Architecture + Strategy : Web

Dolly Parton and IE8 Web Slices

dachou — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:51:06 GMT

Yes, it really is Dolly Parton, one of the most honored country performers of all time! In conjunction with the international release of her new CD/DVD set, Live From London, Dolly has added a Silverlight-based IE8 web slice to her web site, www.dollypartonmusic.net. Dolly has even created a video about IE8 web slices.

Dolly’s web slice provides access to these content:

Video Diary – see Dolly’s latest thoughts on video, with the beauty of Silverlight
News – see the latest news, fan club announcements, and Dollyisms (like "It costs a lot of money to look this cheap”)
Buy Now – view the latest deal from Dolly’s online store, Trinkets & Treasures

This is a great example of leveraging Web-oriented technologies to improve connections with visitors. IE8 Web Slices represent one way to add sticky content for users even when they’re not viewing the website directly. And based on our observations, these out-of-browser content channels can significantly improve user retention and return visits to the websites.

In addition, IE8 Web Slices are actually pretty simple to create; all based on existing technologies, such as RSS, HTML, XML, etc. Real briefly -

Implementation:

Enabled by adding HTML annotations
Use a combination of hAtom Microformat and WebSlice format
Refresh interval configurable via “ttl” (Time-to-Live) property
Supports page-level and individual feed integration
Supports HTTP authentication and persistent cookies

Sample HTML Annotations:

<div class="hslice" id="1"> <p class="entry-title">Item - $66.00</p> <div class="entry-content">high bidder: buyer1 … </div> </div>

To find out more, visit:

Features - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/easier.aspx
Documentation - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc956158(VS.85).aspx
Gallery - http://www.ieaddons.com/en/webslices/
eBay’s IE8 extensions (including Web Slices) - http://ie8.ebay.com/

Engaging the Local Tech Community at Twiistup 3

dachou — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:10:47 GMT

I had the opportunity to participate in Twiistup 3, a local event that connects people from technology, media, and entertainment. Held at a nightclub, it is also a venue where local tech startups can come and show off their work, to potential investors, customers, partners, etc. There were 9 show-offs: Askmenow, Docstoc, MegentoCommerce, OfficeZilla, PeopleJam, RubiconProject, SpeedDate, ThemBid and Yellowbot

We managed to get a show-off space so I went and ran demos and discussed Silverlight with anyone interested, from 7pm until midnight.

During the evening, I also had the privilege of being graced with the presence of Shira Lazar, who presided over the event and interviewed all of the show-offs.

Shira is one of those very few on earth who looks good in just about any picture (and she's smart too!); while I never look good in any picture (pictures courtesy of Mike Macadaan, founder of Twiistup). I'm just glad I can designate myself a geek and call it a day.

Anyway, the evening was a quite party. It was an amazing experience meeting and connecting with so many people working on the Web. It was also a testament to how seemingly simple it has become, to build interactive websites using the various building blocks. People innovating on the Web are now empowered to focus on what to do, as opposed to the how.

2007.12.04 MSDN PowerSeries Event in Irvine, CA

dachou — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:06:09 GMT

I had the opportunity to present at the MSDN PowerSeries event in Irvine, on Software + Services, Windows Live Platform, and the Office Platform. It was a tough act to follow after Lynn Langit's morning session, but the audience was great and allowed me to talk about these topics at an architecture level and not providing implementation-level details.

For those who attended the event - thank you again for your time at the event and the feedback you've provided; both positive and otherwise. Here are the presentations:

Announcements

| View | Upload your own

Software + Services Overview

| View | Upload your own

Windows Live Platform Overview

| View | Upload your own

Office Platform Overview

| View | Upload your own

The presentation decks have also been uploaded to my Windows Live Skydrive in PowerPoint 2007 (PPTX) format. If you don't have Office 2007, you can download the free PowerPoint Viewer 2007. Here are the direct links to the presentation slide decks in PowerPoint 2007 (PPTX) format:

Announcements
Software + Services
Windows Live Platform
Office as a Platform

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Describing Web Platform Stack

dachou — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 22:30:11 GMT

Context

In an earlier blog post I talked about "Web as a Platform" (in Web 2.0's context) and briefly described a layered and componentized perspective in looking at the Web platform in general. And I thought it would be more clarifying to illustrate what a Web platform stack might look like, so this post is intended to describe (not define) a stack view of the Web platform.

Plus, the evolution of this stack is the result of collective innovation contributed by many brilliant minds, and not driven by any single entity. Just as Eric Schmidt had said, "don't fight the Internet", I also don't think we need to model the Web after a specific prescribed framework. Rather, just allow the collective consciousness continue to innovate organically.

Thus this is a description of the Web platform (not a definition), as it is merely an attempt at categorizing the observed patterns and trends, and their relationships and dependencies, in the Web 2.0 phenomenon, into a structured context. There are many ways to describe and categorize these patterns, so this view is not necessarily exact and accurate, but hopefully it can provide some clarifications into the way Web is evolving.

Architecture of the Web

Below is a high-level rendering of the layered components architecture view of the Web platform stack:

The choice of words used is questionable, but the intention here is to highlight the trends and patterns (and their relationships) and hoping to effectively convey the concepts, without spending the time to make sure they are semantically accurate.

Just as I mentioned in my earlier blog post, layers towards the bottom of the stack are progressively closer to raw data and IT architectures, and layers towards the top are closer to people. In general, this layered stack view is used as I think lower layers serve as platforms that encapsulate the underlying complexities and provide abstraction and support to the upper layers. Even though this also kind of describes the evolutionary path (or a maturity model) of the Web in the past few years, I think this stack view is relevant as innovation is still occurring across this entire view.

Some examples to help clarify (nowhere near a comprehensive list; just intended to illustrate the categorizations):

Infrastructure:

Standards - XML, HTML, CSS, SOAP, REST, Atom, RSS, BitTorrent, HTTP, SMTP, FTP, SMS, VoIP, etc.
Tools - LAMP, WISA, JavaScript, .NET, Java, Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc.
Media - video streaming, podcasts, vcasts, electronic gaming, interactive TV, Microsoft IP TV, Microsoft Media Center
Runtimes - hosting environment, servers, desktops, browsers, clients, mobile devices, Microsoft Xbox, Sony Playstation, Nintendo Wii, Adobe AIR, Microsoft Silverlight, etc.
Networks - Internet, Wi-Fi, VPN, WAN, cellular, wireless LAN, DSL, FiOS, etc.

Foundation:

Utilities - Amazon EC2, programmableweb, etc.
Data - Amazon S3, Google Base, Microsoft Astoria, etc.
Storage - Google GDrive, Windows Live Skydrive, XDrive, DriveHQ, Box.net, Elephant Drive, etc.
Messaging - Amazon SQS, Microsoft BizTalk Services, etc.
Identity - Windows Live ID, Google Accounts, Yahoo! Accounts, OpenID, etc.

Framework:

Personalization - My Yahoo!, iGoogle, Netvibes, Windows Live, bookmarks, favorites, etc.
Transformation - Microsoft BizTalk Services (part of Don Ferguson's description of the "Internet Service Bus")
Composition - Yahoo! Pipes, Google Mashup Editor, Microsoft BizTalk Services, etc.
Orchestration - Microsoft BizTalk Services (part of Don Ferguson's description of the "Internet Service Bus")
Privacy - TBD; in general, interoperable services to give users control over what parts of their online presences to share and what not to share

Applications:

Information - Google Analytics, Google Trends, MSN, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, Upcoming, etc.
Visualization - Google Maps, Virtual Earth, Yahoo! Maps, Google Gadgets, Windows Live Gadgets, Vista Sidebar Gadgets, mobile clients, etc.
Commerce - Amazon, eBay, Paypal, Google Checkout, MSN Shopping, Microsoft Points, etc.
Monetization - Google AdSense, Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter, pay-per-click, cost-per-action, impressions, etc.
Accessibility - TellMe, Google Translate, Live Search Translator, services for the visually impaired like Google Accessible Search, plusmo, ZapText, etc.

Integration:

Search - Google Search, Yahoo! Search, Ask, Windows Live Search, etc.
Distribution - Facebook Platform, Microsoft Popfly, etc.
Aggregation - Newsgator, Bloglines, Rojo, NetNewsWire, My Yahoo!, Windows Live, iGoogle, PageFlakes, etc.
Syndication - Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Facebook Newsfeed, Feedburner, Technorati, etc.
Portability - Gadgets, Widgets, Google OpenSocial, etc.

Participation:

User Content - blogs, wikis, reviews, photo sharing, Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournals, Wikipedia, CrowdRules, Flickr, Youtube. Epinions, Urban Dictionary, Trip Advisor, eHarmony, Match, etc.
Communities - MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, hi5, Bebo, Windows Live Spaces, Friendster, LinkedIn, World of Warcraft, Xbox Live, Second Life, etc.
Folksonomies - del.icio.us, Digg, reddit, Simpy, Furl, Netvouz, etc.
Collaborative Filtering - Amazon, half.ebay.com, NetFlix, TiVO, Last.fm, StumbleUpon, etc.
Mashups - Microsoft Popfly, JackBe, etc.

Interaction (emerging):

Social Graphs - capability to enable social network analysis and moving towards mapping physical relationships
Collective Intelligence - capability to comprehend and extract meaning from composite/aggregate communities
Microformats - creation of various metadata formatting approaches to add contextual relationships
Semantic Relationships - adding meaning and contextual mapping to various forms of content available on the Web
Implicit Networks - frameworks for capturing and analyzing dynamic aspects of user activities on the Web

Interpretation (futures):

Derived Intelligence - a form of artificial intelligence derived from collective intelligence to aid predictive analysis
User Intent - discernment of user intentions based on historical user activities, responses, and collective trends and patterns
Dynamic Relationships - ability to map dynamic aspects between user activities throughout the Web

In general, each component in each layer is worthy of a separate detailed analysis, and only a minor fraction of things that are examples of a particular category have been listed. Though the intention is to show that each site or service individually is not representative of the layer component; it is the network effects created by the collection of sites and services in that category. Similarly for the layers in the platform stack, it is the aggregation of individual components that really exemplify the characteristics of that layer.

As a result, we can see that each layer in this stack view has dependencies on the services offered in the underlying layers. And each layer itself provides a level of abstraction and support to the layers above. Thus architecting solutions using the Web as a platform is quickly becoming a process of choosing a target layer (where the solution will reside), and choosing the appropriate combination of support services from the underlying layers.

This view can also be helpful in visualizing general trends of innovative development on the Web, and identify potential spots where opportunistic developments can occur, and areas where they have been turned over to systematic developments. For example, the current state (as of this writing) is that mainstream efforts can be categorized as focused in the "Participation" layer, and is where many of the opportunistic developments are being turned into systematic ones (basically, gaining maturity). The "Interaction" and "Interpretation" layers are considered to be the subject of the next Web (or Web 3.0), and is where much of the research & development efforts are focused in.

One fundamental aspect is that, the Web platform is created and maintained by the collective wisdom contributing to it. It is too big and too diverse for any one entity to own, even though many organizations have investments in multiple areas, and some more than the others. But it is interesting to see how this view of the Web platform is taking shape, based on the inter-dependencies and (almost "symbiotic") relationships established between the clusters of sites and organizations operating on the Web.

Hypothesis

The general concept here is that, Web 2.0 applications are taking on a new form. They are composite applications in nature, and increasingly can be created and hosted completely in the Web (cloud), without any dedicated on-premise infrastructure. And they are increasingly being implemented at higher levels of abstraction (moving up the stack).

For established enterprises, this marks a shift in Web application models. From approaches to open up enterprise data silos and providing value-added services to customers ("Applications" layer aspects), to migrate to a model where various higher-level components of the Web ("Integration" and "Participation" layer aspects) can be integrated and leveraged to connect to the communities. For emerging businesses, it is now possible to quickly establish an initial online presence by completely building on the cloud-based Web platform, while looking to add differentiating values with a variety of options (such as dedicated on-premise solutions).

From a user participation perspective, lower layers are progressively closer to people with higher technical expertise, but are populated by smaller communities. On the other hand, upper layers are progressively closer to larger communities as barriers to entry, from a technology perspective, are increasingly lower. This aspect demonstrates the power of network effects in enabling the participation age, and fueling the explosive pace of innovation towards creating a Web that connects/involves more people and is more relevant and intelligent.

Certainly, areas where boundaries are being pushed may still sound like science fiction, and it's fun to imagine that new breakthroughs will bring about sea changes that will overthrow all conventional wisdom. The blogosphere already has tons of speculations in that respect. Though I believe "could" does not equate to "should", such that change for change sake will not add value; only changes that lead to better outcomes will gain adoption. Thus my assessment is that, significant changes are surely imminent, but conventional wisdom will also not cease to complete irrelevance. Eventually, when the pendulum settles, we usually see a hybrid world, with some changes more dominant, and some changes less. The Web is a place where rapid changes are occurring, and as architects and strategists, using a pragmatic viewpoint when facing these changes may help us better plan the migration path between current and future states.

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Popfly as a Web Platform

dachou — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:12:43 GMT

Primer

Microsoft Popfly (www.popfly.com), currently in beta since October 2007, is a web site and tool to help people create and share web sites, mashups, and other kinds of experiences.

This service, in my opinion, is a really interesting and innovative product Microsoft has delivered this year. From an architect's perspective, Popfly can be considered as a Web platform, along with the many other interesting ones created this year, such as the Facebook Platform.

Many people also saw Popfly's potential as a Web platform. For example, Mary Jo Foley correlated it to Yahoo! Pipes, Tom Foremski described how easy it is to build a Facebook app with Popfly, John Mullinax provided a business perspective on how to leverage Popfly, and Denny Boynton with some architectural thoughts.

A Web Platform

In an earlier blog post I talked about "Web as a Platform" (in Web 2.0's context) and briefly described a layered and componentized perspective in looking at the Web platform in general. Popfly fits in that perspective very well, and can be categorized into a composition tools layer that doesn't seem to have received a lot of attention from the general Web 2.0 community. Specifically, in the programmable Web aspect of Web 2.0, the focus has been on creating the APIs, frameworks, runtime environments, standards, etc. to facilitate the various kinds of applications and social interactions. But the tasks of developing these applications still rely on traditional code-based environments. Popfly represents a major innovation on the composition tool side, and does it in an elegant way that transformed the bootstrapping requirements of various kinds of services and APIs available in the cloud, into, literally, building blocks that people without any technical background can piece together (like LEGO!) and create all kinds of composite applications (or mashups). It also offers a provisioning and syndication system so these applications can be deployed (or embedded into web pages) anywhere on the Web (and coined the term "mashout").

Popfly has been compared to Yahoo! Pipes, which provides a very elegant composition tool for aggregating and manipulating syndicated content (and a wickedly cool implementation of JavaScript in its development environment). It is a very powerful platform in terms of programmability in the context of mashing up data. Another is Google Mashup Editor, which is also a very powerful tool that helps people quickly create mashup applications. Without turning this into a comparison of the three tools, in general I think each provides a distinct value and meet different needs. For example, Yahoo! Pipes provides a graphical drag-and-drop development model in using syndicated data, and Google Mashup Editor provides a code environment particularly targeted for utilizing Google services and products; though the target audience for both of them tend to be developers.

Popfly differs in its approach to democratize development by raising the level of abstraction and narrowing down options in block configurations. This greatly simplifies the process of piecing together building blocks, and it is this simplicity that offers Popfly's greatest advantage at making development social, and potentially more appealing to a wider audience.

The public beta provides many kinds of building blocks - display, fun & games, images & video (media), local information, maps, news & RSS, shopping, social networks, tools (programming utilities such as RegExp), and others. These building blocks represent configurable components that map to many different kinds of cloud-based service APIs, such as Flickr, Facebook, Live Search, AOL Video Search, Yahoo! Videos, Virtual Earth, Yahoo! Traffic, Digg, Yahoo! News, Twitter, Technorati, etc.; the list goes on. The rich collection (and growing) of building blocks allows not just the mashup of functions and data, but also adding an interchangeable visualization and interaction layer to the applications.

Popfly boostrapped these cloud-based service APIs, and exposed their methods, input parameters, and results as configurable elements in each building block. In addition, Popfly also pre-defines and maintains compatible relationships between these APIs so in many cases, default configurations are sufficient for creating a mashup without requiring the user to perform any configuration changes. Simply drag and drop, and connect the dots will do.

Popfly itself is implemented using a combination of traditional Web application technologies (ASP.NET, AJAX, JavaScript, HTML, etc.) hosted in a highly available server infrastructure, and a Silverlight implementation of the in-browser development environment.

The challenge for Popfly is reaching critical mass in adoption. Just like the Facebook Platform, which is really a software distribution platform, harnesses its power from the lively communities in Facebook. Popfly can achieve similar goals if its adoption can be turned into a self-propelling virtuous cycle, when a healthy growth in adoption can be facilitated.

Thus Popfly really is a platform in the Web 2.0 world. It provides an environment where people without a significant technical background can build stuff in, and hides the complexities in the underlying infrastructure. It also articulates many of the Web 2.0 principles, such as enabling participation and harnessing collective intelligence, leveraging the long tail, lightweight development models, rich user experiences, etc. For businesses and organizations looking to open up their data and services, or to interact with the user communities, participating in the Popfly ecosystem could be a simple way to enable viral adoption in the distribution channel (and for some, utilizing the monetization methods).

A 1-Minute Mashup Application

To illustrate Popfly's simplistic elegance, I created a mashup between a Flickr picture set and a visualization block that uses Silverlight. A snapshot of the application in edit mode is shown below.

Without going into a detailed step-by-step replay, all I did was drag/drop the Flickr block, configure it with the Flickr set ID that contains the pictures I want to use, drag/drop the Carousel block, then drag/drop a connector from the Flickr block to the Carousel block. Hooking up the output from Flickr with input parameters in Carousel was done automatically and seamless. That's it! And the application is now ready to be deployed across the Web.

The resulting mashup application is embedded below. I picked a presentation block that uses Silverlight, but there are blocks that are pure HTML and JavaScript too.

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Web 2.0 - A Platform Perspective

dachou — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 07:39:28 GMT

Background & Primer

"Web as a Platform" has been a much discussed topic since Tim O'Reilly used it as a tagline in the first Web 2.0 conference back in October of 2004, then described in more detail in a 2005 article, and the subsequent "Mind Map" graphic:

Since then many interpretations of the "Web platform" have existed, ranging from technical perspectives that focused on tools such as AJAX, RSS, REST, SOAP, mashups, composite applications; user-generated content and collective intelligence such as Wikipedia, Youtube; social bookmarking/syndication such as del.icio.us, Digg; to social networks such as Facebook, Myspace, etc. Just to list a few, but the list of sites and categories of sites that exemplify Web 2.0 principles has undergone an explosive growth in the past few years.

Collectively, the rich cluster of "Web 2.0" sites on the internet form a services foundation from which applications and functionalities can be built upon, without needing any additional dedicated infrastructure. This marks a significantly different approach from "Web 1.0" site implementations where each organization has to procure dedicated hardware, software, hosting environment, etc. in order to provision a new application on the internet. As a result, the collection of cloud-based services form a new kind of "platform" to create a new breed of applications.

Understanding Web as a Platform

Without making this yet another attempt at trying to define the specifics of Web 2.0 (or even Web 3.0 for that matter) and the internet platform, delegating it to those who focus on semantics, I think we can look at "Web as a Platform" in its broadest terms. That is, a platform that provides some sort of framework which allows people to build stuff upon, while encapsulating (or hiding) some of the underlying complexities.

But this doesn't point directly to technical solutions; it really encompasses many categories of "stuff" (such as media, social interactions, implicit relationships, semantic connections, monetization methods, etc.) that can be leveraged and implemented on the Web today. I liked how Fred Wilson said it:

I believe the web is a platform. And that everything we need for an open ad market, or an open data architecture, or frankly most anything else, is available on the "web platform" today.

So what can we do with the Web platform? There are many perspectives on this as well. Such as Marc Andreesen's "layered" perspective:

Level 1 - API access - Flickr, Delicious, Twitter, etc.
Level 2 - API plug-in - Facebook
Level 3 - Runtime environment - Ning, Salesforce.com, etc.

And Alex Iskold's "building blocks" perspective:

Storage Services - Amazon S3, GDrive, Windows Live Skydrive, etc.
Messaging Services - Amazon Simple Queue Service, BizTalk Services, etc.
Compute Services - Sun Grid
Information Services - Amazon E-Commerce, Yahoo! Answers, Virtual Earth, etc.
Search Services - Google Search API, Alexa Search Platform, Live Search, etc.
Web 2.0 Services - del.icio.us, Flickr, Basecamp, etc.

Again, without questioning the validity of these categorizations used (as there are lots of discussion about that as well), I think from a general sense, both perspectives are valid. I think that building blocks do exist, but at the same time, there are multiple layers of building blocks (or categories) in the Web platform.

What this means, is that building blocks in each layer can be utilized in various combinations/permutations to create the next layer up. These layers span between two extremes - information and people. The layers closer to information consist of Web application platforms as we know today, such as ASP.NET, Silverlight, LAMP, Java, Ruby on Rails, etc.; that require more expert knowledge in development and technology but smaller parts of the overall population. The layers closer to people are still being formed as we speak, but in general they rely on higher forms of abstraction that provide services closer to our lives, while enabling the broad reach of larger pools of audiences (consumerization and democratization of technology comes to mind). And today we are seeing higher and higher layers of platforms being created that allow people to connect, to organize, to find and use resources, to be social, and to basically "live" on the Web.

Of course, the word "platform" is being used very loosely today, and new "platforms" and layers of platforms are being created almost on a daily basis. Marshall Kirkpatrick took a real brief look at some of the most hyped new platforms today. For example, the most recent and significant incarnations of higher-level Web platforms are probably Facebook Platform and Google OpenSocial.

From a platform layer perspective, the Facebook Platform and Google OpenSocial, even though aimed at doing different things (lots of debate on this too), are built on top of other existing layers. Applications built on top of the Facebook Platform use a combination of traditional Web app technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, etc., but their benefits are derived from building blocks available on the Facebook Platform, in the form of mashups of external services building blocks, explicit foundation blocks (such as News Feeds, Status, Events, FBML, FQL, configuration and provisioning systems, etc.), and implicit foundation blocks (social graphs, software distribution/dissemination channel, monetization, 50+ million and still growing user base, etc.). A major characteristic of this platform is that it is very easy to develop against, which democratizes development and allows more and more people to participate in the social experience. In essence this platform furtherly narrows the gap between technology and people (thus categorized as a higher-layer platform). This resulted in a wildly viral and vital platform that has accounted more than 5,000 applications deployed today and growing exponentially.

From a higher level, it seems that a "Web OS" of some sort is starting to take shape, as we can draw many parallels to the layered, subsystems and componentized approaches in modern computer operating system and software architectures. But I am not yet sure that it would be of value to try to apply traditional thinking in defining a "standard" Web platform stack, by needlessly preempting more knowledgeable people, and risk further defragmenting the evolution.

In general though, by today we can definitely see the Web maturing as a very viable platform. News such as Amazon S3 exceeds 99.99% uptime should remove most doubts about the reliability of cloud-based services. But I think it is a platform with a spectrum of choices (layers and building blocks) where people with different skillsets can look to leverage and add value. The choices available in the full spectrum are all relevant, despite some idealists' claim that newer and higher-level models (such as higher layers of the platform used in the context of this post) will completely commoditize and subsume older and lower-level models. I tend to think that, while it is true that more and more attention will be focused on newer and higher-level models, we will continue to see lots of innovation on the lower-level layered platforms. We will just see that more and more people will be involved in the overall ecosystem, with a large infusion of participants with non-technical skillsets increasingly more involved at the higher levels. This I think is the true goal of Web 2.0, connecting people and democratizing/bridging the technology chasm.

What's Next?

It's always interesting to try to take a peek at what may be possible in the future.

Democratization in software development - Recent advances in the Web platform (raising layers of abstraction), model-driven architectures, etc., will increasingly simplify software development efforts for the higher level platforms. Two very notable examples are Yahoo! Pipes and Microsoft Popfly.

The Implicit Web - Increasing specialization in making sense of the dynamic aspects of user behaviors and activities in the online world. For example, search engines to finally grasp user intent (via click streams, combinational media consumption habits, etc.). This is also an area where the Facebook Platform may be able to glean from the reactions its applications can elicit from the members, based on the static social graphs.

Privacy Controls - With so much attention on enabling the "read-write" Web, and increasing openness, a need for better privacy control will inevitably arise. Web idealists argue that traditional data silos (or intellectual property as we know today) will need to be opened up and interoperate in the new world. Again, I believe a hybrid model somewhere between the two extremes (of fully open and completely closed architectures) usually work out better to the benefit of its users. From this perspective, yes the highly protected enterprise data silos today will need to open up, but should be just enough to add value for the users. To do that, some kind of interoperable privacy controls is required.

Ubiquitous Access w/ Rich User Experiences - A consistent and seamless experience for people accessing their information, applications, and services, across a full spectrum of connected devices and systems. At the same time, highly targeted user experiences implemented for the appropriate form factors are available to take advantage of the latest hardware and device innovations.

There are many more, such as the data/semantic Web, evolutionary intelligence, changes in social trends, etc. It'll be interesting to see how things pan out in this space.

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Thoughts from the WebbyConnect Summit

dachou — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 02:44:58 GMT

I had the opportunity to attend the WebbyConnect Summit on October 3-5 at Laguna Beach. It was a series of non-technical panel discussions on the various growing trends on the Web, and their social and cultural impacts, especially with respect to the media and internet industries. Topics discussed include:

Web as an essential media channel
Convergence of online and traditional media
Convergence of minority expert knowledge and mass collective intelligence
Disruptive innovation in organizations
Privacy vs. piracy on the Web; cultural impacts on the next generation
Convergence of the Web and physical worlds
Emergence of social networks and online media as political platforms
Importance of brand and storytelling on the Web
Web 2.0 as a customer engagement platform
PR’s transition from absolute control to dialogues with consumers

It was a very insightful event, as the various very notable speakers presented their thoughts on how media and social trends are impacting the evolution of the Web, and vice versa.

Some highlights:

General theme of “convergence” between extremes; emerging focus on “and” and away from “either/or” debates; best of both worlds and hybrid models instead of one dominating/replacing the other. For example,

Traditional TV media and online media
Computers and devices
Online and offline
Inherent openness and selective filtering / segmented privacy
User generated content and high production value content
Mass collective knowledge and expert editorial

Summit opened with Tommy Means’ (Creative Director, Mekanism) overview of the “Clarifications” campaign for Microsoft Windows Vista launch
Rei Inamoto (Global Creative Director, AKQA) provided an overview of the “Iris” alt-reality game (ARG) and “Believe” campaigns for the Halo 3 launch
Amanda Kelso (Executive Producer, DBH) – Mentos Intern “Trevor” campaign
Nick Bergstrom (Creative Director, FarFar) – Diesel “Heidies 15MBs of fame” campaign
Ricardo Figueira (Creactive Director, AgencialClick, Brazil) - Motorola RAZR2 campaign
Rob Master (Director of Marketing U.S., Skin, Unilever) - Dove webisodes and AXE campaigns
Arianna Huffington (Co-Founder, The Huffington Post) mentioned during her keynote address: "stop the debate of either/or", and "Get connected to figure out how to get disconnected, then reconnect with ourselves"
Michael Eisner (Founder, Tornante; former Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company) mentioned during his keynote address, that change is the constant theme (based on what he has seen in the media industry over the years), but the ability of great storytelling and expert editorial remains essential
Vinton Cerf (Chief Internet Evangelist, Google) mentioned trends of convergence and mobility ("I P on everything!"), and that client-side software is still relevant. Also interesting was the observation on challenges of the digital age, where information preservation (for thousands of years) will become a major issue due to the rapid advancements in technology

My thoughts:

It was very refreshing to hear from the thought leaders in the social Web and media and advertising agency spaces. Particularly many campaigns that worked wildly successfully, by leveraging many social elements of Web 2.0. For example, “Trevor” as world's intern where anyone can schedule Trevor's time and ask him to do things (like sending a heavy metal birthday gram), effectively used a combination of user-generated content, viral advertising, live web feeds, instant messaging, video streaming, community establishment in Facebook and Myspace, etc., that drew an extremely popular response on the Web. The campaigns discussed were just about the most effective use of Web 2.0 platforms I've seen.

To me it boils down to brand management, and the emergence of using Web-oriented techniques to drive a new breed of brand campaigns on the Web. However, a few principles remain the same (lessons for a technologist such as myself, but obvious to people working in these areas):

It's about storytelling and not product placement
Fun and humor (one layer of connecting at an emotional level), but also be able to poke fun at oneself especially if concepts are parallel to public perception of the brand to begin with
It is comparatively less effective if a brand tries to uphold itself by fighting against public perception; as after all, brand *is* perception

On the general trend of convergence:

This was my biggest takeaway from the summit, as it was clear that the pendulum has swung back away from the extremes, in many different areas. As noted earlier, online and off-line, traditional media and online media, collective intelligence and expert editorial, etc. Basically people are no longer claiming the absolute dominance of one extreme over the other, but are seeing trends that hybrid and combinatorial models work much more effectively. In the technology world, the focus is now shifting towards bringing information and access to the users in a seamless and consistent manner, but with targeted user experiences for different platforms.

Coming back closer to home, from a technology architecture perspective, I found all these trends of convergence are very analogous to the core of Microsoft's "Software Plus Services" (S+S) strategy (and moniker). I akin S+S to Microsoft's vision of the future, in response to all the recent innovation and mindshare on SOA, Web 2.0, SaaS, etc. I will leave the details of my thoughts on S+S to another post, but just briefly here - it's an architecture of "AND", where both local software and cloud-based services work together to provide the most targeted user experiences. Vinton Cerf noted a similar thought in his keynote, that the internet is still largely a transport that is agnostic of the context and data that traverses it. We still need software to interpret and visualize the information in meaningful ways. And the fact is, the dominant players in the online space, such as Google, Yahoo, eBay, Saleforce.com, etc., are all moving towards this middle by providing client-side software. It seems their current approach can be categorized as "Services Plus Software" where cloud-based services are augmented by client-side software, compared to Microsoft's approach of "Software Plus Services" where client-side software is augmented by "Web as features". It is arguable which approach (or direction) is more relevant, but I think in general the macro-trend that is occurring is that of convergence between software and services.