Got the idea from a recent foolish post about the potential of a bubble in the web 2.0 space. If you stop and think about it, well, it does make some sense. Tools without a proven revenue source with billion dollar valuations? Given the media's preoccupation with Facebook and its ilk, the hype can only get worse.
Here is a prediction: the moment this recovery begins to take off in earnest, there is going to be a spate of IPOs by the social networking companies, with some interesting valuations.
Yahoo bought and is now closing delicious. Del.icio.us as it was known at inception, is one of the best tools to save bookmarks online. Yahoo has done quite a number of stupid things over the years, but this is right up there. And making it worse is that they are vocally not happy that this leaked out. Nevertheless this means I am looking for a replacement, and rethinking my assumptions when it comes to web-only tools.
All eggs & one basket: There are certain items that I prefer to store online - bookmarks being a great example. Offline bookmarks make no sense beyond backups. Their value comes out of being online, available, portable (not just synced) and accessible (without installing stuff or logging in). Which is a big reason why online bookmarking has taken off rather quickly.
But the dilemma about web services is their availability - they suffer outages, and they run the risk of being shut down. So the question is, should one limit risk by putting all their eggs into one basket at the cost of losing out on innovation? Choosing a Google would, for all intents and purposes, ensure service. But one will probably never get to the see all the new and nifty that happens only in a basement. Which brings me to the second characteristic of the cloud.
Egg mobility: Continuing the ovular metaphor, unless one is able to move their eggs around, having accessible services has no meaning. Free services have an incentive to getting data in, but do not always have to be friendly with getting data out. Some like Facebook, are brazen about the one-way nature of their data pipes.
Having data portability is the true mark of a good web-only tool. The ability to back up data offline is a start, but adhering to standards where available or defaulting to a simple extract should be necessary for all cloud services.
Diigo seems to fit the bill. The exodus from delicious.com seems to be ending up in two locations - Diigo and Pinboard.in. Unfortunately Pinboard does not have a Firefox plugin (while they seemed to have hiked up their sign-up cost). And Diigo has a good list of export formats.
Thank you Del.icio.us. Go Diigo.
Update: Delicious insists it is only being sold, not shut down. Diigo has been importing my bookmarks for a few hours now without luck. Maintain status quo!
One of the most fascinating past of Web 2.0 for me, is the way it paints a study in crowd behavior. When I think about 2.0 sites, one of the biggest differentiating factors is their dynamic nature - where the readers contribute as much if not more than the site itself. And the tone of this contribution is distinct, an accent if you will, of these sites. Consider the following examples:
Slashdot, as the site proclaims, is a site that provides news for nerds and stuff that matters. The site for long has defined a sort of intellectual nerdy sub-culture on the Internet. Before the 2.0 moniker became the fad it is, Slashdot derived more from the comments everyone posted on "nerdy" news stories, than the stories themselves. And the tone on the comments has always been something that defined the site - nerdy, important, focused on being right and mostly brutal and unforgiving.
Woot is a hoot. For an e-commerce site that sells one - just one - item each day at a ridiculously low price, Woot has developed a strong following of users who go out of the way to research each deal. The tone starts with the description that is posted with each deal. Rarely focusing on the subject of the sale, the description is funny, satirical and whimsical. A tone that follows throughout the site into the comments. In stark contrast to Slashdot, your head is now chewed off if you are wrong. User posts are creative, sardonic and dare I say, useful.
Linking to 4chan, if you don't know what it is, is dangerous - so I won't. But the site is basically an image board, where all content is user generated, and no one needs to log in. Reflecting the permissive nature of the site, comments range from the downright obnoxious to the hilarious. There is an underlying element of mischief and theatrical excess. Then there are the memes, in all their wild and unrestrained creative glory. And yes, if you only know of 4chan through traditional media, there is an abundance of adult content, limited to a minority of the boards. Try filtering the boards to "work safe" to get some real value out of the site.
To the original point of this post. Sites like the three above, probably share a large chunk of the same users (no citation for that claim). But each site brings out a different aspect of its users. This accent of the sites, is something that is self propagated over time, but is also seeded by the site itself. A site proclaiming itself to be for the nerds, brings out the nerds. Another name woot, can never let anyone take themselves too seriously. The world wide web, is not so much a fragmentation of users, as it is a fragmentation of accents. And the tone you get in your users is, in all probability, the tone you portray in your site to begin with.
I realized I had amassed over a thousand links on my delicious account, thanks in great part to StumbleUpon. Trolling through the list, I realized that there were a number of peculiar tools in that list - single use websites that basically serve one purpose (a very useful purpose at that) and do not do much else. No menus, no registration, very few linked pages and a single purpose is what identifies this list.
HTML-PDF converter is, as the name suggests, a useful tool to convert web pages to pdf format. Paste the URL, click the "Make PDF" button and wait for the download to appear.
VozMe is a tool that takes some text typed into a text box and creates an text-to-voice mp3 file that can be downloaded for use. Includes options of male or female voices.
Ever had the urge to keep a copy of the funny dog video, only to realize YouTube isn't friendly that way. KeepVid is the solution. Supports YouTube, Metacafe and a ton of other streaming sites.
Media Converter is an online converter of media across a number of formats - both audio and video. In addition it also allows the download of media from a number of online sources.
Zamzar is another great online tool to convert across different formats by uploading an original, or just use an online streaming site and download into a format of choice.
MintEmail is part of the new breed of disposable email tools that allows you to make and use a disposable email id for those annoying websites that need an email from you (you could just use the tools on this list instead). But if you need an email that works for 3 hours only - here you go.
Send Email is a simple anonymous email sender. Need to send a quick note to yourself, but do not trust a public connection - this is the answer for you. You could also choose to annoy a friend, but make sure you check the usage agreement first.
I can't find my phone, is a tool for you if you have misplaced your phone (at home). Type in the number, and the site will give you a ring. Hope you do not have it on silent though.
SendUIt is an easy to use file upload/download service that allows you to share files with anyone. The files size is limited to a 100MB, and you can set the expiration from 30 minutes to a week.
Wikisend is a similar site that allows upload and download of files up to 100MB.
Color Scheme Designer allows you to pick colors for your website. You can choose the kind of color palette you are looking for and the tool helps you pick the individual colors.
Whats its color is a tool that helps pick the primary and secondary color of an image. Extremely useful when you want to build a color scheme around a photograph.
Web 2.0 Badges is a quick and easy way to generate those glossy badges for use on your site or blog.
Favicon.CC is an online icon editor. In addition to importing an image, the site also works as a standalone editor to create a 16x16 icon image.
Here is a clutch of other tools that generate those useful (annoying?) gif files you desperately need. Loading indicator, Stripe creator, Tabs Generator, Reflection Maker, Quick Ribbon, Glossy 2.0 Button Maker.
Roundpic, as the name suggests, takes any picture and rounds the edges to give you a fresh 2.0 look for your photographs.
Resizr is a simple tool to re-size and rotate images. There isn't a lot you can do with this tool, but if all you want to do is re-size, this is the tool for you.
Pixenate is an easy to use web-only image manipulation tool. Along with the crop and re-size functions, the tool also allows basic color management and photo enhancement.
Mypictr is a photo extraction tool that allows you to easily pick out your own face from a snapshot to use on your profile.
Pixlr is pushing the boundaries of simple tools. Nevertheless, it is a one page online photo editor that is pretty powerful yet limited to one page.
Cost to Drive is a eco-conscious tool that calculates the cost to go from one city to another based on the type of vehicle you are planning to use. If not anything else, it helps prove that a Hummer is three times as expensive as a Prius.
Let me Google that for you. This is for all those people that find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than google it for themselves. Once you use it you will realize what you have been missing all along.
Namechk allows you to check if a particular name is taken at a large number of social network sites. Useful if you want to use a consistent name across a number of sites.
Finetune, though primarily for the Wii, is a great way to listen to new music based on a type of song or author, without the complexity (Flash usage) of Pandora. I've written about it before.
In a prior post, I posted an easy way to make those three dimensional reflective buttons that are typical of the new Web 2.0 interface elements. GIMP, is a great tool to create those nice and shiny buttons. The other method was relatively quick, and this one is a tad more involved.
I am using GIMP 2.6.10 for the tutorial. For earlier versions, the main difference is the difficulty in selecting with rounded corners. Step by step tutorial with pictures after the break
Web 2.0 has adopted its own distinctive style for interface elements, dominated by those three dimensional, reflective buttons. Using GIMP, it is easy to create those buttons. This is the first of two ways to do it - a relatively simple method. I will post a slightly more involved method later.
I am using GIMP 2.6.10 for the tutorial. For earlier versions, the main difference is the difficulty in selecting with rounded corners. Step by step tutorial with pictures after the break
A little while ago, I was able to get my hands on a signed copy of Andrew Mcafee's Enterprise 2.0.
The book starts off talking about the key idea behind the 2.0 tag, introducing the power of "emergence" in social networking. It then goes on to introduce 2.0 technologies, illustrating their impact on businesses through four case studies. A couple of quick frameworks to think about social networking technologies are introduced next, along with the key benefits of the Enterprise 2.0 space.
Part two of the book takes a more pragmatic look, cautioning that most of the benefits will be available over a long haul. The book also covers some key failure scenarios, ending with a road map for businesses in the 2.0 world. The last chapter deals with the question of organizational behavior and its relationship to tools and technologies offered by Web 2.0
The book was an illuminating, sometimes thought-provoking and relatively light read, even though it felt like some of the pit falls were pooh poohed quite easily. Also, while the framework of tie-strength bull's eye was a useful way of articulating the need for 2.0 technologies, it didn't feel as involved with the actual plan for taking a business down the path to Enterprise 2.0. A couple things I felt strongly about:
Legal discovery risk - One of the precepts of the book is that moving from a channel of communication (e.g. email) to a platform (e.g. wiki) doesn't necessarily increase discovery risk related to litigation. The support? Andrew did not see any in the large number of businesses that have thus far implemented 2.0 technologies. Put this way, I am sure the argument seems shallow. Emails has been around for the good part of three decades, and only now have they really started to become the target of discovery requests and increasingly part of legal proceedings. Flippant emails form great news headlines, and even if the legal risk was zero, reputation damage would not be inconsequential. There is no reason to think a platform would fare any better.
Uncertainty - 2.0 emergence takes time. Social media presumes a flat user base, that is largely unconcerned with direction, that seemingly generates something awesome from thin air. There is too much uncertainty in that vision, uncertainty businesses do not like. Uncertainty of deliverable, time, order, ownership may work well when the stakes are lower. But when having a job is critical to taking care of the kids at home, it is too much to hope jobs stick around long enough for something awesome that may emerge out of uncoordinated actions. Again, I am sure that sounds extreme, but it does illustrate the oxymoron Enterprise 2.0.
At the end, the approach that the author lays out for a company to implement 2.0 technologies is tellingly similar to that of a pre-2.0 IT implementation. Identify problem and vision > don't expect dramatic wins > communicate > redesign processes > and measure. I believe, 2.0 technologies are answers to specific questions, as opposed to revolutionary tools just waiting to deliver multi-pronged increases in productivity. It seems more to be a case of 2.0 enabled Enterprise, than Enterprise 2.0.
Andrew McAfee, author of a new book called Enterprise 2.0, spoke at an internal conference today. Very energetic persona, with an interesting pitch. And on a side note, that allowed some of us to grab a signed copy of the book for further study.
The upshot of the pitch was that the same forces that caused the shift of the web from 1.0 to 2.0 are awaiting a shot at transforming corporate information management culture. Historically, the way to think about information management in a company has been built around the structured, hierarchical approaches. Moving to tools and processes of the 2.0 web, includes a culture shift of leaving the controlled process paradigm and instead accept a more free form style, that almost required faith that it will work. Some companies that have already moved to this culture have started reaping benefits. And companies that adopt these technologies and cultural tenets stand to gain a many-fold increase in productivity.
Reading the book is, therefore, next on the agenda.
