Monthly Archives: February 2012

Your own data Safety Box

Register everything you see on the web and digest it

Discover Archify.

It’s like a super-history of your browsing, that you keep on your computer, in which you can search for this cute kitty picture you saw somewhere (but where?). When you face the ton loads of news and links you see every day, it’s good to know someone is taking care of remembering it for you, just in case you need it…

All you need is to install a browser extension that will keep track of every move (except on banks and porn sites…).

Visit Archify

Having a place where you can find your favorites, your likes, and even your browsing history is just a requirement in today’s world, don’t you think?

The huge amount of data collected by Archify would benefit from more filters and organisation features.
A few stats on it would be a great bonus, too.
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Photo Collector

Create a central space to collect every picture

Everyone already had this problem. You organize a party or a business event. Everyone is taking pictures. Sometimes they send it to you, sometimes they don’t. But if you try to send some of these pictures to everyone, it begins to be a nightmare.

What would be great is to have a private place on the web, where everyone could share its own pictures of this event, and download those of the others attendings. Something with a special link you could give to everyone in advance.

Lucky you! This miracle happened. And its called Sharypic. Once logged in, you can create an album per event, and then everyone can add its own pictures to it, from Flickr, Picasa or Facebook, and see what the others did with their latest camera.

Oh, and for public events (say, a little more public than your birthday party), you don’t have anything to do! Pictures published on twitter with the right tag will automatically appear in the event’s album!

Visit Sharypic

Incredibly easy to use, at every step : create your account, your event, upload and select your pictures from your Facebook or Flickr account.
In 10 minutes (max), you’re all done!

Too bad you can’t create your own selection from the huge collection you just got, edit it, or print it directly from Sharypic.

Sound Connections

Local music bands come to your living room

Ever wanted to see a band play on your balcony? That is what these guys had in mind when they created this online TV.

Looking for local, even underground bands? You’ll find them there, playing in the streets, in bars or on a balcony of course. Discovered and featured by local correspondants, you can certainly find the music you like, maybe future stars, with a low-profile on-the-street video clip that is just refreshing and cheerful.

With a network adding new cities every month, this is the best way for musicoholics to stay in touch with local music scenes as they were there, without bearing the transportation. How cool is that?

Visit Balcony TV

The Balcony “franchise” expands to cities all over the world.
After Dublin, it started with Hamburg, Germany. It is now in Paris, London, Prague, Stockholm or Lisbon, but also in the US, Australia, Mexico, South Africa… No one can avoid it!

OK, there is no revenue (for now), but this also means no HD video.
You have to stick with an embedded YouTube player in low-res… That’s not what you could expect from a content-focused media…

Take back the Control

With pult.io, your smartphone turns into an advanced remote

Who still watches TV without a smartphone or an iPad in its hands ? Probably not you, anyway. But didn’t you feel frustrated by all the cables and configurations you’d need, just to show everyone on a big glossy screen this cat/skater/singer YouTube video you just found ?

Here is when you’ll be glad to know pult.io ! Access it simultaneously from your phone and your screen (TV or computer), enter The Code, and BAM !

Project your last vacations pictures from Flickr, your obviously brilliant slideshow from Slideshare or your favorite shoutcast on this other screen, directly from your phone, without any more configuration (meaning headache) required !

It sounds like a good trick and, in a way, it is. Whether it’s to show something to your mom or to your boss, it’s an elegant and simple way to use a screen bigger than your phone’s. This has no price (I mean, literally).

Visit pult.io

One 4-letters code to plug into your phone to connect it, and nothing more ? No cables, no airplay, no bluetooth ?
No way !
Actually, this is a great way.

Less useful with a computer screen than a TV. But how many TVs are in fact connected ?
Last time we checked, not that much…

Stop searching for the right cloud

Connect all your cloud apps and finally control it with Hojoki

Tired of trying to stay in touch with what happens in the – insert a 2-digits figure her– social networks and cloud apps you’re connected to? Failing to manage the different projects you’re working on with dozens of different people? You need a unique mission control center, don’t you?
Here is where Hojoki kicks in.

Connect your apps and networks in 2 clicks, sit back and look at the stream of activities in a slick interface. You’ll finally be certain not to miss any important update on a Dropbox document, or a critical bookmark from your closest partner.

More than that, you can create projects in which filtered streams will give you only the information you need. This way, you can follow them without the stress to check your inbox, your streams, your shared folders… (the list can go on) every hour.

By mixing the cloud and social networks, you won’t even have to visit Facebook when you’re at work. That will make your boss really happy!

Visit Hojoki

Making a stream of updates or additions on Dropbox and Google docs is a brilliant idea.
It’s definitely the feature you need to improve your productivity!

Crossing social networks logic and project management needs is nice. But will everybody understand or take the time to use it?

Speak every language

The media europeans build themselves

For a first delivery of our newsletter, we could not get passed it. Not really a startup, and not exactly new either, but a common european vocation imposed it.

Did you know there is a truly europeanmagazine ? It is called Cafe Babel (no relation to any church, we’ve been told). It’s a magazine, it’s a community, it’s available in five different languages, how more european could it be ?

Organized as a network in several cities, with writers, editors and readers sharing news and mixing it up, it covers cultural and social events from all over Europe.

As in any magazine, you can obviously find news, but with a european twist you can’t probably find anywhere else. You’ll dig up news in south Italy or eastern Europe you never heard of on your favorite TV channel. The bonus ? The story is written by someone who can explain the context and the details you would otherwise miss.

Visit Cafe Babel

The site is available in 6 different languages (english, german, french, spanish, italian and polish), with minor differences, thanks to dedicated translators. That’s not something you see a lot in the media landscape.

 As a community-based media, recent news are not the focus.
You’ll find more of “long tail news”, sometimes lacking a bit of editorial direction.