ReadWriteWeb

A few days after Amazon released their SimpleDB service, they also added the new DevPay service to their web application infrastructure stack, which makes it easier for developers to charge for apps built on Amazon's family of web services. "You can think of DevPay as an enabling technology for our other services. As as developer you will spend most of your time working with the other AWS services while counting on DevPay to allow you to monetize your hard work," wrote Jeff Barr, Amazon's Web Services Evangelist, on the AWS blog.

There are a lot of websites where you can share information and discussion about the forthcoming US Presidential election - but ¡México Decide! may be the most interesting one I've seen yet.

Arguing that the US has huge influence in Mexican elections and that Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal (undocumented), are fundamental to maintaining the US economy - ¡México Decide! concludes that all immigrants, legal and illegal, ought to have some say in the US Presidential election.

Last June, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) ejected a credentialed reporter from a baseball game because he was live blogging the event for his paper's web site. The reporter was stripped of his press credential and barred from the press box. His lawyer called out the NCAA for its draconian policy prohibiting live blogging, writing, "Once a player hits a home run, that's a fact. It's on TV. Everybody sees it. [The NCAA] can't copyright that fact. The blog wasn't a simulcast or a recreation of the game. It was an analysis."

The NCAA responded two weeks ago by releasing a new policy for live blogging of collegiate sporting events (PDF).

In his former occupation as a programmer at Microsoft, Daniel Oran developed the "start" button for the Windows 95 taskbar. As an author about to publish his second novel, Oran continues to innovate, this time by using the recently released Amazon Kindle e-book reader to let early readers help him refine a draft of his latest book. Oran's use of the Kindle is one of the more interesting we've seen, and really demonstrates the device's read/write potential.

Some people say that the bubble's going to take a downturn in the next year or two - that huge numbers of copycat startups are going to shut down, people are going to be out of work and Web 2.0 cheerleaders are going to eat their (our) words.

While startup churn is inevitable in any industry (thank goodness we're not restaurant founders!) I think this forecast is selling the future short. There are some big trends I'm really excited about for the web in 2008. Whatever happens to the economy, there's at least a whole lot of innovation to be inspired by right now. Ultimately, I think that will end up brightening the picture for all of us around the world.

Let's Build Some Stuff

For each of the 5 big topical trends described below, I've assembled some resources I think will be useful for anyone who wants to keep up with cutting edge developments in these fields in the next year.

Lazyweb, a site envisioned by Matt Jones and built by Ben Hammersley, was online from 2002 to 2006 before being shut down due to an overabundance of trackback and comment spam. The site, a progenitor of the web 2.0 movement, was one of the first to harness the wisdom of the crowds - by allowing you to ask a question of the internet audience in hopes that someone out there had the answer or solution, which you were too inexperienced or "lazy" to find for yourself.

Now that social networking has taken root, it's actually rather surprising that it's taken this long to see the return of a Lazyweb-like service - which is what the newly launched Hoosgot is.

Kwout (as in "quote", I think?) is a novel new web application that adds utility to screenshots by making them clickable.

The site offers a bookmarklet that automatically tees up a page for what it calls "quoting." I'm not sure the application is much in the way of practical use, but it is quite nifty.

Karma, as they say, will always come back to get you. So why not start 2008 off on the right foot by giving to some charitable causes online. These days, almost every charity accepts online donations, so with very few exceptions, we won't be mentioning any specific charities. Rather, the list below is designed to help you find new ways to give online and to make sure your money is going to a place that will really help those in need. The charitable web is so large that we can't possibly mention everyone (nor did we try to), but please add any sites you think we missed in the comments below.

10 years ago, in 1997, I wrote an article called Playing Against 5 Aces for a technology magazine in India called Dataquest. The article looked at how the deck was stacked in favor of American technology companies, because they were playing with 5 Aces in the pack:

1. A large domestic market
2. Access to intellectual capital
3. Reliable, low cost telecommunications
4. A culture that rewards innovation and risk taking
5. A well developed venture capital industry

Against these 5 Aces, India had only one good card, which was low cost labor. It is interesting to revisit these 5 Aces ten years later in 2007 (well, 2008 now!) and see what it means for the state of innovation in India. In short, India is looking a lot better: