zahnster

An intriguing link popped up on the top of my Facebook page this evening. “The new Facebook is here.”

The ‘new’ Facebook? I wasn’t aware there was anything wrong with the old one. So, I clicked with an anticipated caution, and overall, I’m very pleased with what I’ve found.

Facebook’s always been a special site to me. Ever since my University was ‘allowed’ into the network in early 2005, I’ve been in love with the site – a clean, simple, and effective alternative to MySpace. As it’s grown, I’ve stood by it’s changes as clever and innovative, even when others haven’t (coughminifeedcough). Facebook has never been afraid to take risks, and tonight they are taking a huge one, as the changes to the platform are massive, and a bit genius.

The most obvious change to the site is they took the mini-feed, and they took the wall, and apparently made a baby with them. I call it Wall-eed. I just knew there was something up when they added comments to feed stories, and this explains it. I have to wonder what the main Facebook community is going to think of such a change, seeing as the mini-feed wasn’t very well recepted, and now it’s a main feature of the web application.

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I really love programs that make use of my Last.fm data. I also really love things that are pretty. So, it should make perfect sense that I would instantly fall in love with a way to display Last.fm data in a unique, beautiful way.

And so, I introduce Wordle, but more specifically, Master Giraffe’s page that lets you convert your last.fm data to Wordle format (for import into Wordle, naturally).

Honestly, Wordle could use some work. It cuts out quite a bit and sometimes takes hard refresh to fix. Also… a Java applet? Really? It’s a limiting platform and leaves the app jumpy. However, the idea itself is one of the more clever things I’ve seen. It also generates really pretty displays, and is customizable in both layout and color, so there’s really not a lot of bad I can say about it.

So go ahead, if you have a last.fm account, check it out. Turn your music into art.

Ever since starting with Zenbe, I’ve found myself feeling refreshed and newly invested in the web community – so much to the point that I can’t pick a singular thing to blog about tonight.

So, I’ll mention them all. First up is a site called Mint, which is just brilliant. You sync up your bank account info with them and they put your finances together in a spectacular array of animated bar graphs and pie charts. It also helps you manage your budget and find ways to save expenses. It’s also full of cute little statistics like the Starbucks data to the left (which apparently helps you realize you went a little crazy with the lattes). I’m a total nerd for this stuff, and the app, which is built in Flex, is smooth and responsive in ways which almost make me feel like a fool for sticking with this javascript stuff.

Besides Mint, there’s also a lot of other applications of all types that have been coming around. First, Versions is finally out, and it’s quickly found it’s way into my ‘most used apps’ list. There’s also 280 slides, which does amazing things with web-based presentation tools; Fluid, which turns any website into a self-running webkit-based application; a youtube/last.fm mashup, and more. Much more.

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