Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Category: Web/Tech (Page 20 of 21)

Web 2.0: What Is It? Where Is It?

February 4, 2006 / / 8 Comments

Web 2.0 is everywhere it seems. Then again, it’s not. [I’ll explain what I mean by that later.] In case you’re still wondering what the term really means (and you wouldn’t be alone, by the way), just type “define Web.2.0” in your Google search box, and you can scroll through results till your heart’s content — 650 of ’em! The Web 2.0 page on Wikipedia alone is — get this — *2400 words long*. And one key point it makes early on is this: “a consensus on its exact meaning has not yet been reached.” So, you’re excused if you’re confused…

For another look at what it all means, here’s how Tim O’Reilly, the guy most credited with coining the term, defines it on a web page he calls “What Is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software”.

How’s this for a look at just a smattering of the companies that have sprouted up already in this nascent category. There’s only one thing I can say: Web 2-point-OHHHH!!! Most people date the beginning of the phenomenon as October 2004, when O’Reilly’s firm held its first event on the topic. (But, of course, the technology movement it represents really began before the term itself was coined and the conferences started.) Web2ohhh

Now back to the “where” part of Web 2.0. Just where would you guess most of these companies are located? Silicon Valley, or maybe the broader Bay Area in general? Yes, many are, but as you can see on this very interesting Web 2.0 Innovation Map from Fourio, the concentration of companies actually seems heavier in the Eastern U.S. And areas like the Pacific Northwest and Texas are well represented, too. [Thanks to my colleague Randy Geise, the boffo web designer/developer, for sharing the logo and map links with me.]

But Web 2.0 is definitely not everywhere — yet — as that same map shows. For example, when it comes to “innovators” in the Web 2.0 space, my home state of Minnesota, at least according to this map, is downright AWOL! As I said on my last post, I guess if the VC money ain’t there for IT and web technology, the startups won’t be either. [sigh…and Minnesota has been such a hotbed of high technology in the past]

But the energy in this space is undeniably strong. And I’ll be hearing about yet more new Web 2.0 companies and new offerings at the Demo conference, which is firing up in just two days in Phoenix. Here’s a news release from one of them (in this case, an existing firm introducing something new): Newsgator — in which they proudly proclaim “2006 will be the year of RSS”. And here’s a post from one of Newsgator’s blogs. Admittedly, they can’t say much yet, since Demo asks presenters to keep their news quiet till the actual event. But we’ll soon know what Newsgator, and several other Web 2.0 type companies, have coming. I’m looking forward to it, and will of course blog my brains out there for you, o valued readers.

[Written at San Clemente, CA. Hey, when the waves are lousy, you “tech” and you “blog”… 🙂 ]

Ping This!

February 1, 2006 / / 2 Comments

So I was thinking earlier today about how I can ping all the blog-search sites each time I do a blog post — you know, so people can actually find me here in my little corner of the bloated blogosphere. I’d already been pinging Technorati, manually, each time I did a post. Or at least trying to remember to go get the url and paste it in before I hit “publish.” But I’d been realizing there are many other sites that I really should be pinging in addition to that one. And, I’m thinking, there has to be a way to more easily do this — maybe just pasting in a whole lot of urls at once, at least. Then I go do a Yahoo! search on “pinging blog-search sites” or something like that. And, whoa! Up comes “Ping-O-Matic” — I kid you not! What a cool name (and I say that as someone who’s done a lot of naming work). You just check the boxes for the sites of your choice, click a button, and, blam, you’re done! How easy is that? The developer sounds like he has one popular little service going there, because he’s been busy lately trying to bullet-prooof his servers — which, of course, I read about on his “Ping-O-Matic blog!

Web 2.0: So what’s next in Search?

January 25, 2006 / / 3 Comments

Or what comes *after* search? Will there be a next big thing soon, or will we just have to settle for incremental improvements in what we have? With all the new wrinkles of Web 2.0 and social networking, like tagging, are we getting anywhere in improving the online experience? In a Wall Street Journal piece today, I note that not enough people are tagging yet for it to be “worth their while” — because, they say, even the most popular tagging sites such as Del.icio.us and Wink.com and Shadows.com get less than 1% of Google’s monthly traffic. It’s mostly geeks so far. Then there’s the growing problem of people abusing the whole system with tag spamming.

How big a need is there for better search? According to Factiva (a Dow Jones and Reuters company), “the cost of not finding relevant information is staggering.” More than half of all web searches are not successful, they say. They even cite a study by Find/SVP that claims searching but not finding relevant information costs U.S. firms $31 billion in wasted time every year! (Granted, they’re in competition with free search, trying to sell you proprietary search technology.) Another figure comes from the Pew Internet & American Life Project: it says that only 17% of Internet users always get what they’re looking for from an online search engine — meaning 83% don’t! Whatever figure you care to believe, the need is huge. And many companies are at work on that “next big thing” in search (or beyond search) — including a lot of startups you haven’t even heard of yet. [See my previous post about some I’ll be reporting on soon.] There are companies focused on search as it relates to the entire, public world wide web, and others on coming up with better technology for searching private data bases, such as those owned by enterprises or governments. Take, for example, your company’s email store, or other types of massive, textual, unstructured databases. Text analysis or linguistics analysis technology is one interesting area I’m following. More soon.

Surf Break….

January 20, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Time again, friends, to get away from tech for a while. Too much tech makes Jack a dull boy… And I can’t think of a better way to do it than to help spread the word about a great new web site Jim Moriarty and crew just launched at The Surfrider Foundation. Talk about setting a new bar for the .org world! But, then, I knew Jim would make good things happen when he took the helm as Executive Director several months ago, with his background as a tech and Internet startup exec, combined with his love of surfing. The man found his dream job, and ya gotta love that — one that could benefit greatly from both his leadership skills and his tech Surfriderlogo_2experience. This is no small organization Jim heads: 50,000 members and 63 chapters worldwide. More about the organization is here (including a photo of Jim with board). Not only is the new site a visual delight, but so much more excellent content and functionality was added, including the new wrinkle Jim immediately added when he came on board (so to speak): a blog! And he describes more about the all-new web site in this blog post. I’m impressed! As a long-standing, card-carrying member, I say this new site takes the lead in bringing non-profit, volunteer activism into the 21st Century. Congrats and mega-kudos to you, Jim, and everyone at the Surfrider Foundation (located in my favorite coastal town of San Clemente, CA).

And if this isn’t enough to prove that surfing and tech really do mix…

Here’s more! Check out this great story from the LA Times: The Suits Are All Wet at These Board Meetings (requires free registration). You have to love the subhead, too: “Forget golf, biotech executives and scientists go surfing to network and strike deals.”

You Want Intrigue? I’ll Give Ya Intrigue!

January 17, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Just met with a Minneapolis stealth startup that’s meeting with In-Q-Tel and the NSA next week. (Where do you meet with the NSA? As this guy was told, “Oh, we’ll tell you that when the time comes.”) Man, this harks me back to my days working with the first CEO of Secure Computing, Kermit Beseke, way back in late ’80s. He knew the NSA guys on a first-name basis. And the rest became history (starting in ’95, with one of the top-5 hottest IPOs for several years running). Wow, when you think of how many major technologies we take for granted actually started with the government, it’s amazing. How about a little thing called, oh, *email* for one? And the very Internet itself. I remember the guys at Secure Computing telling me about email, and then Mosaic and the Web, waay before they were much known outside of government circles. This world of stealth startups is so much fun I can hardly stand it! Oh, and by the way, for all you folks now scratching your head and wondering “Minnesota?” — this has nothing to do with government stuff, but, remember, that early search technology Gopher started right here, too…at a great school called the U of MN!

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