Yet another internet meme and this time it’s going bigger and bigger. As the typical nature of internet meme suggests, it’s spreading from person to person, inbox to inbox and from chat windows to YouTube videos. Yes, I’m talking about Twitter, the latest sensation on Internet. It is getting lots of attention these days. The craze is so that when we arranged a small tweet up in Kolkata, it was covered by media without any hesitation. When we analyze the usage of twitter, it gives interesting results. Starting from spreading business to connecting to the fan bases, it is being used for all possible communication channels.  I also found few college going students who are using twitter as their regular diary. This proves the diverse use of Twitter and that makes it vastly popular amongst all sections of the society.

When we look back at the history of Twitter, we would agree with the Wikipedia which says, “The tipping point for Twitter’s popularity came at the 2007 South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas.” It was the event which changed the fortune of Twitter and it never looked back from there. It was an excellent marketing thought, well planned and well executed.

Looking at current developments in-n-around twitter it seems to be going stronger than imagination. It’s not going to be just a fashion mark on social networking turf but it’s going to challenge biggies like Google and Microsoft.   Very recently I read that Google is going to launch a search engine for micro blogging services like twitter, an important development in web world. Marketing experts are writing tons of theories as how an organization can leverage twitter for their business needs, one of those theories is here. Even the evolution on twitter has also become a talk of the town and online technical magazines like TechCrunch are also reporting it. These all developments show that Twitter is going to become the next BIG thing on internet.

Like entire world, I too have started tweeting. You can follow me @nambuj.

Here is a poll you may like to answer..

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Till today, I wasn’t much into the technicalities of cloud computing. It flip-flopped several times through my eyes but I never bothered to investigate in details. The recent write up of Dion Hinchcliffe, where he talks about Cloud Computing and Open Source face off, dragged my attention to get deep into this. The simple explanation comes from Wikipedia. It treats cloud computing as a combination of three different services.

Cloud Computing = IaaS + PaaS + SaaS

*IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service

*PaaS – Platform as a Service

*SaaS – Software as a Service

Going further gives us much more interesting facts. When the world was busy getting over the high CapEx + OpEx and striving to derive a need based expenditure module, a Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management Ramnath Chellappa came and gave the theory of Cloud Computing. He defines it as “a computing paradigm where the boundaries of computing will be determined by economic rationale rather than technical limits”. It solves the problem of high CapEx and OpEx. It also gives organizations a need based expenditure model. Looks simple but it isn’t that easy.

Some biggies of IT industry talk about Cloud Computing in their own words here. They make it look simple though for me the implementation par t is more interesting to watch. I browsed little further and got few white papers and few books on this. Next task for me would be looking into these extensive details.

When I look at adaptation and acceptability, it looks gloomy. IBM is already working towards its solution for Cloud Computing. They are now targeting software development and testing sector as well. Dave Greenfield predicts a growth in could computing security in 2009.These talks are definitely creating a favorable environment.

I will continue to gather and share more information on this.

CMS as a concept is going through a massive transformation. With the growing demand of Web 2.0 features on each and every website / intranet, products are coming up with added features. When a company is evaluating its CMS needs they are not just considering the traditional traits, but also the flexibility to embed many more characteristics popular on web.

The battle of CMS tools is getting hotter and hotter by time.  The Wikipedia shows a list of more than 100 CMS tools and each one of them claims to have something unique and innovative. The point is clear. There is a huge market for these tools. It looks logical too. These tools make the web presence effective, flexible and dynamic and to add to this list, we have some innovative solutions added, like, DAM, Blogs, Communities, Wiki, etc.

From last few months I was looking into Magnolia. It comes in two editions, community and enterprise.  Both have their own set of facets but the interesting thing is the way they are moving. Recently I saw two new modules added to community edition, “forum” and “wiki”. The message is straight forward. They want to add Web 2.0 features with their traditional CMS tool, and also this comes as under Open Source umbrella. Organizations have now option to go for more features with no initial cost.  They also have JCR supported repository which makes it more flexible. Very recently they also started looking into CMIS, another move towards greater interoperability.

Apart from different tools with different feature sets there are different concepts, frameworks also popping up. JCR is one of such concepts and has a great potential. It’s getting attention from many big players in this arena. JCRDev.com is an initiative to gather such similar people. It’s still in its initial phase but it shows how the people around world are excited about changes. 

With growing popularity of Web 2.0, companies and individuals have started taking about its pros and cons. I looked at many websites / blogs which present their views as how it would change the coming generation of net crawlers. Most of them have given several examples as how biggies of WWW industry are already changing their business function or making it compatible with web 2.0 tools. IBM is talking about how Web 2.0 will change next generation BPM while Microsoft is busy in promoting Mix 06. Google and Yahoo are on run to acquire new innovative concepts / web solutions so that they have an edge for final frontier.

In the midst of all this, I tried to find out, “how the spree of Web 2.0 can help people in fighting recession?” To answer this question, I started looking into the current and potential usage of these tools. People have started using most of the features but they can further leverage these techniques more into their applications, communications and even in infrastructure. These are some known initiatives. The next step is to actively use them, to understand the concept, to leverage them and to get benefited by them.

With Web 2.0, information can be pulled from a number of different places, and it can be personalized to meet the needs of a single user. Applications can be built on the existing applications that comprise the Web 2.0 interface. It could be said that Web 2.0 will allow the mass population to communicate with each other and spread ideas rather than receiving their information from a single authority.

Internal communication has always been a challenge for big organizations but this can be simplified by promoting Web 2.0 culture. Services like wiki, blog, forums, etc can help in better communication as well as to manage the knowledge. Initially organizations may need to do some extra effort to make people use them extensively. Later, it would become a part of their life style. Internal recruitment and other internal services will also get a boost by this initiative.

Very recently I was looking at a website called BlogTalkRadio.com. It’s a social radio network. If you want to communicate with entire world through radio, this website will provide you that feature. You can create your own live talk show which can be heard around the world without the need for fancy equipment or downloads. Great concept, isn’t it? Apart from just socializing through radio network, it also opens new dimensions for developing a revenue model. You can work with this website or even independently to draft your plans.

You may like to take a look at Podtech.net to get more inputs on Web 2.0 and some other revenue models associated with it.

There are multiple such innovative concepts coming up and with the emergence of Web 2.0 there’s surely a chance of getting into new businesses. We need to identify the correct approach and a smart and diligent effort to exploit that approach.