There have been a slew of online Web 2.0 applications introduced over the course of the year boasting to be desktop replacements, but to be honest, I’ve haven’t really been all too impressed with most of them. Sure, there are a few good ones, like for instance, Google’s online office suite, Google Docs. For the most part there hasn’t been too much to get excited over. Until now that is!

One application that has finally convinced me that there might very well be a true market and future for Web 2.0 online applications is Picnik. It’s a powerful, yet simple, online photo editor, based off of a clever combination of AJAX programming techniques and some pretty advanced Flash. Although this is no replacement for powerful tools such as Adobe Photoshop, it is an amazing tool for average web users. With its Full Screen mode, your computer literally is taken over (in a good way) by Picnik offering more space to work with. All the standard manipulation tools are present including: auto-fix, rotate, crop, resize, exposure, color correction, sharpen, and red-eye correction.

Not only does it allow users to upload and edit photos in near real time, but the developers have also done their best to seamlessly integrated Picnik into a wide variety of social networking sites, including: Facebook, Tumblr, Photobucket and Flickr. On top of that it also allows users to easily send their finished images off to a variety of printing services through Walmart, Costco, and a bunch more.

At the moment, this is by far one of the best photo editors we’ve seen, but that might change when Adobe launches their online version of Photoshop. As for now, if you’d like to read a more in-depth review check out Tech-Talkers.com or just start editing by visiting Picnik.com.

Link: Picnik – Edit Photos The Easy Way
Full Review: Tech-Talkers.com

Only about two weeks after the launch of WordPress 2.0.6 and 2.0.7, the WordPress crew finally pushed v2.1 (aka “Ella”) out of beta. WP2.1, rather than a patch, is a major upgrade from the 2.x series. The blogging engine, which Skatter Tech is currently running, now has a more powerful back-end for administrators to manage content. Although many plugins no longer work for 2.1, we recommend updating since it also includes over 550 bug fixes. The following is some of the major changes implemented.

WordPress v2.1 Features:

• Ajax AutoSave Posts – prevents loosing posts
• Tabbed Editor – WYSIWYG and Raw Code
• Ajax-based Spell Checker for composer
• XML Import/Export – transfer data between blogs
• Search Engine – custom indexing privacy settings
• Front Page – set any page as the main page
• Blogroll – many improvements and changes
• Login – redesigned screen from Shuttle
• Ajax Admin Panel – helps speed up tasks
• Comment Feeds – includes all rather than last 10
• Uploads – management for uploaded data
• Other: Cron support, new APIs, and more

We are pleased with the overall improvments the update brings. Managment and content seems to be flowing much faster than ever before. As we mentioned we are having diffucluties with some plugins, but most of the major ones either already have been updated or work.

Links: WordPress 2.1 ‘Ella’ | Download
Related: Instructions For 2.0.x to 2.1

“Yahoo! has acquired global map data and medium resolution images, which lets users find and see cities, towns, and major land feature in the world, [...] It’s a logical extension of Yahoo!’s recent product enhancements that included multi-point driving directions and improved zooming technology.” – Yahoo Spokesman.

Although they may lag behind in imagery, one feature Yahoo offers that others do not is multi-point directions. With multi-point directions a user can set not only point A and B, a start and end, but instead as many destinations as they’d like (C, D, E, etc.). Yahoo also offers a feature called “round-trip,” which is quiet different from reverse directions. With reverse directions, if the user has set the first, second and third locations, the standard application will only flip the exact same directions. However, the new innovative “round-trip” feature, Yahoo Maps will find new and closer directions if possible to get the driver back to the origin from their final destination without needing to go through mid-destinations again.

Links: Yahoo Maps Beta | Yahoo Maps
Related: Google Maps | MSN Maps

Google Finance, which started up as a small project in Bangalore, India, and is still a BETA project has finally been introduced to the public today (March 03, 2006). Google Finance helps people find North American stocks, mutual funds, public/private company profiles, financial news, and more data results. Google Finance is very similar to Yahoo! Finance, except that Google offers more content and new ways to present it. For example, the service automatically pulls stories from Google News, which already accesses over 4,500 reliable news sources. Google Finance no longer requires remembering company stock symbols, but automatically forwards searches to the appropriate page. (a search for Microsoft goes to MSFT)

“We hope Google Finance lives up to that aim by offering a fresh perspective on company-related searches” – Google Finance Team

Instead of using pre-generated images to display stock price timelines, Google Finance uses interactive flash powered charts which are fast and easy to use. The charts can be set to display different time periods and will also displays links press releases from that time. Using many algorithms and ratings, the service displays links to blogs about the company. The product also automatically creates profiles from private companies, which competitors such as Market Watch and The Street don’t offer. If logged into a “Google Account”, a portfolio can be created for favorite stocks.

Links: Google Finance | Google Press Release
Recent: Google Mars Lanuched

1) Google Calendar screenshots have been revealed by TechCrunch, a popular Web 2.0 blog. (Yahoo! apparently fed them the info) Anyways “to be launched” service is an online AJAX based calendar service, which is suppose to be called CL2. The service has a gmail-like user interface and will have plenty of colaboration features, including RSS. It should also become intergrated with many of Google’s other services.
Links: Tech Crunch | CL2 Login Screen

2) Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have been added to the iTunes Store. The “season pass” will cost only $9.99 and will download the current episode plus the next 16 shows when they become available. Epsiodes can still be purchased individually for $1.99.
Links: Daily Show | Colbert Report
iTunes Links: Daily Show | Colbert Report

3) Microsoft has announced that their code name “Origami” Tablet PC should be available by the end of April. This is a new line of products, influenced by Microsoft, which are ultra-portable machines that are powered by Windows XP. Samsung’s version has a 7″ touch screen display, an extendable keyboard, Bluetooth, and WiFi. They can also run standard apps such as MS Office as wells as support playing videos, listening to music, and viewing photos. (Pricing will be around $600-1000)
Links: Origami Project | Microsoft’s Preview

4) MSN Live (aka. Windows Live) has just gotten a full AJAX makeover. Although still in beta, the service looks simple and clean. It has support for custom RSS feeds, as well as a selection to choose from. (weather, horoscope, email, news, etc.) The interface looks much better than Google IG. One neat feature that other services don’t offer that MSN Live does is Feed Search. For example search for “CNN” and when the results appear, if a feed is available a “add feed” button will be displayed.
Links: Windows Live | LiveCom Offical Blog