Web 2.0 News & Articles

Flock, the self-proclaimed Social Web browser, recently released version 2.0 with a few notable upgrades, including the integration of their most requested service, MySpace.

That’s right, you read that correctly, the browser that relies on social networking for popularity and downloads just integrated the biggest social network of all.

Good for Google = good for the universe. What would a social network be without applications, you ask? Nowadays, probably obsolete; which is why the ambitious, sort-of-new social network Ning made a good move by announcing their support of Google’s OpenSocial v0.7 standard.

This will allow developers to easily build applications that can also be shared across a variety of other supporting social platforms.

Gartner analyst Adam Sarner has new research that states that 50% of all Social Media campaigns will fail. Didn’t we hear something similar to this before when a study by Deloitte informed us that social networking was a waste of money? What is the real story here — are marketing departments trying to fit social media into a traditional marketing bucket or is social media marketing just a lot of hype?

Not as Web-savvy as you’d like to be? Well, GoDaddy just solved that problem with the release of SmartSpace — an inexpensive, no-skills-needed tool for building instant Web sites complete with your popular social media widgets of choice.

Well, one analyst believes so. Those involved with the Web 2.0 industry are in trouble, according to Oliver Young, a Forrester Research analyst. He believes that the supply of Web 2.0 service applications is becoming too great, and that prices will decline as a result. As if that didn’t sound bad enough, pricing is one of the few aspects left to compete with.

Last July, it was all bad in Sazell town, when they released the beta version of their platform, which is used to take and share snap-shots of the Web. In addition to having a highly-unattractive website, their logo was an obvious rip-off of the almighty Google — probably, one of the last logos you want to copy.

Recently, Sazell revealed their new site along with a ton of improvements to their platform that we hope will surely rectify the previous abomination.

There is a new eye in the sky — GeoEye-1 — and while Google isn’t the only one involved in the satellite action, the company is already receiving high-resolution images that are beautifully detailed.

Google has gotten exclusive rights to integrate these 50-centimeter-resolution images taken from GeoEye-1 into mapping applications, so we already know what is in store for the Google Maps and Google Earth users around the globe.

TweetDeck, a Twitter desktop application built using Adobe AIR technology, has released version 0.19b of its popular Twitter desktop client with the hopes to recapture those who shied away from the previous releases.

This latest version adds new quality features that just might be able to recapture those users who have moved on.

Chances are that your online social networking habits are bringing you online via your phone.

A recent survey by ABI Research reports that almost half of those using online social networks have visited a social network through a mobile phone, with MySpace and Facebook being the most popular sites visited.

We like wikis, but how does a wiki present itself in a business environment? Well, if Swirrl is any indication, then it is worth noting that we still have a way to go. The service aims to get business employees collaborating in a wiki environment, where users can contribute to static pages and data sets. However, the focus is all on the data, which utilizes RDF for a semantic Web experience.

The main focus of Swirrl is data collaboration. Users can collaborate on data by utilizing an RDF structure. RDF, for the sake of simplicity, is a way to store information in a way that is semantic, or related.

If you’re not online, chances are no one knows you even exist. The 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, conducted by the Boston-based consulting firm, found that 93% of Americans believe that a company should have a presence on social media sites and 85% believe that these companies should use these services to interact with consumers.

Social media enables consumers to get up close with companies in a way that hasn’t been possible in years past. In return, companies can expect to develop strong customer loyalty and better ways to improve user experience, as well as customer service.

These days the words “financing” and “New York investors” doesn’t exactly stir up our most noble emotions. But in this case, it’s a good thing.

Salesconx is an online marketplace and expert network for selling and business referrals. They’ve just announced receipt of US$ 1.5 million in Series A financing. This load of dough came from a consortium of New York investors with broad experience in building successful companies.

A new report shows that American adults are using social media not only to stay connected, but also to make informed buying decisions.

The 2008 Insight Report from MarketTools indicates that 68% of American adults visit online blogs, communities or social networks, and 33% of those surveyed say they visit these sites to read up on product reviews to help them make a purchasing decision.

The iPhone might be the hottest tech toy out there right now, but it pales in comparison to the amount of change that Android can — and possibly will — bring to the mobile world. With the first open network for users and open platform for developers, everything will change.

Google and T-Mobile recently announced one of the biggest developments in the mobile industry, and things are bound to get very interesting, as the competition heats up between mobile telecommunication companies. Prices will lower, service will expand and functionality will increase. BlackBerry and iPhone, you better watch out.

Bambuser, a developer of live video technology, has entered into a partnership with Polopoly, a Web CMS vendor, to provide users with an integrated solution that will bring live mobile broadcasting technology and standard publishing technology together.