Web 2.0: where are we, where are we going?
Published by Martin De Saulles on Tagged Information Users, InnovationOn Friday I gave a talk at an ARLIS workshop at the Chelsea College of Art. They had asked me to speak about Web 2.0 and give an overview of where we, in terms of the information profession, currently are and where we might be going. You can download the slides in PDF format HERE (1.3 MBytes) or view them on slideshare below. Without my commentary some of the slides are rather abstract but there are some facts and figures on some of them. Feel free to email me if you have any comments or questions about them.
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SME article in Information World Review
Published by Martin De Saulles on Tagged Innovation
Information World Review have just published my piece on how some UK SMEs are using Web services in their businesses.
The online version here does not have the graphics - you will need the paper version for that.
Share ThisGoogle Chrome - this could be interesting
Published by Martin De Saulles on Tagged Companies, Innovation
Although it is not yet available to download (possibly later today) I think Google’s new browser, Chrome, could shake things up on the Net more than Firefox or any other browser has been able to. Alan Patrick on the Broadstuff blog sees the development as similar to Microsoft’s attempt to control the browser environment back in the 1990s and I would not argue with that. He mentions the potential for litigation and it will be interesting to see if Microsoft has any complaints about the Google product over the coming months. For me the interesting thing will be how it takes forward the deployment of Google Gears. While Microsoft certainly killed Netscape with Internet Explorer, it has not really helped Microsoft in its attempt to dominate the Web with most of its profits still coming from shrink-wrap software. However, a browser that can operate as an offline environment to run applications via Gears could really start to shake things up. Google certainly has the money to put behind it.
TalkBizNow - will it fly?
Published by Martin De Saulles on Tagged Companies, InnovationI Read in the FT yesterday about this new British social networking site for the business community. Initial comments and reviews from the FT and others are mixed with a feeling that they may be a bit late to the party and that LinkedIn and Xing are going to be hard to beat. Gaining critical mass of the right types of people is key. According to the FT, the company will be targetting the top 200 “super networkers” from other sites who have more than 500 contacts and trying to entice them over. I would be interested to know how they plan to do this - unless these “super networkers” are unhappy with their current service provider or can see some substantial benefit in moving over to TalkBizNow then I cannot see this happening. Why not just offer to pay them £1000 each? That could be a good use of the marketing budget. Talking of marketing, why did they choose that name? I don’t like the abbreviation, “biz” and “TalkBizNow” sounds very cold - something abstract like “Xing” is more catchy and feels more user-friendly. Perhaps all those types of domain name have now gone.
Anyway, I wish them luck. It would be good to have a British success story in this sector.
Share ThisBeyond Google
Published by Martin De Saulles on Tagged Information UsersJackie Chelin (University of the West of England) and I have produced a short (10 minutes) video titled: “Beyond Google: Developing Training Skills for Library and Information Students in Their Work With the Google Generation” (see below). The video outlines, through interviews with academics, librarians and students, some of the issues surrounding how students use the Internet as a research tool. It offers suggestions for developing and delivering training sessions for end users to help them look beyond mainstream Internet search engines and to explore subscription-based databases. The production was funded by the Higher Education Academy and I will be talking about it at the HEA ICS Conference in Liverpool later this month.
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SMEs and the Web - Executive Summary
Published by Martin De Saulles on Tagged Information Users, InnovationOver the last few weeks I have been conducting an online survey of UK SMEs and how they use the Internet/Web to communicate, share information and market themselves. The survey was carried out amongst 2 groups of SMEs: Those operating in the Internet/new media sectors in the South East of England (Digital SMEs) and a more general group of SMEs operating across the UK and a range of sectors (All SMEs). Over 500 companies completed the survey and there are some interesting findings:
- More than 95% of all the respondents maintained a Web site;
- Apart from email, instant messaging is the most used (46%) tool for internal communications amongst Digital SMEs;
- Over 40% of Digital SMEs use Skype for communicating with clients and suppliers;
- Digital SMEs are active in their use of Web services such as Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs as tools for marketing their services;
- Digital SMEs are approximately 4 times as likely to use blogs and wikis for communicating with clients and suppliers than the group, All SMEs.
You can download a PDF copy (600kb) of the executive summary from the link below:
http://www.coldlime.com/SMEWebSurveyJul08.pdf
BIALL 2008
Published by Martin De Saulles on Tagged Information Users
On Thursday and Friday of last week I was at the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians annual conference in Dublin. They invited me to talk about Web 2.0 as well as developments in library and information courses and what we have been up to at the University of Brighton. I really enjoyed the 2 days and had some interesting discussions with the organisers and some of the 400 or so delegates.
For the Web 2.0 session on Thursday I made a short presentation (download slides HERE) and then sat on a panel with Sue Hill of Sue Hill Recruitment. Sue’s presentation was particularly interesting as she confessed to knowing next to nothing about Web 2.0 several weeks before but had become very interested in it while doing research for the session. She informed us that her company would be experimenting with blogs, RSS feeds etc over the coming months and using them to help share knowledge internally as well as promote their services externally.
On Friday morning I gave a presentation titled “The Future of Information Work: developing university courses” (download slides HERE). This was based on my experiences of working in the development of new courses at our university as well as my broader observations about possible future directions for the provision of university courses and the profession in general.
BIALL is certainly a dynamic group of library and information professionals and I hope to keep in touch with some of the people I met there.
Share ThisFriends Reunited is now free
Published by Martin De Saulles on Tagged Companies
Today I received an email from Friends Reunited that all their services are now free. Previously you had to pay £5 (or something similar) a year to be able to send messages to old school friends you had lost contact with. I had almost forgotten about Friends Reunited having joined about 5 years ago when it was one of the most talked about Web sites in the UK. The service seems rather quaint now and a bit clunky in this age of social networks and widgets and where most Web 2.0 services are Free (see some very intelligent blog posts about the notion of “free” in a Web concept from the Broadstuff blog). I suppose ITV, having paid £120 million for Friends Reunited in 2005, has realised that if there is a future for the site it is in selling advertising not subscriptions. Perhaps waiving the annual fee will drive traffic to the site as old friendships are rekindled but I’m not so sure. Once the novelty of seeing the names of long forgotten classmates wears off, there is not much reason to return to the site.
Yell revisited
Published by Martin De Saulles on Tagged CompaniesTo celebrate this blog’s first birthday I have returned to my first posting about Yell from last April - Yell needs to be more sociable - to see how the company has performed. In my original post I expressed suprise that printed directories such as Yellow Pages had managed to not only survive but grow in the Internet age. I included the chart below showing Yell’s share price performance since its flotation in 2003 compared to the FTSE 100.
My argument was that Yell’s online offering, whilst useful, could be so much more if it were to incorporate some element of interaction with users whereby services provided by builders, plumbers etc. could be rated by those who had used them in a similar way to the user feedback solicited by Amazon. The chart above, however, seemed to indicate that Yell had outperformed the stock market by sticking to its knitting. At least that was the case a year ago. What about now?
While the FTSE 100 has increased by approximately 50% since Yell’s flotation, Yell itself has fallen by the same amount resulting in a massive underperformance. Why is this? Perhaps the post on the Yahoo Finance discussion board nailed it: “The latest Yell results looks like the end of an era and the beginning of the end of paper directories generally. Encyclopaedia Britannica (Who? Exactly!) thought they were immune to technology. If you have an internet connection when did you last pick up a paper yellow pages or even look on yell.com?”
I concur.
Share ThisWorking in the cloud just got easier
Published by Martin De Saulles on Tagged Innovation
As someone who works on a different computer at home to the one in my University, I am often struggling to make sure my files are synchronised between the two machines. I have been storing files on my Backpack Web pages to help with this but it is not a totally satisfactory solution. Neither is keeping files on memory sticks. However, I think the problem may have been solved by Sugarsync. This new service from Sharpcast seems to keep my work files totally synced on both computers. Their software allows you to specify which files/folders you want to sync and then it just gets on with it. It also allows access to the files via a Web interface so you can access them from any PC with an Internet connection. On top of that there is a Web interface for mobile phones so I can edit files on my Windows Pocket PC phone (not that I would do that on a regular basis but it is nice to have the option). They are offering a 45 day free trial with 10 gigs of space. I have now paid $25 for an annual package that gives me 30 gigs of space - more than I need. I can certainly recommend the service ( I don’t say that about many things) - my only suggestion would be that they offer a search facility which indexes your files and allows full searching similar to desktop search services.