Tag Archive for 'Web2.0'

Page 2 of 8

Facebook’s Platform will Rule them All

Published on November 17, 2010 in Real-Time Web and Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

“Email–I can’t imagine life without it–is probably going away,” said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in June, citing how only 11% of teens use email daily.

That’s the same story parroted Monday by Sandberg’s boss, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who introduced the company’s new messaging service by suggesting a generational shift away from email.

Based on Sandberg’s and Zuckerberg’s comments, it’s no surprise the blogosphere proclaimed the social network’s new service a “Gmail killer.” But that’s entirely the wrong term to be using. For starters, Gmail isn’t that big a deal. It has only a 15% market share. Hotmail has double and Yahoo triple that userbase. Facebook isn’t interested in killing off any of them as a messaging platform–its goal is to rise above them all, contain them all, and thereby rule them all [Source].

Related stories:

  • Why Facebook Wants Your E-Mail [Click]
  • How Facebook plans to reinvent email and online messaging [Click]
  • How Facebook’s Messages System Helps It Win [Click]
  • Schimdt on Facebook Messages: Competition Is Good [Click]

The Web Is Reborn (HTML 5)

Published on November 6, 2010 in High Tech & Media and Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The last decade expanded what we could do online, but the Web’s basic programming couldn’t keep up. That threatened to fracture the world’s greatest innovation engine—until a small group of Web rivals (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) joined forces to save it.

The central goal of HTML5 is to give websites the chance to expand beyond pages and into programs. For instance, the language will have tags for video and audio, which should dramatically streamline the way the Web handles multimedia: it will be as easy for a Web developer to incorporate a film clip or a song as it is to place text and images.

In some ways, HTML5 is taking the best of how the Web works and making it standard. For instance, today Gmail lets you take a file from a computer desktop and instantly attach it to an e-mail by dragging it into the browser window [Source].

One of the most illustrative applications of HTML5 is “The Wilderness Downtown,” an interactive video that the Canadian band Arcade Fire unveiled in September through a collaboration with Google.

Real-Time Measurement of Public Opinion

Published on October 26, 2010 in Real-Time Web. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Harvard-Developed Tool Measures Real-Time Public Opinion on Social Media.

Crimson Hexagon analyses online conversations about a given subject using its unique “statistical human-assisted approach.” Developed at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, the technology originally began as the “hyper-accurate estimation, classification, and quantification of unstructured data,” says company CEO Scott Centurino, which, in non-science speak, just means the measurement of public opinion from unsolicited data.

The company uses sophisticated algorithms and dynamic dashboards to dig through and track massive amounts of information in real-time [Source].

“There’s a real value in tapping into these millions or billions of conversations online, where people are talking openly and honestly about what’s important to them,” says Centurino. “Our real kick comes from being able to understand the underlying themes from those conversations, so you can actually act on them. If all I know is that negative things are being said, what can I possibly do with that information?”

The New Faces of Social Media

Published on October 25, 2010 in Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

From YouTube celebrities to chief social-media officers, these unexpected players exert outsize impact and power online — offering new channels of communication that businesses can’t afford to ignore.

For businesses, the definition of influence is less important than its impact. And there is a new, emerging generation of web personalities whose activities are having impact, online and off. FastCompany has taken a snapshot of this universe, highlighting six categories, including YouTube celebrities such as iJustine; chief social-media officers at major corporations; and specialist bloggers in key industries. Few of these new influentials are household names — yet. Unless your home happens to be one of those that are absolutely devoted to them.

2010 Young Innovators Under 35

Published on October 24, 2010 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , .

MIT Technology Review’s annual selection of the world’s top innovators under the age of 35.

Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review have honored the young innovators whose inventions and research we find most exciting; today that collection is the TR35, a list of technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35. Their work–spanning medicine, computing, communications, electronics, nanotechnology, and more–is changing our world.

Find the entire list of ideas and detailed profiles here.
.

Untangling the Social Web

Published on September 5, 2010 in Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Software: From retailing to counterterrorism, the ability to analyse social connections is proving increasingly useful.

The market for such software is booming. By one estimate there are more than 100 programs for network analysis, also known as link analysis or predictive analysis. The raw data used may extend far beyond phone records to encompass information available from private and governmental entities, and internet sources such as Facebook. Adoption is being driven by the availability of more sources of information, and by the fact that network-analysis software is becoming easier to use.

Where is network analysis headed? The next step beyond mapping influence between individuals is to map the influences between larger segments of society. A forecasting model developed by Venkatramana Subrahmanian of the University of Maryland does just that. Called SOMA Terror Organization Portal, it analyses a wide range of information about politics, business and society in Lebanon to predict, with surprising accuracy, rocket attacks by the country’s Hizbullah militia on Israel [Source].

The Future of the Internet

Published on September 4, 2010 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The internet has been a great unifier of people, companies and online networks. Powerful forces are threatening to balkanise it.

The first internet boom, a decade and a half ago, resembled a religious movement. Omnipresent cyber-gurus, often framed by colourful PowerPoint presentations reminiscent of stained glass, prophesied a digital paradise in which not only would commerce be frictionless and growth exponential, but democracy would be direct and the nation-state would no longer exist.

The internet is too important for governments to ignore. They are increasingly finding ways to enforce their laws in the digital realm. The most prominent is China’s “great firewall”. The Chinese authorities are using the same technology that companies use to stop employees accessing particular websites and online services.

It should come as no surprise that the internet is being pulled apart on every level. “While technology can gravely wound governments, it rarely kills them,” Debora Spar, president of Barnard College at Columbia University, wrote several years ago in her book, “Ruling the Waves”. “This was all inevitable,” argues Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, under the headline “The Web is Dead” in the September issue of the magazine. “A technology is invented, it spreads, a thousand flowers bloom, and then someone finds a way to own it, locking out others.”

[Source]

Facebook is Pushing a Platform Strategy

Published on July 14, 2010 in Global Strategy and Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Facebook is going to go beyond rolling out standalone applications for iPhones, Google Android devices or feature phones and start considering itself a platform for developers to distribute mobile apps with.

“Where we’re going from here is a platform strategy. We’re going away from a one-off app strategy,” said Erick Tseng in his first public appearance since joining Facebook as head of mobile products. Speaking at VentureBeat’s MobileBeat conference today, he said the company will start building out this effort over the next several months [Source].

The Emerging Online Giants

Published on July 10, 2010 in Emerging Markets. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

At first glance the three firms could not look more different.

DST was created in 2005 when two Russian internet investors, Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger, pooled their interests in mail.ru, a Russian web portal. Today the firm controls many of the country’s leading websites and boasts an interesting mix of owners, including Goldman Sachs and Alisher Usmanov, a Russian billionaire, who holds 27%.

Based in Cape Town, Naspers is nearly 100 years old and is the publisher of the Daily Sun, South Africa’s biggest newspaper. But it is one of the most ambitious old-media companies anywhere in its move online. It still makes most of its sales—28 billion rand ($3.6 billion) in the year to March—from print and pay-television, but it uses the cash to buy online firms.

Tencent hails from Shenzhen, near Hong Kong. Founded in 1998, it had revenues of $1.8 billion in 2009 [Full article here].

The Most Influential Women in Technology

Published on April 26, 2010 in High Tech & Media and Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Last year, Fast Company raised plenty of eyebrows by publishing a ranking on “Most Influential Women in Technology”. To compose an updated 2010 ranking it received an overwhelming number of nominees and fresh names proved that. Nonetheless, women in tech remain at a distinct disadvantage by almost any metric (average salary, top-management representation, etc). However, there is also plenty to celebrate and be inspired by. Fast Company categorised those woman into seven categories respectively:

  • The Executives
  • The Activists
  • The Media
  • The Entrepreneurs
  • The Evangelists
  • The Gamers
  • The Brainiacs

Also check out the list of “Most Influential Women in Web 2.0” published in 2008 by Fast Company.