Spotted tonight by John Milan, Google has a promotion for its online shopping product Google Checkout on its homepage - probably the most traffiked web page in the world.
Also there's some interesting speculation over on the Cost Per News site that Google Checkout is set to ramp up:
"I’ve heard rumblings from my sources within the company and from a few of the merchants involved in the Checkout program that something major is on the way… soon."
See also Donna Bogatin and SearchEngineLand, both of whom cite some worries over Google's management of Checkout. On the latter link, Danny Sullivan says that "Google's not thinking clearly about the best way to balance promoting its own products and the trust of users."
More on this story as it develops, as I'm sure it will...
I was reading a post by Ryan Stewart, who is my main source of news and information about anything to do with RIA (Rich Internet Applications). Wikipedia defines RIA as "web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications." When I think of RIAs, I usually think of Adobe's Flex or Microsoft's WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). Probably the most famous example of RIA is Flash. I also regard Ajax as a RIA, because it enables desktop app-like interactivity. But something Ryan said reminded me that there is a bit of a disconnect out there on what is a RIA exactly? Ryan wrote:
"I see a couple of big reasons RIAs have become much more popular in the past few months. One is that a good experience has become a primary requirement for the web. I don't really count Ajax as a full RIA technology, but it has raised the expectation level and made people start to wonder how much better the web can be."
Ryan doesn't see Ajax as a RIA. Perhaps because he has high standards on what an RIA app should be able to do. Ryan writes more about the topic on his personal blog; also see this post by Adobe's John Dowdell from 2005.
We all know Ajax has its limitations - Google is probably the biggest proponent of Ajax, yet its web apps have been known to cause frustration at times. I bet every user of Gmail pounds their desk whenever a page refresh problem arises.
So in order to try and get a consensus about Ajax and RIA, I've created a very simple poll. Please take a minute to tell us whether you think Ajax is a RIA technology.
Twango is a new media sharing service, for video,
photos and other media. It's similar to eSnips, Multiply and PeopleAggregator, in that it combines media
sharing with social networking. Twango was founded by a group of 5 ex-Microsoft employees
in fall 2004 and officially launched in October 2006. I spoke to co-founder, Randy Kerr,
yesterday about Twango and their plans for it. First let's review the app itself...
Twango claims to support 110 file types in all - including the obvious ones like pictures, videos, audio files, Microsoft Office documents, and PDFs. Users can upload their media to Twango via the Web UI, or via email or a camera phone. Twango also lets users specify access settings, to make their media private or public. Other features include conversion and synchronization of all iPod-compatible files, mobile uploads, embedding, and tagging.
Co-founder Jim Laurel told me via email that Twango aims to be more than just a "destination experience". He said their long term play is to be a platform. What this means is that Twango will increasingly sync their media with other services and devices, and provide APIs and other tools. Laurel said this is part of the reason Twango has taken longer to get to market than some of their competitors, because they've been working to get the underlying platform right.
Written by Emre Sokullu and edited by Richard MacManus
Yahoo has had its problems lately. Bad financial results in the 3rd quarter of 2006 and the peanut butter manifesto of senior vice president Brad Garlinghouse resulted in doubt about the company's ability to compete against Google and others. Some also think that Google's YouTube acquisition meant that Yahoo had failed in the crucial online video industry. But for us, things are not so dark. In this article we look into Yahoo's recent acquisitions and their new de-portalized strategy.
Today, Yahoo spends very
little in acquisition when compared to the dot com era. Also 2006 was very slow for them.
Although there was speculation about a billion dollar Facebook acquisition, this never
eventuated - and in total, Yahoo bought only 3 companies
last year [Update: We've been informed by Yahoo's PR that in 2006, as well as Jumpcut, Bix and AdInterax, Yahoo also bought Wretch in
Taiwan and Kenetworks in Sweden in social networking, as well as Meedio for IPTV. They also made strategic investments in Right Media and Gmarket, among others.]. With the acquisition of MyBlogLog in early 2007 though, the new year has
started fast for them in terms of acquisitions.
Now let's look into some of the acquisitions in this era of the Web (which for our purposes here, we'll say is 2005 and beyond).
By John Milan. This is the second in a two-part series. Part 1 is here.
What will the software solutions of tomorrow look like? They will be forged by four powerful elements: The Internet, Open Source, Mobile Devices and Web 2.0. We can debate the merits of each, but taken as a whole they will shape the genetic blueprint for the successful applications of tomorrow -- starting now.
I had been wrestling with the merits of Web 2.0 for a while and I decided that MyBlogLog would be my case study to figure it out (since bought by Yahoo). It's the vertical strip of 10 avatars found on more and more 'social' sites, including to your right in Read/WriteWeb's sidebar. There's an odd fascination when you see 10 strangers enter your world. In the real world I would keep my eyes straight ahead and focus on the distant horizon. In the web 2.0 world, however, I can let my eyes wander and - best of all - click on somebody. While it may fulfill a voyeuristic impulse, it was hard to make a business case for this social metaphor. In fact, I had just about concluded web 2.0 was more sizzle than substance when I went to a Christmas party...
A good friend of mine is co-owner of a medical transcription company. He invited me to their Christmas party to see the whole operation and meet what makes their company work - the transcriptionists. Functionally, the act of transcribing audio files of medical dictation to digital content is what generates cash flow for the company. But the eye-opener was the relationships the transcriptionists had cultivated with their medical professionals. Each doctor may have an idiosyncrasy or two - a pronunciation issue or unknown idiom - which may require a transcriptionist to ask a question or two. One thing would lead to another and pretty soon the doctors would get to know their assigned transcriptionists and trust them.
I am always one to promote the 'read/write' meme and today I noticed a post by Rod Boothby, on what he's calling the read/write Intranet. I didn't see a definition for what this is exactly, but in any case Rod's asking people to vote for the best read/write intranet systems. In the interests of finding out what people think, I've included the poll in this post too (with Rod's blessing - see update #2 in his post).
While I'm on the topic, I'm on the selection committee and will be a judge at the Office 2.0 event, March 23 in California. This is being organized by Under the Radar. Most of the companies below are nominated (along with a bunch of others), so I'm going to be digging into office 2.0 software over the next month or two.
Please contribute to the poll below and let us know in the comments about the innovative read/write intranet systems you're aware of.
We're
starting to see a lot of startups either shutting
down, fading
away or being put
up for sale. The latest is Talkr, an
automated text-to-voice service that we actually use here on Read/WriteWeb. At
the bottom of each R/WW post, you'll see an
Audio link - click on that to hear a computer-generated female voice read
out the post. I introduced this feature back in
June 2005 and have kept it around because it's a great accessibility tool -
i.e. it provides a way for people with visual disabilities or reading problems to
read this blog. There are other similar
services too, such as Botcast
Network.
So why has Talkr decided to put itself up for sale? Founder Chris Brooks explained in a blog post that he hasn't been able to monetize the product, resulting in him not being able to introduce new features. He wrote:
"I began work on Talkr in March of 2005, and after nearly two years of banging on this idea, I have decided to try to find it a permanent corporate home. I strongly believe that Talkr will thrive as methods of monetizing podcasts become simpler and more robust. Bloggers will provide content and distribution and Talkr will provide increasingly sophisticated text to speech, and ad integration."
This is a sign of the times unfortunately, that a lot of web 2.0 startups haven't been able to achieve network effects and/or monetize their services. In Talkr's case, I think the technology itself has great potential - so hopefully it gets a buyer. Also, as Chris points out in the eBay sale page, there is a growing market for audio advertisements in podcasts - in December Google released a product called "Audio Ads", which allows advertisers to place audio advertisements in radio.
I've been following
usability guru Jakob Nielsen's annual Best Intranets column for as long as I can
remember. This year
Nielsen specifically mentions web 2.0, albeit in a very condescending way. The summary is
just the start:
"This year's winners emphasized an editorial approach to news on the homepage. They also took a pragmatic approach to many hyped "Web 2.0" techniques. While page design is getting more standardized, there's no agreement on CMS or technology platforms for good intranet design."
Enterprises are always "pragmatic" (a.k.a. conservative) about new technologies, so it comes as no surprise they're cautious with web 2.0. But later in the article, Nielsen gets feisty about the hype...
I was intrigued by what Nielsen meant, in his summary, by "an editorial approach to news on the homepage". Here's what he said about news feeds:
"Many intranets have long offered news feeds, but this year's winners have taken extra steps to make their news offerings more relevant to employees, both for internal news and for industry-related external news. Labeling and categorization are more extensive than before, and several intranets let users rate and comment on stories."
He then compares the user ratings to Amazon and weblogs, but takes an unnecessary potshot at the latter by saying that intranet user ratings won't be "degraded by the Bozo effect". Not content with that, he concludes: "ratings and comments from colleagues are likely to be much more useful than those of random blog readers". Charming.
By John Milan. This is the first in a two-part series. Part 2 is here.
What will the software solutions of tomorrow look like? They will be forged by four powerful elements: The Internet, Open Source, Mobile Devices and Web 2.0. We can debate the merits of each, but taken as a whole they will shape the genetic blueprint for the successful applications of tomorrow -- starting now.
Evolution and
Global
Warming
have been my themes lately, but today we'll explore what these macro events foretell:
mutation. The leviathans of our primordial software world have been busy hatching
their vision for the next generation of solutions. But while size and scale have been
advantageous up to now, four major events have set off an irreversible chain of events -
altering the desired characteristics of software. In this new environment, nimbleness
will again be rewarded and size may just be a disadvantage. Indeed, the meek have just
gotten another crack at inheriting the earth.
The Internet was a meteor strike unleashing a myriad of possibilities; Open Source was a breath of fresh air; Mobile Devices began a great migration from the desktop and Web 2.0 brought everything to a more human level. We can debate the merits of each -- the Internet was a cataclysmic event, whereas Web 2.0 seems more like a change in the weather -- but taken as a whole they will shape the genetic blueprint for the successful applications of tomorrow, starting now.
By Alex Iskold
What happens to people after they
graduate college? Most of them get jobs and launch their professional careers. So Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook team are no doubt preparing for their user base of college students turning into professionals. Launched in 2004, Facebook quickly grew to become the number one social network for
US college students. Today the company is viewed as an important property and there were
rumors last year about a billion dollar acquisition
by Yahoo!. Why? Not because college students have a lot of money to spend. It's
because college students grow up to be professionals with big wallets. Facebook is seen
as a grooming ground for a future prime advertising audience, which is the reason for
valuations north of $1B.
It is likely that changes will take place on Facebook, as it will certainly see an increase in the number of professionals (as the current users age). The first step towards this was taken when Facebook finally opened its doors to anyone - meaning non-students can now sign up with Facebook. The future Facebook is likely to change even more to become a destination for college students and professionals alike. This puts it on a direct collision course with a leader in professional networking, LinkedIn. In this post, we will take a detailed look at LinkedIn and assess how well it is positioned for this battle.
