Group items tagged

Soda. Pop. Coke

The launch of Picnik a couple of days ago brought us yet another online photo editing tool. Like Fauxto, Picnik uses Flash, whereas most of the earlier editing tools all use Ajax for in-browser editing. Since all computers come with basic software that rotates, resizes and crops photos, there needs to be a compelling reason to use an online service. Uploading a photo to such a service, editing it and then downloading it back to your hard drive too high of a cost. To compensate for this, most services allow you to transfer the edited photos directly to Flickr, Webshots or other online photo services, saving users the trouble of making round trips uploading and downloading. Most of these online services also offer editing tools that go beyond simple rotation, resizing and cropping and start to creep into Photoshop territory. Here’s a few of the better ones, along with our most recent testing notes:

What Is Web 2.0? Web 2.0 is the next evolution of the web that has a new usage paradigm as well as a new technology paradigm. The former is characterized by “architecture of participation” and the latter is characterized by “architecture of partition”. The “Consumer-centric” View Causes Confusion There is no doubt that the “web 2.0” phenomenon is ignited by the success of consumer websites like MySpace, YouTube and Flickr.  From these consumer website, analysts established “social networking” via the network effect as a key feature of web 2.0. Though it is possible that enterprise oriented social computing applications may emerge to address specific enterprise concerns, it is not clear how social networking can change enterprise IT on a more fundamental level. Analysts further characterized “Architecture of Participation” as another key element of web 2.0, as evident from YouTube and Flickr. Similarly it is unclear whether/how “architecture of participation” would impact enterprise IT mission. Enterprise IT’s mission is simple: to enable and facilitate the interaction and integration of IT systems and people. There is no doubt that web 2.0 applications like blogs and wikis based on “architecture of participation” can be useful to enterprises, but is there anything beyond blogs and wikis? The key technology behind most consumer web 2.0 websites, Ajax, is not new. The popular “mashup” concept sounds new but in reality is based on what has been built into the browser for many years. The “consumer-centric” perspective limits how we look at the technology aspect of web 2.0 and leads to the conclusion that web 2.0 involves no technology advancement. Further, “architecture of participation”, “social networking” and “harness the collective intelligence” are all usage patterns. They do not relate to technology. In fact, they can be supported well on web 1.0 technologies; reinforcing the common belief that web 2.0 has no technology foundation but rather a buzzword created by marketers.  The Differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 Tim O’Reilly observed the differences between web 1.0 and web 2.0 from a consumer perspective in his original essay: Web 1.0   Web 2.0 DoubleClick --> Google AdSense Ofoto --> Flickr Akamai --> BitTorrent mp3.com --> Napster Britannica Online --> Wikipedia personal websites --> blogging evite --> upcoming.org and EVDB domain name speculation --> search engine optimization page views --> cost per click screen scraping --> web services publishing --> participation content management systems --> wikis directories (taxonomy) --> tagging ("folksonomy") stickiness --> syndicationFrom Consumer Web 1.0 to Consumer Web 2.0    From an enterprise perspective, web 2.0 introduces a very different set of changes:  Web 1.0   Web 2.0 Browser --> Application Client Container HTML --> Declarative application markup HTTP(pull, unreliable) --> Push, pub/sub, reliable Application Server --> Mashup Server Appilcation Integration --> Enterprise Mashup/SOA Press release --> Corporate blogs Packaged software --> On demand/Saas Close source --> Open source Top down (dictatorship) --> Bottom up (democracy) Superbowl Ad/TV --> Google AdFrom Enterprise Web 1.0 to Enterprise Web 2.0 The Two Pillars: Consumer Web 2.0 and Enterprise Web 2.0 Web 2.0 has two pillars: consumer web 2.0 and enterprise web 2.0. These two do overlap, in particular, in the area of social computing. Consumer web 2.0 and enterprise web 2.0 have different characteristics, as shown below: Consumer Web 1.0   Enterprise Web 2.0 Architecture of Participation Architecture of Partition Social networking On Demand computing/SaaS Harness collective intelligence Enterprise social computing HTML Mashup Enterprise mashup Rich User Experience Rich User Experience The Web As Platform The Web As PlatformKey Characteristics of Consumer Web 2.0 and Enterprise Web 2.0 The technology paradigm shifts with web 2.0 brings tremendous, tangible and measurable ROI to corporate IT. Further, the new possibilities enabled by web 2.0 such as social computing are bringing corporate IT to new horizons.

Create a Mashup Create a mashup without writing a line of code. The Mashup Creator lets you combine different web sites together to form cool, new creations. Click on the Mashups menu for pre-built examples.