Yahoo! Rising

This is a cool idea and it looks like its implemented very well. Yahoo! Answers

And the people say, "So what?"

So, how is the Ajax movement of the present time different than the portal movement that peaked in 2000 or so?

One major difference of today is the openess and sharing information across sites made posssible by XML and the notion of the Semantic Web. The portals of the 90's tried to be all things to all people. Todays businesses realize they can't do that and they need lots and lots of customization and integration with other sources of information. This is why you're seeing companies API's opening up inviting others to create unique applications with their data.

anelson of apocryph.org writes:

"Does anyone else think this is a minor evolution of that canonical 90’s bubble icon, the search portal?"

Read more at apocryph.org/i_dont_get_ajax_desktops

Week of the API's

Poking fun at Ajax

I'm seeing the Web mutate and evolve before my very eyes! How much longer before we have computers that are running open source operating system whose single client application is a robust browser like Firefox ? Maybe already happening, let me know if you see something!

Around 2000 the big word was "portal" and currently we're seeing a resurgence of the notion of customized content "fed" to you.

Even in 1996, "push content" was a huge notion. My dad and I, however, didn't think people would just sit around watching their computers though. Turns out, we were right. As computers turn into media centers and media centers turn into computers ... well, you get the picture.

Nothing new under the sun? We'll. Revisit those hyped notions of yesteryear, give 'em a new name and new technology and voila!

Ok! Ok! Ok! I've got an idea but no time to implement it. So somebody oughta build an app that takes all the hype of the last 10 years and jumble it up into new hype.

For example, take the word "feed", "portal" and "javascript" and you have "Ajax"!"

Let's try it. Take the "VRML", "3-D" movement of 1995, add in, lets say, the "flash" explosion of 2000, add the "distance ed movement" and you have ... oh lets name it after another household product ... umm ... "Arm & Hammer"! No? "Mr. Clean"?

Ok! So the equation is: (descriptive word for getting or putting information) + (name for an entrance of some kind) + (Programming language) = household cleaning product

It needs some work! Help me out!

By the way, TechCrunch is just such a useful blog on this Web 2.0 subject that I'm going to add a link there on the right. Thanks TechCrunch!"

Read more at www.techcrunch.com/2005...

Xooglers

I've referred to Google quite a bit lately and to round this blog out a bit I've included a link to Xooglers: A gathering spot for Ex-Googlers to reminisce and comment on the latest developments in search.

There's a enthralling sense that the Xoogler author was in the midst of something great there in Google's early days. He could have chosen to make a mint on book sales, but he wrote a blog instead. That alone deserves an honorable mention.

Xoogler is quite interesting, entertaining and addicting. But don't take my word for it, here's what other bloggers are saying : blogsearch.google.com/b...

Opinmind Opinion Finder

Opinmind "is a fun tool to find positive and negative comments by bloggers on any subject imaginable."

There needs to be a way to edit what's positive and negative, however. For a search for biotechnology, I found on the positive side an opinion " So when I say that the dangers of biotechnology are great and irreversible that because they are." Obviously, the algorithm choose "biotechnology are great". So, opinmind is a tool for gathering simple statements only.

That's just my opinion!

Meebo

One seriously cool AJAX Web 2.0 App: Meebo. AIM, MSN, Yahoo! and more Web based chat. Nothing to download! Read more about Meebo's impressive growth.

AJAX Apps: Protopage v 2.0

Protopage v 2.0: "Protopage launched version 2.0 of its Ajax desktop today. I previously profiled Protopage in August.

There are a number of new and interesting features, which are described in the Protopage blog. It continues to be extremely fast and easy to use.

Protopage was an earlyish entrant into the Ajax desktop market, which is now crowded with products like Netvibes, Google, Microsoft Live and Zoozio. Goowy is also a choice, of course, although they have chosen Flash over Ajax for their platform. Microsoft Live is the only extensible product, with a growing number of third party widgets available for use.

And there is yet another Ajax desktop product entering the market in the next few weeks that also has an open API for third party developers to add functionality. As I mentioned above, this is an extremely crowded market - with uncertain economics.

Tags: protopage, ajax, techcrunch, web2.0, web+2.0"

The Fear of Google Continues as a Hot Topic and Popular News Story

Googlephobia:
The Fear of Google Continues as a Hot Topic and Popular News Story: "What might this holidays season's most popular item and topic be for grown-ups be? A satellite radio? A new car with GPS? A trip to St. Barts? Nope, it just might be the fear of Google and what to do about it. I guess 'doing no evil' and fear are not the same thing. (-; Reuters (via News.com) has a lengthy look at how another group, in this case Madison Avenue advertisers, fear Google in the article: Madison Avenue faces Google fears. We're reading article like this on a very regular basis these days. Last week, we posted: + Who's..."

August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web

Who will have a handle on the Web in 3 years? How will the Web of 2009 work? Food for thought:

August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web

eHub Interviews RawSugar

What is RawSugar? "RawSugar is a social search engine powered by member?s knowledge, where search is accelerated by guiding results with member-designated tags. We?re an online community with over 135,000 tagged URLs shared in the two months since opening our public beta."

Tags are one step closer to a manageable, user-centered Web. But its not the end all folks.

"Our guiding vision is that adding scalable, explicit human knowledge, using tags, will ultimately revolutionize web search!"

Uh ... no.

RawSugar, if you're lucky, you'll be an internet footnote in 2006. Tagging will not bring the Web together. Why? Because the world use different tags for what may appear to be similar items. Maybe everyone needs to use a schema of some kind. No. The engine that can take those tags, how they relate to each other and the content and make sense of it all will be on tops. My money's still on Google at this point.

Emily Chang - eHub Interviews