Big in Japan is an integrated toolkit for prosumer bloggers. Say your own social media projects are taking off, but you're overwhelmed with the mechanics of running, tracking and promoting your sites: Big in Japan can make you Big in Japan. And Jersey City. And Genoa. And Jakarta. You get the drift. Build your own global microbrand using these tools.

This is a collection of ten Web 2.0 apps, some are still in a state of "launch pending". Various tools include widget, Ajax, RSS, Atom, and SMS functionality, in most cases mashed together. Here's the lowdown so far:
PodServe: Free podcast creation and hosting with some cool features.
FrankenFeed: Combine multiple RSS feeds into one monster feed.
ElfURL: Shrink large URLs, tag them and get stats.
InstantFeed: Delivers RSS feeds to instant messengers.
QwikPing: Blog update notification. Add your blog(s) and instantly ping multiple services.
SocialMail: Forward email messages via RSS feeds (launch pending).
FeedVault: Save and/or share your OPML files, create group discussion feeds (launch pending).
MailFeed: RSS by mail (launch pending).
FoneFeed: RSS by SMS (launch pending).
StatsTool: Roll all your stats from various key services into one central location (launch pending).

Big in Japan: Web 2.0 Toolbox

Half of all malfunctioning products returned to stores by consumers are in full working order, but customers can't figure out how to operate the devices, a scientist said on Monday.

What do you think about that?

Most product quality problems exist between terminal and chair

The Web of documents has morphed into a Web of data. We are no longer just looking to the same old sources for information. Now we’re looking to a new set of tools to aggregate and remix microcontent in new and useful ways.

This article provides an excellent overview on how the web has changed from being a collection of static information, to being a "web" of functionality in which data can be easily seperated from interface. To take an example from the article, Amazon's database is open to the public -- anyone can develop an interface that better suits his/her need for viewing and searching Amazon's content (such as porting the data to a cell phone). This new world wide web is being dubbed the "web 2.0". The article links to two more interesting articles; one on writing semantic markup, and the other on web 2.0 for designers.

Digital Web Magazine - Web 2.0 for Designers