It is a mashup publishing platform that allows users to integrate their existing contents from various sites into a single page so that friends can access all the users’ contents from a single place. Why is this a much needed product? Let’s travel back a few years from now. When blogging came out, it was a hit because people have yearn to publish themselves but the hassle of learning html and hosting a site was too much of a trouble. Blogging, on the other hand, allow everyone to own a place on the net, to express their thoughts and to communicate with others. But soon, people want something more than text content. So came the waves of sites offering photo management services like Flickr and Photobucket. Then came videos (yes YouTube). And now feeds (Twitter, Friendfeed). With all these services, each offering a segment of contents, a user online identity gets disperse since a person who like reading your blog wouldn’t know what other contents (images, videos) you have contributed online. Hence, it seems rational that a whole-new publishing platform that can integrate contents from various sources are needed at this moment.

Aggregating use contents is nothing new. Many sites do it, with the majority chose to present the aggregate contents in chronological order (FriendFeed, Storytlr). I thought my approach is better and so 65amp was born. It’s currently still in Alpha version, and I’m open up to feedbacks to improve the site.

Here’s a short demo of how to create a mashup in 65amp. Let me know what your thoughts.

(A video interview taken by Ryan Stewart)

Quickcomm Enterprise with Cynergy from Ryan Stewart on Vimeo.

[update Mar 03, 2009] See also Friendfeed API demo.

The API is damn simple; just make a call to:

http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=<longish url>

Demo:
Shorten URL (view source enabled)

A UTF converter that I always used is this.

Demo:
Unicode Converter (view source enabled)

Source Codes
Right-click on application to view source.

Next on the to-do list: allow commenting or “like this” directly from the application.

[update Feb 18, 2009] Adding comments and “like this” functions are easier than thought. They are now included. Check it out.

[update Mar 03, 2009] See also Twitter Demo.

We will make use of the onbeforeunload event in javascript. So first of all, you will need to insert the following into index.template.html.

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
window.onbeforeunload = function()
{
	var swfApp = ${application};

	return swfApp.onCloseApplication();
}
</script>

The all you need is to add a callback function onCloseApplication in your main application (see codes below).

Demo:
Application Exit Warning (view source enabled)

Source Codes: main application

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application
	xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
	layout="absolute"
	backgroundColor="#F8F8F8"
	creationComplete="onCreationComplete()">

<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
	private function onCreationComplete() : void
	{
		if ( ExternalInterface.available )
		{
			ExternalInterface.addCallback( "onCloseApplication",
				function():String
				{
					if ( chkDisplayMessage.selected )
					{
						return txtMsg.text;
					}
					return null;
				} );
		}
	}
]]>
</mx:Script>

	<mx:CheckBox
		id="chkDisplayMessage"
		x="37" y="29"
		label="Display message upon application exit"/>

	<mx:Label x="37" y="59" text="Message:"/>

	<mx:TextInput
		id="txtMsg"
		x="104" y="57"
		text="Please don't close me."/>

	<mx:Label x="37" y="107" color="#666666" text="*Check on the above checkbox, then close/navigate away from the current url."/>
</mx:Application>