Library clips

Byoms in a nutshell seems to be searching via IM.

Add a search engine or a site to your contacts list, and all you do is select the contact you want to search, and go for it…the results are IM’d back

Only works with AOL, what about Google Talk…Google is the search king.

Is this just a tiny bit more convenient than using the a toolbar, eg. the Copernic toolbar lets you add heaps of search engines, just choose one and search.

I guess the convenience of IM is that you don’t need the browser…this is where the Google Deskbar comes in, can’t you just add a search engine to the Google deskbar and search without having to use the browser.

NOTE: this is now only available with the Google Desktop Search package…check out the Google Deskbar group for the hacked up replacement.

NOTE: I added Google Blog Search has an option in my Google Deskbar
eg. This is how I added it http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q={1}

Like TechCrunch say, it’s like the functionality of searching multiple site at once like Rollyo but within your IM client…not bad at all…plus the mobile search feature. I guess these two points give it the edge.

[ADDED: On the same topic how do I go about making a site search for my blog for the Google Deskbar
ie. put in a search term and select Google Blog Search for Library clips…blogurl:http://libraryclips.blogsome.com.

I dont know where to put the q={1}…it has to go somwhere in this URL:
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=blogurl%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Flibraryclips.blogsome.com&btnG=Search+Blogs

I’m trying to come up with a way to allow people to print my blog posts.

My first idea was RSS2PDF, but this is no go as each of my posts don’t have an RSS feed (who does anyway).

My second idea was HTML2PDF, but I can’t get this to work for my blog (some java error)…but the problem is the service put a big banner across the PDF which makes some of the post unreadable.
The other problem is that it prints the HTML of the blog post, not the feed, therefore you get the sidebar and all the frills…if I have a 2 line post, and you print it out, it will print out pages and pages because of the sidebar content.

Then I noticed Feedshow (a public version of a web-based RSS Reader)…you can view all posts from one feed, here’s my blog.

If you notice next to each post there is a printer icon, clicking this will show just the body content for that post, nice and clean, exactly what I want…here’s a sample of a print version of a post.

Now how do I use Feedshow as a 3rd party service to get this functionality on my blog?

On each blog post I want the printer icon, clicking on this will launch to the print version of the blog post (via Feedshow).

Whether it’s Feedshow or another service I think there is value in this feature…there are lots of blogs out there, and it is terrible to print out blog posts.
The service could provide code for blog platforms to put in their post templates, then for every blog post you have a printable version.

I guess like every other web 2.0 service the money is in the ads
eg. imagine if Feedshow gave everyone the ability to print their blog posts via Feedshow, every time you click on the print version on one of my blog posts, it goes to a landing page served up by Feedshow (with tempting ads).
Now I have a lot of posts in my blog…now there are lots of blogs in the blogosphere with lots of posts…if all blogs were Feedshow enabled to print blog posts, then any one who prints out a blog post will see an advertisement, there’s money in that.

This is just another landing page idea…Feedburner and Feedpass do it for feeds, why not for printing.

All these ideas and no techie know-how.

[ADDED 29/12/06: MySyndicaat and xFruits have a print a post]