If you would have observed children closely, you might have noticed that they like tiny spaces, little inlets, and small entrances. These cave like or box like structures entice children much more than open spaces and designing these structures in play areas, game shop lobbies is a proven tactic that is likeable by children. Every pattern explores design ideas that fulfil requirements of those who will be using them and it doesn’t really needs a genius to apply these architectural principals to information architecture. This becomes all the more important if the website that you intent to design is for fulfilling social needs like social news dissemination or social networking of target audiences.

It is not just about children, all of us may behave in different ways when brought together. The consistency of behavior which is exhibited in an informational space which has singularity completely changes when there are individuals collaborating, communicating and engaging in a positive or a negative manner. Indeed, wisdom of crowds and madness of crowds, both are proven concepts and what better place to see it getting displayed in real time one like sites dig.com and delicious.com.

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News Corp, lately, has tried a lot of things with MySpace in wake of its competetion with Facebook. They haven’t had much success and recent reports suggest that the Core MySpace team might be on its way out. We think its a great and a gutsy decision. Though we are no one to comment on the likes of Chris and Tom, we believe they are hugely overrated.

MySpace as a product is an average product and it got popular because it was amongst the first. Right from the beginning everyone knew that MySpace was not very well thought of and it just needed a “Facebook” to overtake it in no time because you could clearly see a great vision behind the product and an even better execution.

Myspace will not miss anything by the departure of these executives and on the contrary will save around $50 million a year or even more which is considerable, if not huge.

What mySpace needs is fresh set of ideas, people with innovation on how to monetize and even more importantly bring the loyalty to millions of its users. Sadly Chris and Tom seem to have run out of ideas themselves. We will certainly eat our words if I see Chris or Tom starting a new company and making it super successful again.

Good Luck MySpace. Good Luck Chris, Good Luck Tom.

Introduction

This whole 2.0 thing has been notoriously gaining popularity for the past some time – Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Business 2.0 and now, Intranet 2.0. Many say it has become like a fashion to add 2.0 to anything that’s some what different from its ancestors. But this is not the case. There’s remarkable difference between 1.0 and 2.0 and we have been talking about them. In the same series, this time we will try to figure out the anatomy and structure of Intranet 2.0.

Intranet as you all are aware of is private version of Internet. With the development of Web 2.0, Intranet has also undergone some changes. Let’s just give you a hint what we will be talking about in Intranet 2.0 through the following example.

Serena Software, a vendor of enterprise change management software having employee strength of 800 Facebookpeople and working from 18 different countries across the world, has replaced its traditional intranet with Facebook as a front end linked to a low-cost content management system behind the firewall. According to the Company President and CEO, Jeremy Burton, the company organizes Facebook Fridays and encourages employees to find fun and personal connections in the work place.

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Do you really believe that social networking sites are relevant enough to cater to the ever growing needs of the job market? Are they capable enough to provide quality manpower to organizations? Is it a good and reliable solution?

I would like to tell you my story in few lines.It really feels strange that I got my job through a social networking website. None is ready to buy my story, but it is as true as the sun rising in the east. Everyone is amazed that I landed up with such a good job when others really have to slog it out scanning sites, looking for opportunities and mailing resumes. Things just don’t end here and have to keep waiting for the response. Luckily I joined the famous Indian student networking portal – www.collegespeaks.com, where I would regularly post comments in the ”Quotes” section and that helped me grab my first job offer even before I finished my college. Read more…

At the recently held Conference in Boston from June 9th to 12th 2008, on Enterprise 2.0 most of the speakers agreed to the view that E2.0, as it is popularly known as, is inevitable. Marketing and software pundits believe that this will be the next big thing that will have a major impact on how the business is run today after Internet infiltrated into the business processes. So this time around we won’t be discussing the regular stuff- Internet and Business- instead we will give you an insight into the somewhat new world of Enterprise 2.0 and how it is getting transformed into a major business phenomenon.

Browser based softwares, SaaS, and Web 2.0 have been making fast advancements in the enterprise arena, however the absence of useful pioneer reports is hampering the development process and preventing many organizations from moving on to this next level. The trends have been really amazing with more and more number of user generated content and communication collaboration mushrooming up via blogs and social media websites. Keeping all the above developments in mind a question that often comes to our mind is can the integration of the three- SaaS, Web 2.0 and business- be more meaningful in the enterprise as well.

What is Enterprise 2.0?

The term Enterprise 2.0 was coined by Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School. According to him,”Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.” Source: Professor Andrew McAfee’s Blog
Social software enables people to rendezvous, connect or collaborate through computer-mediated communication and to form online communities.

Platforms are digital environments in which contributions and interactions are globally visible and persistent over time.

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Have you ever imagined how your house, office building, school, playground and neighbourhood appear to the little birdie in the sky? Try visualizing it. Don’t worry if you can’t……visit Google maps!!! Google maps (henceforth Gmaps) makes it possible to have a “bird’s eye view” of our own earth and its neighbours in space- moon & mars. Before I fly to further features of Google maps, here’s Lord’s Cricket Ground as seen on Google maps. Read more…

Safety or shall we call it keeping away from harm and, security which may be termed as protection from any harm are an integral part of every society ranging from east to west or north to south of the globe. When these two combine, form something which can be termed as pre-issue termination. In the developed side of the world this forms an integral part of daily curriculum and life. Let us simply check a life cycle to explain this. With reference to developed world, when the child is born, safety handbook of various vaccinations, hygiene etc is provided to the parents. As the child grows older, parents through literature or websites are provided the precautions to child’s habits. Like of eating (or tasting) every particle that comes in their path etc. Even the art of keeping a vigil is provided as a help or assistance. Now the child enters the pre teens demanding their first vehicle – a bicycle. Read more…

In my last blogs we discussed the shift in Web and also the Web 3.0 Technology. So as a final point what do we expect from this New Generation Web? It wont surprise me if Web 2.0 just turns out to be a stage making way to a much more mature and durable Web 3.0 is going to deliver a new generation of business applications Web 3.0 era. Over a couple of weeks I have been reading articles and trying to analyze key characteristics of Web 3.0, using a lot of company examples like Google, Amazon and Ebay. But I’m not too sure if all these companies will be leading the Web 3.0 era. Some less mentioned companies like WebEx, WebSideStory, NetSuite, Jamcracker, Rearden Commerce and Salesforce.com have also been casting light on how Web 3.0 might take over the World of Web. Read more…

My last blog on the shift and comparison between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 defined the basic structure of Web that we look forward to in years to come. Now when people are struggling to get their heads around Web 2.0. I wouldn’t say we emerged from the session with a clear picture of this third generation Web. But I’m just trying to give you some ideas on the same. Read more…

As we all see that everyone in the industry has made Web 2.0 their favorite buzzword for technology today. But now when we are on the cutting edge of Internet competition and as technology moves forward we soon be hitting with a whole new bubble of Web 3.0. This new Web 3.0 might turn the Internet into a huge database and our place in it will be to organize this source of information into parts that are suitable to us.
It entirely would depend on how we will make use of this new web to make search for information much easier, it can be our guide to the future of Internet technology. I’m not the only one to speculate about Web 3.0, but the companies and some famous bloggers also give a sneak peak at what the Internet’s future has to offer. Read more…