sentaire Web2.0 Mashup

Website Kidnapping

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:00:37 GMT

Who says business people don't understand security? The former marketing firm for Steak 'n Shake has executed a DoS, the Varnson Group is holding Steak n Shake's website hostage in a payment dispute. The Varnson Group signed a $4.36 million, 26-month contract in mid-November, with just over half of that to be paid in Steak n Shake stock. Steak n Shake terminated the deal in early February. The lawsuit filed by Steak n Shake March 3 in Indianapolis doesn?t go...

RSS Management

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:45:29 GMT

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AppsFire: Share your Favorite iPhone App

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

AppsFire allows you to share with your friends your lists of favorite iPhone Apps. All you have to do is download and install AppsFire app on your Mac (PC coming soon), let is scan your Apps on iTunes. Then it will point you to your private AppsFire page where you can decide which app you will share and actually share them the way you decide (email, social networks or widget). Learn more
http://appsfire.com
Brought to you by Go2web20.net - The web applications index

PHOTO: Neat infographic: A beat-by-beat breakdown

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:03:58 GMT

Dotcom Crash-era Startup Reanimates By Trending On Twitter

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:03:54 GMT

Building the Enterprise 2.0 Business Case, One Collaboration at a Time

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:36:35 GMT

When Harvard’s Andrew McAfee, the spiritual leader of the Enterprise 2.0 movement, first heard the term “Web 2.0″ back in the early part of the decade, he metaphorically rolled his eyes. After all, the much-hyped dot-com economy had just imploded, and the Y2K scare turned out to be a lot of fear-mongering. As he recounts in [...]

Assessing Productivity in a Networked Era ? ROII (Return on Investment in Interaction)

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:37:28 GMT

Jay Cross and I recently co-authored a version of?this piece for CLO (Chief Learning Officer) Magazine. While I believe that for many people today learning is work, and work is learning, I have edited this version to reflect the Enterprise 2.0 context as opposed to a learning context. . Today?s networked era requires a new way to make [...]

How to Install Chrome and Chromium Side-by-Side (So You Can Play with Extensions!)

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:46:24 GMT

We're sure by now you've heard about the upcoming extensions that will soon arrive in Google's Chrome browser. Already we've seen a handful of these become available including AdSweep, a PageRank checker, Cleeki, and, as of yesterday, a new bookmarking extension from Delicious. However, if you've been running the standard Chrome install (or even the public beta), new features like this are just out-of-reach.

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If you're a developer, you're probably already running the version of Chrome released to the Dev channel, but many "regular folks" are hesitant to make this switch because moving from the stable release to the beta or from the beta to the dev release is a one-way conversion. You can't go back to an earlier build without re-installing Chrome. So how's another ordinary techie supposed to play around with all the cool new stuff coming to Chrome? The easiest way is to install a build of the Chromium browser side-by-side with your (stable) version of Google Chrome.

How to Install Chromium and Chrome on Your PC

First thing's first, if you haven't already installed a copy of Google Chrome on your PC, you should do so now. This new browser built on WebKit is winning converts right-and-left among the early adopter set these days, mainly for its blazing speed. From google.com/chrome you can grab the latest release or, if you're a little more daring, you can click the link to download the public beta version instead.

That was the easy part - the trickier part is installing Chromium, the open-source project that powers Google Chrome. You may have already visited the Chromium site over on Google Code in search of the download only to be confused when no obvious download link jumped out at you. Home, Docs, FAQ, Blog, Group, Terms - but no "Download." In fact, the only download link on the main page points you back to the stable version of Google Chrome. What gives?

They're probably not trying to hide the download from you, it's just a matter of knowing where to look. Developers get this but us "ordinary" tech enthusiasts may need a little assistance. You see, all the Chromium builds are all stored online at build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots. If you're a Mac or Linux user, this is where you can grab your copy, by the way.

Windows users need to head directly to the link at build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp. Once there, you'll notice a list of build numbers accompanied by a "last modified" date.

To get the most recent one, scroll to the bottom of the page and click through to the files listed. The easiest way to install Chromium is to download the "mini_installer.exe" file. This is a simple executable that installs Chromium on your PC.

Make Chromium Extension-Ready

Once installed, there's one more step before you can begin playing around with extensions in Chromium - you need to enable them. To do so, you're either going to need to modify the Chromium shortcut or create your own new shortcut.

Windows XP

On a Windows XP computer, you can just modify the "Target" field in the file properties. To do so:

Go to C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Chromium\Application\ and locate the file called "chrome.exe."
Right-click on the file and choose "Properties." Click the "Shortcut" tab.
In the field labeled "Target" change the text to read (and yes, you need the quotes): "C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Chromium\Application\chrome.exe" -enable-extensions
Click "OK" when you're done.
Make sure this modified shortcut is the one you use to launch Chromium from now on. You may want to copy it to your desktop to be sure.

Windows Vista/Windows 7

On Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can't simply modify the "Target," you have to create a new shortcut instead. To do so:

Go to C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\Chromium\Application
Right-click in the white space of that folder somewhere and click "New" on the menu that appears.
Choose "Shortcut" from the menu to launch the Create Shortcut wizard.
In the window that appears, enter in the following where it asks you for the location of the item: C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\Chromium\Application\chrome.exe -enable-extensions
Click "Next" then "Finish"
A new shortcut will appear in the folder. Make sure this shortcut is the one you use to launch Chromium from now on. You may want to copy it to your desktop to be sure.

Launch Chromium and Install Extensions

Now that you have Chromium installed and modified, you can play with extensions. To install an extension, you simply click on the hyperlink for the extension which is usually labeled "extension_name.crx." A box will pop-up asking you to confirm, just click "OK."

Here are some extensions you can try now:

AdSweep: an add-on that hides advertising on web page you visit similar to how AdBlock works. It uses JavaScript to adjust the CSS of a page and is also available as a user script.
PageRank checker: a simple extension that shows the Google PageRank for the current web site.
Cleeki: an extension that delivers the functionality of IE8's Accelerators to other browsers
Gmail Checker: One of the Chromium sample extensions that displays a toolstrip that shows how many messages are in your Gmail inbox.
Subscribe in Google Reader: Another sample extension which adds a button to the URL bar when a page has a feed that can be subscribed to. Clicking the button takes you to Google Reader.
BuildBot Monitor: A third sample extension which shows the current status of the Chromium Build Bot.
Chritter: a Chrome Twitter notifier that shows recent tweets in the tooltip
Delicious: the official alpha version of the social bookmarking extension. (Note: you may have to save the file on disk and then drag on Chrome window to trigger the install instead of just clicking on the link).

Final Note

Keep in mind that Chromium isn't going to give you the same everyday experience of using the stable version of Chrome. While playing around with it, the browser actually crashed on me a couple of times - two times too many to make it worth switching over to permanently. This may just be an issue with the particular build I installed and will be corrected in a future version, but that's what you get when you're playing with cutting-edge tech.

At least I was finally able to get my hands on the extensions and really see what they were all about. And for that, it was well worth the headaches. Extensions are incredible!

Discuss

Twitter Needs a Spam Filter? No, We Need a Marketer Filter

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:16:48 GMT

Has Twitter spam gotten a little out of hand? According to today's top story on Techmeme, it has. Apparently, marketers are calling for Twitter to filter out spam and other adult content from the microblogging service. You know, so their all-important tweets about the products and services they're pushing don't have to share the same web space as that other nasty stuff. But fighting actual spammers is still relatively easy for an end-user: it's called the "unfollow" button.

Ironically, if anyone's to blame for spamming our Twitter timelines, it's the marketers themselves. They've managed to trick our friends into spamming us with their messages instead.

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If You're Getting Real Spam, Blame Yourself

We're not sure where anyone, marketers or otherwise, get off telling Twitter that it's their responsibility to filter the content that flows through their service mainly because Twitter is already doing so. The company itself currently addresses the spam issue by providing an @spam account where you can report spammers and other abusers in the Twittersphere. If the account in question is indeed a spammer, Twitter boots them from the service. That sounds good to us. Simple and effective...at least for the end user. (It's probably a nightmare to deal with at Twitter HQ).

Of course, Twitter doesn't want their service overrun by spammers - no one would. However, they're probably more concerned with wasting their resources to support these fake accounts than they are with the annoyance it causes for their users. But do they have it under control? Perhaps not - fighting spam is sort of like fighting computer viruses. You block one and someone makes a new one. The same goes for spammers - kill one spammer and another appears to take his place. It's an ongoing fight, not a plague that can be wiped out overnight through some magic filter.

Besides, what you consider spam, I may consider "valuable information about a product." Probably not, but there is a grey area there that has to be taken into consideration. Some spam is out-and-out spam, but others may just be "hot deals" from a legitimate company. However, if you didn't want to see said hot deals, you might consider them spam. Still, how would you see them unless you actually followed that account to begin with? Or maybe you turned on auto-follow using a service like SocialToo? If that's the case, it's a little ridiculous for you to get annoyed when half your timeline turns into a slew of "buy this" messages - you only have yourself to blame for that.

Where Actual Spam Hurts Us

The only place that honest-to-goodness spam can really affect you on an everyday basis is not in your own personal timeline of friends' tweets, but when viewing a trending topic's stream or when doing a keyword search. In these cases, spammers hijacking a currently popular hashtag may show up in the timeline, potentially diluting the results with irrelevant information. For this reason alone, we support Twitter's spam-fighting efforts.

Even More Dangerous? "Tweet to Win"

What's actually more concerning than spam, however, is the new trend we'll call "tweet to win." Legitimate companies have begun using Twitter to promote a message - essentially an advertisement about their business's offerings. To cajole twitizens into "spamming" their followers in this way, they're offering prizes or the chance to win prizes in return. (Full disclosure: this author did this once and still regrets it).

This situation hasn't gotten out-of-hand just yet, but it seems like it's only a matter of time before it does. Because really, how many of you could resist yourselves if all of a sudden a company started giving away free Macbook Pros? Oh, apparently not too many of you because you've already spammed up trending topics today with #moonfruit. What's Moonfruit? Why, it's a company that's giving away a free Macbook Pro every day for 10 days. Is this a brilliant social media promotion (as Adam Ostrow of Mashable claims) or just a new, inventive way to junk up the twitterstream with advertisements? We think it's closer to the latter.

The only consolation in this particular case is that Moonfruit doesn't care what your tweet says, so it can just be appended to any ordinary tweet. That's not usually the case - most companies provide a message for you to re-tweet.

What's frightening about this "it's not spam, it's a message from your friend" is that it's really not. My friend isn't actually telling me that Moonfruit is this great new company they just heard about and I really have to go check them out. This isn't a word-of-mouth recommendation - my friend just wants to win a new laptop. They know this, I know this, and the company knows this. And that makes the message just as spammy to me as any other in-stream tweet from an actual spammer.

So, what can be done? Well sure, I could unfollow that so-called friend, but why would I? It's not like they do this regularly and 99% of the time, I like what they have to say. But while one day that friend is tweeting to win a Macbook, another may be tweeting to win something else. Even if only a small percentage of an ever-shifting group of my friends tweeted a promotional message every day, it would be enough to junk up my timeline.

Sadly, that's one kind of spam that Twitter can't really block. And neither can I.

Discuss

Tribescape: Collaborative Search

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Collaborative search is the next thing in search. Tribescape is an attempt to bring collaborative search on twitter platform. Learn more
http://www.tribescape.org
Brought to you by Go2web20.net - The web applications index

Twitter Approval Matrix - June 2009

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:36:17 GMT

Last month I posted the first Twitter Approval Matrix with data that spanned the month of May and different sources such as Hashtag.org, scraping archives, and observations. This month I received some help from Joe Fernandez the CEO of Klout.net and Dan Zarrella the Social & Viral Marketing Scientist for danzarella.com. They provided some great 'hard' data that allowed me to better place more items on the grid this month.

A quick refresher, the matrix shows four quadrants used to describe trends found on Twitter, or related sites such as hashtag.org, tweestats.com, etc. The Y-axis is partly analytical and shows popularity (mostly through scraped numbers) or perceived popularity (in the future nominated by you). The other part of the grid is more curated and subjective. The X-axis has been plotted based on my personal opinion. You may agree or disagree with my placements and that's all good to me. After all, it is about taste. The matrix and plots do not represent a thorough analytical treatment, but rather a view of the trends that could be found in data sources allowing me to plot with some sense of relevance.

For this post, I've limited the data and activity to the month of June. Again, I'll continue with this project as long as I get enough feedback/help. So, if you are interested in contributing, you can comment here, or read the original post to figure out the best way for you to submit your plots.

I hope you enjoy this and see it as a potentially useful tool to monitor trends that your fellow readers are tracking.

Go All In with Enterprise 2.0

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:00:34 GMT

My Enterprise 2.0 implementation isn't as successful as I thought it would be? I hear that statement quite a bit these days where vendors present this nirvana like vision of an open organization where information freely flows from every individual. The idea of simply loading some hardware with a collection of Web 2.0 tools and value emerges is simply a pipe dream. Implementing Enterprise 2.0 takes energy and an enormous commitment from everyone involved. So how long does it take to become an Enterprise 2.0 success story? I believe it was Thomas Watson (IBM) that answered the question of how long it takes to become great in business. His response was "one second". It happens when you decide to be great and willing to make the commitments necessary to make it happen. You have heard it too; we selected a vendor and implemented a large farm of servers. We even have solid executive support but the implementation hasn't taken off for some reason. Could it be that you are still standing on the edge of the pool, dipping your toe to see how cold the water is? What do you say to a business customer that comes to you and says "I want to use this in my business to increase innovation, what is the solution set fro accomplishing this?" If you answer involves something along the lines of "Hmmm, err, You start with, hmmm, a wiki page and then add something..." then you have not committed to your Enterprise 2.0 effort. If instead you hand the business owner some solid documentation, ROI analysis, 2.0 patterns and even success stories then your own the right track. If they ask you how they can ensure success or at the very least get a high percentage of contribution you had better have a better comment then "beats me, I just work here". Full commitment to Enterprise 2.0 involves more than just technology. You have to look at it as a program like any other effort for the organization. When you have a drive for United Way, do you just email folks with some URL? No, you create mailers, communication events, and you get senior management involved. You set targets, objectives, and share the vision to the entire organization. But in Enterprise 2.0, you took the Field of Dreams idea of just build it and they will come. When it doesn't happen you scratch your head and then blame the culture.

Links for 2009-06-30 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Twitterbursts: It's Not About The Tools; It's All About The Tools | Learn at All Levels | Fast Company
Humans have conveyed short messages, rife with meaning, for over thirty thousand years. Smoke signals have traversed the airways. Expressive quips filled Seinfeld?s show. At all stages and ages, we burst forward.
Does Twitter Match The Mission?
Asking all the right questions about engaging on Twitter, but unfortunately implies the wrong questions about enterprise microblogging
The true cost of Microsoft SharePoint - Business Exchange
This article explores the true costs of SharePoint-both expected and unexpected. By gaining a firm handle on these costs, IT leaders will be able to identify whether the product is right for their organisations and will be better prepared to take advantage of SharePoint's many benefits.

Question of the Day Comes to TypePad

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:15:58 GMT

One of the things we love most about blogging is the community it builds. One blog post can create a dialogue across the web that features divergent opinions, thoughtful comments and a real sense of conversation.

The Question of the Day on Vox has helped us spark some of those conversations amongst bloggers who might otherwise suffered from a case of writer’s block. Because we’ve seen such great success with the Vox QotD, we decided to introduce the same feature to TypePad. We are really excited to see how this new feature inspires creativity amongst TypePad bloggers and their loyal readers.

Learn more about the TypePad Question of the Day in the FAQ and let us know if you have a question you’d like to ask!

If your question is chosen, we will publish it, along with a “submitted by” message and a link to your blog. It’s a great way to connect with bloggers, and also to get more readers to your blog. Please keep in mind that QotDs should appeal to a wide audience and should be no more than 95 characters.

You can send your submissions for QotDs to qotd@typepad.com.

Links for 2009-06-27 [del.icio.us]

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:00:00 GMT

The Economics of Privacy in Social Networks
We developed a novel economic explanation for this: sites appear to craft two different messages for two different populations. Most users care about privacy about privacy but don?t think about it in day-to-day life. Sites take care to avoid mentioning privacy to them, because even mentioning privacy positively will cause them to be more cautious about sharing data. This phenomenon is known as ?privacy salience? and it makes sites tread very carefully around privacy, because users must be comfortable sharing data for the site to be fun.

Commercial Open Source: The Naming Confusion Remains

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:16:25 GMT

In 2004, SugarCRM coined the term “commercial open source“. This term was intend to separate the commercially-oriented open source projects of venture-capital-backed startups from the then dominant community open source projects. The term was picked up quickly, by many. I (as well as others) define it the following way: “A commercial open source firm is [...]

Summary and Translation of Microblogging Can Enhance Productivity Interview

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:46:34 GMT

Courtesy of SAP, here an English-language summary translation of the interview with Oliver Günther on micro-blogging and productivity. Originally: “Das Microblogging kann die Produktivität durchaus steigern.” Computer Zeitung, June 15, 2009. The integration of micro-blogging in corporations makes sense, concludes a project by SAP Research in Palo Alto and the Institute for Business Informatics at the Humboldt [...]