Web 2.0 Lifestyle

Having decided to create a web 2.0 company from the scratch, the firt thing i have done is to uninstall applications from my laptop. The reason being is very simple. I want to testdrive the alternatives available on the net for my regular official / personal work.

Here is the list of web applications i use.

My Email client - Gmail, Mail2Web

For work & communication - Meebo [ I get my Yahoo!, Gmail, AOL, MSN everything in one single Ajax driven window]

Office suite - Thinkfree Office [I often user Word, Excel. Loading of the applet is a bit pain, once loaded you will work with superior comfort. Alternatively try NumSum for spreadsheet work, works perfect. At times I use either Writely or Writeboard for collaborative text / copy editing

Work assignment / tracking - Basecamp

Todo lists / personal milestones - Remember the milk

Blog / RSS feeder - Bloglines What else can come closer to this.

Bookmarks - del.icio.us aka Yahoo! It's even more easier with the Firefox extension.

File sharing - DropSend [ Dropsend is like every other file sharing application online, the difference is its brilliant desktop integration with a small desktop tool, so sharing files is actually a drag n drop from one folder to dropsend shared folder. Job done! very useful for people like me who used to transfer multiple MBs of files daily]

Photosharing - Flickr

Entertainment - YouTube - Well, you will say this is pirated. This is video sharing at its best. Currently i m viewing some of my favourite hindi albums [this, this] with youtube only.

Homepage - Google personalised Homepage where i configured my most visited blogs and news sites. So every time i use google, i know what's latest in the world.

But, overall, my feeling of using all these services is satisfactory. What's more i am no more limited with my desktop / laptop. My entire communication & work is now on various shared service file servers. So working anywhere is now realistically possible.

There are couple of tools which i am looking for syncing with my mobile which will be a separate list.

Google Code: Web Authoring Statistics

Google does the good samaritan way for providing information for web authors and developers a set of good practices which gives more searchwidth.

Read more: Google Code: Web Authoring Statistics

Be a Demo God

Guy Kawasaki is giving the "Demo Gods" their way to heaven. In the upcoming Demo event is a launchpad for emerging technologies. Guy drills down the art of showing Demo to audiences. Must read article.

Google goes Mobile with Motorola

Google is a smart company. Instead of fighting with Microsoft on desktop [rumours were that Google is tieing up with Walmart for low cost PCs ] Google, takes the battle to the next frontier, Mobile phones. To me, it's a smart move. Google announced a partnership with Motorola, enabling google search on Motorola mobile phones. Some future motorola phones will even be expected to come with a Google button itself. This will put some ice in the minds of BillG, who boldly said that his competition is not with Google, but with IBM in the recent CES Show. On the other hand, the mobile eco systems will be far bigger than the PC eco systems in the coming years. The OS battle will eventually shift to Mobile, as future mobile phones will not just be phones with "talk & type" only features. For now, Google is doing a great job in concentrating on platforms which will be the choice of the future.

Full media release

2006 Web 2.0 Predictions

KBCafe has released their 2006's Web 2.0 predictions. My take on these predictions are within brackets.

1. Let's start with some easy ones. Somebody will buy YouTube for $millions. I love YouTube. (agreed)
2. Somebody will release a new version of RSS or a competing syndication format.(Microsoft already released SSE and i doubt any other guys will enter into a new computing segment)
3. Yahoo will release RSS integration in Yahoo! Mail and Microsoft will release RSS integration in Outlook. Although both will be incomparable to Attensa and NewsGator, they will dominate the new adoption of RSS and will become the top two RSS clients sometime in 2007. Microsoft will trail Yahoo! in 2006, but surpass them in 2007. (agreed)
4. The number of blogs in the United States will exceed the number of citizens.(agreed)
5. Some Web 2.0 companies that failed to get purchased and didn't have a revenue model will begin laying off employees. The majority of the fall out will likely not occur till 2007. (mostly will happen)
6. The number of AdSense-based (or YPN or Chitika) Web 2.0 start-ups will accelerate, while free, no ad Web 2.0 start-ups will stagnate and might drop off.(Revenues based on Ads will be driven out of market. Alternative payment models will emerge)
7. MSN, Google and Yahoo! will continue to compete for the API marketplace. A new API will be released by one the big three in every month of the year.(agreed)
8. Advertising on the Web will continue to accelerate, but the massive number of new publishers and new ad servers will create a lot of chaos in the marketplace. More than one ad server will fail to make their payments to publishers and several, most, if not all ad servers will be sued by advertisers for click-fraud. Yahoo and Google will prevail through the storm, maybe Microsoft too!(Click frauds will be norm of the day. I am waiting how we are going to standardize the click thru comparisions)
9. Dave Winer will get pissed at somebody for doing something. And he'll blog about how much of a jerk he is for several months. I'm guessing it has to do with videocasting. (No comments!)
10. And here's the cake. RSS-based appliances will make there debut. Recipes on fridges, microwaves, ovens and through the roof from there. (partially agreed)

India - Enterprise & Venture Capital

Sadagopan has outlined the issues, opportunities India as a country have for promotion enterprise. He rightly points out on the flaws of our system in terms of encouraging risk taking ability & entrepreneurial support. With Mallika in his side, he points out

"He adds that in the early-stage investing business, there are a few small funds that are local to India but have not done too many deals and highlights venture money goes into early stage, pre-product or pre-revenue companies in the US , while a majority of the private equity is going into late stage businesses in India."

The need for a greater dream & creating products out of India is all the more required today than merely providing IT services, as services always are "sword above your head" scenario. She also rightly points out on the issues of disruptive global innovations like Flickr come out of India. Early stage funding is literally dry in India. People wanted to bed on safer companies or companies with considerable past history. So it is very tough to have the next Flickr out of India.

Malika's Post | Sadagopan's Post