Indestructible killer robots from the future! Population-decimating, bioengineered plagues! Crafty hackers control the Internet with a few keystrokes! Intelligent clouds of nano particles attack with malice! These, and similar depictions of technology in popular media, have engendered a significant fear of all things technical in the general populace. This fear has its basis in the unknown – if you do not understand the how or why, it’s easier to accept farfetched, inaccurate or exaggerated claims.
Welcome to the first Tech Corner column (written for my corporate quarterly newsletter) – a venue I will use to dispel some of the mystery associated with technology, as well as discussing solutions that are important to both the industry and to our customers. Within this small, confined space, I will endeavor to keep explanations simple and ensure that all acronyms (manna for both technologists and government organizations alike) are expanded and all terms are defined.
For this first column, I’ll discuss Web 2.0 technologies. The name infers that these technologies represent the second version of the World Wide Web (yes, the www in front of web site names does mean something!), and typically include chat, social networking, blogs, RSS, bookmark-sharing, and wikis. Each of the identified technologies includes aspects of collaboration and community, and almost all create searchable information stores.
Chat: everyone is probably at least aware of chat, also known as Instant Messaging (IM), if not a daily user. The typical IM clients are AIM (AOL Instant Messenger – bonus points for an acronym within an acronym! AOL is, of course, America On-Line), MSN (Microsoft Network) Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and ICQ (“I Seek You” – not really an acronym). CACI has a corporate IM product integrated with Lotus Notes called SameTime. The idea behind chat is to provide a desktop utility that shows which of your associates (friends, relatives, business contacts, etc.) is online (on the Internet, your corporate network, campus network, etc.), so that you can exchange short text messages with each other. In the case of Google Talk, the client is not a separate, standalone application; it is embedded within your browser. The networks are separate, however, so that an AIM user can’t send a message to a Yahoo Messenger user. However, there are new applications that can bridge all the IM networks (products like Trillian and Jabber), allowing you to send IM’s to any of your associates, no matter what network they’re on. Also, chat clients have recently evolved into more than just text messaging; some of the newer products allow you to make voice calls and video teleconferences all from the same interface.
Social Networking: The basis of this capability can be described by the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, which is a representation of the concept that there are six connections, at most, that separate any two individuals in the world. The following is a simple example linking Elvis Presley to Kevin Bacon:
- Elvis Presley was in Change of Habit (1969) with Edward Asner
- Edward Asner was in JFK (1991) with Kevin Bacon
Therefore Elvis Presley has a Bacon number of 2. This idea can be applied to any large, online network, where the social network allows introductions to individuals via common acquaintances. The most familiar social networks on the Internet are MySpace, FaceBook and Friendster. There is another example called LinkedIn, which is focused on professional business networks and associations. Take my LinkedIn space as a real example. I have 37 first level connections (people I personally know and trust. At the second level (those 37 individuals, plus all their first level connections), I currently have 8200+ connections. At the third level, the number jumps to an astronomical 765,800+ connections. This particular network can be used for business development, research, recruiting, and job searches. The value provided is trust – I’m more likely and/or comfortable doing business with someone I know or with someone that is trusted by someone I know.
Blogs: Short for Weblogs, they are an easy way for an individual to publish information and capture discussion threads on specific topics. Sites like blogger.com make it simple to create a blog and post information, using templates to personalize the look-and-feel. They integrate with other tools, like Picasa, to post images, and even have a toolbar that plugs in to Microsoft Word that allows you, with a click of a single button, to post your current document on your blog. You can also post content via e-mail or wirelessly via your phone. There is also an element of self-organization to blogs. Bloggers link to each other, creating an automatic rating system of content. The blogger with the most links to his or her site is deemed to have the most valuable or interesting content. In conjunction with this column, I have started a blog to simplify and encourage our collaboration: http://george-romas.blogspot.com.
RSS: This acronym is usually expanded to Really Simple Syndication. The technology allows you to subscribe to all manner of content - newsfeeds, blogs, etc. - that is delivered (pushed) to you in a variety of ways. You can view content within your browser, from within a dedicated client application, or from within your e-mail client. There are now several vendors offering Enterprise RSS solutions (the first was NewsGator). This server-based solution collects all RSS feeds at a single point, from which it can disseminate to subscribers across the enterprise. Dissemination can be to individuals, groups, or roles. In addition, the individual (based on permissions) can forward or republish content (from individual articles to entire feeds) back out to the populace - again, to individuals, groups, or roles.
Bookmark-sharing: The most well-known site providing a URL (Uniform Resource Locator)-sharing service is http://del.icio.us. Even worse than acronyms, technologists like to generate strange, incomprehensible names. Other bookmark-sharing sites include: digg, Fark, furl, Spurl, and blinkbits! To begin, you create a personal login/space on the site where you can post interesting bookmarks and share them with the public or specific individuals. The process works as follows: upon creating your space (e.g. http://del.icio.us/gromas), you install a plug-in to your browser. As you surf the Internet, you can post a bookmark by clicking a button on the menu bar. For each posting, you can provide a description and define your own keywords related to the content. At that point, you can also publish to the public or to certain individuals. The site keeps track of the most searched/visited bookmarks, and the "most popular" individuals (people that consistently bookmark the most interesting - visited - information). This provides a self-organizing capability similar to the one described above in blogs.
Wikis: The word “wiki” comes from Hawaiian and means “fast”. A wiki provides the next step of functionality beyond blogs. In addition to posting information, you can modify any content on the site. The most famous wiki is the Wikipedia, an Internet encyclopedia that is open to any individual to provide content, edit information, and post comments. Here, we encounter that phrase “self-organizing” again. There is no central authority to a wiki, no organization that decides which content stays and what goes. The participants all come to tacit agreement as to what content remains in the repository. Both blogs and wikis have made inroads into our customer spaces, with initiatives like the Intellipedia generating some buzz. The main difference is that content on the Wikipedia can be posted anonymously; the Intellipedia requires more stringent authentication processes and procedures.
Search: All the technologies discussed above, except for chat, contain a component of search. There are a number of companies in this space; the most recent Gartner conference placed the following companies in their Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Search: Convera RetrievalWare, Verity/Autonomy, and Endeca. Many of the companies in this market have adjunct desktop search products. Some (e.g. Google, AltaVista, Ask, AlltheWeb, etc.) license their core engines and/or appliances to other companies and web sites, for use “behind” the search box.
I hope that this introduction to Web 2.0 technologies has been helpful and that with this column, and its associated resources, we can discover, understand and discuss the leading edge. Please feel free to contact me, ask questions, suggest topics, and use the resources listed in this column.
Ever curious,
George
Contact: Email: gromas@caci.com
Blog: http://george-romas.blogspot.com
IM: george_romas@yahoo.com, george_romas@hotmail.com, georgeromas@aol.com
Resources: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com (Trillian)
http://www.linkedin.com
http://www.newsgator.com
http://del.icio.us/gromas
http://www.digg.com
http://www.blinkbits.com
http://www.wikipedia.com
http://www.autonomy.com
http://www.convera.com
http://www.endeca.com
