Find Motive

I recently demo’d SightMax, a web based chat solution for websites to interact with their customers, at Panera bread last week and I was very impressed. Most web based chats I’ve seen are flaky and ridden with bugs, but SightMax is by far the best I’ve seen. If you are wanting a serious chat solution for your website then check it out.

Features
- Multiple Chats
- Cross Queue/Domain Transfer
- Instant Messaging Between Operators
- Typing Indicator
- Spell Check
- Co-Browse

Operator Screenshot

Link
SightMax.com

Indiefy has launched in beta and registration is open to music lovers and artists. For those of you who don’t know, Indiefy is an online venue for Musicians / Bands to sell their music online. Artists keep the rights and set the price of their music. For listeners, when you purchase a song from an artist on Indiefy, you will have access to that song for as long as the artist keeps it on the site.

Social interaction between listeners and artists is currently in the works for the next feature set.

Indiefy is gaining ground everyday. Signup and help it grow.

Link: indiefy.com

My buddy Jeff over at Big Trapeze has wrote up a nice article on a bug submission form using Lightbox and Wufoo.

Screenshot

Article Link
http://www.bigtrapeze.com/2007/03/07/lightbox-bug-tracking-with-wufoo/

Rootly is an online news aggregation service that like Google news brings together major and small new sources on the web into one place. Rootly is pulling from over 1,000 news sources.

It has a clean interface with not much clutter to get in the way of you and your news. My favorite feature on the site is the “news ticker” on the right side which automagically scrolls in new stories.

Check it out at Rootly.com.

SWFUpload is a flash/javascript solution for uploading files VIA the web. I've always thought that uploading files via a form has been clunky. I was excited when I found this script that fixes this area. Not only can you limit which file types that show in the choose file dialog, it will also report on the progress of the upload. I've been using my own Flash based file uploader for Indiefy for sometime now and its great to see it packaged in an easy-to-use way for others.

Features
* Only display chosen filetypes in dialog
* Upload multiple files at once by ctrl/shift-selecting in dialog
* Trigger javascript functions on start, cancel, progress and complete
* Get file information/size before upload starts
* Style upload buttons any way you want
* Do progress-bars/information using valid XHTML and CSS
* No page reloads, display uploaded files as they are finished
* Works on all platforms/browsers that has Flash support.
* Degrades gracefully to a normal html upload form if Flash or javascript isn't available

Example

Check it out!

My friend over at the Big Trapeze has released some PHP code to genereate a very sleak web 2.0ish paginator for your web projects.

If you’re developing a Web 2.0ish webiste, you’re going to want some cool pagination to show pages with lots of items–much like Flickr uses to show pages of pictures. - www.bigtrapeze.com

Screenshots

Go check it out!

Google released Google Apps For Your Domain which is its first move towards its online office suite. I logged into my gmail account which is hosted on my domain and found all these new options. Here are some screenshots. Enjoy!

I've been using the Lightbox Gone Wild hack of Lightbox on Indiefy to give the user experience more of an "application" feel. I like the users focus being brought to one area and not allowing them to do anything else until the current task is done.

For those of you who don't know what Lightbox is check out the original version here for more information.

Particle tree's hack of Lightbox allows other content besides images to be put into a Lightbox, but it uses AJAX to pull the content into the box. For my purposes this is overkill because an AJAX call is loading an iFrame which results in 2 HTTP requests and for forms inside a lightbox this won't function the way I want. I want the form to act separately from the current page so the user will not be redirected when the form is submitted. To me this gives the UI a smoother feel. Here is the code section that I modified.

Code

I completely removed the processInfo function since it was no longer needed. The new loadInfo function is basically the modified code from processsInfo to write an iFrame instead of using AJAX. This will still take the href from the activating link and use that as the iframe's source URL. I hope this helps!

Download Complete Source (includes demo)
lightbox-iframe.zip (15k)

NOTE: The original version of Lightbox does NOT use AJAX. This code is based off of Particle Tree's lightbox implementation which DOES use AJAX. Some people were confused by this.

I found out about a neat little service called PodAPic (Pod A Pic) this week from Jeff Nunn. We have all seen the iPod commercials and billboards with the bright colored background and the blacked out figure with white iPod headphones contrasting against the figure.

With PodAPic, you can turn any photo into an iPod style photo. Just upload your photo to PodAPic and in about 3 business days you'll have your PodAPic waiting for you in your inbox in all its iPod'ish glory.

This service reminds me of the funny picture booths at amusement parks, yet obviously this is web based. This is a great novelty gift idea and I can see people buying these for their friends. An option that I would like to see is the ability to have the PodAPic photo sent back in printed form on some nice glossy paper for an extra fee, but I would imagine most consumers would probably just do this themselves on their home printer. I think this is a Great niche service, so go check it out!

Examples

I am happy to announce that Indiefy is now accepting requests for BETA invites. The invite will allow you to signup for a beta artist account when we launch in the very near future. Thanks for all your patience and support.

Go to Indiefy.com to signup.

What is Indiefy?

Indiefy.com is a new online venue for independent artists to sell their music online or provide it as a free download.

Unlike iTunes, artists will receive the majority of the profit when they sell a song or album. All music will be available in high quality 192khz MP3 format. Indiefy will allow unlimited CD burning for personal use and once a song has been purchased, it will always be available for download in your “Music Locker”.

http://www.findmotive.com/2006/06/16/indiefycom-coming-2006/