Moving forward, the company intends to add video to its repertoire, letting you see where a video has been posted regardless of what service it's hosted on. This is something I'm far more interested in seeing than photos, as the viral spread of video clips across blogs and other pages is fairly rampant. When mixed with some sort of timeline, this service could yield some great metrics for video creators and a tracking system to follow when videos have been remixed and re-edited.

The service is currently in private beta, but we've got 100 invites for Webware readers who want to give it a spin. To get yours, fill out the Wufoo form after the break.

Many people think PowerPoint is a reason for a nap. But an Internet start-up that helps people share slideshows online has got the attention of several prominent Silicon Valley investors.

On Thursday, San Francisco-based SlideShare will announce that it has landed a $3 million series A investment from venture capitalist Venrock and individuals including Broadcast.com founder Mark Cuban, Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams and David McClure of 500 Hats. Venrock general partner David Siminoff, an early investor in Yahoo and eBay, will join the company's board.

The company's advisory board also includes Hal Varian, who's chief economist at Google, Garage Technology Ventures managing director Guy Kawasaki, and Saul Klein, founding partner of The Accelerator Group.

So why the interest in slideshows? Since its launch in October 2006, SlideShare has turned into a kind of YouTube for PowerPoint junkies, albeit in a much smaller way. Using the site, people can share their text-and-image presentations, tag their favorites, or respond to another person's slideshow with their own creation. People can also create a mash-up of music tracks and PowerPoint. (People can upload slideshows using Microsoft PowerPoint, Open Office or the PDF format). In the last year, as many as 400,000 registered users have added 300,000 slideshows to the site, according to Rashmi Sinha, CEO and cofounder of Slideshare.

Still, one of the site's most popular slideshows is called "Death by PowerPoint (and how to fight it)," with more than 350,000 views. "Lots of people are killing each other with bad presentations now," according to the 61-page document.

Sinha said that critics of PowerPoint are a loud few, but the format is so common that many people can express themselves easily with a slideshow.

"It's a medium that has been abused a lot. But people have learned that it's a simple, linear storytelling format. And navigation is under your control," Sinha said.

The company plans to use the $3 million to expand its team of 10 people in San Francisco and further develop its product, according to Sinha. One direction, she said, is to create more categories of slideshows in areas like technology and social media. At the moment, SlideShare makes money through Google ads, but eventually the company plans to collect fees from directing sales to third parties through the use of slideshows.

"Right now, we're focused on the growth stage," she said.

Privacy advocates should take note of an effective way to avert the prying eyes of Google Street View: the lowly plastic bag.

Google Street View foiled by a plastic bag.

(Credit: Google)

A block of College Road in Fairbanks, Alaska, along with portions of Minnie St. and Third St. show what a driver would see only if wearing a plastic bag on his or her head. As Google Sightseeing observes, you can tell what it is by the fact that it says "plastic bag" on the inside.

So now perhaps we know which scheming multibillion dollar search engine is behind San Francisco's ban on plastic bags.

Mobile app maker Frengo is now making apps for popular social networks (Facebook, Hi5, etc.) that allow connections between networks. The Flirtable app, for example, allows users on one social network to flirt with users on another. The Lolz app, likewise, lets users share LOLcat images (sadly, not very funny ones) across networks.

Frengo is using OpenSocial as a standard for building the apps, but OpenSocial doesn't address friend portability or cross-network messaging. Frengo is building that capability into its widgets so that a user on a smaller network who adds one of its apps will join the ad-hoc group of users from other networks that are using the same app elsewhere.

I'm on Facebook, but Mia may not be. (Image has been edited.)

For example, when you use the Flirtable dating app, you're accessing all the app's users no matter what network they're on. In a very cool twist, if you use the Flirtable app to send a message or a gift to another user, that communication can reach their social profile page (usually, their "wall") even if they're on another network from you.

CEO Mahi de Silva admits that "What we do may not appear to be aligned with the business goals of social networks." Frengo loosens up the lock-in of social networks. De Silva believes that what Frengo does is still within the terms of service of the social networks, if only just. And users would probably agree with de Silva that connecting social networks together raises the value of all of them -- even the big networks that would appear to have the most to lose.

I'm happy to see efforts like this, since they make social apps more about people, less about the companies running their networks. And I think many execs at social networks actually get this. The power of joining connected groups together is called the network effect, after all.

See also: The Social Graph API, as explained by David Glazer at Google.

Entrepreneurs of all types have attempted to kill off the phone number in place of something simpler. We've seen tokens, special re-routing numbers, and even services that offer a number you can give someone that tells them you're not interested.

A new service called RmbrMe is of a different breed, choosing to use short-code messaging to let you give out access to any or all of your social-networking profiles with a simple text message. Who needs conversation when we have Facebook's wall?

To use it in a real-life situation, you'd have to grab someone's number or e-mail address (maybe the hardest part of the equation) and text it to RmbrMe's short code (762763). If you've registered with the service and given it the credentials of various services you're affiliated with, it will automatically send the person whose number you just got to a special page listing each of your affiliations in a single place. From there they can befriend you or check you out before getting in touch.

Users who sign up get to use the service free of charge for two weeks. After that it costs 49 cents per message on top of whatever SMS charges you're incurring from your carrier. Power users can also work out bulk deals to pay less if they're planning to use the service extensively.

This whole idea reminds me a lot of virtualized business cards, or services that let you host a special page for you with your contact information. For people who are a little too sheepish to carry around business cards or scared of starting a blog these are simple and viable solutions, even though the same results could be had for free with a little elbow grease. In the case of RmbrMe, at 49 cents a pop you might be better off shelling out for some Moo cards or starting a blog just for your contact information.

When you sha