FluidApp is what's called a Single Site Browser and is a great way to pull key websites you use throughout the day out of your primary browser and onto your Mac dashboard as standalone applications. It's super easy for anyone to use. The service has a thriving community of users - I have 10 Fluid browsers running on my computer right now and wouldn't want to work without them. In fact, I'm writing this blog post from Movable Type inside a Fluid Browser. In a quiet mid-December move, FluidApp developer Todd Ditchendorf put "most of the code behind Fluid" up on Github under an open source license. That's very good news - new developments are already coming fast and furious. If you haven't checked out Fluid before, now is a great time. Sponsor There's something magical about the way single site browsers let you use different web apps. They don't get lost in tabs. They don't fall prey to browser crashes. You can put a handsome icon in your doc to jump over to them. Windows users looking for a similar experience should check out Bubbles or Mozilla's Prism . Now that Fluid for the Mac is open source though, it will be very exciting to see what features are added next. Creator Ditchendorf says he has some more exciting plans under his hat but nothing to show off yet. Watch this space. What's your favorite Fluid App? One of my favorites is LazyFeed . Next: 15 Fluid Apps You Can Build For Your Business . Discuss

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I Run 13 Browsers At Once; 11 of Them Just Went Open Source

So, this year, you've resolved to lose weight, take a class, learn a new language and buy a better mobile device. Good for you - but we all know how well most new year's resolutions go. If you want to strike while the iron is hot, we've found mySomeday , a new tool for solidifying, planning and executing your dreams into realities. The site's a little bit like Dorthy.com and a little like LetSimonDecide , but it's also got simple project management tools and interesting social features. Could mySomeday actually help us stick to our resolutions? Sponsor A while ago, we tested Dorthy.com, a semantic search engine for aspirations that asked users to list goals, share progress and encourage one another. This is quite close to what mySomeday purports to do, as well, albeit through very different mechanisms. Calling itself a "goal achievement platform," mySomeday combines planning tools, social networking features and a support community. It makes sense that publicly sharing goals with one's network has a positive impact on one's chances of reaching those goals. Also, hacking a dream into a plan with a series of steps and measurable outcomes can help transform a cloud-castle into a reality. The site also reminded us of LetSimonDecide, a decision-making platform that helps users analyze their dreams or wishes to determine if they're optimal, practical and advisable. Once the decision-making process is complete, users can share their conclusions with other site members and make an action plan to implement the decision. On mySomeday, users are prompted to set deadlines and receive email reminders, but one of the most interesting features is the option to add multimedia inspirational content, including pictures and videos. Visual reminders have powerful effects - much more than mere words on a glowing screen would, we suspect. As part of their business model, mySomeday is offering branded "Expert Plans" for common or niche goals. Currently, Expert Plans are being offered by Seeds of Peace, Flirtexting, BK Farmyards and Nuru International. What methods or tools are you using now to keep your resolutions - whether they were made for 2010 or whether they're just longstanding but dormant goals? Do you think mySomeday is a site you could use? Would the imagery, reminders and community help you achieve your goals? And what do you think of the company's rather unique Expert Plans model? Let us know your opinions in the comments. Discuss

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Keep All Those Resolutions You Just Made: Try mySomeday

ShoZu Goes to Critical Path - Cross Network Publishing Doesn't Seem to Be a Stand-Alone Business Hours after high-profile Silicon Valley social aggregation service Seesmic announced that it acquired angel-backed cross-network publishing service Ping.fm , a similar deal was announced in Europe. Identity management service Critical Path , maker of software called Memova, announced that it has acquired mobile uploading service ShoZu , a company that had received an enormous amount of venture capital. Sponsor Rumors of the deal were first reported in mid-December by Robin Wauters of TechCrunch . Now the deal is done, reports leading European mobile blogger Ewan Spence . We're hearing that the announcement will be officially released later today. Update: We just received the official press release as well. ShoZu raised more than $30 million to build a mobile app that allows users to publish photos, videos and text to more than 50 different destination social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Blip.tv and more. The service has long been popular on Nokia phones and sells an iPhone app for $5. Shozu was voted one of our readers' favorite mobile apps in 2007. For more about ShoZu see this Techcraver interview with the company's CEO. Critical Path is a little like a combination of Plaxo and Verisign. It offers messaging and social apps, APIs, Identity Management and Access Control. Was this the big exit that ShoZu's investors sought? Almost definitely not. Critical Path is an innovative service that's got some big customers like BT, France Telecom and Orange, but it's unlikely that ShoZu came at a high price. Spence alludes to the same when he writes that Critical Path "saw the potential of combining their Memova platform suite with ShoZu's engineering." Update: In the official release, ShoZu Board Director Nigel Pilkington from lead investor SEB Venture Capital UK, called the deal "a successful outcome for us." Maybe that's being polite, maybe it's true or maybe it was a small success financially. It's most likely a talent deal and evidence that cross-platform publishing tools like ShoZu, Ping.fm and competitor Pixel Pipe are probably not stand-alone businesses. Just like FriendFeed's aggregation across scores of APIs wasn't enough to make it a success outside of being scooped up by the much, much larger Facebook - these other companies that create the pipes for the tubes just aren't compelling enough to a large number of consumers. They do make nice acquisition targets, though, and show that the future of the social web may not be found in reading and writing to one single network like Twitter or Facebook. The savvy companies that are building value on top of those networks are also dedicating resources to bring on engineers skilled at working with far more networks to publish to or read from. Discuss

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2 Cross-Publishing Services Get Acquired in 1 Day: Critical Path Buys ShoZu

In 2009, when Ray Ozzie stepped into the ring with the news that Microsoft was launching a full-on social lab, it was clear that the Enterprise 2.0 movement was moving into a new phase. Now comes the question of what effect Microsoft will have on the way Enterprise 2.0 evolves and what roles the players that are early to the game will play in its future. Sponsor Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb! Ozzie is Microsoft's chief architect and one of the most respected people in tech circles. Lillian Cheng will lead the Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Labs and report to Ozzie. Cheng is a luminary in her own right, leading a number of research efforts for Microsoft, including the Vista UI. FUSE will combine three labs: The Creative Systems Group, which has been led by Cheng, and the Rich Media Labs and Startup Labs, now commandeered by Ray Ozzie. In an email to Microsoft employees this week, the message was pretty clear about the direction the company will take with its technology development. In essence, the tea leaves say that pretty much every product at Microsoft will include social or sharing features. FUSE will serve as a resource for the product groups. In Ozzie's words: Myriad scenarios involving the notion of 'social' have now gone far beyond communications and collaboration and are transforming experiences that are key to our customers and key to our business, in leisure & entertainment; productivity & teamwork; experiences extending how we use the OS itself. The three groups being combined have concrete skills and code in areas where 'social' meets sharing; where 'social' meets real-time; where 'social' meets media; where 'social' meets search; where 'social' meets the cloud plus three screens and a world of devices. FUSE Labs will bring more coherence and capability to those advanced development projects where they're already actively collaborating with product groups to help them succeed with 'leapfrog' efforts. Working closely with (Microsoft Research) and across our divisions, the lab will prioritize efforts where its capabilities can be applied to areas where the company's extant missions, structures, tempo or risk might otherwise cause us to miss a material threat or opportunity. Microsoft's apparent deep commitment will create a rising tide for the Enterprise 2.0 movement, which is already in full swing. A number of best-in-breed applications are being used by business people. Microsoft's high-profile commitment will further fuel interest in these applications. Part of this is just the natural order that is taking place. Corporations have historically relied on document-based systems such as Sharepoint. Web pages reflect the next extension, but they, too, are essentially a form of a document. Enterprise 2.0 is forcing a change by fitting social layers that surface information from traditional data silos. That shows no sign of slowing down. FUSE will push the effort forward in its work with the product groups. It will be a wholly different kind of approach that has its roots in IT more than in the business departments. A Different Development Burden Microsoft faces a different developmental burden than what faces the young best-of-breed companies that are building social applications for their business customers.These companies are building products from scratch that they can quickly change without worrying about software upgrades. Their products will continue to fill a gap for the business manager. This means that the Enterprise 2.0 movement will see a dual form of growth, both from business and IT departments. How Will The Customer Fare? Perhaps more interesting will be the changing dynamics for Microsoft customers. I spoke with Tim Young, CEO of Socialcast about this topic. The advantage of social technologies is their ease of use and how they fit into a line of business. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tools can be treated as an expense. They perform a service. Business users like that model. The applications are easy to use and affordable. They do not require an IT team to put in place. Business users have been free to use these technologies at will. They have been pretty much ignored by the IT Department. But recently, Microsoft has been pressuring their IT contacts to upgrade to Sharepoint 2010. People we speak to say that IT is now starting to ask business users about the social technologies they are using. IT is skeptical to some extent. They have relationships with Microsoft that are important to maintain. But unlike in the past, business users are the early technology adopters and hold a bit of power. They have started using social technologies and are not looking back. They have crossed the chasm and are looking to employ these applications even more. The news from Microsoft just proves that the social enterprise is here to stay. Microsoft is not in such a bad space. Companies are still heavily reliant on spreadsheets and email. Documents remain the crown jewels of the organization. Their social offering only stands to improve with FUSE now in place. Several companies, like Jive Software , are integrating their products with Sharepoint, providing an edge they previously did not have. We expect Microsoft will play a heavy hand in how Enterprise 2.0 evolves. But the foundation has already been established to some extent without them. They have their own allies in the enterprise. Now it's just a question of how fast the culture shifts. Discuss

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Ray Ozzie's New Social Lab: What It Means For Enterprise 2.0

Editor's note: we offer our long-term sponsors the opportunity to write 'Sponsor Posts' and tell their story. These posts are clearly marked as written by sponsors, but we also want them to be useful and interesting to our readers. We hope you like the posts and we encourage you to support our sponsors by trying out their products. Over the past decade, the Internet has evolved at a rapid pace, and if you didn't jump on the bandwagon in years past you may be feeling like it's a bit too late to establish an online business. That's not the case, however, and 2010 is the perfect time to start doing business online. The underlying technologies of Internet architecture are well-established and are more affordable now than ever to end-users. Sponsor The last several years have also seen a huge increase in the number of available social tools, web utilities and online services that make promoting your business and being visible online easier and more affordable. The number of Internet users continues to grow substantially across the globe, and there are an expansive number of channels you can use to reach potential customers online. From an economic perspective, now is also a good time to consider starting or growing your business. The global economy is showing signs of recovery from recession, and catching an economic upswing when growing a small business is always a good thing. Small business loans from banks and other creditors may still be difficult to come by, however, which makes an online business an even better choice due to low start-up costs. In recent history, a great deal of attention has been paid to the massive growth in large social networks, but now the Internet appears to be shifting towards a more local or hyperlocal focus with smaller communities inside bigger networks becoming more common. As a result, small businesses offering local products or services can find a targeted audience of potential customers to engage with. All these factors make now a great time to start your business online. Follow through on a 2010 resolution to make money from what you enjoy doing by starting a complete business from the ground up, adding an online component to your existing physical business, or just using a website to supplement other income and test the water for your idea. Below are a few steps you can take to get started. 9 Steps to Getting Your Business Online Find a little cash : It's probably going to cost a lot to get started with a business website, right? Not so much. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you can't afford to start a business online just because you see startups with millions of dollars in venture capital funding featured on ReadWriteWeb or other tech blogs. A huge number of successful online small businesses were started out of a home office or garage workspace. The Internet is massive, and if you can find a good niche, you don't have to be everywhere at once to be successful. Costs for getting started with a domain name, hosting, basic website creation and online marketing can easily be kept under $1,000 in your first year of business if you plan well. Get a strong domain name : If you're in the early planning stages of your business, always keep potential domain names in mind when choosing a business name. If you move forward with a great business name only to find the domain name is taken , it could mean back to square one on name planning. Instead, keep a domain search handy as you brainstorm and get creative with names to find a great fit. Your domain name will be your website's permanent address on the web, so it's important to get it right the first time. Get Web hosting : You'd be surprised how many people think the domain name is all they need to build a website. What you need next is a place to store website files online. That could be something as simple as basic web hosting or a more powerful solution such as a virtual private server - both of which we offer at MyDomain. There are many other options as well, including self-hosting on your own server. There's a decent chance you know these basics already, so if that's the case, make sure to share your knowledge with others who are looking to get started online. Build a website : There are a huge number of options when it comes to creating a website in 2010. Most hosting packages come with some a website builder that will create a decent, if not slightly dated looking website from a template. If you're not experienced in web design but want to create a good-looking site yourself, look into content management systems such as Drupal, Joomla, or even WordPress as viable options that are easy to keep updated. The best - and not-surprisingly most costly option - still remains to hire a Web design company or freelancer. But if you're serious about your online business, your website design and usability should be a top priority. Create an e-commerce strategy : Now comes the fun part: figuring out how to let other people pay you. If you want to have an integrated shopping cart solution, you'll be able to sell directly through your site and manage complete product listings. However, this type of solution is the most expensive and complex way to sell online, and a simpler solution may be a better fit for a small business just getting started. A great place to start is simply integrating services such as Paypal or Google Checkout into your website to accept payments. Another viable alternative is to use a website as an informational source for your business, but sell through another online vendor like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy . A final option is to choose to not sell online, but instead establish a website to promote and market your physical business. Secure your site : If you're planning to sell through your website or will even be collecting sensitive information from visitors, you'll want to look into getting an SSL certificate for your website. SSL encrypts data transmissions to and from your website and is most commonly used to protect credit card and financial data. Varying levels of encryption and visible security indicators for your website are available. Network like crazy : Traditional networking can be crucial to the early success of a business, and social media can enable you to network effectively online. Talk about social media for business use is everywhere, and there are a huge number of resources and articles available to help you get started. Make sure that above all else, you go where your customers are. Utilize the tools that will allow you to most effectively communicate with those customers. Track like crazy, too : Make sure you're using website analytics to track your website visitors and sales. Part of the beauty of the web versus a traditional storefront is the ability to easily track, sort and analyze all of the data collected from visitors to your website. Analytics can help you improve your website design, track your sales conversion, see where you're ranking in search engines and much more. Google provides some of the best options available with Analytics , Webmaster Tools and Website Optimizer that all provide invaluable data for any online business. Grow and organize for the future : If you've made it to the point where you have a website set up, sales are coming in and your business is growing, it's the perfect time to make sure you're fully organized online. Use custom email addresses for your business, and make use of powerful collaboration, calendar and task management tools such as Open Xchange , Microsoft Exchange or Google Apps. Stay on top of the latest Internet trends and changes as things will continue to change rapidly for the foreseeable future. From there, carry your 2010 success long into the future as the Web continues to expand as a great place to do business. Discuss

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Sponsor Post: MyDomain Shows How to Take Your Business Online in 2010

Demand for cloud-based storage and backup is creating some lucrative opportunities for companies servicing large telecommunications providers. We are seeing a number of carriers offering cloud-based services. Orange Business Services announced today that it will be offering cloud storage and other cloud-based services for its customers. Verizon announced earlier this month that it is offering a number of cloud-related services. Telecommunications companies are partnering with services like Nomadesk to give customers the ability to do their own cloud-based online backups. Sponsor Belgium-based Nomadesk is an online backup and syncing service for small business owners and personal users. It provides unlimited storage and sharing. The company announced this week a partnership with Bell Canada to provide its millions of customers with online back up for their mobile devices. Nomadesk is a virtual hard drive on your desktop. It's very simple. We downloaded the application, made some simple configurations and immediately had the ability to drag and drop files into the virtual hard drive that sits on the desktop.The hard drive is connected to the cloud and syncs when updates are made. Your data is secured and encrypted. It can be shared with any number of users and synced across the community. Applications can be backed up. Access to documents are available online or offline. Nomadesk CEO Filip Tack is touting the service as a better alternative to Box.net and Mozy . We agree that Nomadesk is easy to use, but as a collaboration platform it has some way to go. For example, Nomadesk does not have an advanced search capability like Box.net. We view enterprise search as a key feature for collaboration services. Tack said the company will offer search as a feature in the first part of 2010. Companies in this space are showing big market gains as larger providers seek revenues from the petabytes of data being produced every day. Mozy, for instance, just announced a partnership with Cox Business. Mozy is also partnering with China Telecom, McAfee and Vodafone to deliver cloud-based backup to customers. What is the amount of data that is produced every day in the enterprise? We know this can vary wildly but even small businesses are starting to produce exponential amounts of information compared to just a year ago. As this amount of information continues to grow, services like Nomadesk should stand to do very well as providers for large telecommunications companies. Nomadesk service for small businesses starts at $15 per user, per month. Discuss

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Nomadesk: Cloud-Based Backup Providers Doing Quite Well

Factories may not be the first place you'd expect to see demand for social technologies. But social networks are changing how manufacturers view their operations. In a recent survey of 268 manufacturers, 63% of respondents said that enterprise resources planning (ERP) software will provide its highest value when integrated with social computing technologies. Users want ERP software to perform the functions of collaborative technologies and social networks. Sponsor But why do manufacturers want social technologies in the enterprise? According to Manufacturing BusinessTechnology , a trade publication, they want to develop ways to share the knowledge of senior engineers and professionals. Among manufacturers with more than $1 billion in revenue, 72% said they wanted this capability. Manufacturers are most interested in using data from social networks to capture leads, research competitors and perform business intelligence functions, such as product training. They are also interested in receiving contextual information from similar users at other companies, and troubleshooting. Manufacturers are turning out to be the surprise adopters of Enterprise 2.0 technology. In a recent survey done by the 2.0 Adoption Council, manufacturers were some of the most eager adopters of social technologies. The survey of manufacturing managers was done on behalf of IFS North America , one of the largest software providers to manufacturing markets. IFS is developing its open-source applications to fit the changing manufacturing landscape. For example, it is migrating away from static documentation technologies in favor of more collaborative applications such as wikis. Many manufacturing companies face an aging workforce. A new breed of socially oriented technologies will be considered part of doing business for a younger generation. It's evident that real-time technologies, social networks and cloud-based services are having real impacts across our economy. In 2010, we expect to see clear examples of how these new messaging and communications services affect supply chains across multiple industries. Discuss

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Facebook in the Factory: Manufacturers Want Social Software, Too