About.com is a great place to get decent reward for your articles. However, you should be a specialist in at least one particular domain. For example, if you are well versed with mobile phones, you should be able to write about various kinds of informative articles on mobile phones. For freelancers, it is a great opportunity to work from the comforts of their home and work at their own convenient timings. Serious aspirants can register on the website and should go through the testing process which will be in many rounds. Once you are selected for the job, you will be guided on the ways to prepare articles. Along with article submission, you will be assigned other tasks as well.

‘Sponsored Reviews‘ is a site where you will be paid for the articles that you write. There are two kinds of registrations on this site.They are advertisers and bloggers. Bloggers have to register, verify their account and should update their profile. Bloggers should own at least one blog and the blog should fulfill certain eligibility criteria. If you meet the requirements mentioned on their site, you can participate in writing and when your articles are published, you will be paid. If you are really talented in presenting unique content and wish your voice heard on a broad horizon, then 451press.com is the right place for you. The doors are always open for infusion of fresh blood that gives fresh meat to the audience. As blogs of diverse topics are covered under a single hut, you have ample chance to prove your capability.

Reviewme.com offers excellent monetary benefits. You will be paid $20 to @200 for the reviews on products and services promoted by various websites. Quite often, start-up companies will find it difficult to manage sufficient publicity or traffic to their site.
If you are already handing a successful site that draws a good number of visitors per day, then you have the potential to grab this offer. Advertisers will approach reviewme.com and you can approach those advertisers through reviewme.com. You will be able to bid the price for the review and if you are successful in winning the bid, you can make money by delivering a review on your site. Advertisers will benefit from your sites’ traffic and promotions. By registering at linkpost, bloggers can make money by writing reviews. You will have access to eagerly waiting advertisers for want of preparation of review. Advertisers have more options to get a review completely adapted to their requirements. You can participate with linkpost as a partner and get paid up to 50% of the amount for articles written and published on their site.

PayPerPost.com offers intelligent way to make money. Here, a number of advertisers will be waiting for an opportunity to sponsor content of their choice. Bloggers can make substantial deals with these advertisers and present content as per the requirements of advertisers. Ultimately you will be paid for each post that you are writing for the advertiser.

In addition to the revenue generated in traditional ways, as a blogger you can earn more by writing reviews and content for other websites. You will be able to get new stream of visitors from other websites also.

The area of social media marketing is rife with the jostling of the top contenders and the start up of social media sites. Technological advancement in this sector is influenced by the competitive features introduced by the other sites and more importantly, by popular demands put forth by different sections of the web audience. Google+ is comparatively quite new in the social media sector; however, it had a running start and has been going strong with continuous advanced features introduced and the site on constant modification to be at par with the other close competitions (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blokube, Digg etc.).
The most recent direction of developments on Google+ has been towards orienting the service to be better compatible to business profiles and promotions. Here is a detailed look at the course of the progress -

Google+ is Merging Social Media with Power of Search

The fact that Google backs Google+ plays a huge role in the development of the social media site as a unique factor for consideration in search engine ranking. However, this is not just true for Google+. Twitter has also collaborated with Google in this regards. Therefore, if you are persistent with your twitter handle, your relevant tweets will also be accounted during search indexing by Google. Facebook is in collaboration with Microsoft Bing, for this very criterion. However, the impact of search engine ranking on businesses makes this criterion a near major necessity in their choice of social platform. It is true that Google+ has targeted business profiles, especially as an endeavor to trump Facebook with their business fan pages features. To aid this approach, Google+ has introduced multi member circles, business profile pages, and related badges that you can link back to the official website of your company.

Direct Impact of Google+ on Businesses pertaining to Social Media Marketing

The very reason for social media marketing is to garner web audience exposure. While popular sites such as Facebook and Twitter are extremely progressive when it comes to networking, they are in some ways lacking concerning search engine optimization. Twitter collaborates with Google, but Twitter collects seemingly low percentage of the total traffic statistics on the social media sites.

Google is multi dimensional. The many sub aspects of the search engine giant (Orkut, Picasa, Google wave etc.), encompass a lot of target traffic and from varying fields. However, all of these aspects have failed to cultivate the stature of online presence, which the recent boom in social media marketing has experienced.

Google+ is a direct contender in this particular field. Due to its late arrival, it has some grounds to cover still in terms of a social media top site. However, in collaboration with Google Adwords; it has definitely solidified its position as the social media site connected with collection of organic traffic to your business site. This is precisely the reason why Google+has come up with the barrage of new features to entice businesses to start up profile pages on the site.

The only significant disadvantage in this regards is the site’s inattention towards identity verification when businesses sign up for pages. As a result, almost anyone can open up a business page for individual company, regardless of their relation to that particular company. The site is also advancing on the features that will let business pages include multiple members in a group conversation (Google+ circle). In retrospect, collecting +1s on your business profile page on Google+, will amount to a noticeable increase in organic traffic to your site and directly reflect on your site’s position on the SERPs.

Let us check the new changes brought in to convert YouTube into a more user friendly online media -

The new changes termed as mini makeover deliver first change in the form of appearance of a ‘new video end screen’ which flashes at the end of the current playing video. The improvised playlist bar comes with back and forward buttons of large size and will also display a video of large size. The new design will let you explore new videos in an effortless manner by removing earlier hiccups. Now, you will be able to find most sought after videos like ‘Do it yourself’, ‘how to’, etc. by using various filters and categories.

Another interesting feature is that users will be more hands on at video editing. The cloud based “WeVideo” allows you explore more options to fine tune your videos. Updated video charts page lets you keep track with the latest and most popular videos. The new feature will let you discover the top rated videos of all time. You can also find videos which got more user hits by month-wise, week-wise and day-wise. You can also find the videos that are hot in discussion and being shared at a rapid pace. Those who are serious in promoting their products or services can get an insight of the performance of videos in niche categories. This will help prospective YouTube promoters to come out with a most suitable video presentation that can be a sure bet for success.

As YouTube’s popularity is spreading globally, YouTube takes forward this revolution by extending its hands in the form of localization of its service. With the current new addition of Kenya, Philippines and Singapore; YouTube’s localization expands to 35 countries. Location based service lets users find the most popular videos in their region or country by opting for the required location which is located at the bottom of the YouTube page. Localization takes new heights with the inclusion of 51 vernacular languages in which the YouTube interface will appear.

The “Smart Subscribe Button” will let you subscribe to the video channel that you are watching. The button will appear automatically on the YouTube page prompting you to subscribe for the service if you are not yet subscribed.

Yahoo Search team is trying their level best to improve their performance in the search engine market. Yahoo Search stands as the second largest popular search engine. There is a huge margin between its competitor Google and Yahoo Search. More than 85% of net surfers depend on Google whereas just 6% people depend on Yahoo Search to find information on the web. Undisputedly, it is difficult to beat the giant, Google by any competitor in the near future. Although Yahoo Search walked hand in hand with Google for quite some years, it severed its association with Google and became a competitor instead of an ally.

For many years, Yahoo Search depended on Google for retrieving data from the database and presents the results through its interface. After disassociating with Google and tying up with Microsoft, Yahoo came out with many ideas to attract users to its search site. As part of its ongoing changes, the latest comes with the improvised service in terms of aesthetics. The revised design brings more user friendly features. The new screen will portray the information retrieved from various sources in a clutter free style. It will make you search for and get information at a fast pace. Tabs will appear automatically based on the relevant search. Tabssuch as images, videos, blogs, news, finance and sports will appear beneath the search textbox. Left pane on the screen will filter the information based on the days, months and years.

Yahoo search can be initiated from Yahoo Homepage or from www.search.yahoo.com which is ad free. Yahoo search helps you save an article for your future reference. As usual for any search engine, the sponsored results will top the search results. The search results will be retrieved from billions of pages present on various servers across the globe which are crawled and indexed by Yahoo Search.

Last month, Yahoo had launched image search feature on its search engine. It facilitates you find number of Facebook images. Images will be sorted latest being listed on the top and you can find recommendations about other sources of images through galleries. The newly launched search engine’s design features will enhance the appearance and performance of the search engine. As per the words we type in the search text box, relevant tabs will appear beneath the textbox and relevant filters will appear on the left side of the pane.

Yahoo is making news by making changes not only in search features but also in its team members. With Carol Bartz fired and new talks of merger or acquisition taking place, time will decide how these new features will benefit the company.

Question and answer websites have popped up all over the Internet. These interactive sites are designed to connect individuals, and help them get answers to questions. We have compiled a list of some of the more popular Question & Answers websites…

Yahoo! Answers

Yahoo! Answers is probably the largest and most respected Question & Answer site on the web. You can ask questions on any topic, or you can answer questions on any topic. There are no fees to participate. The person asking the question can indicate their choice for the best answer, and the community can rate responses as well. Points and levels are given for answering questions and receiving top ratings. Questions are categorized, making it easy to find questions and answers in your area of expertise. The Q&A database is also searchable, and you can filter the search results so that only open or resolved questions are displayed.

Amazon AskVille

Askville, powered by Amazon, is a community of people who ask and answer questions. Unlike other Question & Answer websites, Askville has a rich media component that allows respondents to include videos, or an Amazon suggestion, with their responses. Questions are categorized and searchable, making them easy to locate in the Askville database.

AnswerBag

AnswerBag is a traditional Question & Answer website. The AnswerBag site is free to use, so you can ask and answers questions of interest.

Yedda/AOL Answers

Yedda/AOL Answers is a free Question & Answer community, but on a smaller scale than some others. Unlike other Q&A communities, which often restrict the length of time you can respond to questions, Yedda lets you answer questions for an unlimited period of time. Yedda also displays related questions and answers in addition to the question being replied to. New topics and associations between topics are created dynamically by the Yedda community.

Mahalo Answers

Mahalo Answers is a Question & Answer website with a twist — Mahalo uses Mahalo dollars. Those asking questions can define how much they will give for a good answer. Top answerers receive Mahalo dollars.

BlurtIt

BlurtIt is a standard Question & Answer website. You can ask questions, find answers, and share your knowledge with users from around the world.

SimplyExplained

Are you an expert in a given field? Simply Explained gives you the opportunity to share the knowledge and expertise you might have in any subject, from Asbestos through to Zinfandel, by answering questions relevant to your field, posed by other Simply Explained users from around the globe. You can choose which questions to answer, and you will be ranked by other users according to how helpful, accurate, and simple-to-understand your answers are.

IMAnswers

IMAnswers is a Question & Answer site with an internet marketing focus. Posters can ask and respond to marketing related questions.

AskMeHelpDesk

AskMeHelpDesk is free-to-join site, and contains a wide variety of questions and answers.

Fixya (techie)

Fixya is a community resource capable of providing relevant and up-to-date troubleshooting data. FixYa is designed for the do-it-yourself market, for individuals who want to repair and improve upon their already-purchased possessions. Individuals on Fixya can share real-world experience and connect with others to provide practical advice on a wide-range of topics from fixing cars, to cameras, to iPhones, to printers, etc. FixYa participants (FixYans) are part of a DIY revolution that helps empower techies, tinkerers, and hobbyists around the world.

FunAdvice

FunAdvice started with five categories and a simple goal: to be the place where people could get or give advice on personal relationships. Years later, the focus has expanded to include more than twenty categories, and FunAdvice has become a place where you can ask questions, get answers, and make friends.

Fluther

Fluther is a free Q&A collective that specializes in getting fast answers from community members. Members can ask and answer questions.

Uclue

Uclue is a fee-based Question & Answer service. The team of Uclue researchers will look over questions, and one of them will likely ‘lock’ it and get to work on an answer. If a researcher needs more information, or if the fee isn’t quite adequate for the amount of work involved, the researcher will post a Clarification Request, and the poster will be notified by email that their input is being sought.

Answerology

Answerology is a Question & Answer site that is designed to help people improve relationships, whether it be romantic partners, family, friends, or colleagues. It’s all about sharing experience and advice.

Unasked

The only stupid questions are the ones left unasked. Unasked is a learning community with questions and answers for a variety of topics.

The Twitter favourites applications enables users to attain any or all of the following feats on Twitter. Let’s read on -

1. Twitter Favourites helps complete your profile – Understandably every user has a Twitter profile that speaks about the user and his/her bio. Whilst it tells other users about what you want them to know about you, a user’s ‘favourite’ tweets act as more of a visual representation of what you find most essential. Filling your stream with @interactions and marking some of your favourite tweets shall no doubt, visually-demonstrate that you’re more than a casual stalker observer.

2. A trusted Word-of-mouth type communiqué – Here is a person quoting a statement by which it can be understood that Twitter favourites is definitely a handy tool – “I will trust my followers’ opinions about a product exponentially more than I would an integrated marketing campaign for the same“. It has become a universal understanding that word-of-mouth spread of a particular news, story, etc. is far better & more reliable than a marketing campaign. Any blog post of yours, an article on a website, a book release, or any other related work of yours which can definitely up your ante can easily be marketed through Twitter favourites. All-in-all it needs to be referred to as a very good word of mouth tool.

3. A good encouraging tool - Every sportsman on this planet can only perform if he/she will receive enough encouragement. Similarly, online users who work and run businesses online also require some form of motivation that will keep them going and not stop at anything. Here is another quote wherein it portrays Twitter favourites to be a fuel tank energizer – “I think of encouragement like a fuel tank. I fuel my late nights and long hours from the tank; eventually it’ll run low. But through one form of encouragement or another — in this case, as simple as favoring a tweet — my encouragement tank is refueled a bit“.

As stated earlier, there is no doubt that social networking sites possess several features that makes one’s ‘Social Life’ easier and Twitter favourites is definitely one of them.

Remember one of the most popular pranks on the 1st April 2011 – it is indeed the Gmail Motion prank. Most hilarious it was, and actually one of the smartest and hottest pranks ever. If you are not familiar, let me briefly tell you about the prank. I actually got a Tweet from one of my tweeps about this asking me to try out Gmail in Motion. First, I could not understand and then I thought that it could just be a prank since it was April 1st. But then when I clicked through the link, I was amazed. I could see the notification, a demo video, and even testimonials from people. The site looked all professional and for real and Gmail made be believe for an instant that it was all for real (even better with the word “BETA” on it!). Then I watched the demo video. All hilarious! Kudos to Google for making fun in a very professional manner; very typical of Google indeed.

This news was hot and trending in all social media and people were talking about it all the time for the past three days. Some enjoyed the fun, and some even welcomed the new technology with amaze without realizing that it was just a prank. But you know what? Those people who believed it were not fooled actually! The people at the Institute of Creative Technologies have made this prank real and have demonstrated it. This video below (again it is hilarious, mind you) demonstrates how Gmail prank can be brought to reality using the motion sensing technology. Yes, it is possible to type your emails and send them through your gestures using a Microsoft Kinect device connected to your computer. The technology is named Software Library Optimizing Obligatory Waving (SLOOW, well not literally!) and it basically uses a Microsoft Kinect camera connected to the laptop to control Gmail.

Well the video pretty much demonstrates typing out an email in real. I didn’t believe that the prank has been brought to reality until I saw the demo. The guy indeed typed out an email and sent it. He used the gestures given in the Gmail motion prank page for typing out specific words and taking out specific actions like opening Gmail, composing a message, sending it etc. After typing out the email, using body gestures, he pretended to lick a stamp and stick it on to an imaginary envelope (he stuck it virtually to his thigh) and the mail was sent.

Actually I wouldn’t wave at my laptop and do funny gestures to type out an email when I have my fingers intact. Well, it is all hilarious and stupid (sorry about the language) but I think that we *must* embrace the technology. The technology is really catching and could have promising applications in the very near future. Whether it would be really useful or not, this is something great to experience. If we could really master the shortcuts to most commonly used words, we could be writing emails just as we would talk to someone, with appropriate body language.

In August 2010, Greplin was launched as a Y Combinator startup, however this launch was quite limited then with an Angel financing of a mere $700,000. Just a few days after this launch the service began to slump and crash, and new user signing up was stopped. There was hence a total revamp of the back-end processes. After that horrid start, the new and improved Greplin launched recently was a creation made by just a handful of people. Greplin now employs 5 people of whom three of them are brand new hires.

Keeping track of all the things that happen in your social life is such a big hazard for any human being. But with Greplin now, remembering things that happen in your social life in the online platform is not all that difficult. Greplin allows users search across all of their emails, Facebook data and Twitter stuff with one search query. It doesn’t just stop with the social networking sites, Greplin also includes Google Apps, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Evernote, Yammer, Salesforce, Box.net, Basecamp, Google Voice, Google Reader, Google Contacts and more. With the inclusion of all these applications online, Greplin enables users to search anything and everything in the World Wide Web.

Using Greplin is as simple as drinking a cup of tea. The registration to become a free member of Greplin comprises of a simple feeding in of your e-mail address and a password, in order to log-in the next time you use Greplin. Next, it gives you a range of social service options + several options of apps online that you can choose from and add them onto your list of sites. Then, just key-in a query and even before you hit enter Greplin throws all the results just like Google’s instant search product. Greplin also enables users to segregate their search results based on People, Streams, and Message.

As stated earlier, signing up for Greplin is absolutely free and the usage limit is 200 MB of storage space for free users. A premium account with 500MB of storage costs $4.99/month and Premium Plus is $14.99/month for even more storage and services. Not too expensive for a service that will not only help us keep track of everything that happens in our social networking platform, but also search for anything and everything online.

The service is pretty easy to use. All you need to do is to sign up for an account. You’ll need to fund your account in-order to recharge your phone. You can fund the account using your credit/debit card or netbanking. I was able to recharge both my phone in under 5 minutes.  I am also very impressed with their support. I got an answer to a query I posted on their site within a few minutes.

Another interesting service prepaid users should find interesting is the ability to schedule a recharge, so you can set a future recharge date, and your prepaid balance recharged on the date you set. Useful to schedule the next month’s charge in advance.

When you’re on the move and you’re almost out of balance, you can also send the service a quick SMS and get your account recharged in a jiffy. All you need to do is to register your mobile number and send a message with the amount you want to recharge to their service : RC 50 9810125432 where 50 is the amount to recharge on your number.

I had asked Mr. Bipin Preet Singh the CEO of Mobikwik a few questions about their service:

Q: What happens when a recharge doesn’t go though properly? how long does it take to locate the problem/refund the charge?
A: Mobikwik realizes that operator server’s are not 100% efficient and recharge can sometimes fail due to operator server being down, or invalid amount being entered etc. Therefore, mobikwik has concept of mobikwik balance. So, if you pay Rs 100 to recharge, but recharge did not happen, your balance does not get deducted. So you can try again later. Else, you can send a customer support email which is there on our home page. We respond in 24 hours.

Q: Recurring Recharge – I see you have a scheduled recharge which allows a user to plan one charge in advance. Are you planning something where the user can set a recurring recharge, let’s say once a week/month/…
A: Actually, with current schedule recharge, you can set it up as many times as you want, once a week, once a month, once a year. There is no restriction.

Q: Do you support data plan recharges? If yes, which operators do you support currently and which ones are planned in the future?
A: Yes, we do support data plan recharges for all leading operators.

I did find the data recharge option missing for my operators unfortunately, Tata Docomo and BSNL didn’t have the 3G data recharge options on Mobikwik yet. Hope that too comes up in the near future. I hate having to run to the nearest dealer to get that done.

Check out their service at: www.mobikwik.com and follow them on twitter @mobikwik . If you’ve tried out Mobikwik let us know your experiences by commenting on this post.

Just got an email from Amazon with their announcement of the beta release of the AWS Management Console. This helps users manage their EC2 resources though an easy to use web interface. No more third party browser addons and custom code to check the status of EC2 instances and playing around with Elastic IPs and EBS. I’m sure everyone’s been waiting a long time for this move from Amazon.

Their new interface is quite a help in getting the regular chores done and taking a look at the current activities on EC2. Here’s how the screen looks when you log in (click on the image for a larger version):

Looks like I’ll be using ElasticFox less after getting used to this clean interface. Here’s what you can do with this version of the console:

• AMI Management: browse and search AMIs, launch instances from AMIs, deregister and register AMIs
• Instance Management: launch, reboot, terminate, get console output, RDP/SSH help, etc.
• Security Group Management: create and delete security groups, add and remove permissions, configure firewall settings, open and close ports
• Elastic IP Management: create and release IP Addresses, associate IPs to instances
• Elastic Block Store: create, delete, attach and detach volumes. Take snapshots and manage snapshots.
• Key Pair management: create and delete public/private key pairs.

Though this initial version does provide all the basic interfaces for managing EC2, Amazon’s got a lot planned out for the AWS Management Console. Here’s what’s coming up in the future:

• Tagging – Label and group Amazon EC2 resources with your own custom metadata to make it easier to identify and manage your instances, volumes, and other EC2 resources.
• Monitoring, Load Balancing and Auto-scaling – View real-time monitoring of operational metrics within Amazon EC2, configure load balancing and auto-scaling rules through a web-based UI.
• Amazon S3 Support – Create and delete Amazon S3 buckets, upload and download objects through your browser, edit permissions, set log data, and manage URLs.
• Amazon SimpleDB Support – Construct SimpleDB queries through a point-and-click query expression builder and explore your data through a graphical dataset viewer.
• Amazon SQS Support – Manage your SQS queues, add and retrieve messages from you queues, test and build your applications with help from the AWS Management Console.
• CloudFront Support – Setup and administer content delivery distributions on Amazon CloudFront using a simple web-based tool on the AWS Management Console.

Links:

AWS Console
Amazon Web Services Blog: Manage Amazon EC2 With New Web-Based AWS Management Console

Looking for an easy way to provide social features on your site without having to go through all the hassels of creating login scripts and member databases? Google Friend Connect allows you to do that in a few simple steps. Just signup for an account, upload 2 html files and embed a javascript for the gadget you’d like to use – as simple as that !

Visitors can sign in using their Google, Yahoo, AIM or Open ID accounts, which makes it easier to pull in more interactions without having them to register on your site. Currently Friend Connect provides a few gadgets like the Wall and Review & Rate. You can also create custom gadgets if you’re up to it.

The Wall and Review gadgets can also be set in moderation mode where you get to choose what goes up on the site and delete unwanted posts.

Link: Google Friend Connect

AdsBlackList.com is a unique project designed to enable you to dramatically reduce the amount of MFA (made for ads) and LCPC (low cost per click) sites which appear through the use of PPC systems such as Google Adsenseâ„¢, Yahoo Publisher Networkâ„¢ and Chitika eMiniMallsâ„¢.

To get started with this service, you’ll first have to create an account for free. You can submit your sites and the popular keywords for your site. This service uses these keywords you define for your site to generate a list of MFA and LCPC sites. You can take this list of sites and add them to the Competitive site filters in your Google Adsense account (Adsense Setup>Competitive Ad Filter). This means that ads from the filtered sites won’t come up on your site, and effectively increasing your earnings.

The free account from AdsBlackList is limited to just 200 sites, which is fine for me, since Adsense allows only 200 URLs in the Competitive Ad Filter.

Link: AdsBlackList.com

Google Doctype is an open encyclopedia and reference library. Written by web developers, for web developers. It includes articles on web security, JavaScript DOM manipulation, CSS tips and tricks, and more. The reference section includes a growing library of test cases for checking cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility.

This site’s currently got some good HOWTOs on Web security, DOM manipulation, CSS and styles and more. A worthwhile place to check if you’re looking at some quick reference and help.

Link: Google Doctype

G.ho.st an acronym for Global Hosted Operating SysTem is a service which provides an free online OS, storage space and an email account.

I’d checked this service out and found it a pretty good concept, which allows you to upload your files to your online storage space, work on them on their Virtual Computer and save the changes online. The apps which this Virtual computer provides are pretty cool, since they’re all online services. The spreadsheet and document editor are actually Zoho’s apps which are embedded here. This service uses Amazon’s EC2 and S3 services behind the covers to provide the virtual machines and the storage space.

The only problem I see with these online OS services is the requirement for decent bandwidth to access these. These services tend to crawl on slower lines, rendering these really useless. But then if someone gives me 3GB space free, why should I complain !

G. ho.st (“ghost�, the Global hosted operating system) provides a free and complete Virtual Computer (VC) service, including personal desktop, files and applications, available from any browser. G.ho.st is the world’s first and only true open Web Operating System (Web OS), working seamlessly with leading third-party web applications. The G.ho.st VC delivers a mature computing environment to every person, which is free of charge, available everywhere and admin-free. The G.ho.st VC service is available at http://G.ho.st.

Screen shots:

Link: G.ho.st

Google’s just released a preview version of Google Friend Connect, which allows you to add social features on your site with minimal coding. This is still a preview release so you’ll have sign up to get into the queue.

Google Friend Connect lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. With just a few snippets of code, you get more people engaging more deeply with your site.

Here’s a video introduction of Google Friend Connect:

Link: Google Friend Connect

Microsoft has taken the wraps off a Technology Preview of its new Live Mesh platform, which promises to connect disparate devices so they can seamlessly share information. But beyond the surface, Live Mesh portends that Microsoft doesn’t just want to compete on the Web; it wants to be the Web.

Links:
Microsoft’s ‘Live Mesh’ aims to become the universal window to the Web
Live Mesh Site
Live Mesh Tech Preview Screenshot Gallery