Smartpox.com
is an interesting crossover between the online and offline worlds. The
technology allows users to encode URL links, phone numbers, email, and text into
2D barcodes. These codes can then be read using a cameraphone running the J2ME
Smartpox reader. So a Smartpox is essentially a 2-dimensional barcode, which
contains data that can be decoded using the Smartpox reader in a mobile phone.
The goal of Smartpox is to be a "viral messaging" application, allowing people to link their online world with the offline world. The use case given in the demo is of music band's website, which features an audio file of one of their songs. The band members could encode the URL of that song using Smartpox.com and put it on flyers for their next show. When a Smartpox user sees the flyer, they could scan and decode the "pox" containing the song URL and listen to it on their phone. The link is also saved under that person's profile on Smartpox.com.
So Smartpox in a nutshell enables people to create encoded messages of online content - to be discovered in the offline world. There are social networking aspects to it as well, because whenever one member sees another member's Smartpox using their phone - the link is saved to their profile and they can discover who created it, read more details, and add comments when they return to the site.
I like the idea of a 'real world' hyperlink that connects something in the online world to people in the offline world. Because it requires both online signup on Smartpox.com and a camera phone with the Smartpox reader installed, it'll probably be difficult to get network effects going - unless it becomes popular in an existing social network like MySpace. But the idea has promise, particularly for the mobile phone-wielding MySpace generation. Certainly it looks like a sign of things to come, with its online-mobile-offline mix.
So far in
Read/WriteWeb's Top International Web Apps series, we've covered countries in Europe (Germany, Holland, Poland, United Kingdom, Russia, Spain, Turkey, Italy) and Asia (Korea, China). We may
have some issues covering certain other regions, as worldwide Internet penetration is
still very low - 16% at
last count. That's a concern too for the subject of today's post, Brazil. It has a
national Internet penetration rate of just 14.1%. Even so, it is the 10th biggest country
in the world in terms of Internet usage - due to its large population of 186 million. And
Brazil Internet users are very community-minded and social, as we'll see in this
post.
My thanks to Fabio Seixas, who provided me with the details about Brazil's Web market.
Fabio told me that Brazil's web industry is an important one - he said they have many areas with low economic activity, but in the medium-to-big cities there is high Internet usage. In the late 90's, the Brazilian web industry was dominated by a few large web portals. But now he is seeing a growing number of independent initiatives.
An important point is that the 14% of Brazilians who can connect to the Internet, connect to it a lot! Recently Netratings reported that web users in Brazil connected for an average of 19 hours and 24 minutes per month. Japan was in second place with 18 hours and 7 minutes of connection time per month, followed by France. This behavior perhaps shows the potential of the Brazilian web industry.
A number of new 'web 2.0' sites started up in Brazil last year. But like many other countries, Brazil has a lot of web app clones.
Here are some of the popular web apps in Brazil:
Videolog.tv is a YouTube clone, which is very successful within the teenage demographic.
The latest internetworldstats.com statistics show that worldwide Internet penetration has increased to 16.0%, largely thanks to Asia. About 3 months ago when I last posted on this, the worldwide penetration was 15.7%. Since then Asia has increased from 9.9 % population penetration to 10.4%. As a % of world Internet penetration, Asia increased from 35.6% to 36.5%.
China, as always, is at the heart of this change - they increased from 8.5% penetration to 9.4% (making up 32.3% of Asia's total). Japan is second in Asia, with 22.7% share - but their country penetration is much higher at 67.2%.
Europe has also had a slight increase, from 36.1 % population penetration to 36.4 % - but their global % has dropped from 28.5% to 28.2%. North America's population penetration has stayed steady, at 68.6%. However, mainly because of Asia's increase, North America's global % has dropped from 22.2% to 21.8 %.
These might seem like minor changes, but bear in mind it's only over 3 months - imagine what Asia's Internet penetration will look like in 2 years time, or 5 years! Especially given they currently have 56.4% of the world's population of 6.5 Billion.
|
WORLD INTERNET USAGE AND POPULATION STATISTICS |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
World Regions |
Population |
% Population |
Usage |
Usage Growth |
|
14.1 % |
2.6 % |
2.3 % |
423.9 % |
|
|
56.4 % |
10.4 % |
36.5 % |
232.8 % |
|
|
12.4 % |
36.4 % |
28.2 % |
179.8 % |
|
|
2.9 % |
9.6 % |
1.7 % |
454.2 % |
|
|
5.1 % |
68.6 % |
21.8 % |
110.4 % |
|
|
8.5 % |
14.7 % |
7.8 % |
350.5 % |
|
|
0.5 % |
52.6 % |
1.7 % |
134.6 % |
|
|
WORLD TOTAL |
100.0 % |
16.0 % |
100.0 % |
189.0 % |
Source: World Internet Usage Statistics and Population Stats
More fascinating data in the following table, which shows the US still well ahead of China and Japan in Internet users. Similar to the broadband penetration table (except India, the world's second biggest country, doesn't even make the top 20 there).
There has been a lot of great discussion on Read/WriteWeb recently, so I thought I'd pick out some highlights from a few of last week's posts...
Douglas Engelbart's HyperScope 1.0 Launched: early this week saw the launch of HyperScope 1.0, an advanced browsing application based on tech legend Douglas Engelbart's 1968 NLS/Augment (oNLine System). As Bob Walsh nicely put it in the comments: "sometimes those old dogs have tricks we should all learn from!"
Also in the comments, Rob Mallicoat asked what are the differences between HyperScope and Ted Nelson's HyperText/Xanadu Project? HyperScope software architect Brad Neuberg replied: "HyperScope exists and runs right now; it's at a 1.0 state and is quite robust." That was in reference to Nelson's Xanadu project, although he noted that Nelson's latest project ZigZag "exists as well". Brad has more info on the OPML and HTML Hyperlink features on his blog.
The Web Photo Sharing Site Faceoff: Alex Iskold's latest R/WW post profiled the red hot photo sharing space. We noted that the mainstream market is led by KodakGallery and Yahoo! Photos, while Flickr leads the 'social web' photo sharing market. Meanwhile PhotoBucket is a successful cross between the two. In the comments soxiam noted:
"I would add 2 important areas of future growth for any social photosharing sites that not many people are talking about: mobile space and the international market."
Marco Mugnatto also pointed out that PhotoBucket has very generous photo uploading limits:
"Flickr has a limit of 250 photos and only three albuns for free accounts. Photobucket has a limit of 1GB PER ALBUM, no limits for number of albuns and 10GB of bandwidth per month, wich is a lot of bandwidth."
Other photo sharing apps mentioned (which we didn't profile) were Fotki, AOL photos and Fotolog.
In Ebrahim Ezzy's latest R/WW post, Webified Desktop Apps vs Browser-based Apps, he concluded that internet-connected desktop apps have the edge over browser-based apps - "offering almost all the benefits of web applications without any limitations."
We ran a poll to see what others thought. As of writing the poll has had 12,943 respondents - 62% of whom prefer browser apps and 38% webified desktop apps. As some people pointed out, R/WW readers are possibly biased towards browser apps. But still, it's certainly a large enough sample to show that - for many of us - the convenience and portability of browser-based apps is preferable. I'm sure this debate will continue on though! Here are some interesting comments from the two posts:
Emre Sokullu: "Writely is a very good example of what web based applications can do. You never lose data, you can access it everywhere. Connectivitity should not be seen as a drawback because the world is getting more and more connected everyday."
bdeseattle: "I find that a combination of a finely tuned OS (ala winxp with all the great del.icio.us xp tuning hacks) along with a finely tuned Firefox browser + extensions can deliver the best of both worlds."
scott: "It just won't be feasible for software developers to continue to create desktop applications, especially when these applications will need to also run on all sorts of mobile devices."
Doug Karr: "I honestly think that you're missing the boat on this one. 'Webified' vs. 'Browser' is a comparison that will be dead in the near future as Operating Systems become more 'browser-like' and browsers become more 'application-like'."
Gibu Thomas, Sharpcast CEO: "The issues you cite as the shortcomings of a web-only world (requirement for a reliable, fast always-on connections, etc)are amplified in a mobile environment."
Mark Birbeck, x-port CEO: "I think from the comments and views that I've read, that one permutation is missing, and that is the creation of an additional layer above the desktop that web applications can make use of to turn themselves into desktop applications. A key part of this idea is that this layer should be standard."
Dave Winer: "Note there are also browser-based desktop apps. I use them all the time. The server is on my desktop, but the app presents in a browser, using HTML as the user interface." [Richard: great point by Dave - personally I always thought of Radio Userland as a desktop app, because it required a download. But as Dave said, it's an interesting hybrid...]
There are many other great comments, so if this topic interests you then delve into those two posts.
In Cloning vs Originality, we looked at the issue of international markets cloning Silicon Valley web apps like Flickr and digg. This post received some excellent and thought-provoking comments:
hombrelobo: "I think both have a place. Original ideas are the clear winners, but the clones normally come with something "extra"."
scott: "Regarding the international copying ...companies should be offering more languages. We intend to be out in 8 languages soon after launch. Many big companies have figured this out, small web2 companies should be looking at it. (8 languages = 8 language files)"
adria: "I agree, clones are often better than the original and sometimes blow the originals out of the water (who would have thought MySpace would kill Friendster?). At the same time, maybe this means that originals need to move faster by maintaining close communication with their users and adjusting accordingly."
Regarding the photo I used of a Chinese Flickr clone, yee commented: "the cloning site is called bababian,located in China's Shandong province. i've chatted with bababian's employees and they thought copying flickr was just their competitive strength."
Toxic: "The magic of San Francisco isn't the raw materials (brains,tech,money), it's what can be made with these materials when you've got SF's attitude and its history of counterculture. That's not something that you're likely to clone (on a large scale, anyway) anywhere else."
Richard (not me though): "Indeed there are many copycat services in China, they do normally adjust to the local flavor with added features."
Thierry_BEZIER: "it is totally normal to create a copy of flicker in China, because there are more potential user speaking chinese (more than a billion) than people speaking english.... the world wide web is about the world not about California or 3 countries..."
There are comment gems in most of these posts, which is great to see!
08: Poll:
Do you prefer desktop or browser apps?
08: Digg
Changes May've Increased Quality, But The Community Is In Turmoil
08: Cloning vs
Originality
07: Asian
Mobile Web Years Ahead
07: Discussion:
Webified Desktop Apps
07: Webified
Desktop Apps vs Browser-based Apps
06: Google
Office: Image Gallery
06: Zimbra:
Mashing Up The Office
06: Google
Instant Intranet
05: China
- World's Largest Internet Market By '07
05: The Web
Photo Sharing Site Faceoff
05: Douglas
Engelbart's HyperScope 1.0 Launched
04: Top Italian
Web Apps
04: Read/WriteWeb
Sponsors And Contributers
03: ZapTXT: promising
RSS topic subscription service
Time now to prepare for the new week!
Given that our post on Webified Desktop Apps vs Browser-based Apps has generated so much discussion, we thought we'd ask you directly which one you prefer? Although almost everybody uses both types of apps, most people seem to have a preference for using one or the other. Tell us what you think, by clicking one of the options below and then the 'Vote' button.
Many thanks to Infacta for the use of their upcoming product (currently in private beta) Poll Daddy. I'm basically testing it out here for the first time publicly!
This week there's been turmoil in the
Digg world, as the Digg developers strive to reduce the influence of the top users - in
other words make the system fairer. As Kevin Rose recently wrote,
their aim is that "a more diverse pool of individuals will be need to deem the story
homepage-worthy".
However this has caused an uproar amongst Digg's top users, who feel they have been accused of gaming. Apparently most of Digg's top 20-30 users have refused to contribute or digg stories since the uproar happened. Or if they have dugg stories, they've been buried by other users - check out this short thread for an example.
This is a serious upheaval amongst the Digg community - and it's begun to affect the discussions. In this digg thread, a top digger named Digital Gopher gets a very hard time:
And see this recent Digg thread entitled Top Digg Users Removing Avatars Hired by Netscape, which links to http://americanhistory.about.com/od/traitors/. Heavy stuff.
I'm told that the (non-public) forum for the top users is a very heated place right now!
DuggTrends, a digg stats website which has been tracking the results of the Digg user revolt, suggests that quality has actually improved as a result:
"Concluding, we can infer that Digg's front page promotion algorithm has changed to bring quality to the users. It maintains a balance between quality and quantity. This might make things not so easy for a story to get promoted to the front page, this has been raised by top users some 30 days back " is DiggTM punishing most popular users" and now it is being raised by rest of the users but this improved the quality of stories promoting to front page. The new proposal of assigning weights depending on the diversity of digging and various other factors should bring balance to the whole system and we sincerely look forward for all the users work together to provide valuable content through DiggTM."
DuggTrends graph showing drop in front page stories
If it is true that frontpage quality has increased, then it looks like Digg's upgrades are working - and the system is fairer. Personally I don't think the top diggers were at fault in all this, it's just that the Digg system did unfairly give too much power to the top diggers. That has apparently now been fixed.
Now the big question is: can the relationships - between Digg, the top users, and other digg users - be fixed too?
UPDATE: DuggTrends has updated their post: "We are not hinting that the drop is due to any algorithm changes on 7/09/06 but it is because of the lack of top users activity on digg. Regarding the "quality changes" we were refering to the algorithm updates done in between 20/7 and 27/07."
A flickr clone; pic by
izreloaded
In an interview with AlwaysOn, Fox Interactive president Ross Levinsohn talks about innovation and wanting to be more than a company that clones other products. He takes a couple of swipes at Yahoo in the process, for example:
"The world doesn’t need another Yahoo; Yahoo does a great job. We want to create the next thing."
He ends up referencing one of my own posts (!) to further make his point:
"Yahoo has sort of raised the white flag and surrendered to Comcast. Just yesterday, I read that Yahoo has basically turned their video service into YouTube. This doesn't sound like Yahoo the innovator. Instead, it seems like a desperate move—which is interesting for one of the most innovative, spectacular success stories in the history of the Internet."
He pretty much accuses Yahoo of cloning YouTube with their Y! Video service. To be fair, in that post (from early June) I noted some differences in Yahoo's approach - although at the time I preferred YouTube's product.
Levinsohn pushes back on cloning when asked what advice he'd give to budding Web entrepreneurs. He replied:
"I'd say, 'Don’t copy the original; be authentic.' There’s a place for original and authentic ideas in the marketplace. It’s a fantastic time to be an entrepreneur because there’s much more thirst from all of the companies out there, but you need to be smart about how you build your business. We’re looking for innovation, but it doesn’t have to come from a $500 million company. It could be a great idea that might work better inside a News Corp. or Yahoo or Google than as a stand-alone giant company."
(emphasis mine)
Cloning is one of the biggest themes to come out of my series on international web markets. I've noticed that every country has its set of 'web 2.0' clones - bookmarking sites that look like delicious, photo sharing sites like Flickr, community news sites like digg, etc. Occasionally I find a very nice original app, such as Moltomondiale in Italy - a special automatic semantic news aggregator that became popular in the World Cup. Or Cyworld in Korea. Or dirty.ru in Russia. But these are far outnumbered by cloned apps.
And even in America of course there are a lot of clones. New Netscape = Digg is one high-profile example.
There's no doubt there's a lot of money to be made cloning web apps, particularly in huge, growing markets like China (where there is A LOT of cloning of web 20 apps). So it's much riskier to create something innovative, untried. You have little idea how it will turn out and if there will be a market at all for it. Whereas with cloned apps in a foreign market, you have a well established product template and there are a lot of opportunities for 'localized' clones.
But I agree wholeheartedly with Levinsohn's sentiment that there’s a place for original and authentic ideas in the Web marketplace. In fact that could very well be the motto for this blog!
What do you think - is cloning web apps here to stay? Or is originality and authenticity still worth chasing in today's Web? Personally I hope the latter is true, because that's the raison d'etre of Read/WriteWeb.
Pic: Vodafone 905SH, by jetalone
Great article from MSNBC.com about how Japan's mobile phone industry is 1.5 years ahead of America's (and even more ahead of Aus/NZ I suspect). Judging from my series on international Web markets, Korea and China are just as advanced in mobile Web. MSNBC notes:
"Thanks to early investments in high-speed mobile networks, Japan‚Äôs cellular telephone industry is about a year and a half ahead of America‚Äôs. Everywhere you look, it shows. Subway riders tap messages to friends, listen to music and play games on their handsets. More than half of Japan‚Äôs cell-phone users own speedy 3G broadband phones (versus a puny 5 percent in the United States). Advertisements for an even cooler wave of new handsets now adorn public billboards, in advance of new ‚Äúnumber portability‚Ä? rules coming this fall. The regulations will make it possible for users to keep their numbers when changing wireless services‚Äîin effect intensifying competition between the three major mobile carriers and forcing them to innovate. The phones are about to get even cooler."
The digg post on this is also interesting:
"Culture is surely a part, as are the U.S. wireless carriers themselves. Consumers here tend to be multi-device users. They like a phone in their pocket, but there's also a laptop or desktop involved in daily computing..."
Personally the main reason I'm not an advanced mobile user is the sheer cost of doing so in my country (NZ). I found it interesting to note that Japan has a very competitive mobile phone industry: "Prices are dropping, new handsets are coming and the carriers are upgrading networks with even faster 3G technology." When will the Western world wake up to the mobile revolution?
Already there's some great discussion happening regarding Ebrahim Ezzy's post on Read/WriteWeb entitled Webified Desktop Apps vs Browser-based Apps. As I noted in the intro to that post, in some ways Ebrahim's views contradict my own.
I'm a big fan of the concept of the browser as a 'lowest common denominator' platform for the Web. And there is a lot of innovation happening in the browser space right now - Flock, Opera, Firefox and even IE7 is doing its bit to keep up (although we're still waiting for some truly original knock-yer-socks-off features from IE7). So I like to think there is plenty more innovation to come in the browser - and imho the WebOS players are one of the more interesting set of startups using the browser as a platform. I also like the technology being delivered by Personalized Start Pages and associated widgets (Pageflakes, Netvibes, et al) and Web Office contenders (Zoho, Zimbra, ThinkFree, et al).
Having said that, I do recognize that the browser has its limitations and that Ajax isn't the be all and end all of interactive technology. My profile of the upcoming NY Times Reader showed some of the possibilities of a web-enabled desktop app (or a webified desktop app, to use Ebrahim's term). Times Reader has rich functionality, courtesy of Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation technology - but it also relies on the Web to get the NY Times content and to communicate with other people (email a story, for example).
Other discussion on Ebrahim's post:
There are other great comments to Ebrahim's post and I encourage you to leave your comment there too. Perhaps the biggest point to make is that it's not either/or, despite the headline I wrote for the previous post! There is a place for both webified desktop apps and browser-based apps. Indeed the browser is basically just a desktop app at its most generic.
The biggest advantage the browser still has though is its ubiquity on computers - and we'll continue to need common Web platforms, that utilize web standards, for quite some time yet.
UPDATE: We've published a poll, for you to tell us which type of app you prefer - desktop or browser-based.
Written by Ebrahim Ezzy and edited by Richard MacManus. Ebrahim runs a search engine called Qube - which is a webified desktop app. Richard's Note: In some ways Ebrahim's conclusions in this article contradict my own views, but I think that makes it even more appropriate for Read/WriteWeb to publish. I'm looking forward to a robust discussion by readers in the comments section!
More and more applications these days are being webified - meaning "made to operate on the Web using a browser or made to function in a similar manner." This is because the Internet is capable of significantly augmenting human interaction, with its decentralized system of ubiquitous data accessibility.
We've already seen a wealth of desktop-replicated web applications in the web 2.0 space - office suites, calenders, task management. A webtop (derived from 'desktop') pushes that replication to its limit. Also known as a WebOS, it is basically a virtual desktop on the web. It is a simple, less bloated, less featured and remotely accessible operating environment that runs in a browser. It delivers a rich desktop-like experience, coupled with various built-in applications.
Popularized (in the Web 2.0 era) by Goowy among others, these products typically feature wallpapers, windows, toolbars, folders, work & entertainment tools, abilities like drag and drop - and other pseudo-useful features that have been available on desktops forever.
The concept is expected to appeal those who require seamless connectivity, even on-the-go. Common uses include file-sharing, a communication tool for families and small workgroups, office tasks (private word documents, calendar and agenda), Entertainment (Games, Chat, Music), as an FTP alternative, etc. Richard has been writing about WebOS companies for a while on ZDNet - and his recent post about EyeOS shows how WebOS products are being used by people.
Goowy provides email (2GB), messenger, calendar, address book, News/RSS manager, file sharing & storage (1GB), games, and widgets (which they call mini). Developed mostly in Flash, Goowy also offers hosted version with added functionalities, for businesses. [Ed: Ryan Stewart wrote a great overview of Goowy on Read/WriteWeb in March]
DesktopTwo (also available in Spanish) provides email, address book, file storage and sharing (1GB), IM, blog, music player and a website editor in a nicely organized user-interface. It requires Flash, Acrobat Reader, and popup windows to function correctly. It's a nice name (DesktopTwo = Desktop 2.0, I guess) and my personal favorite.
Glide Effortless is a web-suite that handles media files - documents, photos, audio, and video - and also provides a handy word processor and calendar.
XIN is still in beta, but is evolving into a full-featured WebOS. In Richard's original review of XIN, he noted that XIN aims to be an entirely Web-based OS and as such is a full development platform.
YouOS has perhaps the most recognition of all the WebOS products - and high ideals too. The YouOS developers describe their product as "a liberation of software from hardware". According to Richard's article, YouOS wants the OS to be no longer a user's primary concern - it's your data and your apps that you only need to concern yourself with.
EyeOS (Open-Source) was developed in Spain and currently boasts 53,500 users in the main public server. In addition there are around 400 active servers installed by users. More in Richard's review.
The Internet has changed how we access and use information. With a computer and a high-speed connection, no matter where you are, your world travels with you. Of course, while that might sound eminently desirable - the reality is sometimes not as romantic.
WebOS is a great idea, but in my opinion it has questionable value. It can be fun, exciting, entertaining and even convenient for some - but being as efficient, flexible and productive as a desktop is practically impossible. The majority of these applications are almost essentially superfluous, emphasizing novelty over substance.
As Fred Oliveira of WeBreakStuff nicely put it:
"...after service outsourcing and personal outsourcing, we’re seeing a new age of web-service outsourcing. One with no regulations - only expectations and hopes. Everything is based on trust, and trust sometimes fails.
And the problem here is that even with web-services as a liability, there’s no fallback mechanism, no alternative route, and no “competitor service” that can be plugged into an app in the timely manner like web 2.0 applications require.
This proves that purely mash-up based applications have small foundations, and like a house with no foundations, they may fail to resist, should the unexpected happen."
(bold emphasis mine)
I should note that without a leap of faith, no idea or innovation can get off the ground. However, several other factors make web applications like WebOS less secure, less productive and unreliable.
I rely on various web applications to create documents, presentations, spreadsheets; share images, videos, data; manage and organize tasks, projects and life. But I still believe the future of computing isn't entirely web-based. It's necessary to have the desktop as the pivotal point, because the power of the desktop is important for a rich user experience - and will be, for a very long time to come.
What we require then are smart, webified, internet deployable desktop applications - that can reliably store data, serve it robustly, and interact with both remote and local databases. This connected model will ensure that applications will function in both online and offline states - for a seamless, uninterrupted experience.
Companies that are vying to be the prime desktop development platform include Microsoft, Adobe and (increasingly) Google. Ryan Stewart has a good post summarizing the main desktop platforms. See also Techworld.com on Windows Vista and virtualisation.
There are many examples of desktop applications that benefit from the connectivity and mobility of web-based data:
Other examples include Webaroo (offline search), PicasaWeb (Desktop Photo organizer and uploader), Omnidrive (data storage), Omniscope (data filtering and manipulation), Qube (browserless, desktop search), TouchStone (information management - private alpha) etc.
As the Web becomes increasingly interconnected and applications continue to blur the distinction between the desktop and web, we should expect to see more applications that allow Web/desktop synchronization. This will happen due to the increasing development of web services that enable apps to work equally well across web and desktop clients.
I will continue to use WebOS and other web-based productivity applications, just to appease the Web 2.0 spirit within me. But the fact remains that Webified (or "connected") desktop applications are noticeably superior, offering almost all the benefits of web applications without any limitations. Indeed, I think the two environments are not even directly comparable.
However, in the end desktop and web are just small outposts in a much larger world of information creation, collaboration, distribution, management, and presentation. What ultimately matters is productivity, scalability and speed.
If (and it's a big 'if') the web will render the desktop obsolete someday, then I'll be more inclined to accept the new norm of web apps and services.
UPDATE: We've published a poll, for you to tell us which type of app you prefer - desktop or browser-based.
