DiggTop is an Adobe Air desktop app that scrapes and displays the images and videos from the Digg stories that you choose to track. After installing DiggTop you customize which categories you want to follow for News, Videos and Images. You can then view a slideshow of the images related to the stories you’re reading.

As for videos, DiggTop does a similar thing. You can change which topics you want to follow for video and they will appear in the app’s player which does a good job handling video.

At any time, you can launch a browser session and go to any particular story on Digg by double-clicking it. This comes in handy whenever you want access to the Digg service. However, the app can provide most of the day to day features of Digg such as reading and digging stories.

MP4 / Subscribe for Free!

I know there have been way too many useless Adobe Air apps unleashed to our desktops lately, but I think DiggTop is actually a rare useful one. If you want a quick glimpse at the hottest news items along with a visual slideshow of images and the ability to play videos instantly right next to the story then DiggTop is the app for you. It’s small and fast and gives Digg a new look and feel.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:7 Awesome Things Built on the Digg APIThe 10 Coolest Apollo Apps30+ Adobe AIR AppsDIGG TOOLBOX: 50+ Digg Tools and ResourcesMashable On Digg: Our 50 Most Popular Stories

Source:Mashable!

Among the hundreds of companies and social platforms debuting at Web 2.0 Expo NY was Xignite, a new financial web service. Xignite’s platform lets financial sites show global delayed stock data in their applications and satisfies the growing demand for reliable stock quotes from emerging countries.

MP4 / Subscribe for Free

Xignite uses an on-demand model to serve clients like ING, Goodyear, and McDonald’s and provide market quotes, news, corporate data, industry information, analytics, tools and more. Until recently, much of the data that Xignite collects and organizes was otherwise scattered, raw or only available in bulk form. With their services, Xignite is leading the way for service-oriented business applications.

I had the opportunity to meet with Stephane Dubois, the CEO and Founder of Xignite, and discuss Xignite’s goals, special features and Splice, their new platform for creating web services mashups. (And, I don’t need to remind you how excited I get about mashups). Using the Splice visual designer, developers can create a mashup in just 60 seconds by dragging and dropping objects without ever having to write code.

A special thanks to Sony for letting me use their amazing TG1 HD camcorder, without which none of the Web 2.0 Expo videos would have been possible. You can watch the video via the embed below or download the MP4 directly.

If you’ve heard about Berlin, Germany a lot recently, it’s because it’s a growing technology hub in Europe that many people are calling Europe’s next “Silicon Valley.” There are a lot of web companies opening offices all over Berlin, like eBay, Nokia, and Wikimedia, and they already have their own “Facebook,” the social networking site studiVZ.

Berlin is certainly Germany’s internet capital and quickly rising in the ranks as Europe’s top technology-oriented city (behind only London and Paris).

In order to attract American and global companies to Germany, Berlin Partner, a business development agency, partners with companies looking to expand to Europe and offers them reimbursement grants of up to 50% of a company’s investment.

At New York City’s Web 2.0 Expo I sat down with Alexander Kolpin of Berlin Partner to talk about why Berlin is so hot, what exactly is going on in Europe in terms of social media, and how Berlin plans to host their own European Web 2.0 Expo in October. You can watch via the embed below or download the MP4.

Never Miss an Episode!

Get the Mashable Conversations podcast here (video feed).

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Web 2.0 Expo Berlin 2007: 100€ Off for Mashable ReadersiPhone to Launch in Germany on T-MobileHas Google Changed the Ad Network Landscape — Again?BuzzDash Platform: Co-Branded PollsPartnersBerlin Talent Campus Partners With YouTube To Show ShortsMeebo Launches Partner Edition Rooms

For months now I’ve been stressing the need to get offline. That is, the more we do online, the more there is a need to go offline and go outside. With Internet access coming to airplanes, is there anywhere that is a safe-zone? There’s no net access in most of the NYC subway but you can interact with your mobile device while underground. In the morning near my train station I see many people standing outside the station looking at their devices before they head down.

Last night at the Eluma party I hosted, I spoke about the slow moving trend to useful apps instead of more social networks or more ability to poke people. It just so happens that useful apps are ones that people will actually pay for and could do very well in the current economic market.

After my talk, several people noted that Tim O’Reilly noted something similar in his keynote at the Web 2.0 Expo in NYC. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it so here are a few recaps on Drama 2.0, Profy and More Ramblings.

Last night I checked out one of my favorite bloggers, Jan Chipchase, who has an excellent essay titled, "A Little Switch With a Big Impact". The switch Jan refers to is the "airplane mode" switch on the iPhone. The switch basically turns off all of the wireless connectivity functions of the iPhone so you can utilize the offline functions while on a plane. It’s a must read essay.

Jan looks at the issues of disconnecting your mobile for a number of reasons. There’s the usual reason of going into flight, but there are many other reasons including wanting to be offline. Some turn on airplane mode to extend the iPhone 3G battery life. One of the more interesting parts of the essay looks at how mobile devices are used when they are offline and should developers be considering this as they build their apps.

Jan notes, "What can you do with a connected/communications device when it has no connectivity? Again we can turn to emerging markets to learn from the usage behaviours of pre-pay customers who have run out of credit - they continue to use the phone as a status symbol, a clock, games machine etc. The bottom line - never equate ownership of a connected device with use of its primary function particularly when use of the primary function costs money."

I leave you with this… NY-based Meetup has created a campaign named, "unplug your friends". While the campaign pushes the use of Meetup (they make money on going outside), the video below certainly hits home for many people.

Special Alert: CenterNetworks Conference Coverage:
– DEMO
– Techcrunch50
– Event and Interview Videos

At the Web 2.0 Expo in NYC, I sat down with Spark Networks President and COO Gregory Liberman. We discussed the 30+ dating sites that make up Spark Networks. Here are my notes from our conversation which centered mostly around Jdate.

Spark Networks has 30+ dating sites and most of them are targeted towards a group. Gregory notes that people who are looking for serious relationships are seeking targeted networks. The three largest dating sites in their network are Jdate, BlackSingles and ChristianMingle. They believe that they are different because of the targeting, most of their competition tries to be all things to all people.

Spark Networks runs over 800 singles events a year. Revenue comes from subscriptions and advertising. Jdate subscriptions begin at $39/month and for those browsing the site, advertising is displayed. Gregory noted that ads are displayed to subscribers as well but said "most" of these ads are house ads promoting events and other services. I wonder if any Web 2.0 startups could get away with charging a subscription fee and displaying any advertising at all.

Spark Networks is a public company and reported second quarter 2008 revenue of $15 million with a net income of $1.6 million.

As for success rates, 60 Jdate subscribers a week report back to Spark Networks that they found their soulmate on Jdate.

I asked about comparisons to PlentyOfFish and eHarmony. Gregory said that PlentyOfFish actually drives traffic to sites in his network because of the ad model they employ. As for eHarmony, Gregory believes not everyone wants to fill out a 350 question survey. Jdate allows members to search and utilizes a basic survey to help align members.

In terms of what’s new on their network of sites, Gregory shared two new premium features. The first is an option to highlight your profile in search results. This works similar to highlighting an auction on eBay or a job listing on Indeed. The other update is featured profile. This allows members to push their profile to people they want to meet on search results. Let’s assume you are looking for a 30 year old woman with 2 children but she is looking for a 20 year old man with no children. Using this new option, you could force your profile into her search results basically saying "hey look at me, I want you!". On Jdate, this feature is $10/month.

The online singles market continues to be a huge moneymaker for Spark Networks and the other sites in the market. As long as people want to find that special someone, there will always be someone willing to pay to find that person.

Special Alert: CenterNetworks Conference Coverage:
– DEMO
– Techcrunch50
– Event and Interview Videos

A big part of what I do professionally is focused on thinking about how to improve the usefulness of the web. Tied into that is the additional question of how to empower developers to create more useful applications.

Much of this exploration has lead me to believe that the most powerful “pregnant” web concept is the simple idea that the web should be a web of objects, and should become less a web of text or pages. Indeed the web has been moving in that direction, but the road map has not been entirely clear.

Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the W3C have pioneered the broad outlines of the concept of objectifying the web with the ideas embodied in the W3C semantic web specifications for RDF, OWL, and SPARQL technologies. But in truth, most developers have no idea what the term the “semantic web” means and are totally unfamiliar with RDF, OWL and SPARQL.

Despite the fact that the officially proposed terminology and methodologies have not quite taken hold, the idea of “objects not pages” most definitely has. Application developers are creating APIs to allow people to access their data objects, and other application developers are using those APIs to consume data objects. And because the need is so great, when developers do not make their data objects easily accessible, other applications are going as far as scraping web pages, in effect manually objectifying source sites.

And so, while the most common term for the idea of “objects not pages” has been the “semantic web”, I would really like to get everyone around the lesser known but more encompassing term, Web 3.0.

I know the idea of glomming onto the Web 2.0 bandwagon rubs some people the wrong way, but we need a “big tent” term to describe stuff that is so important, and the truth is the word “semantic web” just doesn’t cut it. In fact, in my informal surveys, it almost universally turns people off.

But terminology aside, the concepts here are really important and are building momentum. We must, as a developer/entrepreneur community begin to focus on best practices for this object-oriented web, and to discuss its broader implications. The emerging mashups and semantic applications are compelling, but they are just the beginning. Facebook and its social graph is really the first major Web 3.0 application, so make no mistake, these ideas are powerful.

Because I believe this is such an important mission, and because I strongly believe it needs more shepherding, I have committed to doing my part to move these ideas forward. I am co-chairing the Jupiter Web 3.0 Conference Series, which launches in Santa Clara next month. My co-chair is Dan Grigorovici who writes lots of interesting stuff on this space at web3beat.

The Web 3.0 Conference is the first in what will be a regular series that we hope will become *the* gathering ground for talking about how we can, should, and will approach these next generation issues. And indeed since I have been thinking a lot about these issues I will be writing a lot about them in the next few weeks.

Particularly if you are in the Bay Area, but really no matter where you are, if you want to get a view into where the next generation of the web is going and how you can leverage it, this will be the place to be. But whether you come to the conference or not, I am hoping to spark a discussion about moving the ball forward. Needless to say I have my own ideas, which I will be sharing, both in person at the conference and on these pages in the next few weeks, but this should be a multi-way discussion. If you blog about this issue and let me know I will link to you in upcoming posts, and I will try to respond as well.

Let the Web 3.0 Era begin!

Web 3.0 Conference, October 16th & 17th, Santa Clara, CA

Special Alert: CenterNetworks Conference Coverage:
– DEMO
– Techcrunch50
– Event and Interview Videos

If you read a variety of blogs, you’ve certainly seen the yellow banner ads promoting the BuzzLogic blog ad network. The ad network has been in beta since June and today BuzzLogic is moving the network into public release. The banners guaranteed a payout of $2/CPM for U.S. traffic.

The ad network is named the, "Conversation Ad Network" and they describe the service as, "designed to reward bloggers leading influential conversations on specific topics with quality brand advertising and more advertising revenue."

BuzzLogic has an important thing going for them - their tracking service draws in many of the top brands. These brands can now reach out directly to blogs that reach the brand’s target audience and demographics. The key for this blogger ad network is the same as every other one out there — will they be able to keep a consistently high fill rate? Getting bloggers to signup is the easy part.

We’ve covered BuzzLogic many times before including our executive interview and the launch of their advertiser network.

Special Alert: CenterNetworks Conference Coverage:
– DEMO
– Techcrunch50
– Event and Interview Videos

Source:CenterNetworks

At the Web 2.0 Expo, I met with Sightix VP Ari Gottesmann. Ari took me through a demo of their social search application which integrates into blogs and social networks. Currently Sightix finds connections within a network but they are working towards exposing connections across multiple networks.

Check out other Sightix reviews on Alt Search Engines and Webware. Here’s Ari explaining how Sightix works when trying to find models like Bar Rafaeli:

Today at the Web 2.0 Expo in NYC, I met with Joshua Levy. Joshua is co-founder and CEO of BeenVerified. NY-based BeenVerified is attempting to move the process of identity verification forward. They provide a way to verify the people you are chatting with on a social network through offering services for HR professionals with candidate background checks.

Here’s Josh to explain how BeenVerified works:

Special Alert: CenterNetworks Conference Coverage:
– DEMO
– Techcrunch50
– Event and Interview Videos

The expo hall opened today at the Web 2.0 Expo at the Javits Center in NYC. I was very much looking forward to meeting and conducting video interviews of tons of Web 2.0 startups and big companies for ya’all. Sadly, after walking up and down every aisle, I came back to the office with 75 photos and 2 videos.

There’s no Google, no Yahoo, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace. Friendster is there, but it’s Friendster Asia. There are a good number of hosting companies. As much as I love TripAdvisor, nothing they do is Web 2.0. Microsoft, Salesforce and IBM have large booths, Amazon has a tiny booth for AWS. There are several companies which seem to be looking for developers. I saw Present.ly, Mzing, Twing in the main expo hall which could be some of the only companies that could even be remotely considered Web 2.0.

There is a "long tail pavillion" which means $3k for a tiny, no space to move table. A variety of startups are in that area - if you make it over to the event, those tables are on the far right of the expo hall. Let’s not even talk about the lack of NY-based companies in the main expo hall.

I’ve attended over 100 events at the Javits Center over the last decade and the companies in the expo could have been from 1998, 2001 or now. As I spoke with over 50 people, most echoed my comments. Most of us assume that the cost for a booth much have been too high for startups to afford. But this is the first tech expo I’ve seen in a long time that had no Yahoo or Google presence.

Here are some of the photos and check out the full set on Flickr - the videos will be posted later today.

Special Alert: CenterNetworks Conference Coverage:
– DEMO
– Techcrunch50
– Event and Interview Videos

The expo hall opened today at the Web 2.0 Expo at the Javits Center in NYC. I was very much looking forward to meeting and conducting video interviews of tons of Web 2.0 startups and big companies for ya’all. Sadly, after walking up and down every aisle, I came back to the office with 75 photos and 2 videos.

There’s no Google, no Yahoo, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace. Friendster is there, but it’s Friendster Asia. There are a good number of hosting companies. As much as I love TripAdvisor, nothing they do is Web 2.0. Microsoft, Salesforce and IBM have large booths, Amazon has a tiny booth for AWS. There are several companies which seem to be looking for developers. I saw Present.ly, Mzing, Twing in the main expo hall which could be some of the only companies that could even be remotely considered Web 2.0.

There is a "long tail pavillion" which means $3k for a tiny, no space to move table. A variety of startups are in that area - if you make it over to the event, those tables are on the far right of the expo hall. Let’s not even talk about the lack of NY-based companies in the main expo hall.

I’ve attended over 100 events at the Javits Center over the last decade and the companies in the expo could have been from 1998, 2001 or now. As I spoke with over 50 people, most echoed my comments. Most of us assume that the cost for a booth much have been too high for startups to afford. But this is the first tech expo I’ve seen in a long time that had no Yahoo or Google presence.

Here are some of the photos and check out the full set on Flickr - the videos will be posted later today.

Special Alert: CenterNetworks Conference Coverage:
– DEMO
– Techcrunch50
– Event and Interview Videos