Our Replies to your Queries

Group 1

1.  Web1.0-> web2.0-> what next? Have you tracked the technology on this front?

Next is web 3.0, for more details on web3.0 please visit our blog page web3.0. Technology front has been explored very briefly, as we looking this from view point of business managers.

Group2

2.  With so much of information at disposal how do you think regulation can be handled?

Any kind of regulation will defeat the spirit of free web. We believe as users of web will mature so will organizations involve in this domain. With this concept of self regulation will come and they will behave more responsibly to safeguard their image and brand.

Group 7: FINO

3.  What is the role of “Silverlight” kind of technologies in Web 2.0?

Silverlight is the next step towards user experience in enriching today’s Web2.0 technology. Microsoft Silverlight is a web application framework with added interactivity features and supports DOT NET language and development tools. It is basically a programming model to develop and distribute Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). It is a free cross browser plug-in for delivering multimedia experiences for the web. It is considered as an Adobe flash alternative.

Silverlight offers the power needed for smart client business apps, with the best deployment and navigation characteristics of the web. Silverlight applications are going to make a difference to websites in a very real way in the near future. And this is exactly the goal of Web 2.0 too. Web 2.0 needs the support of these technologies to flourish its applications.

For further information check out our article “Technologies of Web 2.0”

4.  Don’t you think Web 3.0 (with browser tracking user preferences) being talked about would make Web 2.0 outdated?

The classic example of the Web 2.0 era is the “mash-up” — for example, connecting a rental-housing Web site with Google Maps to create a new, more useful service that automatically shows the location of each rental listing.

In contrast, the Holy Grail for developers of the semantic Web is to build a system that can give a reasonable and complete response to a simple question like: “I’m looking for a warm place to vacation and I have a budget of $3,000. Oh, and I have an 11-year-old child.”

That is Web 3.0. The Web 3.0 browser will analyze your response, search the Internet for all possible answers, and then organize the results for you. While Web 3.0 might now have a concept to hang itself on, we will remain in the midst of the Web 2.0 era for several more years. The semantic Web is still incubating and will take many turns of the crank to become main stream. So, it is not that Web 2.0 will be erased immediately but as the technology develops and gets bigger and better, the older versions have to be replaced at the end of the day.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle–the living and breathing social Web along with semantic Web technologies will help create a new infrastructure for the information Web that is far different and more powerful than what we call Web 2.0.

Group 9

5.  A coin always has two sides. Where the positives of Web 2.0 are innumerable, at the same time it has brought along with it an era of fraud and loss of privacy. What is your take on this and what would you suggest for Web 3.0 and further?

As we said during our presentation that we agree to the fact that Web 2.0 and for that matter the entire Internet world poses lots of security issues but again at the end of the day, you or I are not ready to leave this scenario despite of knowing the treats. It is an individual’s choice. There are still many people who would not prefer shopping or transacting online because they feel it is not safe. They have made their choice and you have to make yours.

But yes, developers of these technologies cannot leave the privacy and security issues unattended and they are actually working over addressing the issues in Web 3.0. The content filtering in Web 3.0 will be advanced and there is an idea of passing by reference instead of exposing objects in transit which could be good for security. But, currently all these ideas can only be anticipated and we will have to wait for the formal launch of Web 3.0 to know further.

Group 13

6.   WikiLeaks- a boon/ baneful output of web2.0. How would you address output of web2.0. How would you address cases where some government –sensitive info is also open for all eyes? How are business in turn adopting to such rapid changes in IT and ICT apps to such rapid changes in IT and ICT apps you talked about?

Yes wikileaks are part of bane that has come with web 2.0,but look at the positive side this may also bring more transparency into ways governments functions across the world. Also this issue of hacking and data theft is not completely unresolved in web2.0. To answer your question regarding business; they are embracing web2.0 with open arms. Because for them boon provided by web2.0 outweighs bane of web2.0.

SOA & Group

7.  How different are hardware requirements between web1.0 and web2.0 ?

The main difference in terms of hardware is focus; web1.0 focuses on storage, whereas the main focus of web2.0 is bandwidth as traffic is high. This may lead to higher cost, but overall experience of customer, customer interaction that is gained by web2.0 justifies it.

E-Learning Group

8.  How do companies prevent copyright infringement during crowd-sourcing?

The copyright for open source projects is delicate issue, only way companies can addressthis at present is by issuing appropriate licenses. Also there is also a moral issue in this ‘how can make a company have a copy right on a resource which it has acquired from public.

Cloud Computing Group

9.  Websites developed using web2.0, are prone to hacking because of more client side scripting language involved in its development. How do you justify this?

We are of opinion that client side scripting makes web 2.0 applications safe from hacking as the code is on the client side; possibility of tampering at server side is reduced. Tampering of client side code inflicts the maximum damage as this is shared resource. The client side could be used to send malicious messages to server but this threat can also be minimized by deploying necessary filters at server.

Open Source Movement Group

10.  Web 2.0 has resulted in the proliferation of virtual goods (e.g. small weapons in flash games on social networking sites). What value ads does this have for the world economy?

Virtual goods like flash games, online application have created many small enterprises across the world especially in countries like India. Anybody with a new business idea can start a new business venture with little capital. Though these enterprises are mostly dependent on advertisements for revenue generation, the scale and reach of net has made these businesses sustainable. So contribution of the web 2.0 to world economy would be creation many small scale enterprises and jobs for technical workers.

Kuldeep & Group

11.  Web 2.0 saw a change from using different platforms to unified platforms. Hasn’t this led to the formation of giant cartels where Java and XML emerge as leaders and new technologies are not allowed to evolve?

A new technology is usually an improvement over an existing one or completely a breakthrough technology. And any existing technology always poses the threat of being replaced by a new one. Java and XML technologies are the ones which cannot be replaced in the near future as they form the core essence of everything over Internet now days. If you see closely, somewhere a cartel already exists with these technologies being the pioneers and Web 2.0 is just an improvement. I don’t find any issue with these cartels because when a new technology will be developed and if it actually has the power to replace these, then that will happen too. The existing pioneers will always try to save their markets and that is how technological shifts happen and the learning curve grows. 

The Evolution and The Future...

Evolution: Web 1.0, Web 2.0 to Web 3.0




The Future: Web 3.0

What Next? The Road Ahead...

In our previous articles we looked at how the web has evolved to its current form, i.e., Web2.0.  We looked at social and business aspects of Web 2.0 and continuing in the same series today, we would be looking at future of the web, Web 3.0.

In web 3.0, the web would evolve from its current form of being interactive to being intelligent, personalized and mobile. Technologies like semantic web and artificial intelligence are vanguard of this transformation. 

Personalization of Internet has already started taking place. Just login to your Google account and you would see the page being customized to your preference; Amazon.com will make suggestions to purchase on the basis of previous transactions; use Netvibes.com to make personalized dash board.

With coming of age of web semantics net and usage of artificial intelligence, machines would be able to interpret human language and provide their inputs. For example instead of typing “Chennai” + “north Indian “+ “restaurant” to look for a place to have lunch outside, I will be just typing “ good place to have lunch” and search result will suggest me all kinds of places where I can have lunch of my preference and within my budget. 

With increase in mobility of net, Internet access will not be limited to mobiles and computers. My home appliances may access to net as well to know about my schedules, and my vehicle may be updating these schedules for me.  My mp3 players may get updates on the basis of my choice of music.

Ideas shared in above two paragraphs may look like a distant dream but with the pace with which these technologies are advancing, we may see these ideas coming to life sooner than expected. Advent of full fledge Web3.0 will also bring transformation in our lives and will have ramifications in business and governance as well.  But we leave analysis of these issues for our future blogs.

Just to say as of now "The future lies with Web 3.0!"  

Story of Yellowikis!

"We didn’t really set out to be disruptive - but we seem to be causing some sleepless nights among the $22bn Yellow Pages industry, their management consultants asked us ‘Who is funding you?’ and ‘Why are you giving away valuable business information for nothing?’ They don’t understand that it has cost under $500 to set the whole thing up. And $350 of that was on t-shirts."

 -Paul Youlten, founder, Yellowikis

It all started when Paul’s 14 year old daughter, Rosa, added an article to Wikipedia about a small company she had done research on for a homework assignment. It subsequently got deleted by the Wikipedia editors because it was "non-encyclopaedic". Wanting to find a place that would accept such information, Paul and his daughter then spent couple of hours on Google for a Yellow Pages "done the wiki way", but they couldn’t find one. So, as Paul decided to set one up.

Paul Youlten used to work in business development at Reuters Business Information (now Factiva), so he was familiar with "the business of business information". He says the information in the Yellow Pages is often poor and he saw an opportunity for wikis to improve the situation, using their collaborative and open nature.

"Setting up Yellowikis just seemed an interesting challenge so I spent a couple of weekends struggling with Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP and actually managed to get the MediaWiki software up and running. Rosa designed a logo and we were off." - Paul

Yellowikis is still a young site, but Paul was encouraged when a couple of months ago someone he didn’t know developed a Wikipedia bot that automatically transfers (or "transwikis") companies that are listed for deletion on the English.

Wikipedia to Yellowikis. So that solved the problem his daughter had initially, when her Wikipedia article about a small company got rejected. There’s a cliché in Web development that the best businesses come from ’scratching an itch’ - in other words, building something to solve a problem you’ve experienced yourself. That’s certainly been the case with Yellowikis!

At about the time the transwikis bot was developed, Paul noticed that his Yellowikis project was attracting the attention of management consultants from the Yellow Pages industry.  They all asked same questions: “who is funding Yellowikis?” And how Yellowikis plans to generate revenues?

Paul was taken aback by these comments, because Yellowikis (like a lot of Web 2.0 businesses) was developed very cheaply, uses open source technology and relies on word-of-mouth for marketing. This means Yellowikis "can do things that traditional Yellow Pages publishers can’t do" - for example adding a new language, Geo-codes, more categories.

So the low cost of running the business, together with ability to develop and release upgrades rapidly, means Yellowikis has some distinct advantages over its traditional Yellow Pages competitors. An advantage which has been rendered by Web 2.0.

Latest Apps and Businesses with Web 2.0

Finance

Google had announced that after more than a year of work on the problem, Google Finance is now offering real-time price quotes for any stock traded on NASDAQ.

According to a survey that revealed that 48% of online banking customers between the ages of 18 and 34 would be interested in using "secure gadgets for personal banking" if their bank offered them. More than a quarter of bank customers would consider switching to another bank if it took better advantage of web 2.0 technologies.

Accounting

Online Accounting: State of the Market: Accounting software for small business and personal use is increasingly moving from the desktop to online. However, compared to other office software, this transition to online has been relatively slow. Partly that's due to user reticence: writing a document online and sharing it with others (via Google Docs, Office Live, Zoho, or whatever you use) is one thing. Entering sensitive financial information into your browser is harder to adjust to. 

Some startups such as Freshbooks, Xero and Zoho are directly competing with the likes of Quicken, on purely accounting features - invoicing, payroll, expense tracking, etc. They all have impressive 'web 2.0' type designs, which make inputting data a pleasure (almost).Thus, online accounting could be the next big thing.

Project Management

Add this one to your web office toolkit - LiquidPlanner is an online, hosted project management tool that lets you access and update projects anywhere you have an internet connection. The service offers you and your team a complete project environment, social networking and collaboration features, and a probabilistic scheduling engine which tells you the probability of completing each task - and ultimately the entire project - by a certain date. With everything organized into a centralized dashboard that can be customized for each team member, everyone on your team can stay focused on their tasks and how they relate to the project as a whole. 

The online project management system Joint Contact has just been updated to allow its members to Twitter their project statuses and other project-related messages - a task normally relegated to email. But email isn't always the right tool for the job - Twittering is faster, simpler, and thanks the the 140-character limit, the messages stay short and to the point. Twitter is also available on a number of devices from computers to PDAs, but unlike email, Twitter also works over SMS, so even those team members without a data plan on their phone can receive Twitter messages about the project when they're away from their computer.

In the Joint Contact online software, project members can post entries from discussion groups directly into Twitter - the subject line of a discussion group doubles as a tweet. Members can also update their work status via Twitter, too.

Health Care

Health 2.0, web-based apps and services for the healthcare sector, is a nascent but potentially huge market for web 2.0. As of now, many of these apps have an emphasis on communication, information sharing and community. These are relatively easy things to address using Web tools. However we're starting to see health 2.0 apps try to tackle the enormous inefficiencies in the healthcare system .Also, in the longer term, we will see the Web being used in medical diagnosis and             practice.

 

Google announced the public availability of Google Health, after initially launching as a closed beta back in February. It is described as "a safe and secure way to collect, store, and manage [your] medical records and health information online" and is being positioned as a way for users to control their own medical records.

Human Resource Management

Traditional resumes are boring. They become stale and out-of-date, they can't really showcase your work or achievements, and they end up just sitting in the bottom of someone's inbox. A paper resume, while professional, doesn't really let an employer get to know you. Many sites are trying to solve the problems of traditional resumes by providing job seekers a new way to stand out in the crowd.

LinkedIn has an audience that is both younger (41 vs 48) and richer($106k vs $98K). LinkedIn was also naturally crowing about their growth (189% for year ending Oct. '07) and the chart from Nielsen which shows comparative Facebook growth at 125.

Marketing

Viral marketing, user-generated content, online buzz: over the past few years, these terms have been representative of a new way of marketing to consumers that takes advantage of the current popularity of the social web. This new technique involves companies encouraging its customers to create content of their own in order to generate interest in the company's brand. Unfortunately, one of the potential side effects of this strategy is the potential for negative buzz. Despite this fact, a surprisingly low percentage of marketers are monitoring for negative responses.

Using the new pilot program from a company called Involver, Kiva launched a video campaign on Facebook to draw users to their site to lend directly to these developing nations. The video even features a button that appears at the end of the video encouraging you to "lend" money

Mobile marketing startup, TextBound, has big plans to make text messages the new mass media for advertisers. Like we mentioned earlier, more and more companies are going to be betting on location based mobile ads this year, and TextBound hopes to capitalize on this trend. But unlike mobile social network/marketing vehicle, Fluc, TextBound isn't about connecting with your friends, it's about delivering ads to your cell phone via text message, then taking you to the mobile web for more details.

Widget platform Clearspring has an ad network that will allow widget publishers to monetize their widgets with advertising. The ads run inside widgets and come in a variety of formats. Clearspring has already inked deals with some of their largest widget publishers to run ads, including the NHL, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate Films, Blockbuster, and Virgin Mobile. 

Reference

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/businesses_cant_hide_from_20.php