web 2.0

Twitter is one of the tech wonders that really took off last year. According to Compete.com number of unique visitors to Twitter has increased almost 10 times from Dec '07 to Dec '08. If we also account for the fact that most Twitter users use it from desktop applications that are not easy to track, the actual usage numbers are probably even more impressive. No doubt, that's a mind-bobbling success for any Web-based business.

But what is Twitter? The Twitter website describes itself as follows:

Now, that does not sound too interesting. Let's be honest: most people don't do anything worth announcing across the world. Unless you are some kind of serious travel-addict or a wild celebrity of sorts, which most of us, are not. Who wants to read meaningless messages like: "Went out to get some food from McDonalds. Recession, indeed" from dozens of people?

Then why do millions of people use Twitter?

King is dead, long live the King!

The trademark of the Web: "Content is king" is dying away. In the end, Web is business and business needs to make money. With the emergence of so many, high-quality, free-content resources, few people want to pay for content on the Net; even if they do - it's for niche and limited content. By large, the money on the Net is in advertising, exclusively. To get any advertising money you obviously need users and the size of the audience you can reach directly resonates with the ad revenue.

It is not about content, anymore!

The mind-bobbling success of online services with limited original content such as micro-blogging (Twitter) and social rating (Digg) prove that it's not about content. Content is not #1 even on Facebook - it's the interaction that brings people to Facebook, not some magic content they are looking for. Let's face it: most of the content on Facebook is pretty goofy.

Speaking in grossly generalized terms, successful sites on the Web become popular for two main reasons: either they are very useful and fill some need, or there're way too many people on the site to avoid it. Large user base creates a social power: just because there are so many people on the website, and somebody can contact them (either textually or through applications as in case of Facebook) - it instantly becomes a marketplace.

One, less explored characteristic of the Social Web is that - once you have a large user-base, it becomes less important what brought these users together. You need to open proper channels between them and the crowd can mold itself into many interesting things, some of which may have little to do with the original idea.

I found it very interesting to listen to this Web 2.0 Summit presentation by Jeffrey A. Sorenson and see how Web 2.0 is perceived by Army. It's a common stereotype that government is always behind as far as new and cool goes, but apparently Army is well aware of Web 2.0, is fully embracing it and that, my friends, is very exciting to hear, indeed!

Enjoy:

DrupalCon DC was announced today on Drupal.org. We've known it for a while, to be honest, but now it's official! DrupalCon DC will be held March 4-7, 2009 and registration will be opening next week.

The importance of DrupalCon DC is hard to overestimate. Washington, DC is home to many non-profits and PR Agencies, the most active users of Drupal, to date. It's also right next to Virginia's tech hub - the largest tech "settlement" on the East coast. And, being on the east coast, it's also a shorter flight for European Drupallers.

Local firms like Phase2 Technology and DevelopmentSeed have put a lot of effort into making Drupalcon DC a reality, but winning the bid and the announcement is just a start. There will be a lot more tasks to do to make DrupalCon DC the largest and the best DrupalCon. We hope that you will join our efforts.

Sponsorship slots are still available and there are numerous other ways to get involved, as well. Please stay tuned while the official conference site is being born or e-mail

with any questions you may have.

A popular joke of the 21st century has been that the Web is "ruled" by teenagers. That saying may be a joke, but the truth is: we live in an era in which a self-organized group of college students, without any funding can take on global organizations like HSBC.

How come?

Because large organizations are too SLOW! Web is extremely fast-paced and the large bureaucratic beasts are often just way too late to the party.

To give couple examples:

1) In most organizations people who can quickly react to an emerging topic, on the Web, concerning the organization, are not allowed to. The messages "have to go through proper channels" and channels take time.

Solution: either remove the channels or make sure they do not take so much time. Can you achieve 10-minute turnaround? If not - relax the preemptive oversight. Educate your employes on what's acceptable and what is not. Let them take initiatives of engaging in the conversations on the Web, let them make mistakes (they will make some), make sure they learn from those.

2) Use agile technologies. Forget about "enterprise" this and that. Forget about "big company consultants". Use what is already available: Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, GoogleMaps etc. For the part you need to build, use Drupal, WordPress, DJango, RubyOnRails. Use technologies that can give you results QUICKLY.

I've been a Java architect long enough and I know enterprise Java technologies well-enough to allow myself say this: most organizations that build websites in Java (or any other heavy-weight technology like that) are just wasting their time. Java is great and there are many incredible things you can build with it if you are an Internet backbone company like Verisign, but Java is not for your blogging needs or even for your website of average complexity.

Be responsive, be quick, be agile. Worn-out phrase or not, I will repeat this: please, please, do not be afraid to make mistakes.

I woke up feeling a little prophet-ish this morning. I would bet you money, but it is illegal, so I am just going to say: I know what the next big service thing from Google should will be! Ready? It's a free SMS gateway that allows sending SMS messages through an open API.

Now think about it. Text-messaging ("SMSing") has been hot for a while now. Marketing companies and individuals are already using it big time. Text-messaging is expensive, though. Many little startups, with little, but interesting pilot sites just can not afford it. How is the industry going to innovate, if the innovators can not afford the tools?

There's a lot of data transmitted over text-messages and it could be even more interesting than the data you find in emails. Text-messages typically have less spam. If Google is willing to provide huge mailboxes for free, just for a chance to index e-mail text - they should be dying to get their hands on text-messages. If anything, Google is late to do it.

You say "privacy"? I say - yeah, like Google cares.

So, here it is - you should see something like it in the next 6 months. I give it a year tops.

David E. Williams, from the Health Business Blog recorded an interesting podcast with Dr. Jason Bhan, co-founder of Ozmosis.

Ozmosis is a social network for practicing physicians to share knowledge and communicate. Revolutionary in its nature, Ozmosis uses the rich experience of existing social networks, plus a proprietary "trust" technology, to create a breakthrough environment where physicians can quickly get answers and improve their knowledge.

Ozmosis was made possible by Drupal. Examples of Drupal usage that benefit public are numerous, but if I am not mistaken, this is the first major case of Drupal being used in Healthcare. It's great to see Drupal helping revolutionize the way things are done, especially in such an important area.

Listen to the podcast: [ http://www.healthbusinessblog.com/?p=1804 ]

Web 1.0: Global reach to content publishing.
Web 2.0: Web becomes a two-way publishing avenue: readers contribute content and play central role.
Web 3.0: Let's try make sense of the enormous content published. Smart aggregation becomes key.

It looks like the reality in which content aggregation plays equally important role, compared to publishing, is arriving quietly but steadily:

Image courtesy of Amazon Web Services Blog

P.S. Thanks to Doug for pointing to the blog post.

Nice and funny "analysis" of the Internet community on CreateDebate

Ok, finally Google is starting to make a move against Wikipedia, with the private launch of Google Knol. The specifics of the system are not yet known, but from what we can read between the lines, the interesting difference betwen Knol and Wikipedia is that in Knol content will be authored by a "group of experts" (that will later be able to share ad-revenue with Google for their efforts?).

If this is true, then clearly Google is responding to the long-standing joke (started in the TV show Office) that Wikipedia is reliable "because anybody can edit it". Google must be proud to "have gotten the message"... of all conservatives who refuse to accept Wikipedia.

Good job, Google! Nice swing from a progressive thinking away and into aligning with stagnating conservativism. So, Google does not believe in the Wisdom of Crowds, anymore? And here we thought the whole point James Surowiecki was making was that crowds are always smarter than a bunch of "experts". Ironic, how we are going back to "experts", is not it?

You, my friends, can make "Knols" (What the heck is this with Google people trying to come up with an alternative English, anyway?) as your "the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read.", but I am sticking with Wikipedia. Wiki has been the first entry into a new subject, for me, for a long time now and I am not complaining.

I think Google is just desperately reacting to the unfortunate reality that people now prefer to start research in Wikipedia rather than Google. Desperation is never a good adviros, though and Google seems to be missing the point.

I assess the chances of Knol's success somewhere near that of Google Video and Orkut.

*sigh*