Friday, March 30, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
FT.com / Companies / IT - Will twittering be big business?
FT.com / Companies / IT - Will twittering be big business?
Will twittering be big business?
Published: March 28 2007 03:00 | Last updated: March 28 2007 03:00
Spring has sprung, the birds are singing and San Francisco is hearts a-flutter over a Web 2.0 service called Twitter.
I encountered it first in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Tekkies were using it to track events and each other's movements around the vast show. It has been growing exponentially ever since.
Twitter essentially allows you to broadcast SMS-type messages to friends and the public about what you're up to, with an archive of your one-sentence twitterings available on the twitter.com website.
Opinions are divided on whether to love or hate Twitter and whether it is full of useless minutiae or useful information. Photo blogger Thomas Hawk finds it as addictive as Flickr and says: "It is the micro blogging platform du jour, allows me to stay in contact with over 400 people, serves as a great daily record of what I've been up to for archive purposes, and is fun as hell."
Others might say this is taking Web 2.0's interactive tools and blogging into the realms of the absurd.
Just looking at the current twitterings on the public page, there are some interesting comments but also entries such as "same thing I was doing eight hours ago", "uploading a new image", "getting dinner on my way home" and commercial messages including the BBC posting what is up next on the World Service.
These may tell us little about the zeitgeist but there is no doubt that Twitter itself is very much of the moment - the Hitwise research team says its traffic has risen 55 per cent in the space of a week, and although still niche, it is already spawning related sites such as Twittersearch, Twitterholic, which ranks "twits" by postings, and Twittermaps and Twittervision, mash-ups that mix Google maps of the world with the latest twitterings and their locations.
What is also interesting about Twitter is what it says about Web 2.0 and Silicon Valley's culture. Valley companies have a habit of working on one idea until a better one comes along. This is not a world of carefully hatched business plans leading to world domination, it is one of happenstance and serendipity, quick adaptations and imaginative improvisations on existing themes.
In Twitter's case, Evan Williams is behind the service, an entrepreneur and developer who founded Blogger, the blogging service bought by Google in 2003. He went on to create Odeo, a podcasting technology that has made little impression, but one of his engineers came up with Twitter as a project and this has now changed the course of the business.
But what is the business? Williams doesn't know and doesn't seem to care. Build a great user experience and the business model will follow, he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
I have heard this more than once in recent weeks from Web 2.0 companies, including Izimi, a British company that is following other foreign start-ups in setting up in San Francisco, the heart of the movement.
This seems part of a new confidence and independence that Web 2.0 fosters. The code-sharing that goes on, the coffee-shop offices and the cheap technology now available means these small companies can survive for long periods without the need to seek venture capital or go to the markets.
It's a refreshing change from the 1999 bubble of MBAs with carefully prepared business plans designed to attract venture capital. There were too many me-too ideas and everyone had the same SASSy proposals for making money, as in Subscriptions, Advertising, selling Services or earning Sponsorship. All the while, they had sweet FA - as in Flotation or Acquisition - in the back of their minds as the best way to cash in.
So in contrast, the Web 2.0 crowd seem happy to, and can afford to, go with the flow of where their users take their services. Look at Google, they point out, it went four years before finding a business model, and a pretty spectacular one at that.
This is all very well, but there is only one Google, and MySpace and YouTube have achieved similar dominance in social networking and online video. The future could be big for Twitter or it could end up as a passing fad - already many people are learning to turn down or turn off the constant messaging to their phones.
Instead of understanding their market in advance with focus groups, Web 2.0 companies are doing it on the fly by observing user behaviour. They are user-driven in every sense and will live or die by those users and their attention spans.
The best outcome for most would be an acquisition by a larger company, in the way that Google and Yahoo! have picked up Web 2.0 services such as Del.icio.us, Flickr, JotSpot, Keyhole, Konfabulator, Oddpost, Upcoming and Writely.
The rest need to partner and club together, according to a new Forrester Research survey, if they want to address enterprises with their services. Businesses made clear they wanted to buy suites of Web 2.0 applications not stand-alone services.
And mass-market consumers may prefer integrated offerings rather than idle twitterings as well.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Will twittering be big business?
Published: March 28 2007 03:00 | Last updated: March 28 2007 03:00
Spring has sprung, the birds are singing and San Francisco is hearts a-flutter over a Web 2.0 service called Twitter.
I encountered it first in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Tekkies were using it to track events and each other's movements around the vast show. It has been growing exponentially ever since.
Twitter essentially allows you to broadcast SMS-type messages to friends and the public about what you're up to, with an archive of your one-sentence twitterings available on the twitter.com website.
Opinions are divided on whether to love or hate Twitter and whether it is full of useless minutiae or useful information. Photo blogger Thomas Hawk finds it as addictive as Flickr and says: "It is the micro blogging platform du jour, allows me to stay in contact with over 400 people, serves as a great daily record of what I've been up to for archive purposes, and is fun as hell."
Others might say this is taking Web 2.0's interactive tools and blogging into the realms of the absurd.
Just looking at the current twitterings on the public page, there are some interesting comments but also entries such as "same thing I was doing eight hours ago", "uploading a new image", "getting dinner on my way home" and commercial messages including the BBC posting what is up next on the World Service.
These may tell us little about the zeitgeist but there is no doubt that Twitter itself is very much of the moment - the Hitwise research team says its traffic has risen 55 per cent in the space of a week, and although still niche, it is already spawning related sites such as Twittersearch, Twitterholic, which ranks "twits" by postings, and Twittermaps and Twittervision, mash-ups that mix Google maps of the world with the latest twitterings and their locations.
What is also interesting about Twitter is what it says about Web 2.0 and Silicon Valley's culture. Valley companies have a habit of working on one idea until a better one comes along. This is not a world of carefully hatched business plans leading to world domination, it is one of happenstance and serendipity, quick adaptations and imaginative improvisations on existing themes.
In Twitter's case, Evan Williams is behind the service, an entrepreneur and developer who founded Blogger, the blogging service bought by Google in 2003. He went on to create Odeo, a podcasting technology that has made little impression, but one of his engineers came up with Twitter as a project and this has now changed the course of the business.
But what is the business? Williams doesn't know and doesn't seem to care. Build a great user experience and the business model will follow, he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
I have heard this more than once in recent weeks from Web 2.0 companies, including Izimi, a British company that is following other foreign start-ups in setting up in San Francisco, the heart of the movement.
This seems part of a new confidence and independence that Web 2.0 fosters. The code-sharing that goes on, the coffee-shop offices and the cheap technology now available means these small companies can survive for long periods without the need to seek venture capital or go to the markets.
It's a refreshing change from the 1999 bubble of MBAs with carefully prepared business plans designed to attract venture capital. There were too many me-too ideas and everyone had the same SASSy proposals for making money, as in Subscriptions, Advertising, selling Services or earning Sponsorship. All the while, they had sweet FA - as in Flotation or Acquisition - in the back of their minds as the best way to cash in.
So in contrast, the Web 2.0 crowd seem happy to, and can afford to, go with the flow of where their users take their services. Look at Google, they point out, it went four years before finding a business model, and a pretty spectacular one at that.
This is all very well, but there is only one Google, and MySpace and YouTube have achieved similar dominance in social networking and online video. The future could be big for Twitter or it could end up as a passing fad - already many people are learning to turn down or turn off the constant messaging to their phones.
Instead of understanding their market in advance with focus groups, Web 2.0 companies are doing it on the fly by observing user behaviour. They are user-driven in every sense and will live or die by those users and their attention spans.
The best outcome for most would be an acquisition by a larger company, in the way that Google and Yahoo! have picked up Web 2.0 services such as Del.icio.us, Flickr, JotSpot, Keyhole, Konfabulator, Oddpost, Upcoming and Writely.
The rest need to partner and club together, according to a new Forrester Research survey, if they want to address enterprises with their services. Businesses made clear they wanted to buy suites of Web 2.0 applications not stand-alone services.
And mass-market consumers may prefer integrated offerings rather than idle twitterings as well.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
FT.com / Technology - A message to the world
FT.com / Technology - A message to the world
A message to the world
By David Bowen
Published: March 28 2007 10:13 | Last updated: March 28 2007 10:13
Alarge company’s web presence is an expensive thing – companies brave enough to tot up the cost may find it runs into tens of millions of dollars a year. Yet return on investment is impossible to calculate.
But with the web now becoming a mass medium in the developed world, and growing at a giddy rate elsewhere, it is an essential part of the communications mix.
What is needed is a way of judging whether a web package is as good as it can be – that is, doing all the things it could be doing, as well as it can do them. And – at least as important – to see who is doing better so that best practice can be observed and adopted or adapted. These are the jobs the FT Bowen Craggs Index is attempting to do.
The Index, featured on Page 5, is a ranking – in fact it is many rankings. The aim is not to stimulate praise, blame or panic, but to show what should be done (and what should not be done) to make a website as effective as possible under several headings.
This Index is valuable partly because it takes an overall view, looking at the different (and often complex) jobs a site is asked to do, and seeing how well it does them. The advantage with corporate sites is that although there are considerable differences in emphasis, these tasks are pretty much the same for all. It is also valuable because it is based on judgments, rather than a “checklist” approach (see Methodology, Page 5, for details).
The Index looks at 60 of the world’s largest companies, taken from the 2006 FT Global 500, which ranks companies by market capitalisation. The top 20 from each of the US, Europe, and the rest of the world have been analysed.
So what makes a top-class corporate web presence? First, you can move around easily without losing your bearings. This is a sign both of good construction and good governance – that is, the web presence is run according to well-observed rules and processes.
Second, the best sites do all the jobs they could be doing. They offer a high-quality service to all stakeholders: people looking for jobs, customers, journalists, investors and the important social responsibility lobby. They even take care to offer good contact points – an element we include separately because it is often the most important role a site plays.
Third, they make good use of web technology. With broadband spreading, video, podcasts and other features make increasing sense, although imaginative use of less bandwidth-hungry tools can be at least as valuable. We see little evidence yet of Web 2.0 and its interactive functions to build communities online. This may be because these corporate giants are laggardly, or because they are rationally cautious. Whichever, we can expect to see more experimentation over the next year.
But the companies at the very top do more. Siemens stands out not only because it has a huge and highly coherent web presence, but also because of the attention to detail. Try looking for a product: the drilldown is ultra-rational. Look at the contact page or its press release archive: ditto.
It is clear that Siemens has not just said: “Let’s do the same as others, only better”; it has taken each problem and tried to solve it from first principles.
Shell does everything well, too. Until recently, its site was classy but conservative. That has changed with its new home page: here is a “tag cloud”, words in different sizes that reflect their popularity as search terms. It is not only clever, but carries a touch of Web 2.0 about it.
BP is slightly different: it stands out less for overall coherence than for flashes of brilliance, particularly in the use of web technology. Click the “Statistical Review of World Energy” on the home page, then the “Energy Charting Tool”. Useful and fun.
These are companies that are taking their websites very seriously indeed. Is it a coincidence that all three at the top have run into reputation problems recently? Almost certainly, yes. But it is no coincidence that they have used the web to manage the damage to their reputations (see the “Serving society” column in the table, Page 5).
What of the overall trends the Index has identified?
There is nothing notable by sector, but the regional differences are striking. Eight of the top 10 sites are European. This may come as a surprise to Americans, who took to the web so early, but that is part of the problem. Many US corporate websites have a distinctly frayed feel – they do little to polish the brand, and make rather too obvious their owners’ divisions (nothing like a website to uncover internal politics).
They also often have a strong marketing and selling focus, with brand and other communications tasks left to languish. This is confirmed by how US and Canadian sites fare better in the “serving customers” category – where six of the top 10 are North American – than they do in the ranking by “construction” (overall coherence) – where North America provides only two of the top 10.
Europeans came from behind, and some have been playing leapfrog. The best example is ENI, which comes out best in the construction list: a few years ago, the then-unwired Italians would have languished near the bottom of any table like this.
The US attitude, on the other hand, is exemplified by Bank of America. Its site is an architectural and branding nightmare – except for customers, who are directed step by easy step to where they can place their business. ENI comes nowhere in the marketing ranking, however. The two sides of the Atlantic can learn from each other.
What does this mean for the companies at the bottom of the list – nearly all from the developing world? Will they play leapfrog, too? It is probable that only some will. Russian sites are poor because they are being built on budgets that are far too mean. They will surely improve fast. The Saudi sites are very thin on content: they too will improve as they bulk out.
But what of companies that have spent on their sites but to no great effect? They have most to do. Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, the Brazilian mining giant, has an expensive site that just does not work well.
It is also surprising to see many Japanese sites in a mess. Our Japanese analyst checked to see if the domestic versions of Japan’s websites were better: there was much more marketing material from the banks, and also good information for graduates, but overall the answer was “no”.
For example, it has not helped that Honda’s US subsidiary has taken its standard “dot-com” address but the most charitable thing that can said about its global site (www.world.honda.com) is that it is charming in its eccentricity.
Not that eccentricity is the preserve of the Japanese. EDF (www.edf.com) has a musical home page that also acts as a hub for navigating the web. Every time you pass through it you get the music. Sound is a neglected aspect of the web – but you can have too much of a good thing.
■ David Bowen (dbowen@bowencraggs.com) is an ft.com columnist and senior consultant for Bowen Craggs & Co.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
A message to the world
By David Bowen
Published: March 28 2007 10:13 | Last updated: March 28 2007 10:13
Alarge company’s web presence is an expensive thing – companies brave enough to tot up the cost may find it runs into tens of millions of dollars a year. Yet return on investment is impossible to calculate.
But with the web now becoming a mass medium in the developed world, and growing at a giddy rate elsewhere, it is an essential part of the communications mix.
What is needed is a way of judging whether a web package is as good as it can be – that is, doing all the things it could be doing, as well as it can do them. And – at least as important – to see who is doing better so that best practice can be observed and adopted or adapted. These are the jobs the FT Bowen Craggs Index is attempting to do.
The Index, featured on Page 5, is a ranking – in fact it is many rankings. The aim is not to stimulate praise, blame or panic, but to show what should be done (and what should not be done) to make a website as effective as possible under several headings.
This Index is valuable partly because it takes an overall view, looking at the different (and often complex) jobs a site is asked to do, and seeing how well it does them. The advantage with corporate sites is that although there are considerable differences in emphasis, these tasks are pretty much the same for all. It is also valuable because it is based on judgments, rather than a “checklist” approach (see Methodology, Page 5, for details).
The Index looks at 60 of the world’s largest companies, taken from the 2006 FT Global 500, which ranks companies by market capitalisation. The top 20 from each of the US, Europe, and the rest of the world have been analysed.
So what makes a top-class corporate web presence? First, you can move around easily without losing your bearings. This is a sign both of good construction and good governance – that is, the web presence is run according to well-observed rules and processes.
Second, the best sites do all the jobs they could be doing. They offer a high-quality service to all stakeholders: people looking for jobs, customers, journalists, investors and the important social responsibility lobby. They even take care to offer good contact points – an element we include separately because it is often the most important role a site plays.
Third, they make good use of web technology. With broadband spreading, video, podcasts and other features make increasing sense, although imaginative use of less bandwidth-hungry tools can be at least as valuable. We see little evidence yet of Web 2.0 and its interactive functions to build communities online. This may be because these corporate giants are laggardly, or because they are rationally cautious. Whichever, we can expect to see more experimentation over the next year.
But the companies at the very top do more. Siemens stands out not only because it has a huge and highly coherent web presence, but also because of the attention to detail. Try looking for a product: the drilldown is ultra-rational. Look at the contact page or its press release archive: ditto.
It is clear that Siemens has not just said: “Let’s do the same as others, only better”; it has taken each problem and tried to solve it from first principles.
Shell does everything well, too. Until recently, its site was classy but conservative. That has changed with its new home page: here is a “tag cloud”, words in different sizes that reflect their popularity as search terms. It is not only clever, but carries a touch of Web 2.0 about it.
BP is slightly different: it stands out less for overall coherence than for flashes of brilliance, particularly in the use of web technology. Click the “Statistical Review of World Energy” on the home page, then the “Energy Charting Tool”. Useful and fun.
These are companies that are taking their websites very seriously indeed. Is it a coincidence that all three at the top have run into reputation problems recently? Almost certainly, yes. But it is no coincidence that they have used the web to manage the damage to their reputations (see the “Serving society” column in the table, Page 5).
What of the overall trends the Index has identified?
There is nothing notable by sector, but the regional differences are striking. Eight of the top 10 sites are European. This may come as a surprise to Americans, who took to the web so early, but that is part of the problem. Many US corporate websites have a distinctly frayed feel – they do little to polish the brand, and make rather too obvious their owners’ divisions (nothing like a website to uncover internal politics).
They also often have a strong marketing and selling focus, with brand and other communications tasks left to languish. This is confirmed by how US and Canadian sites fare better in the “serving customers” category – where six of the top 10 are North American – than they do in the ranking by “construction” (overall coherence) – where North America provides only two of the top 10.
Europeans came from behind, and some have been playing leapfrog. The best example is ENI, which comes out best in the construction list: a few years ago, the then-unwired Italians would have languished near the bottom of any table like this.
The US attitude, on the other hand, is exemplified by Bank of America. Its site is an architectural and branding nightmare – except for customers, who are directed step by easy step to where they can place their business. ENI comes nowhere in the marketing ranking, however. The two sides of the Atlantic can learn from each other.
What does this mean for the companies at the bottom of the list – nearly all from the developing world? Will they play leapfrog, too? It is probable that only some will. Russian sites are poor because they are being built on budgets that are far too mean. They will surely improve fast. The Saudi sites are very thin on content: they too will improve as they bulk out.
But what of companies that have spent on their sites but to no great effect? They have most to do. Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, the Brazilian mining giant, has an expensive site that just does not work well.
It is also surprising to see many Japanese sites in a mess. Our Japanese analyst checked to see if the domestic versions of Japan’s websites were better: there was much more marketing material from the banks, and also good information for graduates, but overall the answer was “no”.
For example, it has not helped that Honda’s US subsidiary has taken its standard “dot-com” address but the most charitable thing that can said about its global site (www.world.honda.com) is that it is charming in its eccentricity.
Not that eccentricity is the preserve of the Japanese. EDF (www.edf.com) has a musical home page that also acts as a hub for navigating the web. Every time you pass through it you get the music. Sound is a neglected aspect of the web – but you can have too much of a good thing.
■ David Bowen (dbowen@bowencraggs.com) is an ft.com columnist and senior consultant for Bowen Craggs & Co.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
SharePoint et MOSS au Quotidien Blog d'EROL: Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007
SharePoint et MOSS au Quotidien Blog d'EROL: Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007
Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007 Updated: March 15, 2007
Some of the content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library is available in downloadable and printable form as Microsoft Office Word documents (.doc files).
The content in these 4 books is a copy of selected content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84739) as of the date listed for each book.
The 4 books for WSSv3 are here :
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/WSS/en/library/decec839-73d9-4e23-b167-11e05dfc2feb1033.mspx?mfr=true
Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007 Updated: March 15, 2007
Some of the content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library is available in downloadable and printable form as Microsoft Office Word documents (.doc files).
The content in these 4 books is a copy of selected content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84739) as of the date listed for each book.
The 4 books for WSSv3 are here :
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/WSS/en/library/decec839-73d9-4e23-b167-11e05dfc2feb1033.mspx?mfr=true
Sunday, March 25, 2007
FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - Mini-blog is the talk of Silicon Valley
FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - Mini-blog is the talk of Silicon Valley
Mini-blog is the talk of Silicon Valley
By Richard Waters and Chris Nuttall in San Francisco
Published: March 25 2007 22:03 | Last updated: March 25 2007 22:03
Silicon Valley is abuzz over a new mini-blogging service for mobile phones that some predict will be a mass-market hit with the reach of a YouTube or MySpace.
Over the past two weeks, Twitter has attracted the sort of hyperbole the Valley reserves for its next internet darling – though such self-reinforcing adulation also led to dotcom mania.
Jonathan Schwartz, chief executive of Sun Microsystems, singled Twitter out at the end of last week as the latest hit from the post-YouTube generation of “viral” internet applications that have the potential to attract massive online audiences.
The internet has “become so consumerised that social phenomena can take off like lightning”, he said. Warning against the temptation to reject Twitter as a flash in the pan, Mr Schwartz added: “YouTube was funny until it was worth $1.65bn to someone,” a reference to Google’s purchase of the company last year.
“This is the first application that people have got excited about since Flickr came out,” said Ross Mayfield, a Valley entrepreneur, comparing it to a popular photo-sharing site bought by Yahoo in 2005. “I don’t think it will be the next YouTube – but I do think it will gain wide adoption,” he said.
Users of Twitter post short messages – up to 140 characters – that can be viewed either on a website or on mobile phones. “Twitter probably wouldn’t have existed before blogging, when people learned to be more transparent,” Mr Mayfield added.
Though launched publicly last summer, use of Twitter started to take off in the middle of March after it was adopted by technology bloggers attending the South by Southwest conference in Texas. As people like Mr Mayfield lauded the service on their blogs, interest spread quickly among the Valley’s key opinion-formers.
The sudden popularity of Twitter has seen the number of messages posted on its site jump from 20,000 to 70,000 a day, said Biz Stone of Obvious, the internet company which started the service. According to HitWise, which measures web traffic, use of the service jumped by 55 per cent the week after the conference, though it said Twitter was “still very niche” and had yet to reach the mass market.
The sudden jump in use has put a strain on Twitter’s servers, and the service has become “sluggish” as a result, said Mr Stone. That could point to the sort of difficulties that accompanied the sudden popularity four years ago of Friendster, the first widely used online social networking service. As it struggled to build the technological infrastructure capable of keeping up with demand, users tired of its patchy service and eventually turned to other sites like MySpace.
“We’ve seen the Friendster experience and we don’t want that to happen,” said Mr Stone. Twitter’s development team had now stopped adding new features to the service so that it could focus all its attention on coping with the surge in traffic, he said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Mini-blog is the talk of Silicon Valley
By Richard Waters and Chris Nuttall in San Francisco
Published: March 25 2007 22:03 | Last updated: March 25 2007 22:03
Silicon Valley is abuzz over a new mini-blogging service for mobile phones that some predict will be a mass-market hit with the reach of a YouTube or MySpace.
Over the past two weeks, Twitter has attracted the sort of hyperbole the Valley reserves for its next internet darling – though such self-reinforcing adulation also led to dotcom mania.
Jonathan Schwartz, chief executive of Sun Microsystems, singled Twitter out at the end of last week as the latest hit from the post-YouTube generation of “viral” internet applications that have the potential to attract massive online audiences.
The internet has “become so consumerised that social phenomena can take off like lightning”, he said. Warning against the temptation to reject Twitter as a flash in the pan, Mr Schwartz added: “YouTube was funny until it was worth $1.65bn to someone,” a reference to Google’s purchase of the company last year.
“This is the first application that people have got excited about since Flickr came out,” said Ross Mayfield, a Valley entrepreneur, comparing it to a popular photo-sharing site bought by Yahoo in 2005. “I don’t think it will be the next YouTube – but I do think it will gain wide adoption,” he said.
Users of Twitter post short messages – up to 140 characters – that can be viewed either on a website or on mobile phones. “Twitter probably wouldn’t have existed before blogging, when people learned to be more transparent,” Mr Mayfield added.
Though launched publicly last summer, use of Twitter started to take off in the middle of March after it was adopted by technology bloggers attending the South by Southwest conference in Texas. As people like Mr Mayfield lauded the service on their blogs, interest spread quickly among the Valley’s key opinion-formers.
The sudden popularity of Twitter has seen the number of messages posted on its site jump from 20,000 to 70,000 a day, said Biz Stone of Obvious, the internet company which started the service. According to HitWise, which measures web traffic, use of the service jumped by 55 per cent the week after the conference, though it said Twitter was “still very niche” and had yet to reach the mass market.
The sudden jump in use has put a strain on Twitter’s servers, and the service has become “sluggish” as a result, said Mr Stone. That could point to the sort of difficulties that accompanied the sudden popularity four years ago of Friendster, the first widely used online social networking service. As it struggled to build the technological infrastructure capable of keeping up with demand, users tired of its patchy service and eventually turned to other sites like MySpace.
“We’ve seen the Friendster experience and we don’t want that to happen,” said Mr Stone. Twitter’s development team had now stopped adding new features to the service so that it could focus all its attention on coping with the surge in traffic, he said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Oracle’s Strong Quarter and the Case of the Purloined Passwords | AMR Research
Oracle’s Strong Quarter and the Case of the Purloined Passwords | AMR Research
My initial plan for this week’s First Thing Monday was to analyze Oracle’s 3Q07 results. While the third-quarter performance was the strongest in more than five years, the financial news was overshadowed by the company’s news that it is suing archrival SAP, alleging “corporate theft on a grand scale.” Here’s our analysis of both.
My initial plan for this week’s First Thing Monday was to analyze Oracle’s 3Q07 results. While the third-quarter performance was the strongest in more than five years, the financial news was overshadowed by the company’s news that it is suing archrival SAP, alleging “corporate theft on a grand scale.” Here’s our analysis of both.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
CeBIT - Trends und Themen CeBIT 2007
CeBIT - Trends und Themen CeBIT 2007
Trends und Themen CeBIT 2007
Zum Abschluss der CeBIT 2007
Die CeBIT war erneut die Messe für Innovationen in der ITK-Branche. Zu den Highlights 2007 gehörten neue Dienste rund um Voice over IP (VoIP) und IPTV, das mobile Fernsehen sowie HD-DVD und Blu-Ray.
Weitere Top-Themen waren der Einsatz energiesparender Technologien, IT-Sicherheit sowie leistungsstärkere Telematik- und Navigationssysteme. Viel diskutiert wurden außerdem die Einsatzmöglichkeiten von Auto ID/RFID, SOA-basierte Unternehmenslösungen, "Software as a Service" und neue Entwicklungen im Bereich eGovernment.
Trends und Themen CeBIT 2007
Zum Abschluss der CeBIT 2007
Die CeBIT war erneut die Messe für Innovationen in der ITK-Branche. Zu den Highlights 2007 gehörten neue Dienste rund um Voice over IP (VoIP) und IPTV, das mobile Fernsehen sowie HD-DVD und Blu-Ray.
Weitere Top-Themen waren der Einsatz energiesparender Technologien, IT-Sicherheit sowie leistungsstärkere Telematik- und Navigationssysteme. Viel diskutiert wurden außerdem die Einsatzmöglichkeiten von Auto ID/RFID, SOA-basierte Unternehmenslösungen, "Software as a Service" und neue Entwicklungen im Bereich eGovernment.
CeBIT: Alle trends op een rijtje - Personal Computer Magazine
CeBIT: Alle trends op een rijtje - Personal Computer Magazine
De afgelopen week heeft u iedere dag vers nieuws van de CeBIT - de grootste technologiebeurs van Europa - kunnen lezen. Gisteravond sloot de CeBIT. Vandaag krijgt u nog de allerlaatste nieuwtjes én kunt u ons verslag lezen.
De afgelopen week heeft u iedere dag vers nieuws van de CeBIT - de grootste technologiebeurs van Europa - kunnen lezen. Gisteravond sloot de CeBIT. Vandaag krijgt u nog de allerlaatste nieuwtjes én kunt u ons verslag lezen.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
What are people 'twittering' about? / Oddly addictive technology broadcasts what users are doing via IM, Web, cell
What are people 'twittering' about? / Oddly addictive technology broadcasts what users are doing via IM, Web, cell
What are people 'twittering' about?
Oddly addictive technology broadcasts what users are doing via IM, Web, cell
What are people 'twittering' about?
Oddly addictive technology broadcasts what users are doing via IM, Web, cell
Thursday, March 15, 2007
:: PIRONET NDH AG ::
:: PIRONET NDH AG ::
Pironet NDH auf der CeBIT: Pironet NDH stellt Redaktionssystem für das SAP NetWeaver Portal vor
Köln, den 15. März 2007 - Pironet NDH bietet eine weitere Content-Management-Lösung für SAP. Das pirobase Enterprise Content Studio (ECS) erweitert das SAP Netweaver Portal um ein vollständiges Redaktionssystem. Die Lösung setzt auf den Funktionen des SAP Netweaver Portals im Bereich Knowledge Management & Collaboration auf.
Zum Leistungsumfang gehört beispielsweise ein Editor, mit dem sich komplexe Intranetseiten erstellen und pflegen lassen. Dabei organisiert pirobase ECS auch die Freigabe von Dokumenten. Durch die Integration in die Netweaver-Umgebung entfällt für die Redakteure zudem die doppelte Pflege der Navigationshierarchie, da das Portal die im Editor erstellten Inhaltsbäume nach der Freigabe automatisch übernimmt. Zusätzlich erweitert pirobase ECS das Netweaver Portal um eine Mandantenverwaltung. Hierdurch lassen sich komplexe Organisationsstrukturen leichter im SAP Netweaver Portal abbilden.
„Innerhalb unseres ECM-Portfolios für SAP haben wir pirobase ECS als kleine, leicht zu integrierende Lösung konzipiert. Sie bietet Autoren eine intuitive Redaktionsoberfläche, mit der sich sehr einfach komplexe Intra-, Extra- und Internetauftritte realisieren lassen. Dabei nutzt pirobase ECS vorhandene Netweaver-Funktionen wie etwa die Portal-Navigation, Knowledge Management oder Web Dynpro“, erklärt Ali Saffari, Leiter Portal Solutions bei Pironet NDH. Mit der Laufzeit- und Entwicklungsumgebung Web Dynpro können Unternehmen professionelle Browser-basierte Anwendungen bauen und eine geräte- und plattformunabhängige Anwendungsumgebung schaffen.
Weitere Informationen zum pirobase ECS bietet Pironet NDH auf der CeBIT in Halle 4, Stand D12.
Über Pironet NDH
Die 1995 gegründete Pironet NDH bietet innovative Lösungen zur Erstellung, Synchronisierung und Verteilung von digitalen Inhalten jeglicher Art sowie zur Optimierung von internen und externen Geschäftsprozessen. Zu den Schwerpunkten gehören Beratungs- und Kreationsleistungen, Softwareprodukte und der Betrieb von unternehmenskritischen Infrastrukturen und Anwendungen. Das börsennotierte Technologieunternehmen mit Hauptsitz in Köln beschäftigt mehr als 300 Mitarbeiter an mehreren Standorten in Europa. Zu den Kunden zählen sowohl mittelständische Unternehmen als auch international agierende Konzerne.
Pressekontakt:
Pironet NDH AG
Press Office
Andrés Sieverding
Maarweg 149-161
50825 Köln
Tel.: +49 (0)221/770-1224
Fax: +49 (0)221/770-1205
press@pironet-ndh.com
www.pironet-ndh.com/press
Pironet NDH auf der CeBIT: Pironet NDH stellt Redaktionssystem für das SAP NetWeaver Portal vor
Köln, den 15. März 2007 - Pironet NDH bietet eine weitere Content-Management-Lösung für SAP. Das pirobase Enterprise Content Studio (ECS) erweitert das SAP Netweaver Portal um ein vollständiges Redaktionssystem. Die Lösung setzt auf den Funktionen des SAP Netweaver Portals im Bereich Knowledge Management & Collaboration auf.
Zum Leistungsumfang gehört beispielsweise ein Editor, mit dem sich komplexe Intranetseiten erstellen und pflegen lassen. Dabei organisiert pirobase ECS auch die Freigabe von Dokumenten. Durch die Integration in die Netweaver-Umgebung entfällt für die Redakteure zudem die doppelte Pflege der Navigationshierarchie, da das Portal die im Editor erstellten Inhaltsbäume nach der Freigabe automatisch übernimmt. Zusätzlich erweitert pirobase ECS das Netweaver Portal um eine Mandantenverwaltung. Hierdurch lassen sich komplexe Organisationsstrukturen leichter im SAP Netweaver Portal abbilden.
„Innerhalb unseres ECM-Portfolios für SAP haben wir pirobase ECS als kleine, leicht zu integrierende Lösung konzipiert. Sie bietet Autoren eine intuitive Redaktionsoberfläche, mit der sich sehr einfach komplexe Intra-, Extra- und Internetauftritte realisieren lassen. Dabei nutzt pirobase ECS vorhandene Netweaver-Funktionen wie etwa die Portal-Navigation, Knowledge Management oder Web Dynpro“, erklärt Ali Saffari, Leiter Portal Solutions bei Pironet NDH. Mit der Laufzeit- und Entwicklungsumgebung Web Dynpro können Unternehmen professionelle Browser-basierte Anwendungen bauen und eine geräte- und plattformunabhängige Anwendungsumgebung schaffen.
Weitere Informationen zum pirobase ECS bietet Pironet NDH auf der CeBIT in Halle 4, Stand D12.
Über Pironet NDH
Die 1995 gegründete Pironet NDH bietet innovative Lösungen zur Erstellung, Synchronisierung und Verteilung von digitalen Inhalten jeglicher Art sowie zur Optimierung von internen und externen Geschäftsprozessen. Zu den Schwerpunkten gehören Beratungs- und Kreationsleistungen, Softwareprodukte und der Betrieb von unternehmenskritischen Infrastrukturen und Anwendungen. Das börsennotierte Technologieunternehmen mit Hauptsitz in Köln beschäftigt mehr als 300 Mitarbeiter an mehreren Standorten in Europa. Zu den Kunden zählen sowohl mittelständische Unternehmen als auch international agierende Konzerne.
Pressekontakt:
Pironet NDH AG
Press Office
Andrés Sieverding
Maarweg 149-161
50825 Köln
Tel.: +49 (0)221/770-1224
Fax: +49 (0)221/770-1205
press@pironet-ndh.com
www.pironet-ndh.com/press
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Cool vendors in content management, 2007
The cool vendors in this document are setting trends in areas like open-source enterprise content management, the business value of content analytics, knowledge applicability of social networks and better support for e-discovery.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
FIRSTspirit - maximale Leistung in allen Portalen
FIRSTspirit - maximale Leistung in allen Portalen
e-Spirit präsentiert auf der CeBIT High-End-Funktionalitäten für effektives Content Management großer und weltweit genutzter Webseiten
FIRSTspirit ab sofort auch nahtlos in den Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007 integrierbar
FIRSTspirit, das Content-Management-System des Dortmunder Softwarehauses e-Spirit, zeigt sich auf der CeBIT 2007 mit einem Leistungsspektrum, das für Unternehmen mit komplexen Inter- und Intranet-Projekten noch mehr Vorteile bietet. in|SHARE, ein Tool der adesso AG für umfassende Integration in den Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007 (MOSS), vervollständigt FIRSTspirits Integrationsfähigkeit und macht es zu einem perfekten Content-Management-System für Unternehmen mit SAP-, IBM- und Microsoft-Portalen.
Perfekt im Portal
Neu im Bereich der Portalintegration ist in|Share, die Integrationslösung für den Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Gemeinsam entwickelt mit der adesso AG, komplettiert in|Share die Produktpalette der Integrationslösungen. FIRSTspirit verfügt somit über eine perfekte Anbindung an das SAP NetWeaver und das IBM WebSphere Portal und nun auch in den Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Selbstverständlich kann FIRSTspirit all diese Portale auch gleichzeitig bedienen und so den gleichen Content in verschiedene Portale ausgeben.
In allen Portalen profitieren die Anwender vornehmlich von der Möglichkeit, Inhalte ohne das entsprechende Portal-Know-how pflegen zu können. Inhalte können in FIRSTspirit komfortabel bearbeitet und anschließend inklusive Navigationsstrukturen, Berechtigungen und Sprachen automatisch ins Portal übernommen werden. Die Ausgabe erfolgt in allen gewünschten Sprachen und Schriften sowohl auf Webseiten als auch in PDF-Dokumente.
Die Portalfunktionen auf einen Blick:
- Pflege mehrsprachiger Inhalte direkt am Seitenobjekt
- Generierung der Inhalte in beliebig viele Ausgabeformate
- Anlegen und Pflegen von Portal-Menüpunkten direkt aus FIRSTspirit heraus
- Personalisierung der Inhalte durch die Redakteure
- Frei definierbare Redaktionsprozesse
- Automatische Erzeugung von Druck- oder PDF-Versionen der Portalinhalte
- Wiederverwendung von Inhalten für Internet- und Extranet Projekte
- Keinerlei Portal-Know-how für Redakteure erforderlich
- Keinerlei FIRSTspirit Know-how für die Portal Administratoren erforderlich
High-End Content-Management
FIRSTspirits High-End-Funktionen sind vornehmlich für große und international agierende Unternehmen interessant, für die eine hohe Leistungsfähigkeit und Flexibilität des Systems ebenso wichtig ist, wie dessen Benutzerfreundlichkeit.
FIRSTspirit ist eine 100% in Java implementierte Client/Server-Anwendung, eine seiner zentralen Funktionen ist die Trennung von Struktur, Inhalt und Darstellung. Inhalte können einmal gepflegt und in verschiedenen Kontexten wieder verwendet werden, d. h. eine Webseite ist in sekundenschnelle beliebig umstrukturierbar. FIRSTspirit basiert auf Unicode und unterstützt daher alle Sprachen und Zeichensätze.
Fast alle Datenbanken werden mit wenig Programmieraufwand ohne Redundanzen integriert und die Erstellung der Datenbank-Schemata unterstützt ein grafischer Editor. Als revisionsbasiertes Repository erlaubt FIRSTspirit überdies das lückenlose Nachvollziehen aller Änderungen und Zugriffe auf einen Systemzustand in der Vergangenheit. Die hohe Skalierbarkeit und Performance stellt sicher, dass die Stabilität des Systems auch bei der gleichzeitigen Nutzung durch mehrere Hundert User konstant bleibt.
Ein besonderes Augenmerk legt FIRSTspirit auf die Usability. Es lässt seinen Anwendern die Wahl: regelmäßige Nutzer können auf einen komfortablen Java-Client, Gelegenheitsnutzer auf einen intuitiv zu bedienenden Web-Client zurückgreifen - unnötiger Schulungsaufwand wird so vermieden.
Aus den medienneutral im XML-Format abgelegen Inhalten kann FIRSTspirit beliebige Ausgabeformate erzeugen und diese an frei wählbare Live-Systeme ausgeben. Aber natürlich werden auch Webseiten und gedruckte Medien bedient. Beispielhaft für die Qualität dieser Funktionen sind die Portalintegrationslösungen.
13.03.2007, Marc Kleine
e-Spirit präsentiert auf der CeBIT High-End-Funktionalitäten für effektives Content Management großer und weltweit genutzter Webseiten
FIRSTspirit ab sofort auch nahtlos in den Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007 integrierbar
FIRSTspirit, das Content-Management-System des Dortmunder Softwarehauses e-Spirit, zeigt sich auf der CeBIT 2007 mit einem Leistungsspektrum, das für Unternehmen mit komplexen Inter- und Intranet-Projekten noch mehr Vorteile bietet. in|SHARE, ein Tool der adesso AG für umfassende Integration in den Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007 (MOSS), vervollständigt FIRSTspirits Integrationsfähigkeit und macht es zu einem perfekten Content-Management-System für Unternehmen mit SAP-, IBM- und Microsoft-Portalen.
Perfekt im Portal
Neu im Bereich der Portalintegration ist in|Share, die Integrationslösung für den Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Gemeinsam entwickelt mit der adesso AG, komplettiert in|Share die Produktpalette der Integrationslösungen. FIRSTspirit verfügt somit über eine perfekte Anbindung an das SAP NetWeaver und das IBM WebSphere Portal und nun auch in den Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Selbstverständlich kann FIRSTspirit all diese Portale auch gleichzeitig bedienen und so den gleichen Content in verschiedene Portale ausgeben.
In allen Portalen profitieren die Anwender vornehmlich von der Möglichkeit, Inhalte ohne das entsprechende Portal-Know-how pflegen zu können. Inhalte können in FIRSTspirit komfortabel bearbeitet und anschließend inklusive Navigationsstrukturen, Berechtigungen und Sprachen automatisch ins Portal übernommen werden. Die Ausgabe erfolgt in allen gewünschten Sprachen und Schriften sowohl auf Webseiten als auch in PDF-Dokumente.
Die Portalfunktionen auf einen Blick:
- Pflege mehrsprachiger Inhalte direkt am Seitenobjekt
- Generierung der Inhalte in beliebig viele Ausgabeformate
- Anlegen und Pflegen von Portal-Menüpunkten direkt aus FIRSTspirit heraus
- Personalisierung der Inhalte durch die Redakteure
- Frei definierbare Redaktionsprozesse
- Automatische Erzeugung von Druck- oder PDF-Versionen der Portalinhalte
- Wiederverwendung von Inhalten für Internet- und Extranet Projekte
- Keinerlei Portal-Know-how für Redakteure erforderlich
- Keinerlei FIRSTspirit Know-how für die Portal Administratoren erforderlich
High-End Content-Management
FIRSTspirits High-End-Funktionen sind vornehmlich für große und international agierende Unternehmen interessant, für die eine hohe Leistungsfähigkeit und Flexibilität des Systems ebenso wichtig ist, wie dessen Benutzerfreundlichkeit.
FIRSTspirit ist eine 100% in Java implementierte Client/Server-Anwendung, eine seiner zentralen Funktionen ist die Trennung von Struktur, Inhalt und Darstellung. Inhalte können einmal gepflegt und in verschiedenen Kontexten wieder verwendet werden, d. h. eine Webseite ist in sekundenschnelle beliebig umstrukturierbar. FIRSTspirit basiert auf Unicode und unterstützt daher alle Sprachen und Zeichensätze.
Fast alle Datenbanken werden mit wenig Programmieraufwand ohne Redundanzen integriert und die Erstellung der Datenbank-Schemata unterstützt ein grafischer Editor. Als revisionsbasiertes Repository erlaubt FIRSTspirit überdies das lückenlose Nachvollziehen aller Änderungen und Zugriffe auf einen Systemzustand in der Vergangenheit. Die hohe Skalierbarkeit und Performance stellt sicher, dass die Stabilität des Systems auch bei der gleichzeitigen Nutzung durch mehrere Hundert User konstant bleibt.
Ein besonderes Augenmerk legt FIRSTspirit auf die Usability. Es lässt seinen Anwendern die Wahl: regelmäßige Nutzer können auf einen komfortablen Java-Client, Gelegenheitsnutzer auf einen intuitiv zu bedienenden Web-Client zurückgreifen - unnötiger Schulungsaufwand wird so vermieden.
Aus den medienneutral im XML-Format abgelegen Inhalten kann FIRSTspirit beliebige Ausgabeformate erzeugen und diese an frei wählbare Live-Systeme ausgeben. Aber natürlich werden auch Webseiten und gedruckte Medien bedient. Beispielhaft für die Qualität dieser Funktionen sind die Portalintegrationslösungen.
13.03.2007, Marc Kleine
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