This blog discusses about the essence of web 2.0 technologies, current trends, comparison amongst technologies and any issues that may govern the respective applications discussed. This is aimed to be informative and be a healthy discussion forum through the technology it discusses about.Happy Web 2.0-ing -- Nikhil
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Office 365 is Microsoft's move to transform their Office Productivity software into perpetual beta stage. This is an on-line version of Microsoft Office having all the software including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, and other software part of the Office Suite. Office 365 also makes it easy to share documents online and work on the documents as a part of a team. With this move Microsoft has made a "perpetual beta" version of its Office productivity suite. Users will no longer need to update each version of their office software.
More companies are moving to Perpetual Beta versions of their software, which benefits both the vendors and also the consumers. Vendors can earn more from subscription based service to access their software, and Consumers can save on not having to upgrade to new versions, maintenance of systems, upgrading hardware to support new versions of software and also save on storage costs as most of the Perpetual beta software provide online storage options.
New features may be added to Microsoft Office 365, this is reflected by addition of communication and simultaneous access through workspace creation using Sharepoint. This feature is not available in the normal Microsoft Office software suite. By enabling online access and ability add new features to their software Microsoft have the ability to provide these new options at an additional or part of their package of Office 365.
Microsoft may also directly gain valuable user feedback and user experience from the users of Office 365. Changes can be made to one centralized system and can be reflected to all users. High availability and ease of usability are the main advantages of Office 365.
Online provision of the Microsoft Office suite also ensures security, licensing also becomes easier and only authorised subscribers can access Office 365. Losses with respect to pirated versions of the software are eliminated due to online management and access control of Office 365. This would result in lesser losses and more revenue to companies like Microsoft who provide perpetual beta versions of their software.
Software beyond the level of a single device is the way of the future. This falls under the category of Ubiquitous Computing. According to Weiss and Craiger (2002) the concept of Ubiquitous Computing involves surrounding ourselves with "computers and software that are carefully tuned to offer us unobtrusive assistance as we navigate through our work and personal lives". They define Ubiquitous Computing as a "new genre of computing in which the computer permeates the life of the user".
As discussed by Sirius Panahi (2012) "The PC is no longer the only access device for Internet applications: and it is necessary to develop software or applications that are cross device compatible. One such application would be Dropbox the popular file sharing application. This software enables users to access any files stored on their account through online, computer and smartphones. The software is compatible with Apple's Mobile Software the IOS, Google's Android and even the latest Windows Phone 7. Updates are released to support more devices to ensure cross platform compatibility. File sharing and access through Dropbox is easy and is free for personal use. Users may create an account online at www.dropbox.com and more usage is allocated if others are referred to use Dropbox. Dropbox software has a unified look and feel across all platforms. Once files are uploaded they are synchronised across all registered devices and requires no advanced technical knowledge to operate.
The ease of usability, access, cross device compatibility makes Dropbox an excellent example along with other softwares like Skydrive from Microsoft, Google Drive from Google, and iCloud from Apple. All these softwares are cross device compatible except iCloud which only works on Apple devices. The following cycle shows the current use of applications that are cross device compatible and how ubiquitous computing will affect the common user in the future.
Social technology is integrating itself into the professional world, and increasing its footprint into the way businesses operate using Social networking tools. One such instance that has been developed with the business users and professionals in consideration is Microsoft Lync, the online collaboration, communication, and workspace tool, all integrated into one efficient application.
Social networking is one of most dynamic phenomenon in the current information age and the Internet is providing a cost effective and ease of accessibility to users for social networking. Businesses are starting to see the importance of social networking media for communication and collaboration. (Khan, 2009) Describes working in a modern organization as "social" in nature, especially where teams or individuals with like minded ideas need to share information and ideas. Participants need to know and understand what other participants are thinking. Social network integration with BPM includes integration of instant messaging, Wikis, discussion forums, and collaboration.
Microsoft Lync provides the above discussed features, and the most important feature that was not present insome of the earlier social network collaboration platforms is the application of key performance indicators measuring tools. This has been done by the online availability of Microsoft Project software in sync with Sharepoint that generates a workspace for BPM related tasks. As discussed more and more businesses can now be seen to adopt social networking for collaboration and Business Process Management tasks. An outlook into the integration of social media and a Business is depicted in the diagram below.
Web 2.0 technology and internet innovation necessarily do not mean complicated interfaces that confuse the user. Applications developed on the web 2.0 platform have the ability to provide a feature rich interface, providing easy access to all innovative applications, yet having provision for further expansion. Facebook's user interface which has been recently revamped to include Timeline is one of the best examples of a feature rich design. Timeline was first optional to facebook users but based on testing and immense positive feedback from users they successfully implemented timeline as the default layout for profiles of users.
As compared to google+, Facebook offers a revamp of the interface keeping their users interested by offering new features to explore. On a personal note I found both these social platforms unique in their representation of their web 2.0 social networking platforms. However facebook with the launch of timeline kept me interested in exploring new features and got me navigating around them in just a few minutes. So which one do you like more? Facebook with the new timeline or Google plus with its ever increasing list of applications integrated to the social networking platform: comment below to show your preference.
Innovation in assembly refers to innovation right at the architectural or design level of applications and/or hardware development. Assembling web 2.0 applications to be future proof, support currently local machine running programs or applications would ensure the shift to web 2.0 to be embraced by increasing number of people everyday. Web 2.0 platforms provide an easy and intuitive way to utilize features therefore enabling the change to be accepted from using local resources to online web based resources. This ensures reduction in costs, time and implementation labour.
Some web 2.0 applications in use today are cloud services, remote data warehousing, VPN, and document storage applications most or all of which use the web 2.0 platform. Dropbox would be the most widely accepted application by university students in my experience at QUT. They have built the application off a simple interface, made it cross compatible across most devices (IOS, Windows OS, Windows Phone and Android). Ubuntu has its own version of online storage providing universal access to files similar to dropbox in their version of ubuntu one. I had a chance of implementing that on both my laptop running ubuntu and also on my smartphone on Android.
These services offer secure access, reliable storage and easy to use interface for their applications. Online storage solutions are becoming more popular across all fields (education, consumer and business alike) and according to me would be the best example of innovation in assembly using a web 2.0 platform. Facebook, twitter, and Google plus integrate online storage blogging and chat applications with one unified access credentials. What would be next in this wonder of an application?
The world wide web today is a collection of staggering amounts of data increasing exponentially everyday. Representing this data in a useful format, and making it available to users on demand is a challenge that needs to be accepted and organized by people and organizations alike.
There are different ways in which user data can be represented but privacy policies, copyright infringements and ownership rights must be closely monitored. Chaos may result in case of copyrighted material being distributed on the Internet without proper authorization or quoting. Data can be educational, informative, entertaining, interactive or even personal data. The way it is shared should be acknowledged by the creators of the data, and the benefits of the data published should be reaped by companies hosting the data services.
RSS is an application that manages representation of data in an elegant way and promotes responsible use and sharing of data. The simple mechanism of choosing to share one's data and allowing other users to further promote the data is an excellent way to manage ownership right issues. Taking the example of search engines Google stores data of websites and returns them according to user bases searchers, keyword analysis, page ranking and crawlers. Therefore this depicts clearly intelligent management of data
"Intel inside" the phrase is so popular that every computer with such a sign clearly shows the technology backing the processes of any user's computer. Similarly the data that is being stored or published in the on-line world forms the intel of the data world we now use as the internet. Internet is a collection of data organized by search engines, and with the evolution of internet and increasing amounts of data, data management solutions, accurate representation, location based search results, will all prove beneficial in utilizing the data for personal and commercial purposes. Data representation needs to evolve into application in order to utilize the benefit of internet responsibly. This is my comprehension of the phrase data is the new Intel inside. Data not managed or not properly organized would yield something as depicted below for a common user.
Web 2.0 applications and platforms harness the power of collective intelligence. In simple terms collective intelligence in the the social networking scale depicts the expression of opinions, standards, or discussion based on experiences, study, knowledge or simply intelligence of a group of people. To my understanding this is what collective intelligence would mean in simplest of terms. Collective intelligence may be utilized in many forms, however the purpose for which this intelligence may be used will be the focus of my discussion here. According to Tim O Reilly and John Battelle (2009) "Collective intelligence applications depend on managing, understanding, and responding to massive amounts of user-generated data in real time" therefore this gives a brief insight about the feasibility of collective intelligence. http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/public/schedule/detail/10194
An excellent application for bringing about a positive change of this collective intelligence would be utilization of blogs for philanthropy. Kiva utilizes this initiative by raising funds through peer to peer charities. An american not-for-profit organization also tapped into this potential and started a trend of international peer-peer lending phenomenon. This helped raise awareness of helping fellow people around the world. Zidisha also facilitates direct communication between borrowers and lenders to establish a sense of security and belonging between people of the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0#Web_2.0_and_philanthropy
Collective intelligence not only forms the essence of blogs, social networks or any other web 2.0 platforms, but forms the source of technologies such as search engines and how they churn out results to everyday users. Crawlers used by search engines are used by search engines to work with key words and establish page ranking systems.The collective intelligence of keywords, database systems, web development methods, HTML coding, crawler design and page ranking methodologies together form the "collective intelligence of search engines" that give the results most appropriate to what users are looking for. These form the "neural networks of search engines" http://www.oreilly.de/catalog/9780596529321/chapter/ch04.pdf
Certain legal and ethical issues may be raised when collective intelligence platforms are utilized. Legal issues include illegal transfer of funds, tracking of funds, returns, and economical discrepancies. Not-for-profit organizations may be set up by scammers to cheat people out of their money, and if relevant security measures are not in place, this has a chance of collapsing. These are the some of the legal and ethical issues that may be raised by harnessing the power of collective intelligence for philanthropy purposes. However with appropriate collaboration with governments, banks, and security measures in place, this initiative may bring about a positive impact in today's hi-tech society.
With increase in security measures, education, increase in use of internet, cheaper options to get connected to the internet and the web revolution accepting web 2.0 platforms, bringing about a positive change in the world through collective intelligence would serve the true purpose of advances in technology. This would mainly include betterment of humanity and bringing about positive change in society.
