Zude Goes Public With “End All” Creativity Site

On Friday we got a rather exclusive look at Zude's upcoming public release for this week. This year's most promising social computing platform has beefed up everything from server capacity to social reach for this launch. Zude helps people develop their own dynamic websites without any programming or HTML skills. Anyone from Coders and Geeks to Grandma's and children can now use cross-domain drag and drop to build very compelling sites.

I covered Zude for ReadWriteWeb back in June and the Killer Startups version on Profy revealed a very useful and powerful utility also. If Zude was the “mashup of mashups” back then - it is a mashing machine now. Zude simplifies creating text, photo, video, music, blog and widget elements of pages while retaining advanced features that appeal to the tech savvy. Zude was and is even more so now - what MySpace should have been all along. Zude extends personalization and creativity to the website level and incorporates Web 2.0 tools for really gripping function.

I had the pleasure of a demo of Zude's new features with CEO Jim McNiel, CTO, co-founder of 5G Steve Repetti and Steve Poppe director of marketing on Friday. Zude has been deployed on 10 high powered that use the Cisco load balancer - this configuration is fully capable of supporting 1 million registered users according to Steve Repetti. Here is a short list of Zude's latest version:

• Enhanced right-click function - This reduces need clicks for object manipulation and behavior

• Web based image editing integration - Zude images are now auto-linked with SNIPSHOT for editing

• New Object Gallery - Extended object selection capability in addition to drag-and-drop manipulation

• New Channel Layout - Maximized channel navigation and premium 728×90 leader board

• New Sports Image Gallery - PNG gallery of sports images

• Usability Update - Zude Guide, menu, icons and notifications, language support and messaging revamp

• Group Support - Implement and deploy communities within Zude like the Future Boston Effort

• Zude Directory - Shhhh, it is a secret! This is essentially Craigslist 2.0

My Zude page two featuring Grommit, Jimmy Page, RSS, and other custom elements

Express Yourself

We have seen many platforms for creativity this year, but perhaps none more simple or more powerful than Zude. Sometimes of late we minimize this “creativity” explosion on the Web, but make no mistake the attraction of the Web for many rests the power of expression. 5G initiated research by C&R Research which revealed that 72 percent of social networkers would use a site with more personalization power. Of course, for half the price I could have told Jim and Steve this - but the “personality” of Web 2.0 is obviously a huge factor in our choices. Zude has addressed a great number of “pain points” in this development.

Drag Them On In

Zude users can essentially drag their favorite bands (80 of which are on Zude), their social network identities or virtually any element or page onto their Zude platform. These aggregated presences are fully functional - negating the need to travel to or share via fragmented links. A user on Zude can simply direct friends at their Zude pages to show off whatever they have created or like web-wide. In the humble screens I provided it is easy to see my Stumble Upon pages inside my latest Zude creation. Zude is another powerful “web within a web” in line with Diigo's Webslides which I reviewed earlier.

Closeup of Zude element editor, My StumbleUpon embed - essentially the right side of My Zude

More Zude functions - note the MBL mouseover - cool no code functions abound on Zude

Conclusion

Zude's user base and collaborative efforts with musicians, artists, 3^rd party sites and particularly MIT and Future Boston - have been extensive and interesting. In a nutshell - the site rocks with new people, pages, features and topics. The index on Zude will be announced later in the week, and is essentially a Web 2.0 - free version of Craigslist where users can list, sell and/or find just about anything. In all honesty, Jim and Co. have come up with elements even I have not thought of and I know I have forgotten to mention many of the features.

The Zude development is indicative of not only the power of Web 2.0 tools but the flexibility and innovation of the people behind these great startups. Such advanced and encompassing applications are very difficult to encapsulate for a post. Perhaps the best description of the best capability of Zude comes from the “horse's mouth”- Jim McNiel: “Consolidating your Web content onto Zude is as easy as dragging and dropping. Now, your MySpace, Facebook and Flickr pages can all sit right next to each other.” Jim is a rather altruistic person, but even I wonder what anyone would need with MySpace given such useful and user friendly places like Zude on the Web.

A Zude member tribute page I ran across