JetLib News

Ajax.org is today introducing Cloud9 IDE, a fresh cloud-based development platform for JavaScript incorporating HTML5, and supporting Python, Ruby and PHP.

The environment aims to enables developers to easily build, test, debug, and deploy Web and mobile applications with a minimum of technical skills and time required.

If the name of the project (repository: Cloud9 IDE) rings a bell, you may remember that it merged with Mozilla Skywriter, a Web-based framework for code editing, back in January 2010. Find out more here.

Ajax.org CEO Ruben Daniels posits that over 75 percent of websites today use third-party JavaScript widgets, and that the market for mobile apps is exploding, which means Cloud9 IDE could become a popular gateway to the cloud for a growing number of Web and mobile developers. A – wait for it – app store for Cloud9 creations is set to open later this year.

A couple of months ago, an SEC filing unveiled that Scott Lipsky, one of Amazon’s first executives ever and later founder of aQuantive (acquired by Microsoft for a cool $6B) was up to something new.

His new startup, PhotoRocket, is all about ridiculously easy photo sharing from multiple devices, and it will be formally introducing its service at the DEMO conference later today.

I had a chat with Lipsky and PhotoRocket CEO (and former VP at Yahoo) Gary Roshak ahead of the launch presentation, and came impressed with the product and its potential.

You’d think photo sharing couldn’t be any easier than it has already become today, but you’d be wrong. What Photorocket does, or at least aims to do in the future, is basically obliterate the need to ever click an ‘upload’ button or email photos ever again.

Available for Mac, Windows and the iPhone (iPad and Android ‘coming soon’), PhotoRocket lets you easily share photos with friends and family in a closed circle, but also make it super simple to share photos on Facebook, Flickr, Shutterfly, Twitter and a bunch of other destinations, with more continually being added to the fray.

For sharing photos with individuals, PhotoRocket doesn’t require recipients to register or log in to view or download photos – although they can register if they’d like to spread photos on their own or purchase high-quality prints.

But where PhotoRocket really shines is how easy the service enables users to push photos found on the Web (right-click, select, done) and on your computer (right-click, select, done) to social networking and online photo sharing services with a minimum of friction.

The only small gripe I have is that there should be a number of basic editing capabilities baked into the product that would enable users to do things like cropping or resizing images before sharing, but I’m told some of those features will be included in future releases.

Give PhotoRocket a whirl and tell us what you think.

Citrix Systems recently established a Silicon Valley-based seed investment vehicle dubbed Startup Accelerator. Today, the fund is announcing its first investment (PDF) – Citrix has invested an undisclosed sum in Primadesk, which will be touting its wares later today at DEMO 2011.

The company basically aims to help users search, manage and backup their personal cloud data from multiple devices and browsers, using a single interface. A beta version of the Primadesk technology will be demonstrated later today, but you can sign up for access at some point in March right here.

Primadesk was founded in 2009 and lets users search their personal cloud data, access multiple emails in one interface, securely store passwords and login information, manage, drag-and-drop and backup online documents, photos and whatnot.

Primadesk is also the company behind Fotolink, which lets users drag and drop photos from their computers to Facebook and back, between Facebook albums and from friends’ albums and other photo services such as Flickr, Google Picasa and Smugmug to your Facebook albums.

The Citrix Startup Accelerator program provides companies with seed funding ($100k-$400k) but also business mentoring, office space and technical resources.

With the number of iOS apps now well over 300,000, app discovery is becoming an increasing frustration for users. It’s also become a major challenge for developers as the increasing number of apps is making it more and more difficult for them to attain exposure for their apps.

Now, straight from the “What Took So Long for Something Like This to be Released” department, mobile developer community site AppBoy has released an iOS app check-in SDK.

The SDK requires pretty simple integration. Once wired, users can check-in to apps in much the same manner they check-in to locations on Foursquare. Check-ins can be pushed out, of course, to Facebook and Twitter.

AppBoy included additional functionality that helps developers reward users in contests. Badges are available for most check-ins during a contest, for timing-based check-ins (for example, the 50th check-in past a certain hour), and for checks-ins closest to specified times.

Let’s just face it, being a geek girl on the Internet sucks. Even if you’re relatively smart and a woman your lot in online life is basically relegated to this unless you’re Oprah. My point is that there’s never really been a successful and lasting site targeted only to nerd girls (Village Voice Media’s* Heartless Doll tried to no avail until it entered the deadpool last May). Dan Abrams and the folks behind Mediaite are trying to break this curse, with today’s launch of  The Mary Sue.

Called The Mary Sue in an attempt to subvert traditional female “wish fulfillment” tropes, the new site has a staff of two — Former Geekosystem Associate Editor Susana Polo will be taking helm with the help of intern Jamie Frevele. Polo explains the motivation behind the site in her inaugural post, “Why A Geek Site For Women?”

“The only thing “women’s” sites and magazines make me feel regularly is the distinct impression that I’m not in their demographic.  Even though I’m a woman.  Not coincidentally, this is frequently how I feel whenever a game advertisement or comic book cover assumes that I am male.  Even though I am a gamer/reader.”

Under Polo’s guidance, the editorial scope of the site will run the gamut from coding to girl gaming to “here’s a female scientist that’s done an amazing thing,” anything that’s interesting to the female demographic as well as geeks as a whole.  Polo tells TechCrunch, “There’s a perception on the Internet that if you’re a woman on the Internet people pay more attention to you. But revealing your gender on the Internet can open you up to a lot of annoyances.” No kidding.

Dan Abrams’ entire site network, which includes Mediaite, Styleite, Sportsgrid and Gossipcop, is seeing 9.8 million uniques monthly according to internal analytics and is aiming to bulk up those numbers with The Mary Sue. “Our reach is roughly that of a Slate or an Usmagazine.com, with only a fraction of the staff,” says Mediaite’s Andrew Cedotal. The network’s last/broader foray into geek culture, Geekosystem, is now averaging 1.4 million uniques and 3.5 million pageviews a month with a meager staff of three.

* My former employer.