In our previous
post, written by John Milan, we explored the emerging world of "social business
applications" - where Internet-connected data is synchronizable and accessible anywhere,
online and offline. It's a fascinating article and I highly recommend you take the time
to read it, if you're at all interested in the next generation of Web technology.
The tie-in with this post is that Sharpcast is a promising new company building synchronization software. We wrote about it previously on Read/WriteWeb:
"In a nutshell Sharpcast enables you to synch your data across the Web, multiple PCs and your mobile phone. It's a real-time synchronisation engine and photos is just the first application of this - soon Sharpcast will be extended to all types of files. Indeed the platform was always intended to go well beyond photos."
Today Sharpcast released a further upgrade to their Photos app, making the sync functionality more powerful and offering a 5GB free account.
Screenshot of the desktop client
Written by Guest Blogger John Milan and edited by Richard MacManus. John is Senior Software Architect and founder of TeamDirection, one of the companies mentioned in this post.
What amount of time is the right amount of time for two people to tie the knot? Three months? Two years? One decade? It turns out to be not so much a specific duration but an appropriate duration - long enough to understand each other, but no so long as to get bored.
Does the same hold true for software technologies and philosophies? It took about thirty years for a robust operating system to successfully join with a fetching graphical user interface. It took about forty years for the internet and markup languages to hook up and bear the web browsers we can't live without today.
Thirty years. Forty years. It takes a long time for technologies to understand each other. So how long will it take for social and business applications to embrace each other, much less produce the next generation of applications? It turns out not too much longer, because social and business applications have both been around the block a few times. If you believe that the first personal business applications arrived at the same time as the first personal computer; and if you believe that the first massively social application arrived when Dungeons and Dragons fans began to learn how to program, then social and business apps have been courting each other for well over twenty years now. It's starting to look like commitment time!
Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus.
This post looks at the main players in the Social News space, to try and identify their characteristics and understand the dynamics of the market. The sites we analyze are digg, Netscape, Newsvine, and Reddit. While there are many other social news sites around, a great number are clones and so we believe the above four represent the cream of the crop (admittedly Netscape is a clone of digg, but because of its size and history as a mainstream portal - it obviously warrants closer inspection).
What makes the social news space particularly interesting is that there are a variety of different approaches. Even without doing the analysis, we know that Digg is going to be the most popular site. But if you've ever taken a quick look at Newsvine, you'll know that the future dynamics may not be so clear cut. What works for a technical audience might not, in the long run, be what is going to become a mainstream format. So will this market split? Will Newsvine become more popular than digg? Does Netscape stand a realistic chance of catching up? In this side by side comparison, we hope to find some answers.
As we have done in previous faceoffs, we approximate the number of users in each social news site using Alexa's daily page views. While Alexa is not perfect by any means, it is a good comparative measure in this case. As the baseline, we have used Digg.com's official user base figure of 325,000 users. We also use an additional metric - number of votes for two different stories (one tech and one politics). The technology story that we used is the recent YouTube video where the founders of YouTube discuss the Google acquisition. For the political story, we choose the BBC article about US granting North Korea nuclear funds.
The new combined Writely (online word processing) and Google Spreadsheets interface has just gone live, under
the name Google Docs & Spreadsheets. The
Writely.com site now re-directs to http://docs.google.com and the Writely brand has been
replaced by the usual no-frills Google brand. The homepage allows you to tag and sort
your files. There are also common functions, like import and export. The new doc and
spreadsheet pages now look almost identical, with similar tabs and layout. Here are some
initial screenshots:
Docs (nee Writely)
Spreadsheets
CNET has an early review:
"Today's release of Google Docs and Spreadsheets is a step forward, and I trust that Google will continue to improve the feature set, usability, and integration of these two products. At a preview for bloggers earlier today, we heard about some future plans like integration with Gmail (when you get a word processing file or a spreadsheet as an attachment, you'll have the option to open the file in Docs and Spreadsheets). The team is also working on APIs, so other programmers can access the functionality of the applications. Also, Google is going to "take a shot" at a disconnected version, for users who want to access files when they are offline. And they're working on other applications, too."
Note to Google: next time please invite me to your blogger previews! What am I, chopped liver? Anyway, while I still think this is a piecemeal solution, it looks like Google is putting a lot of effort into their web-based office solutions. Kudos to them.
Both Google and Zoho will be announcing new office product offerings at tomorrow's Office 2.0 conference. Steve Bryant from eWeek reports:
"Google will announce tomorrow at the Office 2.0 conference a new product called Google Docs, which will merge Writely and Google Spreadsheets into a collaboration and document management solution, according to sources."
Google Docs will be available at docs.google.com. Writely and Google Spreadsheets already offer export to blog and other formats - and have similar sharing functionality. So this seems like common sense to merge the two products together. But once again, it all seems a tad unimaginative and piecemeal from Google - as with Google Apps for Your Domain; which bundles together Gmail, Google Talk, Calendar and Page Creator. As always with Google, who knows what is around the corner. A full Web Office Suite must be in the works and it's probably just that all the pieces of the jigsaw aren't ready yet - they don't have online presentations and project management products yet.
Meanwhile a small company that does have all the pieces, Zoho, is going to push out a new version of Zoho Virtual Office. Techcrunch is reporting that it "will integrate most of the 10+ Zoho services already available and add several more like Webmail and calendaring." As of now, the product includes web-based collaboration groupware such as email, documents and calendar. So it appears it'll be upgraded to include the rest of the Zoho product range (spreadsheets, presentations, etc). If you want a quick tour of all these apps, check out my Image Gallery on ZDNet.
As I noted earlier this week, Zoho is planning a full Web Office Suite. But I'm a little confused by the branding here, as it's being called ZohoX as well. So is this a new brand, or an upgrade of the existing Zoho Virtual Office?
Zoho Projects, their online project management tool, also went out of Beta yesterday. There's no question then that Zoho has all the products required for a full web-based suite, so in that sense they are a step ahead of Google - and Microsoft. But the space is still fairly immature and so a lot of jostling for position is going on.
Related posts: Zoho Web Office Suite Image Gallery; Office 2.0 Podcast Jam Kicks Off; Zoho Moving Towards A Full Web Office Suite
Disclaimer: Zoho is a R/WW sponsor
UPDATE: Google Docs & Spreadsheets (another great name) is now live.
With Microsoft's IE7 just around the
corner and the other big Internet companies upgrading key information management
products, 2007 is going to be the 'make it or break it' year for RSS. Fergus Burns noted
these 4 key platforms, which are all set to ramp up over the next 6-12 months (my notes
added):
1. IE7
from Microsoft + RSS integrated into Outlook 2007.
2. MySpace
Widget Platform - potentially a new generation of "RSS Consumers".
3. Yahoo
Mail - RSS integrated in 'Beta' version.
4. Google
Reader release - RSS reading functionality will probably be integrated into Gmail.
What these 4 things have in common is that all will reach a mass audience in 2007.
Despite the issues with RSS
implementation in IE7 which Marshall Kirkpatrick rightly pointed out - and Dave Winer agreed with - IE7 still represents a major
milestone for RSS. It will almost certainly be the most used browser in the world within
12 months (unless Firefox pulls something out of the hat with v 2.0 - and early reports are that it won't). RSS is a new and highlighted feature of IE7, so it will give a major push to
mainstream RSS adoption. Will it merely be seen as "a minor improvement over bookmarks"
by IE7 users,
as Dave Winer suggests? Perhaps, but even so there is more to come from Microsoft in
regards to RSS.
Perhaps the real tipping point for RSS in Microsoft products will be when it is integrated with Outlook, which is slated to happen in Office 2007. As it states on the official Outlook 2007 Overview page:
"Work with RSS Subscriptions from within Office Outlook 2007. You can now fully subscribe to and interact with Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds right from Office Outlook 2007, the most natural place to manage this kind of information. It’s easy to get started adding RSS feeds using the RSS Subscriptions home page within Office Outlook 2007."
Either way, you can't argue that Microsoft isn't doing its bit to push RSS into the mass market.
RSS Reader integrated with email
In other email platforms, as I've mentioned before I think once Yahoo Mail Beta goes live (probably sometime in 2007) then RSS will reach another huge user base. Yahoo Mail has 250M + users and RSS is integrated within the mail inbox in Yahoo Mail Beta, enabling you to check your favorite RSS feeds at the same time as checking your email. It's no accident Yahoo chose to implement RSS in the inbox - everybody uses email, so by adding RSS into the mix Yahoo is making it easy for mainstream people to adopt RSS reading as a daily habit.
The same I think will apply to Google, once (if?) they implement RSS reading into Gmail. They've already started down that path by re-designing Google Reader to mimic the Gmail interface.
As a sidenote, I'll also be following closely what Google does with GData and Google Base, which both use RSS and its variant Atom.
Finally, MySpace really does hold most of the cards in the developing widget war - because it is the biggest platform by far for widgets, not counting the mass populace of independent blogs (which only compares to MySpace numbers in aggregate). A lot of widgets are powered by RSS, or a variant of it. So MySpace is going to be one of the key RSS platforms in 2007 - and how they manage this platform will be keenly watched.
Any way you look at it, 2007 is shaping up to be a BIG year for RSS!
RSS shoes photo by esdaniel
Co-written with Neeraj Kumar of India Upcoming
It's an exciting time for the
economy in India, which is also reflected in its Web market. India has 1.1 Billion people
and the average age of the nation is just 24.9 years. The Indian GDP is growing at 8% +
and after years of dependence on the agriculture sector, now the service sector
contributes more than 50% of the GDP. It's testament to the growth of the service sector
that even though India produces 350,000 new engineers a year, there is still a shortage
of graduates to meet the demand of the high GDP growth rate (
source: LA Times).
The number of Internet users in India is estimated at between 45 Million and 50 Million. That makes India the 4th biggest country in the world in terms of total Internet users - behind only the US, China and Japan. However due to India's huge population, its Internet Penetration is among the lowest in the world at only 4.5%. What's more, it is estimated that only 10 million of those users are real power users who spend money online. While there is seemingly a lot of room for growth in the Indian market, a recent report quoted by contentSutra indicates that "there's a long way to go before a critical mass is reached..." Another challenge is that there are 23 mainstream languages that are spoken in India.
NOTE: We can't hope to cover all the web apps in India, so please don't be offended if we've missed your app. We invite you to add more Indian web apps in the comments section.
India's eBay
Bazee.com ( it means ‘betting’ in Hindi) was probably the first Indian website to make a buzz in the market, when it was acquired by eBay. It’s still very successful and a thriving site in India.
Matrimonial sites
Well turns out
the speculation, which was first reported on Techcrunch
on Friday, was true. Google has
acquired YouTube for $1.65 Billion in stock.
Out of all the reports, the thing that most strikes me is how much Google believes video is the future of the Internet. As Paul Kedrosky put it in his excellent wrapup of the news:
"Google is very, very bullish about online video. It was more than spin, with the conviction coming through loud and clear."
PaidContent.org also quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “This is the next step in the evolution of the internet. It (video’s) a natural next step.”
The YouTube brand will continue, probably with the addition of Google Adsense at some point.
There is a LOT of talk about the deal, but for me it's significant as a watershed moment for the Web and online video. If Google is willing to spend $1.65B on the leading online video company, then they must believe that for both YouTube and the online video industry as a whole - there is a lot more growth to come.
YouTube is in many ways the MTV of the current generation. What's more, it has a user experience better than any other online video site OR tv channel. Check out Compete's recent analysis of YouTube compared to Google's own video site for some clear reasons why:
"More people visit YouTube, they come back to the site more often, and spend more time on the site each time they visit. That is a certifiable triple whammy and a knockout punch rolled into one."
Enough talk, it'll be interesting to watch what Google does with YouTube now - beyond putting its ads on it.
For those of us who can't make the Office 2.0 conference, there is an Office 2.0 Podcast Jam running all this week. I contributed a 5-minute podcast, which was chosen as the keynote to kick off the jam. My topic was: Why Web Office Software is a New Paradigm, Different from Desktop Office Software.
I'm not a natural podcaster (it took me quite a few takes just to get the podcast I ended up with!), but I hope I managed to cover off some of the important reasons why Web-based office software is different from the likes of Microsoft Office.
For a more enlightening and educational podcast, check out Anne Zelenka's interview with Rosemary Stasek of Women’s Campaign International. The topic, as Anne explained on her blog, is "the poor utility infrastructure in that part of the world, about how government offices do without bare necessities, and about how Rosemary is training Afghani women to speak up for themselves." Forget the gossip about Google buying Youtube (update: ok so turns out it was true!) or controversy over newspapers vs blogs, Rosemary's podcast is what it's all about and is a much needed reality check for us all.
In regards to my podcast, Anne came up with the following discussion points - feel free to discuss here or over at the Jam blog...
Zoho announced during the weekend the Zoho Single Sign-on
(SSO), which allows existing users to merge their different Zoho services accounts
into one. As of now the Zoho Single Sign-on currently covers the following 6 services:
Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show, Zoho Creator, Zoho Planner and Zoho Chat.
I asked AdventNet CEO Sridhar Vembu whether this news portends a full Web Office Suite (AdventNet is the company that runs Zoho). Their competitors Zimbra, ThinkFree, JotSpot and others seem to be moving towards an integrated suite of web-based office products. Sridhar said yes, that is their intention. He told me:
"We are moving towards a full WebOffice suite. We already have the Writer/Sheet/Show covered, and those are getting updated at a rapid clip. We also have Zoho Virtual Office, which offers full Sharepoint style collaboration features. We are working on integrating these services in a better way, and single sign-on is the first step towards that integration. Zoho Creator brings Access/VB like database & scripting to the mix."
Sridhar also said that Zoho Projects and Zoho CRM will be part of the Web Office Suite mix, as they "provide more breadth and depth to the product offering."
Zoho's intent then is, in Sridhar's words, "to offer a fairly comprehensive suite for businesses, as they move their data to the web."
Finally, Sridhar noted that they will offer a downloadable version of their Office Suite product "once the services mature." So it seems it won't just be web-based!
Disclosure: Zoho is a Read/WriteWeb sponsor
