Its been an exciting day on the inaugural day of JAX India 2007. The day was
meant for workshops and I attended half a day workshop on
“Web 2.0? But I am Barely keeping up with Web 1.0 Right Now !”
by Craig R McClanahan. Here is extract from the session:

The session covered from history of web to what is Next Generation web (Web 2.0) and what we should do towards it. Here is extract from his presentation:

HISTORY OF WEB

He started with his experience of Web way back when he started in 1975. From Lonely computers, which were self-absorbed applications to telephone lines (part lines to kids line) which lead to evolution of Internet and standards like HTTP and HTML.

MAINSTREAM WEB APPLICATIONS TODAY

This section of the presentation covered about how the current web applications are. Few main highlighting points are:

• Increasing support for cross browsers
• Key area of development happening around Mobile space
• Server side capabilities are growing
• Programming understanding in multi-threaded environment
• Storage capacity is effectively free, CPU nearly so
• Network infrastructure improving
• Development technologies maturity at a much slower pace and challenges are in coming up with a framework like Struts and IDEs for JS-DHTML developments
• More and more user personalization
• Standardization at different scales and complexities

NEXT GENERATION WEB DRIVERS

Craig stressed on using next generation web rather than Web 2.0 with emphasis on 4 key drivers:

Enhanced User Interfaces

The driving force is the limited usability of web applications compared to applications installed locally. Ajax and DHTML are the immediate solutions.

Lightweight Programming Models

• Strong preference towards simplicity; less code = less initial work, less update work
• Scripting languages again gaining popularity with many large application built with php, perl etc.
• Loose coupling and layer based design
• Increasing preference for quick, iterative approach (Agile model)
• Programming models  
• Ajax and DHTML (server side business logic)
• Ajax and DHTML (client side business logic ) i.e. making web applications
  available offline 
• Browser plugins (Flash/ Flex/ Java FX etc)

Web as a Platform

• Web applications to become more of a service
• Web platform providing Social network effect
• Reducing “local islands” of important data
• Users looking something bigger
• Identity
• Flexibility
• Ubiquity 

The read/write web 

• Web as a Bulletin Board

WHAT SHOULD WE DO

Craigs Top Ten Suggestion List

10 – Expose Data/Logic as services

9 – Incorporate External Content

8 – Seek QOS (Quality of Service) deals from Sources

7 – Give QOS Deals to users

6 – Adopt Agile Processes

5 – Test Driven Development

4 – Architect for Scalability

3 – Embrace Heterogeneity

2 – Reach out to Mobile Clients

1 – Enable User Provided Content

The session turned out to be good for users who do not have exposure to Web 2.0. The first 45 minutes where Craig covered History of web and existing applications was bit too extended and I was looking for more on Web 2.0. Let’s hope the other sessions lined up around Web 2.0 will be able to provide more insight.

Here is another Collaboration Feature from Google. Google has introduced a new Gadget maker product for iGoogle (new name for Google Personalized Homepage). The users without having any programming or web design experience can create Gadgets and share with community or other iGoogle user. The Gadgets are as simple as filling out the form in the predefined 7 templates:

• A Photo gadget which is designed to share a series of photos
• GoogleGram gadget that display a new greeting message for every day of the week
• Daily Me gadget which will show what you’re currently doing, as well as quotes, what’s on your mind etc.
• Free Form gadget that as the name suggest will allow free flow of information, image text layout background colour
• YouTube Channel gadget to share good videos on YouTube
• Personalized List Gadget to basically present your list of items. It could be list of your favorite songs, a list of items to buy today etc.
• Personalized Countdown gadget is more like a reminder to any event, happening with a countdown

Apart from this, it provides option to update the Gadget and re-publish so that it gets updated at the other end.

Pretty neat way to bring people togather !!!!

But few things to watch out for:

• Updation at receiving end took a pretty long time to get refreshed with updated information
• No intimation whether the iGoogle user has added your Gadget or not
• If the Gadget creator deletes the Gadget, will it get deleted at the other end?
• A way to establish two way communication rather then just one way for now

Off late there has been lot of web sites that I came across which are trying to provide offline access for their Web applications. The basic idea is that the application can be worked with in a browser offline and automatically sync up whenever you get online.

Scrybe is one such online/offline calender and organizer service that provides offline web application service.
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Google recently launched dynamic themes for its personalized home page. The themes are dynamic and change according to local weather and time of day.

Though the themes are pretty basic in nature, but the idea looks pretty powerful. The theme is actually an XML file which list down a number of CSS files based on weather condition. This CSS framework might open up opportunities for users to add their own themes. Thus increasing theme base will just be matter of time.

Is this another move of Google towards Web 2.0?

There is lot of revolution in Open Source Area and every other day we hear a new open source product in market or an open source acquired/taken over by commercial companies. Whatever be the case, everyone want that its product be listed among the best, whether it is a commercial product or an open source product. Community is one of the biggest asset for any product and it gains more importance in open source terms since they don’t have enough funds to market the product.

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Some days back I read an article on service offerings by Big Internet giants like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Here is a brief comparison of various offerings from each one of them in different space. Read the rest of this entry »

Translations.com and FatWire Software announced a combined product offering that eliminates barriers to cooperation between global resources. FatWire Software’s premier content management application, Content Server, and Translations.com’s Globalization Management System, GlobalLink, are both established as industry leading solutions in their own right. The seamless integration of these two products provides a collaboration-based solution for localizing global content into multiple languages. Users can identify from within Content Server interface which assets need to be sent out for localization and keep track of the progress of previously localized assets to facilitate updates and revisions. Assets requiring localization are automatically extracted from Content Server and routed to the appropriate user for localization. Upon completion of localization tasks, GlobalLink reinserts the asset into the appropriate place in Content Server.

Looking at the solution it is going to lay down benefits like

• Increase volume of multi-lingual content with their existing resources

• Content for multiple markets can be created and released simultaneously

• A global organization’s local market teams can have control over their content while maintaining consistent global branding

Google just released a web-based RSS client called Google Reader enabling users to find and subscribe to online feeds and organizing the information. The product features a clean, easy-to-use interface and includes a comprehensive feed finder, multi-media feed displays, and algorithms that can assist users with automatic content prioritization, plus easy sharing capabilities with email and ‘blog this’ features.

Again google mastered the Ajax framework and the same can been seen. Like Gmail it provide short cut keys for next, previous, page up page down etc. which is pretty cool.

Read more at

Google Reader Released

Oracle in their recent Oracle OpenWorld announced ‘hot-pluggable’ middleware architecture that will help Oracle applications to work within competitors portal and vice versa as long as they follow standards. Oracle middleware is architected as a suite of products which include Oracle’s portal, identity management, business integration, business intelligence, management products, developer tools, and directory.

Check out more details at

Oracle’s Pluggable Middleware

Oracle offers ‘hot-pluggable’ middleware

ElectroPost has announced integration of Skype with their .Net Content Management System. The idea is to transfer the web chats into Skype text messages. EpiServer will act as a proxy between the web chat and the Skype user, and will also include the ability to log all chat conversations for future reference and record keeping.

The other day I was reading a post from Apoorv Emergence of Collaborative Portals . This is one of the hint of changing Portals and Content Management trend towards Collaboration.