Technology As Innovator

We thought Web Service was good. It certainly is!

Web Service has brought the economy to the web. There is no need to repeat what Amazon, eBay, Yahoo! and Google all have done.

Web 2.0 and a different approach

But another approach is rising fast. Web service providers now make their product a Web Platform.

They build up a very good core based on solid philosophy. Then they provide API for developers to build applications on.

Browser

With their defeat by Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5, Mozilla temporarily withdrew and launch their next hit: Firefox.

As in September 2007, market share of Firefox reaches 35.4%, according to W3C.

One important reason why Firefox has become this popular is due to its extensions gallery. A huge collection of well-done small web services are offered for free by developers worldwide.

Many of Firefox extensions are done to support other web services such as Google Search, Blogging, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, digg, Amazon, eBay.

Gradually, the browser becomes one of the largest centralized points of the web.

Social Networking

Talking about Social Networking today, we have to praise Facebook immediately.

Facebook is also doing very well to provide their API so that applications can be developed on a very good and mature skeleton.

Most successful Facebook applications support networking purpose such as free gifts, messages, testimonials, collaborative games.

The goal of a social networking site is to become the home of as many activities of users as possible.

Content Management Systems

WordPress, Joomla, phpBB have been building communities around them.

Themes allow personalization.

Plugins allow customization.

Most of all, the platform allow monetization.

Conclusion: Web Platforms

Looking at these obvious examples, we see that Firefox, Facebook, WordPress et al offer a very solid and useful core and highly flexible and open API on which applications, extensions, addons, plugins, themes can grow and develop.

They have become Web Platforms to Web Services.

These Web Services in turn make the Platforms new and ever-changing.

Future: Information Depot

In near future, or maybe now already, we’ll see these central points become Information Depot in Semantic Web.

When a web seller wants to approach specific market segment, it should know what and how the potential customers are like. How? From Information Nodes such as e-Commerce sites and Social Networking sites. It would go to Amazon to get information on the customers’ buying preferences, and go to Facebook to get information on the customers’ networks and personal interests.

Can you imagine what happens next? These Information Depots will be able to manipulate the information in whichever way they prefer, not limited to making the information available, for prices.

Conclusion

We’re moving from separated glamorous isles to metropolitans on the web.

You will be able to do many things on a single website. Enjoy the sweetness it brings, while not lowing your guard on diabetes.

Facebook

73.5 million users and growing fastest

What I like about it

1. Mini-Feed is useful in seeing a quick snapshot on the latest happenings within your network without going to several sites to check.
2. The ability to supply how you know a person.
3. Nice applications. Approximately 10% of Facebook applications I’ve tried are interesting and useful while others are not as good.

I think these can be improved

1. Fixed 600 width and non-resizable
2. Non-customizable design
3. No built-in blogging functionality. Blogging can be done with applications such as Live Blog, but we don’t normally depend on addons for such important values like blogs.
4. Tight security: profile only viewable by friends. How do you determine if a profile is your friend or not just by looking at the screen name which can be different from the real name?
5. One account can only join no more than 200 groups. Unlimited is preferred.

Orkut

24.6 million users

What I like about it

1. Simple design, Google philosophy after all
2. Extensible width
3. Ad-free

I think these can be improved

1. Name. Honestly speaking, the Turkish name “Orkut” is very unfamiliar. Just a remark, as the brand name is not supposed to change
2. Very few, if any, extensions

Yahoo! Mash

What I like about it

1. Wider width
2. Larger font
3. Allows profiles to be updated by friends
4. Mini-feed is also supplied

I think these can be improved

1. Check boxes to select friends to add should be provided
2. More group levels
3. Informal language. I am especially not easy with the word “fugly”
4. Profile with non-removable fields such as “What’s most likely playing on my iPod”… Excuse me, can I NOT have an iPod?

MySpace

107 million users. The currently largest site

What I like about it

1. Integrated all-in-one solution that includes social networking, blogging, mail, favorites, forum, movies, events, media

I think these can be improved

1. Inconsistent design
2. Music landing page
3. Spam, including spam invitations, protection
4. Tons of ads

Other notable networking sites

Name	Focus	Number of users (in million)	Comments
Windows Live Spaces	Blogging	120	Really eye-catching glossy design. Powerful blogging support. Try new Microsoft experience!
hi5	General	50	An issue: the letter ‘5′ creates this word “hị” in Vietnamese. hi5 is still nice anyway
bebo	Schools & alumni	34	Nice and neat
friendster	General	50	Friendster is getting old. It needs more innovation.
imeem	Media: Music, Video	16	Possibly the best media site currently. Nice design and convenient upload process. Support tagging
LinkedIn	Business	15	Very professional for business networking purpose
Last.fm	Music	15	Attractive design, especially the logo. However, radio alone is not that fascinating. They could use more of music sharing
Xanga	Blogging	40	The ad on top is a huge barrier to this site’s design. Usability is a little messy

Read more

Wikipedia, List of social networking websites

Mashable, Facebook Hammers MySpace on Almost All Key Features

Techcrunch, Facebook platform

American Class Divisions

Nerdlifestyle, Media restrictions

My choice

Facebook to keep in touch with international friends and English-speaking communities

Yahoo! Mash. Many young Vietnamese users rely on Yahoo! services

for socially musical networking

How about you?

Share your experience here…

Which site do you like best? What you wish your site had offered?

Operating System

Linux http://www.linux.org

Linux Ubuntu http://ubuntu.com/download

Office

OpenOffice http://download.openoffice.org/

StarOffice http://pack.google.com/

ThinkFree Viewer Firefox Addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4038

Audio Decoder

K-Lite Codec Mega Pack http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Mega_Codec_Pack.htm

Web tools

Webshot http://www.websitescreenshots.com/

WebRipper http://home.lyse.net/webripper/WebRipper_1.25.exe

Music Player

Winamp http://www.winamp.com/player/

Musicmatch Jukebox 10 http://www.musicmatch.com/download/free/index.cgi?OS=pc&MODE=input

PDF Reader

Adobe Reader http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Foxit Reader http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/

PDF Converter

PrimoPDF http://www.primopdf.com/

Bullship PDF Printer http://www.bullzip.com/downloadmgr.php?download=pdf

novaPDF http://www.novapdf.com/free-download.php

DJVU Reader

Windjvu http://sourceforge.net/projects/windjview/

Vietnamese Typewriter

Unikey http://www.unikey.org/bdownload.php

Security

ZoneAlarm free version http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp

Avast http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Comodo Firewall http://www.comodo.com/products/free_products.html

File Compressor

Winrar http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

Browser

Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Maxthon http://www.maxthon.com/download.htm

Instant Messager

Yahoo! Messenger http://messenger.yahoo.com/download.php

Skype http://www.skype.com/download/

MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.com/

GTalk http://www.google.com/talk/

Image Viewer

Picasa http://picasa.google.com/download/

Faststone Image Viewer http://www.faststone.org/download.htm

CD/DVD Burner

Click ‘N Burn CD & DVD http://www.mp3hitmachine.com/clicknburn/index.htm

ImgBurn http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

Link Finder

URLSnooper http://www.dirfile.com/freeware/urlsnooper2.htm

MMS Downloader

Streambox VCR http://www.etplanet.com/download/details.php?file=215

Download Manager

FreedownloadManager http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

FTP Manager

SmartFTP http://www.smartftp.com/

wiki(RSS) Reader

GreatNews http://www.curiostudio.com/download.html

Dictionary

Bien Ngo http://huybien.somee.com/

Calendar

Calendar Magic http://www.download.com/Calendar-Magic/3000-2124_4-10338284.html

Desktop Calendar XP http://www.soft32.com/download_27446.html

Linux / Unix

Putty http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Hard Disk Managers

Partition Logic http://partitionlogic.org.uk/download/index.html

CCleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/download

Screen Capture

MWSnap http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html

FastStone Capture http://www.faststone.org/download.htm

Version Control

http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads

POP3 email software

Mozilla Thunderbird http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Eureka Email http://www.eureka-email.com

Macro

AutoHotkey http://www.autohotkey.com/download/

The Rename http://www.herve-thouzard.com/therename.zip

Freeware Sites

http://www.filehippo.com/

http://www.freeware-guide.com/

http://www.blaiz.net/

http://www.freewaregenius.com/

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_shareware_sites.htm

http://www.muftware.com/index.php

http://www.garybeene.com/free/fr-sites.htm

http://www.passtheshareware.com/software_downloads.htm

http://www.freebyte.com/links/software.html

http://www.atlascomm.net/willie/freeware.htm

http://www.tucows.com/

http://www.msu.edu/user/heinric6/soft.htm

http://www.nonags.com

http://www.freewarehome.com

http://www.itsfree4u.com

Source

Binh Tran binhan_tran83@yahoo.de

Bien Ngo bhngo@fcg.com

squallA begau_alex@yahoo.com

happyboy1992 pikachu1786@yahoo.com

flashflare terawolf37@yahoo.com

Tai Tran