I've been impressed with the amount of Mobile Web action we've seen already in 2007. With Apple's iPhone, Google doing deals in Asia, Yahoo ramping up its Go platform, Microsoft hyping up Windows Mobile, small players like Dada doing good business, and innovative startups like Sharpcast and Smartpox, things are looking very bullish for mobile. And of course the traditional mobile phone companies are doing their bit too for the Mobile Web. We've already covered The Gizmo Project (which Nokia has partnered with) and in November network operator 3 released an excellent suite of Mobile Web services called X-Series.
Now Nokia has unveiled a new "Internet Tablet" device, called the N800. It looks very impressive and MobileCrunch reviewer Oliver Starr gave it a rave review. What's most interesting from a Web perspective is the development platform that Nokia is attempting to build around this, and similar, devices. Nokia has a website devoted to this effort, called Maemo. It's described as follows:
Carole
McManus (no relation) has a
great post on the Yahoo! Messenger blog about the innovations we saw in IM
over 2006. She says that 2006 was a "watershed year" for IM innovation,
citing a
Nick Gonzalez post on Techcrunch last November. The features that Nick
highlighted then were: interoperability, flexible identities, rich media chat,
in-browser chat, location-based chat, and contextual chat.
Carole notes some other companies, apart from Yahoo, who are ramping up IM technology: Wablet, Meebo, RadiusIM, InCircles, Skype, and PalTalk.
Personally I now use 4 different IM apps on a regular basis - Skype (my main business client), Yahoo Messenger (great avatars!), Google Talk and AIM. I use Meebo occasionally too, if I'm on another computer or just want everything on one page. It's amazing how crucial IM has become as a business tool - although it can also be a distraction at times, of course.
What IM clients do you use - and where do you see the industry headinng in 2007? I'd like to think interoperability will be improved even further and also an 'open ID' kind of system for IM would be great. Thoughts?
Social networking was King (or Queen) in 2006 and mobile is often seen as the heir to that crown for 2007 and beyond. So what better way to hedge your bets than with a mobile social networking service? We've discussed the potential in this market before, specifically noting that Google owns such a service already: Dodgeball. What's more, we noted in our October 2006 post that two growing Web trends are actually very complementary: meta-social networks and mobile. Imagine a scenario where an individual's identity will be increasingly managed by meta-networks, which we will carry with us "in small wireless devices so that our virtual identities become seamlessly integrated with the real world" (to quote a New Scientist article).
Which leads us to Dada, a mobile SNS that enables users to update personal
blogs with pictures and video, download mobile entertainment, connect with and meet other
local singles in real time and stay in contact with all their friends. Dada can be used
on both PC and mobile and dada.net is its portal
destination page. The 3 main products within the portal are Dada Dating, Dada Life
(personal space and social networking), and Mobile
Entertainment.
Well our poll asking whether Ajax
is a Rich Internet Application (RIA) technology resulted in 70% of you saying YES,
it is a RIA technology. 22% said no and 8% admitted they don't know. Total poll
contributers was 560.
The conversation in the post was revealing though - i.e. it revealed it is a very confusing issue :-) My favorite comment was from Josh, who compared Ajax to pepperoni on a pizza:
"It seems to me what a lot of people in this thread are saying is akin to a pizza maker saying pepperoni isn't a pizza ingredient because you don't have to use it.
Yes, you can make a pizza without pepperoni, and yes you can make a web app without Ajax. But if you make a pepperoni pizza, then pepperoni is a pizza ingredient. If you make an RIA with Ajax, then Ajax is a Rich Internet Application technology."
I love pepperoni pizza, so that argument swayed me. In any case, a majority of you seem to agree that you can create a desktop app-like experience using a non-plugin or download technology like Ajax. On this topic, Alex Iskold mentioned in his latest post that Ajax as a trend seems to be on a downturn. He showed the following graph to illustrate it:
By Alex Iskold
Last week Apple's iPhone made a stunning debut. There are very few people who were not blown away by what Steve Jobs showed to the world, from the stage of MacWorld 2007. The irony was that beforehand, we didn't know what exactly the iPhone would be, but most of us knew it was coming - because there were rumors and lots of blogosphere chatter about it in the weeks and months leading to the announcement.
Today's blogosphere is a unique playground for trendwatchers who are seeking to find out what's wired or tired. Check out this image of the Blogosphere core, from the fantastic DataMining blog by Matthew Hurst:
Technorati is much more than a vertical search engine for blogs. It's a service that provides indispensable tools for bloggers, readers and trendwatchers. Technorati keeps the finger on the pulse of the blogosphere and gives us access to the news, both new and old. Perhaps the most interesting tool that Technorati offers to trendwatchers is the historical chart. Here is the chart of all blog posts mentioning social bookmarking over the past year:
John Milan wrote an excellent two-part article for R/WW this week, about the future of software. Because it was a very long article - filled with John's trademark nature metaphors - I thought I'd pull out a few of the highlights.
The question addressed was: what will the software solutions of tomorrow look like?
In Part 1 John argued that data should become open and accessible, just like the code in Open Source software. Code is often re-written and re-factored, but systems only work if they agree on the data.
Part 2 contends that people will demand more access to their data and more integration with their apps. This will result in the single minded, all-encompassing applications of today dying off - in favor of multi-celled, specialized solutions. So the future will be combinations of best of breed technology, rather than monolithic software.
John's conclusion:
"And what trait will the eventual winners in this brave new world share? The solutions that can hone their data requirements, move results from system to system, use the best form factor for the job and still keep it on a human level."
I wonder then if we're seeing glimpses
of this future in today's Web products? Perhaps, as John suggested, the missing link is
babel fish-like "applications whose main purpose is to translate and transpose data from
one system to another." Mozilla's intention to make Firefox 3 an
information broker is possibly a move in this direction.
This type of 'best of breed' future certainly plays into Google's hands, as they already utilize web standards in their raft of apps - whereas Microsoft mostly relies on the Windows OS (a trend that will probably intensify in 2007 as Vista is rolled out). Of course Google and Mozilla are bedfellows, so Firefox 3 being an information broker would be quite handy for Google.
Are there any other Web products you see today that point to a Best of Breed future for the Internet?
image: Wikipedia
Disclosure: One of the products listed in this post, Digication, has been a recent R/WW sponsor.
One of the more active markets for web 2.0 is e-learning; for example we've written before about ChinesePod (learning Chinese) and Elgg (social network software for education). Also last August Steve O'Hear wrote a very insightful introduction to e-learning 2.0 for R/WW. As Steve pointed out back then, blogging, podcasting, media sharing and social networking are all well-used in the e-learning world.
What else is out there currently in Internet-based education software? It's time for an update...
You may not be aware of it, but the Internet BigCos all have products in the e-learning segment. Google offers the free Google Apps for Education (includes Gmail, Chat, Calendar, Page Creator, start page). Microsoft has a range of education products (including live.com hosting/email and potential groupware for education), and Apple offers free podcast hosting for education (iTunes U). IBM is also a player in the education sector.
Google seems to be
particularly active in education, amongst the Internet companies. It has Google for Educators, described as
"a platform of teaching resources". Also its Google Enterprise Professional program
has at least one education provider - Blackboard
become the first member of the program to focus primarily on educational
institutions.
Not to mention that online office products can be used to enhance collaboration in an education setting. Google Docs & Spreadsheets for example. In effect, the BigCos are able to leverage their current product range and promote them to schools.
Interesting new directory of "music 2.0" services, which includes the following useful categorization:
The content hasn't been fleshed out on a lot of those pages, but still it's a good start and one to watch.
Via Lucas Gonze
The latest browser stats are causing some discussion - mainly because of this article by InformationWeek, which pours water over Microsoft's claims about IE7:
"Although Microsoft recently touted the 100 millionth installation of Internet Explorer 7, Web measurement firms said that the new browser is simply being swapped out for older editions and hasn't had an impact on Firefox's continued climb."
According to Net Applications, the browser share is slowly - but surely - moving down for IE and up for Firefox:
What's curious though is that Maxthon isn't showing up in any of these browser share reports. We noted in a recent post that Maxthon reportedly has 30% of the browser market in its home country of China, second only to IE and ahead of Firefox. China is the second-biggest Web market in the world, not far behind the US and projected to pass it in the not too distant future. So if Maxthon has 30% of the China browser market (and I have to say I've yet to see any report confirming that figure), then surely it would rank pretty well on browser share reports that companies like Net Applications and WebSideStory produce? Perhaps they are not measuring international markets - but they should.
By Alex Iskold
In October last year, Netflix launched an unusual contest. The online movie rental company
is offering 1 million dollars to anyone who can improve their recommendation engine by
10%. Netflix is known for its innovation and
bold moves and in the grand scheme of things, $1M is not a lot of money for such a
business.
The competition is still running (it "continues through at least October 2, 2011"), so is this a publicity trick or an attempt to do research on the cheap? Is better recommendations something that Netflix really needs or is it just nice to have? Today Netflix is facing a challenge from the awakened giant BlockBuster, so it is certainly looking for a competitive edge. A great recommendation system can retain and attract users to the service. For example when a user returns a movie, he/she is recommended another movie they might like - which increases the likelihood of return business.
A good recommendation engine can make a difference not just for Netflix, but for any online business. This is because there are two fundamental activities online - Search and Browse. When a consumer knows exactly what she is looking for, she searches for it. But when she is not looking for anything specific, she browses. It is the browsing that holds the golden opportunity for a recommendation system, because the user is not focused on finding a specific thing - she is open to suggestions.
