03.23.06

Good discussion from ZDNet on Creating real business value with Web 2.0.  This addresses the belief that most of this Web 2.0 stuff is aimed at consumers who pay nothing…  Good content regarding Salesforce and IBM, as well as the growing support from Microsoft for this.  Also discussed is the revenue stream that Amazon derives through affiliates that use its web services to drive business.

 

Mix 06 is a conference held last week in Las Vegas, where Microsoft talked about emerging consumer technologies.  As part of the keynote, Bill Gates touted support and encouragement for developing mashups using Windows Live servers As a show of Microsoft’s growing belief in the relevance of Web 2.0, Tim O’Reilly participated in a discussion with Mr. Gates following the keynote.

 

For my part, this demonstrates two major benefits of the use of web services technologies (be they SOAP or REST) on the web.  First, we are seeing that hybrid services can be built from previously incompatible technologies (like Java and .NET).  Secondly, there appears to be a trend to blur the boundary between desktop software and internet service.  In this example, the Windows Live service will host “gadgets” powered by web services – but Vista will support ”drag and drop” of those Live gadgets from browser to desktop.  Similar to the Yahoo Widgets (formerly Konfabulator) toolkit, these gadgets will represent a whole new category of software.