http://benwerd.com Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:44:48 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en My previous post was a response to Gartner’s prediction last month that social networking would replace email as the “primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.” In it, I named some properties that would need to be held by any social networking system that would successfully ... http://benwerd.com/2010/03/activity-streams-and-oauth-a-social-web-architecture/ The analysis firm Gartner just released five key predictions for social software: By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users. By 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use activity ... http://benwerd.com/2010/02/how-social-networks-can-replace-email/ My sister is a singer-songwriter. Her songs are great, and you can find them in the usual locations: MySpace Music, Last.fm and Facebook. Interestingly, though, she’s decided there are different purposes to each: Her Last.fm page contains more polished recordings. Facebook has those ... http://benwerd.com/2010/01/music/ This is inspired by the iBooks launch, but it’s applicable to any ereader that uses the ePub format. (Or, indeed, it could use any ebook format – MobiPocket, Kindle, DAISY, etc.) A podcast is just an RSS feed with a file enclosure – part of the RSS standard – ... http://benwerd.com/2010/01/pubcasts-subscribe-to-publications-through-rss/ If you pay any attention at all to the tech press, you’re probably sick to death of the iPad, Apple’s announced tablet device. I’m posting about it anyway, because there are two things that haven’t been discussed enough, which I think deserve a mention. One: this isn’t a device ... http://benwerd.com/2010/01/ibooks-is-a-killer-app-for-ebooks/ Going out and checking in I’ve been using Foursquare quite a bit lately (here’s my profile). There’s a lot to be impressed by: not least the level of mobile integration. Foursquare doesn’t make much sense if you’re sitting at your desk, so it’s far easier to ... http://benwerd.com/2010/01/using-game-dynamics-to-drive-participation/ The British equivalent to Obama’s data.gov opened today. Over at ReadWriteWeb, Marshall Kirkpatrick points out the scale of the ambition involved: At launch, Data.gov.uk has nearly 3,000 data sets available for developers to build mashups with. The U.S. site, Data.gov, has less than 1,000 data sets ... http://benwerd.com/2010/01/open-data-at-data-gov-uk/ The Internet has, undeniably, changed our culture. For most of the 20th century, we paid for our news, entertainment, art and literature. We allowed businesses to act as gatekeepers for this content, and accepted that the media landscape would be dictated by decisions made in the boardroom. Publishers, ... http://benwerd.com/2010/01/the-death-of-newspapers-and-why-it-matters/ The Christmas period is traditionally when I take a step back and consider what I’m going to do over the next year. For me, it’s a time for family, for quiet reflection and for evaluation. What have I done well? What will I do better next year? During 2009, I left ... http://benwerd.com/2009/12/reflecting-on-2009/ As research for a new project I intend to launch, I’ve been using a variety of sharing and bookmarking services to keep track of web resources I’ve found interesting. I think the parallel processes of bookmarking, sharing and publishing can all be improved upon, and the new tool has a ... http://benwerd.com/2009/12/collecting-and-cultivating/ Why does it cost $235 million to integrate a few IT systems? Johannes Ernst contrasts the Yahoo/Facebook deep integration announcement with the US government’s announcement that they will spend $235 million on integrating incompatible healthcare IT systems, and asks some pertinent questions: I assume we ... http://benwerd.com/2009/12/public-it-project-hell-lets-make-government-work-for-us/ Yesterday, I posted some commentary on Tim O’Reilly’s take on the web as an application platform, and agreed that Microsoft championing the open web would be a very smart strategy for them. Previously, I’d talked about the issues with cloud computing at the moment, and how an iPhone App ... http://benwerd.com/2009/11/microsoft-may-rule-the-open-web/ Tim O’Reilly has a great piece up on Radar: If you've followed my thinking about Web 2.0 from the beginning, you know that I believe we are engaged in a long term project to build an internet operating system. (Check out the program for the first ... http://benwerd.com/2009/11/the-war-for-the-web/ Google was an advertising company. Back in 2005, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber described Google’s business as follows: Judged by their profits, Google is an advertising company. They don’t profit from search, they don’t profit from software. They profit by selling ads. This isn’t to belittle ... http://benwerd.com/2009/11/charging-for-software-in-the-age-of-web-apps/ My flash fiction story Meaningless Battles is up on Every Day Fiction: Rain skidded across the window, the smaller drops holding still, helpless in the path of their larger cousins, which sped forth and absorbed everything in their path. The carriage was a wasteland of raindrop-on-raindrop ... http://benwerd.com/2009/11/meaningless-battles-and-writing-in-oxford/ Please take five minutes to watch FreeForm’s video about the open Internet, and then share it with as many people as you can: Then, if you’re a US citizen, head over to the Save the Internet Campaign and sign their petition to congress to preserve net neutrality. ... http://benwerd.com/2009/10/net-neutrality/ In response to recent events, I’d like to propose a different kind of web service that overcomes the privacy and reliability issues with cloud web applications, while providing a solid business model for both application developers and service providers, as well as a seamless, easy-to-use experience for end users. ... http://benwerd.com/2009/10/danger-in-the-cloud-a-proposal/ There were some great comments on this weekend’s guest post for Media140 about Lily Allen and sharing, so I’ve written a follow-up, exploring some ideas (and the arguments left in the comments) in a little more detail. However, after at least a decade without tangible participation ... http://benwerd.com/2009/09/file-sharing-and-digital-business-models/ Just a quick note: I’m starting an Oxford writers group. My idea is that participants will be able to upload their work to a closed online space, so that it can be read and commented on in a more natural reading environment. Of course, if people want, they can ... http://benwerd.com/2009/09/writing-in-oxford/ I’ve written a guest post over at the Media140 blog about Lily Allen’s file sharing stance, and the wider place of traditional record labels in the Internet economy. If the Internet has brought us anything, it is individuality. We have the ability to publish, share and ... http://benwerd.com/2009/09/lily-allen-file-sharing-and-music-on-the-internet/