Comments on: Remember PointCast? Meet Chirpscreen

By: Chirp Launches Its Social Screen Saver In Beta

Chirp Launches Its Social Screen Saver In Beta — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:48:42 +0000

[...] Chirp is launching in public beta. Chirp is a screen saver, previously covered here, that lets you bring social feeds from Flickr and Facebook onto your desktop. Other social Websites [...]

By: Ramesh Bhaskar

Ramesh Bhaskar — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:04:27 +0000

Would it being a screensaver defeat the purpose of it displaying your feeds? The whole point of the SS is that it shows up when the computer is inactive. Friends photo’s I can see working, but feeds not so much…

By: KUTO

KUTO — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:14:44 +0000

I still don’t see how it’s a money maker for the same reason Pointcast wasn’t:

By: Harold Bunker

Harold Bunker — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:31:38 +0000

Similiar to FrameChannel (www.framechannel.com), but it appears that FrameChannel is bit more mature.

By: chris

chris — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 05:50:32 +0000

Sounds very very similar to FoxSaver, which turns idle FireFox into a screensaver.

Except FoxSaver can play any Media RSS content.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 03:16:07 +0000

elementary school? has that already been pointed out?

By: Bob Warfield

Bob Warfield — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 23:17:38 +0000

Pointcast had an even more fundamental problem: it was ad revenue driven but only displayed ads after whoever was on the computer quit using it and the screensaver came up.

How can that have been a good idea in retrospect?

Perhaps this new whizbang will be better. At least when you come back to the PC there might be something interesting enough to get your attention before you log back in.

I still don’t see how it’s a money maker for the same reason Pointcast wasn’t:

Most of the time it runs nobody is looking at it by definition.

Cheers,

By: Alec

Alec — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:44:53 +0000

Oh, one more thing…do we really want to sit and stare at a screensaver when we can simply go to the Facebook entry page to get a summary? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that much time to waste. Give me Sage — Firefox RSS reader — so I can quickly gleen the info I need and move on.
I’m guessing there’s at least a small market out there, though. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have wasted there time, right? right? hmmmm…..

By: Alec

Alec — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:40:10 +0000

I was working with PointCast at the time of their demise. Some of the modular web portal ideas we were building were way ahead of the competition. Unfortunately, the company was crumbling around our ears and most of us bailed weeks before the final collapse.
A lot of really smart people working there…

By: Jason McMinn

Jason McMinn — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:35:37 +0000

Pointcast received a $400 million offer from News Corp. I actually built some of the “screens” for their network in a previous life. The whole setup was a gimmick.

By: phenom

phenom — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:27:10 +0000

which generation do u guys belong….never heard of Pointcast…as if it matters..Anyways the application is cool and original in my opinion.

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:07:40 +0000

I don’t get this screensaver stuff… Doesn’t the screensaver come on when YOU’RE NOT USING YOUR COMPUTER?

Maybe I’m the only person who doesn’t stare at screensavers… I use them to “save” my “screen”.

By: Stef

Stef — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:44:16 +0000

I don’t understand the RSS Reader integration into a screensaver. My screensaver is here to save energy when I don’t use my computer. Why would I spend time in front of my screensaver, instead of going to my RSS reader?

By: Ronald Lewis

Ronald Lewis — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:48:03 +0000

Chirp, chirp. The “push” of data to the desktop is NOT dead.

By: karl

karl — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:31:23 +0000

#6 – Funny… That’s the standout point for me as well. You had the internet in elementary school!!!! LOL!!!

By: FakeMA

FakeMA — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:18:23 +0000

I have made an RSS reader into screensaver u can find it here
http://www.down...4-10604652.html

By: Michael Pinto

Michael Pinto — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:47:16 +0000

The irony is that my Mac RSS screensaver is pretty much exactly what PointCast was doing back in the day. Those cats were ahead of their time!

By: Mark Hendrickson

Mark Hendrickson — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:44:25 +0000

#6 – Amy: The truth had to come out at some point =)

By: airj1012

airj1012 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:40:24 +0000

#5 – I also told them of that idea. As being the #1 photo sharing website you think that might be an option.

I know Facebook did a great job by opening up their platform so developers could design their own applications but I believe that Facebook should continue to make their own and continually to update their own portfolio. I hope they don’t take a back seat approach and just let everyone else “do the work”.

Hopefully we won’t have to hold our breathe too long and Facebook will launch their own full size imagine option in their photo application.

By: Amy Wilsch

Amy Wilsch — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:40:17 +0000

elementary school in the mid-90’s? I thought you were quite a bit older than that…

By: Mark Hendrickson

Mark Hendrickson — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:31:03 +0000

#2 – I agree, it would be great if Facebook preserved the original file size of photos…or at least gave us a decent file sharing system.

By: Dave Toledo

Dave Toledo — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:29:50 +0000

I loved PointCast! It was a service ahead of its time. I was sad to see it die. I always thought once bandwidth wasn’t an issue, a service like it would return. People leave their computers on now-a-days and with the always on connection, using the screen saver to update them with news and information they want is a great idea.

By: * Miss Universe

* Miss Universe — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:28:13 +0000

This was an awesome technology that unfortunately was ahead of its time.

What would it have developed into – if it was allowes to flourish.

It has so much potential

By: airj1012

airj1012 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:28:04 +0000

I had this “idea” a long time ago. I’m glad that someone finally made it a reality. I used Facebook’s comment submission forms to tell them of this idea but they didn’t pay attention. Congrats. Chirpscreen.

I would also LOVE to see high resolution images on Facebook, just another thought.

By: whoopie

whoopie — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:26:33 +0000

pointcast was also an early lesson in sometimes-wisdom taking money when it is on the table (facebook’s present apparent debunking of this notwithstanding…)

as i recall, they turned down $700 million to only later end up having a $10 million firesale