The final installment in our look at the top 50 Facebook apps will look at 10 apps for extension. These apps extend Facebook's core functionality to improve upon existing features (for the most part). This was the hardest list to create because there is probably more overlap in this category than any of the others, which meant excluding a lot of apps. This is a completely subjective list, so not everyone will agree with our picks and I encourage you to debate them in the comments.
This post is the last in a 5-part series that has identified our picks for the top 50 Facebook apps (10 each in 5 categories). Be sure to check out Part 1: Work, Part 2: Play, Part 3: Media, and Part 4: Utility as well.
This week I spoke with Barney Pell, CEO of Powerset; and Melek Pulatkonak, COO of hakia. In both (separate) conversations we discussed how the Semantic Web is getting very close. The Semantic Web as defined by Tim Berners-Lee is: "a universal platform for the exchange of data, information and knowledge." I think Barney and Melek would agree, that the only thing preventing the Semantic Web so far has been an inefficient use of horsepower - or a lack of it.
How considerate of Facebook to wait until Read/WriteWeb's Facebook Week to announce their first major acquisition. For an as-yet-undisclosed sum, Facebook has acquired Parakey, a Web OS company founded by Firefox co-founders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt. Read/WriteWeb was one of the first blogs to profile Parakey last November, and at the time Richard MacManus said that Parakey had "the potential to help bridge the current gap between Web and desktop applications."
Ross describes Parakey as "a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do." Here's a quote from an IEEE Spectrum article that I think explains what the still-unlaunched Parakey is attempting to be pretty well:
It has been just under 2 months since Facebook launched their platform initiative, but this self-opening move has already had an extremely positive impact on the company. The changes are not limited to the company itself, however. The move has also disrupted the Internet industry as a whole and web 2.0 today looks very different than it did just 2 months ago. Let's take a look at what has changed since the launch of Facebook's Platform.
Our list today will look at the top 10 apps for utility. These are apps that are in some way useful. This was a pretty broad list, and probably took us the longest to cut down to a top ten. As a result, we were unfortunately forced to leave off a lot of good apps. This is a completely subjective list, so not everyone will agree with our picks and I encourage you to debate them in the comments.
This post is the fourth in a 5-part series that will identify the top 50 Facebook apps (10 each in 5 categories). Be sure to check out Part 1: Work, Part 2: Play, and Part 3: Media, as well.
Written by Guest Writer Steve Spalding
The idea of "Search" is a powerful concept. Whether it's guide based like Mahalo, algorithmically powered like Google or driven by something as close to home as natural
language, like Powerset. Where there is information, there is a need to be able to
easily sift through it. So far, we have focused our attention on brute force solutions
to the problem of search. If an engine produces bad results, well then develop a better engine.
However another path that might provide a solution to this problem is a search engine that can do
our work for us - a search agent. Web services that can learn from our choices, to make
future searches more accurate.
This week is Facebook Week on Read/WriteWeb. Here we'll re-cap the week so far and see what else is happening on other blogs.
Firstly the Read/WriteWeb Facebook Group already has over 400 members, after just a few days. It's open to anyone and you can join here. We're currently looking at what apps to implement to make the group compelling - if you have any suggestions, please comment here or on the group's 'wall'.
FoldSpy is a new app that soft-launched yesterday and aims to help web developers optimize ad placements on their websites. Because every browser, operating system, and especially screen resolution will display pages a little different, the "fold" (the part of the website that is visible without needing to scroll) is not the same for every visitor to your site. FoldSpy lets website owners see their site how their visitors see it and figure out how best to place above-the-fold ads so that a maximum number of visitors will see them.
The free app installs on your server (by inserting a single line of code) and creates a javascript overlay by navigating to /#foldspy. The javascript display shows which part of your site is visible at various screensizes, and can be manipulated to any dimension. As you change the size of the visible portion, FoldSpy tells you which percentage of your visitors can see everything displayed in the visible area. The end result is knowledge of the exact screensize in px that you should develop for to reach the maximum number of above-the-fold viewers.
In part 3 of my top 10 Facebook applications series, I will be looking at the top 10 apps that have to do with media. For the most part, these are apps that let users watch, display, look at, and remix video, audio, and photo content. This is a completely subjective list, so not everyone will agree with our picks and I encourage you to debate them in the comments.
This post is the third in a 5-part series that will identify the top 50 Facebook apps (10 each in 5 categories). Be sure to check out Part 1: Work and Part 2: Play, as well.
In a previous
article, we explained that the pivot of the internet is shifting from search to
social interactions. But this doesn't necessarily mean that search is losing its value.
After all, don't we still live with previous paradigms like single sign-on and
e-commerce? Search is still a crucial paradigm and so all the Internet bigcos continue
fighting for position - and some of them ultimately aim to usurp the search leader,
Google. In this article, we take a closer look at the competitive advantages of Google
Search and try to find out whether Google is really beatable.
