Paxman 2.0 and a Flock of geeks
As I've said before, I'm amazed how many people I meet in the software business who aren't aware of Web 2.0 and don't realise the blog wave is upon us. Only today I was talking to a good, experienced guy who is selling Software as a Service collaboration solutions for a living, but admitted he isn't as up to speed on wikis, blogs, social bookmarking and the way collaboration solutions are evolving as he should be. Maybe that will begin to change. I just heard Web 2.0 mentioned by Jeremy Paxman and Newsnight .
They did an interesting piece, by Paul Mason, on a new product called Flock, but what was more interesting were the topics mentioned within the item, which they coined as "Internet Part II". Flock appears to be a new browser environment, related to Firefox, and intended to integrate browser, blog, and collaboration functions together in one place, rather than separate products you have to access through the browser. One of the experts had a job title of Director of User Experience, and there was a lot of talk around the user interface. I'd heard the name, knew it was an open source project, but now I know a little more, and that it integrates with the del.icio.us bookmark and Flickr photo sharing services.
But the item explained a little about the blogging phenomenon, covered collaboration and the business benefits of the open source software approach, and used the term Web 2.0. Sadly, as well as bringing this important stuff in to the mainstream of news coverage, the guys that develop Flock are the classic, stereotypical geeks, seen brainstorming over beer and coffee with a whole…. crowd of their brethren. It would be enough to confirm in the normal person's mind that this stuff obviously needs a level of technical geekness beyond mere mortals, and so should be avoided. A great shame, but the situation is improved by a good write up on the BBC website.
Technorati Tags : Web2.0, SaaS, wiki, blogs, Flock, social, bookmarking, BBC
posted by Unknown at 00:14
2 Comments:
Sadly, Flock's a WIP that got ripped so much it had to come out the gate too early. Lots of potential but nothing there that couldn't have been done as Firefox plug-ins.
Even sadder, they're hoping to monetize it with ads. Now unless they've got the skinny on true context sensitive, search based advertising...something even the Googleplex hasn't figured out, then they're either very smart or very stupid. The jury's out.
Interesting Dennis. The monetise point is a key - one of the things that confused me about Flock was that their guys seemed to be explaining and showing quite articulately to the reporter what they'd they got and what they planned (although the business model wasn't covered), but then when I got to their site, I thought - blimey, if I'd tripped over this I wouldn't have been able to work out what it's for without diving about the site for half a hour. Most punters would think, development project, and move on - so what you say makes absolute sense. I don't think that jury will be out for long.
Post a Comment
<< Home