Yesterday my bretheren at Digitas France have created a very cool Twitter mashup twittearth. The project that was done “just for fun” was featured on the coveted Techcrunch blog.
twittearth integrates Twitter.com with Paperversion’s for the 3D engine, Yahoo Local API for the geolocalisation service, tinyurl.com for the short url API and uses fasticon for those great free icons. Thanks to TarGz, _pil_, Thomas and Christophe from Digitas France SA.
I’ve been asked many times to explain the Semantic Web (SW). In the past learning about technology and W3C concepts has been difficult. The average person may not derive a great deal of meaning from the W3 overview of XHTML standards. In the case of SW they do a great job and I recommend anyone read the overview available on the W3C web site. Continue reading »
Adobe Photoshop Express is now live. The free photo editor has a robust Flash based interface. I was expecting something more in line with Photoshop but this is a photo editing tool with some social sharing features - which is the opposite of Flickr; being a photo sharing site with some photo editing features. I don’t see any reason for Flickr fans to jump ship but its a great tool for managing your images online. Here are some screen shots.
When we think of ‘crowdsourcing’ some of us think of leveraging crowds to do work like oDesk or Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, sites that help you outsource jobs globally. Another way crowds are leveraged is to allow companies create massive focus groups, garner fresh ideas, and even predict the future. Major brands such as Dell, Eli Lilly, Proctor & Gamble, Google, and Best Buy leverage collective insights to shape business strategies.
There are sites that provide this kind of functionality such The Industry Standard. a predictive marketplace (like the Hollywood Stock Exchange) where members track startups and technologies and place bets on which will succeed. Continue reading »
There’s a lot of buzz about AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML); but what’s at the center is JavaScript. JavaScript is the world’s most popular programming language. It looks like Java but its much more flexible and works inside the browser. Here’s a few JavaScript leaders to watch.
Last month Yahoo! relaunched Digg clone Yahoo! Buzz with much fanfare. Just like Digg Yahoo! Buzz lets people submit articles either by a link on the article page or directly on the site; and then the user community promotes and demotes articles (social ranking). What’s different is that Yahoo! not only factors votes but also the Yahoo! search engine logs to determine popularity. The big incentive is that top stories also get listed on the Yahoo! home page. Clearly there’s some advantage to being on the front page of Yahoo! vs. Digg. Will Yahoo! Buzz be successfull or end up like like AOL’s Digg clone Propeller?
The Dow Jones VentureOne Summit featured CEO’s from the top 50 start-ups to watch in 2008.
I attended the Future of Web Applications (FOWA 08) conference in Miami and it provide d great insight into Web 2.0 and social media technology than. Most 
importantly is to see this trend through its leaders - the super stars of Web 2.0 represent a major shift in business values and culture. This list leaves out many more amazing folks than it includes; but it represent a new wave of values. Openness, passion, striving to make other peoples lives better, to add value. Web 2.0 makes that possible on many levels.
It comes down to making really great stuff that people can use, making it free, helping each other and if your ‘thing’ is really ‘all that’ you are going to be incredibly valuable. The whole movement seems to put significance behind something we used to reserve just for vacations and occasional weekends: Happiness.
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.
