To display the most relevant entries to you in priority,
vote for the stories you are interested in
()
and reject those that you are not interested in
()
We know porn helps drive
adoption of many new technologies. But as video delivered over the Web
takes off, how much of that is attributable to smut? Difficult to say; companies on all ends
of the value chain benefit from the traffic but don't like to talk about it.
But here's a clue: each month, comScore and Nielsen estimate the size of the U.S. web video
market. They have vastly different methodologies, but both the biggest difference is one of
philosophy: Nielsen's VideoCensus
excludes porn and advertising, while comScore includes all video.
That's one reason comScore's numbers are consistently 30% to 40% higher than Nielsen's. In June,
for example, Nielsen measured 7.5 billion unique video streams in the U.S.; comScore had 10.8
billion streams. The difference: 44%, which seems as good a ballpark figure as any.
It also helps
explain how YouTube can have a dominating 51% market share in one estimate (Nielsen -- no
porn and ads) and 39% share in another (comScore -- everything).
Of course, deciding what's porn -- or what's advertising, for that matter -- isn't easy. Nielsen
and comScore would both have counted the 2.8 million YouTube views for this porn parody from
These People. And is "Cherry
Chocolate Rain," the viral promotional
video that Tay Zonday shot for Dr. Pepper -- which has been watched some 5.8 million times on
YouTube -- counted as an ad?
Are critics and analysts waiting breathless on the edge of their seats? No, says the FT's Richard
Waters. Why? Because they've already panned it.
When the first of Google's
long-anticipated Android mobile phones hit the stores in a matter of weeks, they will land with a
fizzle rather than a bang.
That is the overwhelming verdict of internet developers and mobile industry executives who have
closely followed Google's progress and, in some cases, worked with early versions...
For Google, comparisons with Apple are turning out to be both inevitable and damning. If the
iPhone has been a text-book case of how to develop and market a new consumer electronics product,
Android is the opposite, according to industry experts. 'It ain't no iPhone,' said John Jackson,
an analyst at Yankee Group, echoing a widely held view.
Disparagement of Android has touched on everything from an alleged lack of sophistication and
stability in the software, to the fact that successful devices such as the iPhone and the
BlackBerry are based on
a different technology model. 'The best experiences out there today are vertical' experiences,
where the hardware and software come from the same company,' said Tom Conrad, chief technology
officer of Pandora, whose internet music service is one of the most popular applications on the
iPhone.
More important, according to some critics, has been Google's lack of clear consumer focus, in
marked contrast to Apple, whose iPhone was designed and marketed to meet very specific needs.
I haven’t had a lot of time to jump into the fracas this weekend
emerging about TechCrunch50 because the team has been busy organizing the conference and spending
hours and hours working with the 52 startups that will be launching at the event to make sure
their demos properly reflect what they’ve worked so hard to create.
But I do have a few things to say.
First, thanks to Chris O’Brien at the San Jose Mercury News who wrote such a great
article on TechCrunch and the conference. What a wonderful, positive way to kick things off
as we go into the craziness on Monday. He really gets what we’re trying to accomplish and
how honored we are that these startups have chosen to launch at our event.
Second, I some of the press out there is starting to go a little crazy with the
drama between TechCrunch50 and Demo. We’ve stated from the beginning that we think the DEMO
format is unethical. If you are going to parade out a bunch of startups on a stage that paid you
$18,500 each, you simply can’t say they’re the most qualified companies to be at the
event. It’s just a lie. Here’s what they are: Sponsors. And here’s what’s
going on: Payola.
We’re approaching the market in a straightforward and honest way. We aren’t charging
companies to get on stage. We are charging people to attend. And we also have sponsors (really
kick ass sponsors
who get what we are trying to do). All of the economics are transparent, there is nothing hidden.
Most of the press gets this, and DEMO organizer Chris Shipley sounds like she’s about
to blow a fuse over the fact that their business model is finally being questioned.
Third, CNET really needs to chill out about press coverage of the event. This
$1.8
billion company has published atleastfourarticles whining about
the fact that we are not disclosing the companies launching at the event until Monday morning,
and/or about the fact that TechCrunch the blog has some sort of unfair advantage in covering
these startups launching at TechCrunch50.
We aren’t disclosing the names of the startups because we want the press to actually attend
the event, not cover it from their office. We want them to hear the ooh’s and ahh’s
(and maybe boo’s) from the audience first hand as they write their stories. We want them to
actually participate. And based on last year’s coverage, the model works very well.
I’m sorry if it doesn’t suit CNET, but it suits us and it suits the startups
launching there very well. And when it comes to TechCrunch’s coverage, we’ll be sure
to link out to all the quality third party coverage out there. Also, we’ll have critical
company information on each launching startup available on CrunchBase starting Monday morning.
CNET and everyone else is free to grab that data and use it however they like, with no
requirement of attribution (it’s not our data, it’s the startups’ data).
Finally, Can we please remember what’s important? There are 52 companies
launching at TechCrunch50 this week, and they deserve their brief moments in the spotlight. These
people have put their hearts and souls into creating whatever it is that their entrepreneurial
spirit compelled them to create, and they only get to launch once. We’re putting on one
hell of a show for them, and my sincere hope is that we can get all this political garbage out of
the way today so that we can focus on what really matters at the event: the startups.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool
over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
An image of Pope Clement V apparently absolving the Knights Templar of heresy charges 700 years
ago, from the book Processus Contra Templarios. The book is a compilation of documents found in the
Vatican's secret archives in 2001. AP August 17, 2008 · A group of people claiming to
be the heirs of the legendary Knights Templar are suing Pope Benedict XVI, seeking more than $150
billion for
As the best video game in 4.5 billion years finally launches this weekend, PM's resident geek
crawls the best of Spore Creature Creator for the handful of otherworldly invaders, from Predator
to the bloodsucks of H.G. Wells, that will bring the customized gameplay back into this world.
When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google on Sept. 7, 1998, they had little more than
their ingenuity, four computers and an investor's $100,000 bet on their belief that an Internet
search engine could change the world. It sounded preposterous 10 years ago, but look now: Google
draws upon a gargantuan computer network, nearly 20,000 employees and a $150 billion market value
to redefine media, marketing and technology. Perhaps Google's biggest test in the next decade will
be finding a way to pursue its seemingly boundless ambitions without triggering a backlash that
derails the company.
LEHMAN BROTHERS is preparing to split into two separately listed companies, as rescue talks between
the beleaguered $11 billion ($£6.2 billion) investment bank and the Korea Development Bank
appear to be running out of time.
THE government may force power generators such as Drax, British Energy and International Power into
paying for part of the £1 billion fuel-poverty package it hopes to unveil this week.
THE French utility giant EDF was this weekend close to securing the shareholder support it needs to
seal a £12 billion takeover of British Energy, the UK’s only nuclear power generator.
The Government is practically defrauding the nation. The UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi herself
selects all the sub-power centres or her coterie. But, by and large, the Union Ministry is packed
with pygmies. Even the experienced Ministers do not have the courage to discuss pros and cons of
critical matters falling under their domain with 10 Janpath. The Home Minister of a country of 1.2
billion
If only it were the $64 million question. The taxpayer bill for rescuing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
could turn out to be the $64 billion question. Or more - or less.
During the September 5 edition of ABC's World News, after ABC News correspondent David
Wright asserted that Gov. Sarah Palin "attacked [Sen. Barack] Obama for what he told Bill
O'Reilly last night about the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq," Wright aired a quote from Obama's
interview on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, saying, "I've already said, it's succeeded
beyond our wildest dreams." Wright then stated, "The McCain campaign has been pushing Obama for
weeks to admit that he was wrong to oppose the surge, a policy McCain championed early on,"
falsely suggesting that Obama said during his interview that he was wrong to oppose the surge. In
fact, during the interview on the September 4 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, after
Obama said, "I've already said it succeeded beyond our wildest dreams," host Bill O'Reilly asked,
"So why can't you say, 'I was right in the beginning, and I was wrong about the surge?'" Obama
responded, "Because there's an underlying problem with what have we done. We have reduced the
violence, but the Iraqis still haven't taken responsibility, and we still don't have the kind of
political reconciliation. We are still spending, Bill, $10 to $12 billion a month."
From the September 4 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: I think you were desperately wrong on the surge, and I think you should admit it to the
nation that now, we have defeated the terrorists in Iraq, and the Al Qaeda came there after we
invaded, as you know. OK? We've defeated them.
OBAMA: Right. Absolutely.
O'REILLY: If we didn't, they would have used it as a staging ground. We've also inhibited Iran
from controlling the southern part of Iraq by the surge, which you did not support. So why won't
you say, "I was right in the beginning. I was wrong about that"?
OBAMA: You know, if you listen to what I've said, and I'll repeat it right here on this show, I
think that there's no doubt that the violence is down. I believe that that is a testimony to the
troops that were sent and General [David] Petraeus and Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker. I think that
the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated, by the way, including President Bush and
the other supporters. It has gone very well, partly because of the Anbar situation --
O'REILLY: The awakening. Right.
OBAMA: -- and the Sunni awakening, partly because of the Shia military. Look --
O'REILLY: But if were up to you, there wouldn't have been a surge.
OBAMA: Well, look --
O'REILLY: No, no, no, no.
OBAMA: No, no, no, no, no, no, no --
O'REILLY: If it were up to you, there wouldn't have been a surge.
OBAMA: No, no, no, no. Hold on.
O'REILLY: You and Joe Biden, no surge.
OBAMA: Hold on a second, Bill. If you look at the debate that was taking place, we had gone
through five years of mismanagement of this war that I thought was disastrous. And the president
wanted to double down and continue on an open-ended policy that did not create the kinds of
pressure on the Iraqis to take responsibility and reconcile.
O'REILLY: But it worked. It worked. Come on.
OBAMA: Bill, what I said is -- I've already said it
succeed beyond our wildest dreams.
O'REILLY: Right. So why can't you say, "I was right
in the beginning, and I was wrong about the surge"?
OBAMA: Because there's an underlying problem with
what we've done. We have reduced the violence --
O'REILLY: Yeah.
OBAMA: -- but the Iraqis still haven't taken
responsibility, and we still don't have the kind of political reconciliation. We are still
spending, Bill, $10 to $12 billion a month.
From the September 5 edition of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:
WRIGHT: Governor Palin seems to be warming to her role as the campaign pitbull. Today she
attacked Obama for what he told Bill O'Reilly last night about the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq.
WRIGHT: The McCain campaign has been pushing Obama for weeks to admit he was wrong to oppose the
surge, a policy McCain championed early on.
PALIN [video clip]: I guess when you turn out to be profoundly wrong on a vital national security
issue, maybe it's comforting to pretend that everyone else was wrong, too.
WRIGHT: If you could articulate what the strategy is for the homestretch.
Nirupam Sen told the delegates of the UN General Assembly: India continues to be a victim of
international terrorism. No political cause, argument or belief can and should justify acts of
terrorism. Terrorism is a "pervasive and insidious" threat to global security. India has sought a
concerted action to root out its networks and deter regimes from encouraging and harbouring armed
This is a fairly important question to consider, I think. The gaming industry clocks in
billions of dollars in revenue each year, a good portion of which is devoted to mobile sales. Yet
if mobile Web use is going to continue climb at the solid clip, and mobile phones are to be smart
and powerful enough to conquer interactive entertainment, is there room for platforms devoted
primarily to gaming?
While Sony’s PSP hasn’t seen itself become a phenom of the mobile gaming space, the
Nintendo DS is an item
which has often been touted as something of a marvel; nearly as cool as the Wii when it first
arrived. Nintendo has consistently sold millions for several quarters. And the company will
undoubtedly sell more. But just how much more? And if/when momentum slows to a trickle, then a
crawl, and then stops, what comes after? Does Nintendo move into software exclusively, bringing
Mario, et al. to the iPhone,
Android devices,
Nokia handhelds, and other
systems?
What triggered my interest in this subject isn’t gaming itself. The most I would consider
myself is a very occasional gamer. Once in a while a little Sudoku, some Tetris, some chess.
Also, I’ve recently been draw to the “Cannon Challenge” [iTunes URL] game freely issued by Discovery for iPhone/iPod touch users. Otherwise
my free moments are devoted to other pursuits. No, gaming isn’t really the focus here.
Rather, it is the way in which mobile platforms themselves are evolving that is the basis for
this comment. They are evolving to the point that Nintendo’s handhelds, and those of its
competitor(s), will be no more. Why? Internet connectivity. More precisely, always-on
Internet connectivity.
It’s been said constantly for over a year now by various persons well-known and not so
well-known: the iPhone is a great gaming platform. Leo Laporte of TWiT, The Tech Guy, and The Lab fame, says so. Regularly. The co-hosts of
“Diggnation” offer similar
praise for the thing. I’ll say so, too. And by categorial association, I would say a number
of other smartphones are similarly equipped to provide gameplay that’s visually impressive
and entertaining as well. Indeed, because of computing power alone, it might be argued that the
likes of Nintendo won’t be able to extend its legacy in a tangible sense for many more
years.
Yes, it’s important to emphasize this new and very big nail in the coffin of
convention. It’s a point that has been echoed with increased volume in recent months. The
ever-present mobile Web. If game developers take up the task of engineering titles to connect
players with one another without limit to place or time - or, reversely, dependent on place and
time - the sort of gaming that comes with the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP in their
current Wi-Fi-enabled form, is going to quickly become outdated.
Of course, Sony has a convenient bridge to the next era of mobile gaming in its partnership with
Ericsson in the mobile phone world. That is something Sony should address, and sooner rather than
later. But Nintendo, interestingly enough, doesn’t have that option. Not yet, at least. And
rather than establish exclusives with one handset maker or another, it may well be better off
investing little to naught in hardware and focus instead on publishing titles compatible with the
modern smartphone platforms of today.
Not too long ago a report released by comScore noted that US mobile subscribers’ had
essentially balanced pan-Atlantic rate of 3G adoption with residents of Europe, after years of
lagging behind. If comScore’s numbers are anything accurate, they only add weight to the
line that mobile phone gaming is the logical extension to come from the market. The next cash
cow. Naturally, this requires that consumers take to the all-in-one approach to mobile
communications, which they’ve been slow to do. But the advent of Nokia’s newest
N-Series devices as well as those from Apple and Samsung, etc., have done much to whet the
consumer palate. So much so that a migration is simply inevitable.
To be sure, this is a good thing. Change rarely does good things for nostalgia, but it
enables progress to continue on. The sheer volume of possible applications of GPS- and 3G- and
4G-infused networking, let alone gameplay, piques the interest of millions of people. Privacy is
of course an ever-present concern. But gamers have made plain their desire to take the
multiplayer experience as far as it can allow. That has been the case with Xbox Live fans,
PC-based MMORPG devotees, and it will also be true for mobile gamers, too. Heck, the
possibilities given via the Nintendo DS specifically have intrigued a global supply of users. So
gaming over wireless cellular telephony spectrum is really just upping the ante. It is very much
within reach.
Now, there is a limit to what you can do given that sort of infrastructure and personal
componentry. A small screen can only provide so much opportunity to developers. But the social
aspect is where things go big. It’s more a matter of developers’ thinking anew about
the handheld world, and seeing what they’ve already constructed in the realm of iPhone and
Android, they presumably won’t be short for ingenuity for many years to come.
Which brings us back to the future that Nintendo - and to lesser extent, Sony - will encounter
and be forced to navigate. Mobile gaming is critical to its business, regardless of its clear
success with the Wii. Will we see Mario soon emerge on the N96, a BlackBerry’s touchscreen,
the iPhone, and a Sony Ericsson Walkman of some sort? I’ll venture to say yes. Somewhat
soon, anyway. It’s only sensible that they make it happen. If only because it has become
increasingly evident that smartphones themselves are now being designed to be the next generation
of all-purpose playgrounds, and Nintendo could well make a fortune introducing itself and its
trademark craftwork to the wider world of pocket computers and the cloud they inhabit.
---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:
If you were interviewing someone for a
position with your company and they admitted that they didn't know anything about the new trends
and innovations taking place in their field, what would you think? Likely, what you would think
is "next candidate, please." In today's business world, job-seekers are expected to stay current
with the happenings taking place in their area of interest. There was a time when those
happenings were very much job-specific and anything having to do with technology fell squarely on
the shoulders of I.T. That time has passed. Web 2.0 technologies lifted the veil of mystery
surrounding computing technology and made it accessible to everyone. Today, if you're not staying
current with Web 2.0 technologies' impact on business, then you're just not staying current.
Period.
Web 2.0 Is Everywhere
No matter which department you're in, Web 2.0 technologies have had an impact. If you've been
ignoring their prevalence and adoption, you're at risk of falling behind in your career and your
business is at risk of losing ground to its competitors who are tuned into this trend.
Here at ReadWriteWeb, we deliver news about Web 2.0's impact on business in addition to news
about web technologies in general. Depending on your area of interest, you can find a lot of
great information on this subject in our archives. Or simply bookmark this post for easy
reference.
Document Collaboration Suites
GroupSwim is an innovative company which has created an intelligent
community building and collaboration SaaS solution. They aim to connect individuals and build
knowledge utilizing social based methodologies. Read more.
DreamFactory's suite of Enterprise 2.0 applications consists
of a Project Management module, a Time and Expense Module, a Document Manager, and a Team
Calendar. Originally, the company was available on Amazon Web Services, but now DreamFactory's
software will be available on Intuit's QuickBase
platform, too. Read
more.
Box.net offers collaboration functionality which allows any Box.net user
can invite collaborators to any folder in their account. The collaboration feature is also fully
compatible with all the OpenBox services, which extends online collaboration beyond just word
processor documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, similar to what Google Docs currently
offers. Read
more.
The term groupware refers to applications that facilitate real-time
communication, coordination and collaboration amongst groups of people. A number of startups are
working hard to develop the nascent groupware market, so in this post we identify some of those
startups and provide an overview of where the market is heading...read more.
What's the Deal With Wikis?
Only a
handful of years ago, it was common to hear people laugh at Wikipedia. Anyone can edit it! How could you take it seriously? These
days, just as blogs are, wikis are on their way to winning a reputation as serious publishing
platforms. Wikis are now serious business. Read more.
Atlassian Confluence, makers of one of the
most popular enterprise wiki solutions, offers Microsoft Office and SharePoint integration in
their release of the Confluence 2.9 software. With these new tools, users no longer have to know
the technicalities of wiki markup or even how to use the included rich-text WYSIWYG editor in
order to make changes to the wiki - they can simply open up a Microsoft Office document instead.
Read more.
WetPaint, a popular hosted Wiki solution, provides
person-to-person and private messaging between users of their Wiki network. This means that
Wetpaint Wiki users can now send single or multi-person private messages, to connect and
collaborate with others about their interests. This post introduces wikis and discusees
who is using them and for what purpose.First, wikis are described and then the
range of wiki products in the market right now is explored. Read more.
Leave it
to people in the wiki market to know how to collaborate. Nearly 20 different wiki providers have
teamed up to offer a new Firefox extension that will notify users whenever they are on a page
that is publicly editable, using a standard icon that sits in the same place the RSS
autodiscovery icon appears. Clicking on the icon (img. on the left) will take you to that page's
editing interface. Read more.
What's Office 2.0?
Web Office Defined: A Web Office suite is a combination of productivity, publishing
and collaboration features. A Web Office both embraces the functionality of desktop office suites
(e.g. Microsoft Office) and extends it by using Web Native features. Read more.
The State of Office 2.0: Over the past 10 years, Corel, Sun, IBM and others have tried to
compete with Microsoft in the office software business, but thus far none of them have been able
to take a significant chunk of Microsoft's large market share, which generates revenues exceeding
$15 billion each year. These companies have tried everything; including Sun open sourcing their
StarOffice suite and releasing it as the free OpenOffice.
Yet, even this very compelling move has not been able to make a serious dent in the market.
Read more.
Microsoft
announced their Office Live Workspace is publicly available for everyone to access. The site,
a free web-based extension of Microsoft Office, lets you access your documents online and share
your work with others. Some say that the service's launch is a direct response to Google's entry
into the web office space with their Google Docs online service. If that's so, then the question
now is: did Microsoft just trump Google Docs? Or does Google Docs still rule online office
suites?
Read more.
The Web Office
was a market that underwent a lot of changes in 2007. Our definition of Web Office is: A
Web Office suite is a combination of productivity, publishing and collaboration features. A Web
Office both embraces the functionality of desktop office suites (e.g. Microsoft Office) and
extends it by using Web Native features. The 2007 year in review: Read more.
This is the
perspective of a "skeptical, later early adopter"; the sort of person who Microsoft needs to
retain and should have been able to retain easily. I don't spend time on productivity tools that
may at some date make me more productive, but which today are just a frustrating time sink. That
describes the majority of people. MS Office can be annoying, but it does work. So any serious
alternative has to offer a significant advantage and at the same time make adoption a total
breeze. Read
more.
EditGrid, the main product of HongKong-based
company Team and Concepts (TnC) Ltd., is a leading Web 2.0 online spreadsheet service that
focuses on online collaboration and interoperability. Read more.
eXpresso was named as one of PC World's 25 Most Innovative Products
of the Year for 2007. PC World succinctly summed the product up: "[it] allows Excel users to
share their spreadsheets, online or off." eXpresso is different from the web office contenders
that you normally hear about on ReadWriteWeb for three reasons...Read more.
Zimbra is looking to expand its platform to the
iPhone. Recently they announced Zimbra Mobile for iPhone 2.0. Zimbra Mobile for iPhone 2.0 will
allow iPhone users over-the-air two-way synchronization of e-mails, calendar, contacts, and
photos between user mailboxes and mobile devices, and seamless "push" e-mail service for all
Zimbra Collaboration Suite users. Read more.
A
report released by Forrester Research is predicting that enterprise spending on Web
2.0 technologies is going to increase dramatically over the next five years. This increase will
include more spending on social networking tools, mashups, and RSS, with the end result being a
global enterprise market of $4.6 billion by the year 2013. Read
more.
Enterprise 2.0 is Happening: If you're a business who has been ignoring the Web 2.0 trend
and the spread of social media: look out, the tide is shifting and you're about to be left
behind. The rise of social media didn't happen overnight, the power of the internet to unite
people, the ubiquity of broadband, the rise of Gen Y, the development of new technologies for
socializing on the web - all of these things and more have led to the rise of social media. And
this new force is affecting change in the way that companies do business - now and for many years
to come.
The break-up of behemoth, vertically integrated enterprises commenced in the 1970's, got
a boost from junk bond financing in the 1980's, and accelerated in the 1990's with globalization.
Now, late in the 2000's, Social Media (aka Web 2.0) is adding another gear that will accelerate
the fundamental restructuring of the enterprise. Read more.
Most enterprise
software sucks. That is my considered opinion from 30 years in the software biz. Words that come
to mind are: bloated, inflexible and user hostile. The good news is that it is getting better, a
lot better. The driver for change is what I call the consumerization of enterprise software.
These new software champions typically have some if not all of these 8 main attributes...Read more.
The Enterprise 2.0 Launch Pad program is a program that
allows companies to showcase their products and compete for the opportunity to present their
ideas to the community at this year's Enterprise 2.0
Conference. This competition, organized by Stowe
Boyd, began in April when companies were invited to post their video pitches to the E2 web
site. After the community voted, the list of contenders was narrowed down to five finalists who
will now compete for the final spot. For that grand prize winner, the prize is free exhibit space
at the upcoming conference. Read more.
SharePoint to run Enterprise 2.0? 9 companies are saying "yes," having recently launched
Enterprise 2.0 offerings that integrate with SharePoint technology. If there's one thing that any
I.T. pro knows it's the value of "maximizing their investment" in whatever servers they run,
technology they use, or services they've signed up for. With strict budgets in place, no I.T.
purchases are bought on a whim. Instead, each decision is researched, tested, thoughtfully
considered, and, if worthy, purchased, then rolled out to become a part of the I.T.
infrastructure. SharePoint is no exception. Read more.
Is 2.0 Affecting My Industry?
Yes! Check out the examples below of Web 2.0's impact on various industries and fields.
Finance/Banking
Google is announced
that after more than a year of work on the problem, Google Finance is now offering real-time
price quotes for any stock traded on NASDAQ. Read more.
Strands, the recommendation and lifestreaming service
we've written about here before, announced a much anticipated
deal that will put it in the driver's seat for financial recommendations served up to
millions of online banking customers around the world. The company's recommendation test-case in
music is no longer all they will be known for around the world. Read more.
We reported on a
survey that revealed that 48% of online banking customers between the ages of 18 and 34 would
be interested in using "secure gadgets for personal banking" if their bank offered them. More
than a quarter of bank customers would consider switching to another bank if it took better
advantage of web 2.0 technologies. While that survey was flawed in some ways, there is another
access point to banking information that customer may want more than secure widgets: mobile.
Read more.
48% of Bank
Customers Want Web 2.0 Gadgets. WorkLight, a startup that
offers enterprise 2.0 products, recently did a survey among Facebook users to find out their
willingness to use Web 2.0 tools for secure banking. The survey was conducted among 1000 Facebook
users between the ages of 18-34. The fact that the survey was conducted among Facebook users
gives it a bias towards tech-savvy people. However there are some surprising findings. Read more.
Accounting
Online
Accounting: State of the Market: Accounting software for small business and personal use is
increasingly moving from the desktop to online. However, compared to other office software, this
transition to online has been relatively slow. Partly that's due to user reticence: writing a
document online and sharing it with others (via Google Docs, Office Live, Zoho, or whatever you
use) is one thing. Entering sensitive financial information into your browser is harder to adjust
to. Read
more.
Project Management
Add this
one to your web office toolkit - LiquidPlanner is an
online, hosted project management tool that lets you access and update projects anywhere you have
an internet connection. The service offers you and your team a complete project environment,
social networking and collaboration features, and a probabilistic scheduling engine which tells
you the probability of completing each task - and ultimately the entire project - by a certain
date. With everything organized into a centralized dashboard that can be customized for each team
member, everyone on your team can stay focused on their tasks and how they relate to the project
as a whole. Read more.
The
Clarizen project management software came out of stealth mode last year and has now just launched
a new version with additional features. The latest version, Clarizen v 2.0, will be demoed at the
"Under the Radar Conference," an event held on
Microsoft's campus whose current theme is "The Business of Web Apps: Where the Web Goes to Work."
Read
more.
Enterprise 2.0 is a
rapidly
growing trend that takes the concepts and tools of social media (social networking, RSS,
wikis, blogs, etc.) and re-purposes them for business use, wrapping them up into
applications that make the tools at work seem more like the tools we use in our day-to-day lives.
While these enterprise 2.0 apps give us that web 2.0 feel, it's rarer to see actual Web 2.0
services like
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
This is a fairly important question to consider, I think. The gaming industry clocks in
billions of dollars in revenue each year, a good portion of which is devoted to mobile sales. Yet
if mobile Web use is going to continue climb at the solid clip, and mobile phones are to be smart
and powerful enough to conquer interactive entertainment, is there room for platforms devoted
primarily to gaming?
Yes, it’s important to emphasize this new and very big nail in the coffin of
convention. It’s a point that has been echoed with increased volume in recent months. The
ever-present mobile Web. If game developers take up the task of engineering titles to connect
players with one another without limit to place or time - or, reversely, dependent on place and
time - the sort of gaming that comes with the 
To be sure, this is a good thing. Change rarely does good things for nostalgia, but it
enables progress to continue on. The sheer volume of possible applications of GPS- and 3G- and
4G-infused networking, let alone gameplay, piques the interest of millions of people. Privacy is
of course an ever-present concern. But gamers have made plain their desire to take the
multiplayer experience as far as it can allow. That has been the case with Xbox Live fans,
PC-based MMORPG devotees, and it will also be true for mobile gamers, too. Heck, the
possibilities given via the Nintendo DS specifically have intrigued a global supply of users. So
gaming over wireless cellular telephony spectrum is really just upping the ante. It is very much
within reach.
If you were interviewing someone for a
position with your company and they admitted that they didn't know anything about the new trends
and innovations taking place in their field, what would you think? Likely, what you would think
is "next candidate, please." In today's business world, job-seekers are expected to stay current
with the happenings taking place in their area of interest. There was a time when those
happenings were very much job-specific and anything having to do with technology fell squarely on
the shoulders of I.T. That time has passed. Web 2.0 technologies lifted the veil of mystery
surrounding computing technology and made it accessible to everyone. Today, if you're not staying
current with Web 2.0 technologies' impact on business, then you're just not staying current.
Period.
Only a
handful of years ago, it was common to hear people laugh at 
Leave it
to people in the wiki market to know how to collaborate. Nearly 20 different wiki providers have
teamed up to offer a new Firefox extension that will 
Web Office Defined: A Web Office suite is a combination of productivity, publishing
and collaboration features. A Web Office both embraces the functionality of desktop office suites
(e.g. Microsoft Office) and extends it by using Web Native features. 
The State of Office 2.0: Over the past 10 years, Corel, Sun, IBM and others have tried to
compete with Microsoft in the office software business, but thus far none of them have been able
to take a significant chunk of Microsoft's large market share, which generates revenues exceeding
$15 billion each year. These companies have tried everything; including Sun open sourcing their
StarOffice suite and releasing it as the free 
The Web Office
was a market that underwent a lot of changes in 2007. Our 
This is the
perspective of a "skeptical, later early adopter"; the sort of person who Microsoft needs to
retain and should have been able to retain easily. I don't spend time on productivity tools that
may at some date make me more productive, but which today are just a frustrating time sink. That
describes the majority of people. MS Office can be annoying, but it does work. So any serious
alternative has to offer a significant advantage and at the same time make adoption a total
breeze. 
A
Enterprise 2.0 is Happening: If you're a business who has been ignoring the Web 2.0 trend
and the spread of social media: look out, the tide is shifting and you're about to be left
behind. The rise of social media didn't happen overnight, the power of the internet to unite
people, the ubiquity of broadband, the rise of Gen Y, the development of new technologies for
socializing on the web - all of these things and more have led to the rise of social media. And
this new force is affecting change in the way that companies do business - now and for many years
to come.
The break-up of behemoth, vertically integrated enterprises commenced in the 1970's, got
a boost from junk bond financing in the 1980's, and accelerated in the 1990's with globalization.
Now, late in the 2000's, Social Media (aka Web 2.0) is adding another gear that will accelerate
the fundamental restructuring of the enterprise. 
Most enterprise
software sucks. That is my considered opinion from 30 years in the software biz. Words that come
to mind are: bloated, inflexible and user hostile. The good news is that it is 
The 
SharePoint to run Enterprise 2.0? 9 companies are saying "yes," having recently launched
Enterprise 2.0 offerings that integrate with SharePoint technology. If there's one thing that any
I.T. pro knows it's the value of "maximizing their investment" in whatever servers they run,
technology they use, or services they've signed up for. With strict budgets in place, no I.T.
purchases are bought on a whim. Instead, each decision is researched, tested, thoughtfully
considered, and, if worthy, purchased, then rolled out to become a part of the I.T.
infrastructure. SharePoint is no exception. 
Google is 
We 
48% of Bank
Customers Want Web 2.0 Gadgets. 
Online
Accounting: State of the Market: Accounting software for small business and personal use is
increasingly moving from the desktop to online. However, compared to other office software, this
transition to online has been relatively slow. Partly that's due to user reticence: writing a
document online and sharing it with others (via Google Docs, Office Live, Zoho, or whatever you
use) is one thing. Entering sensitive financial information into your browser is harder to adjust
to. 
Add this
one to your web office toolkit - 
The
Clarizen project management software came out of stealth mode last year and has now just launched
a new version with additional features. The latest version, Clarizen v 2.0, will be demoed at the
"
Enterprise 2.0 is a