Yesterday Clipmarks added a new feature called ClipCasting. Like the name would suggest, it's a way to syndicate whatever content you've bookmarked using the proprietary Clipmarks toolbar. In this case, Clipmarks has opened up its service beyond just letting users link to bits of bookmarked Web material, and putting everything in a small widgetized container that can be added to blogs and social networking profiles. Readers can quickly jump back and forth through stories and note individual clips they like, or favorite the entire thing. Incidentally, the previous iteration of the site, which created a separate page for each piece of bookmarked content, is now called "classic view," with the ClipCast pages taking the spotlight.

To supplement the embeddable version of the widget, there's a new Facebook app that accomplishes the same thing, albeit with less installation work on the part of the user. It'll denote any new piece of content that's been added to the ClipCast in the user's new minifeed for others to see. Likewise, if your friends have the app installed, you'll be able to keep track of whatever bits of content they've bookmarked. Compared with Facebook's standard sharing feature, ClipCast is better in that you can view the content right in the widget without having to venture off the site. It's also nice because your friends don't need to install the app to see the items you've shared.

As a content creator, services like Clipmarks are a mixed blessing. It's a super simple way to share stories with other people, but at the same time it takes potential visitors away from the original article, and moves the power to pick out what bits of content are published away from the original author. I still think Clipmarks has done a great job with ClipCasting. On the surface, it's a lot more approachable than some other bookmarking services that rely on text links alone.

We originally checked out Clipmarks back in late February. Since then, it got snatched up by Forbes Media, which noted that many of its editors had been using the service internally as a way to track and share Web content. Also worth looking at is eSnips, which has a toolbar that lets you grab and share page clippings, along with Yoono (review) and Diigo (review).

I've embedded a ClipCast:

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As 2007 closes its doors, Webware writers Rafe Needleman, Josh Lowensohn, and Caroline McCarthy look back on the best and the worst to come out of it...

The Facebook platform. Facebook's new open platform has proven to be a great way to give Facebook users more to do, while putting eyeballs on and dollars into developer's sites. While the usefulness of some of the apps is questionable (see the misses category below), Facebook has built a solid foundation for new social applications, something that did not exist previously.

Google Gears. This platform lets developers write Web apps that can work offline. It is in its infancy, but it's an important step in the right direction for road warriors and anyone who wants to use Web 2.0 apps while away from a live connection. So far, it's limited to just a handful of apps, including Google Reader, Zoho Writer, and Remember The Milk, but with a developing API and support from Google, we think you'll be seeing Gears as a standard part of new Web apps in 2008.

Adobe AIR. AIR lets Flash (and other) developers take their apps off the Web and put them onto people's desktops, and it's seen a lot of progress this year. From launching an alpha version in late March, AIR has been met with considerable interest from both developers and users. Many of the apps that have been created are slick and easy to install. AIR, like Google Gears, is a key technology in the development of "hybrid" apps--Web services that work for users whether they are connected or not. AIR's special power is that its apps work outside of a browser. AIR apps look and feel like real desktop programs.

Twitter. Twitter was one of the first microblogging platforms to get it right. In addition to its open API, which has encouraged the development of dozens of ways to read and post Twitter messages on a variety of platforms, Twitter got the social angle right. It's simple, but not too simple, and it's fun. Twitter's brief messages tend toward the forgettable, but that's the platform's blessing: it doesn't ask too much of its writers or its readers.

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Ulteo, a company staffed by Linux veterans, on Wednesday launched the test version of a service that lets people run the OpenOffice.org desktop suite in the Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers.

The service is designed to let people collaborate with OpenOffice documents online and use the open-source application suite without having to download it.

People can also exchange documents in Microsoft's Office format or PDF. The service also supports the OpenDocument Format standard.

There are already several companies offering online versions of traditional desktop applications, including Google, Zoho, and others. Microsoft on Monday released Office Live Workspace, which … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Restrictive tools and rash approaches to security challenges are endangering the health of the online ecosystem, an Oxford University researcher warned Wednesday.

Jonathan Zittrain, who has written a book due out in April called The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It, gave a public talk on the issue Wednesday night at CNET's offices here. News.com hosted the talk--a first for our newsroom. The event, which drew 120 people, was sponsored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

You can call Zittrain's theme the AOL-ization of technology. Instead of personal computers being able to run any … Read more

The Gdrive, the mythical, hypothetical Google-provided and free Web-based storage drive, took a giant step toward reality earlier this week. As most of America waddled out of its tryptophan-induced haze on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the myth could become real within a few months.

However, you don't have to wait that long to get free storage from Google. Thanks to Gspace and Gmail Drive, you can start using your five-gigabyte-plus of Gmail storage as a virtual drive right now. This second, even.

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Google is adding support for Google Gadgets in its Google Desktop for the Mac software. Google Gadgets, as you probably know, are mini applications with dynamic content that offer quick access for things like newsfeeds and to-do lists.

Mac users can now run Google Gadgets side by side with Apple Widgets in Dashboard and have the same gadgets on their Mac, iGoogle page, and Google Desktop Sidebar.

Some cross-platform Gadgets include: YouTube, which lets you search and watch YouTube videos from Dashboard; Virtual Flower Pot, where you water it and watch flowers bloom; and Weather Globe, which displays weather conditions … Read more

Group conversation service VoiceThread (review) has a great new feature called Video Doodling, which as you can guess, lets users draw on top of video clips on the fly. The technology, formally called a Telestrator, is best known for its usage in football games by John Madden, who pointed out things to look for to viewers at home with the aid of an onscreen drawing tool. VoiceThread takes a similar approach, and instead of overlaying drawings on video while it's playing, only lets you draw when paused.

In a sample clip sent to us (embedded below), creator Steve Muth … Read more

Today PollDaddy is launching a new line of pro services for users looking to get a little more from their polls than the average Joe. There are two new tiers, which run at $20 and $99 a month respectively. Pro users get to remove the PollDaddy branding, effectively turning the service into a white-labeled solution. They can also get support over the phone, as well as a sizable increase on response caps up to 1,000 and 10,000 responses, which for free account holders is limited to just 100.

The real hook, however, is the new set of reporting … Read more

Here's a neat service for blog owners who want to add another layer of distribution for their content. It's called Odiogo, and it will take any written blog entries and turn them into spoken word. It uses an integrated player that sticks itself on top of every blog post, and lets readers listen to any post in lieu of reading.

I came across the service while reading a post on UNEASYsilence about hacking the new eeePCs to run a hacked version OS X Leopard (which apparently runs about as well as it can on the aged processor), and … Read more