Rich User Experiences

Web technologies are obviously built for this scenario, so

• HTML/HTML 5 is likely most important (search engine visibility is important for most sites).
• AJAX is likely to enhance functionality but probably should be used with care (for accessibility and not impacting search engine visibility, browser navigation, bookmarking, etc.).

I have a great example for rich user experience; usually we have “apps” on our smart phones like the famous iPhone or Android, but now there is Web Apps and Google Web Browser aka Chrome is one of the innovative browser that evolve everyone’s web experience with its amazing user experience. Below I have created a web category diagram for all the different type of apps that Chrome have. Please click on the diagram to have a better view of the diagram. To know more about Google Chrome's framework please read from this link or watch this video link. 

Below will be a screenshot of Chrome's very own App Page. There is a couple of apps that I would like to share with you, which i felt that they have great GUI and enhancing the web application experience. Users can simply download the apps from Chrome Web Store. To know more about Chrome Web Store, please watch this video link to understand more on how the app works in Chrome. 

TweetDeck 

Welcome to the new twitter experience on a Chrome Browser, below will be the screen shots of TweetDeck comparing with the official Twitter web site. Please click to enlarge to have a better look for the difference between TweetDeck and Twitter. TweetDeck is using the HTML5 technology behing the app. Read more information here.  

TweetDeck on Chrome have more control over editing and viewing the tweets comparing with the original Twitter web site. TweetDeck is not all about Twitter only, it also have the Facebook API integration which allow user to view their profile and replying messages to their friends too. They even have the additional Foursquare API which allows you to view some of the wonderful locations that your friends or family members have been to and their reviews of the location too. 
TweetDeck can let the user to view Twitter + Facebook + Foursquare + Google Buzz in one web window. User doesn't need to open up multiple windows just to view the updates. To know more information regarding TweetDeck, this will be the video link to understand more.

IMO Instant Messenger 
Its integrated with Chrome and works fantastically with it. The great thing about IMO is that its not just working with MSN account only but with the others like Google Talk, Yahoo, Skype, Facebook, MySpace, AIM and Jabber. Below I will be sharing some of the screenshots of IMO and the GUI on a Chrome too. On the screen shots of the chat screen, clearly can see that they have put some animations along with it, making everything look more interactive, and attracting the lots of users using it due to its simplicity GUI navigation & design. It also being awarded a People Choice Award 2011 by About.com. 

SlideRocket 
Other than Google Docs' Presentation productivity, now Chrome user can have another great choice, by using SlideRocket who is greatly using the HTML5 framework architecture. It also enabling the latest Apple iOS devices like iPhone & iPad for user to create/edit and share slides. Below I will be sharing some of the screenshots of SlideRocket of how its GUI looks like on a Chrome and a video link here to know more about SliderRocket. It totally look like a actual application software on a desktop. 

Conclusion 

Due to the web technology enhancement, user experience also evolving into another level. A normal internet browser like Chrome is also slowly adapting and recreating user experience of using smart phone apps to its browser, which simply provide the user a familiar tech environment with user-friendly and interactive navigation & design. 

References

Google Chrome information: 
http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/webmasters-faq.html#insidechrome, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC-2VGBHFQI, 

Google Chrome Web Store information: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB5KFJULahs 
Techcrunch Article HTML5 Browser Apps: 
http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/19/tweetdecks-html5-browser/ 

Youtube Video about TweetDeck on Chrome: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AduYTljJsGU

Official TweetDeck Info: 
http://www.tweetdeck.com/chrome/

Official IMO Instant Messenger screenshots and information: 

https://imo.im/, http://blog.imo.im/2011/03/imo-wins-three-aboutcom-readers-choice.html

SlideRocket screenshots and information: 

http://www.sliderocket.com/, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nija_9mLTPE

Innovation Is Assembly

"Lightweight business models are a natural concomitant of lightweight programming and lightweight connections. The Web 2.0 mindset is good at re-use. A new service like housingmaps.com was built simply by snapping together two existing services. Housingmaps.com doesn't have a business model (yet)--but for many small-scale services, Google AdSense (or perhaps Amazon associates fees, or both) provides the snap-in equivalent of a revenue model.

These examples provide an insight into another key web 2.0 principle, which we call "innovation in assembly." When commodity components are abundant, you can create value simply by assembling them in novel or effective ways. Much as the PC revolution provided many opportunities for innovation in assembly of commodity hardware, with companies like Dell making a science out of such assembly, thereby defeating companies whose business model required innovation in product development, we believe that Web 2.0 will provide opportunities for companies to beat the competition by getting better at harnessing and integrating services provided by others."  (Tim O'Reilly 2005)

In this post, I would like to share with you about a company on how they uses the web applications with the current well known APIs/Developer Ecosystems.

The company I am sharing with you guys will be, Threadless.  

Company information about Threadless, it is a community-centered online apparel store run by skinnyCorp of Chicago, Illinois, since 2000. Co-founders Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart started the company with $1,000 in seed money after entering an Internet t-shirt design contest. Members of the Threadless community submit t-shirt designs online; the designs are then put to a public vote. A small percentage of submitted designs are selected for printing and sold through an online store. Creators of the winning designs receive a prize of cash and store credit. Below will be the screenshot of their web site and a video link about them... 

I have created the company's API diagram, which is showing which are the famous APIs that Threadless are using right now. Its the Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and Flickr. 

Facebook 

They have smartly used the Facebook API as their "JOIN US" Membership, and if there is any updates they will be sending you a message to your Facebook Inbox and they even can advertise on your Facebook account too. Below will be some screen shots of the Facebook API that they are using.  

Threadless also have their very own Facebook Fan page, where their members or Facebook users can have a look at their latest collections, and also allow people to make comments about the design or click "LIKE" if they love it. Members also can share the design with their friends or sharing it just posting it on their Wall. 

They have make full use of the Facebook API and they even have the SHOP App on Facebook, which allow users to purchase Threadless tees on Facebook too. Checkout the screenshot below. Users can make comments about the design and adding it into the cart, by using the API. 

Twitter 

Threadless is also using the microblogging tool, Twitter to spread out informations and links to the world. Users can also ask the questions on expecting a speedily response from them. They also have their blog and forum service available for their members to use. Below will be some screenshots of their twitter site, forum and blog page. 

Vimeo 

Instead of Youtube, Threadless uses Vimeo to share their video. I personally felt that the interface and navigation of Vimeo site is much better compare with Youtube. Threadless have used video as part of their marketing or advertising purpose. Like their more premium apparel line known as SELECT, always uses video to show off their latest collections or what are the latest news of what they are doing right now. Below will be a screenshots of Threadless Vimeo page and SELECT. 

Flickr 

Its an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community created by Ludicorp and later acquired by Yahoo!. Threadless have used this API to share some interesting photo of their work or users/members are allow to tag them too.  Below will be a screenshot of their Flickr site. 

Using the power social technology to market or advertise their product will be the taking over the normal channel like printing it on newspapers or brochures. Now this will overtake it in this current generation.   


References

Web 2.0: Principles and Best Practice: 

http://oreilly.com/catalog/web2report/chapter/web20_report_excerpt.pdf
Youtube video about Threadless business:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VKRbmnqXR4 
ScreenShots and information about Threadless: 
http://www.threadless.com/, http://www.facebook.com/threadless, 
http://twitter.com/threadless#, http://vimeo.com/threadless, http://www.flickr.com/photos/threadless365

Data is the next 'Intel Inside'

Every day, consumers from all over the globe are uploading, transferring and downloading valuable data online. Web 2.0 has become a vastly growing global resource for people to connect with each other and gain instantaneous information. 

The following might be some of the best examples of what everyone in the world who are using the power data in Web 2.0 environment: 

Microsoft’s collaboration software, Sharepoint, which in its early days was a simple document sharing tool, is now chockfull of social networking features, including tools to support blogs, wikis, and a robust interactive community. It’s free version, Windows SharePoint Services, which comes with Windows, you can do BI, reporting, and integration, and it’s an entire application development platform as well. 

Google Docs can easily do all the basics, including making bulleted lists, sorting by columns, adding tables, images, comments, formulas, changing fonts and more. They have successfully creating wonders in the generation of mobile smartphone and tablets industry too, allowing google users to work and collaborate on mobile seamlessly. If you want to work and share docs within the team, now every team members can view and make changes at the same time. There’s an on-screen chat window for spreadsheets, and document revisions show you exactly who changed what, and when. We can also add in more details or comments.

Users love the tool because it consolidates information from many applications, and loves it because it’s a single technology they can use for many purposes.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) keeps growing and growing and growing, experts and analysts say, with many large companies adding SaaS components to on-premise software installations. Salesforce.com, considered the bellwether of the SaaS industry, reported record revenue of $305 million, up 23% from 2008, in its fiscal first quarter ended April 30, 2009. SaaS is winning favor because it’s often 20% cheaper than managing a non-premise application. SaaS is on track to be the dominant model for software by 2012. There are still lots of security issues, but the economics are definitely there. The other sweeping advantage is the flexibility that companies gain by rapidly adding new functionality. The paradigm shift is where you can go acquire a piece of what you need and assemble that into the software that you already own.

The Next Big Thing, Cloud Computing. 

It’s only a matter of time before cloud computing gains its place on center stage. Sure, there are still security and reliability issues, but what aspect of IT doesn’t have that today?

Cloud services, offered by tech giants such as

• Amazon
• Microsoft
• Salesforce

They are making it relatively painless and certainly cheaper for a company to add infrastructure than if they were doing it themselves. They also gain best practices from the cloud provider. If the company decides it doesn’t need that extra infrastructure in six or 12 months, it simply cancels the service. That’s why enterprise customers are now doing cloud computing pilots, whereas a year ago, CIOs were turning up their noses at the concept.

One of the famous service that everyone is using right now is Dropbox. 

Its one the most amazing thing for users, as they can upload whatever files they wanted in the cloud and then retrieving it in almost every mobile devices. Watch the video below understand more about the goodness of Dropbox. 

Next will be the Microblogging. 

Using social networking sites to broadcast news and other information about your company is a pretty darn cheap and widely acceptable way to engage with your community of partners, customers, and prospects. From the IT management side, there’s not much to do and why not educate your executives about the social Web?

“It’s virtually free, except for the labor involved, and you have unprecedented reach into decision makers,” says Jonathan Jaffe, founder of its-your-internet.com, a New York City-based company that advises organizations on technologies for online marketing.

This will change because as more people use Twitter these individuals will get bombarded, but now there’s a lot of accessibility. IT people are also broadcasting technical problems to the social Web and sometimes getting answers within an hour or two from vendors and experts.

Internal social networking using by the companies are best off starting internally when experimenting with social media. For one thing, it’s better to make a mistake inside the company than with customers and influencers. For another, employees increasingly prefer to communicate via social media, and now, enterprise social networking tools incorporate security and other requirements that big companies seek. Leading Web-based applications for internal blogs, micro-blogging, mashups, and wikis include Confluence by Atlassian, Socialtext, and the open-source MediaWiki. Such tools are often available at a fraction of the cost of traditional collaboration products (from companies such as Microsoft and IBM).

In Conclusion, IT pros should stay close to the people who hold the purse when they are looking into new applications and projects, as always.

“From my point of view, having developed Web applications for the past 13 years, a key issue I’ve seen everywhere is the communication gap between the financial controller (FC) of the company and the development team members. So my advice is don’t focus too much on the buzzwords. Get in synch with your FC and look at your projects from a business point of view.” Dan Bridge, a UK-based developer

Reference

Sharepoint information: 

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/default.aspx 
Google Docs screenshots on an iPad and information: 
docs.google.com/
Youtube video of "What is DropBox?": 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFb0NaeRmdg
Cloud Services: 
Amazon: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/
Salesforce: http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/
Wikipedia information: 
SaaS : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service
Cloud Computing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
Microblogging: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging
Dropbox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropbox_(service)
Quote by Jonathan Jaffe :
http://www.its-your-internet.com/index.php/about-us/founder-jonathan-jaffe.html

Harnessing Collective Intelligence

 "I've long made the assertion that one of the central differences between the PC era and the Web 2.0 era is that once the internet becomes platform, rather than just an add-on to the PC, you can build applications that harness network effects, so that they become better the more people use them. I've used the phrase "harnessing collective intelligence" to frame this phenomenon." (Tim O'Reilly 2006) 

When setting up a website with the aim of harnessing collective intelligence a few simple rules should be followed.

• Do not force anyone to sign up just to have a look around, a visitor of your site should be able to look around it or at the very least access information pages about the purpose of your website.
• Ensuring that collecting information doesn’t get in the way of what the user came to your site to do in the first place.
• Make the sign up process as simple as possible, and making the navigation as user-friendly as possible.
• Trust your users that they will do the right thing and contribute in a positive manner.

Example like the Amazon users who can rate products, upload images and write reviews.  This has become a fantastic resource for amazon, as people who want to research a product end up on their site reading reviews, and half the battle for an e-commerce store is actually getting people to your store in the first place. Same like Apple's iTunes users, they wish to know what are the reviews for the app and they can judge by the pros & cons, then decide purchasing it or not. Below will be screenshots to show how Amazon and iTunes share information to their customers. (Please click to enlarge for a better view)

In Conclusion, if there ever was a challenge that calls for the application of collective intelligence, climate change is it. Believing that building it upon the foundation of the Internet, it is now becoming possible to harness the collective intelligence of thousands of people around the world to address this and other critical systemic problems. We hope the work proposed here will help achieve just that.

Reference
Tim O'Reilly Article on Harnessing Collective Intelligence:
http://radar.oreilly.com/2006/11/harnessing-collective-intellig.html
Amazon Store screenshots and information of Kindle: 
http://www.amazon.com/, 
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reader-Wifi-Graphite/dp/B002Y27P3M/ref=amb_link_355303842_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-csm-1&pf_rd_r=0N1PCTGK7SWQ3M1HZJ3S&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1291907382&pf_rd_i=507846
iTunes Store screenshots and information Tiny Wings: 
http://itunes.apple.com/au/genre/mobile-software-applications/id36?mt=8, http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tiny-wings/id417817520?mt=8

Evolution of Internet

I truly believe that we will start to associate thoughts and wishes with the Internet World. In the near future, I'm sure that technology will evolved into a brand new level to combine human consciousness with digital world. The hard truth will set us free and unleash the human potential and we will be able to reprogram it or customize it to our own perspective. 

From this image below, you can see the history and the evolution of internet. 

About Me

Hello People,

Stevie here...

Starting the brand new blog which is totally created for my brand new unit on Web Application or Web 2.0 or Social Technology. Welcome to another round of blogging unit for Me ☆〜（ゝ。∂）

A quick introduction of myself...

I am Steve, currently a postgraduate surviving thru the last semester. My major is Information Technology in Digital Environment, anything that's realated to gadgets or social networking will be my most prefered areas. I am now working on a research of "Measuring the Value of Mobile App". For more information about myself you can have a look at my site: www.stevemaxis.com

According to Jason first lecture, this unit is going to be Virtual Class and mostly talking about Social technology with impact of business or government or to the entire society. so I hope that with this new beginning for this blog will enhance my knowledge for the social technology, and it will really helps with my research too.

Cheers
Stevie