The Web 2.0 technology brings together people from around the world to do more than just socialize. Crowdsourcing is a way to put them to work and innovative companies are creating great ways digital professionals can harness the power of diverse talent and resources. Here are 5 ideas to get you started.
Naming - namethis: namethis makes the otherwise time-consuming process of finding a market-ready name quick and painless. Why spend time and money gambling on the ideas of a few, when you can have the market bounce ideas off of you.
1. Someone posts a product or service in need of a name
2. namethis members suggesting names and/or invest points in their favorites
3. After 48 hours of namestorming, the system applies business intelligence to select the winners
Small multi-disciplinary teams are proven to build the best web experiences. Agency segmentation of creative, media, marketing, technology often makes it impossible to build effective online solutions. It appears the trend is continuing in the wrong direction with agencies outsourcing technology. This means that creative and marketing think up the next great Flash microsite and send the cookbook to China or Costa Rica to get built on spec.
This makes Web 2.0 innovation impossible. New technologies and frameworks, open source code, opportunities like OpenSocial and creating portable content that can “go where people are already” becomes impossible. Additionally there’s the great partnership opportunities; imagine the brand manager that partners with the next Facebook or Twitter before it gets big?
“You have to have world-class creative but you have to have world-class tech folks who can translate that into conversations,” said Kvamme, currently a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s leading VC firms. “…technology is a critical component for success.”
I’ve got plenty of slide show sites, social video sites but how do I publish my video and slide show in synch?Omnisio launched last week and allows you to combine video from social sharing sites like YouTube and either upload a PDF of your PPT or point to a SlideShare and synch up your show. It took me about 30 minutes start to finish to upload a video to Blip.tv, set up my Omnisio project, upload my PPT and synch it up. The Flash-based editor couldn’t be easier to use. Users can leave comments at any frame along the timeline anywhere on the screen. My only critique is that the URL links don’t work. Perhaps they would if it where a SlideShare video I’ll try that next time.
Today MSNBC launched a few new components including Spectra, and immersive visual newsreader experience that merges the news spectrum and the color spectrum into an expansive news viewing experience. With comprehensive live news coverage, striking design, complete customization, dynamic browsing, human body interaction and many other unique features Spectra is one of the coolest information visualization experiences I’ve seen. Check it out!
Web 2.0 applications leverage social media and open technology to deliver rich user experiences. The most successful Web 2.0 solutions solve problems in unique ways. Commonly these are simple often free solutions.Consumers are trying to avoid marketers Too often marketers try to add social media tools to advertising, create viral games or other marketing content intended to entertain consumers. Consumers are looking for tools and applications that solve problems; that are useful. Here are some examples:
Flickr: With almost 10,000,000 registered users Flickr is an image/video hosting website, web services suite and an online community platform. It was one of the earliest Web 2.0 applications and one of the most popular social photo sharing sites (Alexa Rank 39). Flickr offers its service free for up to 100MB of uploads per month and unlimited uploads for pro users; the account cost $25 per month. Flickr was purchased by Yahoo in March of 2005. Continue reading »
I had the opportunity to run a workshop on Web 2.0 and Social Media at for the graduate Marketing Promotion and Communication class at Bentley in Waltham, MA yesterday. This was my first time on the Bentley campus, on a warm and sunny Spring afternoon, beautiful college.
The first part of the course was all about Web 2.0, what it is, technology, we looked at all kinds of sites and services and the second part we talked about social media identity.
In January Sprout launched SproutBuilder, a quick and easy way for anyone to build, publish, and manage widgets, mini-sites, mashups, banners and more. Include video, audio, images and newsfeeds and choose from dozens of pre-built components and web services. At first I thought this may be some kind of “prosumer” tool, nice for marketers or brands that that aren’t big enough for real solutions.
After a thorough review I’m recommending to clients and agency colleagues to seriously consider SproutBuilder for several reasons:
Robust design/authoring environment: Sprout provides dozens of ready built templates but its easy for more advanced Flash designers to create anything from scratch. Many of the common design tools are available and you can upload content including images, video, audio, Flash files (swf’s), and more. Adding these assets to your sprout is as easy as dragging and dropping.
Drag and drop components: Advanced components that you can add by simply dragging and dropping. Choose from slideshows, jukeboxes, RSS feeds, and more. Or “Mashup” any of components from our web service partners including PollDaddy, Google, Ribbit, ChipIn, and others. Continue reading »
Originally posted in the February ITWiki Newsletter, Network World
Web 2.0 technologies are changing the way online solutions are being developed. The popularity of social websites like Flickr, MySpace and Youtube and technology that promotes collaboration such as blogs, wikis, tags and widgets have made Web 2.0 functionality an important consideration for enterprise development. When planning these solutions there are many things to consider. Recent technology advancements have resulted in a flurry of solutions in many categories. The tree will eventually shake out; standards will evolve. Will your project stand the test of time or go the way of the Betamax? Here are 5 things to consider when planning a Web 2.0 solution.
1. Social Networking Standards
There are so many social networks and online communities, social shopping and recommendations, sites for sharing content, and each one with a process to register and manage your profile, interact with members and content. Each site with its own language or application programming interface (API). It’s difficult for developers to learn site specific API’s and then build and maintain applications for multiple sites. A common set of API’s that work across sites would provide a greater use and distribution of applications. Developers could then build and maintain a single application. Continue reading »
An early pioneer in interactive media, Dean Whitney is a Web 2.0 and Social media technology evangelist. Start-up veteran, President of Garfield Group Interactive a Boston-based digital agency.
The Web 2.0 technology brings together people from around the world to do more than just socialize. Crowdsourcing is a way to put them to work and innovative companies are creating great ways digital professionals can harness the power of diverse talent and resources. Here are 5 ideas to get you started.
solve problems in unique ways. Commonly these are simple often free solutions.Consumers are trying to avoid marketers Too often marketers try to add social media tools to advertising, create viral games or other marketing content intended to entertain consumers. Consumers are looking for tools and applications that solve problems; that are useful. Here are some examples:
