Nov 21, 2006 08:00:30 AM by
flynote 
(5 Users)
Rating: 
Where should I begin, the list goes on forever! And yet, I would consider the depth of the competition a strong argument that this is an open field, and that better blogging applications are in demand.
nottr just came out recently. Now you know I'm as biased as they come on this question, but honestly, I think nottr misses big on their UI design. Why not aggregate all public notes? Nice that they've integrated phone messaging features. This is planned for flynote release 3.0 (the current version is 2.0)
blogger is an obvious competitor. My critique of the conventional blogger-like applications is that they're still a bit of a bear to manage, configure, style, etc. And while blogger offers a search of all participating bloggers, it doesn't do much as far as aggregating the content.
blogmailr does a great job of making it easier to publish out to the major blogging platforms. My feeling is, that even this is a rather abstract concept, and why not skip the middle man altogether? And even if you use this, you're still left with the same, disjointed "blog in space" problem.
metafilter Interesting content, streaming in through my gmail "web clip". But I must say, I have a lot of trouble just reading the site. Ahead of my game in terms of having implemented tagging (to come in flynote 3.0).
blogmemes I would consider blogmemes a dang close competitor to flynote, with a fair bit more features. My critique of it is largely aesthetic, and hinges on usability, readibilty, and layout, all of which I think flynote handles more effectively.
Instablogs Have to admit, this site kicks butt. Really well thought out design, attractive etc. The one resounding thing that I can say, to flynote's defense, is that it is actually Way easier to use, and navigate. Flynote take less-is-more almost too seriously. Regardless, many props to Instablog.
Oh brother, this list just goes on and on.
stikkit A desktop-based sticky app revisted. Well, pretty cool, but desktop??
Bloogz Not quite a competitor, but this site does a fine job of aggregating external blogs. Flynote, while making it easy to link out, handles aggretion in a different way.
Clipmarks is the most earily resemblant of Flynote of the competitors. My critique is largely on usability. I find the clip reading area to be cramped compared to flynote where you either need to do much scrolling, or pop-up a new window. It also lack meaningful web addresses per clip. And yet, despite these minor criticisms, Clipmarks does a great job packing a lot of information onto the screen.
(more to come I'm sure)