Blist Be Your Name

Yes, it does sound like a prayer, and a granted one at that! Blist is a blessing for those who need a hip way to manage simple lists and databases. This might be a hit for the masses who's not inclined to APIs and code. Blist is for those who just need a simple friendly way to store and share lists. The user-interface of Blist is also very appealing, which would definitely make it a mainstream hit.
Blist might seem like a competitor to Zoho DB/Creator, but I think each of them caters to different types of 'list' audiences. Developers and users with more database needs might find Zoho's suite fit for their advanced purposes. But the utter simplicity of Blist, the rich interface, and the social dimension will serve the casual database needs of the masses.

Blist

Early Bird on Aviary

Just tried out this new image-editing app from Aviary.
Aviary's Phoenix is like a simplified photoshop that you can run from your browser. I think kids and teens will love it. Its also perfect for casual users who need to do simple edits on photos.
The interface is flash-based, so the flash plug-in is the only one thing you need to install in order to be able to use this app. With flash being vector-based, it gives phoenix a vector feel. I felt more compelled to play with the vector shapes to create cute images with just a few clicks.
As with any cloud app, the images you compose are stored on the web, and can be accessed by others to clone, collaborate upon, or make derivatives from. This setup will naturally make its repository of user-generated images grow exponentially. And if they add tagging capabilities it will further attract more users.
Aviary has a suite of cloud tools for video, music, and other digital content.
The Phoenix image editor from Aviary already has a lot of potential. And Aviary itself - with all its exciting variety of cloud apps - will be a killer.

link: http://a.viary.com

Google App Engine ported to Amazon's EC2

Of course! Cloud Platforms should be friendly to cloud applications. At the moment, two Cloud Computing platforms are battling it out: Amazon EC2 and Google Apps. Competition is good, and it will benefit everyone. Remember Java's Write-Once-Run-Anywhere (WORA) paradigm? Well, AppDrop makes it possible to run Cloud Apps for two of the leading Cloud Computing Platforms. WORA for Cloud Computing! Check it out!

Links:
AppDrop
Waxy.org

So Zoho

When it comes to some real practical utility for your actual data, none can beat Zoho. I particularly use their Zoho Creator and ZohoProjects. I store my lists and spreadsheets in Zoho Creator and then I use AJAX to display those data into my websites. As an example, I use it for my "green tips" on iBlackle.com. Notice the short messages appearing below the logo. My data (personally-compiled 'green' tips) resides in Zoho Creator but I can utilize them as a sort of widget for my website, being delivered in JSON format via an API. The only setback is that at least twice a month I have to renew a "ticket" to get it working. Not bad for a free service ,though.
They have so many other services that I don't even have time to try them all. You name it - CRM, Word Processor, etc.
But for my managing all my projects in the clouds, I use the free plan of ZohoProjects. You gotta be a little creative with making much out of an alloted 1 project - by subdividing your groupings as task lists. With several blogs and websites in the works, how else would I manage such a monstrosity? What will I do without Zoho? It's so Zoho!

My Vibes on Netvibes

For the star of my second post, it has to be NetVibes. No other Cloud Application out there is as hip and sexy as my dear NetVibes. Especially now that they recently launched their new Ginger version, I have to tell you all about how cool their interface is. Their themes rock!

Below are my greatest use of Netvibes:
RSS Aggregation.
My netvibes page has become my fully customized and personalized daily newspaper - both content and presentation are dictated by me. I can quickly scan through almost all the topics that interests me (that I added and compiled myself) and group them or categorize them, add a theme, and arrange them in my layout preference by dragging the modules around depending on my whim.
Personal Utility.
At work, the ability to paste text straight into a module (in my private page) give me so much power and agility with my data which is absolutely in the clouds! I can come home and browse through the edgy sites that I've come across from work which I saved in those notes modules with some of my comments as leads for blogging ideas. As a matter of fact, netvibes has become a complementary tool for my blogging purposes. The To-Do-List is also nice.
Self-Publishing.
The scope of Netvibes Ecosystem is pretty huge, and I actually have published my other blogs as widgets in their directory, namely Archetyper and Exoplanetology. For those developers who've been using their Universal Widget API (UWA), netvibes widgets now also work in the iPhone & iTouch, as well as in iGoogle & YahooWidgets.

And now, with their Ginger release, they introduced the concept of your own "Universe page", a public page where you can basically share your custom modules, tailored with the content you want, from RSS feeds, text, HTML, or widgets. As a matter of fact, your universe page can serve as a complement to your own website, if not a replacement for it (if your own site looks terrible). Your own Universe page is so easy to update, no FTP needed or HTML coding. Just plain clicking, typing, copy-pasting, and drag-and-dropping, and you suddenly have a hip page hosted in their servers. It even has some twitter-like "Status" update, and facebook-like "Wall".
What else is in store? Well at the top right, I can see a "Drive" still inactive. And it tells me that they're on to something like storing personal large files.
For now, netvibes continues to be a very useful service for me. It's one CloudApp that truly rocks!

Cloud Apps and Google Sky

This could not wait much longer. The launching of the Browser-based Google Sky heralds the beginning for this Cloud Apps Blog. The name of the app - Sky connects with Clouds, hence, it sparks the birth of the Official Blog of Cloud Applications, with this reference to Google Sky as the first post. The fact that Google itself has been making great strides in Cloud Computing makes it a great catalyst for this post.
The Browser-based Google Sky is a wonderful tool for Amateur Astronomy and for students interested in Space. Never before in history can the common man wonder at the heavens with just a web-browser. This is the age of Cloud Applications. Its Cloud Computing for the masses. As such, this blog will be devoted to analyzing, and simply writing about the growing list of cool Cloud Applications out there. This will be your chronicle to the impact of Cloud Apps on the masses.