I’m writing this post because, frankly, I’m a sucker for technology and I needed to share this brilliant tool for viewing photos online.

PicLens is what’s know as an “Immersive slideshow”. It allows you to experience photos in a very multi-dimensional way.

It is a web browser plugin that provides interactive full-screen slideshows of online images. The plugin is available for Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

At present, the software is compatible with Google Images, Yahoo Images, Ask.com Images, deviantART, Flickr, Facebook, Live image search, Photobucket, SmugMug, Fotki and any web site that implements mediaRSS <link> tags in their HTML pages. [from Wikipedia]

Even our Internet Entrepreneurship blog has PicLens enabled! So, if we were ever to post a bunch of pictures they would be viewable with PicLens.

Most recently they added support for YouTube videos. This seemed a little buggy but worked alright. Another feature they are going to add, is the ability to click and save an image in the slideshow.

See a 2 minute demonstration of how it works in this video below…

Admittedly this may not be the most practical tool, even though it looks amazing. But will these types of online 3D experiences become mainstream? This is cutting edge technology internet entrepreneurs must think hard about and implement this technology in useful ways.

Already, there are search engines using this type of environment. SpaceTime ( a 3D browser) and 3b rooms which is a 3D city with website storefronts. The newest is viewzi which acts a bit like PicLens but for visual searching. (viewzi is still in private beta but you can request access)

Try it out! Comment and let me know what you think and is there a future for this technology?

[piclens-lite-link]

Fragmented online life? This may help. friendfeed is the biggest of a new type of internet service, the social aggregator.

The problem friendfeed solves is: people have multiple sites, services and blogs and they need one place where this stream of content can be consolidated. If RSS feeds take all the new content from your fav blogs, then friendfeed takes all the content from your social life and presents it in a steady stream. This is called lifestreaming.

People can subscribe to your feed on the site or add it as an RSS subscription. There is even a cool Facebook App that allows all your new content to appear on your profile.

friendfeed currently supports 35 services and they’re always adding more.

• Del.icio.us
• Facebook, LinkedIn
• YouTube, Flickr
• Digg, Mixx, Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• Twitter
• Google Reader (RSS shared items)

You can also add your blogs so whenever you post it will put it in the stream. Alternatively you can just put some text and/or link into the stream. The communication doesn’t go just one way either. You can post directly to Twitter.

This is a great example of internet entrepreneurship in action. It was founded by several former Google employees to fulfill a real need that is becoming ever more useful as we move online.

Another player stepping onto the field is socialthing. Their concept is similar but so far only has support for 6 services. socialthing looks like the younger but prettier brother of friendfeed. It is still in private beta but drop me a comment here, I have a few invites to hand out.

The battle between friendfeed and socialthing is just gearing up but no matter the outcome, we win :)

Further reading:

FriendFeed Vs. SocialThing! on ReadWriteWeb

Bret Taylor & Paul Buchheit – Co-Founders, FriendFeed (Podcast) by Sean Ammirati (ReadWriteTalk)

FriendFeed API: Extend and improve FriendFeed on FriendFeed blog

These last 2 weeks our class has blogged on YouTube. Here is what we came up with…

1. Hunter told us how to use YouTube to promote a business in: YouTube: How to sell yourself
2. Liam confessed to never rating a video in: YouTube: One Big Nerdy Group-Hug
3. Francisco on: YouTube making the Job Search more efficient…
4. Evolution of YouTube: history of the world’s fasting growing website! by Gadsbyjm1
5. Pestobaugh showed us how YouTube has changed our world in: Welcome to the YouTube Effect
6. YouTube – “recreations” wileyjb1 wrote about frustration with duplicate content
7. Shipleyl1 says, open a new site more focused on credible news in: The changing face of YouTube
8. YouTube as a marketing avenue? in YouTube- The Future of Marketing by moyerjl1
9. E-Zekiel.tv – Christian YouTube? by fullair
10. A YouTube Economy by bigpapahornyak
11. Our new form of entertainment in: YouTube News by Eric D’Epagnier

Here is a terrific YouTube video (6:05) that gives a great view of the changes the internet is bringing and also a look at the global environment. Really, it’s not as boring as I just made it sound LOL.

In it you learn that…

• There are 2.7 billion Google searches every month (hmm… wonder how many I’m responsible for?)

• There are 5 times more English words now than in Shakespeare’s time.

• The top 10 jobs in demand in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.

Yep, it’s true. Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is BLOGGING!

This is the final nail in the coffin, blogging is now mainstream if Iran’s president is doing it!

The blog is available in English or Arabic. The comments show what country you are from. If you comment please don’t be like the majority of stupid American’s commenting and just mindlessly name call. Ask real questions and make good intellectual points.

Most of us should disagree with him but he is actually quite honest on the blog and seems to respond well to criticism. There are always two sides to what you hear in the media and this is a chance to hear it straight form the horse’s mouth.

Caveat: some or most of the blog may be propaganda but then again, so is most of our media.

There is a bit of irony here too, as he has imposed severe censorship on his own people blogging.