The mobile site opens to a simple search box where you can enter a product name or the number that appears under the UPC bar code found  on most products.  Snappr returns a list of products with price, a picture and user rating if available. The site is available in English and German and can be used anywhere in the world.

Does this sound familiar?  Snappr is a near clone of Barcle which I reviewed in Feburary.  To Snappr's credit, it's a more attractive site than Barcle and seems to work better too.  Searching is much faster and the bar code database seems more complete.  In a quick test with three products, a prepaid mobile phone, a book, and an analog to digital TV converter box, Snappr found the phone and the book, while Barcle found none of the items.  Plus, Snappr shows prices in the search results list, while Barcle requires you to drill down into each item's detail page to find the cost.

It's not all rosy with Snappr though. Products are returned in random order rather than sorted in some logical fashion like by price from lowest to highest. The prices shown are often wildly different than the actual price on the retailer's site. Like that SIM card for $1.19 shown in the screenshot.  The actual price on Amazon is 29.99! There doesn't seem to be a pattern, sometimes Snappr's price is higher than the real price, sometimes lower.

Like almost every mobile shopping site, actually making a purchase can be difficult. There is a "Buy.." link for each item which goes to the retailer offering the product.  But the link often goes to a full web page that is impossible to use on a mobile. Fortunately many of Snappr's items are sourced on Amazon.com which does deliver a mobile page whenever it detects a mobile browser. Registered Amazon users with a credit card on file can even make "1-click" purchases on the Amazon mobile site.

Snappr also has an iPhone app that can use the phone's camera to capture product bar codes so you don't have to key in those long strings of digits. That's a great idea which I hope they extend to other platforms. I don't have an iPhone to try it out with but according to a post on the Agregated Intelligence Blog, it works but is harder to use than Android's ShopSavvy due to limitations of the iPhone's SDK. Source: Mobility.mobi

Filed in: Wap Review Directory - Shopping

Ratings: Content:  Usability: 

Mobile Link: snappr.mobi

There's yet another new blogging platform out there: Kontain. It's designed for non-technical users, and it's easy to use and very good-looking. I don't think I've seen an easier platform for beginning bloggers, in fact. Everything on the site is clear and simple. But there's a downside.

The negative of Kontain is that while it's easy to use, it's very limited on the presentation side. You get no blog templates to choose from. While the default layout of Kontain blogs is attractive enough, the lack of customizability is surprising in a product that is so strong on the authoring side. Also, the blog pages display slowly.

Creating a Kontain blog is simple. Adding media to blog posts is simple. Even viewing and organizing the media files you've uploaded to previous posts is simple--something that's not true in almost all other blog platforms.

It's the little things that make Kontain a delight. From the start, it gets out of your way. While it requires a valid e-mail address from new authors, you can start posting right away, since you have 15 days to confirm registration. If you're writing a post and want to share it with friends, you can enter in their e-mail addresses from the posting screen.

Quite possibly the simplest blogging interface ever.

All entry fields are nice and big. I would not feel uncomfortable recommending Kontain to people with poor eyesight, or those simply afraid of technology or the blogosphere. It's really that easy.

You can't choose your display template or even colors.

However, pretty and simple is not enough, unless you're Apple and have an Apple-like advertising budget. There are other super-simple, quick-to-use blog platforms, like Tumblr. And there are certainly services that already have the community angle dialed in (like Vox). And for anyone halfway serious about blogging, there's nothing wrong with expending a few brain cycles to learn how to use free mainstream services like Blogger or Wordpress.com.

There are ambitious plans for Kontain, including social features (friend following, for example), privacy options, Web-based audio, image, and video editors, SEO options, and reader analytics. I don't know if Kontain will still be as simple when it gets these features. I also don't think there is a big untapped market for new bloggers, since it's a safe bet that most everyone who wants to blog now is already doing so. Kontain isn't a bad platform for teaching about blogging, but I don't see it supplanting any current platforms.

Retailers reported Xbox 360 console sales over the Black Friday weekend were on pace to beat previous years, outselling the PlayStation 3 by a three-to-one ratio and estimating a 25 percent increase from Xbox 360 Black Friday sales figures from 2007.

Not bad. But given Microsoft is making no mention of Nintendo's (NTDOY) Wii, we're guessing the Wii continued its dominance of the game console market.

In October, Nintendo sold more Wiis than sales of the Xbox 360 and PS3 combined, and eBay (EBAY) recently said the Wii was the site's most popular product on Black Friday.

See Also:
October Game Sales: Nintendo Wii Kicking PS3 Butt
Sony Cuts PS3 Prices By $150 -- If You Have Good Credit

Imitation is the best form of flattery, or so it says. Whenever you need to understand whether or not a service or a product is getting traction, just try to look at the clones that it may have inspired and the number of copy cats would tell you how successful the product or service is.

Same goes with Amazon’s Kindle, apparently Nintendo has confirmed the rumors that it will be releasing an eBook reader bundled with 100 Classical books for its Nintendo DS consoles. The eBooks in the collection comprise of works from Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Alexandre Dumas and Oscar Wild, but you could always download more using the WiFi connection. The bundle would go on sale from 26th of Dec for a price tag of 19.99 British Pounds.

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One minute I was trawling for articles, blissfully convinced that Facebook was all I’d ever need to connect me to items of real time relevance. The next I was pulled into a vortex created by masterminds so ambitious and intrusive, they plan to index the worlds information. Yes, I’m talking about Google (and their latest uber-success, iGoogle).

iGoogle began its life with the name ‘Google Personalised Homepage’, briefly became ‘Google IG’, and a few makeovers later, emerged as iGoogle, a name that makes it sound like an Apple product (iPod, iTunes). Nobody seems to agree on what the most popular startpage service is but iGoogle is up there. Users are so passionate about their iGoogle pages that recent changes were met with uproar and violent protestation. The ‘changes’ were basically a new sidebar and the removal of some gadget resizing privileges. Yep, people are obsessed.

iGoogle isn’t just for accessing feeds from your favourite sites; there is a growing catalogue of gadgets from reputable developers. Google are also inviting people to create gadgets, both practical ones and social stuff of the ‘here’s what I’m up to right now’ Twitter/Facebook variety. You can see why people are saying it’s the next Facebook. What’s good about iGoogle is that the gadgets tend to be useful (feeds, search aids, shortcuts), not vacuous (throw a mudpie at your friends! become a werewolf/pirate/vampire!) and no one - absolutely no one - is going to poke you, ‘get low with’ you, post lewd comments your mum can read or invite you to rate their sexiness.

Here are the best of the best iGoogle gadgets for streamlining your online life:

1. A Podcast Player

If I say “I heart this” does that blow or bolster its case? A Podcast Player is a neat little player with a search facility; enter your search term into the bar at the top, choose your favourite podcast directory from the scroll-down list, and away you go. The options are Feedster, all4RSS, Podkast, Digitalpodcast and Podscope.

If you don’t have a favourite, I recommend the Podscope directory; here you can find a piece of audio according to the words that are spoken in it!

For example, if you want to find podcasts that mention Obama, simply enter ‘Obama’, select ‘Podscope’, press ‘Find’ and voila: ‘A Podcast Player’ returns a list of audio and the exact times (0:53, 1:45, 1:49) the keyword Obama is mentioned! Pretty amazing, and great for people like me who love to listen to news (or any podcast) as they work on the computer. You’ll find a lot of interesting stuff.

2. Driving Directions

The beauty of iGoogle is that the gadgets are integrated so well with key Google services. Driving Directions is the ultimate gadget for people who finds themselves scrolling dumbly in Google Maps or thumbing through a street directory, trying to trace journeys that jump from page 46 to 49B to 109, back to page 46 and so on.

With Driving Directions you have two entry bars (’From’ and ‘To’). Enter your starting address and destination and you’re redirected to Google Maps, where the page is sized just so and your route easily plotted. You also have the option of sharing the map by pressing ‘Send’ or ‘Link’ in the top right hand corner.

Google Maps is great because it contains business information; there is a large and growing catalogue of business locations, so you can search by, say, the name of a restaurant or bar even if you don’t know the address. A good startpage shortcut to a useful service.

3. Digg

Not sure which feeds to track on iGoogle? Why not be a sheep and let public opinion decide?  Digg is the ultimate online popularity contest; the Digg iGoogle gadget lets you keep track of the articles people are digging.

Click the tabs at the top of the gadgets to view either News, Video, Images or All Content, or you can opt to see a list of what your friends are digging (if you have any Digg friends).

To filter according to content, open the scroll-down menu in the top righthand corner and choose between Science, Technology, Entertainment, World and Business, Lifestyle, Sports, Gaming and Offbeat. The gadget is updated continuously, so you’ll know as soon as something rises in the Digg ranks. Keep track of what’s creating buzz on the web from the safety of your startpage.

4. Facebook

A sprawling page within a sprawling page. Once upon a time Facebook was my number one web destination. Now it’s just another little box on my iGoogle page. Like a big fish swallowing all the little ones, Google is insatiable and unstoppable.

Who can resist? No need to visit Facebook anymore; just add the Facebook gadget to iGoogle and keep track of who, exactly, is poking you.

5. Memba Velodoc

To be fair, Velodoc is a great large file sharing service, and would deserve a mention even if they didn’t have an iGoogle gadget. The fact that they do just confirms how damn fantastic they are.

Have a large file you can’t send via Hotmail or Gmail? No need to burn a CD, send anything via post, sign up with some paid site, or even register with anyone.

Enter your email into the Velodoc file sharing gadget and the ‘Browse’ button will appear. Search your directories for the file you want to send, click it and send away.

Now, this is what’s great about the Velodoc service. The person you select as your recipient will receive an email. They’ll open it and find a neat little link. They’ll click that link and be directed to another neat little page- minimal text, no images- where they can download your file.

For a while I was using Sendspace (another free large file sharing service) and thought it was fine until I actually opened what I was sending. It was all pop-up ads, blocks of weird text and flashing arrows next to the words ‘Download Here’! After you opened my file everything was good, but that interim page was a killer: really gaudy and unprofessional looking. Not good if you’re sending files that are supposed to land you a job, which is what I was doing.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. Send files linked from nice-looking pages, and do it in your iGoogle. Great for people who send a lot of audio files, images or videos.

6. Anagram

Another shortcut to Google services - this time to Google Accounts and Google Calendar.

Anagram is really just an efficient way to save contact details to Google Accounts and add events to Google Calendar. No need to navigate all the way to Accounts and enter somebody’s number, name, etc. Simply enter their information in the Anagram text box in an incoherent blob. For example

Bob 77447744 3 Grate St

You don’t even need to keep pressing enter. Anagram will do the rest for you. A lazy person’s dream, and perfect for when you need to take details down fast.

Calendar details work the same way; this time you’re writing ‘Staff Lunch 3 November 5:30′. Anagram will understand what you’re doing and submit the information to Google Calendar.

7. Dictionary.com and Wikipedia

Two commonly used references in one handy gadget. Flip from tab to tab to alternate between Wikipedia and Dictionary. Results open in a new window, so your iGoogle is safe and secure.

8. Internet Bandwidth Speed Test

Created by an independent developer and applauded for its accuracy, this quick and easy speed test estimates your bandwidth and places you on a spectrum between plodding dial-up and hardcore DSL.

9. World Webcams

For the voyeur inside us all. Spice up your iGoogle with popular webcams from all over the world. Watch a beach in the south of France one day and a bustling scene from Rio the next. All pared down (of course) to iGoogle size. That’s about 5 x 6 cm, though if you’re really keen you can expand it to fill the page.

10. Random Google Gadgets

There are new gadgets popping up all the time, and we all know that the most useful, innovative stuff isn’t always the most publicised (remember our feature on Google services that get no love?).  With this gadget you can test drive a different, random Google app every day, and have the options of keeping stuff you like.

So what gadgets sit on your iGoogle page?   Which ones get your love?    You might also want to check out Mark’s earlier article from May this year on how to make your own personalised iGoogle gadgets.

(By) Sandra Hajda is a freelance writer from Melbourne. She hangs out on her Blogger blog and occasionally appears on Australian radio.

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Related posts

• Make Your Own Personalised iGoogle Gadgets (5)
• Jump Into The Sandbox & Play With The New iGoogle (7)
• Utilizing Windows Search 4.0 (Part 1) (4)
• Hittery - Awesome Custom Search Startpage (3)
• Cool Search Engines To Remember (15)

Disney animation movie “Bolt,” where John Travolta lends his voice to the dog-hero in the title,  has a brief, fleeting moment of Apple product placement.

Pixar blogger and CoM reader Guido Rogall explains: in Bolt “there’s a chase scene on a train. For a few seconds you see a young woman with a laptop, either a MacBook or iBook, but what is funny about it is that the Apple logo is not lit.”

As another one of our sharp-eyed readers pointed out, this Apple turn-off  scenario happens every so often in movies.

Wonder if it’s a mistake or makes it product placement more memorable to clued-in viewers…

You’re running out of disk space? You want to clean your disk to free up some space and get rid of the clutter? Sponge is a tool to keep your Mac clean and tidy.

Features

Sponge combines three different techniques to clean up your Mac: removing applications, locating the large files on your drive and finding duplicates.

• Removing applications: Sponge generates a list of all the applications installed on your system, how much space these applications occupy, and their associated files and folders. Sponge then provides the facility to remove applications safely from the system.
• Sweeping disk hogs: Sponge will show which files and directories take up the most space, giving you a starting point for cleaning some of the clutter from your Mac. Once you’ve tracked them down, Sponge can conveniently swipe them off your disk.
• Finding duplicates: With all the attachments, memos, letters and other documents with which we are flooded in today’s world, it’s easy to lose track and accidentally save duplicates of files. Sponge makes finding these multiple copies easy.

(more…)

Apple 2.0's Philip Elmer-DeWitt notes some new Net Applications statistics that suggest 8.87 percent of all Internet users use a Mac: a new record.

Add to that the iPhone platform's 0.37 percent, and over one in eleven use an Apple product to browse the web. The iPhone gained 12 percent more users compared to the month before.

Also notable is that Windows users accounted for less than 90 percent of Internet users for the first time in recent memory. Also, market share for Internet Explorer dropped below 70 percent for the first time since its popularity surged in the late 90s.

Linux also gained ground, increasing almost 17 percent to 0.83 percent of all Internet users.

Net Applications tracks statistics from over 160 million visits to websites it monitors. The full report is here.

TUAWMac internet share hits record 8.87% originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The most aggressive and devastating challenge to Google’s search dominance might come from a social network, specially given the fact that they already have a multi-million strong loyal user base. Having said this, it seems that business social network LinkedIn might already be upto this, as it has upgraded its search features to include search suggestions for querying contacts, streamlined search results, modified search, customized view – a feature that displays the contacts in the users network on top of search results. In addition to this the users could also save their searches for later viewing. LinkedIn is already experiencing tremendous uptake due to immense lay offs.

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