Are we now finally entering the age of programmatic sites driven by other sites, i.e. the age of the 'mash-up'?

Although more and more websites are now offering APIs that allow you to access the underlying data programmatically, very few of the 'mash-ups' that have arisen from these have had popular appeal. Google Maps is the exception, managing to offer an API that allows for every person and thing in the world to be easily represented on a map. Web sites that offer real estates to restaurants now look behind the times if they don't use this technology.

However, Groundswell is claiming that their prediction that social networks will be like air is about to come true: Facebook has announced that it will be launching Facebook Connect, a way to connect your Facebook identity to other sites. Imagine having your book reviews on Amazon tied to your Facebook account and seeing your friends' Amazon reviews via their Facebook profile. In many ways, if Facebook Connect works as well as it sounds, it could be like the Google Maps of the social networking world.

Both Google Maps and Facebook Connect provide an element to existing sites which would be difficult for these existing sites to do themselves. A restaurant site does not want to manage data on maps or build fancy social profiles of all their users. Perhaps this model of 'outsourcing' elements of interactivity that are non-core to a site is the way to do mashups?

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Infoweek reports that 90% of virtual world projects fail, including the many companies that rushed into building a virtual presence on virtual worlds such as Second Life and There.com.

It appears a lot of companies established a presence in virtual worlds simply because it was 'the thing to do'. These presences tended to be virtual locations, such as stores and exhibitions. In reality, what most people are interested in is collaborating with people. It is widely known that most 'collaboration' on Second Life is gambling and sex. How uses of virtual worlds will move beyond this to other things, such as for businesses promoting their products, remains a mystery.

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CEO Eric Schmidt has made a presentation at the Annual Stockholders Meeting. Here are some of the highlights:

• Google expects that adverts will become more narrative, engaging and interactive.
• Eric suggest that the defining technological shift of our generation will be the shift from PC centric to internet centric. Why have things stored locally on different devices when you can access everything from any device? There are over 500,000 businesses are now using Google Apps for your domain.
• The emergence of mobile. Japan, which is seen as a front runner for technology, has 81% of people accessing the internet from their mobile. Also, the top three selling books over the last year first appeared for reading on mobiles before appearing in print.
• There are more smart people outside of Google than inside Google. Google is building a 'web platform': Android and other APIs allow the smart people outside Google to build on top of Google's technology.

Elsewhere, Vint Cerf, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, mentions briefly that the internet will increasingly become asia centric because that is where most potential users are; most people in the US and Europe are already using the internet. Everyone needs to pay attention to this Asia growth area, in terms of its culture and differences to the west.

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I've been playing around with the beta releases of Firefox 3, which have been available for a few months. Mozilla, the open source foundation that creates the browser, has spelt out the improvements they have made. While most users will only notice subtle differences, such as the much quicker speed at which web applications such as Google Mail work, the greater impact of Firefox 3 is the new capabilities it provides web developers.

Firefox 3 lets web applications, such as Google Docs and Facebook, request that resources be cached to allow the application to be used while offline. Firefox 3 also allows web applications to detect whether or not there's an active Internet connection, as well as to detect when the connection goes up and down. These added capabilities mean that it will be possible for users to continue writing their emails and working with the web applications while they are on the train and away from internet connectivity, for example.

Fundamentally what these new resources mean is that Firefox 3 will provide a way for all the applications that were once written as desktop applications to be written as web applications that can be used offline (as a desktop application would be) as well as be used online. Surmising from my previous post, in the same way Windows moved the base platform from the command prompt to the graphical user interface, it looks more and more likely that we are going to see the platform move again to the web.

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For how much longer are people going to use separate and disparate social networks, email accounts, instant messenger services and even things like mobile phones - all run by separate providers, each with its own 'friends list' and none compatible with the other?

As it so happens, we are starting to see some convergence:

• GrandCentral already allows you to view and listen to your phone's voicemail from a web page. The technology is promising and has been bought by Google for integration with Google Docs, which includes Google Mail.
• Google Mail and Yahoo Mail already offer a 'lite' chat mechanism from within their web pages, allowing you to chat with your friends who also have Google/Yahoo accounts.
• Facebook now has a mechanism for instigating instant messenger like chats.
• AOL is buying Bebo so that the Bebo social network can be merged with AOL's Instant Messengering (aka AIM) service.

This trend raises some interesting questions, such as 'is convergence useful?' and 'what would a completely converged communication mechanism look/sound/function like?'.

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... they're everywhere, aren't they?

You're on your way to work and you find that there are transport problems: the train is late again. Once at work, because you are late for your meeting - your boss is angry. Worse still, you are not given the pay increase you were promised.

All this, and more, are typical of the every day issues that come up for employees and which managers sometimes have to 'manage'. The emotional twists and turns can be unhealthy for your morale and the energy you need to be successful.

A few years ago I came across a course, "The Power to Choose", by chartered psychologist Graham Price. Research that Price had done with colleagues at Birkbeck (University of London) found that there are three main ways in which people accomplish substantial goals. The first is the well known method of goal-setting: this made up around 40% of participants in the research. The second method was some kind of spiritual enlightenment, making up close to 10%. In the region of another 40% was a third method: people somehow accepting things as they are and their goals materializing.

Price's course explained the working of this third way of reaching goals and dealing with life. The most powerful concept of the course is that you have the power to choose. When you come across a situation that is unpleasant, such as a late train, you can choose not only your reaction to the situation, but also how you feel about it. Too often people let themselves get into auto-pilot chains of thought that lead to anxiety, depression, anger or a range of other unhealthy emotions. If you can get out of auto-pilot, you can put yourself into modes of thought and then action that are more productive.

Recently Price has released an e-mail based version of the course he normally delivers in-person to audiences around the UK. Because email is a more limited form than real life, Price is currently offering this version of the course free. Available at www.helpwithyourproblem.com, I recommend taking a look at this e-mail for anyone interested in taking greater control of their life.

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How do you grow a team that is so tightly jelled, that it becomes self-motivated, unstoppable and hugely successful? The technical term for this kind of team chemistry might be 'associability', a concept referenced in Viral Change from an academic paper [1]. The term 'associability' is described as the "willingness and ability of individuals to subordinate personal goals and associated actions to collective goals and actions". This is in contrast to 'sociability', which is related to the ability to socialise. While 'sociability' is useful, it is 'associability' that motivates people and the team to achieve more together than the sum of the parts that make up the team.

One well known self-motivated, unstoppable and hugely successful team is the 'The Black Team' from the book Peopleware[2]. The story is an interesting case study in how people with certain behaviours are selected, then combined together and nurtured through these behaviours - producing the net result of high associability. Some of the key drivers in this story are:

• That people recognised across the company as having behaviours related to being good testers were gathered together in a single team
• This team developed a philosophy, and associated behaviours, of (1) expecting and wanting to find bugs and (2) getting delight from the ordeal they put programmers through in finding bugs.
• The team's growing identity that they are destroyers of software further reinforced the behaviours necessary for the team to succeed.
  

References:

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