AJAX Info writes about the network effects that are driving AJAX adoption in the enterprise and consumer space.
Programming languages in general benefit from network effects. To boil this down we could say that as more people use a particular language, the value derrived from using it increases exponentially. An example of this might be that as more people start using Ajax, more resources, information, and 3rd party components become available.
Another key point is that AJAX is a continuous, rather than a discontinuous technology. It builds on existing skillsets that web developers have in a way that some other technologies don’t.
Ajax offers something else too. It`s a way for web developers to leverage their current skill sets to achieve the first goal: build better applications. JavaScript and DHTML aren`t new, and more importantly: corporations are loath to acquiring 3rd party software components that use technologies their in house developers have no skills with. It doesn`t make business sense to jump into technologies that have rarified skill sets unless you have to because it`s expensive to be retraining your employees or outsourcing development work to specialized consultants.
He also presents a nice comparison of AJAX to some alternative rich client technologies. The upshot? Vendor Independence and Skill Set Transferrance are the major differentiators. Read the whole thing!
Author: jonathanboutelle
flash && AJAX: two great tastes that taste great together?
Alex Bosworth articulates a vision of what Flash is good for that matches what I’ve experienced. Specifically, Bosworth mentions video (one or two-way) / audio (one or two-way), combined with data sockets (“push” instead of “pull) making Flash a crucial component of next-generation web applications. Macromedia recognises this, and is working hard to make Flash and Javascript work and play well together.
Why don’t more people think of using Flash in this way? In a word, positioning. Bosworth writes: I do think there’s a very distracting red herring here, and that’s Flash’s rich user interface abilities. Every flash demo I’ve ever seen focuses on great looking shiny buttons that look like you took a slick win32 app and plopped it down in a browser window.
Web 2.0 or not dot com
This is totally silly && awesome. Check out web2ornot.com. Finally we’ll have at least some collective agreement as to which sites best exemplify the web 2.0 meme [via].
AJAX technology watch: Morfik
One thing a lot of people at Web 2.0 seems to agree with is that the tools for doing AJAX development aren’t mature yet, and this makes developement more painful than it has to be. This is a market opportunity for development tools vendors. One company with an interesting approach to this space is Morfik.
Meeker: Owning a time machine a good way to make money
Mary Meeker presented at the web 2.0 conference this morning [pdf]. Her presentation included this screenshot (click on image for a larger view).
Web 2.0 : Welcome to the bubble
I’m spending more time in the hallways and lest time in the lecture halls today, the second day of the Oreilly web 2.0 conference. The buzz around this space right now is heavy. Some concepts and ideas and theories that have come up in my hallway conversations, in no particular order…
Launch Pad: 12 product launches at web2.0
SocialText: Opensourcing the whole enchilada!
Rollyo: New customized search engine
Joyent: Web-based outlook clone with microformat support
BunchBall: Hosted platform for building social applications and games with flash
RealTravel: Travel Social networking
Zimbra: Open source web-based outlook killer with incredible plugin support
ZVents: Web-based event search
KnowNow : Receive notification the second your RSS feeds update
Orb : Turn your pc into a media server
Wink : social bookmarking with search
AllPeers : toolkit for building desktop apps that run in firefox
Flock : social internet browser
Yahoo! search presents at Web 2.0 conference
The good
Yahoo is clearly focusing hard on giving publishers LOTS of control as to what kind of adds appear on their site. They talked about the ability to eliminate particular advertisers, only carry advertisements from certain categories, etc. As a content producer, this is awesome. I hate seeing adds for products that I don’t like or wouldn’t endorse on my blog.
The bad
Yahoo! 360 / YahooMyWeb2.0 are currently a data “roach motel”. Data goes in but it doesn’t go out. Not very web 2.0.
The ugly
How many social networking /tagging applications does yahoo have exactly? It currently seems to be a sprawling mess. Sometimes when you try to use one, you end up using another. It’s time to trim the herd and provide a killer integrated social bookmarking / networking / search application.
Open Source Infrastructure at Web 2.0 Conference: the Marc Cantor Show
The open-source infrastructure workshop was fascinating. Open-source software development is (by now) a fairly well-understood social process. But how do you create infrastructure (servers and bandwidth) that costs real money to run, for the purpose of making a more open and remixable web? This is a business and social problem, not just a technology problem.
New Yahoo! mail rocks the house
Just got accepted into the Yahoo! beta. This is the first web-based email I would consider using. If I didn’t have multiple email accounts, I would probably switch. Differences from oddpost: 1)doesn’t use a popup window, 2)Doesn’t seem to have rss integration, which oddpost has (seems like an odd decision, maybe they want to save something for the sequel?).
I won’t post screenshots ’cause you can see them here if you’re interested.
jonathanboutelle.com 