All posts in Social Networks

Notes: Andrea Baker – Government 2.0 trends to watch

By tzmartin On January 26, 2009

This is interesting…

What’s the next step in blog evolution?

Andrea Baker: I’d like to see an evolution of blogs as the next step for us. We use WordPress blogs as our platform in the federal government. Everybody is blogging and sharing information, which is great. Now we want to take it to the next level with smarter blogs. We want to bring in more plug-ins and other complimentary technologies to increase the value of our blog posts. It would also make the information easier to find. We’re always looking for better technologies to increase the findability of information that we’ve already been creating.

via ExecutiveBiz Blog» Blog Archive » Andrea Baker: Government 2.0 trends to watch.

So, you’re looking for a content management system (CMS), based on semantic standards, with an API for data portability?  Check.   Then, you’re probably interested in Semantic Press.

Google's Gadget Infrastructure: Shindig

By tzmartin On January 22, 2009

On the topic of gadget infrastructure, I found this on the Official Gmail Blog:

“We’re using common gadget infrastructure, such as the Apache Shindig project, and working with other gadget containers to make gadgets more portable.”

And, from Shindig’s site…

What is Shindig?

Shindig is a new project in the Apache Software Foundation incubator and is an open source implementation of the OpenSocial specification and gadgets specification.

The architectural components of Shindig can be broken down as follows:

  • Gadget Container JavaScript – core JavaScript foundation for general gadget functionality. This JavaScript manages security, communication, UI layout, and feature extensions, such as the OpenSocial API.
  • Gadget Server — used to render the gadget XML into JavaScript and HTML for the container to expose via the container JavaScript.
  • OpenSocial Container JavaScript — JavaScript environment that sits on top of the Gadget Container JavaScript and provides OpenSocial specific functionality (profiles, friends, activities, datastore).
  • OpenSocial Data Server — an implementation of the server interface to container-specific information, including the OpenSocial REST APIs, with clear extension points so others can connect it to their own backends.

Here’s a pretty good write up on the Shindig Java API.

Interesting.  I wonder what other gpl “Gadget” specs are out there?

Video Demo: SmartSpaces, Social Platform

By tzmartin On January 19, 2009

SmartSpace Thumbnail

“Smart Space”
Company: GoDaddy
Type: Social Aggregator
URL: https://godaddy.com/gdshop/domains/landing.asp?app_hdr=0&ci=12906

Platform: Flash / HTML

Competitive Advantage:

Godaddy has integrated Smart Space as a way to let anyone register a domain name and then instantly turn it into a social web site.  All the technical work is done for you – the site builds itself automatically.

Pricing Information:

Prices for SmartSpace start at $4.99/month for 2 months. From there, the prices are as follows: 12 mo: $4.74/month, 24 mo: $4.49/month, or 36 mo: $4.24/month.

Video Presentation:

open source video
free video player
open source editor
video management
online video
video editor
video plugin
Transcript:
Welcome to the home of a SmartSpace domain.  SmartSpace is a robust, unique and personalized web experience that is tied together with a blog, photos, email, chat and more.

The functionality is ready to go, so your job is to pick what goes best with your domain.  It could be a blog, a podcast and chat.  Or, photos, email and a website.  Or, social space, an easy way to share everything you love about the web.

Want to start a conversation?  Fire up a chat application that gives you full administrator rights.  Like the ability to manage users and moderate public and private chat sessions.

With SocialSpace, you can pull information from all corners of the Web.  Flicker, YouTube, Google News.  Anything with an RSS feed is fair game.  You can even add personal stuff, like a FaceBook profile.  How ever you build it, your SmartSpace content will be housed under a common header that keeps everything under one roof.

We’ll even throw in seamless and simple navigation just because we can.  So check back often and in the meantime, pick up your own SmartSpace to create a Web experience that everyone will be talking about.

Thanks for watching.

CrunchBase Information on GoDaddy
GoDaddy
Information provided by CrunchBase
CrunchBase Information on SmartSpaces
SmartSpaces
Information provided by CrunchBase
References: