Lightweight Models & Cost-Effective Scalability

Hey this will be my final blog in terms of O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 internet patterns, for those who have read most of my blogs and commented I thank you. This week’s topic is Lightweight model and cost-effective scalability.  What exactly are Lightweight models? Lightweight model in terms of O’Reilly’s internet pattern is software, is when the business end of the software can scale itself so it suites the increase amount of users. The lightweight section of this pattern refers to the software being able to get into the market quicker.

The example I would like to talk about today in terms of the lightweight model is Skype. Skype is a program that was released in 2003. Skype allows users to talk to other users to talk to each other via peer to peer through the internet. It’s basically a free internet phone call. The program also allows the users to call other peoples home phones and mobiles at a cost. Companies also use it to have conference calls and webcam with each other, people also use it to send files over the internet.

The program was going bankrupt before Microsoft saw potential in it and bought the majority of their shares, the program is now owned by Microsoft and any additional instalments into the program are all done by Microsoft.

Skype is a good example to use for this internet pattern because the program itself didn’t start of as big as it is now. It was a third party program that rapidly increased in numbers as the years went by. As of now the program has 663 million users registered which is a sky rocketing number compared to when it was first released. Although the business model wasn’t as effective because let’s face it the owner went bankrupt, it was good enough for Microsoft to invest money into.

Overall I think this web pattern is one of the more boring patterns out of O’Reilly’s but that is every single pattern covered throughout all my blogs. I hope you enjoyed them and comment.

Reference

http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype

Leveraging the long tail

This week’s internet pattern that will be discussed will be Leveraging the long tail. Since I’m not very good at explaining these internet pattern here is a paragraph right out of O’Reilly blog

Small sites make up the bulk of the internet’s content; narrow niches make up the bulk of internet’s the possible applications. Therefore: Leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the centre, to the long tail and not just the head.

Good examples this internet pattern are eBay, users from small markets that do not sell well add their products into the database and sell it as an eBay item resulting in increase chances of selling. In order for leveraging the long tail to work the website must reach out the small market business and team up together to rival the larger market organisations.

 

picture from (Hubspot blog)

The example of a website that leverages the long tail I would like to talk about in this blog is Careerone, although this is not really a website that sells products using smaller markets but much displays leveraging the long tail. Why? because it is also another website that leverages smaller market businesses that are searching for employees. This Website is a website that organises job adds from smaller market  so that users can apply for jobs. Websites like Careerone help the smaller organisations get their job applications online to compete with power house organisations that have their own website where people can apply for their jobs.

Ok now that we know how this Careerone uses this internet pattern, let’s talk about how to use this website works. Obviously you already know that the website lets smaller market companies upload their job applications so that users can view and apply for jobs, but how does it work? After the user reads the jobs specifications the user can either keep looking for other jobs or they can apply for the job. Then they click that the a pop up window comes up asking for the users email. After filling that out the next page will ask for a resume to upload and details.

I haven’t much of a chance to use this website, but I’ve had many friends that have applied for jobs using this website and also been employed. I think this website is a perfect example of leveraging the long tail. Thanks again for reading my blog and I hope you comment.

Reference

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4723/6-Ways-to-Leverage-the-Long-Tail-in-Your-Marketing.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail

Careerone.com.au

Perpetual Beta

Welcome to another week of my internet patterns blog, this week I will be talking about Perpetual Beta which I think is a rather interesting topic to discuss.

For those who do not know what perpetual beta is, it is the method where the software developing company creates a program and releases it as a beta, the only twist is that they leave the software running in beta for longer periods of time, good examples are  Gmail, Google maps and Flikr. O’Reilly states that doing this actually saves them money because of open beta testing will allow users to test it rather than hiring experts to come test their software and find the flaws, this way by letting a larger variety of people test it finding bugs and flaws will be quicker and be free.

–  There are so many advantages to using the perpetual beta testing here are some below.

–  Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability

–   Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them

–  Trusting users as co-developers

–  Harnessing collective intelligence

–  Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service

– Software above the level of a single device

– Lightweight user interfaces, development models, and business models.

Taken from (http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=4)

I will now talk about one of my favourites, Google Docs. Google docs is absolutely amazing. What it does is it allows you to store any type file on their server allow you to access it anywhere you are if you have internet and a Gmail account. Google Docs has like every other Google product has been in beta since it was released. Just recently they brought out Google presentation which is a add on to Google Docs. For those who already use this application, they will know that a lot of charts could not be displayed in Google Docs but with this new update users can now view charts. Google docs is mainly used for its word pads. Google docs word pads are updated lively and users can view what other people write as they write it.

Here is a video below of a tutorial.

I’m relatively new to Google Docs and never used it till just recently. Ever since I started using this software I never have to worry about accidently forgetting my USB or work at home again. Overall I think perpetual beta is going to only get bigger and bigger as companies realise the advantages of it.

Reference

http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=4

http://www.google.com/google-d-s/whatsnew.html

Software above the level of a single device

So, I’m back from holidays and ready to blog again, This week I will be blogging about Software above the level of a single device. Before I start talking to you guys about this week’s topic I would like to say how awesome the ANZAC parade was.

Ok back on Track. This week’s pattern is Software above the level of a single device. For those of you who do not what it is here is a example, O’Reilly states that any web application can be seen as software above a single device because there are two computers involved one hosting the web server and the other hosting the browser. The best examples that are shown are iTunes and TiVo (also quoted by O’Reilly)

I would like to talk about iTunes and TiVo but seeing as it was the example that O’Reilly talked about half the class would already be blogging about. So I decided today I will talk about the gaming platform Steam. Steam is a prime example of a software that is above the level of a single device, not only for the reason that for a user to use the program they must connect to a server that is hosted by another computer but for the reason that this software can be used on PS3, PC, Tables and also our mobile phone.

Steam is a gaming platform created by Valve. The whole idea of steam is to connect a large community of gamers together. Steam is gaming platform that allows users to play games without the trouble of installing games with CDs.

Steam on the Ps3 is also another prime example of cross platform, when the portals 2 was released it was also released on steam for the Ps3. It is said that steam has actually managed to cross platform portal 2 so that Ps3 portal 2 gamers can play with PC portal 2 games which no other major gaming company has ever done.

Steam just recently decided to take their platform across to tablet devices and mobile phones. On the mobile phones, steam can only be used to chat to steam friends, but on tablets steam can play cross platform games like Dungeon Defenders and Fallout.

I think it’s interesting that Steam has spent so much time and money developing cross platform software knowing that PC gamers are their primary market focus. If you guys have any opinions post below and we will discuss

http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=4

Rich user experiences

This week’s web pattern is focused towards Rich users experience, the aim of this web pattern is to create an experience that the user will like enough to re-visit the website. There are many websites that come to mind when talking about this internet pattern, but today I will only talk about the few websites that gave me the experience.

Before I start rambling on about the web applications websites that I thought was full of this particular pattern I would like to talk about AJAX. AJAX isn’t just one a form of html language, it’s a bunch of forms ranging from html, JavaScript and ASP. It was created so that web users can create better GUI’s and websites.

The dominoes pizza website is the first website that comes to mind when talking about rich user experiences. To be honest before this website came out, I would rather not order from dominoes at all then to order through phone call, but ever since this website was created I found ordering pizza’s online to be so much more pleasant.  I found it a lot easier to order online because, on the website it has a menu of all the food that can be purchased, it has the costs and you can even customise your pizza without the trouble of explaining it to the employee. The website even gives you tells you when to pick up your order and how long it will take cook. The dominoes website flash based and requires the user to have flash plug-ins .  Overall the user interface on this website is so simple to use, even a toddler can probably use this website, and it has step to step explanation on how to make the order.

Another web application that is full of rich user experiences is Google docs. To be honest I never even know what Google docs was till just recently. I found the web application to be so useful especially when you’re doing group assignments. The web application is linked to your email on Gmail and also your Google+ account. What this online application does is allows users to share files over the internet. You can see why it so handy when doing group assignments, because you can edit word documents over the internet live.

In conclusion to this blog I would like to say that this internet pattern rich user experience is probably the most important web pattern out of the seven because no matter how important or good the website is, if the user does not like the overall website then they will not re-visit the website.

Reference

http://www.dominos.com.au

http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

“Innovated in Assembly”

I did this weeks blog a little late because of another subject I am currenty enrolled in but here it is.

This week’s lecture in the Web 2.0 the lecturer asked the students to blog about “Innovated in Assembly” I’d like to tell you guys as the blog user what Innovated in Assembly is before I start to ramble on about it. According to O’Rielly innovated in assembly is to alter and re-use a program to be able to suite more and more platforms.

Since the web 2.0 introduced API, cooperate power houses like Microsoft don’t have complete power over all the software that used by business’s.  More and more organisations have lent to using the free software was developed by third parties to save cost and to boost their name in social media standards.

Mozilla Firefox is a good result in API. Mozilla Firefox can be altered by users in many ways. Users often tend to alter the skins and make their own add-ons to help boost their user experience. Users create programs like YouTube Downloader is a add-on is one of the top add-ons users have created using API, what the program actually does is the user gets the URL of the YouTube video and once they have inserted the URL into the program they can download the YouTube video.

A program that a lot of organisations have taken advantage of is Ventrilo. The program can be altered by users and companies to suit their needs. Ventrilo is a good example of organisations altering their hardware and software to help boost their products in the social media. Logitech create keyboards and headsets that come with the third party software on their driver CD. The Logitech G15 Keyboard and G18 Keyboard have screens where the company has actually made it so that users can view whose connected to Ventrilo and whose talking.  Server hosting companies also offer services where the server host will host a Ventrilo server at a monthly cost.

I’d like to wrap up this blog by saying I am a big supporter of third party software providers and API.  I think This internet pattern is one of the most interesting topics to blog and debate about, I hope you guys like my blog and comment if you can!.

Reference

http://oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=4

http://www.ventrilo.com

http://www.Logitech.com

http://www.Microsoft.com

Data Is the Next “Intel Inside”

When you Google the Definition of Data the first entry you will get is “Data is a collection of statistics gathered and references gathered together” which is exactly right, In saying that what purpose does data serve on the web 2.0?

Business using Data

Data is often used by internet powerhouse companies to improve their quality and standards of their provided services. Businesses seem to be leaning towards using data to improve their services, it is said that Google hires people to collect data from search results to improve quality of pages that are shown from a search.  All different businesses now use data collection from online surveys to customer inquiries and complaints to improve the services they offer, by displaying the data online customers can use that information to solve their own problems which saves money for the company.

Social Networks

When a user enters information about themselves into a social network on the internet, the information that is collected goes into a large database owned by the social network. Within the database it will sort out all the common words you blog. A prime example was when I first signed up to facebook it asked me what school I went to  and hobbies I enjoyed, As soon as I finished making my facebook page it brought up a large collection of people who went to the same school who already had facebook pages and it asked if I would like to friend them. I also notice that when I comment on a certain topic over and over again facebook will pick up a pattern and on the side where the advertisements are it will ask if would either like to join the facebook page. In saying that there are certain advantages and disadvantages to these companies that collect the data.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantages to data collection is that, in the future users will not have much privacy and everything will be shared on the internet, their DOB, gender, age, race, religion, mobile phone number and even your street address.

Advantages

Besides privacy issues everything else can be seen as a advantage. Collections of data can be used to improve services and life standards all over the world. By taking all the data distributed from customers to just a standard users it can solve so many issues and help other people solve their issues.

I think that data collected on the web is a big step to having big power house companies really understand what most of their users really want from the company.

 Sources

http://www.inc.com/guides/cust_tech/20909.html

http://www.articlesbase.com/outsourcing-articles/data-collection-is-important-part-for-any-business-808520.html

Harnessing the collective intelligence “Joseph Kony (YouTube)”

The web has become a widely used aspect in our modern day society. But when talking about harnessing the collective intelligence that has been one aspect of the web that has evolved over the years. Now that more websites have allowed users the freedom to edit and add their own information, artwork and opinions and to receive opinions from others. By allowing users to edit and contribute their own opinions it has really changed the evolution of Web 2.0.

An application that displays a good use of harnessing the collective information is YouTube, just recently a video has just been uploaded to YouTube by “invisiblechildreninc” about a man name Joseph Kony who kidnaps children and trains them to become military soldiers. This 29 minute video talks about how some children are not as lucky as other children because of what kind of world they’re born into. The whole video aims to make Joseph Kony famous to raise awareness of what he is doing. The video has already gotten 75 Million views on YouTube with over 1 million likes and 85 thousand plus dislikes.

Before “invisiblechildreninc” removed the ability to add comments, there mixed views of this video, some people wanted to support the cause of this video by raising money and awareness for the cause and some people thought this was a scam for money and that raising money for this cause isn’t going to cause peace and that it will only cause more violence. There was mixed views of this video until the user that uploaded this video disabled the comment section.

The Kony 2012 video is one of the patterns that has just recently happened on the Web 2.0 over the application YouTube, which also led to millions of Facebook comments, shares and likes, The pattern also had thousands of articles written on the authors views of the video that went viral within a day of its release. This video was just big in one application of the Web it was also big on Facebook and Twitter. This is just another good example of showing the Harnessing the collective intelligence over Web 2.0 applications.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc –  Video of Kony 2012

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3886358.html – News Article about Kony 2012 video back lashing

http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/03/13/kony-2012-is-bigger-than-the-new-ipad-what-to-do-now/ –  Article on the support.

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