Everyone is jumping on the Facebook "open platform" bandwagon, but LinkedIn can at least say it was among the first to issue copycat-intent statements shortly after the Facebook event. Richard MacManus covered the possibilities offered by a LinkedIn platform here in June. Now LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye has done an interview with the New York Times where he laid out some of the vision for the company's upcoming outreach to outside developers.
It won't be a very warm welcome compared to the Facebook lovefest. Though this should be unsurprising, LinkedIn's platform will require permission from the company before developers can get in on the action. Though Facebook apps do need to be added by Facebook to the app directory, a quick look through there shows that the bar is low enough that it may as well be open to all.
I'm regularly outspoken about my concerns that Google is going to take over the world and start passing out brain implants - but the fact of the matter is that I love Google services. Today's announcement that more GMail storage is on the way is heartening, but you've got to wonder: why is this mighty giant messing around with anything other than a total storage solution for all my data across all their apps? Where is the GDrive already?
A new Forrester report analyzes how the big IT vendors are utilizing Web 2.0 products in the enterprise. As with most Forrester reports, it overlooks the many innovative startups in the 'Web Office' space - focusing instead of the big fish such as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle. However there is a new report coming soon that will address what Forrester calls "pure play" vendors. And it must be said that the big vendors are the ones many enterprises look to for their IT solutions, including web 2.0 technology. So let's check out this report and see what it has to say.
The crux of the report is that each of the biggest IT vendors Forrester looked at - Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, SAP and BEA - has a unique perspective on the market. States Forrester:
- BEA, through acquisitions and new 2.0 products, now has numerous enterprise Web 2.0 capabilities, including blogs, wikis, communities, tagging, tag clouds, and a framework for building mash-up applications;
- IBM melds the world of application development with user experience with its WebSphere product family. It is a dominant player in the collaboration space and will deliver enterprise Web 2.0 functionality as part of its upcoming Lotus Quickr and Connections offerings;
- Microsoft's entry into the market is clear: if you want enterprise Web 2.0, you get it in Sharepoint;
- Oracle is a relevant infrastructure vendor and a thought leader in enterprise applications by offering Web 2.0 capabilities;
- SAP is looking to create end-to-end processes.
Portland, Oregon based Kumquat went live today in a limited beta release. The service is a very light-weight but well thought-out tool for gathering self-initiated performance reviews in any field. Account registration will be open for the next 24 hours at the URL hellokumquat.com/rww - after that you'll have to provide an email and get in line.
The company believes that there isn't a really easy way to secure performance evaluations from people you've worked for; they aim to make it simple and they do a pretty good job at launch. See also competitors iKarma, YouRater and to some degree Rapleaf.
It's got some early performance issues but scores high on usability otherwise. If you are seeking feedback on your work from clients or peers - Kumquat could be just what you're looking for. First some product description and good news, then the bad news last.
Being a big Radiohead fan, I was quick to go and buy their new album 'In Rainbows' via their website. As has been reported, there is no set price for the album - you input your own price, or get it for free. I mulled it over in my head what I should pay and in the end I opted for 7.50 pounds, equivalent to US$15. It came through on my credit card as NZ$22, which is almost exactly what I paid recently for the latest Foo Fighters CD (an actual physical CD that I bought from a shop). My reasoning for 7.50 pounds for Radiohead was that I'd pay what I usually pay for CDs - but in the knowledge that the extra profit will go to the artist (Radiohead) instead of the record company and shop. Being a fan of Radiohead - and of artists ability to earn a living independently - I figured this was fair.
However reading Fred Wilson's post today, in which he said he paid 2 pounds for In Rainbows, made me wonder what others think is a fair price. I'm sure some people paid more than me, and others would've paid less. It's chump change whatever way you look at it, for anyone earning a wage, so it's not really about the money from the consumer's perspective. But there is certainly an interesting principle here about what you think an album sold via an artist's website (or their social network page) is worth. So even if you're not a fan of Radiohead, insert your favorite artist in the poll below and let us know what you're prepared to pay if the 'middleman' is cut out.
Next week I'll be in San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Summit. I'm also attending the Mobile 2.0 Conference on Monday 15 October, and will pop my head into the Widget Summit event being held by Niall Kennedy on the same day.
Today Read/WriteWeb is the first to announce the Mobile Launch Pad demo companies at Mobile 2.0. These are all exciting and up-and-coming mobile web startups; I'm looking forward to checking them out next week. Here is the launchpad list:
Our digital lifestyle Network blog last100 has been tracking the upheavals in the music industry over the past couple of weeks. First Radiohead released their new album entirely via their website (I got it and it's awesome!), then Nine Inch Nails (a band which has experimented with the Internet a lot before) announced it has freed itself from recording contracts and become a free agent, and now Madonna is reported to be close to leaving her long-time label Warner Bros. Records for a reported $120 million deal with concert promoter Live Nation, Inc.
last100 has been tracking all of this news and editor Steve O'Hear today offers up an analysis of where the music industry is at. The artists are experimenting and the record labels themselves are under big pressure. Steve wrote:
Ellen Levy, a Silicon Valley veteran who has worked at companies like Apple and Softbank Venture Capital, built her new firm, Silicon Valley Connect, on the principles she learned while Director of Industry Collaboration and Research at Stanford's Media X. Media X is an industry affiliate program that liaises between industry representatives and the university.
Upon arriving at Media X, Levy quickly realized that "the university" was a complex ecosystem and not a single entity. For outside businesses, interacting with the university in a manner that was beneficial to their goals was not always a simple task. Levy realized that the key to getting things moving in the right direction was to ask good questions.
She decided that Stanford needed a virtual reorganization around ideas (which was plausible, where a structural reorganization was not). Using common tools of engagement (requests for proposals, graduate student funding, focus days, conferences, and meetings and correspondence, Levy was able to build the Media X program to a peak of 25 partner companies with a minimum investment of $50,000 in the university. Twice she had to close the door to new companies because they had all they could handle. Her biggest innovation was that you have to ask the right questions to get the ball rolling.
Google announced this morning that geotagged YouTube videos will now be viewable in a featured content layer of Google Earth. The company quietly added the ability to easily associate a geographic location with your videos at upload over the summer. At least in my part of the world, there's quite a few videos that have been geotagged already. This new layer sounds like a lot of fun and could be quite an educational experience as well, depending on video selection (see below).
As far as I can tell video is not yet integrated with Google Maps, so that would be the next logical step. Video is one of the most compelling mediums in existence and its inclusion in local search could really bring some zing to a search field everyone expects to be huge. Google Earth is likely another service with the bulk of its impact still far ahead of it.
The company didn't discuss whether there was any kind of filtering of the videos, though up until now there has been little incentive for video spammers to geotag their content. Now that geotags will take on a new relevance for searchers it will be interesting to see if existing filtering tools or perhaps simple popularity will be sufficient criteria to vet this content for inclusion in Google Earth. YouTube cynics who think nothing on the site is worth watching should spend some time on the community filtered StumbleUpon Video.
The Google Maps team says the YouTube layer is similar to its Google Book Search layer added in August.
About 15 years ago, Euan Semple had a rather serious medical problem. He talked to his local general practitioner, then to an expert who after a few weeks of impersonal tests and questions told him there was nothing wrong with him. Disheartened, Semple went online to seek out people with a similar issue and ended up finding groups and forums that led to a solution to his problem.
This experience stuck with Semple, who 7 or 8 years ago launched talk.gateway, an online, internal social networking platform for the 30,000 employees of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). Today, 23,000 BBC employees talk on the talk.gateway forums, 5,000 are using wikis to collaborate on projects, and 4-500 are blogging. Bringing social networking to the BBC seemed like the inevitable thing to do, says Semple, recalling the early days of the project.
