In my last post, I talked about the power of information and how relevant information is still not a reality in web world. Taking that discussion forward, the next question is, if search engines are not providing relevant information, who does?  The answer is nobody does it at this point of time. But, there are many players who are working on this model, including Google. In third quarter of 2009, Google launched its real time search engine. While launching this new search they stated.

Search is a natural starting point for discovering the world’s information, and we strive to bring you the freshest, most comprehensive and relevant search results over an ever expanding universe of content on the multitude of devices you use to access it.

Our real-time search enables you to discover breaking news the moment it’s happening, even if it’s not the popular news of the day, and even if you didn’t know about it beforehand.

The point is, real time information may not be very popular but it’s relevant. There are many other players who are eyeing this market. Recently I was looking at a service socialmention. They have an interesting way to show search results. Along with real time search from across universe [that’s what they say]; they also show strength, sentiment, passion and reach of the searched object.

There is another service called whostalking. They have a different approach of showing search results. They categorize it with source. They have options like “Twitter”, “FriendFeed”, “Plurk”, “Wordpress”, etc. You can search your results from any of these sources.

If you look at many other small search engines, you will find they all are doing something innovative. They all are trying to grab a share of this emerging market. They all know – The Search Business is still open.

Around 26% of World’s population uses Internet and this phenomenon has grown 380% over last ten years. Billions of data are floating all over web but this technology is still into its beginning.  We all are moving in a high-tech society and those who have information will emerge as a winner. The concept is, Information is power – grab it as quickly as you can.

Information is power, true, but everybody doesn’t need everything available on internet. Digging into relevance, contextual information is the next step one needs to perform. Google, Yahoo, etc gives all the information you want for a specific topic but 90% of these results are not very useful. Also, they lack to provide categorical search.

For example, if I search for India in Google, it shows 42 billion results.

Do I need all of them? No – they all are not useful.

Then, how to get useful information out of it?

Can I have categorical information – something like, Sport, Politics, Business, etc?

When I search the same in WolframAlpha I get the knowledge related to India. Again, there’s nothing more than few statistical information. I tried this on search.twitter.com and all which I got was real time talks about India.  The point which I want to highlight is – they all are good in their own domain but users still don’t have lots of flexibility when it comes to internet search.

Going back to information – Internet is a major source. It has all the data we want but we do not have any tool to get relevant data out of it. Search Engines, Yes, they claim to crawl almost everything on Internet but that includes lots of junk data as well. They bring everything which they can. They can’t understand the context of search. Proactive search is something they simply don’t care to provide.

Recently we saw how Facebook surpasses Google as the most visited website on Internet. What does this mean? People are relying more on recommended information than searched information.

Does that give a signal of how Internet search is going to emerge in future?

Yes, it does. We need more social search than static search. We need to involve context with our search results. It could be in the form of region, interest, source, gender or any other broad category. We also need to provide this flexibility to users so that they can get data as they want. They should be able to configure their own search results.

Google is a giant in this business but going forward the power would shift to those who can provide relevant search, contextual search.

“Yes, we could make history, I guess”, the statement from Sergey Brin was not just a mere prediction. It changed the history of internet like never before.  Many players like, Yahoo, AltaVista, Lycos were doing business, but it was Google who created history. It changed the way people were looking at search engines. It changed the way people were doing business through search engines.

In early years of this decade most of the web players were suspicious about a revenue model around search engine. The scene was looking very gloomy to them and then came the innovative search concept from Google, Page Rank. It gave Google an edge over others and Google never looked back thereafter.

As we say, “History repeats itself”, the scene around search engine market is changing again. This time there are some other new concepts which are gaining attention. No, I’m not talking about Microsoft’s Bing. I’m talking about Twitter, WolframAlpha and Scoopler.

A new trend called real-time search is getting popular on web. FriendFeed, Facebook and others have already started using it but two key players which are doing some real serious business in this area are Twitter and Scoopler. The idea behind Scoopler is to search entire web in real time. This would be a key concept for all future search requirements. We need to keep an eye on this. Check out one example of real time search here.

Stephen Wolfram says, “Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine with one simple input field that gives access to a huge system, with trillions of pieces of curated data and millions of lines of algorithms.” Few experts claim that it should not be treated as a Google killer though going in details of this discussion gives a different view. Check out an article on this here.

Google still dominates the search engine market though the monopoly is not going to last for a long time now. Let’s hope to see some more innovative concepts.

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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. 

Global economic meltdown has concerned many countries. People are coming up with their own views as what would be the impact? There are lots of data, statistics given on different forums. Top politicians, businessmen, and media, everybody is talking about it. I looked at different blogs, forums and noticed some interesting debates about impact on India Inc. Here are my thoughts as how India Inc should / will deal with this?

I would prefer to say India Inc 2.0 as I believe India Inc 1.0 got over after Y2K and .Dot doom. India started looking into new business dimensions and its economy grew like anything. So, let’s see how India Inc 2.0 should / will deal with this recent economical crisis.

Majority of Indian IT business derive it’s more than 70% of revenue from US economy and they are bound to hit. They will feel the heat as their clients in US will not go for more projects and more work. What could be the impact? Few Indian companies will go for cost cutting, job cutting, and few will prefer to explore new avenues. This might boost the IT product initiative in India. And if it happens, it would create a better prospect for IT business in India.

Tourism is the other sector which is likely to see the impact of this global recession. Everybody is on cost cutting path and the first thing which comes in mind is to cut the traveling and vacation cost. How the industry should deal with this? Ok, if the scenario is not cooperative enough to motivate people then how about going for some innovative things. Let’s consider some innovative ideas for tourism industry. How about promoting health tourism, spiritual tourism, and cultural tourism? Yoga, Meditation, Ashrams, Gurus, Pundits, Bodhgaya, Hrishikesh, Dharamsala, etc. could be few significant words to consider.

More than 50% of India’s workforce is still employed in Agriculture, a sector which is likely to be untouched. These are the people who are least bothered about what’s happening in urban India or the Global village. They would continue doing their regular work and their lifestyle will remain same. India Inc 2.0 can see this global meltdown as an opportunity to enter Agriculture sector. They can come up with a plan which would help this sector to grow and also to enhance the lifestyle of these people. There are multiple problems in this sector and most of them are because of lack of knowledge / information. Some initiatives have been taken by Government / Private sector companies but this recession could act as a booster for making more such investments.

Web 2.0 is another area which can help in combating this recession era. India Inc 2.0 must consider this as an opportunity to build a broader IT enabled business network. Around 10% of Indian population uses Internet and a business model based on recent happenings of Internet can surely create more jobs, more money. It would also help other sectors by providing information / infrastructure to deal with their issues in much better way.

Innovation with technology, Innovation with business model and engaging more people with growth cycle will be crucial for the next business boom. I hope to see a more confident, independent and robust India Inc 3.0. 

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.

Web 2.0 and new dimensions of web world are changing the traditional approach of CMS / WCMS / ECM implementation. New breeds of attributes are getting more attention, more popularity. Few prominent features are getting eloped while some mediocre looking attributes are receiving recognition. Earlier, workflows were considered as the heart of any CMS system but now there’s less attention on complex workflows. Instead, the focus has been shifted to search engine friendliness. The presence of data in the form suited for SEO is the key thing. Comfortable authoring and ease at integration are other prompt factors.

Commercializing Open Source Products is redefining CMS market. With Acquia releasing commercial Drupal, this concept is gaining momentum. It puts up some more add-ons and the new tool has become Acquia Drupal, which acts just like any commercial product. This initiation is just a pattern and many players are moving towards the same direction. Magnolia too provides commercial solution to its Open Source CMS with the same name.

WCMS in the form of SaaS could be the next revolution in this arena. Some players are already looking into this space. They are working with other companies who deal in this business. The idea is to sell CMS as a web solution and this is getting some serious notice.

Single point solution to several technical hurdles is another emerging concept. Customers are looking for a single point solution to problems like web analytics, search, portal, etc. It is little complex to maintain different tools for different requirements. Also, organizations want to cut down the resource / tool cost.

Changes in the web environment will surely affect the CMS implementation. It is likely to bend towards the new concepts / demand.