Library clips

I like the idea that some new web2.0 tools are coming out that let non-techies have a go…in the realm of Ning.
I mean blogging enabled people to publish without knowing HTML…well now perhaps people will be able to build little apps without knowing web development languages.
First we became bloggers, now we can become developers…check out the opening post from the Wyaworks blog.

Anyway Wyaworks is planning to do just this, their first is WyaCracker, building things such as form widgets…keep informed of new entries by RSS as well…good stuff.

Not only that, the same form you fill in your details acts as a fielded search engine as well.
eg. You can make a form for a dinner party and create fields like
- Can you come?
- If so, what time?
- Name
- Your address (phone)
- What plate would you like to bring?
- What board games would you bring?
- etc…

Enter these details and press Insert…your details are added.

On the same form enter the term salad in the What plate would you like to bring? field and click search…this enables you to see who is bringing salad.
Awesome, no back and forth phone calls needed.

You can also click the cursor in a field to do a blank search, to see for example what food all people are bringing.

What about search for a person in the name field to see if they have been invited yet, or do a blank search to see all people invited.

I wonder if people can go back and ammend their entry, probably not good in this example, otherwise no-one may bring the salad

Maybe the owner (person having the party) can have admin rights…if someone says they are coming to the party, then later on rings the owner to say they can’t make it, then the owner must update their details as “not coming”, so others who search the form are update with the latest developments.

Actually, scrap that last paragraph, each entry doesn’t have to be re-edited, maybe it can be just like a stream of entries (a communal blog)…if you decide later that you’re not going to the party, just make an entry…and everyone else can be updated by RSS.
Again no back and forth emails, no phone calls…just stay tuned to the feed and you are on the pulse.

Even though you follow the feed and keep updated that person A was coming, now they are not, they are, now their not…you may forget in the end if they are coming or not.
Easy, just do a search in the name field, and check out the latest entry by that person.

Even better maybe you could have a separate stream that shows only the last entry made by each person, this way at a glance you get the picture as a whole.

Beforehand you could achieve some of this by setting up a communal blog (or maybe a note-based user tagging service that had private groups eg. TagFacts, feedbite, FeedXS are almost there)…bit fiddly for this purpose…WyaCracker is so much easier and non-techie (so easy my mum could use it, but really) and better still you can embed the widget anywhere…in a blog, in an email, in a website, etc…

This could really take off as it is portable (embed), very very simple to use, sends alerts (RSS), searchable, etc…I bet you could organise a party by letting everyone know of where your form is, and then not have to communicate any further…better still the form can be everywhere.

What other scenarios are there?

An example on the WyaCracker site has a job application form, you can embed this form in an email, on a blog, on a website, it can be all over the place…the applicants are doing the data entry for you from where ever they are.
I love it, not only are they doing your data entry, but if they can’t get to a website, or don’t have time, just embed the form in an email and send it, once they fill it in, and send it back, it becomes live I presume…this is amazing.

The recipe form in the examples is way cool…set up a form, email it to your friends, or throw it up on a website or blog post or sidebar…and everyone can submit…submit a recipe now, then you may dig up that email a year later, or surf to the website and use the same form to submit another recipe…or search the form to see the collection.

To see it in form (pardon the pun) check out the tour or the interactive samples from the WyaCracker website or even see a live example in the blog they have set up for beta issues, you can submit an issue into the form widget…this is WyaCracker at work.

Again

User data entry on the form, search the same form, the form is portable it can be embedded anywhere (it doesn’t have to live at one place)…it’s a communal database on the fly.

Imagine you couldn’t find the form in one of your old emails, and you forgot who made the form, and you don’t even know if the form was embedded at a website…just ring around and perhaps someone can forward you an email of the form, instant and transportable database to add to and search.

You could make a wine review form (make your own fields) and embed it in your blog sidebar, visitors could enter data, and also search the same form….keep up by an RSS feed…it really is like communal blogging with the most ease you have ever seen.
Plus a keen visitor could ask for the code to embed it on their blog, imagine this if 10 fold, the more people that emded the form in their blogs (or emails), the more exposure, you’d quickly amass a searchable database that made itself.

How cool…someone could make a survey/poll form eg. Ads in feeds (yes or no)…obviously you would have other fields. Then propogate this by embedding the form in a blog post announcing it, and then also offer the code for others to embed it in their blog post or sidebar. Like wildfire this form would be in heaps of blog post/sidebar amassing entries.
How much quicker can a survery spread if the entry form is everywhere…plus you can follow the feed, plus you can search it.

What if a percentage based field was generated by the machine (this is updated by the machine as it scans the yes or no field)…if this machine generated field churned out an RSS feed, we could keep up with the running aggregate of what is in front, yes OR no.

One thing, I’d like to sort the field columns in the search results.

Check out posts on TechCrunch, and Squash.