Lately, we've been discussing the concept of tech populism and the how enterprises are moving towards a more people-centric focus when it comes to their IT infrastructure. Although we support this movement of bringing social tools into the workspace, one could argue that there's a right way and a wrong way to do this. For some, it's a matter of introducing social or collaborative features into enterprise software; for others, like WorkLight, it's about adapting existing consumer tools for the enterprise.
The long awaited and ultra-ambitious Encyclopedia of Life finally came online on Tuesday, but no sooner did it spring to life than, like an infant version of one of the species it catalogs, it fell flat on its face. Apparently underestimating the interest that the site would generate, its servers buckled under the load and yesterday, the old teaser site was put back online. Today, the EOL's first 30,000 pages are back up, though still noticeably slow.
We've all seen the signs. Ding dong the page view is dead... well, dying. First Compete announced that they would be using attention-based web metrics, or Attention Metrics for short. Then Facebook announced that they will move to a similar metric. Perhaps most importantly, Nielsen NetRatings announced last July that they would stop using page views for comparing popularity on the web, and move towards more attention based metrics. Also, Microsoft announced this week the release of a new ROI measurement tool called "engagement mapping".
Wikia, the independent commercial wiki site founded by Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley, is releasing components of its very nice social networking toolset under the GNU General Public License 2.0.
The ability to set up an Open Source social network is now available to anyone who can put a Mediawiki install on their servers. Look out Ning and other proprietary social networking platforms!
Technology, broadly, is a tool or set of tools aimed at making some aspect of life better, easier, or more efficient. On the web, that could mean scripting languages that make it easier for developers to create applications, or it could mean applications that make it easier for us to accomplish a task. Let's not debate the definition of the word technology, but rather, is web technology working for you? Are so-called web 2.0 applications making your life easier or overloading you with too much information?
A company called WorkLight, Inc. is hoping to bridge the gap between the ease-of-use of the social applications consumers use at home and the complexity of the enterprise applications that are used in business. To do so, WorkLight isn't just taking enterprise applications and adding web 2.0-like features, they are actually taking the social applications and tools that already exist and are adapting them for business use. Currently, the company works with fourteen of the most common social networks and social tools, including MySpace, Facebook, Netvibes, iGoogle, RSS, del.icio.us, and more to create enterprise-grade applications. The software, which was previously Linux-only, has now been made available for Windows servers, too.
Crowdsourcing firm Kluster officially launched yesterday at the TED conference, which is underway this week in Monterey, California. Founder Ben Kaufman, who bankrolled the company in part with money from the sale of his last company Mophie, has organized a gimmick over the course of the TED conference he hopes will prove Kluster's worth. Kaufman intends to let TED attendees -- and users from around the world -- design a completely new product over the course of 72 hours.
In our post Tim Berners-Lee Says the Time for the Semantic Web is Now, the Web's inventor is quoted as saying that "people are realizing it’s time to just go do it." But commenter Gregory isn't getting as excited - he thinks that "we haven't even gotten to first base". And no we're not talking about something Valleywag would cover. It's the Semantic Web, kids. Congratulations Gregory, you've won a $30 Amazon voucher - courtesy of our competition sponsors AdaptiveBlue and their Amazon WishList Widget. Here's his full comment:
Facebook today launched two new Pages for music and film aimed at getting musical artists and film makers on the site. The new pages are templates for artists that include applications specifically designed for music and film, such as a reviews app, a Flash player, and the Facebook music player, as well as officially co-branded Facebook apps from sites such as iLike and Fandango.
Last November we reported that the web-based scripted drama "Quarterlife" was making the unlikely jump to primetime television. Last night, Quarterlife debuted on NBC in the 10pm time slot, and the results were disappointing by television standards. The web-turned-TV show pulled a 1.6 share among 18-34 year olds, and averaged just under 3.9 million viewers for the time slot, good enough for third place. Interestingly, one of the shows it trailed was the CBS drama "Jericho," which was rescued from cancellation due to a massive grassroots web campaign to save it.
