This week: business folk getting interested in Web 2.0, Adam Curry podcasting from 2.0 perspective, cool Web 2.0 'mini-apps', wrap-up of the adverts in RSS debate, Bosworth's Web of Data.
From MBA to Master of Web 2.0?
I get accused of being too geeky sometimes on Read/Write Web (no argument there!). So I'm on the hunt for more business-related Web 2.0 stories. I do believe that Web 2.0 is starting to permeate into mainstream business culture - perhaps from the bottom up, i.e. from business schools. For example this MBA student is looking "to mesh the classroom teaching of proven theories with the rapidly evolving wild west of what's being referred to as Web 2.0." He or she (no real name provided, so I couldn't tell) goes on to say:
"I would like to explore areas that interest me, and are not really stuff that schools care to touch, such as the Long Tail, Corporate blogging vis-a-vis developing relationships with customers, printing-on-demand technologies, Wikis, etcetera while also trying to build a business from scratch."
That's encouraging to hear and I wish that MBA student the best of luck.
Of course the other way business folk can be introduced to Web 2.0 is to use the tools. For example Boris Mann recently talked about weblogs and wikis to a local MBA class.
Curry Podcasting: Implications for Web as Platform
News this week that Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. is launching a podcasting show, to be hosted by ex-MTV star Adam Curry. It'll be a four-hour weekday show, featuring a selection of amateur podcasts handpicked by Curry.
Although it could be argued this is more about broadcasting than podcasting, given Curry's background with MTV, I think this has huge implications for Web 2.0. It's a chance for enthusiastic podcasters to get their material heard by a much wider audience. Indeed it's not far-fetched to suggest that a small percentage of talented podcasters will bootstrap their way to their own professional radio/podcasting shows - perhaps even becoming stars.
I'm sure Curry will unearth some real podcasting gems, over time. Although I suggested he may be the Casey Kasem of Podcasting in my ionrss.com piece, it's probably fairer to say he could be the John Peel of Podcasting. Peel was a music-lover who discovered and recorded some amazing new bands, who probably wouldn't have made it but for Peel. There's an opportunity for Curry to do the same for Podcasters all over the Web.
Cool Web 2.0 Mini Apps and Services
I'm doing my best to avoid writing about The Big 3 Internet companies this week, so to extend that theme I thought I'd list out some neat new Web 2.0 things developed by individuals or small companies. Here are some I discovered this week:
- RSS Mix: a feed remixer
- Foundcity: "allows everyone in a city to map the
interesting things they discover throughout the day to a dynamic online map"
- Adactio: uses APIs to collect scattered
pieces of Web content into one place (see my review here)
- Backpack: amongst other things, transforms
emails into functional web pages. Got a lot of blog buzz this week, including from me.
- airWRX: a content-creation workspace
that runs from a USB flash drive
- hReview:
an open standard for reviews (see Phil Pearson's
implementation at the NZ Coffee Review site).
Feel free to email me (see my site's menu) if you have a new Web 2.0 app or service you want me to take a look at.
Ads in RSS Round-Up
I've been covering this issue on ION RSS. In terms of the Web as platform, I concluded that RSS is essentially equal to HTML as a publishing format. That is, RSS is a first-class citizen of Web publishing. People can and will put anything they want into an RSS feed, just as they do with webpages.
But, as always, each 'end-user' will decide for him or herself whether ads in feeds are acceptable. It's easy to unsubscribe from feeds and that's part of the beauty of Web 2.0 - users have control over their Web experience.
Techie Time: Bosworth's Web of Data
Adam Bosworth recently gave a speech to the MySQL Users Conference 2005. Bosworth is a former Microsoft web wizard, but nowadays he casts his RESTian spells as a Google employee. He's known for his evangelism of simplicity and 'sloppiness' in designing for the Web. For example, here's his view of RSS:
"Bosworth predicts that RSS 2.0 and Atom will be the lingua franca that will be used to consume all data from everywhere. These are simple formats that are sloppily extensible. Anyone who wants to can use these formats to consume content or to author content."
For a design and business-oriented take on the 'Web of Data' theme, check out Web 2.0 for Designers, the Digital Web Magazine article that Joshua Porter and I wrote. If you're geekily inclined, I also recommend you check out Bill de hÓra's and Dare Obasanjo's posts in response to Bosworth's speech. Also David Megginson has a very techie post on this theme.
Summary
That's a wrap for another week! Hey, I should make that my catch phrase... I hope you're still enjoying these posts and as always, I value any feedback. Feel free to email or leave a comment.
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