Ismael Ghalimi has a wonderful list of Office 2.0 apps that he’s using in his daily work (Office 2.0 are apps that you use to improve your work and which go beyond the standard Microsoft Excel/Word/Powerpoint apps that don’t let you easily collaborate with others). Does anyone else have a list that is better? How many apps/categories on this list do YOU use?

By the way, on Monday morning Microsoft will announce something pretty cool in this area, which is why I’m interested all of a sudden.

One thing I’m seeing missing on Ismael’s list is wiki tools/services. Wetpaint is a good example there and they are announcing something soon for Enterprise users as well. Lots of movement in this space, which makes a list like this even more valuable! Thanks Ismael!

Some cool videos about design. First Gizmodo linked to TED Videos (those things rock, you should watch them all) recording of Philippe Starck, famous designer.

Me? I got some interesting stuff with a company named “EffectiveUI.” Don’t know who they are? They designed some of the coolest Web apps out there, including ones for eBay and a host of other famous names. I did three separate videos with EffectiveUI.

1. Demo of the eBay app they built and a discussion of rich Internet applications.
2. An interview with senior developer, RJ Owen, about the design process.
3. An interview with the president of EffectiveUI, where I learn more about what EffectiveUI does and its approach to design. We also talk about Microsoft Silverlight vs. Adobe Flash/Flex/AIR.

I was just reading the blogs this morning (I have a Fast Company column due and am avoiding working on it) but the news about a new blog council caught my eye. In particular, I see Dave Taylor’s response and tend to agree with him. I’m pretty skeptical. Why? Cause I’ve done enough speaking to enough corporations now that if they don’t get why they should be talking with their customers already I don’t get how hanging out at yet another boring industry conference is going to help them to get it.

And, actually, if your company needs help “getting it” then you shouldn’t be hanging out with other companies, but should be hanging out with the teams who are helping the political campaigns. Oh, sorry, I just plugged my column I wrote a while back for this month’s Fast Company.

But, seriously, here’s where corporations go wrong: they don’t get the value of seemingly unimportant conversations.

Here’s a test. Visit a Best Buy store. Now imagine that store without ANY human beings inside. What do you have? A bankrupt store.

So why when I visit BestBuy.com don’t I see any people? Hear any conversations? Is there any wonder why Amazon has a P/E ratio much higher than Best Buy? (Amazon puts real people on its Web site — it’s ironic that an Internet focused company “gets” the value of people and their conversations better than a “brick and mortar” store does since without people a brick and mortar store would simply not exist).

Demonstrates that the industry has a LONG way to go before it understands the real value that seemingly unimportant conversations have.

Every company I’ve spoken to, from Loreal to Target to Boeing gets that you need to pay attention to the New York Times. I don’t know of a single corporation who won’t return a journalist’s phone calls from the New York Times.

But, how many companies respond to a kid in Australia who only has three readers? How many companies respond to comments made on people’s Facebook walls? How many companies meet regularly with bloggers (the BBC and Microsoft are tonight at our blogger dinner in London — no “blog council” was needed to demonstrate to them why having conversations with bloggers are important).

If this council changes THAT in any noticeable way, I’ll cheer them on. But, like Dave Taylor (who also has been around the block dealing with companies) I’m pretty skeptical.

This is a cool “little” feature in the latest version of Google Reader. if you subscribe to multiple people’s Shared Items’ blogs (I call that a link blog) it won’t send you duplicate items anymore, but will show you how many people actually linked to it. That’s a KILLER feature. But, what’s next?

I think Google is working on a Digg/TechMeme competitor and this is the first in a series of features that’ll bring Google Reader there. All of a sudden my decision to do a link blog using Google’s Reader is looking better and better.

I learned about this over on David Carrington’s blog who demonstrates how it works.

Oh, and we’re in London and having a great time. Milan is as good a traveler as his older brother is. Hardly a peep the entire way. Wifi here in the hotel rocks. It’s always fun to travel thousands of miles just to learn that the Internet works here too! Heheh. Seriously, today we’re probably going to get a tour of the BBC. That should be fun. Last week we got a tour of a Wall Street Journal printing plant (all of the Wall Street Journals that you buy in Northern California are printed about 50 yards from Podtech’s offices. They can print 60,000 copies an hour at that plant alone. It’s amazing the amount of paper and ink they go through there. Makes me appreciate how cool it is that we can distribute ideas via the Internet now and not convince someone to spend so many resources getting our words out there.

See ya from London. Photowalking on Friday evening is something I’m looking forward to. Posting will be light until the 14th when we get back. Although “light” for me doesn’t mean much. I’ll have London’s wifi zones scoped out within a few minutes of arrival. :-)

Seriously this should be an interesting trip. Milan (our 10 week old son) is going with us. Anyway, have fun and see you on the other side of the pond.

Posted to his Facebook blog.

Kudos to Zuckerberg for apologizing and admitting mistakes. That’s the sign of a real leader. Not many CEOs would use words like those.

UPDATE: My readers so far don’t agree that it demonstrates leadership, pointing out that this is modus operandi by Zuckerberg. Me? I backed off cause I see that people just don’t care about this issue the way that I do.

Today’s latest news headlines from my link blog:

* Searching for the best video
* 16 Online Email APIs
* Google is taking over the mobile world
* Kindle: As the Airlines Try to Keep Up
* 10 Podcasts Every Developer Should…
* Google Pre-Launches New iPhone Interface
* The Internet video bubble has now…
* Sometimes Tech People are Dumb….
* Have a Computer Problem? Consult…
* Live Documents Screenshots - The…
* Mixx, a Gorgeous Digg Competitor, Gets…
* The creative process
* Hulu Adds HD — but is it Necessary?
* Facebook SocialAds are Evolution,…
* Is quarterlife’s Heat Cooling Off?
* The cough syrup has worn off and…
* Community Server starting real time…
* Vodpod Turns 1 with New Widgets…
* OAuth Core 1.0
* T.t.t.t.twitter…

Tonight Google.com was updated for iPhone. I film a little demo on Seesmic. TechCrunch broke the news as far as I can tell (Google Reader is getting damn fast at bringing me everyone’s blogs).

Anyway, this is yet more reasons I’ll be using Google on mobile phones.

I’m even ready to eat my words about Android since Verizon announced they’d be supporting Google’s new mobile OS.

And have you tried the new “My Location” feature on Google’s mobile maps? That rocks — I’ve used it dozens of times over the past week and it makes using Google Maps on a cell phone a LOT more useful.

Is anyone else getting you to use its services on mobile phones?

Oh, Sean Percival says “I like it” on his Seesmic video about the iPhone.

UPDATE: MG Siegler has a more complete review, which talks about the new auto suggesting feature which does, indeed, rock.

UPDATE2: David Jacobs says “holy crap” and “it’s amazing.”

SmugMug gave me a preview of its new photosharing site that’ll turn on on Friday. They swore me to secrecy. But one thing they did to me is brand a new term into my head: mugnormous. You’ll see what that means when you hear about their new site, but wow. For my cameras they compared their site to a bunch of others and all I can think about is “I’m switching my images to Smugmug.”

Oh, and they have a little fun party on Friday at their headquarters to celebrate their fifth anniversary.

One last thing. This is a weird company. First of all, they are profitable. Second of all they don’t accept advertising. Third of all, they let dogs hang out. Fourth of all they’ve never taken (or needed) any investment. Fifth of all they are growing at a good clip (getting mugnormous, even). Sixth they charge their customers to use their service. Seventh, there’s a photo of one of the founders riding a motorcycle almost naked.

Who let this company survive in Silicon Valley? Heh! Certainly an antidote to that bubble video — here’s Smugmug’s co-founder Don MacAskill as he, and his team watch that video for the first time.

It’s always great meeting companies that break the rules and succeed. Mugnormous indeed.

Oh, and they have a little tool that lets you quickly move your images from other photo sharing sites onto SmugMug. What do they call it? Smugglr. This company has a mugnormous sense of humor, so refreshing to see.

I just attended an AMD press conference virtually. It was really boring for a few minutes. Lots of PowerPoint slides. Stuff that bores me to tears.

But then they did two things.

1. They turned on a video camera in their offices so we could see the people on the other side of the call (and the very cool new laptop technology they were showing off).
2. They took us off mute and asked “any questions?”

Now THAT is how you get press and blogger types to pay attention to a press call! I said to myself “damn, what a difference between a professional PR team at a huge old-school company and the one that Facebook has.”

It’s amazing that a processor company gets how to use video (the camera was handheld by one of the participants, which accentuated its authenticity. No expensive camera crew. No makeup. No lights. No controlling PR team trying to make sure that only “nice” questions get asked. Just some geeks in an office showing off the new laptop technology they had developed).

Damn, CES is starting to look interesting (this was a call to show off stuff that’ll be demoed at CES and to give the press a little preview). Brandee Barker (she runs PR for Facebook), you should go over to AMD and study how they did it. Kudos AMD!