Phil Balderson recently suggested that social networking may not be the best term for the various functions that connect media, people, or ideas in different ways. When I asked what term might replace it, Phil suggested the idea of “meshing.” Playing off the idea of “mashups,” Phil suggests three reasons for meshing:
1. Individuals without prior relationships can mesh.
2. Society is meshing with technology (via Web 2.0).
3. Something new emerges as technologies, people, and sites mesh together.
Get your web 2.0 fix here.
Just when you thought it was safe to pick up an O’Reilly book…Web 3.0.
Simon Simeonov sees some interesting implications of Web 2.0 for E-Commerce. Here are three trends he observes:
1. First, expect a significant move to more interactive user experiences delivered through rich internet applications (RIAs). “The main goal will be reducing shopping cart & checkout abandonment…”
Doug thoughts: From a useability standpoint, I think most carts flunk. But newer AJAX models may solve the problems of way too many steps. As long as we can think human-centered and not just cool. Of course, the cart is fundamental for E-Commerce but there are so many other possibilities for RIAs.
2. The second trend is accelerating disaggregation, brought about by the dual forces of focusing on core competencies and leveraging network effects. … “The most successful services will reduce the barriers to purchase across sites.”
Doug thoughts: The interconnecting between sites and services is changing the landscape in ways that most companies cannot fully grasp yet. But it will most certainly change the way we understand brand and marketing.
3. The third trend is social commerce, which comes in two flavors: content-driven and interaction-driven, or passive vs. active. Combined with disaggregation, it means that social commerce will happen everywhere, not just on the e-commerce sites.
Doug thoughts: I think Netflix friends is one amazing example of on site social commerce.
Micahel Calore, Wired News Online, recently asked readers for the best and worst of Web 2.0. Yesterday, he posted responses. Worst? MySpace. Sure it’s the most popular, but it’s also the ugliest and doesn’t want to play with other Web 2.0 apps. Here’s the rest of his list:
Best Top 5
Flickr (I likee.)
Odeo (I need to play around podcasting at some point.)
Writely (I personally like ThinkFree better)
del.icio.us (it is just me or is that hard to type?)
NetVibes (This is one of my faves!)
Worst
MySpace
Squidoo
Browzar
Fo.rtuito.us
Friendster
The list of social shopping sites is growing. New York Times ran a piece on the growth of this new phenomenon. In a way, its an expansion of the Amazon reviews. Anytime I buy I book, I almost always check out the Amazon reviews/debates. It is fascinating to see how these review pages often become an ongoing conversation or argument among Amazon reviewers. Take this to the next level, social shopping allows people to share their passion for a variety of products and to build a community of friends at the same time.
Check out some of these social shopping sites:
Wists
After I posted info on the various applications available online, Jeremy posted another downloadable suite called Open Office. So, I had to try it as well. Interesting, when you register the product, they ask if the reason you are using it is because you hate Microsoft. Then Boing Boing ran piece today about OpenOffice advertising on buses that go to Microsoft. That’s funny!
Anyway, I’ve tested the various apps and here’s my opinion. Open Office is pretty robust and a great downloadable option. I opened one of my Access databases in it and everything worked great. So it stays on the hard drive for when I don’t have WiFi access. But I also like the online apps because it makes it easy switching between computers.
I mainly tested the word processing and of all the apps, I liked ThinkFree. It has editing options I use like zoom, header/footer editing, etc. It runs on Java, which is a problem for some folks, and that means it runs a little slower, but the features are worth it to me. It also has a quick edit and power edit option, so for fasting editing, you can avoid the longer loading java window.
ZohoWriter and the Ajaxwriter were similar and I like them for quick edits. They run fast. I may prefer Zoho simply because it opens in another tab whereas Ajax opens a pop-up window for the document.
gOffice has a nice site but it is still a little too limited in editing options. I couldn’t figure how to change fonts.
If you haven’t tried any of these yet, you should. Open source is changing the rules and hopefully making the web what it was supposed to be. Not a place to make a few guys rich, but a place where us blokes could share our thoughts, ideas and solutions without always commodifying everything.
If you haven’t been keeping up with the developments in online software, there are multiple options now available for writing documents, creating spreadsheets and even developing presentations that rival PowerPoint. I’ve played with some of these and find them pretty cool and nice alternatives to spending an enormous chunk of cash of productivity tools that come with a bunch of bells and whistles most of us don’t even need.
Here are some of the ones I came across from a simple search and checking folks like TechCrunch.
Zoho offers a whole suite of productivity tools from word processing to spreadsheets to presentation tools and more. Most are free; some have a nominal cost. I played around with the word processing and may start using it myself. It exports as a .doc and other files and has the features I use most.
gOffice offers word processing, desktop publishing, presentations, and spreadsheets.
Writely was recently purchased by Google. They’re not offering new accounts yet, so I haven’t tried it. But you can sign up for an invitation.
ThinkFree comes with a gig of free online space and offers word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. ThinkFree takes a little longer to load but appears to have a bunch of editing tools. Both the icons and toolbar emulate MS Office.
Ajaxlaunch is offering a variety of web world tools including word processing, a sketch program, a video editing program, a soon to come ajax operating system, and more. Plus it has an online forum, so it appears to be creating a little community around these developments. Looks very interesting.
Google Labs is always introducing interesting applications including spreadsheets. One tool that I’ve added to my toolbar that could be helpful for those doing research on the Internet is the Google Notebook. This allows you to capture clips of web pages with links to the page and store them in a folder that is always accessible from your toolbar.
Thumbstacks is an easy tool for building online presentations.
Empressr is also an interesting presentation tool.
If anybody has found other online office tools they like, I’d love to hear about them. Moving between several computers at different locations, I find the online apps makes it very easy for me to work on projects.
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