One of the startups coming in at the Demo ‘09 Conference, Sobees is of value to any social network addict – and everyone is these days. Using the intuitive interface you can create your own desktop widgets, each customized to your own preferences – from Twitter Search on a topic to pictures uploaded by your friends on Flickr – you can mix and mash to create your own personal news room. The customization potential of this app is literally unlimited and it’s dead simple to use:

• Pick a template

• Pick a service, a search term or a RSS feed.

Other functionalities worth mentioning:

• Your status is published on all the social networks you’re logged into.
• There are integrated weather notifications.
• Also Flickr photo uploading.

But not all is good about Sobees – because unfortunately there is no Mac or Linux version, and the Windows version is based on .NET Framework 3.5 which not even Microsoft used to create their most recent operating system, Windows 7. In fact, there supposedly was a rule against any code written in .NET.

• On my up-to-date, fully-patched and cleaned Windows XP system, Sobees was sluggish, froze 2-3 seconds when adding new widgets and there’s clearly something wrong with the Anti-aliasing of the titles.
• The Search function only works with Yahoo! and Windows Live! Search, a big disappointment for an app that is all about customizability.
• Uses too much memory, 125MB with only one widget open. Too much transparency, translucency and other flashy effects; a black stylish interface would have achieved a better effect without using so much resources.

Like David Chartier from Ars stated, it’s really hard to stay excited about Sobees after the initial jump; while the ‘taskbar for the web’ concept is original, it certainly wasn’t developed enough – but after all this is a beta.

You can get Sobees from here and help the developers by submitting feedback. As always I look forward to your comments about desktop applications for web apps.

La Fonera next to an iPod touch, a Sony Ericsson W910i and the AC adapter.

Share Your WiFi

Before we jump in, lets familiarize ourselves with the company. Fon was started in 2006 by a well-known entrepreneur, Martin Varsawsky and is currently backed by Skype, Google and BT (British Telecom). The company hopes have as much as a million active routers by 2010 – which would mean extensive WiFi coverage for metropolitan areas and city centers – for free.

A map of active routers in Manhattan, New York available here.

The concept is quite simple: you share a fraction of your internet bandwidth at home and in return get free access to other routers around the world. If you don’t have a Fonera router you need to buy a cheap day pass or watch an ad to surf the net. And, if the owner of the router lives near a popular location such as a Starbucks – he can even earn money from the 50% cut Fon gives on every Pass sold.

Hardware: La Fonera

While the device itself looks unimpressive compared to the goal it’s trying to achieve, to share your internet connection securely, it is really a feat of engineering and design. When I opened the package I was impressed to see a very small device – no larger than an iPod touch or classic – with a simple white design that might have very well been created in the Apple labs.

In the box you’ll find a power adapter, the omni-directional detachable antenna (2dBi with RP-SMA connector) and a white flat standard Ethernet cable. The cable comes in handy if you need to connect the router to the computer for diagnostics or to the cable modem, Ethernet switch, etc. You can use any Ethernet cable with the La Fonera – it auto-negotiates transmissions even without a crossover cable. I was a bit disappointed that the router offered only one Ethernet port, making network  attached storage devices useless without an additional network switch.

The Fonera is built by Accton with an Atheros chipset which offers 802.11b/g for a maximum of 54 Mbps with WEP/WPA/WPA2 authentication and AES/TKIP encryption. The device measures 93.5 mm x 25.5 mm x 70 mm (excluding antenna).

You can easily configure the router from a Web-based interface, by connecting to the private signal (SSID). The interface is clearly laid out and instructions are available if the network fails for some reasons – including clearly written troubleshooting tips. Power users will certainly find that some of the settings on more advanced DD-WRT routers are not available through the standard official firmware. They can, however trick the La Fonera into using a hacked version which unlocks a wealth of new settings, such as the useful bridge mode and advanced statistics.

You wouldn’t expect much range from a little antenna – but the La Fonera did quite well covering my apartment, with no black spots and enough throughput to sustain a feature film streaming in SD, in XVID format and a DVD mounted on a virtual drive and shared via the network.

One annoying thing about the La Fonera is its closed DNS system – the router is set up to use FON’s DNS servers and cannot be changed; this disables PPTP VPN solutions and can cause some privacy concerns. This is necessary for the Free WiFi function to work properly.

The La Fonera isn’t the only router offered by Fon; they also have the La Fonera+ which offers an extra Ethernet port and the La Fonera 2.0 (currently in beta) which offers  2 Ethernet ports, an USB connector and a platform for developing and running applications such as bit torrent and photo uploads – an innovative feature for a router. They also plan on including compatibility with USB HSDPA modems, storage and printer sharing via the USB port.

We’ve got invites for reduced priced routers – so send us an email an we’ll send one to you.

Conclusion

La Fonera is a decent router, for a very small amount of money. FON’s innovative business model could dramatically change the way we think about WiFi and internet access. At the end of the day, it’s all about consumer choice – and if this proves to be as successful as its creators want it to be – it will definitely bring a lot of value to its customers. Go to FON.

Familiar?

Apple’s recipe for success was simple, a top down approach: the device, the software, the place to get music, and the (demonic?) scheme to tie all these together- FairPlay DRM. Microsoft, rather  unsuccessfully copied that recipe a little later, and called it Zune. Even if more than 85% of PCs use Windows, Zune’s music player  market share is only 4% compared to iPod’s crushing 70%.

As expected,  there are three components in the Zune’s platform: the Zune player, the Zune Windows-only software and the Zune online services: Zune Marketplace and Zune Social. Oh, and let’s not forget the the Zune DRM. In this article I will take a look at Zune Software and Zune Marketplace. We’ll review the Zune hardware in a separate article later on, if possible.

Quick overview

Zune Software runs on XP and Vista and it is build on a variation of the Media Center UI Framework, and not WPF, as Microsoft probably wanted to eliminate the burden of installing the .NET 3.0 framework. A good choice.

The Zune software is a media player application that can be used to manage a Zune and stream content to a nearby XBOX 360. It supports MP3, AAC(.aac, .mp4, .m4a, .m4b, .mov), WMA for audio and MPEG4 ( .mp4, .m4v, .mov), H.264, WMV and ASF for video. It can also manage JPG pictures, but  this feature  is implemented just for syncing with the Zune player, so it is very limited in functionality. Like iTunes, it can rip and burn audio CDs.

Zune devices can only be managed using the Zune Software and no other media players are compatible with Zune software.  As Zune Marketplace is tightly integrated with the Zune Software, it  has also gone largely unnoticed.

Library management

Zune Software allows folder monitoring so whenever you drop files in the monitored folders they are automatically added to your collection. You can define folders for music, videos, pictures and podcasts from local or external drives. Sweet!  iTunes can replicate the same behavior only on the Mac using Folder Actions. The default location of the Zune library (songs downloaded from the Marketplace, podcasts and ripped CDs) can easily be changed, even from the first start-up screen.

Smart playlists are known in Zune as Autoplaylists. Unlike iTunes, where you can burn any playlist as an audio CD or MP3 Data CD, Zune Software has a dedicated burn playlists and you can burn it only as an audio CD.

At the bottom you can select the default playlist and any tracks dragged onto the playlist icon are added to that playlist. Another nice feature that iTunes did not implement properly is the Now Playing playlist.

It can automatically download album cover art and metadata for the content in the library or you can do it manually. It  does a good job at finding cover art, significantly better than iTunes.

Other than marking a song as favorite (the only functionality I see in this is  for the social extension since there is no favorites autoplaylist) or editing the metadata, there’s not much you can do.  In iTunes you had some more sophisticated options like specifying whether a song should be skipped when shuffling or the start and end time if there’s just a part that you like.

You can rate songs but it doesn’t have a five star rating systems like iTunes,  just a love/ don’t love heart symbol.

Searching brings results both from your collection and also from the Zune Marketplace, nicely divided in to two panes. This would be a view that I’d like to see in iTunes.

Look and feel

The look and feel of a software used for managing, discovering and listening to music is very important for the user experience and could be considered a deciding factor in buying a music player. In my opinion, the Zune Software is a worthy contender for the “Best Jukebox experience” title.

Interface

Zune has a unique, beautiful, clean(!), user-friendly and intuitive interface, which makes it far more attractive than any other media player I’ve used before. Even with the Cover Flow and the new Grid View, when compared to Zune, iTunes still looks too much like a spreadsheet.

The nested-tab navigation is remarkably easy to use and seems so natural you wonder how you managed to live with out it.  In the upper left corner you will find the main tabs: Collection, Marketplace and Social as well as a tab for Zune devices when connected or CD when inserted.  Each main tab contains nested-tabs to display different  content. For instance, under the Collection tabs there are tabs for media stored on your computer: Music, Videos , Pictures, Podcasts and Channels.

The third level of nested-tabs allows you to choose the type of view you prefer. For Music you get Artists, Genres, Albums, Songs and Playlists. Each of this view has an uncluttered layout and they all look attractive, but I find the Artists view the most useful.

Themes

Zune Software does not support themes but  you can change the background. You get seven different backgrounds, the first being completely white, and the rest having some washed up colors on the same white background, but interesting non the less.

Now Playing

Zune doesn’t come with a true full-screen view or a mini-player but  it has a fabulous Now Playing screen, that tiles album art across the application window.

If your graphic card supports it and if you enabled the Premium graphics rendering with animation option, the Now Playing screen fills up with high quality photos of the current artist and animated bio info. I prefer this to any iTunes Visualizer.

Podcasts

Podcast support in Zune is decent.  No complains or new features here.

Music discovery features

Zune comes with three interesting music discovery services: Mixview, Channels and Picks.

Mixview

Mixview puts at the center the current artist (selected or playing), and flowing around it,  squares representing works of  the same artist, related artists, artists who have either  influenced or been influenced by the respective artist  and top listeners. When you click a square, the item moves in the center and new related items are displayed.  When you mouse over the center you can get more info, play or buy the item. Very cool!

Channels

If you are busy and don’t have time to track all the music you like, you can subscribe to  channels, that are basically  regularly-updated playlists that Zune Pass members can subscribe to. These are updated by partners–industry heavyweights and Zune employees. I’m going to talk about the Zune Pass a little later.

Picks

Like iTunes Genius, Picks makes music recommendations tailored to your taste, based on your listening habits. your friends and those listeners who prefer the same artists as you. After 116  plays I still didn’t get any recommendations. It is supposed to get better the more music you listen to.

Zune Marketplace and Zune Social

There are some differences between the Zune Marketplace and the iTunes store. The Zune Marketplace offers a lot less music (4 million songs) and no feature length movies or audio books. On the other hand, you have a simple interface and a subscription-based service called Zune Pass, which didn’t turn into a big hit.

For purchasing songs, Microsoft uses a system called Microsoft Points.These are available in denominations of $5 for 400 points. A song is 79 points, which equals to $0.9875, similar to the price on iTunes, but from a psychological point of view 79 is less than 99. To me, the only logical explanation for this confusing system is Microsoft’s greed. Just think at the fact that if you buy 400 points with 5$ you can buy only 5 songs with 395 points, so the remaining 5 points which equals to 0.0625$ remain to Microsoft.

Music content is offered in DRM-restricted WMA format @ 192kbit/s or non-DRM MP3 format (256kbit/s) for a per-song or per-album fee, or via a $14.99 Zune Pass monthly subscription.  The non-DRM offering is larger than Apple’s, but these MP3s are hard to find.

The Zune Pass allows you to download an unlimited number of  tracks, you can play on up to three computers and three Zunes. You are actually renting the music, since Zune Pass downloads cannot be burned to audio CDs and become unplayable when the subscription ends, unless purchased. Luckily you get to keep 10 DRM songs per month and all the MP3s. Also, with the Zune pass you can preview the whole song, not just 30 seconds. Still, 14.99$ seems a little expensive.

When you create a Zune account you get a 14-day free Zune Pass. The Zune pass isn’t a bad deal if you take into consideration that you can strip the DRM relatively easy(FairUse4WM).

Even if you don’t subscribe to the Zune pass you still have access to the music discovery services that will be applied on you existing collection and any music you rip of CDs.

Zune Social is the free online component that displays your  most-played artists, recently played and favorite songs, and a list of your friends. You can also earn badges, if  you listen to an album or artist a certain number of times. This info can be showcased on a user’s Zune card, which is a flash widget that can be embedded on other social sites like MySpace or Facebook.

Conclusion

Zune is a viable alternative to iTunes on the PC side, and you should really give it a try. For me, the Zune Software offered the best music experience on the Windows platform so far.  Too bad it doesn’t support other audio players. If you want to buy an iPod and use it with a Windows PC, I suggest you also try a Zune player first. I know I would, after seeing how elegant the Zune’s interface is.