XImPress

Link: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

Few years ago, I’ve wrote a blog post on CNet’s ‘Big Picture’. Unfortunately, the service is no longer available. Today, I’m introducing the Boston.com’s ‘Big Picture’, which is nothing like the CNet version.

The site offers literally BIG PICTURES. The few words describing the pictures are no more than a supplementary to what the images speak for themselves. Small details, such as facial expressions of each and every individual, are alive and it makes you look at the world from a different perspective. Some images have so much detail that it looks surreal. I personally enjoy the short moment of appreciation after looking at each photos. It makes you ponder about the subject rather than treat it as just another piece of information.

Tokbox.com is a flash-based video chat site that lets users set-up video-chat links in few seconds. It maximizes third-company Open-APIs providing plug-in interfaces to Facebook, etc. It even has its own API SDKs further expanding its potential. Desktop version, built on Adobe AIR Runtime, is also provided for users.

Personally, what’s most impressive is the fact that it works on both MAC and PC.
Rejoice Mac Users! We can finally use iSight on MSN.

Pros:
- Free
- Works well on all browsers.
- Video E-Mail, Video Chat, Video Conference
- Supports AOL and MSN
(hmm. more like features rather than pros.)

Cons:
- Currently other languages are not supported.

P.S.
Employees working at companies that ban messenger services, this site will provide you the hole to breath through.

- Update – This service is no longer available.

CNet has started Flash-based news keyword mapping system (Gosh this is a mouthful) a.k.a. “The Big Picture”. I’ve accidentally stumbled upon this just last night. However, the service itself, in fact, has started last year, 2005.

▲Image from ‘infovis-wiki.net’

The image above will give you a general understanding. As the name ‘Big Picture’ implies, it is a service that branches out its related articles giving the audience some aspect of what the big picture looks like. Sites like CNet have been long collecting Keywordsor Tags in their articles, and this accumulated for several years, they must have a huge database of past news articles. Rather than browsing from one article to another, this could actually be quite fun.

Navigation

The navigation mechanism is quite straightforward. Once the user clicks on a story topic or a company name, the clicked material moves the center and a new big picture based on the the clicked material appears. A circle also appears where clicking the center zooms in and clicking out of the circle zooms out.

Although the image might be a big picture, the size of the window for the ‘Big Picture’ relative to its contents gives the user a crowded feeling. Perhaps, in order to accomplish its original purpose, a dual monitor may be a good idea. Practicality? Well, I haven’t tried it enough, perhaps time will tell.

LivePlasma.com

The company that provides the technology is named LivePlasma LivePlasma.com also has a nice service currently in beta. It is similar to the ‘Big Picture’ in the way that it shows a map, but a map regarding one’s movie and music database.

Related Articles:
- CNet Big Picture
- LivePlasma.com