Generally, at the end of the year, predictions stream forth as to how this or that new technology will transform the world in the next 12 months. This article is a link collection to articles that try to do that.
2012 and the Technology Blahs article mentions few predictions: We will continue to see innovation around cost savings and information flow. There’s no stopping the momentum of consumerization of technology in 2012. Smartphone owners are increasingly paying a high price for free mobile applications, with 2012 set to be a disruptive year of widespread mobile hacking.
TechCrunch has an interesting predictions on how HTML5 and 2012 will change the web in The Definitive Guide To HTML5: 14 Predictions For 2012 article. Apart from making the whole web more interconnected between different websites, web browsers starting to look and behave more like iPad, complete with push notifications and geolocation, and HTML5 ads replacing majority of flash based ads, the article also predicts that browser makers will start to introduce App Stores within their browsers. In fact, Chrome already has one and Facebook will also get a lot more seamlessly integrated with your desktop. Marketing speak decoded:
“Push notifications” -> ads rammed up your ass
“Apps” for browsers -> pay per view content
“HTML5 ads” -> ads take over the whole screen.
“Facebook will be seamlessly integrated into the desktop” -> all your info belongs to us
If there is a way to exploit the consumer with technology, companies have ALWAYS done so. Everything you do, everything you see, everything you eat, every breath you take, every move you make… it’s worth something to someone and they will always do everything they can get away with to capitalize on it. The only areas which aren’t being exploited are either prohibited by law or new enough that they haven’t yet figured out how to best exploit.
Late-Stage Web Companies Took In The Largest Tech Investments Of 2011. Facebook Poised to Lead Biggest U.S. Internet IPO Year Since 1999 Bubble article says that Facebook Inc. and Yelp Inc. are set to lead the biggest year for U.S. initial public offerings by Internet companies since 1999. That would be the most since $18.5 billion of IPOs in 1999, just before the dot-com bubble burst. There are companies that would like to go public, but are waiting for the right market environment to do so. The IPO market in Europe is six months behind USA.
6 Game-Changing Digital Journalism Events of 2011 article tells that after an incredible year of news events and milestones, online journalism in 2012 has a tough act to follow. We can certainly expect more successes and more failures when it comes to business models and mobile strategies. News organizations will clamor to be the first on new social networks. 2012 is a year of very new games.
SOPA opponents may go nuclear and other 2012 predictions article tells to expect an article page blackout as a way to put “maximum pressure on the U.S. government” in response to SOPA. Technically speaking, it wouldn’t be difficult to pull off. Antitrust on the rise because it tends to be far cheaper to pay lobbyists to cripple your rival than compete in the marketplace. If 2011 was the Year of the Hackers, 2012 may be the Year the Hackers Upset the Political Establishment, especially ones supporting SOPA and similar legistlation. Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own communication satellites into orbit.
Click here to find out more! Study Predicts Growing Use Of Social Media In Healthcare article tells that men are more likely than women to turn to Facebook and other social networks for healthcare purposes. Facebook was the most popular site for people searching for healthcare information, followed by YouTube. Another study says that Facebook a Factor in a Third of UK Divorces. When they say cited, they mean just that: That something from Facebook was brought up in the courtroom.
The 5 Hardest Jobs to Fill in 2012 article tells that finding a talent is in short supply, especially in these five areas: Software Engineers and Web Developers, Creative Design and User Experience, Product Management, Marketing, Analytics.
Five Things You Should Stop Doing in 2012: Responding Like a Trained Monkey, Mindless Traditions, Reading Annoying Things, Work That’s Not Worth It and Making Things More Complicated Than They Should Be. Eliminating these five activities is likely to save hundreds of hours next year. What are you going to stop doing and how are you going to leverage all that extra time?
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Tomi says:
In mobile design, failure is inevitable, says Path’s Dave Morin
http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/10/path-ceo-dave-morin-speaks-on-design-and-bringing-the-future-to-the-world/
“True simplicity takes a lot of time. And in mobile that’s especially true.”
“The way you should think about mobile is that your first version’s probably going to fail,” Morin says.
“If I learned one thing working at Facebook: If users are trying to use your app in a certain way, get out of their way and let them.”
Tomi says:
Firefox Developer: ‘Everybody Hates Firefox Updates’
http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/07/firefox-developer-everybody-hates-firefox-updates/
Mozilla’s Jono DiCarlo has come out to say what many a Firefox user has long been thinking: the rapid release cycle is killing Firefox.
The problem isn’t the updates necessarily — security updates, bug fixes and support for new web standards are all necessary, even welcome, things — it’s the way that Mozilla has handled them, using intrusive dialogs that interrupt work and cause frustration, that sends users to other browsers.
DiCarlo also calls out Mozilla’s user interface designers, arguing that using the rapid release cycle to constantly change Firefox’s interface compounds the problem and user frustration.
Tomi says:
Flash Update Causing Problems for Firefox Fans
http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/06/flash-update-causing-problems-for-firefox-fans/
Last week Adobe released Flash Player 11.3, with support for secure sandboxing in Firefox. Flash’s near ubiquity makes it a popular target for web-based attacks, but the new sandboxing means that even when such attacks succeed the damage is limited and won’t spill over into the rest of the browser or even the operating system.
Unfortunately for some Firefox fans, the Flash 11.3 update has also caused numerous problems.
The problem is widespread enough that Mozilla has addressed it directly, telling users that the company is working with Adobe to fix it.
Mozilla’s suggestion is to “uninstall Flash 11.3 and downgrade to Flash 11.2.”
Flash 11.3 doesn’t load video in Firefox
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/flash-113-doesnt-load-video-firefox
Flash videos or games on sites like Facebook or YouTube may appear, black, white or grey and never play. We’ll show some possible fixes.
Flash 11.3 crashes
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/flash-113-crashes
Adobe has recently updated Flash to version 11.3. Some users have reported that this version of Flash is crashing more frequently than previous versions of Flash. If you are experiencing excess crashes, please downgrade to Flash 10.3 or Flash 11.2.
Archived Flash Player versions
http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html
Tomi says:
Building the search engine of the future, one baby step at a time
http://googleblog.blogspot.fi/2012/08/building-search-engine-of-future-one.html
Tomi says:
Scrum/Agile Now Used To Manage Non-Tech Projects
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/08/10/0210223/scrumagile-now-used-to-manage-non-tech-projects
“Agile and, in particular, Scrum, have been popular project management methods for software development for more than a decade, and now its use is spreading well beyond software. For example, NPR is using Agile for faster, cheaper development of new radio programs.”
Tomi says:
Piracy witch hunt downs legit e-book lending Web site
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57489696-93/piracy-witch-hunt-downs-legit-e-book-lending-web-site/
Several authors on Twitter mistook an e-book lending Web site for a piracy hub, a mistake that eventually took the site offline. As the dust settles, a disturbing picture of file-sharing hysteria emerges.
On August 1, a vitriolic, hysterical mob of authors mistook e-book lending Web site Lendink for a piracy clearinghouse, rallying a terribly mistaken call to action.
The site remains offline today as details emerge revealing just how wrong these authors were — and how unrepentant some of them still are.
Lendink was a hobby site put together by disabled army vet Dale Porter, who created a person-to-person e-mail request system where e-book fans could find out about lend-enabled books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and contact each other to arrange loans on titles they wanted to read.
An ugly, clumsy mob
It started when one person took a cursory look at Lendink and thought the site was giving books away for free — and told as many authors as possible that it was a piracy site, and everyone’s work was listed on it.
What’s worse is that when blogs such as Techdirt began to reveal the truth, the most vocal witch hunt proponents admitted no mistake and made no apologies.
So far, one of the angry authors has admitted the mistake and apologized.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Crazy things you never expect
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/analog-ic-startup/4391982/Crazy-things-you-never-expect?cid=EDNToday
We’ve had people try to steal our business plan and attempt all sorts of other crazy things, but the craziest, most amusing, and most surprising schemes of all are the “60 Minutes”-like TV shows that claim they will promote your company to “millions” of people, in return for a fee to cover their expenses. This has happened not once, not twice, but four times.
Many of the shows have famous or pseudo-famous hosts.
The production is nicely done, but will your message really get to “millions of viewers?” Based on the YouTube numbers, the more likely audience will number in the hundreds.
Comment:
SMART…
This blog has exposed Touchstone Semiconductor to way more of the appropriate audience than “Moving America Forward” ever would have, and Touchstone saved $11,000.
Anyone heard of the “Red Dot” design awards? One of our company’s product won a “Red dot” award (look it up – it’s a German organization). When we contacted them about it, it came down to “X thousand Euro to use the Red Dot label on your product packaging, Y thousand Euro for your product to be featured in our yearbook” . etc. We told them to get stuffed.
You’ve probably also encountered the electronic/print magazine equivalent of this pitch. Just to enlighten your readers, these are the “prestigious title” publications that will create a very positive feature story about your company at no cost to you. They will, however, ask for a list of contacts at all of your supplier companies. Before publishing, they will full court press the contacts to buy advertising around your feature story. Whether TV or words only, the only purpose served here is the vanity of the unwitting company executives.
Tomi Engdahl says:
WebRTC is almost here, and it will change the web
http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/13/webrtc-is-almost-here-and-it-will-change-the-web/
Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) is a new HTML5 standard framework that enables the sharing of video, audio, and data directly between web browsers. These capabilities open the door to a new wave of advanced web applications.
If all goes according to plan, over 50% of all web browsers will support this capability in the next three to four months.
This is the most significant step forward in web browser connectivity since 2004, when Google launched Gmail and AJAX was coined.
While HTML5 has already brought many new capabilities to the web, it is WebRTC that will spark the most innovation. The ability to directly connect to other web browser opens a new world of possibilities for web developers, enabling new types of applications in telecommunications, gaming, and any other field involving direct user-to-user interaction.
Today, direct communication between browsers is possible only with third-party plugin software and significant proprietary server infrastructure.
Through an open standards approach, WebRTC integrates browser-to-browser communications directly into the fabric of the Internet. This opens many new possibilities such as:
Rich image and video apps on mobile browsers (e.g. Instagram or Skype in the browser)
Citizen journalists could stream breaking news directly from their phones to news outlets
Web sites could add live support and feedback through one line of code
Effortless file distribution (e.g. Napster) without software.
Sharing live audio, video, and data will be as simple as viewing a web page.
Developers will be able to add these features with relative ease.
WebRTC will cause major disruption to the billion dollar markets of video conferencing and Internet telephony. You will no longer need Skype on your desktop or smartphone, nor will you need a complex Webex or a Telepresence system. Skype, Cisco, and Polycom will all see their conferencing technology commoditized.
http://www.webrtc.org/
WebRTC is a free, open project that enables web browsers with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple Javascript APIs. The WebRTC components have been optimized to best serve this purpose. This website is owned and driven by Chrome’s WebRTC team.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inside the Real Economy Behind Fake Twitter Followers
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/08/14/1851243/inside-the-real-economy-behind-fake-twitter-followers
“People continue to pay money for Twitter followers, and, naturally, a deep network of developers and merchants has arisen to feed the market.”
“the going rate is 1,000 followers for a minimum of $18″
“Keep in mind that very little of this work is manual; the dealers could easily control a system of botnets and set up a few software tools to automate much of the process.”
“pool of information can then be automatically ported into accounts based on an algorithm that automates the registration process on a massive scale.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Welcome To The New Internet: Simple Design, Short Names, No Ads
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/welcome-to-the-new-internet-heres-what-it-looks
A flood of minimalist sites and services hints at a stripped down future for the internet. Web 4.0 doesn’t have any ads.
In recent months, at least four of the most interesting new startups have been launched to, in some way, replace the internet. Not add to it, or change some part. These sites want to fix the whole thing: to remake comments, content, and updates with little to no encumbrance from the current web.
Most notably, perhaps, they’re free of ads. This isn’t at all unusual for a launch product; most of the major sites we use today, such as Facebook and Twitter, started without ads. But these sites seem intrinsically and even philosophically opposed to advertising.
So this is one, if not the, vision for the future of the internet, and a lot of people are dedicated to making it catch on. It’s an internet where every blog is Daring Fireball, where every post looks like Instapaper, where every discussion is led by its rightful leaders, and where ads are considered no better than spam. It’s barren but design-forward, and, at least at the moment, kind of elitist. It’s not clear how it’ll make money. Maybe it won’t! Maybe that’s part of the idea.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fair during the year has seen a number of social web services, listings, a new Web bubble atmosphere. Bubble has been replaced by a collapse in addition to Facebook, for example Grouponin and Zyngan case. The shares purchased may be massive losses.
The most prominent example of a community services bubble is on Facebook.
Also Grouponin and Zyngan listings went bubble atmosphere.
There are also opposite examples: LinkeIn and Yelp
Source: http://www.tietokone.fi/uutiset/uusi_nettikupla_romahtanut_facebook_ei_ainoa
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter’s New API Rules Likely Spell the End of Third-Party Clients
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/twitters-new-api/
On Thursday, in a new post from Sippey, Twitter clarified its position and announced a new version of its API. The latest version requires anyone using the Twitter API to be authenticated, institutes a rate limiting feature, and makes big changes to the ways developers can use Twitter’s data. Tweets must now be displayed in a manner consistent with Twitter’s rules, otherwise Twitter can revoke a developer’s API keys. Twitter clients that come pre-installed on phones and chipsets will now have to be explicitly approved by Twitter — or no API for you. Perhaps most significantly, the new API limits user tokens.
“We will require you to work with us directly if you believe your application will need more than one million individual user tokens,” writes Sippey. Companies building traditional third-party Twitter clients will face an even more austere limit
And like that, twitter starts dying.
Wow the writing is clear.. Twitter is using its developer base to farm for montization ideas which it will ursurp when it’s convenient for them to do so, thus the no-compete cause and 100k user caps to prevent 3rd party apps from becoming too popular, really slimy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HTML5 Splits Into Two Standards
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/07/21/2040257/html5-splits-into-two-standards?sdsrc=popbyskidbtmprev
“Until now the two standards bodies working on HTML5 (WHATWG and W3C) have cooperated. An announcement by WHATWG makes it clear that this is no longer true.”
“WHATWG is going to work on a living standard for HTML which will continue to evolve as more technologies are added. W3C is going the traditional and much more time consuming route of creating a traditional standard which WHATWG refers to as a ‘snapshot’ of their living standard.”
Whatever happens, the future has just become more complicated — now you have to ask yourself ‘Which HTML5?
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Hire a Social Media Specialist
http://www.cio.com/article/713081/How_to_Hire_a_Social_Media_Specialist?taxonomyId=3123
As more businesses rely on Facebook and Twitter for marketing, social media jobs are booming. But given how new it is, how can you be sure you’re hiring the right people? Here’s a look at the social media specialist role and what you should expect regarding skills, experience, responsibilities and salary.
“Anyone can build a Facebook page, but it doesn’t mean it’s successful. These people go deeper and rely on analytics to run good campaigns, tying it all back to ROI,” says Gina Oliveri, senior consultant with executive staffing firm Bowdoin Group.
Social media specialists are responsible for generating and maintaining a presence on social media sites, such as Facebook or Twitter, as well building an audience through campaigns, ads and updates, Oliveri says.
Just as important as the campaigns they run are the data points they derive. Social media specialists are often tasked with making the connection between statistics and how they translate to a campaign’s success, branding and, of course, money.
Social media specialists should have a deep and personal familiarity with the two big social networks: Facebook and Twitter. But beyond that, they should have knowledge of other social networking platforms, such as Foursquare, Digg and Stumbleupon, Oliveri says.
It’s also important that candidates understand the business’s audience
Lastly, data analytics skills are becoming more necessary.
Generally, Oliveri says, social media specialists should expect to be paid around $55,000 for an entry-level position all the way up to low six-figures for a more experienced managerial position at a large company.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Journalists Dancing on the Edge of Truth
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/business/media/journalists-plagiarism-jonah-lehrer-fareed-zakaria.html?pagewanted=all
in the main — columnists are in part human aggregators — everything written here reflects something that came before it.
So does that make me a thief, or a journalist?
It all comes down to execution. If I attribute the reporting of others and manage to steer clear of proprietary intellectual property while making a cogent argument, then I can live to write another day.
If, on the other hand, I manufacture or manipulate quotes or fail to process the work of others through my own thinking and writing, then the Web — a crowd-sourced scrutiny machine — will find me out.
Columns, even reported ones, as this aspires to be, pivot on ideas rather than news. Once spilled, news quickly becomes a commodity, so ideas — shimmering intellectual scoops — have very high value.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Network service design should not be done by information management alone. Communication, marketing, development unit, customer support and logistics responsible persons must be involved in the process.
Amazon and companies like Facebook have demonstrated a model of how the network must be developed continuously in time. Therefore, the maintenance should be easy, and it must not be a question of resources.
“Unfortunately, the old technology prevents flexible service for many companies”
“The experience leaves a memory trace, that is why it is a big factor in the competition”
The competition has become so fierce that the user experience is a forced bet.
One trend is mosaics.
“All of this is a consequence of the fact that there is a database with a huge array of sources based on text and pictures, and that it must be good to try to present a spectacular way. Mosaic structure is a means of displaying as many things at the same time, in a clear way”
“The big players are activated only in the last few years but now are investing a lot of time and money for their services online”
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/cio/pitaisiko+itosaston+suunnitella+verkkopalvelut/a810741
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile’s not the next big thing, just a path to it
http://buzzmachine.com/2012/08/15/mobiles-not-the-next-big-thing-just-a-path-to-it/
Saying that mobile is what comes next means, I fear, that we’re going to take what we do in media — making content, selling audiences — and figure out how to keep doing it on video, in social, and in mobile.
Is Google just doing mobile next?
For Google, mobile is a tool, a path to improve its real business.
What is its real business? The same as media’s business should be: Relationships — knowing people and serving them better because of what it knows about them.
We in news and media should bring those strands together to knit a mobile strategy around learning about people and serving them better as a result — not just serving content on smaller screens. Mobile=local=me now. We should build a strategy on people over content, on relationships.
That’s what mobile means to me: a path to get us to the real value in our business.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Economic research has investigated what the Finns have the corporate network communications. Is boring, say the defendants.
Problems: too much like advertisement and commercialism and the ambiguous expression. The most critical are heavy consumers of the Internet, less than 25 years of age.
Every other person tells that they would like the companies to be involved in social media. Many follow companies in Facebook.
On the other hand, only one percent of the respondents believe that the mere presence in social media enough, so the traditional website is still in its own important role.
Source: http://www.tietokone.fi/uutiset/suomalaisyritykset_tylsia_verkossa
Tomi Engdahl says:
Plagiarism, defamation and the power of hyperlinks
http://gigaom.com/2012/08/20/plagiarism-defamation-and-the-power-of-hyperlinks/
If Fareed Zakaria and Jonah Lehrer had spent more time linking to the original sources of content they used in their writing, they wouldn’t have faced accusations of plagiarism. Their cases and a recent defamation lawsuit against Gawker Media help reinforce the value of the hyperlink.
Plagiarism is defined as the attempt to “steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own,” and it is the last part of that definition that is the most important one. It isn’t so much that a writer like Lehrer or Zakaria takes information from someone else and uses it in a column — plenty of writers do that, and as the media world has exploded thanks to social tools such as blogs and Twitter, this phenomenon has only become more commonplace. But neither of them gave credit to the source of the content they used, and that was the real crime.
This is exactly the same kind of argument that gets made about news aggregators or blogs that do a poor job of crediting the source of the content they are aggregating.
If either Zakaria or Lehrer had been more devoted to the idea of linking to sources, they might have spent more time making note of where the information they were using came from, so that they could include a link — in the same way that academics routinely cite footnotes to back up their claims.
And if anyone needs evidence of how a consistent policy of linking to sources can be a positive thing, they should look no further than the Gawker case: the blog network was sued by a company for defamation, based on a piece that the tech blog Gizmodo wrote about its products.
As the court decision put it:
“Having ready access to the same facts as the authors, readers were put in a position to draw their own conclusions about Redmond and his ventures and technologies… Statements are generally considered to be nonactionable opinion when the facts supporting the opinion are disclosed.”
“Objectivity is a trust mechanism you rely on when your medium can’t do links.” In other words, when you have the ability to link to information that supports your conclusions, it’s easier to get away with being subjective, because readers are able to follow the links and decide for themselves whether you are credible.
Tomi Engdahl says:
German publishers in online copyright fight
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/08/20128207532338270.html
Activists, bloggers and Google oppose a draft law that would charge licensing fees to link to copyrighted content.
some of Germany’s biggest publishing firms are now pushing for a “neighbouring right” which could fundamentally alter how their content can be shared and accessed online.
Two successive draft amendments to the federal Copyright Law prepared by Germany’s coalition government are under consideration. The first draft, released in June, proposes wide-ranging restrictions on how individuals and organisations can link to copyrighted material if they are deemed to be using the content for “commercial purposes”. The major publishing houses say they should be able to charge a licence fee for the reproduction of their material on other sites – including the headline and opening sentences that are currently deemed to be in the public domain under copyright law.
Internet search firm Google is one of the firms that would be required to pay a licence in order to list mere snippets of published content. Under the proposals Google would face a huge rise in costs to run its news service in Germany, which allows users to see news stories aggregated by subject. The company argues that a neighbouring right would have dire implications for internet freedoms.
“We fear that such a regulation would slow down the development of the internet because it creates additional costs and leads to inefficiencies,” a Google spokesman told Al Jazeera.
Google argues that it acts as an enabler, with its news service helping drive users to the very websites that hold the original copyrighted content. It says it registers about 100,000 clicks to news websites across the world every minute. But the major German publishers insist that licencing fees collected under a neighbouring right would safeguard their existing content while allowing them to make fresh investments in journalism.
Digital rights experts say the publishers are seeing the search engine companies make huge amounts from online advertising and want to benefit from their profits because they lack a strategy to make money themselves.
“They see someone making money from the internet and they don’t have an idea themselves – so let’s get money from the search engines. Simple as that,” says Dr Till Kreutzer, a copyright expert at the Bureau for Information Law Expertise.
“There is a question on whether this could be justified in a free market. The market for journalistic content – both online and offline – is changing, so the press publishers need to find new business models. To say that we need something like a tax that is only gathered from the richest members of the media markets – in this case the search engines – is really queer.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
If Google have to pay to index their sites, the news sites are the ones missing out. Unless Google are force to index them and also forced to pay, but that would in essence be a tax against a single company.
Source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/08/21/014218/german-government-wants-google-to-pay-for-the-right-to-link-to-news-sites
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Digg Vs. Reddit Vs. BuzzFeed: Your Mind On Viral Content
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/19/new-digg-vs-reddit-vs-buzzfeed-your-mind-on-viral-content/
-When democracy rules, as in Reddit and Digg, (where all content is ranked by vote), viewers minds’ are filled with international news, heavily biased social commentary (feminist, pro-gay marriage), and geek pride. When Buzzfeed’s editorial eyes cover the Internet, cute animal pics, celebrity gossip, and political horse-race stories rule the front page.
-Reddit prefers to tell major stories from a first-person perspective.
-The new Digg is like a geek filter for Google News: the most intriguing tech and science stories from established media outlets, from Scientific American to CNN.
Fortunately, each site has its own breed of addicting material. Besides, what else are you going to do while at the office…work?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Groupon is not a tech company. Why was it valued like one?
http://gigaom.com/2012/08/20/groupon-is-not-a-tech-company-why-was-it-valued-like-one/
Groupon isn’t the only company that uses technology but isn’t really a technology company, nonetheless enjoying investors’ decision to value it as a technology company. Just because a company uses the web and uses social networks (instead of real estate and old media) to sell things and find new audiences doesn’t mean that it should be put in the same bucket as, say, a company offering storage services to large companies, or even running world’s biggest social identity platform.
Andreessen once famously said that software will eat everything. I totally agree — but that also means that the software should make things more efficient. That makes the companies that are using software to replace the physical infrastructure (and its limitations) more profitable.
Yes, the Internet, mobile devices and social networks make it easy for these companies to grow their businesses — really really fast — but at the end of the day, if you are selling shoes, you are selling shoes.
However, we continue to see the online-equivalents of retailers and fashion brands being accorded valuations typically reserved for high-growth technology companies. How is a company selling subscription for shoes or underwear a technology company?
Groupon is a rude reminder of that reality.
The fact is that the very idea of what is a technology company is starting to morph. The traditional tools of valuing technology startups might not be applicable to companies like Groupon, which are like shooting stars – they grow fast and they fade faster. It means, the venture investors have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to value the online equivalents of old-line businesses.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tech Confessional: The Googler Who Looked At The Worst Of The Internet
http://www.buzzfeed.com/reyhan/tech-confessional-the-googler-who-looks-at-the-wo
Sitting in the sun at a tech company cafeteria, this former Google worker described a year spent immersed in some of the darkest content available on the Internet. His role at the tech company mainly consisted of reviewing things like bestiality, necrophilia, body mutilations, explicit fetishes and child pornography found across all Google products
Child porn is the biggest thing for internet companies. By law you have to take it down in 24 hours upon notice and report it to federal authorities. No one wanted to do it within Google.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Launches Octane: A New JavaScript Benchmark Based On Popular Apps And Libraries
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/21/google-octane-benchmark/
Google’s Chrome team just launched Octane, a new JavaScript benchmark suite that aims to measure real-world performance. Unlike most other benchmarks, which tend to use artificial tests developed to stress a certain feature, Octane is based upon a set of well-known web applications and libraries. This means, says Google, “a high score in the new benchmark directly translates to better and smoother performance in similar web applications.”
At its core, Octane is an extension of Google’s existing V8 benchmark suite and includes all of its predecessor’s tests.
With Kraken, Mozilla also offers a benchmark that aims to measure real-world browser performance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sex rating Facebook page publishers jailed
‘Root rates’ deemed offensive by Australian court
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/21/offensive_facebook_page_leads_to_jail/
Two men who erected a Facebook page which allowed users to rate the sexual prowess of women have been jailed.
The page in question was called “Bendaz Root Rate”.
The Bendigo Magistrate’s Court today deemed the content fell under the provisions of Australia’s Criminal Code that prohibit using a carriage service to offend, or publishing offensive material on an information network.
Social media commentators say the incident highlights the need for young people to take care what they do online. Others have wondered if there’s a freedom of speech aspect to the case.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google lashes out at German copyright ‘threat’
http://gigaom.com/europe/google-lashes-out-at-german-copyright-threat/
The company doesn’t think it’s a great idea for search engines to have to pay to reproduce headlines and story summaries in their results. But that’s nothing on the crazy earlier draft of this proposed law.
Google’s North Europe communications chief, Kay Oberbeck, sounded off about the issue this morning in a guest post for a German press agency. That was in German, of course, so I got him to vent in English as well:
“Nobody sees a real reason why this should be implemented,” he said. “It’s really harmful, not just for users who wouldn’t find as much information as they find now, but such a law is also not justified for economic reasons or judicial reasons.”
To appreciate the full absurdity of the situation, we should take in a little history.
The German publishing houses, particularly Axel Springer, are very powerful in their country, with relatively strong influence in government circles. As Matthias Spielkamp of the copyright news site iRights put it to me:
“If you look at the U.S., if print houses there want something, they are up against American companies like Google and Yahoo. Here we have local publishers that are enormously powerful and are trying to target U.S. companies. I wouldn’t say it’s anti-American – it’s just that German politicians are much more inclined to protect German publishers’ interests when balancing that with a [foreign] company or industry.”
The government was calling for a form of ‘ancillary copyright’ to be brought in, that would force companies to pay publishers license fees for using their work in a commercial setting. As in, employers would have to pay up for letting their employees read the news online at work.
So now Google is furious for being picked on, when it actually drives traffic to the publishers.
The German publishing giants are big enough to compete in the real world. Sure, it’s tough monetizing free web content. But cooking up hokey and self-defeating new copyright laws is a pretty shabby way to go about it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
9 Brands Doing It Right on Twitter
http://saydaily.com/2012/08/9-brands-doing-it-right-on-twitter.html
When it comes to brands on Twitter, we believe that like all good media, it’s about the right mix of content, conversation, and authenticity. In a time when social media is inundated with companies who want to be heard through the noise, it can be difficult to engage with customers without overwhelming them.
A lot of brands are still struggling to figure out how to make Twitter work effectively for them, but a few have really impressed us.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Experts begin to write blog content and to participate in online discussions with company representatives the company’s business district fora, such as LinkedIn groups. Communications Department, of course, supported by the text through the ongoing monitoring and discussion, and it is responsible for the company’s official channels, but it is no longer able to control every message. Depending on the content can not be recycled through the media, so that it does not become a bottleneck, but experts must learn to slowly stand up to the network independently.
Source: http://intosome.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/kontrolloinnista-coachaamiseen-viestinnan-ammattilaisten-rooli-murroksessa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Google Went From Search Engine To Content Destination
http://marketingland.com/how-google-went-from-search-engine-to-content-destination-19272
How did we get from Google being a search engine that pointed to things, like travel guides or gift cards sold by other companies, to being a content company? It’s a position that more than ever before makes it hard for Google to assure other companies that it won’t play favorites with its search listings.
Google still has a search engine, of course. But the company itself is far beyond that.
Is it the official mission statement?
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
If so, that tells consumers nothing. How about I try to summarize it by listing all the things that just pop into my head. Let’s go:
Google is a search engine and a social network and a mobile operating system and mobile phones called Nexus and a tablet called Nexus and a place you can buy content like books and games and videos called Google Play and a travel guide and a restaurant guide and a place you can write blog posts and a place you can watch videos on YouTube and a web browser and a way to place ads all over the web and where you can get offers or you can use your phone as a credit card and much more.
That’s not very helpful, either.
Google The Content Company
Google’s been more than a search engine for years, but I have never have I seen it so aggressively grow its content offerings as has happened over the past year.
The creation of Google Play as Google’s content store in March was Google fully embracing its new role as content provider
Google as a publisher and content broker raises a number of issues.
Tomi Engdahl says:
As more newspapers roll out metered paywalls and subscription plans, trying to duplicate the success of the New York Times, some journalists hope that being funded by readers will help stop the ad-driven pageview race and save quality journalism. But this argument is fundamentally flawed.
Source:
http://gigaom.com/2012/08/22/no-metered-content-walls-wont-save-journalism/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Russia’s Former KGB Invests In Political Propaganda Spambots
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/08/27/0555219/russias-former-kgb-invests-in-political-propaganda-spambots
“The newspaper Kommersant [Google translation] reports that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (formerly part of the KGB) has invested 30 million roubles (USD $940,000) on ‘blog and social network intelligence’ programs.”
‘launching massive pro-Kremlin astroturfing propaganda spambots in order to stifle and undermine political dissent.’
“But hey, now you can accuse anyone you disagree with online of being a ‘KGB bot’!”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The internet startup model is broken and how to fix it
http://blog.julieng.me/post/30379283972/the-internet-startup-model-is-broken-and-how-to-fix-it
The market for internet companies is broken. We cannot continue starting companies with millions in venture capital and no business model from day one that generates revenue, and more importantly profit.
Companies are willing to pay boatloads for great designers and developers in part because they believe we will make the difference and help them become the next Apple or Google. When that bubble pops, many of our salaries may also pop.
Big leads to big costs, not big profits
We often talk about how cheap and easy it is to start an internet company today thanks to software as a service (SaaS) companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS). Many dev tutorial site talks you through building a twitter clone. But while it is easy to build the functionality, the behind-the-scenes infrastructure costs to receive and store terabytes1 of data every day is not cheap. So building Twitter skeleton functionality is cheap. But running Twitter, supporting millions of users while making sure it loads fast, is not.
Be real and be profitable from day one.
Support Instapaper and Cheddar
Especially if you are a designer or a developer, support Instapaper, Cheddar and any other service that you find useful and sustainable. These applications offer products and services at a reasonable prices and costs. You are not supporting outside investors or bloated marketing teams. You’re supporting real web workers, real designers and developers like yourself.
Tomi Engdahl says:
When Chief Executives Share Company News on Facebook
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/when-chief-executives-share-company-news-on-facebook/
RealNetworks, an online media pioneer that is trying to turn itself around, told employees on Tuesday that it would lay off 14 percent of them, or about 160 people over the next seven months, starting with 80 right away. Instead of trying to keep his e-mail to the staff a secret, though, Rob Glaser, the founder of RealNetworks and its interim chief executive, cut and pasted it onto his Facebook page.
RealNetworks made the layoffs public through filings with securities regulators, but the e-mail Mr. Glaser shared online provided a clearer window into the emotional impact of the layoffs.
In a short e-mail in response to a question about the Facebook posts, Mr. Glaser said he was limiting them to major companywide e-mail messages.
Mr. Glaser isn’t the only executive to turn to Facebook to share news. In July, Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive, posted a message on his page congratulating
The post by Mr. Hastings raised eyebrows at the time because of regulatory rules that prohibit selective disclosure of sensitive company information.
At least Mr. Hastings could argue that he did not limit the news to his circle of Facebook friends. The message was made public for anyone on the social network to see.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How online reviews are crucial to a restaurant’s takings
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/sep/02/ratings-boost-restaurants
It is something every restaurateur and hotel owner knows: good reviews boost takings while terrible ones can close you down. And, in an age when everyone can be an online critic, ratings have never been more important. But until now no one could be sure just how important the online star ratings system employed by sites such as Toptable and Tripadvisor could be for a business’s fortunes.
US economists find that when a restaurant rating improved by just half a star it was very much more likely to be full at peak dining times
Indeed, an extra half-star rating caused a restaurant’s 7pm bookings to sell out on from 30% to 49% of the evenings it was open for business.
Significantly, the two economists found that the increase in trade happened without any change in prices or the quality of food and service, confirming that it was the reviews that brought in the new customers.
The economists write: “The findings of this study demonstrate that – although social media sites and forums may not generate the financial returns for which investors yearn – they play an increasingly important role in how consumers judge the quality of goods and services.”
Concerns that retailers and restaurant owners are seeking to manipulate the online ratings system are becoming a key issue for the internet.
“Everyone’s trying to do something to make themselves look better,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
When did addiction become a good thing?
http://gigaom.com/2012/09/02/when-did-addiction-become-a-good-thing/
Tech companies have become increasingly adept at manufacturing desire, but to what end? Behavior designer Jason Hreha argues that the industry needs to seriously consider the impact of its products. Are we helping our users lead better lives, or are we making them compulsive, impatient and distractible?
As members of the tech industry, we need to ask serious questions about the behaviors that we are promoting. Are we really helping people live better lives? Or, are we promoting suboptimal habits and aptitudes? At best, many of the products we’re building are time wasters.
At worst, they’re the addictive equivalents of cigarettes — irresistible cheap thrills that feel good in the moment, but are destructive in the long run. “Addictive” products are rampant in our lives — Facebook, Farmville (or any Zynga game), Twitter, Pinterest. The list goes on and on.
With Web products, the general assumption is that user attention can eventually be turned into money, so revenue models are often postponed. In this paradigm, success is measured in terms of user acquisition and retention. The more users you have, and the more time they spend on the site, the better. Designers of these products have learned to manufacture desire — and they’ve gotten really good at it.
I believe that the purpose of technology is to take over the grating, tedious tasks that we have had to put up with for so long, so that we can live fuller, more interesting lives. In short, technology allows us to be even more human by becoming less mechanistic.
Tomi says:
Nordic Survey respondents:
46 percent reported doing a web search based on friends testimonial
42 per cent search based information in newspapers and magazines
36 per cent of TV ads
Direct and banner advertising are both about 20 percent
44 per cent of the respondents surf the internet from your smartphone, and 16 percent of the tablet.
Google is absolute leader in search engines in Nordic countries (89 per cent use it)
According to the study the use of search engines to smartphones this year almost tripled compared to last year.
Finnish smartphone owners as much as 73 percent use search engine with a smart phone.
38 percent of consumers will read up to four search results, and 30 per cent of a maximum of six search result, before you make a new search.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/yllattava+keino+poikii+nettihakuja+yrityksesta/a835017?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-04092012&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Research: A Finnish consumer does not share their knowledge in social media
Finnish digital consumers do not want to share personal information with others, shows a consulting company Capgemini broad international research.
only 29 per cent of Finnish welcomes the sharing of information, while the international average is 47 percent.
Finnish e-commerce customers are also no less of a tendency to share their experiences with other online buyers than the rest of the world. Finns do not believe as easily in blogs and peer-experience products.
Source: http://www.hs.fi/talous/Tutkimus+Suomalainen+ei+jaa+tietojaan+sosiaalisessa+mediassa/a1305597406515
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is the generational gap between the modes of communication?
The generation gap is clearly reflected in the ways of communication and culture.
Making a phone call and e-mail are no longer appears to belong to the communication between young people, and text messages are becoming a rare boxed.
The majority of older people to communicate even in so-called traditional instruments, while the youth to use social media and instant messaging applications. Middle-aged try to hold on between emails and text messages.
How to manage a number of parallel media, such as e-mail addresses with several, different types of social media and instant messaging services so that all currently relevant messages filters down to the flood of information from the crowd?
Change control is not possible, and IT management’s role is to take advantage of opportunities opened up by technology, but also to manage the associated risks.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/cio/blogit/ict_standard_forum/onko+sukupolvien+viestintatapojen+valilla+kuilu/a836946?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-10092012&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slowly functional website to expel customers
If you are selling something online, you need to make sure that your website runs smoothly. Website is a reason to act quickly, especially if customers are likely to use the tablet PC, it turns out IT company Compuware report.
“A lot of websites and online stores do not meet the requirements of users put their performance,”
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/hitaasti+toimiva+sivusto+karkottaa+asiakkaat/a837117?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-10092012&
Tomi Engdahl says:
As Students Scatter Online, Colleges Try to Keep Up
http://chronicle.com/article/Digitally-Savvy-Students-Play/134224/
she likes a message short and sweet. Ideally it would pop up on her cellphone as a tweet or a post on Facebook.
A classmate, Tyler Mathews, would rather be reached by e-mail, which these days is seen as the old-fashioned way
While e-mail remains the official method of communication on most campuses, colleges are expanding their presence in the virtual world, trying to reach students where they hang out. But without careful planning, that can lead to a scattershot approach as new platforms keep popping up and students’ attention becomes increasingly dispersed.
“If students get the same message on five different sites, they’ll be annoyed and frustrated,”
Colleges that plunge into social media without adequately consulting students often find themselves flailing.
“People tend to fall in love with the shiny new tool rather than talking to their students directly and finding out where they are,” says Eric Stoller, a consultant who advises colleges and universities on their use of social media. “Everybody’s looking for a silver bullet. They want it to be Facebook or Twitter or a blog or Pinterest.”
Despite its limitations, most colleges still rely on e-mail as the default method of communication, typically assigning every incoming student a college e-mail address with a reminder to check it at least once a week. Students who prefer to keep their personal e-mail addresses can have their college e-mails forwarded there.
Still, in an era when many students view e-mail as too cumbersome or old-school, plenty of important messages slip through the cracks.
“Students might check on that e-mail communication from the university once or twice a week, and by that time there might be 200 messages,” Mr. Stoller says. “We let too many people go to the well with e-mails that aren’t targeted to a particular group.”
For students who are constantly checking in with their smartphones, text messages can be an efficient and effective way to communicate. But while many students’ cellphone plans cover unlimited texts, others charge for each incoming message, making texting an impractical tool for regular campuswide use.
Frostburg State has tried to slow down the e-mail traffic by compiling routine announcements into twice-weekly newsletters.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Infographic: The Astounding Power Of Pinterest
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670750/infographic-the-astounding-power-of-pinterest#1
Pinterest has seen so much explosive growth that the natural question is: What next? Pay attention to the data, and you might be able to guess.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Journalism’s Summer of Sin marked by plagiarism, fabrication, obfuscation
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/regret-the-error/187335/journalisms-summer-of-sin-calls-for-leadership-transparency/
Fall will mark the end of journalism’s Summer of Sin, when a cavalcade of plagiarism, fabrication and unethical recycling damaged several careers and publications.
In many cases, these incidents — significant transgressions sometimes repeated with shocking frequency — were followed by silence or thin statements from the affected news organizations
Here’s the issue: If we in the press stonewall and hide behind vague public statements when ethical breaches happen within our ranks, then we embolden politicians and other public figures and sources to do the same.
It’s more important than ever that the profession work to create basic guidelines and processes for handling an incident of plagiarism, fabrication, and/or a major error.
I believe the lack of clear guidance and transparent newsroom policies is a major contributor to the current situation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Technology
Estonia brings in coding classes for its youngest schoolkids
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/05/estonia-kid-coding
Public schools in Estonia will soon have a curriculum for teaching web and mobile application development to students as early as their first year of school.
According to an article published by UbuntuLife, the program begins this month with training for primary-school teachers. This will be followed by pilot programs. Eventually, the curriculum will be available to all public schools, with educational materials for all age levels.
Estonia has a burgeoning tech industry thanks in part to the success of Skype, which was developed in Estonia in 2003. Other Estonian tech companies include Erply and Fortumo.
Educators have long sought to teach younger kids to program using tools like Scratch, but the code-literacy movement has been picking up steam in the past year. For example, the Mozilla Foundation has been sponsoring events dedicated to teaching web development to youth called Summer Code Party, as well as “Hack Jams” organized by youth.
To this end, Mozilla has developed Hackasaurus, a collection of tools that help kids learn how websites are composed and designed by letting them “remix” elements of any site.
And of course there’s Lauren Ipsum, a children’s book that introduces programming concepts through stories rather than code.
Computer programming will soon reach all Estonian schoolchildren
http://ubuntulife.net/computer-programming-for-all-estonian-schoolchildren/
Estonian Tiger Leap Foundation in September 2012 launched a program called “ProgeTiiger”, in the framework of which Estonian students in grades 1 to 12 will be introduced computer programming and creating web and mobile applications.
“The interest of students towards using modern technologies has grown year after year. With the “ProgeTiiger” program we create prerequisites for students to develop from consumers of software to developers of software,” said Tiger Leap Foundation training sphere manager Ave Lauringson.
Estonian Tiger Leap Foundation decided to start this project because they saw how many companies struggle to find decent programmers. This new program is expected to bring Estonia in front of the rest of the Eastern Europe in terms of IT development and growth.
ProgeTiiger Takes Computer Programming To Estonian Schoolchildren
http://www.arcticstartup.com/2012/09/05/progetiiger-takes-computer-programming-to-estonian-schoolchildren
The program is supported by local IT companies, who stand to gain from having a well educated workforce to draw from 12 years from now. The programming courses will be taught in classrooms by regular teachers, so the course work has been made very simple to understand and teach.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel backs ‘overhyped’ HTML5 for cross-platform app dev
Resistance is futile
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/13/intel_backs_overhyped_html5/
IDF 2012 HTML5 is overhyped, slow, and insecure, says Intel senior VP of software and services Renée James – but Chipzilla thinks it’s the future of software development anyway.
James said there really is no other technology available that offers developers as many opportunities across as many different platforms and operating systems as HTML5 does.
“HTML5 is designed to be a cross-platform technology,” James said, “and while I know there are a lot of differing opinions, we all agree it’s been very overhyped, and like most technologies early on it had some troubles.”
Nonetheless, she said, HTML5 is the only modern development platform that can enable what Intel calls “transparent computing,” which James said is about allowing user experiences to seamlessly traverse architecture and operating system boundaries.
HTML5 makes transparent computing possible
actual HTML5 standards compliance varied widely between devices, especially when it comes to emerging categories like Smart TVs.
“Transparent computing seems pretty far away from where we stand today,” James said in closing, “but we have always believed that the future of computing is what we make it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists Themselves Play Large Role In Bad Reporting
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/09/13/0240222/scientists-themselves-play-large-role-in-bad-reporting
“A lot of science reporting is sensationalized nonsense but are are journalists, as a whole, really that bad at their jobs? Christie Wilcox reports that a team of French scientists have examined the language used in press releases for medical studies and found it was the scientists and their press offices that were largely to blame.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Outsourcing coding work to countries where coding work is cheaper might not be always economically feasible:
The employment of the programming will be more expensive in India than in Finland, where the expenses are calculated the actual costs, says Friday appeared 3T-Journal . The magazine has got hold of the secret report, which was based on the Finnish technology companies within the material.
According to the survey the work done in India is actually 35 per cent more expensive than equivalent employment in Finland.
Reason: low productivity and errors
In Finland, the productivity is 4.5 times more than in India.
Source: http://www.itviikko.fi/ihmiset-ja-ura/2012/09/14/3t-intialainen-koodaus-kalliimpaa-kuin-suomalainen/201237789/7?rss=8
Tomi Engdahl says:
European business execs prefer Twitter to bloomberg.com and ft.com
http://mediaweek.co.uk/channel/NationalPress/article/1149239/European-business-execs-prefer-Twitter-bloombergcom-ftcom/
More European business executives are spending their days on Twitter than the ft.com, Bloomberg.com and other business websites, according to new research.
The research, seen exclusively by Media Week, from Ipsos Media shows that 20% of top European businessmen, including chief executives and finance directors, are spending more time on Twitter in an average month, than on global business websites such as Reuters, Bloomberg, and the Economist.
The data also reveals that the business elite have dropped off in their daily consumption of the Financial Times and The Economist.
The findings show that the Business Elite remain high consumers of traditional media and have a desire for the most up to date information.
Looking at weekly media usage overall across Europe, more than 61% of respondents said they accessed online content through a smartphone/BlackBerry, ahead of the 50.6% who watched a HD TV Channel at home and the 48.2% who accessed news via an app on smartphone/tablet.
Website consumption reveals that linkedin.com remains the most popular website with 17.5% looking at the site on a daily basis, ahead of BBC.com (12.9%), and Twitter, 8.6%.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HTML5 isn’t Facebook’s ‘biggest mistake’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/14/facebook_html_5_vs_native_apps/
Everybody makes mistakes, but if you’re Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, mistakes can shave 50 per cent off your market valuation in a matter of weeks
Zuckerberg’s biggest mistake, as he described in an interview at the Disrupt conference, was “betting too much on HTML5 as opposed to native” app development.
But then, the problem doesn’t seem to be HTML5, per se, but rather Facebook’s use of it.
Instead of pointing his finger at HTML5, Zuckerberg might be better served by looking inside his company to see how it was deployed. Facebook’s approach to HTML5 has been hobbled by politics and a lack of expertise, both in HTML5 and in mobile.
Zuckerberg is correct that today’s HTML5 tools aren’t perfect, but in this case the problem may lie more with the craftsman than with the tools.
Facebook’s experience may not mean very much for other developers looking to build mobile apps
Companies like Facebook can afford to do a native [app], especially on iOS. But for the long tail, developers will generally do the web and often be content there. If the web can be evolved to include the missing APIs and have better performance, [developers] won’t need to go beyond the web.
An Intel executive recently admitted that HTML5 has been overhyped while simultaneously pledging to help improve it so that it can live up to the hype. Facebook, too, remains committed to HTML5
Tomi Engdahl says:
Engineers aren’t using social networking for work
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4395652/Engineers-aren-t-using-social-networking-for-work–survey
More than a decade into the social networking era, engineers are broadly engaged with these platforms but are highly protective of their privacy and very reluctant to use them to make their jobs easier and more productive, according to a new EE Times survey.
Use for engineering? Hardly
Perhaps the most eye-opening results concerned how engineers use social networking tools and platforms. Seventy-one percent of respondents never use social networking to request or share business information, and 81 percent never use the technology to collaboratively solve technical problems or find new products and suppliers.
More than half (56 percent) use social networking to network with colleagues but the rest never use it for that purpose.