ReadWriteWeb

Card.ly: Lightweight Personal Microsites from Three Guys with Three Weeks and Five Hundred Bucks

Jolie O'Dell — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:19:25 -0800

We've all seen a great deal lately of two trends: Personal website creation made simple (here's our favorite four resources of the moment) and social media aggregation services that pool all a user's streams and networking information.

Today, TinyChat creator Dan Blake along with cohorts Oliver Turbis and Joshua Gigg have announced the launch of a new freemium-model service that combines good-looking personal sites with users' existing social media data, and all in a mercifully lightweight format that's as easy to digest as it is quick to set up. Although the service, called Card.ly, is reminiscent of Retaggr or Chi.mp, it humbles the competition by delivering a simpler, more focused result. Blake et al. apparently understand the old adage, "Less is more."

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The team took about three weeks and spent $500 to create Card.ly, according to an email from Turbis this evening. The monetization strategy is simple enough: Free users are given an array of incentives to upgrade to reasonably priced premium accounts. For $24.99 a year, users have access to more/better "skins" or page themes, analytics and SEO features, and an unlimited number of networks and RSS feeds in each profile.

The Card.ly team is also appealing to designers/developers by asking for skin submissions; each skin can then become a source of revenue for the designers as users select and purchase their skins.

Creating this "card," in reality a four-page microsite, took about ten minutes:

The pages are small and simple, and the range of free skins is appealing:

Turbis told us soon, users will be able to create their own skins for their pages from the ground up without having to submit them to the community. Also coming soon is an embeddable widget:

As far as startups go, this team definitely kept it small and simple - a lesson other companies should learn well. We hope they're able to see great results for this effort.

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KnowledgeTreeLive: Can Document Management Move to the Cloud?

Steven Walling — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:35:00 -0800

Are you ready to move your documents in to the cloud? Knowledge Tree has released the new SaaS version of its document management software, dubbed KnowledgeTreeLive. Knowledge Tree is an open source commercial vendor, with both a community edition under the GPL and a proprietary enterprise version.

The new subscription-based KnowledgeTreeLive is hosted on Amazon EC2. It has all the features of the on-premise version of the software, but also includes integration with the Zoho Office Suite for a fully cloud-based approach.

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An Enviable Interface

In terms of usability, KnowledgeTreeLive was on par with the self-hosted version, though unique to it is the integration with the Zoho Office Suite. What they both include is Microsoft Office support, and the main dashboard provides a useful, high-level overview of the system. The dashboard was made up of AJAX-y dashlets that can be added, removed and reordered in a drag-and-drop interface.

Overall, the other vendor most comparable to this level of ease is Alfresco, which operates on a similar open source model.

Bigger Up-front Cost is a Killer

It's functionality might be superb, but there is something strange about KnowledgeTreeLive: it's more expensive.

According to the company's price list on-premise version of Knowledge Tree has an annual fee of $2,400 for a 20-user license at the basic level. The most basic SaaS version is $2,950 for 10 users, and is limited to 50 GB of storage.

For big enterprise, the lowered cost of IT would make up for the greater up-front subscription fee. But in a phone conversation, a Knowledge Tree spokesperson told ReadWriteWeb that the majority of those interested in the SaaS version were SMBs without strict compliance needs.

For those companies, self-hosting the community edition could end up being both cheaper and more attuned to their needs. With lower costs being a primary driver of SaaS adoption overall, the relatively hefty subscription price could drive off the very customers that Knowledge Tree says are its core users for this edition.

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Google Removes Alerts, RSS Buttons from News

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:32:49 -0800

RSS feeds for Google News search results have been broken for about three weeks, according to complaints in the company's help forum. Three weeks ago a Google engineer said they expected the problem to be fixed in about a week. Now the company has simply removed the links in the results page sidebar to both RSS and Google Alerts. Oops.

Inbal Drukker, a senior associate at Google News, said on the first and sixth of July that there are "engineering changes" underway to "improve Google News." So what seems like a loss today could end up for the better in the long run, but for now there seems to be a problem.

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RSS, Atom and email subscriptions for new news search results used to appear in the bottom of the left hand column of search results pages. Now there is nothing there. Both products are still available, if troubled, via the browser's RSS autodetection icon in the address bar and the Google Alerts product page.

Update: Marjolein Hoekstra points out that there is a link to create a Google Alert now at the very bottom of the search results page, as well as one to create an iGoogle gadget for a search, but still no RSS link displayed like there used to be.

Thanks to Russ Castronovo for bringing this to our attention.

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New Study Finds Correlation Between Social Media and Financial Success

Sarah Perez — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:15:03 -0800

A new study released by enterprise wiki provider Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group shows that the brands most engaged in social media are also experiencing higher financial success rates than those of their non-engaged peers. To determine this relationship, the study focused on 100 companies from the 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands survey and the various social media platforms they used like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis, and forums. Although it's difficult to prove for certain that the companies' involvement in social media has led to their increased revenues, the implication behind the new data is that it has.

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After examining the companies and their social media activity levels, the brands were ranked on an "engagement scale" where scores ranged from a high of 127 to a low of 1. Those brands that were the most engaged saw their revenue grow over the past year by 18% while the least engaged brands saw losses of negative 6%.

Four "Engagement Profiles"

The study grouped the brands into one of four engagement profiles that related to the number of channels they're involved in and how deep that involvement is. At the top of the list are "mavens," the brands heavily engaged in seven or more social media channels - like Starbucks and Dell, for instance. "Butterflies" are like wannabe "mavens," and are also engaged in seven or more channels but are spread too thin, investing in some channels more so than others. "Selectives" focus on six or fewer channels but engage customers deeply in the ones they've chosen. Finally, there are "wallflowers," or brands engaged in six or fewer channels with below-average engagement; these include companies like McDonalds and BP.

Out of the top 10 brands engaged in social media, the mavens dominate the list. All of the top 10 are mavens and have seen financial success even in a down economy:

1. Starbucks (127)
2. Dell (123)
3. eBay (115)
4. Google (105)
5. Microsoft (103)
6. Thomson Reuters (101)
7. Nike (100)
8. Amazon (88)
9. SAP (86)
10. Tie - Yahoo!/Intel (85)

$$$ Does Social Media Pay? $$$

Of course what everyone really wants to know is whether or not social media actually pays off in terms of dollars and cents. This study seems to show that it does. The most-engaged brands are significantly outperforming their peers across numerous industries in both revenue and profit performance. They have even sustained strong revenue and margin growth in spite of the economy, notes the report.

Whether this correlation is actually a causation cannot be proven with the data on hand, it can only make the implication. Given the large number of companies analyzed and the consistent findings, it seems probable that social media has had a major impact on the companies' financial success.

It's also worth noting that the level of engagement appears to be a factor, too. The companies deeply engaged in fewer channels ("selectives") delivered higher gross and net margins than those only lightly engaged in more channels ("butterflies"). It other words, as the report says, "it's not about doing it all, but doing it right."

The ENGAGEMENTdb Web Site

Along with the complete study, available here, an accompanying web site has also been launched at www.engagementdb.com. On the site, companies can compare their social media efforts with the top 100 cited in the report. They can also opt to detail their social media efforts for inclusion in the online database at the site for future research and study.

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Akibot: An Enterprise Twitter Clone Infused with A.I.

Sarah Perez — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:30:00 -0800

What if Twitter understood what you were saying and could then take action on your messages? What if Twitter wasn't just a place to post your random thoughts, but an A.I. bot that actually helped you get your work done? That's the concept behind Akibot, a new enterprise microblogging service. At first glance, Akibot may look very much like your typical Twitter clone, but it does something very different: it combines the collective intelligence provided by microblogging with an artificial intelligence engine that lets the service take action on the messages posted.

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When Akibot's developer Marcelo Pham first heard about Twitter, (surprisingly, only a few months ago!) he thought that it sounded like a silly idea. Yet the more he thought about it, the more he thought it began to make sense...just not the way that Twitter had envisioned it. Instead, Marcelo saw microblogging as a "very tiny step towards the machine reading our minds." He then began to work on a concept for an enterprise microblogging platform that would take Twitter to the next logical step: analyzing what users are posting. He then added another function: intelligence. The end result is Akibot, the first "semantic actionable microblogging platform for the enterprise."

Examples of Akibot in Use

To understand how Akibot works, imagine the following scenario: you post a message that reads "There will be a meeting next Wednesday morning at 1 PM regarding the new development project." In other enterprise Twitter clones like Yammer and Present.ly, only those others reading the stream of posts would see the message and would then be able to act on it, if need be. In Akibot, however, the system itself would understand the message and would create an appointment on the team calendar for you. It could even send you and your colleagues a reminder in the form of a text message or email when the meeting time drew near.

Another example goes like this: say a colleague posts a message stating "here is the latest Penske file http://xxxxxxxxx," - pointing to the resource hosted on the company's intranet. A week later, another user could ask "Does anyone know where the latest Penske file is?", and Akibot could then respond with a message pointing to the location previously posted.

Akibot can also function as a time-tracking tool. All you would have to do is post a message letting everyone know when you're beginning to work on a particular project and then post another when you're done.

The microblogging service could even update your CRM system with information about customers and your interactions with them. Again, all you'd have to do is post the information to Akibot.

How Does Akibot Work?

In order for Akibot to do what it does, it seeks out various keywords in a post, but not using simple search or in a "brute force" sort of way. Instead, it looks at the sentence structure as a whole to determine meaning. Akibot's main module is called the "preprocessor" which uses common elements of natural language processing (NLP) combined with two proprietary modules: a "contextual analyzer" and a "context>action" dictionary. The contextual analyzer take the results from the NLP module and finds the context using noun/pronoun/verb structures and then the "context>action" dictionary stores the relevant data and takes action on the item (e.g. it sends a reminder, updates your business software, etc.)

Because Akibot understands natural language - that is, the way people naturally speak - end users posting their messages don't have to use any special syntax in order for Akibot to understand them. However, if you do end up posting something Akibot doesn't understand, it will just ask you to explain and then learns from that explanation so it never has to ask again.

Even Simpler Than Twitter?

There are a few things that Akibot does differently than Twitter. For example, there is no "follow" functionality. By default, everyone follows everyone else, but can "opt-out" from following certain other users if they wish. Since Akibot is meant to be used within a single company, this makes sense. The system is also designed to be uncomplicated so there are no groups, no tabs, no browse functionality, and no search.

Like Twitter, though, Akibot supports private messages, but no special syntax is required here, either. To create one of these types of updates, a user simply clicks on "private" when posting.

Still in Private Beta

The company is still brand-new and there are no exact launch dates yet regarding when it will become publicly available. A lot will depend on the feedback provided by the initial crop of beta testers. Also, if Akibot was to receive funding (they have none now), development could proceed at a faster pace, notes Marcel.

At the moment, the company is considering offering Akibot for free for up to three users and then any additional users would cost $1/per user per month.

If your company wants to join the private beta, you can sign up to be considered on Akibot's homepage under the "Signup" option.

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Let's go Sale-ing: A Web-Savvy Yardsale Resource

Dana Oshiro — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:00:00 -0800

A friend recently held a garage sale to purge all of his worldly possessions. At 8:58am before the final tables were out, men and women circled the block like buzzards over a fresh kill. The first group included punky-looking eBay dealers, antique collectors and audiophiles looking for rare dance hall vinyls. The second wave consisted of board game enthusiasts, recycled clothing designers, preschool teachers and espresso-touting Shabby Chic home decorators. And finally, at about 2pm, the geeks and bike-enthusiasts came to claim the last Playstation games, computer parts, brake levers and tubes.

Garage sales are no longer just for blue-haired grandmothers with teacup fetishes. While eBay and Etsy are great for selling rare or specialty items, setting up an auction or store for your mismatched cutlery might not get you the results you need. One blessing in this down economy is that we're learning to reclaim and recycle in a way that our grandmothers have been doing for years. Whether you like haggling over weird items on a Sunday or you'd simply like to list your own sale, here are some great resources.

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1. Weekend Treasure: This site does a great job of pulling listings from Craigslist and other sites and aggregating them onto a map. The nice thing about this site is that once you've drilled down to your targeted listing, you can view the source article for further details.

2. GSALR: This site improves where Craigslist leaves off. While it does not offer images from sales, it does offer a map of the region, an RSS feed on new listings and a trip planner for multi-sale routes. Garage Sale Nation offers a similar tool, and the most results seem to appear in Massachusetts, Virginia, New York and Michigan.

Yard Sale Search: This site is extremely bare bones, but if you're just looking for a site to list all of the multi-family sales in your area, the results are quick and plentiful.

3. ZipGarage: ZipGarage is a site where garage sale hunters type in their postal code and receive results on sales in their area. RWW first wrote about ZipGarage in 2007. While this site is perhaps one of the best designed garage sale sites, it still lacks the users. If you're having a sale, you might still want to embed the widget to give directions to your users.

4. Upcoming and Facebook Events: Your friends DO want to buy your junk, or at the very least they want to spend Sunday drinking beer on your lawn. A great way to kick start a yard sale is to reach out to your online networks, prepare some sandwiches and treat the event like a lawn party. Upcoming and Facebook events offer great ways to announce localized events and the best part is that your friends are likely to get calendar reminders for your sale.

5. Twitter, Loopt: These location-based services are great for that last minute sale push or reminder. While nearby followers might not have planned to buy anything, if they're in the area, they just might stop by for an impulse purchase.

6.The Local Paper and Craigslist: We're sure you already know about these options, but if you're having a sale, it would be silly not to list here. With Craigslist, users can narrow their search by neighborhood and keyword, and choose to specify only those results that contain images.

*Final Tips for Sellers: After you've tweeted, listed and advertised your yard sale, remember that old school rules still apply. Some of the must-haves of a garage sales include ample signage, properly labeled tables, extra boxes and bags, a measuring tape for furniture and about $100 in small bills and quarters for change.

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Cloud Storage for Social Media: Twitter Backup

Dana Oshiro — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:50:09 -0800

There are moments in life when the universe decides to play a cruel joke on you and just as your company's files are being transfered to a new data center, a truck driver rams into a power transformer and cuts power to the server rack that is meant to be receiving your precious files. And after that, your other back up gets wiped off its server by an over-zealous system administrator. And then after that, you're helping your CEO write an apologetic message to members. That "hypothetical" story is meant to illustrate the point that backup in multiple locations (via cloud or otherwise) is important.

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Why backup your email? from BackupMy. Net on Vimeo.

BackupMy.Net is a service that allows individuals to back up their tweets, email accounts, blogs and photos. Rather than having to install or configure files for backup, the Austin-based service offers users the chance to store their online data in the cloud. As illustrated by their above email service video, Backupmy.Net may be invaluable in protecting users from accidental deletions, service suspension and outages. While RWW would never suggest you store your passwords in your emails, there is some merit to the service. The blogging and email backup service is particularly useful when you're working with clients who are less than tech-savvy and prone to deleting their files. Similar cloud-based services include Lifestream Backup, Mozy and Memopal.

As for the Twitter back up service, BackupMyTweets is fast to index files and offers users the chance to download their backed up tweets in HTML, JSON or XML format. Nevertheless, one of our biggest complaints with this service is that it auto-tweets a message to your friends upon joining. Love it or leave it, at least Spymaster offers you in-game points to pimp its service to your friends. If BackupMyTweets allowed users to choose to tweet about the service in exchange for discounts on premium offers, the Twitter message might not feel like such an intrusion. Once they overcome the automated Twitter spam issue, the service as a whole will likely prove a useful tool for those looking to store 3rd party hosted materials.

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The Digital Mafia: Online Crime Gets Organized, Says Cisco

Steven Walling — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:20:00 -0800

In its midyear global security report for 2009, Cisco says there's plenty to be worried about when it comes to the way that online crime operations are operating.

Bot herders and other nefarious characters are still using cutting-edge computing and social engineering. But according to Cisco's analysis, the real innovation is how those behind some of the biggest threats are collaborating in new ways. It's enterprise 2.0 for the criminal underbelly of the Internet.

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Collaborative Criminals

Tom Gillis, Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Security Products, said, "We see many signs that criminals are mimicking the practices embraced by successful, legitimate businesses to reap revenue and grow their enterprises."

Highlighting the collaboration between those running Conficker and Waledac, Cisco asserts that a new business model has emerged for the bot masters, whereby they work together to sell each other's services and evade detection. In some cases, they've even used public forums to solicit advice from one another.

A Persistent Threat

Not only are illegal enterprises collaborating, but they pose a threat that persists over time, with ability to launch new attacks in the future.

Is there hope on the horizon for fighting these threats? Cisco pointed to "good guy" collaborative organizations, such as the Conficker Working Group and the Obama administration's renewed focus on cybersecurity, as good signs that industry and government are well-aware of the challenges to securty ahead.

You can download the full report here, or watch the video intro below.

Photo credit: husin.sani

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Will Microsoft's Streaming Music Service Hinder Spotify US Release?

Dana Oshiro — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:44:42 -0800

US audiences are in for a listening treat. It turns out that Swedish on-demand streaming music service Spotify is set to officially launch to US audiences in the late Summer. Up until now, Spotify's American fans have either had to use foreign proxy servers to access the service or they've simply gone without. The service is currently available in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Spain, France and Finland. Despite only being available in a select few countries, Spotify already has more than 5 million users and is often mentioned as a competitor to Grooveshark and Imeem.

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By working with labels to negotiate music licensing and revenue models, the company hopes to provide audiophiles with one of the largest legal streaming music services to date. European deals with major labels including Universal, Sony, Warner and EMI have helped solidify this mission, and with 5 million current files, the company is well on its way. As with most streaming music services, much of Spotify's success in the US will depend on their ability to solidify US licensing deals and monetize via a premium ad-free service.

According to Forbes journalist, Javier Espinoza, "Another looming threat [to Spotify]: Microsoft is launching a very similar music streaming service later in July, a service that also allows users to download the music, something Spotify still won't allow members to do." Nevertheless, the question is, will Microsoft be able to provide cross-format support and separate itself from its lackluster music devices in order to build a site that consumers will enjoy? If it can't, Spotify will have nothing to worry about.

Besides, in late June, Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek made the following statement to the Register, " We're working on a one-click download solution with 7Digital, press buy, press OK and you buy a recording. My hope is to get it out in the next couple of months."

Demonstrated at Google's late May I/O conference, Spotify's Android already caches music for easy offline play. An iPhone app version is already reportedly in the works.

If you can play all of your favorite music from your cached play list, how important is it for the average user to have the access to the original file? Below is a look at the current Android app, let us know your listening habits in the comments below.

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Google Earth Goes to the Moon

Frederic Lardinois — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:22:52 -0800

Just in time to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, Google has just enabled a model of the moon in Google Earth. Moon in Google Earth features a 3D model of the moon with both current and historic images, panoramic, street view-like photos, and models of numerous lunar landers, as well as guided tours with videos (one narrated by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin). Google unveiled this new layer at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. today. Any user of Google Earth 5.0 can now roam around the moon without the need to update the program. Just click on the planet button in the top toolbar and select 'Moon.'

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It's worth noting that Google Moon already offered a Google Maps-like experience since 2005, but the 3D-view and the higher degree of interactivity (especially thanks to the embedded videos from Spacecraft Films) makes Google Earth a far better vehicle for these images.

After Mars, the moon is the second planet in Google Earth's repertoire, and it shows how extensible the software really is. Just a few months ago, Google also unveiled the Ocean layer in Google Earth, which gives users access to an area that we probably know even less about than Mars and the moon.

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Skype for Mac 2.8: Screenshare, Status Pings, Wifi Purchasing & More

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:49:02 -0800

Skype released a new version of its client for Mac this morning and the changes are not as small as the company implies in its announcement. The new version enables full or partial screen sharing through video chat, allows you to receive a chat notification when a contact changes their mood status, lets you purchase wifi connectivity at public hotspots with your Skype account, allows you to write notes on your contacts' profiles and more. It's a pretty impressive upgrade.

Release notes are here, download is here. To be honest, we had some trouble in testing a few of the new features, though they'd been present in the beta version. If you haven't been using the beta, you'll want to upgrade now.

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Screen sharing
The screen sharing feature is enabled between any two users with video enabled. Partial screen share is quite graceful. This feature has been in the works for awhile but could disrupt competitors large and small that have focused on it as a primary function. Screen sharing has been too difficult for too long - making it a feature of Skype will make the practice accessible to a far, far greater number of people than have shared their screens before.
Mood messages

You can now receive a notification whenever any of your contacts change their mood status. This is turned on by default but can be opted-out of in preferences. About this Skype says "It's a bit like Twitter, but don't tell them we said that." That's true, it is a little like Twitter. Delivery of notifications really could provide incentive for people to change their status messages more often, though it would be nice to be able to opt-out on a person by person basis.

Prioritization of chats

You can now assign one through three exclamation points to the chats in your chat drawer. We couldn't tell what that really does other than add a visual symbol though, so it's not clear how useful this will be.

Buy wifi connectivity

Mac users now have beta access to a feature called Skype Access, which is said to allow purchase of connectivity to public wifi hotspots through your Skype account. We haven't been able to test this yet but if it works at Starbucks, that's going to be hot. Connectivity is purchased at 19 cents per minute, or about $10 per hour, which might seem high but could really come in handy in a pinch.

Notes on contacts

The ability to write notes to go along with your contacts' profile pages in your account is something that all social networks ought to offer. Each Skype contact now has a blank notes field that you can flip to with a click. That's very nice.

The chat management interface and options have changed substantially as well. All in all, this is a very nice update to the Mac client for Skype. It's nice to see Mac users getting some love; Skype users on Windows have long received more development attention. The fact that Skype keeps moving forward is just one more reason this hugely valuable tool deserves more credit than it often gets.

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Kazaa Goes Legit - But It Will Fail

Frederic Lardinois — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:45:01 -0800

Not too long ago, after the demise of Napster, Kazaa became synonymous with P2P file sharing. After a number of costly lawsuits and failed attempts to appease the music industry, however, Kazaa shut down its P2P network. Tomorrow, however, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Kazaa will rise from the ashes and begin its second life as a legal subscription download service. For $20 a month, users will be able to download an unlimited number of songs. These songs, however, will be DRMed and in the WMA format, which will probably spell doom for the service in the long run.

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A beta version of this service has been available for a while, but judging from today's reaction, very few users were aware of it. $20 a month wouldn't be a bad deal for unlimited downloads if the music wasn't DRMed and if users were able to play them on their iPods. Given the competition that Kazaa is up against, we don't see a bright future for the service.

Trend: Illegal File Sharing Sites Go Legit

The interesting trend, here, though, is that a lot of companies and services that were previously known for being 'illegal' hubs for file sharing are now trying to go legit. Napster, the grandfather for Kazaa and most of its brethren, is now a respectable paid service, and the Pirate Bay may offer a legal version of its service soon.

As Eric Pfanner pointed out in the New York Times, we are now getting to the point where using legal services like Spotify or Lala are actually so much more convenient than illegally downloading music. Given this trend, it makes sense for centralized services like Kazaa to slowly drift to a legal model. At the same time, decentralized file sharing options like BitTorrent, which don't depend on a single company to work, will still continue to be popular. Chances are, though, that users will probably share less music through torrents over the next year or so, as more cheap and free options allow users to legally access music more conveniently.

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Open Source and Social Media: Community, Collaboration, Freedom

Ravit Lichtenberg from Ustrategy.com — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:00:44 -0800

To most people, the term "open source" immediately conjures an image of two geeks sitting in a dark room (probably a basement) -- curtains drawn, McDonald's remains strewn across the desk, and 42 oz sodas within arms' reach -- coding away at their computers, listening to Linkin Park or a game soundtrack. People automatically associate it with endless lines of code, back-end technology, server rooms, computer science labs, and experimental (read: unsafe and buggy) technology.

In reality, open-source software provides stable solutions, created by people and for people and used by companies of all sizes. Use Firefox? That's open-source software. Google Chrome? It too is based on an open-source code. Ever look up a term on Wikipedia? The site is completely built on user-generated code and content. "In fact," says Allison Randal, Program Chair of OSCON, "chances are you're using a lot more open-source software than you know: on your computer or powering you favorite websites."

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With the Open Source Convention (OSCON) set to take over San Jose tomorrow, we'll provide a glimpse here of open source in layman's terms and the potential intersection of open source and social media.

Author: Ravit Lichtenberg is the founder and chief strategist at Ustrategy.com -- a boutique consultancy focusing on helping companies succeed. Ravit works with CEOs, marketing groups, and social media managers to craft customer-centric engagement strategies that result in higher customer value, stronger customer community, improved monetization, and higher profitability. Ravit authors a blog at www.ravitlichtenberg.com.

What Is Open Source?

"The ideas behind open source are about freedom," continues Randal, "that people should have certain basic rights in the software that they use, the same as every other part of life. It's about people's rights to create things they're passionate about."

Mozilla's founders, who spawned Firefox, walked away from the ashes of Netscape with a desire to change the Web browsing experience. Drupal and Joomla are content management systems that enable unlimited options in website building and publishing. Remember how difficult it used to be to build your own website? Now building one is free, open to all, flexible, and extendable: anyone with a passion or idea can build for it, and numerous companies are taking Drupal and Joomla and building easy-to-use website templates that anyone can use, no programming needed. Don't want to pay for Microsoft Office? You can use OpenOffice for free -- it will serve most of your needs.

In essence, these projects, developers, and organizations address mature, business-critical issues in better, faster ways. This form of crowd-sourcing enables businesses to use solutions that would otherwise have required a lot more time and/or people to develop at a much higher total cost.

Open Source Is Evolving

You may have heard the phrase, "Open Source is free as in speech, not as in beer." This phrase refers to the notion that while everyone can freely start and contribute to any project, the actual use of open source solutions may still come with a price tag -- often for services and additional product layers that a company bundles with the open code. But for corporations that already spend millions of dollars just to keep the lights on, investing in open source increasingly makes better business sense. For the CIOs and CTOs of these companies, it's not about the price tag of each solution but rather about the total cost of ownership over time, especially in a downturn economy.

In a study conducted by Gartner and reported by Matt Asay at CNET, CIOs reported they have increased investment in open-source software and decreased investment in proprietary software. CIOs reported that by investing in open source they were able to do the following:

Reduce costs by 87% (while meeting or exceeding expectations),
Improve quality by 92%,
Ease integration and customization by 86%,
Quicken pace of innovation by 82%,
Improve support by 84%,
Increase standards compliance by 91%,
Decrease time to market by 82%.

Michael Fauscette, Group Vice-President of Software Business Solutions at IDC, recently highlighted changes in the adoption of open source. IDC found that as recently as 2007, CIOs were reluctant to adopt social media software for fear of IP infringement and poor support: two mission-critical elements of any enterprise. By 2008, says Fauscette, CIOs reported that they preferred open-source software precisely because of the quality of support it comes with. And as for their fear of IP infringement, that was no longer at the top of the list because of standards and self-policing.

Open source doesn't only serve IT companies, though. It is now being explored for government and health care data management and access. Open-source software, in other words, has moved from the basements of Linkin Park fans to the desks of the largest corporations in the US.

Sound familiar? The evolution of open source may sound a bit like the evolution of another web-related phenomenon, what has become known as Web 2.0 social media and social networking. Like open-source software, social media is about the basic human right to communicate, organize, and maintain control of one's own experiences. And both address the needs of companies to do more at higher quality with less money. Both social media and open-source software involve communities and are fed by content: code in the case of open source, and media content in the case of social media.

But unlike open source, social media has thus far primarily been a consumer play and is only now being explored by enterprises. Living on the Web, social media is also hardware and distribution-channel agnostic: it does not require pre-installation and does not compete with pre-bundled proprietary products. Historically, open source, being hardware dependent, has had greater distribution challenges: unless the software came pre-loaded on your hardware, notes Fauscette, you would rarely seek out alternatives to replace what you already have. Without a channel for hardware, distribution was driven primarily by hard-core tech enthusiasts.

Seeds of Change

Companies that erected insurmountable barriers to protect their source code now realize that the cost of innovation and competition may be just too much compared to that of their competitors that use open-source software. Take Google's Android, an iPhone competitor built on the open-source platform Linux. Android started off as closed-source software but very quickly became an open-source project. Developers can now build applications on top of Android's platform and then use the code for their own Android-like products, just as developers use Firefox code to build their own browsers.

2008 saw another significant milestone: the establishment of the Symbian Foundation to oversee the development of the Symbian operating system as an open-source platform, licensed under the Eclipse Public License (EPL). The Foundation's members include Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, Samsung, LG, and AT&T. With this development, a once highly protected closed-source cell-phone operating system has opened up.

Caleb Sima, Chief Technologist at Hewlett-Packard, calls this "a clear move on Nokia's part to try to catch up to the competition by using open source and the community to help evolve its features to those of smartphones." Companies are now realizing that open-source software is a competitive advantage.

What Open Source Means to Social Media

Open source is the natural platform for fast-evolving social media and social networking. Forget about having to scale the walled gardens of social networks or having to upload, download, and link together multiple applications. With open source, everything is seamless and transparent. Picture a huge festive dinner table, set with dozens of mouth-watering dishes for you and your guests to pick from. You can heap whatever you like on your plate or, better yet, just dab your bread into whatever dish your please, all while seeing what others are putting on their plate and seeing whether they're using a fork or a spoon and hearing the conversation around the table.

But with all of these capabilities and openness, people will face new challenges on the Web. One big challenge will be to make the Web more personal and make it possible to simulate live interaction. One of the most promising companies to address this is Kaltura, maker of the only open-source online video management platform, with a free community platform, now used on over 35,000 websites and soon to be integrated into Wikipedia for user co-creation of rich media content. (Disclaimer: Kaltura is one of my client companies.)

"Extensions like Kaltura make the Web real," says Fauscette. "Video is in fact one of the big things we'll see. This is an opportunity space, and first-mover advantage will be big." For Fauscette, trust is a major sticking point: with the proliferation of networks, friends, followers, and brands online, helping people figure out who and what to trust will be key to making the Web personal.

Whoever tries to control people's relationships will lose. Whoever enables people to create and share experiences that are relevant to them across any website, with anyone, the way they want will win. And open source will create many more winners than losers.

More About Open Source

OSCON is celebrating its 10th year anniversary this coming week in a four-day conference in San Jose, California. In addition to the usual technical tracks, OSCON has added people and business tracks and many free events. You can register for a free pass to the expo hall (yes, free as in beer) and attend the "Birds of a Feather" un-conference, Ignite party, Hackathon, and much more (all free). Check out the list of events.

Great resources online include Open Source Initiative Open Government, Open Data Initiatives, SourceForge (where you can find a list of ongoing projects and downloads), Open Video Alliance, and the excellent short and sweet write-ups by open-source experts such as CNET's Matt Asay.

Oh, and there's always Wikipedia (where smiles are always open).

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The Wearable Internet Will Blow Mobile Phones Away

Richard MacManus — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:18:54 -0800

Earlier this year at the TED conference, Pattie Maes from the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group showcased a wearable computing system that allows users to display and interact with the Web on any surface - including the human body. The video shows the system's main developer, Pranav Mistry, taking photographs with his hand, summoning up Amazon review data onto the cover of a physical book, displaying information about a person he's just met on their tee-shirt, and calling someone by inputting a phone number onto the palm of his hand.

Look out mobile phones, because in a decade's time wearable systems may be the primary means of accessing the Web!

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In the TED presentation, Maes refers to this system as a "sixth sense" - a sense that would give us seamless, easy access to information on the fly about situations and objects we come across.

The current system, albeit relatively clunky, could be purchased for as little as $350. Essentially it is made up of a webcam, a battery-powered 3M projector, mirror, phone and colored finger caps. But in 10 years - according to Maes, the period of time when this type of system might be fully developed - it could be one device and as small as a watch. Or indeed maybe even a brain implant.

This type of product will undoubtedly go well beyond what mobile phones are capable of now. As Maes put it, mobile phones currently don't have easy access to all of the relevant information we need on a daily basis. A mobile phone still requires a user to change their behavior, she said.

Plus the Web as we know it today is full of manual steps, such as visiting websites and searching for information. In 10 years time we'd hope that the Web of Data would be much better realized, for example product data easily viewed outside of its official website no matter what the context.

One example given in the TED presentation was looking at a book in a bookstore. Currently to get access to reviews information, a person would need to take out their cellphone, open up Amazon's mobile website - or a relevant iPhone app perhaps - and search for that book. Whereas with the wearable internet device demoed at TED, the user simply wiggles his or her fingers and up pops the Amazon rating on the front cover (reviews data can be reached by opening up the book).

You can see the power of this as a next generation Internet interface, as it removes several manual steps from the process of receiving relevant, contextual information about something or someone.

We've blogged a fair amount about sensors this year, because they connect the real world up to the Internet. The wearables system relies a lot on them, for example the caps on Pranav's fingers. Add that to the many other points of connection to the Web and it's a powerful system; for example the book has a barcode that, in combination with the wearable device, will pull down data from Amazon.com via the Web.

The Internet as Sixth Sense

As explained in a Wired article earlier this year (found via h+ Magazine), a lot of the information that "helps us understand and respond to the world" doesn't come from the 5 senses humans are usually born with. It comes from computers and, increasingly, the Web. So the goal of this MIT wearable device is to "harness computers to feed us information in an organic fashion, like our existing senses."

We at ReadWriteWeb are very excited about next-generation Internet interfaces, such as augmented reality and so-called cross reality. These wearable devices strike me as being the most impressive future Web interface that I've seen in a while. Check out the video and see if you agree.

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The Codeless Website: Four Awesome Tools for Creating Cool, No-Tech Sites

Jolie O'Dell — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:11:42 -0800

Sometimes, even HTML is just too hard.

In this postmodern world, we're all professionally fragmented jacks of all trades, and few of us have the patience (read: OCD) for learning enough CSS and Flash to allow us to keep up with the Jonses in terms of functional, sexy web design. Here are some cheat sheets, the Cliff Notes of site creation, if you will. Read on to discover four awesome, in-browser resources for creating your own beautiful corner of the web without the horror of code.

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Edicy: Sites in Seconds

Edicy is a resource we just found out about recently. The in-browser site creation and editing service gives users a simple toolbar for text, video, and images and a lower dashboard for changing page design. Users can insert tables and Google-powered maps, and the drag-and-drop image features for creating multiple galleries was awesome for achieving a visually pleasing page and would probably be great for portfolios or family websites. The blog feature was so-so; we don't really see Edicy as a competitor when it comes to the CMS game, though. Still, we created this page in about 15 minutes, making Edicy one of the fastest tools we've worked with.

YourOwn.com: Edicy offers free vanity.edicy.com domains and publishing to any domain the user chooses for about $8.50 a month.

Choose Your Own Coding Adventure: Users can only pop the hood, so to speak, on HTML for sections of text. We couldn't find a way to, for example, change the color scheme or background image or page formatting.

SEO-riffic: Edicy lets users add keywords and descriptions, but not other metadata or tags for images or other media.

Zimplit: Fully Simple, Fully Editable

Zimplit is a resource we reviewed some time ago, but we feel it's perfect for this particular round-up. We were able to create a simple, elegant page within about a half hour. It's an open-source, dead-simple application that works just as well for code-free "dummies" as well as it does for those with an inkling or two about web design on the back end. For non-coders, a gallery of great design templates kick things off, and a simple 12-button toolbar does it all after that.

YourOwn.com: Vanity URLs on Zimplit.com are available, and regular domains (plus email addresses) are available starting at around $4.25 per month.

Choose Your Own Coding Adventure: Users have complete access HTML and CSS for their pages, making this a great resource for learning as you go.

SEO-riffic: Sorry, Charlie. You'll have to access the code to tweak your metadata and keywords.

Wix: Flash Sites for Flashy Folks

We're not going to lie: Creating a Flash site in Wix will take you a little more time. But for those who desire that Flash-y touch, this is one of the best free resources you'll find. This editor will present tools familiar to those familiar with other graphic design programs such as image editing or more GUI-oriented website editing programs. The effects, behaviors, animations, and other options offer complete control. Also, we adore the horde of multimedia gallery options. You've got slide shows, Apple-like sliders, and tidy matrices. But to be honest and fair, Wix is just as strangely buggy as any Flash service you've tried to use.

YourOwn.com: There's a whole slew of premium options. Users can elect to choose their own domains for as little as $4.95 a month. An ad-free site, however, costs a dollar a month more.

Choose Your Own Coding Adventure: We couldn't see any back end here, folks. But with all the design options available through the Wix interface, we're not sure you'll need much more.

SEO-riffic: "SEO Friendly" options start at $4.95 a month.

Amplifeeder: A Catchall for the NMDs Among Us

Another site we've reviewed before is Amplifeeder. What users create there may not qualify as full-on websites, but for those who are hip, Amplifeeder creates sites that are the living end in terms of social media aggregation. Really, we all create so much content across our various networks that a personal site can be static and even redundant. Amplifeeder uses great design templates to bring together blog posts, Twitter and Facebook updates, Flickr pics, YouTube videos, and any number of other social media happenings. The page we created is beyond cool and serves as a gorgeous, clean portal to all the places we really live online. Plus, the data you put here is all portable, backup-able, and restorable.

YourOwn.com: Hosting options are coming soon, according to site creator Jon Davies.

Choose Your Own Coding Adventure: Customize your heart out with a blank CSS slate.

SEO-riffic: This part's all up to you. Your SEO will be the moment of truth: What DO you really talk about and share most? Transparency meets SEO when Amplifeeder serves an aggregation of your social streams.

So there you have four great resources for website creation, from super simple to creatively complex. Now get out there and start souping up your web presence. We just made keeping up with the Joneses that much more competitive.

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