Last month, I did posted a post on the Friendster’s developer program, and now the Friendster widget directory is available for its users to integrate to their profiles. I can’t tell how easy the widget could be embedded onto the profile since I do not own a Friendster account. However, the widget concept has recently been understood that its presence is “good for the users.”

As of present, there are eight (8) widget categories for one to chose from, namely Slideshows & Photos, Just For Fun, Entertainment, Games, News & Information, Sports, Video and Music. Each category has listed the widgets for users to add onto their profiles, and the widget selected will then apply to a hidden box underneath the “More About User.” Currently, companies that developed the widgets are Slide, RockYou, Jangl, imeem, and etc. Though the Friendster widget directory hasn’t been officially announced, but there are few Friendster rabid users have embedded Slide’s Slide Shows onto their profiles.

Would the presence of widgets be most valuable as part of a larger social networking site? However, in my own viewpoint, there wasn’t a perceived need for such the widgets by the South-East Asian people, because it was unlikely that the users would customized their own profile and try to make their profiles stand out from that of others.

InstaColl has released an office suite that was probably developed by them for more than one year. It is called Live Documents since the name they chosen reflected this office software, the documents can be worked “lively” in both environments, the desktop and on the Web. Though InstaColl has reiterated that this software they developed is not competing with Microsoft Office or Google docs, but this powerful office application can offer functionality equivalent to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint would definitely make their users unconsciously compare them hand-in-hand. On top of that, Live Documents is built using RIA (Rich Internet Application) technologies such as Flash and Flex, the effect of Flash-based user interface could generate the same kind of experience that is comparable to the experiment of using BuzzWord.

One of the most powerful features in this Live Document is the dual use of online and offline. Any change on either side of the desktop version or Web version are automatically synchronized and hence, the value of a document can be magnified as multiple users can edit a specific document and the document is always in sync. Meanwhile, they’ve planned to release the software into two different versions, one is free and the other one is the commercial version. Though Live Documents is still in beta, this software has caught the eyes of some corporations. As stated on the InstaColl site, the first commercial version will be deployed at Aricent, the world’s leading independent communications software company with over 6,700 employees globally.

InstaColl is well-structured and created with the hype of being co-founded by the co-founder of Hotmail, Sabeer Bhatia. Mr. Bhatia, a native of Bangalore, India, also a graduate of Caltech and Stanford University, went back to Bangalore from US to create this new startup. Now InstaColl hoping to do something special, and entrepreneurial about software development. It seem they’re well in progress developing the first “Made by India” product brand and the first product released likely to be used by users throughout the world. For those who want to receive the beta invites, you can visit the sign-up page here.

23andMe, a company co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, who married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin has offered a Web service that help the user read and understand DNA. 23andMe founded in this April and launched a DNA test cost $999 for individual this Monday. Users that pay for this DNA saliva tests and spit back to the pre-addressed shipping envelops to 23andMe, and wait for four to six weeks, the genetic results will be showed on their accounts on 23andMe. As stated by 23andMe, the genetic data of user will store in their secure database and user may learn her origin, inherited trait, genetic history indicated whether she is going to suffer from a specific disease, and even allowed her to connect genetically with other users around the world. The DNA analysis was done through the DNA chips produced by the partner of 23andMe, i.e. illumina and the chip used in 23andMe’s process is the Illumina HumanHap550+ BeadChip, a DNA Analysis solution, as illumina recently also introduced its fourth multi-sample DNA Analysis tool, i.e. Infinium HumanHap550-Duo BeadChip.

Many might considered 23andMe a Web service provider, but I saw it differently. The concept surrounding this DNA test is the intelligent use of the DNA information, as the key to an ultimate approach to health care is information. By analyzing the DNA of every individual and understand how they are working, 23andMe can improve the quality of live, but it definitely a big challenge for a few months old company.

I’ve found the following video clips, as embedded in the below, these videos allowed me to know more information on this new genetic company.

Video 1: 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey Speak, Part 1

Video 2: 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey Speak, Part 2

Update: 23andMe has raised a whopping $9M in a Series A funding from Google, Genentech and two blue-chip venture capital firms, Mohr Davidow Ventures and New Enterprise Associates in May 2007.

Short message service (SMS) is ubiquitous. Now SMS not only can be used by some companies as the marketing services, or for the notification purposes, it also can be acted as a valuable service for a search engine company in delivering search results. Last month, Google India launched the SMS services to its Indian users, now it’s Google China’s turn. On a new Google China’s mobile SMS site, you’ll notice that there are variety of information requests can be done through SMS at this moment. Users can enter queries to their mobile phones and send the request to 999333, Google will reply the users with the search results in SMS format, as shown in the below picture. This service is being offered by Google China as free of charge, however users have to pay the SMS fee imposed by the carriers.

With this new offering, SMS can be used as a way to request information from Google China. Simple request such as finding the location of China’s Wal-Mart, stock price, weather, train details, etc to some complex request such as word translation, i.e. translate a sentence from Mandarin to English, or currency rate are now available. This type of service is not new in the market and I believed users have a certain level of expectation toward this SMS service, thus Google China must ensure their messages must arrive to the users in a fast manner as well as at a sensible time (for example, not until the users forgot when she sent the SMS request).

Today TagEdge.com is one year old. I moved all my content from kennylee.wordpress.com to TagEdge on November 20, 2006. Over the last year, many things happened to me. This technology blog has seen me through unemployed times, working as a freelance Web designer, and then a shift to Web programming as well as worked with a team provide IT consultation. When I started it last year (few days after my birthday, I am very sure of this), I thought of writing the reviews of some good startups from South-East Asian countries, but now the startups that I covered in this blog almost all the regions except Latin America. Sorry about the shift of the focus.

In fact, I really enjoyed writing about the Internet startups that I came across everyday. There are many startups, new things happened everyday, and one thing that I know is I don’t have enough time to post all the reviews of such startups, as TagEdge still considered as my part-time gig. From now on, I hope to increase the volume of my postings and am looking forward to another year or more of technology postings.

Anyway, thanks for reading, whether you are with me for exactly one year, or just a couple of days.