Industry Buzz

Small Business PPC

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:30:00 EDT

The search engines such as Google and Yahoo! provide millions of potential customers every year for most industries. Taking advantage of this is a must for any budding online business. But what if you just service a small local area? Can the search engines be of advantage to you? Of course they can.

Here’s Your Social Media Marketing Tool Cheat Sheet

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:15:00 EDT

Thanks to my co-author, Joe Pulizzi, and some helpful contributors for making your search for the right implements a lot easier. If you are starting from scratch, it's almost impossible to figure out what social media and other related online tools will be genuinely useful for marketing your business. Fortunately, Joe has taken the time to assemble and comment on 42 of the most worthy in his blog. You'll find that a common thread among many of the 42 is that they involve both inbound and/or outbound communication. In other words, they will help you send a message to your target buyers or listen to what those buyers are saying about you. My five favorites of the less well known among the 42 that Joe highlights are:

Where Web 2.0 Meets Voice 2.0

Fri, 15 May 2009 23:00:00 EDT

In today’s financial environment, the demand to extract more value from IT has never been more important within the enterprise. The pressure to improve productivity and streamline processes has been at the heart of the first wave of Web 2.0 adoption, where teams have used collaborative tools like wikis, forums, and online communities in their quest to streamline work processes.

What is Web 3.0?

Fri, 15 May 2009 22:00:00 EDT

The psychological experience of using the Internet is undergoing slow but constant change. Up until now, using the Web has involved 'going out' to Web sites. However, this is changing. Understanding this transformation, and plotting its direction, can provide us with a new understanding of where our Web technology is going. This destination can be called 'Web 3.0.'

To Blog or to Tweet?

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Lately it seems like writing blogs is getting out of fashion, what with the rise of microblogging star Twitter. Something about Twitter is intriguing. I guess the simplicity of writing your thoughts within 140 characters is a force larger that anyone expected. Reminds me of the early days of Google, a sparse screen of white [...]

Dear Slashdot: You Get What You Pay For

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:15:00 EDT

If o3 had stuck to its original goal - building an SSL accelerator on the cheap - it might have had better luck making its arguments. But it wanted to compare an Open Source solution to a commercial solution. That makes sense, the author was trying to show value in Open Source and that you don't need to shell out big bucks to achieve similar functionality. The problem is that there are very few - if any - commercial SSL accelerators on the market today. SSL acceleration has long been subsumed by load balancers/application delivery controllers and therefore a direct comparison between o3's Open Source solution and any commercially available solution would have been irrelevant; comparing apples to chicken is a pretty useless thing to do.

[ugc3] Final Panel

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:55:00 EDT

I went first. I talked about exceptionalism, responding to Eli Noam's challenge at the beginning of the conference that if we're going to think the Net is going to bring about substantial changes, we have to be able to point to characteristics of it that are different from other technologies ...

[ugc3] Eli Noam - Intro

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:39:00 EDT

I'm at Columbia U's conference/seminar on "UGC 3.0" (user-generated content). It's a mix of academics and businesspeople, which I find appealing. (I don't find the phrase or slant of "ugc" appealing, however. It often focuses on the stuff rather than on the social participation.) There are about 60 100 people ...

Is it the Time to Follow Twitter and Learn Scala?

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:30:00 EDT

As usual, the bad part of me goes, "Told, ya!" as people who read my posts knows that I was never a fan of RoR. I really respect DHH and his followers for doing exceptional job in exciting so many software developers with Ruby and RoR. But when these boring men with cash (BMW$) come into play, things change. The problem is that BMW$ don't get excited that easily. Their low-IQ brains go like this, "I may invest $X into this startup, and on exit in five years (IPO or takeover), it should bring me $Y".

The New White House and Old Ankara

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:15:00 EDT

As the countdown for President Obama's visit to Turkey approaches - a week from today - a recent headline in the news grabbed my attention this morning. “A week after resigning as CTO of the District of Columbia to become the first chief information officer of the United States of America under the Obama administration, the FBI raided the old D.C. offices of Delhi-born Vivek Kundra and arrested a couple of the guys who used to work for him in a ‘federal bribery sting,’ according to a story in the Washington Post.

Introducing the CNO Position into Large Corporations

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:15:00 EST

I agree with my business partner, Roger R Mussa, when he said that smaller companies and start-ups can get the biggest, most-immediate impact by adding a CNO. The smaller and the more flexible the organization is in order to adopt a new leadership style, the better it is for a CNO position to be quickly deployed at the early stages.

Chief Networking Officer: The New C-Level Position

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:15:00 EST

There has been a movement of late and a buzz about the Chief Networking Officer, I have jumped on the bandwagon. Smaller companies and start-ups can get the biggest immediate impact by adding a CNO. The Chief Networking Officer (CNO) has gained much interest as more companies and executives have become open minded to challenging the corporate hierarchy structure.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Blogs His Explanation

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:05:00 EST

"If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia, and Nigeria." That was what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was proudly blogging last month. This month, as the number of active Facebook users hit 175M (up from 100M last August), Zuckerberg was blogging about another topic entirely: the question of who owns and controls the information posted by users on Facebook pages.

SEO or SOA: Twitter Twiction or Twittecdotes? (Part I)

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:30:00 EST

Twitter just received almost $10 million more in funding, and has a reported $50 million in the bank (or perhaps a more secure place, like under the mattress). The company has no revenue, fewer than 30 employees, and has been criticized as being the dumbest idea ever. Yet Twitter remains the hottest company in the wacky world of Silicon Valley start-ups.

Web Apps Will Be Built in the Cloud: Keynote Systems Exec

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:31:44 EST

In this Exclusive Q&A with Jeremy Geelan of SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Journal in August 2008, Rajeev Kutty of Keynote Systems speaks of the factors currently driving companies to increase their effort in monitoring the performance of their Web and mobile applications, and about how Keynote foresees an enormous increase in the number of Web applications being built in the cloud and programmers using cloud computing platforms like Apps Engine, Force.com., Microsoft Mesh, Bungee Connect – all Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) providers.

Project Management 2.0

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:15:00 EST

Nowadays we can observe changes going on in management and especially project management in organizations. More and more, organizations are abandoning top-down management style. Among them are the New York Times, Tribune Co., Ernst & Young and many others. Even the world biggest corporations, such as Toyota and IBM, are trying to implement bottom-up management style elements in some of their departments.

SOA World Expo: Enterprise Mashup Services

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:15:00 EDT

Since Web 2.0 kicked off scarcely a day goes by without a headline targeting mashups and their enablers, AJAX and Web Services, as the next hot Web technologies. Mashups are Web sites that integrate a variety of services (e.g., news feeds, weather reports, maps, and traffic conditions) in new and interesting ways. Just take a look at Zillow.com, which provides instant home valuations plotted as thumbtacks on a map (Figure 1), or HousingMaps.com, which marks listings from craigslist.org as captions on a map, and you'll get a clear picture of the power behind converging data sources.

Web 2.0 Is Dead And It's Time To Get Out Of This Mess!

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:30:00 EDT

Industry blogger Alex Bunardzic writes in his 'Ethical Software by Alex Bunardzic' blog: 'Now that Microsoft has jumped onto the web 2.0 bandwagon, it is more than obvious that Web 2.0 is dead as a doornail. Everyone knows by now that anything Microsoft touches turns into this big slimy brown mush, so now's definitely the time to get out of that mess.'

AJAX World RIA Interview: Convergence of Web, Mobile and Desktop Apps is the Next Phase

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EDT

'While the last decade was focused on the Web, the next phase in the evolution of our industry will be on the convergence of Web, mobile and desktop applications and the ability to extend existing applications with these new technologies for a consistent user experience regardless of how and where the information is viewed,' says Nexaweb CTO Jeremy Chone in this Exclusive Q&A with SYS-CON Media's Jeremy Geelan.

The Business Value of Social Networking on Corporate Intranets

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:30:00 EDT

This Session will demonstrate why social networking is more than just marketing buzz; it is a relational model that has been used for years to define the way human beings interact, and it is the next step in the natural evolution of the web.

IBM's Got Its Head in the Clouds

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:00:00 EDT

Reminding people of how its backing was the making of Linux, IBM, to no one's surprise, has thrown its support behind cloud computing, that delicious nexus of every chi-chi buzzword technology currently in vogue: Web 2.0, rich Internet applications, software-as-a-service, SOA, grid computing, Web Services, virtualization and utility computing. IBM calls its initiative Blue Cloud - like it could have another name - and claims it's a 'game-changing model for Internet-scale computing,' providing customer with just the right size computer power while at one and the same time being 'green' as well as 'self-healing and self-managing' based on open standards and Linux. Lordy, if this thing was a cute guy with money, it would be every mother's dream.

Who Says Web 2.0 is Hard? Build Rich Internet Applications Without a PhD in AJAX

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:00:00 EDT

Web applications continue to evolve to support a far richer user experience than in the early days of the Internet. However, delivering these solutions adds complexity and demands additional programming skills. This session provides an overview of how the innovative IBM Rational technology delivered through its new Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) capabilities, helps dramatically simplify the construction of rich user interfaces and their integration with back-end services, transactional systems, and data sources for any platform, including System z and System i. This revolutionary approach enables companies to leverage their valuable IT assets into state-of-the-art SOA-based and web solutions in record time while leveraging existing skills.

SOA 2 Point Oh No!

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:00:00 EDT

Here we go again. While the paint is still wet on this new Web 2.0 stuff, many SOA vendors and large analysts firms are calling their market SOA 2.0. It's one of the silliest things I've heard in a long while, and both the analysts and vendors who use this term should be ashamed of themselves.

Google Chrome: A First Look

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:05:00 EDT

Google Chrome is an open-source browser developed by Google using existing WebKit rendering engine (the one used in Apple’s Safari browser) and its own Google Gears technology for offline use of supported web applications. The browser developed by Google is described by the company as something of a new generation of browser - the one working mainly with rich interactive applications instead of simple text pages of the past. The browser has launched as a Windows-only beta version with versions for Mac and Linux claimed to be in the works.

Google Chrome: Will the Web Ever Become a Real Platform?

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:15:00 EDT

I have been reading a lot of reviews about Chrome. Most people seem to be comparing it to Firefox, which I think is underestimating Chrome's capability. I think it has nothing to do with the browser at all; it has everything to do with the platform.

Virtualization, SOA, and the Rise of Social Media

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:30:00 EDT

At Hummer Winblad we often joke that we focus on the "boring side of software." By this we mean that many of our companies tend to be described with words like core, infrastructure, B2B, backend, etc. We believe that these companies provide the infrastructure under which the next generations of software are built. They will be interesting and successful companies but it is unlikely your mom will ever know their names.

The Unreliable Internet

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:50:00 EDT

The Internet's a dangerous place for a message. Component failures, network connection issues, and other problems can prevent a message from being delivered. Fortunately, there's WS-ReliableMessaging, which makes sure messages get through. This article explains how to use reliable messaging, why you should use it, and how to use it with WSO2's Web Services Application Server (WSO2 WSAS) 2.1.

Xythos Updates Web 2.0 Services and Applications

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:02:00 EDT

Xythos Software announced upgrades to its Xythos on Demand online service and its Enterprise Document Management and Digital Locker software suites. The new software and service upgrades are currently available for evaluation and purchase.

eBay vs Amazon.com: eBay Price-Structure Overhaul Coming Today

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:00:00 EDT

Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay's global marketplaces business, has been telling BusinessWeek about a sea change in eBay's pricing structure. Calling it "the biggest, most fundamental change we have made," Norrington has told BW that eBay will today announce plans to reduce the upfront fees it charges to list sale items - source of up to 60% of its revenues till now - while increasing its final sales commission to make up for the reductions, which in some cases will be by as much as 75%.

Introducing an RIA Benchmark for Flex, Silverlight, HTML and More: GUIMark

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 11:15:00 EDT

I have recently released a new benchmark called GUIMark. GUIMark is kinda like an Acid3 test on speed that’s geared towards RIA technologies. The goal was to figure out how to implement a reference design in different runtimes and then benchmark how smoothly that design could be animated. So far I have implementations in DHTML, Flex, Java, Silverlight 1 and Silverlight 2.

ColdFusion Developer's Journal Special: How to Prevent an SQL Injection Attack

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:00:00 EDT

SQL Injection attacks are one of the easiest ways to hack into a website. One recent hack, using a script from verynx.cn, involves injecting sql into a web form that then appends some JavaScript code into fields in a database that then gets executed on the client side when a user views a database-driven page.

Internet Security - DNS Flaw: "Every Network is at Risk," Says Dan Kaminsky

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:45:00 EDT

"We have anticipated these flaws in DNS for many years and we have basically engineered around them," Ken Silva, chief technology officer at Verisign, told a reporter as Dan Kaminsky, the man who discovered a loophole in the DNS system that allows web users to be redirected to fake sites even when they have typed in the correct URL, spoke out yesterday publicly for the first time about his discovery at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.

Jacques Kerrest Joins Actividentity as CFO and COO

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:30:00 EDT

ActivIdentity announced that Jacques Kerrest has accepted the position of Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. In this capacity, Mr. Kerrest will oversee all of ActivIdentity’s financial and operational functions, including finance and accounting, financial planning and analysis, regulatory and risk management.

Zvents to Enable Local Activities and Promotions for MSN City Guides

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:30:00 EDT

Zvents announced that it will be collaborating with Microsoft to enhance the events experience on MSN City Guides. Through the collaboration, Zvents’ platform will bring new capabilities to MSN users looking for interesting things to do in their immediate vicinity, enabling local merchants to promote themselves to interested consumers.

SEC To Recognize Company Web Sites and Blogs As Channel of Distribution

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:45:00 EDT

The SEC has finally acknowledged that the nature of online information is increasingly interactive, and not static. Henceforth, according to a recommendation by its own Special Counsel in the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance, information appearing on company web sites "does not need to satisfy a printer-friendly standard or be in a format comparable to paper-based information, unless the Commission’s rules explicitly require it."

4D Releases 4D Web 2.0 Pack v11 Release 2 (11.2)

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:15:00 EDT

4D announced the release of 4D Web 2.0 Pack v11 Release 2. The new version, a combination of two products - 4D AJAX Framework and 4D for Flex - brings a powerful set of tools, plug-ins, and components that allow 4D developers to harness the power of Web 2.0 technologies, and deliver live web and rich internet applications to browsers, desktops, and portable devices such as the iPhone.

A Guide to Rich Internet Application (RIA) Security

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Read about Forrester's findings on RIA security included in a Forrester Research paper valued at $775 titled 'Securing Rich Internet Applications' by Jeffrey Hammond, plus find out about Curl's Security Architecture in a new Curl white paper titled 'Developing Secure Rich Internet Applications for the Enterprise' by David Kranz, CTO.

Scrapboy Brings Facebook to Users' Desktops

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:30:00 EDT

Scrapboy Digital Media Corporation announced the availability of Scrapboy, its Facebook desktop application, to users in North America. Scrapboy allows users to stay connected with their friends' Facebook activities on their desktops and store those activities securely on the users' computers, not a remote server.

Bringing Business Value - Integrating Web 2.0 Tools in the Enterprise

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:30:00 EDT

Web 2.0 tools are doing a wonderful job of providing consumers with cool and productive new ways of performing common, simple tasks over the Internet. These tools primarily perform a single task such as allowing consumers to manage their photos, read their favorite newsfeeds, express themselves online through blogs, and communicate with friends via social networks.

InteleCom Launches Web 2.0 Viral Communication Tools Through Its Social Network

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:00:00 EDT

InteleCom announced that its new Web 2.0 Social Network toksee successfully launched 3 new viral communication tools or widgets for easy copy and placement on websites and blogs. All 3 immediately received top rankings from Widgetbox. The toksee chat or video messaging widget allows toksee Members to talk with and see their friends and family who also have the toksee online conference system.