This is an update to a post I wrote last year after first discovering Zemanta, a blog tool/firefox add-on that makes intelligent real time contextual recommendations based on the content you’re writing. These recommendations come in the form of pictures, links, tags, and related articles. I’ve been using it for about 8 months now, and have to say, it’s probably the most useful Firefox add-on, let alone web tool in general, that I’ve found. The pictures and link recommendations are becoming more relevant over time, showing the creators’ legit semantic engine skillz, and the tag generation is a priceless feature for annotating posts with meta information. They’ve recently enhanced the magic by integrating the tool into Gmail and Yahoo mail!

This is very exciting because now I can add great media content to my emails, making them more interactive and engaging. It blows me away how the tool so seamlessly integrates with different platform user interfaces. I still don’t quite understand how they make it work. I’ve tried all the top Firefox add-ons, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and Firebug being a few other winners, but those are just buttons or toolbars on top of the browser, whereas the Zemanta app exists dynamically within the actual webpage. These guys are doing something very special and I’m excited to see where they take it. Still waiting on them to hook it up with affiliate links!

Related articles by Zemanta

• 6 Applications that made 2008 special (u-g-h.com)
• Zemanta: Making Blogging Easier (webbugnet.wordpress.com)
• Zemanta Helps Write Rich Emails in Gmail and Yahoo Mail [Downloads] (lifehacker.com)

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Anybody that knows me, knows that I’m a huge supporter of Mozilla, especially Thunderbird. However, after 18 months of wishful thinking, I had to make a change this week; out with Mozilla (Thunderbird) and in with iGoogle and Gmail. I stuck with Thunderbird for a long time because of its unbelievable ease of use, consistency, and open source upgrades all driven by its non-profit culture. I also hoped that they would merge Firefox with Thunderbird and create the all in one application suite they’ve always talked about. Got so pumped up last year when they finally released the Lightning add-on for Thunderbird. However, waiting became too inefficient and switching to iGoogle/Gmail this week has been nothing short of a spiritual experience. Of course, I still use Firefox, but with the new Google setup, I don’t ever need to close the browser.

Here’s how my web worker life has transitioned:

Before the switch I used:

1) Thunderbird – email, RSS, calendar

2) Microsoft Office – document creation

3) Firefox / iGoogle – customized browser homepage

4) Skype – chat and rare calls to London

Now, it’s as simple as this:

1) Firefox Browser / iGoogle Homepage

a) Gmail

b) Calendar

c) Docs (unbelievable for collaboration)

d) Reader (RSS)

e) Gchat (in both Gmail and Docs)

Congratulations to Google for growing from their link expert roots into functional and aesthetic UE geniuses. The only thing that seems to be missing is a SVN dev environment, which I’m sure is in the works. I still have big hopes for Mozilla, but it’s going to take some time before they have the unified personal agent for the consumer — Google is there and is about to take over the world for real. Don’t count Mozilla out though; with all the suits moving into Google corporate and Mozilla having their clever 501(c)(3), look for some interesting things from them in the new creative capitalism.

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