Google can index almost anything...

First footage of the web 2.0 concept

It's not new new, but I still like it a lot! Creative guys down there at BridleFilms. Also have a look at: "Off the beaten track" More on: Leo Bridle's website For an ethnographic perspective on web 2.0 have a look at Web 2.0... The machine is us(ing us) Or have a look at someone presenting web 2.0 based on wikipedia content on web 2.0

Missing: a web2.0 addressbook

Tim O'Reilly's Radar, a must read as far as I'm concerned, came up with an interesting write-up. He echoes what a colleague and I were thinking last week when working on a project in the UK:

What really needs to be done is not just to connect the various social networks that do exist in internet network-of-networks style, but also to social-network enable our real social network apps: our IM, our email, our phone. Where, I keep asking vendors, is the Web 2.0 address book?

When one of the big communications vendors (email, IM OR phone) gets this right, simply by instrumenting our communications so that the social network becomes visible (and under the control of the user), it seems to me that they could blow away a lot of the existing social network froth. That being said, when I've had this conversation with Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, he's pointed out that he's well aware of that possibility, and has been working for years to layer additional value on top of the raw social network data. And he's very right about that.

Tim's Radar caught this on Jon Udell's blog.

Popularity of tagging

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has published the results of recent research into the popularity of tagging. To quote:

A December 2006 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 28% of internet users -- and 7% on any typical day -- have tagged or categorized online content such as photos, news stories or blog posts.

These are people who responded "yes" to the following question: "Please tell me if you ever use the internet to categorize or tag online content like a photo, news story, or a blog post." The survey wording was designed to capture the growing use of tagging on sites such as http://del.icio.us/ (a site for sharing browser bookmarks), http://www.flickr.com/ (a photo sharing site), http://youtube.com/ (a video sharing site) and http://technorati.com/ (the blog search engine).

Cumbria revisited and clubbin' with the Geordies

My colleagues and I have been working with our customer in Cumbria again for a week. Meaning two days of knowledge management masterclass in the Ennerdale Country House Hotel in Cleator, one day on site and a day of auditing. I cannot disclose details on the project itself, but let me tell you about our travels and places in the UK we visited. Monday afternoon we went from Amsterdam to Newcastle with jet2.com rented cars from Avis (normally we have Hertz' cars, but someone took the executive decision we wanted Avis this time, sorry Gary Christie, your services have been excellent, we didn't want to change!). I got a Ford Focus 1.4, the others had a Ford Mondeo - brand new cars, but didn't like them anyway. Sluggish, no torque whatsoever, trees love these cars most probably. The steering was OK though, quite different from the Ford Siesta we had to our disposal some months ago.

The Siesta had no engine, like other Fords, but the steering rack was quite different. Turning the wheel did not immediately lead to the car moving left or right, it rather felt like whisking double cream until it sets to a firm mass leading to the wheels actually turning.

Anyway, I got lost finding myself driving in the direction of Edinburgh on the M1, again somewhere between Hexham and Carlisle on the 68, again in Carlisle's suburbia (I apologise deeply to the driver of a Mondeo I followed to his front door, thinking it was my colleagues car), finally finding the road to Whitehaven and the Ennerdale in Cleator. Also apologising for speeding on the 595 from Cockermouth to Cleator and to the people asleep at The Larches for waking them up by revving the engine to obtain some speed (a full-scale Judas Priest concert would have been unable to compete). On arrival Eelco came out of the hotel to check if it was me and got back in to order me a pint of John Smith's...sheer heaven. During the week we enjoyed supper at The Waterfront in Whitehaven, savouring balsamic vinegar glazed goat cheese and cod stuffed with seafood with a saffron sauce all combined with a fresh and dry Chablis, the well known white Burgundy wine from the Yonne area. To top it of, we had an espresso, an essential the Ennerdale doesn't offer. On the Friday I worked at the hotel, the others worked with the clients' team nearby Cleator auditing a part of the business. We were given the advice to dive into the city centre of Newcastle on the way back home. So we did! Newcastle turned out to have a lively nightlife. Diner at Sabatini's was superb: Bruschetta, Gamberoni Livornese, Fegatini Burro e Salvia, Scaloppine di Maiale Pizzaiola and Scaloppine di Maiale Sassi. Accompanied by a Abbruzian Trebbiano. Ending with, yet again a espresso ristretto. Newcastle club scene we are ready! The Attic (25-27 Mosley Street, City Centre, Newcastle) seemed to be attracting the kind of people we liked to be around with (impressionable ladies). We spent some time on the top floor being amazed yet trying to look like as-if-the-devil-cares-about-bungee-jumping kind of blokes. Ethnographic participative research one might call it. Minding our own business I was suddenly being shouted in the ear by a young lady dressed in flimsy fabric. After having repeated several times whatever she tried to convey to me, she went away. Similar phenomena kept repeating throughout the evening, sometimes ending up into being photographed with one of them, mostly leading to one of us looking baffled by the Geordie dialect.

Howay man! Me is gan hyme, yous noot foony at all. Ye knaa what ah mean leik?

Wye aye! Tara now, pet. A cannit wait till a get back hyem te see wor lass.

The artistry of visual explanations by Dynamic Diagrams

They amaze me every time by their designer craftsmanship and ability to visually capture the concept of a solution without becoming overly technical...

I'd certainly would like to put them to the head slapping test of capturing my usually more than one minute elevator speech in an image that fits the back of my business card !

We want an interface as clean as Google's...

[designer to reference user] Could you give me an example of an interface that you really like working with to inspire me in making an interface design for your application?

[reference user to designer] Well, if you can make it as clean and simple as Google, I would surely enjoy working with it.

Dear reader, how many times are you part of such a dialogue? Well, I must admit that I quite often find myself in the position of the designer in a similar dialogue. Do not misunderstand: there is nothing wrong with the user's answer. I do understand what they mean with clean and simple, an interface cannot be any cleaner and simpler, because it would be an empty page and therefore not an interface any more. The interface might appear clean and simple, but so is the functionality delivered by it. It suggests that search needs no more than entering one (maybe two words) and hit 'search'. Followed by some brilliant mechanism that understands exactly what is entered and delivers results precisely geared towards the user's expectation ordered to the user's conception of relevance.
Sweet dreams!

PS I do not dislike Google with some sort of passion, I actually think they are the example to anyone active in the arena of web marketing.

Web 2.0 and saving valuable time... not for everyone

XKCD

Schemalogic and MOSS 2007

The SchemaLogic Enterprise Suite for Microsoft SharePoint 2007 enables companies to develop and manage a common, enterprise-wide vocabulary that describes the corporate information assets stored across multiple SharePoint sites. This enterprise-wide vocabulary is published across all SharePoint sites delivering enhanced information integrity, consistent information access, and effective governance across the enterprise. The SchemaLogic solution can further be used to synchronize semantics across SharePoint and other enterprise systems, such as Enterprise Content Management and search systems, providing easy integration of content and a consistent search experience. Advantages:

• Access information with increased relevance and consistency
• Ensure corporate and regulatory compliance across the entire SharePoint environment
• Enable subject matter experts to collaborate and build common semantics across the enterprise
• Manage and publish semantic standards across SharePoint and other enterprise systems
• Create and centrally manage SharePoint content types, site columns and value lists
• Leverage controlled schemas, vocabulary lists, taxonomies, thesauri, and ontologies across the enterprise

MOSS 2007 and XML

XML is at the core of Office system 2007 spanning client and server technologies. the 2007 Office system introduces a new Open XML format that allows much easier programmatic access to Office files. Microsoft Office InfoPath uses XML for gathering information, with the flexibility to incorporate data from many sources in a single form. On the server side, XML surfaces in a variety of ways allowing enterprises to style the content in the format they want by using Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT). (source: Microsoft whitepaper on 2007 Office, Dec 2006)