Two amazing web apps from Sina

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Date: Wednesday, April 16 2008
Weather: Sunny

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Today I want to share two great web apps from Sina.

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Sina Musina Mini Player

Recently, I found almost every front page of Sina has a mini player at the bottom. I thought of is a benefit for sina pages only. But I found the official name for this amazing widget: Musina. Check it out at: http://music.sina.com.cn/musina.shtml

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If your browser support javascript and flash, you can see it right at this page. It is small, dynamic, elaborate and cool. Whenever I want to have some noise, I could simply enter the name of any song or artist. Then the music will be available right away.

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The best part is, these music are totally legal. Sina has signed copyright contracts with four major record companies to play right. You don't have to feel guilty for digital music pirating. It's free and legal.

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Another nice part of this widget is the high connection speed. I have no idea how Many servers they have, yet the speed is terrific! I can even replace my winamp and foobar, if I would have a broadband connection always. But guess what? China is testing its own 3G technology right now. We could have a broadband in hand in the near future. As long as I could get online, this widget will rock my life.

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For sure, this widget has something stops me from using it too much: the lack of support for Lastfm. Lastfm is a social music tool and basically it records all tracks you've played and share this data with your friends. The more tracks you play, the more accurate it recommends the music for you. Since what I played can not be recognized by Lastfm, I won't use it too much. Life is short, don't waste.

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Anyway, Musina is a great widget. Chinese people still have no idea of legally buying music online. It is good they could start with listening without pirating. I hope Sina could sell digital music as soon as possible:)

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Sina iStock

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Another great web app from Sina is the iStock, if I could name it as that. My colleague send me a link and ask me to browse it on my iPod touch. I have to say I'm shocked. If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, click on this link to try out: http://finance.sina.com.cn/i.html

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Can you believe that? It's a stock quotation page customized for your iPhone!

I don't know whose idea it is. But surely it rocks. Although there won't be as many visitors as ordinary pages have, this small page will attract iPhone owners in China, at least the stock holders. According to China Mobile, there were over 400,000 iPhones running in their network in January 2008. It is not a small number. If these people feel good on this product, they could be Sina's loyal visitor in the future.

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Now I have one more bookmark on my iPod touch. I have one more place to hang out when I finish reading my feeds on Google Reader:)

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I'm also interested in the rotating skills they used in the iStock page. When you rotate the device, the layout will change.

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If you browse it with a portrait mode, it will show you with the latest news on the stock symbol. When you changed your iPhone or iPod touch into landscape mode, the detailed stock info, price and graph will show. What a nice idea!

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To be straight, I thought sina won't be an innovation center before. But after today, I have confident that sina will always surprise me with it amazing products. What else can I say? I will make more friends from the development team:) They are the source and magician for these cool toys.

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Go Sina, Go!

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ps.
I am currently employed by sina. But this blog is totally personal.

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ps2.
写英文Blog完全是因为我的iPod Touch没有中文输入法，同时我的台式PC没有开机，我的Eee PC没有电了。