Measuring Web Site Performance From The Edge
Gomez CTO Imad Mouline says Web 2.0 applications are pushing even simple retailers to provide the same level of richness as major Web players to maintain their brand presence.
Is YouTube A Tool For Terrorist Propaganda?
I think of YouTube as being primarily a place to watch cute cat videos. But Sen. Joe Lieberman condemns the video site for something sinister: Terrorist organizations are using YouTube to post videos inciting Arabs to kill Americans. Lieberman is demanding that YouTube put a stop to the practice.
Mozilla's Add-On Army (Finally!) Makes Its Move
As Firefox 3 takes its final steps towards a final release, some users are wondering whether their favorite extensions will fall by the wayside. As it turns out, most of them won't have to wonder -- or worry -- much longer.
The Challenge of Mobile Analytics
Last year everyone was talking about Web 2.0; this year it's all about the Mobile Web. Let's take a look at what this means for mobile analytics... The bottom line: Mobile analytics are relatively new; beyond infancy, but certainly not for the faint of heart. The biggest challenges are...
Live Search Cashback Invites Company Troubles
My first look at Microsoft's new Live Search Cashback mentioned some concerns about its potential for abuse by employees. It would be easy for someone to buy products with company money and pocket the cashback rewards. As I've been doing a few more searches and purchases with the service, it seems like some merchants may be counting on this sort of behavior.
Obama's Tech Outreach Betrays Small Glitches
While Sen. Barack Obama unveiled an impressively broad technology policy plan last November, his campaign still has a few glitches to work out in terms of its own use of online technology for outreach.
Google's Android To Offer Up App Store?
Another gem to come from Google's I/O conference is news that Android-powered phones will be able to access some sort of centralized store to find and download applications to the handset. This will be great for developers looking to distribute their applications, as well as users seeking new functionality for their phones.
Startup Incubator Opens In Pittsburgh
A new facility for startup software and Internet companies is about to open in Pittsburgh. The new AlphaLab is affiliated with Innovation Works, a seed-stage investor that has pumped $37 million into more than 100 Pittsburgh-area startups over the past eight years.
Firefox Or Flock? Or Both?
With a release candidate of Firefox 3 upon us and the final version set to drop sometime in June, I'm finding myself a bit torn: Do I upgrade to FF3 once it's fully baked, or stay with my current browser? What makes the dilemma all the tougher is that my current browser isn't Firefox 2 -- well, it is, sort of, but not really. It's Flock, which serves as great proof of how open
Dining At the Intersection of Search and Retention
Lawyers were well represented (you might say) at last week's Enterprise Search Summit in New York. At times, it felt more like an e-discovery conference with analytics and social-computing side-tracks rather than a search conference featuring a few e-discovery sessions... Without good search technology, sifting through the data isn't just tedious but nightmarishly expensive.
MEDgle: Symptoms Ending In 'gle'
You know that rash, that one you don't want to talk about but that you keep scratching and wondering about but you're afraid to go to the doctor and get it checked out? I'm kidding -- but seriously, if you did, you could go to MEDgle first and find out how seriously to take it. This self-funded startup is yet another interesting way to exploit the expansiveness of the Web to create a new business opportunity.
Ultra Low-Cost Laptops: A Viable Option For SMBs?
No one likes to spend more than they have to on a computer. And no one likes to carry around more weight than they have to. You'd think that would make a killer combination for ultra-low-cost ultra-portables like the Asus eeePC, OLPC XO, and HP 2133 Mini-Note. And now a new teeny tiny machine is on the way from Dell.
But don't throw away your traditional notebook just yet.
MokaFive Virtual Desktops: A Flexible Leash?
Virtualizing desktops is clearly an area of the enterprise that begs for IT action, but the variety of ways to go about it indicates that this technology segment is in deep ferment. Will those who have dominated the desktop so far rule a virtualized future? Perhaps, but where there's fermentation, there's also a whiff of disruption.
Security, the Cloud and the Data Warehouse
"Doesn't DW-in-the-cloud suffer from the same fundamental problem as DW-as-a-Service in that you have to pump all of your proprietary, strategic, highly sensitive data outside of the firewall onto someone else's hardware?" James Dixon posted this question in response to my last post, and it points to a fundamental criticism that has been around since the first ASP started years ago...
Opera Cozies Up To Google, Adds Gears Support
I use Google Gears. I also use Firefox. When I upgraded to Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1, I lost access to Google Gears because it isn't supported yet. This is somewhat vexing. I also use the Opera browser from time to time. Today, Opera Software announced that both the desktop and the mobile versions of its browser will support Gears. Time for me to change browsers?
Windows 7 'Ultimate' Video: First Glimpse?
Windows 7 appears to look a lot like Windows Vista, judging from a video purporting to show the "Ultimate" version of Microsoft's next operating system that has popped up on the Internet and drawn more than one million hits on YouTube.
Converting Science Fiction To Reality: The Transformative Power Of Technology
Think there's no more magic in this business? Still have people trying to tell you that IT doesn't matter? Think again. I spent most of Wednesday at Carnegie Mellon University and among the people I spoke with was Jay Srini, the Chief Innovation Officer for the neighboring University of Pittsburgh's Medical Center Health Plan. Jay spoke about the extraordinary advances being made in the spaces where IT and medical technology and bioengineering meet health care.
Bashing SAP, Oracle and Other 'Stackers'
Lombardi's Jim Rudden posts an admittedly "cranky" piece about software giants like SAP crashing the business process management (BPM) party. His beef with those companies, which he calls "Stackers," is that they pursue the promise of BPM half-heartedly... I think he paints the Stackers with too broad and too black a brush. So let me offer a more nuanced view.
Open Source And Open APIs, Facebook-Style
The more I read Facebook's statement about opening its platform to third-party developers, the more it seems like you could interpret what they say as a promise to open just their APIs, or both their APIs and their underlying platform code. Which one's more likely? Better to ask: which one makes the most sense for Facebook, or any other Web compan
Nokia as a 'Software' Company
I'm probably the first to report that the news out of Barcelona is that cell phone giant Nokia is transitioning from being a mobile phone company to being a software company. I'd be wrong, of course. Well, mostly wrong.
Google I/O Overrun By Developers
More than 2,900 developers descended on the Moscone Center West convention center in San Francisco on Wednesday and Google wasn't ready for them.
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