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Future of Web - Lee Rainier predicts [28Apr10] - 0 views

  • Rainier , director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, looks ahead and makes a lengthy prediction of where we’re headed via the internet. As tempting as it was to clip the whole thing, I’ve resisted which means you will want to follow the link to read the article.
  • Themes:Cognitive capacities will shift (memorization)New literacies will be required. Fourth “R” is retrieval… “extreme Googlers”Tech isn’t the problem; people’s inherent character traits is the issuePerformance of information markets is a big unknown especially in the age of social media and junk information … Google will improve.Innovation ecosystem will change so radically (bandwidth/processing) that it’s hard to forecastBasic trends are evident — “the internet of things” and “sensors” and “mobile” and “location-based services” and “3D” and “speech recognition” and “translation systems”Law/regulations to protect privacy even though more disclosure required“Workarounds” to provide a measure of anonymityConfidentiality and autonomy will replace yearning for anonymityRise of social media is as much a challenge to anonymity as authentication requirements. Reputation management and information responsibility will emerge. Significantly more responsive govt, biz, NFP (71%/72%) v (26/26) [responses - anonymous, not-anonymous] Tide too strong to resist – pressure for transparency is powerfulData wil be the platform for changeEfficiency and responsiveness aren’t the same thingWe’re reading and writing more than our parents – participation breeds engagementNature of writing has changed (public). Quality will get better due to feedback and flamersReading and writing will be different in 10 years; screen literacy will become importantRead more at wiredpen.com
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    long list of Pew research predictions for internet
D'coda Dcoda

Building Mobile Web Apps the Right Way: Tips and Techniques [09May11] - 0 views

  • Here’s a quick breakdown of the big differences between desktop and mobile platforms: Mobile device hardware is smaller and generally tends to have lower hardware resources than desktops/laptops. Smaller screens bring about different design considerations and challenges. Touchscreen technology introduces new interaction concepts that differ from traditional input devices (keyboard and mouse). With a mobile device, internet connectivity is not always as reliable as a hard-wired broadband connection, which means internet connectivity is a concern and data transfer could be significantly slower. Although these sound as if they are hurdles to get over, with careful thought and consideration, there’s no reason why they should be. Touchscreen technology is exciting. The smaller screen design will really make you think about how to get the user to interact with your mobile web app in the most satisfying way possible. What we should really be doing is looking at the list of differences above and seeing opportunities to deliver our content in a different way. Building mobile web apps will be a paradigm shift from traditional web development and web design.
  • In the next sections, we will discuss development/design considerations, as well as concepts and techniques for building mobile web apps.
  • Keep File Sizes Small
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  • Dealing with Image Performance We want to try to get rid of as many images as we can. For the images we keep, we want them to be as lightweight as possible. If images are a necessity for particular parts of your mobile web app design, then there are a couple of extra steps we can use to trim off any excess fat from your files.
  • Use Adobe Fireworks for Transparent PNGs
  • Using ImageAlpha If Fireworks sounds like too much of a bother, check out ImageAlpha. Once installed, all you need to do is drag your images into its main window and then tweak the export settings to remove excess data from the images.
  • To learn more about using PNGs in web designs, see the Web Designer’s Guide to PNG Image Format.
  • Leveraging CSS3 Mobile web browsers these days are pretty advanced. Android devices use a mobile version of Google Chrome, whilst the iPhone does the same with Apple’s Safari. Some mobile devices come with mobile Opera and others allow you to install a browser of your choice such as mobile Firefox. So we’re talking about some pretty good browsers in terms of CSS3 and HTML5 feature support. CSS3 allows us to render things through code that would previously have required an image. We can use color gradients, draw rounded corners, create drop shadows, apply multiple backgrounds to HTML elements, and more — all of which can help improve performance and decrease development times.
  • If you look at a typical application interface via your smartphone, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll find CSS3 being used.
  • By using CSS3, we can reduce data transfer — particularly images and possibly excess HTML markup. We let the browser and the device do the work to render the interface more quickly.
  • HTML Canvas If you fancy a little more work, then you can improve speed even further using the canvas element. Although using CSS gradients eradicates the loading of a physical image, that method still causes the device’s rendering engine to construct an image in the browser, which can result in a performance reduction depending on the device and browser.
  • Hardware Acceleration When it comes to mobile web apps, Apple’s mobile devices are a major consideration that we need to be aware of because of the current popularity of the iPhone and iPad. Safari 5 (on all platforms) brings hardware acceleration into the mix. If you’re not familiar with the feature, Apple describes it as follows: "Safari supports hardware acceleration on Mac and PC. With hardware acceleration, Safari can tap into graphics processing units to display computing-intensive graphics and animations, so standards like HTML5 and CSS3 can deliver rich, interactive media smoothly in the browser."
  • Be Cautious of CSS3 Rendering Performance As brilliant as CSS3 is, certain properties can slow down a web page. WebKit-based browsers, for instance, really seem to struggle with shadows in particular, so just be careful that you don’t apply too many of these to elements of your interface until the issue has been resolved.
  • Consider the Offline User Experience Finally, let’s briefly discuss HTML5 offline data storage.
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    Very useful, but visit site for complete "how-to"
D'coda Dcoda

09/1/07 Deep Web: Databases of Databases - 0 views

    • D'coda Dcoda
       
      entered in diigo
  • Opportunities emerge from the deep semantic web
  • Economics is the science of incentives. While the promise of searching a huge store of databases may not sound like Saturday social night at the local drive in burger joint, it does by extension, introduce new incentives.  The new technology will drive people to build databases.  A new generation of entrepreneurs will collect, organize, analyze and create – not information – but data.Database of databases of databasesThe first things entrepreneurs will organize are human knowledge data – starting with their own, then relating it to others. Not unlike the human genome project, the vast human knowledge reservoir will be mapped. Entrepreneurs will enter their communities (on line, neighborhood, work, school, church, social networks) and create a database for what other people know and parse the data in any number of important and useful databases.The reason for this is simple; data are collections of human observations.This is the only thing people are willing to pay forRead more at www.conversationalcurrency.com
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    Opportunities emerge from the deep semantic web
D'coda Dcoda

Chris Brogan - Rethink Your Presence on the Web [1May10] - 0 views

  • When I go to your website (or blog, or twitter page, or facebook page), what do you want me to do? What do you REALLY want me to do? Don’t answer that right away or glibly. What do you want me to do on your site? How do you want me to feed into your systems?This is what I want to give you: a few questions to consider, from the same side of the fence as your prospective customer/visitor/reader/member whatever. Remember, these questions are not from your side of the fence. They’re from the other side, the important side. Answer These Questions for Your AudienceWho do you want me to be? How will I know that I belong? What do you want to show/tell me? What do you want me to do?How will we keep this relationship going? How shall I talk of you to my friends?Read more at www.chrisbrogan.com
Dan R.D.

Facebook, Google: Welcome to the new feudalism [10Sep11] - 0 views

  • In the modern web, Google and Facebook are the feudal lords and people are the peasants — at least when it comes to control of the photos, comments, 'likes' and other data that each person posts online.
  • "The users contribute their own content to you for free. You sell it back to them with banner ads put on there. And on top of that, you spy on them to gather profiling data," says Michiel de Jong, of the Unhosted project to decentralise user data.
  • As your friends talk to each other, they feed Facebook data about how information flows between its users. It's likely that your friends will have their own friends and will talk to them as well. Every time these first- and second-level contacts interact, it gives Facebook more pointers to where you fit within your network. To you, it's a bunch of your mates; to Facebook, it's an expanding cloud of data to be harvested.
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  • According to Metcalfe's Law, the value of a communications network is proportional to the number of users connected to the system.
  • Mistrust People mistrust this handing over of their data, in much the same way IT managers have concerns about uploading their enterprise's data into the cloud, or web users have misgivings about Gmail and Yahoo automatically scanning their emails.
  • Privacy concerns Meanwhile, Facebook has responded to people's concerns about their privacy on its network by providing more tools for adjusting privacy settings. This does not go far enough, according to de Jong. Read this Why Google+ may change the web for good Read more "If a building company put up a tollway and made drivers cede ownership of their cars whenever on that tollway, the traditional justice system would prohibit that," he argued. "Yet this is exactly what is happening on the 'information highway', and the situation is largely overlooked by justice departments, who still live largely in a brick-and-mortar world."
  • Methods of controlWhat makes this modern feudalism powerful is that the key parties are keeping their methods of control from the users.
  • Neither company openly gives details to users about how their data is being used. We never see inside Google's algorithms, or gain a view of how our connections interweave with every other person on Facebook, but their services see all.
Dan R.D.

The Shrinking of the Non-Social Web [23Jun11] - 0 views

  • Online video is exploding, with annual user growth of more than 45 percent. Mobile-device time spent increased 28 percent last year — with average smartphone time spent doubling. And social networks are now used by 90 percent of U.S. Internet users — for an average of more than four hours a month.
  • Every venture capitalist, Web publisher, and digital marketer is hyper-aware of these three trends.
  • What replaces the declining searchable Web is a new and “fully connected” digital life. You may have heard this before. After all, the promise of the Web was to connect pages with hyperlinks. Well, this time, “connected” means much more. It means the Web connects us, as people, to each one of the individuals online; and those connections, ultimately, extend from one of us to all of us.
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  • Now, the Web knows who we are (identity), is with us at all times wherever we go (mobile), threads our relationships with others (social), and delivers meaningful experiences beyond just text and graphics (video).
  • But social discovery builds a relationship. Leveraging social endorsements and an environment of serendipitous discovery, consumers meet publishers in a meaningful context. As a result, the relationship that forms is stronger — and, more importantly for publishers, it’s branded.
  • SEO’s strategic value is quickly fading as Google’s growth slows and its prominence in distribution slides away. In its place, Facebook has become the wiring hub of the connected Web — a new “home base” alternative to Google’s dominance of the last decade.
  • The old searchable Web is crashing; while the new connected, social Web is lifting off. The implications for publishers are massive.
  • The greatest innovators in social media are driving exactly along that edge today. As one friend commented recently on the full potential of connected lives, by being joined more closely together, we can increase empathy and meaning, while decreasing isolation.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

New 5 Billion Page Web Index with Page Rank Now Available for Free from Common Crawl Fo... - 0 views

  • A freely accessible index of 5 billion web pages, their page rank, their link graphs and other metadata, hosted on Amazon EC2, was announced today by the Common Crawl Foundation. "It is crucial [in] our information-based society that Web crawl data be open and accessible to anyone who desires to utilize it," writes Foundation director Lisa Green on the organization's blog.
  • The Foundation is an organization dedicated to leveraging the falling costs of crawling and storage for the benefit of "individuals, academic groups, small start-ups, big companies, governments and nonprofits." It's lead by Gilad Elbaz, the forefather of Google AdSense and the CEO of data platform startup Factual. Joining Elbaz on the Foundation board is internet public domain champion Carl Malamud and semantic web serial entrepreneur Nova Spivack. Director Lisa Green came to the Foundation by way of Creative Commons.
  • The Foundation explains the scope of the project thusly. "Common Crawl is a Web Scale crawl, and as such, each version of our crawl contains billions of documents from the various sites that we are successfully able to crawl. This dataset can be tens of terabytes in size, making transfer of the crawl to interested third parties costly and impractical. In addition to this, performing data processing operations on a dataset this large requires parallel processing techniques, and a potentially large computer cluster. "Luckily for us, Amazon's EC2/S3 cloud computing infrastructure provides us with both a theoretically unlimited storage capacity coupled with localized access to an elastic compute cloud."
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  • The organization was formed three years ago, just now started talking about itself publicly and believes that free access to all this information could lead to "a new wave of innovation, education and research."
  • Open Web Advocate James Walker agrees: "An openly accessible archive of the web - that's not owned and controlled by Google - levels the playing field pretty significantly for research and innovation."
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

'Web Clipping 2.0′ Startup Clipboard Backed By Andreessen Horowitz, Index, Cr... - 0 views

  • Clipboard aims to become the go-to service for saving and sharing the relevant parts of any page or service available on the Web, including much of its core functionality, or put differently taking care of everything in between simply bookmarking a URL and having to save an entire Web page.
  • Using a bookmarklet, Clipboard users can ‘clip’ things like search query results, stock quotes, tweets or Facebook status updates, video clips, images with captions, a Google Maps map, a forum answer, an Amazon book review, an eBay product summary, a digital coupon, and the likes.
  • Select part of a Web page or service, and use your mouse (simply by hovering over something or, preferably, by using the scroll wheel) to increase or decrease the number of ‘zones’ you would like to clip. Your selection – including links and images etc. – will be saved to your Clipboard profile instantly, and you can jump straight to it to visit your clip collection
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  • Clips can be annotated, saved, shared publicly and with specific users, tagged and all that jazz. But you can also just bookmark simple services you use, games you play, or parts of Web pages you often visit, and interact with your clips by visiting just one website instead of all them separately.
  • Not all of a site’s functionality can be simply clipped to Clipboard, as you will notice, but that’s of course not necessarily their fault. Inevitably, some services that reside on other websites or rely on third-party API calls or whatever, will be tougher to clip in full.
  • TechCrunch has learned that Clipboard has raised an undisclosed amount of financing from the following, impressive list of investors: - Andreessen Horowitz - Index Ventures - CrunchFund (note: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington is a founding partner) - DFJ - SV Angel / Ron Conway - Betaworks - First Round Capital - CODE Advisors - Founder’s Co-Op - Acequia Capital - Vast Ventures - Ted Meisel (former CEO of Overture and now at Elevation Partners) - Blake Krikorian (former CEO of Sling and now an Amazon board member) - the elusive Vivi Nevo
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

HTML5 App Delivery Network Strobe joins Facebook - The Next Web [08Nov11] - 0 views

  • Strobe, an App Delivery Network that facilitates getting HTML5 apps up and running on various platforms and app stores, has joined Facebook, CEO Charles Jolley announced today.
  • Jolley is also the creator of the SproutCore JavaScript framework for web apps that is used to quickly build web apps in the browser. It’s used by companies like NPR, Second Story and Sports Illustrated, as well as being popular among Facebook app developers.
  • Before Jolley created SproutCore, he was responsible for Mobile Me app development at Apple.
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  • Strobe is described as “an App Delivery Network that solves the problem by enabling you to combine what the Web and native apps do best, using cutting-edge tools and technologies. It’s the quickest and easiest way to get your HTML5 applications up and running, on the web and in app stores.”
  • As SproutCore is remaining an independent product, at least for now, it seems like Facebook is after the technology or skills offered by the Strobe team. This appears to be an effort by Facebook to bolster its web and mobile experience and syncing services between them.
Dan R.D.

Startling Facts That Show How HUGE Indian Tech Is - 0 views

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    http://www.businessinsider.com/india-tech-facts-2011-5#-8 1,210,000,000 current populationmobile phone penetration is 50% higher than TVIndians in rural areas 742,500,000 72% of populationtwo-and-a-half times the population of USAmobile subscribers 791,000,000 67%growing by 20,000,000 ever month50% of indians are 25 yrs or belowIndian mobile subscribers 791 million vs TV 520 millionnumber of SMSs sent via India's airtel network 90 billion10 billion mobile ads sent each monthestimated value of Indian mobile value-added services 2011 = 2011 US 3.5 billion100,000,000 internet users in India 8% populationgrew by 25% in the past 12 monthsaverage Indian web users spends 26 min online each day60% of Indian web users access via internet cafes31% of Indias rural population is unaware of the internet's existence.estimated value of eCommerce in India 2011: US $10 billion18% of India's rural Internet users travel more than 10km to access the internettop reasons rural Indians are adopting the internet: entertainmentestimated value of eCommerce in India in 2011: US $10 billionthe value of Indian eCommerce grow by more than 60% in 2010number of social media users in India: 33,158,000 - that's 2% of India's populationIndian web users spend 3 hours per month on social sites96% of Indian IT firms forbid social media use at work
Dan R.D.

Innovation Excellence | Web 3.0 - Innovation Nightmare or Disruptive Catalyst? - 0 views

  • Perhaps you’ve recently read about the Tampa Bay Lightning’s innovative chip-embedded jerseys. Blending physical gamification techniques such as a special badge to denote a certain level of status – in this case a season ticket holder – and embedded chip technology in the patch that issues those donning the jersey automatic discounts on concessions and merchandise while at the arena, the Lightning have a bona fide innovation hit on their hands. As a marketing ploy, you can not argue with the success of this experiment. As a technological innovation, what you see here – a piece of connected clothing – is just a rudimentary beginning of Web 3.0.
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    a rudimentary beginning of Web 3.0
D'coda Dcoda

Rapportive turns the inbox into a platform - 0 views

  • Rapportive adds dynamic contact previews to Gmail complete with profile picture, brief bio and links to their various social networking profiles. Part social, part CRM, Rapportive also features a minimalist notes area directly under the social profiles section of the sidebaat The Next Web Conference the startup is announcing the launch of a developer platform that will allow third parties to insert their products into Rapportivethese plugins, called ‘Raplets’ can be for any purpose. Rapportive suggests booking and time management, entertainment or internal corporate tools as other usesAlthough Rapportive is a Gmail-only service right now, it will be integrating with other email platforms in the near future
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    a new service creates more social interaction via email
Dan R.D.

Preparing for the Internet's transcendence [03Aug11] - 0 views

  • This is the world of web 3.0, or what we call the ‘transcendent web’, and it will bring profound changes to people and businesses alike. The benefits it will provide users include the creation of a much more personalized web experience and the automation of many of the services already in use. Businesses too, will benefit from vastly greater amounts of information about consumers and thus the opportunity to market and sell to them much more directly. They will also be able to take advantage of the greater operational efficiencies brought about by technologies that will keep people, processes and products much more tightly connected. The transcendent web will play a critical role in the digitization of industries as wide-ranging as telecommunications, financial services and healthcare.
  • The Internet of Things: More and more things are being made Internet-enabled — houses, cars, appliances, even clothing — allowing them not just to be located through technologies like radio frequency identification but to communicate richer amounts of information about themselves; all of this becomes not just possible but also visible to web users.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

The Consumerization of Business Software | VentureFizz [08Nov11] - 0 views

  • One of the themes that we've been most interested in at NextView over the last 12+ months has been the impact of consumer web trends on business software.  
  • 1) Selling & Customer Acquisition
  • The classic delineations of web products for business and consumer ("enterprise" direct selling, on premise vs cloud, etc) are only getting blurrier.
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  • There's a couple different forces I see at work:
  • But I've seen an acceleration of the impact consumer web trends are having on business software, and believe strongly that it will provide a thread of innovation for SaaS companies for the next 5+ years.
  • 2) Users Drive Enterprise Tech Adoption
  • 3) UI/UX Matters in B2B
  • At present the consumer web is the tail wagging the enterprise dog, in that you see business software companies copying consumer companies' marketing strategies, product features, etc.  I think this will continue for a few years at least.  But hopefully B2B software companies will innovate in some interesting ways that will bleed into consumer-facing products.
Dan R.D.

10/03/03 Beyond Twitter Search Semantic Analysis of the Real-Time Web Beyond Twitter Se... - 0 views

  • What Ellerdale is now doing with Twitter’s 50 million tweets per day is definitely interesting - the service uses an intelligent data-parsing engine to analyze the context of tweets and the links they contain and combines that with other data sources like RSS feeds and Wikipedia to create a real-time search engine and trends tracker that provides more than just a list of tweets - it provides an understanding of the world’s conversations.The best part about all these new partnerships is that we’re about to see an entirely new way to search the web emerge. For quick real-time results, there will always be the major search engines and their more basic lists of tweets, but for true data analysis, we now have incredible new options like Ellendale and all the others.Within each category are conversation topics and sub-topics.any topical page on Ellendale returns an incredible amount of data. There are summaries provided from sources like Wikipedia, Freebase (an online semantic database),
Dan R.D.

Heightened Connectivity - US Teens on the Mobile Web [27Apr10] - 0 views

  • The Pew Internet & American Life Project’s “Teens and Mobile Phones” report indicated that black teens were more than twice as likely as whites to go online on their mobile phones, at 44% versus 21%. Hispanic teens were also relatively active on the mobile Web.In addition, teens living in households with annual income under $30,000 used the mobile Internet at almost twice the rate of more affluent groups. They were notably less likely to have access through a home computer. Pew reported that, overall, 21% of teens who had no traditional PC access to the Internet went online via mobile phones.See more at www.emarketer.com
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    The article goes on to describe an untapped market of well-connected urban minded individuals who prefer authentic brands that avoid using athletes and entertainers to market their products.
D'coda Dcoda

E-commerce: Mobile, social, local commerce drivers of growth for startups [16May11] - 0 views

  • In the fast-moving world of Internet innovation, the search for the winning combination of strategies often means companies are continually rolling out features to match their competitors.Take local deals, territory that Chicago-based Groupon claimed with its launch more than two years ago. Google, Facebook, Yelp, OpenTable and a host of other Web-based companies have introduced their versions of discount offers since then. And many of these players have started allowing users to "check in" to local businesses on their mobile phones, a concept popularized by Foursquare and other location-based services.This ongoing flurry of activity is underpinned by a common desire to conquer three important categories of growth for consumer-oriented Internet companies: mobile, social and local commerce. The race to find the right mix is crucial for capturing revenues and the loyalty of consumers whose sources for information and entertainment are becoming increasingly fragmented.
  • "A mobile and social Web, both on the advertising side and e-commerce side, is going to be more highly monetizable," said Mendez, whose private-equity firm focuses on privately held companies such as Facebook. "It's more likely to turn eyeballs and visitors into transactions and dollars spent."Companies are building on the three pillars of mobile, social and local commerce in different ways, focusing on core strengths before adding other capabilities.
  • Groupon, for example, built its business model on the idea of social plus local commerce, creating a group-buying platform as a new form of local online advertising. Last week, it launched a mobile application called Groupon Now that delivers deals to consumers based on their location.
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  • New York-based Foursquare tackled the combination of mobile and social at its inception. The service initially focused on letting friends share information about their whereabouts through their phones and collect virtual badges for check-ins. As the company has racked up nearly 9 million users worldwide and more than 500 million check-ins during 2010, it has turned increasing attention to the local commerce component.
  • Foursquare built a self-service platform for merchants to offer special deals that give consumers another incentive to check in, with perks ranging from discounts to reserved parking spots.
  • The startup also sees opportunities in mobile-based loyalty programs and worked on a pilot with Dominick's parent Safeway that linked the grocery chain's rewards card to a member's Foursquare account. A person who had checked in to a gym at least 10 times a month, for example, might receive coupons for Gatorade.
  • "Commerce is happening when you're there and mobile puts you there," said Jake Furst, Foursquare's business development manager.
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    Web-based companies searching for ideal balance of 3 key categories,mobile,social,local commerce
D'coda Dcoda

The rise and fall of mobile apps: a Roman Android empire? (Appolicious) [21May11]| Wor... - 0 views

  • re creating smartphone loyalty, determining which OS and device a consumer may buy. At least that’s what a recent Gartner report will have you believe. The sales report ranks Android, Symbian, iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Phone sales in the first quarter of 2011, noting the impact of mobile apps on the market share of new sales. It seems the mobile device market is only gaining in strength, Google (GOOG) taking 36 percent market share, leading with 36.3 million unites sold. Symbian comes in second, with 27.4 percent market share at 27.6 million units, leaving Apple (AAPL) at 16.8 percent market share with 16.9 in sales. RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry comes in fourth, with 13 million and a 12.9 percent take of the market.
  • “Every time a user downloads a native app to their smartphone or puts their data into a platform’s cloud service, they are committing to a particular ecosystem and reducing the chances of switching to a new platform,” notes principle research analyst Roberta Cozza. “This is a clear advantage for the current stronger ecosystem owners Apple and Google. As well as putting their devices in the context of a broader ecosystem, manufacturers must start to see their smartphones as part of a computing continuum.”
  • Apps have certainly created an expansive ecosystem for mobile industry, but just like the mighty dinosaur, this era may one day become extinct. The death of mobile apps has been predicted by MIT writer Christopher Mims, pegging web apps as the future. It’s their potential ubiquity across platforms that extends access to web users, instead of drawing lines in the sand around mobile browsing versus the web you access on a PC laptop. Mims calls for a browser-based utopia where offline access and standards like HTML5 harmonize our desperate web experiences, but notes that offline access is far from perfect. Things still boil down to business, where Google’s marketplace has lower operating costs than Apple’s, with a broadening reach.
D'coda Dcoda

Virtual offices vs. virtual selves: overcoming isolation in a wired future [17Jun11] - 0 views

  • while workers want autonomy and flexibility, they also want social connection. In an interview, Yosh Beier of Collaborative Coaching summed this up, saying, “people want to have control over the where and when of their work experience, but they don’t necessarily want to isolate themselves.” How will this tension be resolved in the future?
  • Many point to technology to keep people connected across physical distance, tools “that will make the remote less remote,” in Beier’s words. He points to the mania for Foursquare in the consumer space as an example of people who are physically distant but use tech to “locate themselves.” The same is true for Facebook, which provides a virtual social connection and is a bit like a remote social gathering. Beier sees this trend of using tech to overcome the social isolation of web-enabled distance moving from consumers to web workers:
  • But instead of substituting virtual spaces for real ones (the Matrix model), some folks are focusing on substituting virtual selves for physical presence and meeting in real spaces (the Avatar model). Just look at our recent piece on robot avatars you can send to work or events in your stead and control over the Internet. Commenters on the post were skeptical, but Trevor Blackwell, CEO of Anybots (he’s also a partner in Y Combinator), which makes the robo-avatars pictured above, insisted in an interview that the idea wasn’t science fiction:
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  • People actually get a kick out of locating themselves. They want to know where their colleagues are. There will be more programs like Sococo. The idea is to have a virtual office on your screen. You see your virtual coworkers located in their “office” room, can “walk” to their room, when in the same room the mics let you talk and listen seamlessly, you have conference rooms with whiteboards, water coolers and tea kitchens for those in need of small talk, etc. People’s real location doesn’t matter, but they choose to locate themselves in respect to the virtual office so the team cohesion is supported.
  • The thing that’s far-fetched is robots with their own intelligence. Who knows if general purpose A.I. is ever going to happen? But robots that can move around in an office and be used as communication devices isn’t science fiction at all. Now we’re getting to the point where you can do it over a much larger distance because you can just do it over the internet, and the cost is low enough and reliability is high enough that it makes sense to do every day in an office. Our goal is to have 100,000 of these out there in five years.
  • Of course, both technologies boil down to an extension of video conferencing, with the likes of Sococo adding the possibility of spontaneity and easy initiation of contact, and robot avatars offering mobility and the ability to inspect locations. Still, whichever technological future you favor, there will still be a screen between you and your fellow humans.
Dan R.D.

Facebook's Push toward the Semantic Web [06Oct11] - 0 views

  • A recent interview takes a look at what Facebook’s recent platform changes mean for businesses. It begins, “Recently at f8, Facebook’s developer conference, the company introduced a series of action verbs into its social platform. ‘Read,’ ‘Watch,’ and ‘Listen,’ Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained, were added to help build a ‘language for how people connect.’ The one missing word, of course, was ‘Buy.’ That’s really why Facebook and its army of content partners from news, publishing, music, and film and TV are rushing to set up shop on the famous platform with 750 million users.”
  • The interviewer “sat down with Gi Fernando, an expert on social-networking data, to help explain what Facebook’s platform changes mean for brands, consumers, and marketers.
  • When asked about the single biggest change that Facebook is making, Fernando replied, “The biggest change is Facebook driving toward becoming the semantic web. The semantic web is making sure that the Internet has a dictionary and a grammar that can be understood by consumers, yes, but also by advertisers and brands. It’s also understanding how people behave on the Web rather than just clicking on stuff: what are they actually doing? You read, watch things, you get instant feedback, your friends can read and watch with you, but then the brand knows what you and 13 others are reading, watching, listening to as well, and you can target advertising based around that. It’s a beautiful feedback loop both for the consumer and the brand.”
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