The Synergy functionality on the Palm Pre really kick-started this craze back in January, when Palm debuted the system of integrating all your web services into their native UI. This week, at the CTIA phone show in Vegas, it seems like everyone wants a piece of this action. Lets look at some of the contenders.

Yahoo Mobile Apps
Yahoo released a torrent of apps on the public this week, which aim to reinvent how you access their services on a mobile basis. Yahoo's Mobile Apps and Portals allow you to:
• Look up your Yahoo contacts
• Check statuses of those contacts and look up your own
• Access yahoo mail and messenger
• Sign into your Oneconnect account for social media updates
• Import RSS feeds and Yahoo content modules for news, sports scores, weather and all that crap

All of this comes together in one place so you don't have to launch 10 different mobile apps to manage this stuff. Good if you're a heavy user of Yahoo services. This service is available via mobile browser, plus there's a standalone app for the iPhone and a Yahoo Go app for the other major platforms (WinMo, Blackberry, Symbian, etc...) which gather all the services into a navigable UI.

3deep
3deep was one of the most impressive mobile apps at CTIA. The idea behind it is that you can manage your calendar, contacts, social media and mail all from a single app, with location-aware integration. It's coming out for Windows Mobile, Blackberry, iPhone, Symbian and Android in the coming weeks, if all goes according to plan. Some of the features include:
• The ability to track location, availablilty and presence—meaning it knows where you're going, what your doing there, how long you'll be there and who you want to meet with most
• "Tell Me When" functionality gives you alerts when selected contacts arrive at a specific location, when they're available to talk/meet, or conversely, will send a shout out when you do the same
• Informatilon on whether it's best to call, SMS, email or IM a selected contact
• Updates from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc....
• Calendar and mail management. Plus auto-integration from your computer and phone cals
• Open API so any developer can make their service compatible with 3deep

While a live demo wasn't available, 3deep reiterated this app would be available as a free download sometime in the next couple weeks. This is some serious Stalker 2.0 right here. Facebook has nothing on 3deep.

HTC TouchFlo 3D
HTC's updated (and upcoming) TouchFlo 3D continues to streamline its design so that it's easier to get pertinent contact info from a single screen. Now using their new tabbed contact screen, you can quickly get up to speed with your friends, including the ability to:
• Check call, email and SMS history.
• Check updates and activity to social media services (Facebook, Skype, etc...)
• Easily send emails, text messages and place calls from the same screen.
• Check upcoming calendar events for a selected contact (if you have their shared cal)

TouchFlo 3D will be available on the Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2 when they launch in the second half of 2009.

The emerging trend is making sure you can communicate and collaborate with your contacts through a variety of mediums and services, all through one control panel. For the most part, it's done with a degree of visual polish. This is good, because if Web 2.0 can't move to the mobile space gracefully, we're all in for some headaches.

First, the vital info. The actual swearing in ceremony takes place at 11:30am EST and will go for about two hours.. There are lots more options listed on Lifehacker, but these are the ones that are probably most worthy of your time.

Live Streaming Feeds
If you don't have access to a TV, but don't have to worry about the corporate gestapo monitoring your every web movement, live streams of the inauguration are probably the way to go—and they're plentiful. From the sounds of it, there are two good choices:

• Live Senate Feed: The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies' stream is about as official as it gets, with not only the live inauguration available, but also clips to past inaugurations and an overload of supplementary content on anything tangentially related to the event.

• CNN/Facebook: There was nothing more quality/entertaining/ridiculous than CNN's coverage of live events during the 2008 Presidential Campaign (pundit debate scorecards, holographic projections, Toobs!) and from the sounds of it, the CNN/Facebook live inauguration feed will be no different. You log into Facebook direct from CNN's live site, watch the inauguration, and watch your friends' status updates in real-time.

• There's also Hulu, but they're streaming the network which shall not be named.

Non-video Web 2.0 Updates
• InaugurationReport.com: If you can't get away with video at your desk, but can hide some text/photo updates behind a tab, you might want to consider InaugurationReport.com, which takes all the citizen generated content from Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and SMS, then aggregates it all on one page. It's your one stop shop for quick desk updates.

Mobile Web
If you do suffer the misfortune of being under heavy surveillance, then your only option left is to consider a new job grab your iPhone/G1, fake a lengthy trip to the bathroom, and use one of these services from the comfort of your stall:

• Ustream on iPhone: Ustream promises to stream the inauguration to your iPhone using their fancy new app...IF it manages to get approved by Apple before tomorrow. And considering that's a big if, I wouldn't place all your inauguration viewing hopes and dreams behind this.

• Inauguration Report on iPhone and Android: Inauguration Report also has free iPhone and Android apps where you can not only take in all the same content as the desktop client, but you can also provide live updates if you have any. However, seeing as you've resorted to hiding in a bathroom stall, I doubt you'll have any.

And as I've already mentioned, you can get the whole laundry list of online Inauguration offerings over on [Lifehacker].

The first is the most direct, and obvious: Terrorist Asshole sends reports, pictures and other info in real-time to the other terrorists in his group. Scenario three is also fairly standard, following a soldier on Twitter and gleaning info for identity hacks and other nastiness, like on Facebook or MySpace.

But scenario two is more like terrorism enters the web 2.0 era—Terrorist Asshole is strapped with an explosive vest and uses his cellphone for tweets and taking pictures, which are constantly monitored Terrorist Bastard, who has the remote detonator for the vest. Based on the feed, Terrorist Bastard pops the vest when Terrorist Asshole reaches the target.

There's no evidence terrorists are using Twitter for this kind of ghoulishness yet—though the Army has picked up several pro-Hezbollah tweets (so they are watching you)—but this is always going to be one of the downsides of highly effective social networking tools. Terrorist cells, after all, are just another social network. [Danger Room, Image: Danger Room]

Once you place an order, the site will ship one of five off-the-shelf prepackaged solar arrays and dispatch an installation crew to your door. An on-line database tracks local building and permit requirements and sends the necessary forms to you for you to fill out.

This is great news for everyone who has ever wanted to jump on the solar bandwagon, but was afraid to because of the headaches that come from any large home project. The system will also help make everything cheaper, since half of a solar system's costs are from installation hassles.

Unfortunately, the service is limited to California addresses right now, but if business is good, we could probably count on a nationwide roll-out in the near future. [Green Wombat via Wired]

We were surprised to learn that 79 social networking sites even existed; our hearts lie with Facebook and our minds know that there are a few others that generally make our heart rates slow out of complete boredom. If you belong to web 2.0's army of heathen social sites, there are three empty boxes to fill in with whatever you please. Prices begin at $16.90, and as my mental arithmetic is so hot, I can tell you that means the shirt costs less than $1/networking site listed. My mental arithmetic is not hot enough to hone that figure to a more accurate number, but I have no time to work on that aspect of my life, I must keep up to date with menial Facebook happenings...ooh look, Bobby's joined fat fighters; he's got a fat fighters album up. Gosh, these pictures are hilarious. [Product Page via Tech Digest]

No Java, Flash, full AJAX (the cinchpin of innumerable Web 2.0 apps) or streaming support severely limits the Web 2.0 (or even just regular Web) sphere the iPhone can work in. Sascha Segan over at Gearlog put it through a gauntlet of popular Web 2.0 apps, and needless to say, the browsing experience was far from ideal, EDGE pokiness (or not) aside.

Wanna edit docs using iZoHo or Google Docs or Spreadsheet? Don't plan on it—the keyboard doesn't spring up. Fill in the glaring IM client omission with Meebo? Shnope. It'll load and you can look at it, but that's about it. The list goes on.

So what are developers doing? They're not so much developing for the iPhone as they are developing around the iPhone. For example, Glide and RemoTV have both said they're working on iPhone-specific versions of the apps, and they're undoubtedly not the only ones, given the size and relative affluence of the market chunk they'd be missing out on.

As it turns out, there's a big difference between having to figure out innovative ways to shoehorn in current standards and apps and actually innovating new ones.

iPhone: Poor Compatibility with Web Apps [Gearlog]

Basically, you can recommend a show to any (or all) of your friends on your list, and it'll simply pop up in their friends channel. It also works to some extent like a Flickr pool, so you check out what your friends have been watching.

The other Flickr/YouTube-like feature is the ability to tag shows, which is potentially extremely cool and incredibly useful, more so than automated recommendations. I just wonder how long it would take for every show to be tagged "09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0." Video demo after the jump.

Ambient TV [Project Page]

IXI Mobile Launches Ogo 2.0 [SlashPhone.com]

Ogo Home Page [IXI Mobile]

BusinessWeek is actually a bit down on the new program, noting that the idea of "prosumption," where consumers get involved in the creative process, is not wholly innovative. Nonetheless, Dell is certainly in need of a refresh, and taking it to the people seems like a good way to go about trying to make itself relevant again, even if pulling out the "Web 2.0" trope is a bit trite.

The top suggestion right now? "Offer the 3 top free Linux versions for free pre-installation on all Dell PCs." Gotta love the Linux crew—they are persistent, if nothing else. – Matt Buchanan

Hack This Product, Please! [BW]

Barack Obama looks to be diving into this whole "Web 2.0" thing head first, what with his own Facebook profile, Flickr account, and YouTube account. In addition to all this stuff, he also has my.barackobama.com, a social networking type site for his supporters to create profiles, network, and make blogs all about how great Barack Obama is.

It's clear that the internet is going to play an even larger role in the election this year, for better or worse. Do you think all this buzzword bandwagon hopping is going to help, or is this still politics as usual? –Adam Frucci

Barack Obama [via NotCot.org]

Or is this just the beginning? Powerful point from Michael: We're teaching the machine, and the machine is us. Time to rethink the world. The network is the machine; the machine is us. – Charlie White

Bio [Michael Wesch]

An important caveat to recognize, however, is that the data is only representative of cameras that Flickr can automatically detect, which leaves out many camera phones. Otherwise, Flickr gets it right about two-thirds of the time.

Anyone else feel a little creep'd out by this? Where's the hack to disable all this data mining?

Flickr: Camera Finder [Flickr via Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed]

Cemetery 2.0 works by keeping an active satellite Internet connection that keeps ol' bag of bones in constant communication with the Web services. Couldn't make it for Agnes' birthday? Just post a message on her Facebook wall, she'll understand.

The current prototype uses this guy here, who is the great-grandfather of Cemetery 2.0's inventor, Elliott Malkin.

What kind of Web sites would you like to be perpetually linked to? I hope one of them starts with a "Giz" and ends with a "modo." – Nicholas Deleon

Cemetery 2.0 [Dziga.com via we make money not art]

"We did some analysis of the videos in our system over 10 minutes in length, and we found the overwhelming majority of them were full length, copyrighted videos from tv shows and movies. However, we also recognize that there are legit content creators out there who may have videos over 10 mins, so we've created a Premium Content Program for those of you with professional-produced videos."

As if it took extensive analysis to come up with that conclusion. Maybe now copyright infringers will just post entire motion pictures in pieces, like they do now on the newsgroups. Well, at least now it looks like YouTube is trying to curtail piracy.

YouTube caps video lengths to reduce infringement [Ars Technica]