The Best of Web 2.0

Designtechnica has published their 2006 Best of Web 2.0 list. Some of the sites include Flickr.com, Vimeo.com and Writeboard.com. From the piece: 'The next generation of the web is here! With new kinds of desktop-like applications being released left and right, how will you know where to go and what to use? That's why we're here: To show you the best of Web 2.0 sites that you can get the most out of. No matter the task, video, audio, or photos, we have a site that works great for what you want to do and uses all the great features of Web 2.0 technology.'

LONG TAIL: BOON FOR CONSUMER, BUST FOR PRODUCER?

Podbop nets big prize at MashupCamp

Office Live domains spike

NEWS.COM: Small businesses are fast jumping on the opportunity to have Microsoft host Web sites for them under the week-old Office Live test service, according to statistics revealed by Swedish Internet analytics firm Ipwalk. The company posted a graph on its Web site that shows there are about 4,000 new domains under the beta program since it launched last week. At the time of the launch, Microsoft said more than 100,000 businesses had signed up. "The domain names for Office Live are currently being registered through Melbourne IT, an ICANN-accredited registrar," Ipwalk said. "It will be interesting to see if this cooperation will continue when Office Live is no longer in beta, or if Microsoft plans to become a domain name registrar itself in the future." The Office Live service is targeted at small businesses who will receive e-mail, Web domains, Web site hosting and other services free during the beta.

The 2006 CMO Web-Smart Report

WEBTRENDS.COM: In a shifting marketing landscape, the web is the key to proving and improving results. But most organizations aren’t feeling ready for a web-centric future. And marketing teams will be held even more accountable for their performance than ever before.

In our recent CMO Web-Smart Survey of more than 250 marketing executives, we set out to discover how big an impact the web would have on marketing in the next year—and how confident CMOs and other executives were in their ability to measure online marketing performance and create an ROI mindset throughout their organizations.

The extraordinary results of the survey demonstrate the huge increase in the influence of the web on every aspect of business, as well as the need for greater accountability.

Amazon's A9 Mystery

Breaking Down Walls For Interactivity

AdWeek.com - There was a time when young creatives toiling in the world of Web advertising were relegated to the kids' table at the marketing buffet. But with clients increasing, however incrementally, their online spends -- from just under $3 billion in 1999 to a projected $8.6 billion this year--and heightening their demand for integration across platforms, agencies are removing the barriers between their interactive and traditional creative disciplines.

The Future of the Blog

BUSINESSWEEK.COM: It's hard to imagine the world without blogs. The publishing technology has become a cultural and political force. One of the reasons for the rapid growth of the blogosphere is the existence of user-friendly blogging software such as Moveable Type. The program was designed with simplicity in mind by Mena Trott, a former graphic designer and early blogger (she launched dollarshort.org in early 2001), and her husband, Ben Trott, a programmer.

Interview with Microsoft Exec on IE7 and RSS

Nokia N80: Browser “minimap” feature

37SIGNALS.COM: While reading this review of the Nokia N80 I noticed an interface gem: the “minimap.” The minimap feature shows you a full-width scaled-down web page on a mobile phone screen and then lets you move around the page with a red marquee. This allows gives you a bird’s-eye view of the whole page so you can hone in on the part you really wanted to view. It’s far better than scrolling endlessly on a small screen trying to find that part of the page you were looking for. Really smart UI solution.

MobileGlu brings web content to cellphones

A lot of content providers offer versions of their info optimized for cellphones, but that doesn't mean they do it well -- or that it's easily aggregated into one place with a consistent interface. That's the promise behind MobileGLU, a new service that scrapes your designated content and presents it in a mobile-friendly format. The service currently offers access to flickr, del.icio.us, RSS feeds and a handful of other content sources, with more in the works -- at least until content providers crack down and try to shut them down for redistributing their data without permission.

GMail Drive shell extension

GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Gmail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium.

Web 2.0 desktops

BLOGS.ZDNET.COM: As the Web matures into a richly intertwined ecosystem of shared content and open services, what some call The Web As Platform, some innovative companies are beginning to offer potentially disruptive products that leverage the Web's growing "platformness". Increasing in popularity in particular are what some people call Ajax desktops, or personalized start pages. Well exemplified by Microsoft's Live.com, but also by the likes of the popular Protopage and Netvibes, the interest in these online desktops is being driven by a confluence of factors.

=> Read the full blog report here.

Logo 2.0

Web 2.0 mashups

BEYOND CRM: If Web 2.0 mashups are the future of the internet (see, for example, a Wikipedia article here), what will the enterprise application look like? The folk at Salesforce.com think they have the answer, in the shape of the winter 06 release of their web application platform – and the introduction of a web service and application directory, the AppExchange.

Salesforce.com has come a long way since it began life as a web-hosted CRM package. Initially giving small and medium sized businesses access to the capabilities of tools like Siebel, but without the cost, it quickly became an enterprise tool. Now quick to customise, and able to link into public web services with a web services API that lets you build it into your own applications, Salesforce.com can be used for more than just CRM.

=> Read the full article here.

You've got (certified) mail!

CNET.COM: Saying they want to cut down on the glut of spam and phishing attacks aimed at their millions of users, America Online and Yahoo are turning to a controversial service offered by a company called Goodmail Systems, which has been likened to an electronic postage stamp provider.

The service gives preferential treatment to companies that pay a fraction of a cent per e-mail to ensure that their messages bypass spam filters and get through to the intended recipients. The companies agree to send e-mail only to recipients who are willing to accept the e-mail.

The business model not only challenges the notion of free flow of information upon which e-mail has thrived for more than a decade, but is prompting criticism from advertisers and antispam groups who say it amounts to extortion and poses a threat to legitimate e-mail messages from senders who don't agree to pay, without really decreasing spam.

Goodmail Systems' co-founder and Chief Executive Richard Gingras talked with CNET News.com about how the service works and why he believes it will improve the e-mail experience for consumers and advertisers.

=> Read the interview with Richard Gingras here.

Bring Gmail to your domain

Google has launched a beta for hosted e-mail accounts that feature the user's domain instead of gmail.com.

The hosted Gmail beta, which is going head-to-head with a similar beta that Microsoft launched in November, is offering 2GB of storage, e-mail search tools and a control panel to manage user accounts, aliases and mailing lists, as part of its beta.

The beta is open to businesses, organizations and schools, according to Google's blog site. The search giant points to San Jose City College as one school that is testing hosted Gmail, offering its students e-mail accounts with the domain of jaguars.sjcc.edu.

Google's beta follows on the heels of a similar one Microsoft launched in November. The Microsoft Windows Live Custom Domains beta features hosted e-mail and instant messaging.
The Live Custom Domains service, however, was aimed at consumers who wanted up to 20 e-mail accounts with 250MB per address for an existing domain. Microsoft's hosted beta also included security features, such as virus scanning and junk-mail filtering.

The battleground for hosted e-mail accounts appear to be taking shape among the industry titans, but it has yet to be seen whether it will quickly accelerate as did the offerings for large e-mail storage by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Mash-ups for social change

BLOG SEARCH: TechSoup, an online resource that helps non-profits meet their technology needs, has created the NetSquared project. The project is a place "where savvy technical professionals with a sense of social responsibility can contribute advice, education, and much needed skills." Among the Internet tools NetSquared promotes are map mash-ups. For example, GreenPeace has created map of where it thinks marine reserves should be as part of their year-long "Defending Our Oceans" voyage. For another mash-up, Steve Hargadon, who sells refurbished computers to public schools, has created a map of locations of computer refurbishers and photos of the computers. NetSquared has even created its own mash-up of its case studies of non-profits that are using Web 2.0 tools.

mTLD announces launch dates for dotmobi domain name

DUBLIN, Ireland – February 12, 2006 –Mobile Top Level Domain (mTLD) today announced the rollout plan for the new mobile-friendly dotmobi domain name. Dotmobi provides the world’s first domain name optimised for consumers using the Internet on a mobile device.

The rollout will commence with the “Sunrise Registration Period” for trademark holders in June 2006, followed by the “General Registration” in September. mTLD is working closely with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), registrars, copyright bodies and site owners to ensure that trademarks are properly protected during the Sunrise Period.

The Sunrise Period will be unique in this case as mTLD plans to offer the mobile industry a week long advance period to register their trade and service marks, at the end of May. This week long period is referred to as the “Limited Industry Sunrise”. Leading mobile industry associations such as the GSM Association (one of mTLD’s founding investors), CTIA – The Wireless Association®, and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) among others have lined up to support the dotmobi sunrise for their membership.

=> Read the full press release here.
=> .mobi demo.

Review: Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, And Other Browsers In Four-Way Shootout

INFORMATIONWEEK.COM: Four tech experts battle over which is the best browser -- IE7, Firefox, Opera, or Maxthon. We take you on a visual tour of each, then let you make the call.

Are you an Internet Explorer traditionalist? An old-time Opera booster? A fervent Firefox enthusiast? Or an advocate of possible Next-Big-Thing Maxthon?

Now that Microsoft has come out with the public preview of its upcoming Internet Explorer 7 for XP, it is time to explore exactly why IE is still top dog, whether it deserves to bear that title, and which browsers may be closing in on its tail.

=> Go to the 18-page browser reviews in InformationWeek here.
=> Webmonkey First Look: IE7 Beta2 Preview.

Yahoo! User Interface and Design Patterns Libraries

Everyone talks about Web 2.0. Talk is cheap. How about some real help? Just in time for Valentine's day we're giving you a delicious candy box of tools and guidelines for building cutting-edge dynamic web sites.

First, there's the Yahoo! User Interface Library. The UI Library is a set of JavaScript components that let you quickly add all kinds of really nifty features to your web site, from dynamic UI elements like drag and drop, tree views, and animation; to underlying functionality like custom events and easy-to-use cross-browser XMLHttpRequest connections. Its a small easy-to-use framework for building AJAX applications. And get this: Its free to use and its open source (BSD license). Better than flowers any day.

Code is cool, but howabout some advice, too. We've also got the Yahoo! Design Patterns Library, where our best visual and interaction designers have gotten together and created a set of patterns and guidelines for design in a Web 2.0 world. Here you'll find ideas on the best ways to implement web site elements, along with pointers to examples and the tools within the Yahoo! UI Library that will let you do it. Today's Pattern Library is just the beginning -- expect this part of the site to grow quite a lot over the coming months.

Our Yahoo! UI folks, in addition to the insane amount of work they did to bring you all these cool tools today, have also started a blog over on yuiblog.com to keep you updated on stuff going on in the Yahoo! UI world and to get your feedback on patterns and tools. Drop over and say hi!

Web 2.0 mash-up > Find the latest street junk, in real time

BLOG ESOTERICA: Map mashups are everywhere, but this one could have come only from New York City. And, unlike many others, it has universal appeal--and can even help tidy up the gritty streets of Gotham.

GarbageScout.com is a communal resource where people can submit locations of discarded objects, those charming fixtures of the urban landscape. The blog's motto says it all: "Found treasure map to New York City, a recycler's dream, a cheapskate's best friend, a dumpster diver's companion."

Yahoo testing new home page

Yahoo confirmed late Wednesday night that it is testing a new home page. A screenshot can be seen on Flickr.

The screenshot shows a simpler Web search area at top with links to content areas running down the left side and featured news shown prominently up high.

"This is testing we are doing for the Yahoo home page (www.yahoo.com) as part of our ongoing efforts to gain consumer insight and feedback during the product enhancement process," a Yahoo spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail response to questions.

Web 2.0

FireFox 2.0 Alpha 1 released friday

Gmail Chat

Today, Google announced Gmail Chat, the first integration of email and instant messaging in the browser that offers users a seamless communications experience. Gmail Chat enables Gmail users to quickly and easily reach their contacts from directly within their existing Gmail account.This new offering solves some of the current frustrations with communications, whereby users must choose between different email or IM applications. With Gmail Chat, there's nothing to download and no new contact lists to build. When users see their existing contacts online, they can either send email or chat instantly. Additionally, Gmail Chat breaks down the arbitrary difference between emails and chats. When chats are saved, they appear as email messages in Gmail, making it easier for users to access and search over important information from their conversations.Key features of Gmail Chat include:

• Quick Contacts: Located on the left side of users' Gmail screens, the Quick Contacts list automatically displays the people they communicate with most frequently. From the Quick Contacts list, users are now one click away from starting an email or chat or viewing recent conversations with a contact.
  
• Online presence and status: Users can easily see which contacts are online and available to chat, denoted by a colored icon next to each contact's name. They can also set their own status message for others to see.
  
• Chat history: Users can choose to automatically save chats in their Gmail account, where the chat history is formatted and saved the same as an email conversation. Chats can be easily viewed, searched, forwarded, printed or deleted. Users may also "Reply" to a chat, which sends an email message to the person with whom they were chatting.
  
• Chatting off the record: Users can "go off the record" so that a given chat conversation will not be automatically saved in Gmail, by either party.
  
• Google Talk synchronization: Users' Quick Contacts lists sync with their Google Talk Friends list (although the Google Talk download is still needed for free voice calling).
  
• No download needed: Innovative AJAX technology enables instant messaging directly in the browser, which means users can chat with their friends anywhere they have Internet access.

The launch of Gmail Chat begins today, and all Gmail users worldwide will have access to Gmail Chat in the coming weeks, further increasing the size of the Google Talk network and broadening the reach of the open standards-based instant messaging community by millions of people.

More information about Gmail Chat can be found at http://mail.google.com.

Forget browser wars, prepare for toolbar wars

NEWS.COM: Fighting for icon space on the desktop is so 2001. The new frontier on a virgin PC is the browser, and Internet companies like Google are jostling for space on the browsers of new PCs. Dell and Google are evaluating a partnership in which the Google Toolbar, Google Desktop Search and a Google-designed Dell home page are included on new Dell PCs, a Dell representative confirmed.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the companies are mulling a three-year partnership that could bring as much as $1 billion in revenue to the PC maker for letting Google install its software on Dell machines. The Dell representative declined to comment on the future of the relationship between the two companies. A Google representative confirmed the two companies were testing the search giant's products on new Dell PCs, but declined to comment further.

The browser, not the desktop, has become the most sought-after piece of real estate on a new PC, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. Five years ago, PC companies were giddy over the prospect of renting space on their boxes' desktops to the highest bidder, after Microsoft's antitrust settlement with the U.S. Justice Department forced it to open up the Windows desktop to increased competition.

Opera 9 Technology Preview 2 released today

BitTorrent to crack down on use of name

CNET.COM: The creators of the BitTorrent file-swapping application will soon begin cracking down on how other software developers use the BitTorrent name, company President Ashwin Navin said Monday.

BitTorrent's creator, Bram Cohen, has long allowed other people or companies to use his work freely under an open-source software license. Over the past several years, that has led to an explosion of software programs that claim they are compatible with BitTorrent downloads.

However, now that Cohen has created a company aimed at using BitTorrent to distribute
movies and other media legally, that unregulated software world is looking more worrisome. The company will soon start enforcing a trademark policy that ensures people using the BitTorrent name are producing safe software, Navin said.

Storm Rider of the Bit Sharing Range: Bram Cohen's filesharing brainstorm has touched off a firestorm in Web downloading.

Opera integrates BitTorrent in upcoming browser

OPERA.COM: Opera Software today announced that it has teamed with BitTorrent Inc. to include the BitTorrent™ protocol in the upcoming version of the Opera Web browser. Integrating this popular technology in the Opera browser means faster and more efficient downloads of large files.

Opera and BitTorrent have signed an agreement covering Opera's use of the BitTorrent trademark and access to the BitTorrent search engine from the browser’s user interface. A technical preview (TP) of the Opera 9 browser will be made available soon.

BitTorrent's technology will be made available to users of the Opera browser in two ways: first, users can search for torrent files in the Opera browser's integrated search field, and second, when a file has been selected, Opera's Transfer Manager feature will handle the download. As a result of integrating BitTorrent into the Opera browser, users no longer need separate software for the searching and downloading of torrent content.

Is your content a waste of time and money?

NEW THINKING: Most content gets in the way. It's poor quality. Nobody's interested in it, except those who create it. How much of this sort of content are you publishing?

There is a certain website that has one million pages. After analysis it was discovered that 35 percent of the pages on this website had never been visited. Not even once. 350,000 pages that nobody had ever looked at.

An intranet that had 100,000 pages got rid of 60,000 of them. They did not have a single inquiry in relation to the deleted pages.

It's so easy to justify the existence of content. It doesn't require much thought to come up with a scenario where a particular piece of content might be useful. Indeed, most content is useful to someone somewhere. But that doesn't mean it can show a return on investment.

=> Read the weekly column by Gerry McGovern here.

Are websites judged in the blink of an eye?

NEW THINKING: People can get a strong impression of your website within one twentieth of a second, according to a new study. But it may not be a lasting impression.

First impressions matter a great deal, according to a study by Carleton University, Canada. "The importance of being pretty" was the heading used by Wired Magazine, in reporting on the study.

It has long being known that looks matter. Studies have shown that more attractive looking people, as well as taller people, on average earn more. The Carleton study asked students to rate the visual appeal of a range of websites on a scale from "Very Unattractive" to "Very Attractive". The decisions made in the first one twentieth of a second held up over longer periods of examination.

=> Read the weekly column by Gerry McGovern here.