I am excited about Big Board, and interested in Plaxo
Unlike the Windows and Mac worlds, we don’t have to worry about features which the “new version” of the OS will contain (which we’d have to pay for, naturally). I just do an apt-get update every now and then and I get a bunch of new features to play with. People like Novell and others in the linux community are working to do cool things with the desktop which would really make life easy. All I gotta do is wait a bit, then do some apt-getting. One of the really cool ideas that are going around is the Big Board. The idea is basically an “internet desktop”. It’s a little like an integrated version of the Google desktop (specifically the sidebar), but with everything working more sweet.
One of the neater things about this is that it’s supposed to tie together apps like IM, social networking... et al. You’re supposed to be logged into everything, and a touch away from being able to post something somewhere internetty.
Speaking of social networking, I have mentioned Fidg’t as an alternative. Unfortunately, after trying it out, it’s a little pre-baked. I even got errors when trying out the web services. Sad, but true. I still hold high hopes for it, but just not yet. In the meantime, there’s Plaxo. It’s like facebook, but it’s got direct plugging into other webby things, like flickr and lastfm. Also, it gives you a consistent address book. Weee!
I’ll give it a shot and see how it goes.