Comments for IBM Launches World's Geekiest Social Network, My developerWorks

IBM Launches World's Geekiest Social Network, My developerWorks

2009-04-30T04:14:55Z

Many a neutech hipster looked askance at the huge IBM-plex situated front and center at this year's Web 2.0 conference.

No one could deny the hardware/software/services giant's place in tech history (their first plant is now almost 100 years old), but what does it have to do with the glassy, streamy, widgety world that tech had become? IBM staff on-site had many answers for that oft-repeated question, which was usually phrased, roughly, "What the hell are you guys doing here?"

]]> And those IBMers were full of buzzwords: Mashups, they said. Social media. The [expletive deleted] cloud. They said IBM was doing more to support developers for the new web.

So, what is IBM really doing in the social space?

Enter developerWorks, reportedly the largest online technical resource for software developers in the world. Today, half of the world's developers use it; that's around 8 million members.

And today, IBM is launching a social network just for them.

And before you rush to make comparisons, it's nothing like Facebook, LinkedIn, or any of the better known social nets we all know.

The functions of the site are remarkably task-focused. IBM's demo video sets a stage of goal-oriented techies seeking a specific knowledge or skill set and using My developerWorks' groups, discussion threads, and profiles to determine who has experience or expertise in a particular field. Warning: Demo video works better if you ignore the business stock photography. We know most dude developers don't really have frosted tips.

The most exciting prospect is the possibility for ongoing collaboration. All IBM needs now is to show profiles in other disciplines so that the biz dev, marketing, design, executive, and VC types can get in on the action and boom, you've got a never-ending Startup Weekend.

An IBM rep said via email Wednesday night, "IBM's goal with My developerWorks is to connect the global community of software developers and make it easier for them to create new technologies based on open standards such as Java, Linux and XML. With $4 trillion in global economic stimulus investments on the way for projects such as healthcare modernization, smart grids, and public infrastructure improvements - all of it technology-driven - IBM wants to give developers a seat at the table and help them build skills in hot technology areas including analytics, clean tech, and cloud computing."

And what does IBM stand to gain from a web of millions of registered software developers sharing information, compiling data, building teams, brainstorming ideas, critiquing and refining their work, and creating products on and through their proprietary network?

We didn't receive a comment on that point and have journalistic standards of objectivity to maintain; however, we're sure that the My developerWorks will profit both the individuals and the organizations involved.

Comment from Phillip Gibb on 2009-04-29

2009-04-30T06:11:29Z

I certainly hope so. That my developer works - ha ha ha.
will be interesting to see how this does, but something like this already exists : http://stackoverflow.com/ - sort of

Comment from Ivan on 2009-04-29

2009-04-30T06:19:00Z

This is very cool... If only I had time for another profile besides Facebook. It'd be cooler if they exposed some of the functionality as a facebook app, or did more work to integrate FB Connect. I'm not interested in starting from scratch, just getting more techie with the techies i know, and building from there.

Comment from charly on 2009-04-29

2009-04-30T06:26:01Z

very good and usefull Idea, I've just miss this. I do understand the value and use for developpers and users, but what about IBM? what's the business plan behind this? sure they'll have controll on profiles of some very smart people and can monetize that in someway (HR) but still. No Ads so far on the plattform, probably already a big advertising/marketing plattform for IBM-Products.

Comment from Jean-Michel Decombe on 2009-04-29

2009-04-30T06:52:34Z

Nice effort, however it is rather primitive and really slow. Growing pains? Will look again in a month.

Comment from Michael on 2009-04-30

2009-04-30T08:49:02Z

Whatever next!

Comment from Jo Booth on 2009-04-30

2009-04-30T12:58:54Z

mmm. I recall talking about getting them to do a demo for @UPnz. will see if thats planned soon.

Comment from kelleydg on 2009-04-30

2009-04-30T14:01:19Z

The business plan behind this, Charly, is that the more time developers spend on the developerWorks site, the more likely they will use IBM products. From a business perspective, that's what developerWorks does. Now, developerWorks just gave you more reason to stay and interact with other developers to get your questions answered.

As for the frosty tips, I had to laugh. It's not stock photography in the article--those are actual screen caps. The woman was my officemate, and she is, in fact, a Software Engineer who worked on creating the My developerWorks interface.

For growing pains: there are some. Especially considering all that developerWorks plans the interface to offer. Feel free to offer feedback on the site to help developerWorks work out the kinks and make the My developerWorks interface the most useful for you.

Comment from Jolie O'Dell on 2009-04-30

2009-04-30T15:08:36Z

Hey everyone!

@kelleydg: re: the frosted tips, I wasn't referring to the screen caps, but the "slides" in the video. As someone who used to work with a LOT of stock photography, it's definitely iStockphoto-type material.

Comment from Ferodynamics on 2009-04-30

2009-04-30T15:29:23Z

I gave them this idea four years ago, part of an email I wrote IBM:

"I fleshed out a collaborative reading system (this was last year) that would not only be useful for the classroom, but also for large organizations... It's a guaranteed a killer app, not just for the web, but also ideal (if not absolutely
inevitable) for digital-ink (handheld) platforms. Eliminate
redundant process in the classroom, the workplace, etc..."

But they never wrote me back. Regardless, part of my idea (from 2003) was to identify "reading trail" intersections within an organization utilizing a virtual "highlighter". Why bother with Google when you can see xyz employee highlighted the exact sentence you're reading on ReadWriteWeb, just click xyz and see what else they're reading.

However, there are now a few websites that do this, but they aren't very popular yet and I don't think they realize yet how important this is for schools, enterprise, etc. People are more comfortable bookmarking. But highlighting particular sentences shows much more intelligence.

Someone following your reading trail could get up to speed much faster by just looking at what you highlighted. There's not enough granularity with a URL. Also, highlighting more clearly shows your particular interest in a document, several groups of people may have different uses for the same document. But you can't see those intersections if you're only bookmarking URLs.

Comment from Bruce on 2009-04-30

2009-04-30T15:41:07Z

This is a pretty decent resource. Sometimes its hard to connect with other developers who may have already figured out the problem you are facing. I would not be surprised to see other companies start to do things like this in the future.

Comment from Branavan Ganesan on 2009-04-30

2009-04-30T19:20:29Z

@Phillip Gibbs. Yea. stackoverflow is cool. The essential difference is content. The My developerWorks environment sits on top of about 40K pieces of content - articles, tutorials etc. There's also a huge forums environment that been around for about four years.
So it hopefully will make it easier to get your work done if you are in here and participating.

@Ivan. We are thinking about building FB apps that allow you to pull parts of My developerWorks into FB. Thing is this. We have little to no control over data there. So, if you want to submit RFEs for products, share source code with other techies, participate in forums, get recommendations on content that fits your interests, and meet other folks that have done what you are workin on, it's hard to do that in a FB.
FaceBook Connect is pretty cool, but there's no way we can stuff all that into an app.

@Jean-Michelle. We hear you. We are doing some optimization and tuning work. If you're a technie then you understand the pains behind launching a new offering.

Comment from kelleydg on 2009-04-30

2009-04-30T21:31:56Z

@Jolie O'Dell--Ah! Got it (about the stock photography). My bad. I actually had a couple of colleagues ask me when that guy was my officemate. "What guy? Ohhhhhh..."

Sorry for misunderstanding. If that's the worst mistake I make today, I'll consider it a successful day.

Comment from Col on 2009-05-01

2009-05-01T08:05:33Z

Cool. This actual looks like a fantastic resource. The win for IBM is more brand recognition, and you can never have too much of that

Comment from Heather Huffman on 2009-05-01

2009-05-01T13:39:19Z

Jolie - I just want to thank you for this article - it was GOLDEN for our launch! You have over 10 pages of tweets today citing this article in particular and were a tremendous help in making this launch a success! As the marketing lead for developerWorks, I couldn't have said it better myself, and am enjoying reading user comments so we know what we need to improve as we evolve.

Thank you and great article!

Heather

Comment from Dries on 2009-05-03

2009-05-03T07:20:10Z

404 Not Found.. Um ja

Comment from chat on 2009-07-05

2009-07-05T10:46:15Z

CHAT