Operating Systems and Web Browsers of visitors to Strategic Board during December 2005:

Dudu

So many predictions on what is going to happen in 2005. I couldn”t find many bloggers reviewing their last 2005 predictions but still it is interesting to see how people perceive the near technology future.

Here is the list:

Top 10 Tech Transformations of 2005
http://www.newmediamusings.com/blog/2005/12/the_transformat.html

Geek to Live: Top underrated apps of 2005
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-top-underrated-apps-of-2005-145442.php

Year in Review: December 2005 at Lifehacker
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/best-of-2005/index.php

No 2006 PR predictions but a thought on fragmentation…
http://www.natterjackpr.com/archives/2005/12/no_2006_pr_pred.html

Naked Conversations: 10 More 2006 Prediction
http://www.desparoz.com/index.php/2005/12/29/naked-conversations-10-more-2006-prediction/

RSS 2006 Predictions Round-Up
http://blog.rssapplied.com/public/item/111604

2006 could be year that Apple CEO Jobs falls off pedestal
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/kevinmaney/2005-12-20-jobs_x.htm

2006 predictions
http://scripting.wordpress.com/2005/12/23/2006-predictions/

2006: Like it already happened
http://www.blogebrity.com/blog/2005/12/2006-like-it-already-happened.php

2006 Predictions Part One
http://officersclub.blogspot.com/2005/12/2006-predictions-part-one.html

The Year of Personal Video for Power users and Geeks - Roland’s 2006 Predictions Part 6
the-year-of-personal-video-for-power-users-and-geeks-rolands-2006-predictions-part-6

http://rolandtanglao.com/tags/2006-predictions

Dennis Kennedy’s Legal Technology Predictions for 2006: Small Steps for Most Firms, Giant Leaps for a Few Firms
http://www.llrx.com/features/giantleaps.htm

Predictions Revisited
http://www.vinnylingham.com/2005/12/predictions-revisited.html

Predictions For Wireless in ‘06
http://wireless.weblogsinc.com/2005/11/30/predictions-for-wireless-in-06/

IT 2006 Predictions
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/linux/university/archives/006759.asp?rss=1

TECH TALK: The Best of Tech Talk 2005: Emergic Ecosystem and Netcor
tech_talk_the_best_of_tech_talk_2005_emergic_ecosystem_and_netcore

Predictions for 2006
http://chris.pirillo.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/29/1539128.html

Predicting The Future (continued)
http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2005/12/predicting_the__5.html

Wired Co-Founder Sees Semantics in the Future Web Search
http://harry.hchen1.com/2005/12/27/208

Ray Kurzweil on Future Technology
http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2005/12/26/ray-kurzweil-on-future-technology/

Ten Defining Moments: Library 2.0 Events of 2005
http://tametheweb.com/2005/12/defining_moments_library_20_ev.html

The Smart Future May Bring Simplicity (We Hope)
http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2005/12/the_smart_futur.html

Bruce Perens‘ Forecasts for 2006
http://perens.sourcelabs.com/articles/2005/12/07/bruce-perens-forecasts-for-2006

Future Wireless (4/10/2005)
http://urbantapestries.net/weblog/archives/000140.html

Happy New Year!

Dudu

P.S. Most of the posts mentioned here were found via Strategic Board search of “prediction” - http://www.strategicboard.com/index.php?s=prediction

“A Thousand Startups Crying - Outlook moves on RSS” by Nik Cubrilovic (see post). Nik says that RSS aggregator startups are doomed now, after the giant - Microsoft, have decided to make outlook RSS ready. Although Nick raises many valid points to consider I tend to stay on the rather optimistic side where I believe new products and new giants can emerge as it always been. When I read the post I felt I could do a search and replace to the written company names with different ones from past scenarios and still have with a valid story to tell. You can try with changing Microsoft in this story to IBM (The current big bad wolf) and replace NewsGator (and other startups) in the current prey position with Microsoft itself back in the early 90’s.

Having said that, I fully agree with the “good” things this change will do to the industry by increasing user adoption and getting RSS to mainstream.

See my past comment on NewsGator Vs. Microsoft strategy from march 2005 - NewsGator acquires FeedDemon - Consequences.

Marry Christmas to all of you!

Dudu

CapitalistCellGmailHotmailIndustryInvestor
IpodMicrosoftNetworkPolicyProgressStartup
StrategyTechVenture CapitalistWirelessYahoo

AdomoAdvisoryAlliedAllyAnalyst ReportAndersonAPIApple Blog
Baloney SlBamboozlBattlegroupBearBingBing WestBlog
Blog Spacing WireBlog Techcrunch PhotoBlogoscoped Yahoo Blog
BroadbandBroadband WirelessBrueghelCarrierCase StudyCEO
ChartChris AndersonCiscoClean Tech SuccCold WarCommerci
CommodityCompanyConfCrownDavid CowanDavid HornikDemand
Developers TogethDinner Carl BialikDoseDostDost Muham
Eco InnovEnterprise BuEnterprise ArchitectEnterprise Architectur
Finance GrowthFlipFMLNForeign PolicyFred WilsonGeist Library Blog
GenuinelyGomeGoogle BlogGoogle Blog GooglHackHangHang Up
Hilton LaHusseinHypeIhlaImagery Video BlogIndustry Analyst
Industry GroupInfancyInsider JohnInventorInvoice Factor
JohnsonKevin DoerrKhyber PassKnowLawsuit MicrosoftLee Gom
Long TailLyndon JohnsonMarcus EvanMcubeworkMen Who Cam
Microsoft IsnMilgroupMobile VideoMoresoMSDNMsftiMultimedia
NLFNotionNTPPatentPaul BuchheitPCSPelfPeter Rip
PinePortfolioPositivelyPrivate EquityPrivate Equity Lawyers Forum
ProcessProfitabilityProjectQualityRadarRamifRegularity
ResearchRevolutionaryRick SegRick Segal MarketSaidSecurity
Shah ShujaShakenSiliconSilicon ValleySimplifySimultaneously
Skyhook WirelessSliceSmall WarSolelySolidaritySolidly
SpacerefSpecificallyStrictSubscriptTae Hea HahmTae Hea Hahm Read
Tae Hea NahmTech Coast AngelTech SavvyTechcrunchTechtarget
TETTim DrapTop DownUncertaintyValue PropositVCSVenture Capital Blog
Venture Capital ConfVenture Capital Funding SkyhookVenture Capital General Counsel
Venture Capitalist David HornikVenture Capitalist Tae HeaVenture Connect
VentureblogVerizonVistoWilsonWireWitiWSJ

Another tagcloud example on the search results of “venture capital“.

Dudu

BrowserCoreFirefoxGadgetIndustryIpodMAC
MicrosoftProjectSecurityServerTechVision

ActivityAmazonAndy AbramsonAOLAttensaBen BarrenBeta
Beta8webinstBlog NetworkBloggers BlogBoing BoingBrandon Huff
CellCnetComparisonConsumer Generated MediaCritical Mass
Danny YbarraDemoDesktopDevelopEmailEngadgetEXEExplor
Federated MediaFlashFlash MemoryFlickrFoobarFormerly
FOXFPSFrameworkGawkerGistGOVHalflifHotmailIDE
Im PhpIncremental BloggInformationenInner CurmudgeonInstant Reward
IsolationistJakeJardinJavaJayson BlairJoglJohn Hoey
LabelLancLes PosenLinuxLWJGLMain StreamMarketwatch
Martin ElvingtonMassMedia NetworkMemoryMicrosoft ImMIT
ModeratelyMonitorMsieMSNNetworkNetwork FlNewscorp
NichtNickNick DentonNokiaNokia Blogger Relations Commun
NovelNovel SoundNvidiaNvidia 6600gtOutlookPalmsoloPatch
Paul JardinPHPPlugPosenProcessQualityRandy Holloway
RedhatRediffmailRegularlyRemote ControlRemotelyResearch
Research ProjectReviewSafariSecurity VulnerabilityShaken
Shelley HildebrandSicherzustellenSiliconSilicon ValleySMB
SoarSorry StowSpikeSpinStowStowe BoydStrafeStream
StripTech IndustryTrendTSAUmassUMTUnderstoodUniversal Remote Hav
USBVulnerabilityWalt MossbergWikipediaWindowWIRWMP
Working BetaWormXeni JardinYahoo

This is an example dynamic tagcloud on latest activity in the IT blogosphere. This tagcloud is updated according to the latest news and blog posts from IT related sources.

Dudu

We’ve added our first version of visual navigation in Strategic Board. In every search result you can switch to visual mode to view a tagcloud of the search results. The tagcloud is made of the captured context of the news/posts in the results. We plan to enhance the visual navigation system very soon.

Dudu

Frank Gruber and Jeff Jones wrote about Strategic Board with an important feedback about our unorgenized layout of Google Ads. First, thanks for the valuable feedback.

I agree with both comments especially with the one suggesting a tricky design to create higher clickthrough and I have to confess that adsense grid have caught in a weak moment:)

Anyway, now the design have changed.

Thanks again for the feedback and have a great holidays season!

Dudu

Contributor: Venator Partners - Venator Partners is a Boston-based executive search firm that specializes in recruiting senior-level executives in the software and communications industries.
Copyright: Copyright © 2004. Venator Partners, LLC.
Covered Categories: M&A, Start-ups, Personnel Changes

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Defining web 2.0 nowadays seems to be a a very popular sport for many important bloggers and analysts. Our self definition of Strategic Board as a “web 2.0″ company/technology invites me to express my thoughts on Web 2.0 although I am not sure I wear pink glasses when I look at it.

Web 2.0 being as one of the many transformations the IT space goes through can be broken to different parts:

Web 2.0 Technological Changes:
RSS - “machine readable” format of changes to a web site. Blogs as unique form of websites that supports RSS enable anyone to publish content on the web very easily. This huge pool of RSS sources(feeds) enable all forms of aggregation to satisfy each internet user information needs. RSS created new forms of publishing that didn’t exist before such as personal publishing, co-publishing and more.

Tagging - A behaviour of internet users to mark specific content with designated keyword. Once tagging exists another level of information classification is available using tag sharing, aggregation and display. Several tools to support each one of these activites have been created to support this behavior.

Wikis - A new form of knowledge base where the users of the knowledge base build and maintain it. Pretty much similar to the open source movement where still a very few build and really contribute to the source while the majority just enjoy using it. High level of user adoption made this form of knowledge creation highly effective to certain groups.

Infrastructure
Search - Several search tools that provide access to the newly created RSS/Tagged content. These search tools are mostly characterized by the charecteristics of the content they index. The “live” nature of new content (content is being published all the time 7 X 24) and the “permanence” of content published by a blog (a post usually doesn’t change, which makes indexing different). Blogs content has very similar charecteristics to old fashion news except for the numbers of publishers.

Other- RSS Feed processing, caching, directories, changes notification (pings) services, feed/blog publishing tools and probably a lot more then what is mentioned here. These tools and platforms are the basis of a “working” blogosphere.

Main Drivers:
No bandwidth problems - being creative as a developer or publisher has never been so easy thanks to the fact that users can enjoy it in a timely fashion.

Working internet infrastructure - many people/companies/investors have invested and built a rather reliable web infrastructure. These investments, which burst to the face of stakeholders during 99-02 serves today the wave of web 2.0 entrepreneurs. In simple words it is not really a problem today to get a new web 2.0 service up and running.

Content content content - users adoption and ability to express whatever is on their mind via blogs created a huge pile of raw material for innovation. Internet users in my opinion are the real “heroes” and drivers of the Web 2.0 phenomena.

Open source platforms - today you can build a fully scalable venture using only open source tools. You’ve got an operating system for free, a very good database, scalable scripting languages and many other small tools to make your life easier. Building a similar Web 2.0 product few years ago that relys on similar infrastructure would not be possible without external financing and “unique” experts.

Browser UI advancement - the web browser, which once was a simple text/html viewing tool became a development and delivery platform for almost any application you can dream of. As much as it makes manufacturers of operating systems sad it makes us Web 2.0 developers very happy.

Alternative financing sources or a.k.a Google ads - nothing more to say about this:). Google brings us the traffic, Google pays for the traffic and Google makes money on the traffic - everyone are happy.

Customers tolerance for incomplete products - As in many “exciting” transformations, users are highly tolerant to bugs and low quality products hidden behind the “beta” curtain. This enables very early interaction with users, which makes products much more valuable eventually. This tolerance can also be attributed to the hunger users accumulated during the “dry” years of 99-03.

Economic/Business State:
Business models - Currently the only business model for Web 2.0 is the long “lived” eyeballs model. We have returned to this notorious model in our Web 2.0 companies mainly because this is what interests the most our “saviours” with their deep pockets - Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. There are few companies who offer premium services but still they mainly take pride in the number of their free users. Some of the companies try to squeeze their innovation towards the “enterprise startup” model as a magic bullet though enterprises seem to be the last ones to jump on the Web 2.0 wagon and if they jump at all.

Exit Strategies - During 2005 there were few acquisitions of very successful (in terms of user adoption) Web 2.0 companies for surprisingly very low prices in comparison to what you would expect from the respective hype level. This trend may raise very fundamental questions of the level of belief Web 2.0 entrepreneurs have in their venture future (Google was once a small startup too) as well as explains why VCs are not fully into Web 2.0. It might be still a residue of scepticism we have got left from the internet bust for businesses without a “milking cow” business model. I personally see these days as only the “beginning” for innovation and finging new uses for the Internet and as in every start we need to be patient.

As a bottom line, I see Web 2.0 to be the maturity state of the revolution initiated in the internet boom from the 90’s. It feels much more like picking ripe fruits of people who have established the web infrastructure rather then seeding them. Still, the fact that internet users have gained much more influence in guiding the industry direction can take “Web 2.0″ innovation to very interesting places.

Dudu Mimran

Recent web 2.0 mentioning from my Google Alerts folder

Sun updates portal server for ‘Web 2.0′ addict3d

Reflections on Web 2.0 and 2005 corante
“This year has been exciting but Web 2.0 has yet to have a true impact on the average Internet user.”

Top Ten Web 2.0 Moments of 2005 blogs.zdnet

Topix.net Leaps Into Web 2.0webpronews
“Topix still mixes stories from blogs and news sources in its categories, but the shaded background used to identify blog posts has been eliminated in favor of a small white ‘B’ on an orange dot.” “Topix has continued to embrace tagging, a simple way of categorizing stories. Clicking a tag takes visitors to related stories where that particular tag, like “George Bush,” has been applied. “

Web 2.0 Won’t Mean New Version of Internet Bubble: Matthew Lynn bloomberg

Can Web 2.0 stoke interest in bigger things? blogs.zdnet

Web 2.0 Powering Verticals webpronews

John Battelle on Web 2.0 & Google imediaconnection

Web 2.0 Business Models webpronews

Joshua Porter on Web 2.0 corante

Is there a Web 2.0 revolution ? 7days

Yahoo!: Quiet Technology, Web 2.0 Power betadot

Yahoo: From Dot-Com Survivor to Web 2.0 Powerhouse eweek

Web 2.0 redefined seattlepi.nwsource

Web 2.0: Upgrade or Revolution? clickz
“Do I really need another personal home page?”

Joel Spolsky on Web 2.0: The Antihype Is Thickening corante

Overwhelmed by Web 2.0 realtechnews

Tech guru O’Reilly on Web 2.0 bbc.co.uk

From Enterprise 1.0 to Web 2.0 infoworld

Is SOA a ‘mini-me’ of Web 2.0? zdnet.com