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By Posted on Posted in Technology, Web 2.0 2 Comments

Don’t worry, I am not trying to define another “2.0ism.” However, I attended an event earlier in the week at which the term Enterprise 2.0 was defined by a speaker, but the definition he gave stuck me as more like “Intranets 1.0” — that is, knowledge management tools applied to the enterprise space. Yes — corporates have been trying to get better about knowledge management for years — why is Enterprise 2.0 any different?  It strikes me that Enterprise 2.0 will actually be tools and applications that run on the Web and are made available to knowledge workers through the browser. These applications will enable all kinds of knowledge sharing and office automation but totally free to the corporate and funded by ads. This model totally undercuts the traditional IT software / services providers and empowers the workforce to self-organize and use the tools that best fit their unit / group / activity. Of course, savvy knowledge workers are already doing this — using IM to conduct business against corporate IT policies, or using Google docs & spreadsheets to collaborate between different office locations. When these applications really do become as powerful as their desktop and enterprise-network-bound equivalents and when CIOs and CFOs wake up to this fact that and realize the whole corporate IT and enterprise applications ecosystem has suddenly become irrelevant, that will be Enterprise 2.0. Just my €.02.

By Posted on Posted in Blogs, Mobile Web, W3C 2 Comments Tagged with , ,

Well — I’m off Blogger and on to WordPress. The whole process was surprisingly simple. I’ve been wringing my hands about doing this for months now thanks to the WordPress migration tools, the whole thing was virtually painless. I feel like I’ve gone from a Volkswagen to a Ferrari. WordPress is so configurable. It’s got a whole ecosystem of plug-ins and themes (including the aforementioned wp-mobile plug-in which detects mobile browsers and feeds them mobile-friendly pages). It’s open. Most importantly, if I want to change it in some way, I can edit every single file. Now — I say the wp-mobile plug-in is cool, and it is, but there is a big problem with it, and that has to do with, what else, device detection. The plug-in knows you’re browsing from a mobile device because it matches the user-agent string against a list of strings that are hard-coded into the PHP program. If you read my previous post on Device Description Nirvana or are familiar with the work of the MWI Device Descriptions working group, then you’ll know that this issue of device descriptions is a thorny one. In the world of device description nirvana, this plug-in would use an API to query a global database of user agent strings to definitively determine if the incoming request is from a mobile device or not. More importantly, it would be able to use the capabilities of these devices to make intelligent decisions about how best to adapt the page for that particular device. Until that time, however, …

WordPress Has Landed Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Web 2.0 No Comments

Google Docs (née “Writely”) and Spreadsheets have graduated. Two weeks ago, Google quietly moved Google Spreadsheets and the newly christened Google Docs over from one side of the Google Labs page to the other (the “graduated” products). No big announcement , and the products remain tagged as Beta (but what isn’t these days?). I’ve been using Google Spreadsheets for a few months now, as a simple issue/action-tracking tool for one project and as a means to track sponsorships for the mobile2.0 event I’ve been organizing. When I first heard about Google Spreadsheets, I remember shrugging my shoulders. Sure, it was a cool idea to run a spreadsheet inside the browser and it showed off Google’s Ajax mojo, but what, really, was the point? Excepting the cool factor, why would I ever use this instead of good old trusty Excel? My “ah ha” moment came when I discovered the powerful collaboration features. The ability for multiple contributors to collaborate on the same spreadsheet a the same time and view each others’ work in near-real-time, using nothing but an off-the-shelf browser is a quantum leap. In the case of mobile2.0, it’s enabled me to quickly collaborate with partners distributed in different time zones and to be sure that we’re all looking at the same information at the same time. This is the kind of collaboration the Internet was built to support, but somehow the big IT vendors have not been able to bring it to us. But what does any of this have to do with widgets? At …

Google Docs Graduation Day Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Web 2.0 4 Comments

You know — I used to be the kind of guy who sneered at people who said things like “Web 2.0” or “whatever 2.0.” I still am. I am not by nature a joiner. For the longest time in the mid-nineties I resisted using the indefinite article in front of the word email (as in “I’ll send you an email.”) I still believe the word email is not a singular noun. “I’ll send you email” is correct. “I’ll send you an email” is incorrect. I always have to apologize in advance if I use the word “leverage” or “synergy” in a meeting. I have always found jargon fascinating, in that using jargon tends to shut people out – to create exclusive clubs. I prefer inclusive modes of working and I believe that in general it’s worth the time to explain yourself in plain language rather than using jargon. So anyway, when I first heard this term “Web 2.0” I thought “what a load of crap.” But then when I read the article and heard a few presentations and started to talk to people about it, the term clicked. And it has clicked with enough people that it’s become a useful way to talk about a set of topics in one breath. I still think it’s a bit silly and when I use it, I do so with a dash of irony, but I do use it. Aside from “Web 2.0” people have not started adding 2.0 to anything to make a point that that thing has …

What’s 2.0 2.0? Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Web 2.0 No Comments

Wow! So now in addition to the mobile2.0 I’ve been organizing on the 6th of November, it looks like I’ll also be on a panel entitled “The Mobile Discussion” at the Web 2.0 conference on the 7th. Looks like it’s going to be quite an exciting week. I’m not quite sure what brought about this change of heart on behalf of the O’Reilly folks, but I’m really glad to see them bringing some mobile focus and interest into the event. Of course, to get the full scoop on the future of the mobile platform, you really need to come to mobile2.0 the day before. Luckily, the cost of mobile2.0 is only $45 so if you’ve already splashed out for Web 2.0 you won’t need to spend much more to attend mobile 2.0 as well.

By Posted on Posted in Travel, Web No Comments

I’m back in the UK after almost 10 days in Spain. We held the Mobile Web Initiative Best Practices meeting where much good work was done. I sampled the famous cider of the Asturias region. I drove to Bilbao and visited the Guggenheim (and met with our great Spanish R&D folks). I spoke at Fundamentos Web on the topic of the Mobile Web and as a bonus I got to meet lots of Internet notables, such as Ben Hammersley, Chris Wilson and Dave Shea (I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy). All in all, not a bad trip. Lots of photos on Flickr (uploaded using ShoZu, of course) and more thoughts later after I have a chance to recuperate.

By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web, W3C 4 Comments

So I’m off to Madrid for the Mobile Web Initiative Device Descriptions workshop. What is this all about? While I’ve been busying myself with chairing a working group on Mobile Web Best Practices, Rotan Hanrahan from MobileAware has been chairing the other Mobile Web Initiative working group: Device Descriptions. The Mobile Web Best Practices document is filled with recommendations like “don’t use xxx feature (cookies, for example) unless you know the device supports them.” The unanswered question is: how do you know if the device supports any given feature, or the answers to other questions like “how big is the usable screen space” (the size of the screen after you take away whatever is taken up by soft keys). The answer up ’til now has been: not very easily. The “official” way the mobile industry wants you to find this out is by using UAProf device profiles. The problem with these is that when they are produced (only a minority of device, they are often not accurate or they simply do not contain the information that Web providers need to adapt their services to different browsers on different devices. This is a key issues that is blocking the growth of the Mobile Web. There are numerous solutions to this problem in the market. Companies like Vodafone assemble big proprietary databases of devices that matter to them. Others employ commercial software that comes bundled with device databases (again proprietary). Still others employ the open source WURFL database. All of these solutions are “islands” that do not overlap …

Device Description Nirvana Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web, W3C No Comments

Wow! Let’s take a look at where that news item about the Mobile Web Best Practices has gone as of yesterday evening. You can tell which are based on the Reuters article and which are based on the original W3C Press Release by how my name is spelled. www.itwire.com.au www.cio.com (They’ve unfortunately reenforced the cookie misquote.) www.betanews.com www.thestandard.com.hk www.wired.com networks.silicon.com www.washingtonpost.com www.allaboutsymbian.com www.earthtimes.org www.computerweekly.com it.moldova.org www.pcpro.co.uk www.mobilised.com.au www.computerworld.com.au www.technologynewsdaily.com www.allheadlinenews.com rcrnews.com www.webpronews.com www.telecom.paper.nl www.mobilemag.com www.fin24.co.za www.vnunet.com www.informationweek.com www.macworld.co.uk www.playfuls.com physorg.com (Hey — it looks like these guys may have read some of the actual best practices document! Bonus points for Physorg.com.)

By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web, W3C 3 Comments

Reuters did a great article on the Mobile Web Best Practices. Too bad they misspelled my name, misquoted me and got about 2 out of 4 facts wrong. Now I know that I have a name that invites misspelling, but honestly I expected better from Reuters. BBC news didn’t seem to have any problem with it, although they did quote me out of context and in opposition to (Sir) Tim Berners-Lee, which was a bit irksome. On the factual side, the W3C has 405 members – maybe Reuters meant the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices working group, but I guess that’s too subtle a distinction for professional journalists. Also, I didn’t say that “cookies do not work on cellphones.” I said that cookies do not work on some phones (oh – there’s that subtlety problem again). There are some good parts of the article though. The word “mobile,” for instance, is used correctly.