Why am I Waiting to Prezi Beta Invitation...

Because this incredible service will change the way we create presentations!

Prezi - A zooming presentation platform, allows people to create and perform stunning non-linear presentations with relations, zooming into details, and adjusting to the time left without the need to skip slides.

I can't say much about the service, simply cause I haven't got my invite yet, but I've tried the DEMO on the site and it's a WOW!

However, based on what I saw there, I'm not sure their round menu was a good choice, it is just too complex. Hopefully they'll change it to a simpler menu. Also, I don't see any generating code ability, so I couldn't grab the nifty movie from the site, but I suggest that you go to Prezi's webpage and see it there.

In the meantime, here's something that I found in Youtube:


UPDATE: Want to try it?
When you sign up for the beta invite at the site, write down that you heard about the service at Go2web20 blog (where?), and you'll get an invitation :-)

Do your Kids a Favor and Download KIDO'Z

KIDO'Z is an Israeli startup based in Tel-Aviv that will give your kids a much safer, better experience over the Internet . The service is suited for kids at the age of 3 - up to the age of 11 (and more). In any case, the children don't need to know reading & writing to use this site, they just need to have good motor skills to be able to click the pictures and the icons at KIDO'Z.

So what is KIDO'Z?
It's an Adobe-Air-based application that open a small activity world for kids - right on the desktop. They call it "The Kids Browser" and after I installed the new version, I'd have to agree with that term.

The service allows kids to:

• Visually browse through tens of safe links - links that punctiliously chosen in order to ensure only safe content.
• Game zone with a wider view, and most important: without any annoying banners what so ever.
• Video area - KIDO'Z filtered the videos for you, and displays only the stuff your kids will want, and need to see.

It's really important to know that once the kids open this application they can't go out unless they click on the icon that allows that, so it is most likely they'll stay in this safe environment while they're surfing.

I've tested this with my nephews (ages: 5 - 6), and they seemed to have a full control over this right from the beginning. And moreover, all they want to use is this service.

From what I know, this is only a small piece of the main product, and based on what I already saw, you want to put an eyeball on that one!

There's nothing like a visual sight - Watch this quick DEMO:

The Web in 2008

I've gathered the remembered highlights of this year to a one quick video. This video contains the services that most of us uses on our daily basis, and some of the names that we might hear about more often this year.

I just want to mention that since I'm located in Israel, I had the opportunity to already see some of the new companies that are being created, and aims to launch in the year of 2009. Take my word on that: Some of them are really worth waiting for! (unfortunately I can't reveal new startups that I know of)

A summary of the Web in 2008, as I see it:

Facebook Developer Garage in Israel

With all the excitement around Facebook Connect, this must be the best time to host a Developer Garage Meetup in Israel (the first of its kind).

If you want to hear & learn more about the process, meet and connect with developers in Israel, discuss and share your knowledge about Facebook services and applications - we're invite you to join us to this event.

Facebook Developer Garage will take place next Tuesday, on December 30, and will include presentations from: Gigya and Devunity. The special guest of this evening is Netanel Jacobsson - A Director, Business Development at Facebook.

For more information see this FacebookEvent and don't forget to RSVP asap.

Hosts of this event: Benchmark and the.co.ils

Kwout added Twitter and Friendfeed Support

Kwout upgraded the site with a bunch of useful tools.
Video comments, Pixlr, Tumblr and Friendfeed support have been added to the service. But the most cool feature for me is the Twitter user script for Greasemonkey. It enables people to grab any status and post it on their blog/site, Flickr account, Friendfeed and more:


If you install the user script, "kwout this! button" will be added to each status of Twitter. And when you click the button, the corresponding status will be quoted automatically.

Twitter / Orli Yakuel: Delicious top ten searches ... via kwout

Kwout for Twitter is most definitely belongs on this previous post: If you use Twitter, at least do it with Style.

The Online Christmas Guide

Over the last month I bumped into some really nice services that can help you with your Christmas shopping, songs, e-cards, videos, and there are some other goodies in this list. I've gathered them here so you can browse the content below to see if anything matches your taste. If you spend so much time on the net like I do, I'm sure you'll find here some great tools that will make your holiday a bit more festive.



Twitter Junkies:

• TwitterGallery has a nicely done Christmas wallpaper that you can install in just few minutes (automatic installation).
• Even more Twitter themes on TwitBacks.
  
• Tweetmas asks you: What would you like for Christmas?
• MerryTwitmas is gathering all the Christmas wishes from twitter into one stream.
• Want a Christmas-like avatar? Get it here and see who else has it!
  

Facebook Apps:

• Fun-Cards: Send greeting cards to your friends for Christmas. You can attach cards to messages and wall posts, or upload your own photos to use as cards.
• Twisted Christmas - Head up to the North-Pole and send fun Christmas gifts to your friends...
• Christmas Tree lets you create and customize your own Christmas Tree and display it on your profile.
• Pencake is an e-card platform which allows people to easily create and share greetings with their beloved ones. Check out Pencake for Christmas.
  

Shopping & Wishlist:

• Find the latest holiday gifts with Google product top searches tracker.
• Elfster makes it fun and easy to organize a gift exchange in just minutes.
• Send a note to your friends and family to share your time instead of your money, this Christmas.
• Wishlistr is an easy to use web-based application that will help you collect, organize and keep track of the things you want this holiday.
• Find hot deals of last minute shopping.
• Organize your internet shopping list and make it more fun with boxedup.
• Can't find any gift idea? Try this Gift Ideas Generator.
• Cool t.shirt designed by someecards - Santa doesn't exist...
  

(click the image for more)

Get into the Holiday spirit:

• Become Santa - Compose a personalized Santa letter, and make this Christmas the most exciting and magical one for your children.
  
• A list of all the Christmas songs (powered by Youtube)
• Create memorable scrapbook with wonderful layouts from Scrapblog.
• Lovely idea coming from Xpapr - They are allowing you to use images from Flickr to make your own customized wrapping paper. (unfortunately, you can't order it online, you'll need to print it with your own print machine which is not so attractive)
  
• With ElfYourself you can upload your photo and be a star in an elf video. The video can be sent as digital cards to family & friends. Pure fun! (see example at Techcrunch)
  

Christmas Recipes:

• By browsing Tastespotting you either get the crave to eat, or the passion to cook. Great Display of good looking recipes. (user generated posts)
  
• Tons of recipes, tips and EVERYTHING you'll need this holiday, divided to beautiful sets - Great inspiration in a never ending collection page from: Taste!
  

Cool Goodies:

• Cute analog Christmas clock based on Adobe AIR.
• Your iPhone actually can help you to never miss that mistletoe kiss again...
• Manage all of your holiday shopping gifts from your iPhone.
• Christmas icon sets, and wordpress themes from SmashingMagazine - Here, and here.
• Desktop wallpapers for Christmas - Awesomely made.
  

So, is it Christmas yet?

Innovative News

MSNBC keeps on bringing you the news in unusual and fun ways (apart from the traditional news-page).

When I first wrote about it, MSNBC already had some interesting activities that can turn your daily news reading into a fascinating journey.

Since then a bunch of new tools have been added to the site, but I want to focus on these two: NewsSkimmer & NewsScroller.

NewsSkimmer is an interactive Screensaver that allows you to read the news when you're not active on your computer. To be honest, I don't like Screensavers that much, nor I get to see them in action, but I installed this one and was pretty amazed to see the progress in this field. NSNBC created a beautiful Screensaver that is actually visualize a live webpage where you can let the news float by themselves, or simply click and dive in while you're computer is in Screensaver mode (customizable with the topics you like).



The other service that I'd like to recommend is the NewsScroller widget which allows people to easily customize a real-time news ticker to their site or blog. The only problem here is the auto-scrolling. I found it to be a bit annoying... so hopefully MSNBC will add the ability to control that.

Overall, I like the fact that MSNBC are potting so much effort to give their readers a variety of tools to make it easy on them to read the news, and I don't actually think that anyone is doing this BUT them. Screensaver may sound very old fashion to some people (me included), but when you sits in meetings for hours (for example), this could be a great way to stay up-to-date with the stuff that's going around.

A Faster Access to your Favorites

MyClusta allows you to create a visual bookmark page with all your favorite services, for an easy access. It's really easy to set: all you need to do is to add the link you want and MyClusta will grab the logo for you (in most cases). Therefore you can customize your own bookmark page that can be used as your start page from now on, in only few minutes.