Mortimer the Travelling Bear was on the road to rock bottom…and then he met Blonde 2.0. See how he became one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley.
SeeToo which was founded in 2007, has just recently moved to public beta. SeeToo is a web-based application that allows people to invite others to watch home videos with them in real time. You can also chat while watching. In this manner, SeeToo allows you to share videos with people you want to share them with and not with the whole world. The video isn’t saved to any server and won’t be available on the Internet afterwards. Users can share video files of any size and don’t need to upload files anywhere.
Basically the process works like this: You download the SeeToo application to your PC. This application takes any video on your desktop, compresses it, and streams it right from your computer to the SeeToo Web page that is hosting the chat. You select a video file from your computer. You invite a friend by sending an automatically generated invitation over your preferred IM service or by sending the link in an email. When the invitee clicks on the link, the viewing experience begins. The great part is that the invitee does not need to install anything in order to start watching the video. The downside is that unlike in Meebo Rooms, where you can watch embeddable videos with a bunch of people, SeeToo only allows you to watch a video with one person at a time.
Though SeeToo provides a useful service, it faces fierce competition from Meebo as mentioned earlier and PalTalk
which enables real time shared video viewing with a lot more people as well. I’d advise SeeToo to enable shared viewing with a a group of people as soon as possible if they want to offer a real challenge to their competitors and gain a larger share of the market.
The application is currently only available for Windows. A Mac version is scheduled for release next year.
I would like to thank everyone who came to my event last Saturday. It was a pleasure meeting some of my online friends offline for the first time.
In preparation for the event I gathered up my top 10 favorite Web 2.0 related songs on YouTube. These songs were shown during the event. Here they are for your enjoyment (three of them I already posted on this site so they appear last on the list) :
Facebook Song - Bristol Chapter
“You Tube” (A Love Song)
Malcolm and Dennis - The Facebook Song
Are You Blogging This?
Facebook Song
Blog Song
Official Cambridge Facebook Song
Love Two Point Oh (the key)
Facebook.com Song
Yes I know, it’s been a long time. I came back last week from Thailand and the whole beginning of the week was very hectic so unfortunately I didn’t have any time to post on my blog. Then during the later part of the week I wanted to post but thanks to Network Solutions my site was down for a couple of days. So here’s the very delayed post regarding my trip.
Thailand was absolutely amazing. The first week we spent on the island of Koh Samui and the next five days in Bangkok. Koh Samui in Thai means the island of the coconut trees and the island is filled with them. You need to often look up to make sure a coconut doesn’t fall on your head. Koh Samui is the third largest island in Thailand and is filled with tons of activities. A typical day would start with a massage, then sitting by the beach, then another massage, then sitting by the pool, then dinner and perhaps a night out in Chaweng (the center). And of course, since your feet are already hurting by now, why not a foot massage? Yes, I know, sounds like a tough schedule to keep.
On my birthday we decided to go on the Namuang Jungle Trip. There we went elephant trekking, saw tigers, monkeys, rare birds and fish. It’s interesting to note that the Thai people use the monkeys on the island to throw down the coconuts from the tree tops.
We also traveled to the spectacular Na Muang waterfalls and the Hin Ta/Hin Yai - Grandfather and Grandmother Rocks. These phallic rocks symbolize fertility for the Thai people and in local legend they represent two doomed lovers who drowned themselves in the sea here, because their families disapproved of their relationship.
Lastly, we also visited the Mummified Monk at Wat Khunaram. The mummy is of a formerly rich Samuian who, in advanced age, rejected all worldly possessions to devote his attention to his spiritual well-being. He died in 1973 at the age of 79. As legend has it, a few days before his death, he instructed his followers to build a coffin for him. Legend further insists that the corpse of the monk, who had died exactly on the date he allegedly had himself predicted, simply “refused” to decay. Therefore a glass coffin was built in which the corpse is exhibited to this day. To Thais the alleged fact that the monk’s body “refused” to decay without human interference counts as a Buddhist miracle - or rather as proof that by Buddhist enlightenment achieved through meditation, every law of nature, or rather, every law of the physical world, can be overcome.
After a week we packed our bags and headed to Bangkok. This is my second time in Bangkok and I really love this city though the air pollution is not very pleasant. The sky is filled with smog. However the joy and smiles of people on the street take your mind off this matter.
During my time in Thailand I had limited internet access which was quite hard to deal with in the first few days, especially on my birthday when I received a huge amount of love from Facebook friends. It’s quite interesting to see how many people actually pay attention to birthdays on Facebook. I did also find that during my time abroad I used Facebook as my main email platform. This relates to a note which Jeff Pulver posted on Facebook, in which he writes :
“Seems to me Facebook may be well positioned to make a move on Google and Gmail. Things may get real interesting when/if Facebook decides to upgrade their messaging platform and offer a better messaging experience. This could be a real test to see just how sticky Gmail really is.”
In any case…back to Thailand. This country is absolutely magical and beautiful. I recommend to anyone who hasn’t been there yet to definitely put it on his list of places to visit. It’s a must.
You can check out more pics in my Thailand photo album on Facebook.
