What is going on?  How can I even remotely look intelligent as a technologist going for budget or capital to work with Web 2.0 technology?  Dead, not dead, no wait it is Web 3.0.  This would make anybody think the IT profession as a whole was psychotic for even suggesting a value proposition incorporating Web 2.0 technology within or without the company.

Perhaps a different view would help put all of the noise in perspective.  After recently reading "Engines that Move Markets: Technology Investing from Railroads to the Internet and Beyond" by Alasdair Nairn, one can apply the lessons learned from past cycles of technology adoption to that of Web 2.0.  While technologies such as railroads, electric lighting, and automobiles are dissimilar, they all tend to follow the same cyclic steps.  One of those early steps is the rise of copycats or "me-too-ism".  Everybody wants to jump on that gravy train with biscuit wheels, and hopes to tap into the investment cash stream moving into the new technology innovation.  By gauging where you stand step-wise in the cycle you will know when and where to invest.  So in this case Web 2.0 is not dead, it is merely signaling a move to the next stage.

The next stage will be corporate and organizational adoption, not necessarily the next great consumer Web site.  The consumer space has been the lead innovation ground for the Internet, with corporate and organizational use trailing.  So the consumer space is moving to the later consolidation phase for Web 2.0, while the corporate and organization space is beginning innovation and adoption.  Just the announcements by IBM for a social collaboration lab and Oracle for their Beehive initiative show the value of using this cyclic model as a lens for evaluation.

Now is really the time for corporations and organizations to begin to consider adoption of Web 2.0 technology with implementation studies and pilot programs.  The potential productivity gains and first mover benefits will be huge for those who can begin the cultural changes necessary.  Because the technology drives more of a cultural and organizational change than a true technological change there is little benefit to waiting for the technology to be "perfected".  Instead, the organization's culture needs to adapt to best practice in collaboration and analytics driven evolution, and where people are concerned it takes time to adapt and assimilate.

Image courtesy of gapingvoid.com

As one who came out of the late 1970's as a DBA (data base administrator) religiously putting flat files and hierarchical DBMSs (data base management systems, IMS specifically) to the sword, evangelizing the purity of the CODASYL model and teleprocessing systems.  Naturally, I was put to the sword in turn by Code, Date, and relational DBMSs.  Later, we fought back with object oriented databases, but being older and wiser, detente reigned.  The only good data was analyzed and structured data, fourth normal form (sixth is extreme) at a minimum.  All carefully placed in some DBMS so it could be transacted, searched, and reported. Ultimately, this drive to structured data has lead to Business Intelligence (BI, oxymoron, like military intelligence), Corporate Performance Management (CPM) and Executive Dashboards (picture the Elmo dashboard toys you strap to the baby's crib, spin it, ring it, beep it, Ha ha ha).

Like Galileo, unfortunately, I tasted some forbidden fruit and it has haunted me for years.  I was first taunted by the BLOB construct, which allowed unstructured data to be put in a data base container without the DBMS caring what it was, properly tagged the unsearchable could be found, but it was still labor intensive.  My second taste came from being one of the sorry set of individuals to develop on Apple's Newton platform (great haiku, bad handwriting recognition).  The development platform and runtime were a rich object soup giving incredible flexibility as to what constituted data and instruction.  Now, I am severely tempted by HTML and Search in the guise of Web 2.0 (tie me to the stake and light me up, I confess).

Building out Enterprise Data Models for the average corporation or, even more difficult, Biomedical Data Stores for life sciences are extremely labor intensive, frustrating, and often futile endeavors.  The difficulty (cost, time) is directly correlated to the need for precise metadata and ontology.  Deriving, documenting, and retrofitting are massive efforts (and definitely not for the ADHD among us, who me?).  All of the investment is up front, before the first benefit can be realized (real scary career-wise).  However, this is the "right", dogmatic, safe way to handle data.

This is why our data stores are embarrassing data dumps (landfills, complete with dozers and sea gulls).  It is the difficulty and cost of proper classification and maintenance of data in a structured environment that feeds this end.  Think of it as data entropy, devolving to the most basic disorganized state.  If this basic unstructured state is where data is going, why not just leave it in the "natural" state?  Use the human cognitive effort and Web 2.0 tools to promote the best and most useful data to the top of the heap and let the stuff of dubious integrity drop and disappear into the gravel in the bottom of the big data (fish) tank.  Rather than spend all that up front investment before the first benefit; the process would be one of steady refinement over time.

The raw data permeating the Web is greater than any structured data store and seems infinite in type and variety.  Like the ocean, people dip what they require and interests them with ever increasing success.  The rate of evolution of the supporting technology is astronomical. If we could put half the effort into molecule discovery we put into Britney Spears antics the world would be a much better place.

As consumer internet products and services become ubiquitous and are adopted widely by a mainstream audience, the trickle effect of Web 2.0 into enterprises is avalanching into a wave that is becoming stronger by the day.

Read this full post

[caption id="attachment_145" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="It's in there!"][/caption]

Web 2.0 is giving me flashbacks to an old TV commercial for Prego spaghetti sauce; "Tomatoes, in there! Garlic, in there! Carrots, in there! Half of Italy, in there!..."  It seemed no matter what you asked for it was in that bottle of sauce.  Being a sauce, how could you really tell what was in there, or if it was really needed?  Plus, the tomatoes colored everything red so who knows?  Now we have another bottle of technical sauce here called Web 2.0; it's in there!  It's colored all Internet so how can you tell what is really in there, or if it is really needed?

Good question, seems like every vendor says they're on the bottle of ingredients, in fact the most important one.  It would be funny if it was not so pathetic.  Unfortunately, the smell here is not a nice bubbling spaghetti sauce, closer to a warm crock of....., you get the concept.  Every vendor out there seems to believe companies will blindly buy anything labeled Web 2.0. Rather, the CIO's are more apt to remember the Internet bubble and where that approach got them the last time.

What is required is more definition of what Web 2.0 is, and why we in IT need to move in that direction.  To get that basic understanding, we need to breakout that old spaghetti sauce pan again to boil out all the fancy analysis and obsequious technology.  Lo and behold! What remains is a simple concept: the inmates are now in control of the asylum.  Users of the Internet have turned the tables on the big players in the space, they are no longer happy being spoon fed from a portal. The denizens want to hunt it on their own terms, see it their own way, save it and dispose of it as they please.  If you stand in their way, this mob of Internet hunter-gatherers will crush you with the loss of their eyeballs (poor Yahoo, poor EBay, happy Facebook, happy iPhone).

If this basic principle is followed like a lode stone, much that is occurring in the Internet space is much more illuminating and the proper path forward (with supporting technology) is a great deal clearer to discern.  For example, the winning companies embrace openness and external developers.  There is no way their internal staff can create and the site push enough content and functionality to stay on top.  The Tao of a top site is to be one with the masses, following and attempting to push is uncool.  Allowing users to mash-up specialty widgets into cool personal discoveries is winning, monetization will ultimately follow.

By this point, you are thinking -- how is all this ethereal philosophic spew helping me?  I need to get something together that can be called Web 2.0 or my IT existence is at risk!  Do not worry Grasshopper (I'm showing my '70s again, rats!) I'll put forward a corporate-friendly straw man.  If SharePoint is used to enable a project, process, or department; it is so Web 1.0 (boring!).  If we put the entire corporation up on SharePoint, acting like a corporate Facebook, we are getting there.  If we template it such that we now have ubiquitous collaboration; optimizing and moving our corporate intellectual property (IP) at light speed much nicer.  But for ultimate coolness, we need to commit heresy and wire a Google search appliance in, after adding all of our corporate content to the pile: documents, presentations, everything.  Then the cherry on top, flatten key data bases to HTML and toss them in.  Now, with proper organizational change management (Yes Billy! You can run with scissors, points down please), employees can use all of the power contained in Web 2.0 to maximize unstructured corporate data for speed and profit.  Mangiare! Mangiare!

What is Web 2.0 for, if not to expose more content? And data is the ultimate content.  Knowing what is hiding in the basement, there are going to be a lot of embarrassed organizations (Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do!).  Imagine how difficult it is going to be to link and synchronize content and data in the Web 2.0 environment.  Imagine explaining the project delays and failures of Web 2.0 initiatives when the beast in the basement gets a grip on them.

Normally, the technology will be blamed.  Nobody wants to admit they store the corporate crown jewels in the local landfill.  Nobody will buy the new products fast enough.  The server farms being built to support Cloud Computing will sit spinning and melting Arctic Ice in vain (Microsoft's container-based approach is cool).  This could seriously impact the market capitalization of our top tech giants Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Amazon.  Oh no! It could crash the stock market and bring on tech and financial Armageddon given our weakened state!  Even worse, my own career is at stake!  The devil with them, they are all rolling in money, I could starve!

Now that I have my inner chimp back in the box, we need to put together a mitigation strategy to allow for a steady phased improvement of the data situation in tandem with Web 2.0 initiatives.  It is too much to expect anybody to clean up the toxic data dump in one sitting and we can not tag Web 2.0 with the entire bill from years of neglect (just toss it in the basement, no one goes there).  If we do not ask IT to own up to the issue and instead allow projects to fail, senior management, (fade to The Office), will assume the technology is at fault and will not allocate the resources needed to make this key technological transition.

All that being said, the goal is the Holy Grail of both the bedraggled CIO and the proud IT industry.  If Cloud Computing works as envisioned, it would revolutionize application development, deployment, support, and back-up/recovery.  The current installed-base of PCs would become mere appliances,  distributed data centers could be consolidated, software could be designed and maintained at the application level of granularity.  Development platforms, like Microsoft's Oslo, would allow visual editing and mashing of entire applications residing in the Internet/Cloud, in whole or parts.  Gone is worrying about software stacks, hardware, bandwidth, security, and back-up.  I am in Nirvana, floating on a Cloud (bad pun).

Stepping back from the precipice of sarcasm, there is merit to the concept, approached with a jaundiced eye.  Applications, regardless of industry or user, begin as ideas and unfortunately are easily lost amid the grinding detail of instantiation in software, hardware and bandwidth.  Even the early Cloud platforms provide an opportunity to experiment quickly with innovative ideas.  In a past life a venture capitalist told me; "If I could just complete my bad concepts quickly, I could make a fortune on my one good idea of fourteen!".  Well, the Cloud would do it, platform, QA, and customers all in one.  As a mere CIO, I could see it as an effective platform for fast geographically distributed, collaborative development or for quick one-off applications (to be brought in-house if proven).

It will be interesting to see this trend move forward and it is certainly worthy of our R&D effort, in any case, because the pay-back is so compelling.  Plus, who knows, maybe Sun was right.

I’ve talked recently with a few people in the publishing industry. While all share the same core problem: advertising for their online media does not compensate for the decline in print ad revenues and smaller circulation, none thought that this trend is reversible and that by restricting your online content, demand for the print product will suddenly rise.

It brings up a few good questions.
Is the printed newspaper as we know it doomed for extinction?
I think so. Good content still has a market, and it will still be paid for by advertising prior, during and around the content. Since so many of us carry with us everywhere our electronic reading devices (from the laptop, through the iphone to the Kindle), the need for a printed boundle of broad content will diminish.

How will publishers make money then? What is the future business model?
We all know that charging users for online content works only in very special places where the content is of high professional value or the employer, rather than the consumer, pays the bill. Many of the paid subscribers of the WSJ.com or the Harvard Business Review HBR.com do not foot the bill themselves. Nobody else is able to charge for content. Salon.com have tried every possible avenue in the last few years and settled on just tons of advertising.

What can the local newspaper do? what will publishing 2.0 look like? Become the center of local information and local community. Open up and think about the paper not as an employer of journalists, but as a provider of unique and easy to access valued content.
The content will come from many sources. AP, Local reporters, Local analysts, Community journalists, local and global bloggers, etc. The publisher returns to being a content publisher rather than a content producer. By sifting through the mountains of content, editors can clean, categorize, source, filter, tag and recommend content so we as users get relevant content we care about (and are willing to tolerate the ads that accompany them. In one of the successful models I’ve seen, the premium accounts main premium is the removal of most ads.)

Advertising budgets are moving online (33% increase in the last year) consistently with the increase of time we spend online. As ad technology, bandwidth and targeting algorithms improve, a publisher that can deliver a highly segmented audience with a high quality ad experience will be able to ask for top dollars.

Online advertising rates will increase. As we move towards a 100% trackable media, the difference between TV and the computer will diminish. Both channels will deliver similar content supported by ads. Advertisers will pay by reach, and if the quality of the experience is the same, an interactive experience where the user can click the ad and go to the advertiser should be worth more!.

The newspaper will become local media center that is more open, interactive, customized and relevant. Eventually, even profitable.

• non si è costantemente collegati ad Internet
• non si ha potere sulle applicazioni che si usano su Internet
• poco si può fare se la nostra applicazione preferita non risponde

Prophet è un database che si può usare off-line e che si sincronizza (con repliche, in modalità peer-to-peer, senza server centrale) quando torna on-line.

Espone API native (in Perl) e simil-REST. Usa il file-system come back-end.

Prophet risolve, in autonomia, i conflitti: ricorda le precedenti modalità di risoluzione e le preferenze - richiede l'intervento dell'utente in caso d'indecisione.

Ogni modifica è memorizzata, ispezionabile e annullabile a ritroso (le repliche  si ottengono proprio eseguendo questi insiemi).

Prophet è progettato per scalare a "livello di team" (ordine dei 50.000 record). Possibili applicazioni, quindi, sono tutti quei "modesti" database "sociali" e, più in generale, quelli di cui si vuole disporre, sul proprio computer, anche quando si è off-line.

[slideshare id=527373&doc=prophetoscon-1216951494334884-9&w=425]

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Altro materiale sull'argomento:

• http://www.slideshare.net/obrajesse/web-20-is-sharecropping
• http://www.slideshare.net/obrajesse/prophet-a-peer-to-peer-replicated-disconnected-database/

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The summary in their words:

“Companies are using more Web 2.0 tools and technologies than they were last year, sometimes for more complex business purposes, according to McKinsey’s second annual survey on Web 2.0. Companies that are satisfied with their use of these tools are starting to see changes throughout the enterprise.”

A few thoughts and observations from the findings and from our own experience with implementing Enterprise 2.0 solution internally at Edgewater and for clients:

1. The technologies that are being implemented.

Social networking is now in second place after web services. It is not clear how social networking is defined and if the focus is internal or external. From what we’ve see, there are at least 3 different ways companies use social networking technologies:

• Internal social networking: the goal of these tools is to help people stay in contact, share activities and be able to find expertise inside the organization. From the much discussed use of Facebook as an internal social network by Serena Software to the creation of SharePoint profiles, the tools that currently exist are very limited in their support and address only what Andy McAfee calls the Strong circle, the group of people you interact with on a regular basis anyway. A true internal social network that will spur interaction and discovery across the enterprise is yet to emerge.
• Internal Collaboration: it is not on the list but internal forums and collaborative tools for projects are one of the oldest and most used aspects of an active intranet. Many may associate these activities as part of a social network.
• External social network for customer or partners. In here as well, collaborative environment and Social Network seem to be used interchangeably. There are a lot of forums, discussions and member interaction but due to their limited scope, these communities rarely develop into a full fledged social network.

The second point of interest here is the relatively low rating of some of the emerging trends like Tagging, Prediction markets and Mashups. We see a lot of interest in these upcoming technologies and expect to see them rise in priority in the future.

2. The cultural implications of adopting Web 2.0. It is good to see that in many organizations the change is not just in the tools that are introduced but also in the organizational culture and governance.

The tight correlation between the level of satisfaction with web 2.0 tools and the degree the organization had changed indicates that they are tightly coupled. Introducing new tools to a rigid organization will result in failure. A successful implementation has to consider attitude and cultural changes as much as tools and technologies.

3. Who is leading the change: the role of IT. It is not surprising to see in the survey results that only in 16% of the responders indicated that IT had initiated the introduction of Web 2.0 tools.

and that in the cases it did, they resulted in the lowest level of satisfaction. We’ve seen similar trends with our clients as these tools introduce chaos into the environment corporate IT is trying desperately to control and maintain. IT is responsible for keeping the security levels in place, ensuring availability, backup, searchability and integrating these services into the existing infrastructure. Since many of these tools are from open source or startup organizations, IT is justifiably playing the role of the gate keeper. A successful strategy must marry the business needs and opportunities with the prudence of a supported environment but in keeping with the agile approach that is inherent in web 2.0 – IT must be willing to give up some control otherwise web 2.0 initiatives will take too long to implement and will be too restrictive for an organization to embrace. In many cases, this is our role as strategy and technology consultants, to bridge the gap and set a cohesive strategy everyone can agree upon and execute.

This content is the property of Edgewater Technology and is published as part of the edgewater technology blog. Any unauthorized use of this content is prohibited.

On the M&A side, the summary points to a current climate that demands more rigorous due diligence. It has a caveat for buyers concerning deffered capital expenditures, and this is certainly something we look for (and found on some of our recent IT due diligence engagements) when analyzing the IT landscape for hidden risks.

The more interesting content in this article concerns the convergence of M&A and Web 2.0, however. The post cites Web 2.0 and social networks as a means to bring together buyers and sellers and reduce transaction costs by making it easier to find specific talent to work on an acquisition. We've certainly noticed this trend on sites like LinkedIn, where buyers and sellers are trying to connect on the M&A Answers forum.

While vendors of organizational social networks are a clear fit, what is common to advanced search vendors, enterprise mashup providers, Content Management vendors and video broadcasting solutions?

It seems that the common thread is a shared vision of the future enterprise as a social, open and collaborative place where data, content, knowledge and expertise are more easily available and where productivity results from enhanced collaboration and information sharing.

We can categorize the solution areas based on what they allow the user to do:
 

Finding information and data across silos and systems is still the holy grail of today’s information systems. Our information workers are dependent on their access to information but the ever growing amount and complexity of the data makes it harder and harder.

Most basic Enterprise 2.0 products cover the first 4 levels. They include a basic search for content within the network, provide tools for creating new content, sharing, and collaboration using technologies like discussions, wiki’s, blogs, RSS, Public Profiles, and groups.

Products in this category include: Microsoft Sharepoint, SocialText, Telligent , Thoughfarmer and GroupSwim among many others.

The fifth level offers a unique opportunity to leverage the interactions, conversations and links to add context and intelligence. By using Tags or by auto detection of terms and traffic patterns, some of the solutions can help create a layer of relationships and meaning on top of the content and link together disparate pieces of content, data and people for a complete picture.

Products in this category include: OpenWater, Connectbeam, Inquira

The 6th level in our stack consists of tools that try to bring together and connect data from disparate systems and source and allow the user to connect them and create custom applications and views on demand. By using open standards and web services, these tools called Mashups attempt to simplify our search for information across multiple systems by allowing us to pull from them without creating a separate datamart as the baseline for data and correlation.

Mashups are a hot topic for enterprise portals and enterprise web 2.0 initiatives. IBM, Oracle and Micosoft are releasing mashup tools as well as a few smaller vendors like Jackbe and Serena

At the final level, we would all like to have a toolset that will allow us to discover ideas, bring important knowledge to our attention, alert us in real time to activities and trends we should be watching, feed us in real time information that is relevant to the tasks we are performing. No tools in this category yet but check again in a few months...

The ROI and game changing benefits of Enterprise web 2.0 internal implementations can go well beyond important outcomes like of employee involvement, morale and collaboration. It would come from harnessing the intelligence, context and knowledge within the organization (data, content and people) and outside sources to increase productivity, shorten development lifecycles, enhnace relationships make better decisions and inspire innovation.

Mr Patrick Chan, Chief Technology Advisor, Emerging Technologies, IDC Asia/Pacifc (wow fancy telling someone your job title.) Patrick did an excellent presentation on the future of web 2.0 and I was very pleased to see that he included "Virtual Worlds" in his predictions, somehow people don't align vitrual worlds with web 2.0 yet however it appears IDC is taking a stab at bringing virtual worlds into more minds, and noted that virtual worlds are COMING UP and that people like to have a separate online personality - this is good as long as the online personality is real too. The billions of dollars as is always fore told by IDC in these emerging markets were presented to the audience - no cheers hip hip hoorays - except maybe the silent ones in my head as i sit in the back of the room. CHINA & INDIA were singled out as the leading forces in web 2.0 is Asia, the take away message from IDC is web 2.0 is here to stay and will only get massively bigger for consumers and enterprises alike.

Regarding the Audience, when i walked in I was truly in awe at how IDC had filled the room to overflow but even though i could only see the backs of heads I could tell this was a web 2.0 event like no other that I regularly attend. The event attendees were mature, i don't think i saw a spiky hairstyle anyway, no fashion victims, these were regular everyday mature technologies managers from enterprises - more later.

Next up was Brad Garlinghouse SVP Communications & Community, Yahoo - Yahoo were the diamond sponsor for the event and Brad discussed the over whelming noise that social media presents (don't i know it) Of course the solution is YAHOO and how Yahoo is redefining email and services to allow for trusted communications - yes it was a BIG pitch for Yahoo - but they were the diamond sponsors :-)

Coffee break - food ran out - coffee ran out

Part Two - Along comes a slice of fresh air and i think was the winner of the most popular presenter of the day. Justin Lee Executive Director of E27 Singapore appeared on stage which to my knowledge must be his first major public speaking appointment. After declaring to this very mature audience how young he was (in comparison to those listening to him) he ummmed and arrghed into his entertaining and information packed presentation of how he got to be on stage talking about what he DOES know best Web 2.0. His journeys in Silicon Valley, bringing facebook to Singapore (he did introduce me to facebook and yes i am addicted now) thru to a video on web 2.0 where he bopped his head to the music as the video played and enjoyed the humour the video presented. Many a time the audience giggled as Justin relayed a funny situation. The presentation slides even were fun - but they held immense understanding and value of the web 2.0 scene in Asia - well done Justin except you neglected the Virtual World scene - maybe next time when social media members start moving over to virtual worlds like Twinity it will be in your next speaking engagement :-) Local web 2.0 companies like ZOPIM, Ping.sg, SGentreprenuers, yebber, NuffNang and others were presented as was the Hong Kong's web 2.0 scene which highlighted www.recruit.net Malaysia's web 2.0 vibrant scene heralded, advertlets which is the most well known blogging advertising network in Malaysia as well as Singapore.

The final presenter is one of Singapore's Legends Michael Neztley, Practice assistant Professor of Corporate communication, Singapore Management University - Topic Digital Natives, I have previously posted about Digital Natives here and I agree whole heartedly with Micheal on how the world of web 2.0 has changed the youth of today. In a decade or two we will be asking "what are textbooks?" Whilst i listened intently my mind kept interrupting me because I am a marketing person at heart and could not stop thinking how Yahoo the diamond sponsor must be fretting at how many times Micheal said GOOGLE. The other intersting think i noticed is that Michael is getting his students to use the Wetpaint wiki platform - good choice Michael.

Q&A followed and again I give marks to IDC for introducing a concept of the audience being able to write their questions instead of having to get up and ask (which we know is hard) BTW at TDM events we most often provide wireless internet so questions can be sent via notebooks to the event team, its a bit more modern than paper :-) Also to be applauded is the man from IE Singapore who is trying to implement blogging and web 2.0 within IE Singapore and asked for an ON THE SPOT solution of how to get it done :-) Mr Popular (Justin) seemed to get most of the questions.

Back to the audience, during lunch I spoke with two guests on my table and as i suspected one was an IT Manager from a major print company the other was an IT Consultant. They were both at the event to LEARN more about this WEB 2.0 world. BUT also as expected they weren't there to find ways of getting millions of people connected (as social media allows) they were there finding out how THEIR circle of influences could collaborate better with web 2.0. I think in this regard the event did not deliver this information. The focus as to be expected was more on the massive communication opportunities that web 2.0 has created. Enterprises on the other hand need to first connect their employees and then their customers and then maybe more.

My overall view of the IDC Web 2.0 Digital Marketplace event is WELL DONE IDC. Enterprise adoption of web 2.0 is critical and this event i am sure sent attendees away with fresh ideas and a percentage of the audience will be searching for solutions and opportunities to embrace the technology.

- Rating 4/5

Andrew Peters a.k.a. APLINK

1. How do people navigate? Do they type the URL or use the search to find a site, not bothering with the URL.
2. For a professional organization offering 20 – 30 different services, is it realistic to drive people to one page (the home page) and have them find the appropriate content from there or should we reverse the paradigm and try to get them to specific content pages and then allow them to navigate up and explore the rest?

URL vs. Search

When you look for a site, do you type the full URL of the site (www and all) or do you just type the main terms and look through the search results?

My answer will be “It depends”. Short, simple URLs I type, while more complex ones I don’t bother.

Two interesting recent articles talk about a worldwide shift to search based navigation:

In Japan, ads are starting to use search terms instead of full URL. As the article title says: URL’s are totally out.

Josh, at ReadWriteWeb wrote this week that The URL Is Dead, Long Live Search detailing a similar shift in advertising and use of the web by users.

Flipping the tree

If search is increasingly the preferred mode of navigation, where users land on the site will depends on the keyword used and whether they were placed correctly on the content pages or put solely on the home page. Which one is better?

We think that relevancy is the key. While it may be good for branding to have users always go to the homepage, the specific content they were searching for, resides at the leaf and directing traffic to the leaves was the goal of the home page to begin with.

Each leaf needs to behave as a landing page providing sufficient branding and clear navigation that will allow users to continue and explore up the tree.

Image credit: http://www.fisherkids.net/photo.htm

We are in the Midst of redoing our website Edgewater.com and take advantage of the opportunity to examine recent trends and technologies and their impact on corporate website development. We’ll post some insights and share our thought process leading to the new site.

We have decided to build a new thing: a web 2.0 centric corporate site. Built upon the attitudes of web 2.0 and using some of the best practices, if not necessarily the flashiest interfaces.
We also decided to take a web 2.0 development approach as well. It means not spending months in requirement definition trying to envision future needs of our users. Instead we will take an iterative approach and release the site item by item as they are defined and implemented.

Yes we know the Agile movement had that down over 10 years ago but rarely externally transparent through each of the iterations. We intend to release each of the iterations. Put it out there and go back and improve one step at a time.
Our steps are basically:

1. Set a clear strategy and common frame of reference for how we see web 2.0
2. Select a collaborative platform (In our case, Sharepoint 2007 we had previously used for our Intranet)
3. Migrate the site as is
4. Start improving.

• Design
• Templates
• Content
• Keywords
• Rich media
• Collaboration
• Discussions
• Search
• Etc..

We hope this approach create a live and lively site that grows based on ever changing needs and priorities and is a perpetual work in progress.

We want it to be a center of our online presence but by no means the only online presence.

We hope it becomes a blueprint for the next generation of sites and their transformation for dynamic brochure-ware they currently are to true collaborative communities.
Let us know what you think of our progress.

For the last 3 years, web 2.0 and social networking have been all the rage in the Internet community. This is where the VC money is going, the media attention is focused and users are spending much of their time. Businesses are still trying to figure out what does it mean for them. Applying web 2.0 principals and attitudes to business and the enterprsie can be called enterprise web 2.0

Many tend to think that becoming a 2.0 organization as the use of flashy interfaces, communities, blogs, wikis and user generated content and tried to jump on the bandwagon by adding these to their sites without comprehending the deeper and more fundamental cultural changes that make these tools effective, and have seen little gain.

Web 2.0 is about attitudes and a new way of interaction with all constituents, customers, employees, and partners.

With all its hype, cool startups and sexy conferences, web 2.0 still baffles many business people who see it as a playground for kids (MySpace, Facebook, YouTube) or a get-rich scam for young entrepreneurs and VC’s. Many who have been through Bubble 1.0 would rather wait until the web 2.0 fad disappears to see what is left standing. Tim O’reilly has provided what many see as the most comprehensive definition of web 2.0. And while his explanation is very thorough, it is also technical in nature.

My favorite definition comes from Ian Davis who wrote:

“Web 2.0 is an attitude, not a technology. It’s about enabling and encouraging participation through open applications and services. By open I mean technically open with appropriate APIs but also, more importantly, socially open, with rights granted to use the content in new and exciting contexts.”

In my opinion, web 2.0 is indeed defined as an attitude that can be personal or organizational. A web 2.0 organization adds specific terms and values to its code of conduct and sets priorities and incentives to promote them.

We see web 2.0 attitudes, or what I like to call the web 2.0 spirit, as made of the following attitudes:

• Open: you don’t have to share your source code to be open but from the application to the users, the approach is open. Easy to integrate with, easy to add to. Built on Sharing. Open to new ideas, Flexible, Agile, Simple, and Diverse.
• Interactive: the interaction among users and active participation is a core element of Web 2.0. The ability of customer and partners to respond and engage in discussions, post reviews, comments, thoughts and ideas. Agree and disagree. Provide a different point of view. Support and promote.
• Transparent: Do not hide, lie, spin, manipulate, threat, or intimidate. The Internet walls are nonexistent and everything you say or do, internally or externally will be exposed. Therefore: Share as much information as possible, acknowledge mistakes, and explain decisions.
• Collaborative: Listen, encourage opinions and group decisions. True collaboration is a tremendous thing producing a result much greater than the sum of the parts. It can only flourish in a nurturing environment.
• Social: Web 2.0 is about building relationships, trust, playing well with others, give and take, respect of each player and of the social order that is in place. Social corporate responsibility, caring about the environment and about the local community are very important as well.

Andrew McAfee at Harvard likes to add the term Emergent, noting that out of many local interactions as web 2.0 facilitates, comes higher level structures. I’ll expand that definition to include emergence of order and structure out of the seemed chaos that is online interaction. It is the transcendence of web 2.0 communities that created Wikipedia.

What can be gained?

Enterprise web 2.0 promises substantial incentives for early adopters:

• Enhanced brand image, exposure and buzz. As influence circles expand, using new methods for communication and data distribution will reach an ever expanding user base.
• Improved customer relationships and increased loyalty. Customers will appreciate the new approach that respects and listens to them.
• Faster feedback cycle and agile response to market opportunities. By providing real avenues for customer collaboration and listening to chatter and monitoring usage, companies can create faster release cycles and quicker response methods.
• Improved utilization of internal creativity and innovation. When employees at all level are engaged is collaboration and discussion, great ideas and solutions can quickly surface, get reviewed and implemented
• Better lead generation and inbound traffic. Beyond search, activity in the social web can be a great source of traffic and referrals.
• New business channels. Whether it is finally establishing a DTC channel to leveraging social commerce applications, the new landscape provides new opportunities and new potential partnerships.

Adoption Challenges:

So now, show of hands. Has your organization embraced the web 2.0 spirit? Chances are that unless you are working for a web 2.0 startup, the most you have seen is the introduction of a limited corporate blog or a Wiki’s coming up on your intranet.

Many companies have a deep rooted problem with the web 2.0 spirit. It contradicts some of the fundamental principles of corporate mentality and therefore risky to undertake. In my experience very few companies have truly bought into this attitude and at the most are paying lip service by implementing some basic enterprise 2.0 applications to replace their failed and unused Intranets and KM systems.

Bob Warfield provided a very insightful discussion as to the reasons companies are wary of embracing web 2.0:

The headlong rush the Web brings to expose everything to everyone scares the heck out of most corporate types. Their two biggest requests for Web 2.0 initiatives are Governance and Security, and the reasons for it are exactly what we’ve been discussing. It isn’t just that they have “control issues”. There are sound business reasons why controls have to be in place.

Morale: Do we really want everyone to know how poorly some initiative is going? How will it help to tell those who can’t make a difference and would only be depressed by the knowledge? Is it fair to expose some internal squabble that was mostly sound and fury signifying nothing? Won’t that just unfairly tarnish some otherwise good people’s reputations and make them less effective?

Governance: Is the information legal and appropriate for everyone to know in this age of SOX and Securities Laws?

Competitive Advantage: Do I want to risk giving my competitors access to key information because I’ve distributed it too broadly?

Still, the web 2.0 spirit as reflected in the actions, habits and expectations of users WILL impact the way companies do business. Some of the most important trends include:

• Loss of control: as mentioned above, companies no longer have absolute control over their brand, products and services and how they are portrayed. From rumor sites to product reviews and fake commercials, people have many more ways to learn about you and form opinions.
• Opinions matter. 68% of shoppers read products reviews before making a purchase.
• Wider influence circles. Information (good and bad) can quickly spread through influence and social circles.
• Transparency is expected and recent cover-up attempts by companies like Merck and Bear Stearns were not tolerated.

Companies will have to adapt because the old practices are getting them in trouble and new opportunities for leadership position are being lost due to lack of clear web 2.0 corporate strategy or what we would call enterprise web 2.0

By embracing the new enterprise web 2.0 paradigm, businesses can create long lasting changes that will truly resonate with audiences beyond the quick fix of adding a marketing blog to the web site and some promotional videos. As these changes take time to implement, early adopters and market leaders can create a significant competitive advantage by differentiating themselves and reaping the benefits.

Let us know what you think

La presentazione fatta da Andy Denmark e pubblicata su Slideshare, anacronisticamente (sicuri?) parla di posta elettronica, partendo da semplici constatazioni:

• tutti la usano (anche se contemporaneamente ad altri mezzi)

• cattura l'attenzione per buona parte della giornata (non solo tramite computer, aggiungo)

• veicola tante e "interessanti" informazioni che rimangono chiuse all'interno dell'inbox

Procedure automatiche potrebbero offrire servizi a valore aggiunto consumando questi dati.

La presentazione descrive quattro possibili categorie di servizi che potrebbero interagire, o che già interagiscono, con la nostra posta elettronica.

[slideshare id=371001&doc=tripitweb20042408-1209065842262754-8&w=425]

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Dean Owen

One company, who has 200 Web servers and handles over a million transactions, only uses SSL for secure access.  We had a long conversation about other security strategies that included vulnerability management.  To my surprise, the company not only doesn't use this type of solution, they hadn't heard of the technology. 

With millions of people using the Web for banking, purchasing, selling and posting information, there is a substantial increase in network, database and Web application vulnerabilities.   In fact, Web 2.0 applications have 5 times more vulnerabilities then Microsoft products.  Companies need to research and implement vulnerability management solutions. 

There are many products on the market and even a few open solutions that can help companies detect and remediate vulnerabilities.  One of these companies is Rapid7.  Rapid7 provides a unified vulnerability management solutions for scanning networks, Web applications and databases.  This solution is perfect for companies who want and need to protect their complete network.  I had the opportunity to speak with customer of Rapid7 and found their product to be as promised. 

Il paradigma del mashup proviene dalla definizione del Web 2.0 dovuta a Tim O'Reilly (il web come piattaforma per creare, fruire, manipolare ed arricchire contenuti), consiste nell'aggregare contenuti, anche espressi in formati diversi, in modo da poterne apprezzare l'insieme.

Le piattaforme di mashup offrono oggetti per reperire immagini, video, mappe, feed, ecc. e modalità per combinarli tra loro.

I contenuti hanno associati un certo numero di dati (titolo, autore, riferimento geografico, ...): procedendo all'integrazione di questi (appartenenti a contenuti provenienti da sorgenti diverse) si ottiene il mashup.

Propedeutico a questa aggregazione è l'individuazione della semantica e della sintassi con cui esprimere i dati: questi, pur essendo correlati a contenuti diversi, se esprimono il medesimo "concetto" devono avere semantica e sintassi coincidenti. Questo processo implica quindi la determinazione di un vocabolario comune, una particolare istanza di un CDM (Canonical Data Model) il cui dominio è costituito dall'insieme dei dati appartenenti (o, qualora il formato lo consenta, coincidenti) ai vari contenuti. Il grosso del lavoro è questo, la progettazione, una volta implementato il framework il classico esempio del mashup tra le fotografie geo-referenziate di Flickr e le mappe di Google Maps è un gioco da ragazzi.

Il mashup rispetta le regole dell'integrazione dati, ma questo non è il suo scopo, ed il suo prodotto, l'aggregazione, non costituisce input per successive elaborazioni: il risultato, infatti, è destinato agli utenti e la fruizione avviene mediante un browser. Può essere paragonato ad una SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) i cui servizi sono gli oggetti con cui estrarre ed esporre contenuti (content service) e l'infrastruttura è il framework che ne permette la composizione e che eventualmente prevede anche modalità di censimento, organizzazione e gestione. I content service sono componibili tra loro in modi diversi, coerentemente con le necessità di chi dovrà avvalersene.

Tra le promesse del mashup c'è quindi l'aggregazione di contenuti, alla portata di tutti ed in linea con le reali necessità di chi ne deve poi usufruire: l'IT mette a disposizione degli utenti oggetti per estrarre contenuti e modalità per combinarne i risultati, gli utenti usano questi oggetti per reperire ciò che gli occorre (imponendo di volta in volta chiavi di ricerca e condizioni) e si avvalgono della piattaforma per combinarne, come meglio desiderano, i risultati.

Il mashup è uno dei paradigmi dell'Enterprise Web 2.0, il web come piattaforma all'interno dei confini aziendali: l'aggregazione, corrispondente alle reali esigenze, di contenuti riguardanti un certo soggetto (clienti, vendite, ...) con l'indubbio valore di poter disporre da ovunque dell'intero "dossier" e delle relazioni tra i "media" che lo compongono.

E' chiaro, però, che non c'è alcuna magia: non si può disporre di un contenuto non compreso nella progettazione o esposto seguendo un vocabolario diverso da quello di altri contenuti con cui si vorrebbe combinare; il mashup è alla portata davvero di tutti, ma solo dopo un'attenta progettazione ed un ponderato processo per l'individuazione del CDM.

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On one axis - Impact

On the other axis - Ease of Adoption

This used to be a trade off. Before Windows, ease of adoption was unheard of. Microsoft got the adoption by riding on the PC manufacturers. Then Google barged right into the top right hand corner with massive impact and totally easy adoption. There was a view that ease of adoption without lock-in is inherently a weak and unsustainable position but the lack of traction of all the Google challengers seem to be proving that this is not the case.

Classic enterprise software was in the big impact/hard to adopt category. This was where there was a trade off. You could build something that fitted into another vendor's ecosystem - easy adoption but limited impact - or you could work to create something that became an ecosystem by getting totally entrenched into major companies.

I believe those days are over. The new wave of Net Native Enterprise 2.0 software makes adoption much simpler and organic. There is much less need to (as Steve Jobs calls it) "crawl through the corporate orifice" to get adoption. You won't get VC to fund a "storm the barricades" type of frontal assault with big sales and marketing budgets.

This will probably limit impact, unless there is a network effect, however I see fewer sustainable network effects leading to Windows type dominance in future. For example, Wordpress and other blogging tools attempt this but I think it is a weak concept (much as I love Wordpress) as no blogging tool will get dominance and nobody wants to limit their network to one arbitrary set of bloggers.

That is probably the reality of Enterprise 2.0. Despite the great efforts of marketing departments to drum up new paradigms, we are simply into a very long and sustained roll-out of Net native versions of what we have always had in the enterprise. This will lift the boats of every enterprise software player that plays well in that environment and enables some new niche players to emerge, but I doubt we will see anything of the scale of Oracle or SAP emerge.

Most of the Web 2.0 start-ups that I am seeing fall into the low impact/easy to adopt quadrant. I am sure that statement will raise a lot of hackles and I am not trying to offend. I have worked in many start-ups and I am very aware that any traction looks like massive impact for a start-up and should be shouted from the rooftops. I am certainly not trying to rain on any parade.

The barriers to entry are now so incredibly low - use Amazon S3/EC2 for infrastructure, mashup code and deploy online, use RentACoder to get cheap brains. Get it out into the Blogosphere and let the widgets propagate virally. So no problems on the ease of adoption front.

But big impact? Go outside the Web 2.0 Bubble (I am not referring to financial bubble more like "boy in the bubble") and ask a random selection of ordinary people what recent innovations on the Net have made an impact on their lives? It is a bit sobering.

Usually massive impact means that the solution is solving some huge "pain point". Personally I think the Web works pretty well. Sure there are some minor annoyances but not anything that I would spend any money to fix. I can see some Web 2.0 tools making life easier, but in small incremental ways, not really life changing ways - not like the PC, email and search.

The reality is that the massive impact deals only come about every decade or so. I don't believe the next one will be in IT and I say that as somebody who has made his career in IT. The massive impact ones have to be addressing real "pain". There are plenty of pain points out there - disease and global warming come to mind - and the Web will have a massive impact on helping with these big problems by spreading knowledge. These are all about big science. Fix the problem and adoption ain't your problem (a real cure for cancer won't need a marketing budget).

Of course there is a ton of money to be made in media niches and office/Net productivity tools. YouTube is entertaining, like those best of home videos on cable, but changing the world? It is the breathless we are changing the world hype of a lot of Web 2.0 that is a bit old.

The one thing that stands out as big impact is social networking, whether for dates (younger crowd) or deals (mortgage payers). It fulfills as basic a need as email did. I suspect we are at the early stages of social networking and something new will emerge that makes it more sustainable. I do not buy the notion of the "social graph" as the new platform. I believe that Social Networks actually have a reverse scale effect. When there are too many people in one network it loses the whole point of a relationship, it just feels like a big anonymous place and we avoid it to look for more personal ways (online and offline) to build and maintain those relationships.

The Internet is The Platform and nobody controls that. Thats just fine with me.

The Internet Changes Everything. The Ease of Adoption/Impact quadrant is no longer applicable. Possibly Crossing The Chasm is out of date (I am still figuring that one out). In an open "services" Internet, the idea of a dominant platform is almost certainly dead.

During 30 years in the software business, I have got used to the idea that software is mostly pretty bad - no, lets be frank very bad. Pre the PC I learnt that software was monumentally hard to develop, always (I mean always) over budget and and the green screen text stuff was for people in back offices and data centers only. My first hands-on experience was with a Mac (great) and then decades of frustrations with Windows. (Full Disclosure, I love how bad Windows is, as the support problems enable companies like iYogi - where I am a co-founder - to thrive).

Wordpress is part of a new wave of software that looks like it may actually get it right. This looks like second generation Net native software. The first generation of Net native got the "wow" factor but rather the same way one goes wow when you see a dog walking on its hind legs (amazing that Rufus can do it, but he still does it very badly). The second generation takes Net native as a given and really focuses on usability. It has to be usable as adoption is based on thousands of individuals voting every minute with their mouse.

This is not how the Enterprise works. Somebody makes a decision and everybody has to use the clunky monstrosity. Of course people do still vote with their mouse but in destructive, passive aggressive ways that derail the project. These are the projects where the CFO at the post-mortem meeting asks "So are are you telling me that after 3 years and $x million we are facing a write-off decision? Can somebody tell me how we got here?"

I can see how systems like Wordpress can avoid this by growing more organically. Add a few colleagues/partners as posters. Add some traditional semi-static pages. Add some social network, a bit of video and a podcast or two. Pretty soon I have a modern CMS, with minimal implementation costs and all on a pay as you go basis.

This is what the analysts are touting as Enterprise 2.0. At a 30,000 foot level it makes sense. History has a way of repeating itself and Web 1.0 went from individual to Enterprise and the big Enterprise Net roll-out is still in full swing. Does that mean Wordpress type companies should hire some hot-shot sales guys to knock on CIO doors? As somebody who has knocked on a lot of CIO doors, I think not. The possibly vicious cycle goes like this:

1. Get VC by writing a Business Plan with aggressive revenue projections
2. Hire expensive sales guys who will promise whatever it takes to get that revenue target
3. Build whatever clients want/demand without the time to design it right
4. Clunky monstrosity here we come

This can end fine with a trade sale, everybody walks with some money vowing to do it right next time. Actually I think we have a lot of teams with precisely those scars who are determined to do it right this time.

The Net has not only changed the way we deliver software. More importantly it has changed the way people buy software. The enterprise gatekeepers have less power. The gatekeepers still have veto power but only if the software breaks the rules on privacy and security. It is not just start-ups buying this way, it is self-managed teams and departments. Try it free and use the credit card to buy a bit and expense it; the credit card vendors do a good job at expense tracking and those miles and other benefits are nice bonus.

Then at some level of usage, the corporate department may come in to give it the blessing and negotiate volume discounts. The trick is not letting those negotiations drive the featuritis that becomes spaghetti code (as in "we will buy 500 copies if you add xyz feature now").

I am hopeful that this is a genuinely new era for software and that the teams who have enough experience with the old ways will stick to their design vision and keep it growing with Einstein's famous phrase in mind:

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler."

I spend my time working with “traditional” B2B Media companies, the industry specific magazines, web sites and trade shows that connect buyers and sellers in all major markets. These companies are often derided in the Web 2.0 Blogosphere as mainstream media or dinosaurs. So a quick reality check may be in order. B2B Media in the USA alone is a $31.1 billion revenue business and the breakdown of that revenue may surprise those still muttering about “dead trees”:

• Trade Shows $11.3 billion (36%)
• Print Magazines $10.9 billion (35%)
• Online “eMedia” $4.3 billion (14%)
• Other (mostly databases) $4.6 billion (15%).

The growth (28%) and the margins (25%) are in online. If you ask a random sample of B2B Media CEOs about their priorities, it is very clearly "online, online and online". Many now describe their business as online with print extensions. In some cases this is delusional, in some aspirational and in a very small number of cases it is already fact. Private Equity money is pouring into the industry and smart, aggressive new management teams are ensuring that the transition to online is real.

This leads to a lot of partnership opportunities. Web 2.0 start-ups want access to market and B2B Media want more online traction. But this is not the environment for bleeding edge technology. In Geoffrey Moore Crossing the Chasm terminology, you will find a few Visionaries and a lot of Conservatives, but not a lot of Early Adopters.

This relative conservatism suits the B2B Media audience demographic, which tends towards the Baby Boomer "digital immigrant" that still likes print but also uses new technology that crosses into the mainstream. RSS is an example. RSS is not a subject to quicken the pulse of a Read/Write Web reader, but the opportunities created for start-ups when something as fundamental as RSS cross the chasm to the mainstream are significant. The future clearly belongs to the "digital native" generation that grew up with MySpace and Instant Messaging, but in the B2B world the checks are still signed and deals decided by the Baby Boomer with bifocals scanning a print magazine.

B2B Media executives do not expect any silver bullet; no single feature will transform their business. They do need lots of new features that in aggregate make a difference to their mission of connecting buyers and sellers. This may suit the reality of many of the smaller, younger Web 2.0 start-ups that get referred as "a feature, not a product and certainly not a company".  These may not be the transformational deals that start-ups dream about, but they maybe the niche markets ("bowling pins" in Crossing the Chasm lingo).

P&G Primes Its Pinpoint Marketing

In the article, Elva Lewis explains how she will build 60 million relationships. This is a great example of how companies are changing their thinking regarding users and customers. What is interesting is how P&G plans to use multiple avenues to make customers feel like friends. They plan to use traditional marketing as well as new technologies to advance their strategies.

One thing that is clear from the article is that companies need to use relationship technologies such as online, web 2.0 and others to cost-effectively communicate with customers. By building new and enhanced websites, email, feedback and marketing solutions, companies such as P&G can be proactive and reach out to their customers.

Technology companies can learn a great lesson from this type of relationship building.

On a side note. I used the product box.net recently and was very impressed with the features and functions. Because I have a background in both applications and communications, I find it interesting whether large organizations will use this file sharing technology that resides outside the firewall. However, it was one of the easiest web applications to start using and the interface is clear. I started using it within my organization and I think that it is a great way to replace traditional file sharing techniques. The fact that I do not need a server and software to run this application, is fantastic. I remember spending months trying to purchase a server and then use Share-point to create this type of sharing. Not anymore.