For many decades we had a PC monoculture controlled by Microsoft and, to a lesser degree, by Intel. Today, in the world of online media, that same thing looks like it could happen. But it doesn't have to be that way. This 4-point manifesto lays out how to avoid a Google media monoculture.
The launch of the OpenSocial Foundation yesterday was probably more about preempting lawsuits than it is about anything else, but getting Yahoo!, Google and Newscorp all in the same room raised some eyebrows. It also raises some big questions. In fact, there may be more questions on the table about OpenSocial than answers.
Is OpenSocial for real? It it going to make a big impact on the web? Before asking all of that, here's some thoughts on the nitty gritty as the platform moves forward.
Last November, we asked you if in 6 months time Facebook would have more business contacts than LinkedIn. Over 2/3rds of you thought that LinkedIn would still be the dominant business networking tool. It hasn't quite been six months, but a lot has changed since then, and Facebook looks poised to make a serious run at the business networking crowd.
When researching FuseCal this morning, one of the things that made it so appealing to try was the fact that you could just enter in a URL and see the service in action right away. No sign-up forms, no logins. This got us thinking about UI design as it applies to today's web services. Lately, it seems that less and less services are using sign-up forms...at least, they aren't requiring you to sign up right away in order to try them out. Instead, the trend seems to be to let you jump right in and get to work. This is definitely a good move, in terms of usability of the site, and it's not the only UI trend we've noticed lately.
By using FriendFeedStats, which creates service-level usage statistics from lifestream aggregator FriendFeed based on its public timeline, we can see which services are the most popular. Specifically, Twitter tends to dominate the conversation with about 44% of all activity on the service. Eric, over at Internet Duct Tape, spent the time to helpfully compile the stats and identify some trends.
Keeping up with multiple calendars can be hard. Many people have one for work, with details on important meetings, phone calls, and to-do's, and another for the family, with the kids' activities, personal errands, and family whereabouts. Online calendars have made it easier to access all your different calendars on the web from anywhere you have an internet connection, but frequent travelers and business users still needed an offline version, like enterprise-friendly Microsoft Outlook. And while software like Outlook now includes a feature that allows you to subscribe to internet calendars, you may not be utilizing that option since your personal calendar contains some items you wouldn't wanted synced to your work computer.
The big news today was the announcement of the OpenSocial Foundation, a joint effort by Google, Yahoo! and MySpace's Newscorp. As we reported earlier today, the creation of an open, non-profit organization will assuage concerns about whether Google is exercising leadership or control with OpenSocial.
But there are other concerns. In the press call, which you can listen to on ReadWriteTalk, our own Marshall Kirkpatrick asked whether the foundation will splinter OpenSocial and Microsoft?
Cross-site activity stream aggregator FriendFeed has answered the loud calls of users and developers and today released the first version of its Application Programming Interface, or API. The FriendFeed experience will now be accessible on platforms outside of the web page and FriendFeed user data should have all kinds of interesting things done with it.
FriendFeed is the new hotness and many people have asked for an API to take the service to the next level. There aren't any example apps built yet, nor has there been much developer feedback yet. A whole lot of things just became possible, though.
In this article, we'll analyze the trends and technologies that power the Semantic Web. We'll identify patterns that are beginning to emerge, classify the different trends, and peak into what the future holds.
In a recent interview Tim Berners-Lee pointed out that the infrastructure to power the Semantic Web is already here. ReadWriteWeb's founder, Richard MacManus, even picked it to be the number one trend in 2008. And rightly so. Not only are the bits of infrastructure now in place, but we are also seeing startups and larger corporations working hard to deliver end user value on top of this sophisticated set of technologies.
We're pleased to announce a new monthly feature on ReadWriteTalk, ReadWriteWeb's podcast show. There's a new podcast gang in town and it's called The Semantic Web Gang. The group is led by Paul Miller of Talis and includes our own Alex Iskold. Indeed we just published a monster post about Semantic Web Patterns, written by Alex, which makes a nice complement to the show! ReadWriteTalk will be syndicating every episode of The Semantic Web Gang.
Download MP3 [60 mins, 55Mb]
