Welcome to Web 2.0
Good morning:
The new new buzzword this year is "Web 2.0."
It means the re-surgence of the Internet as a communications and information channel, after the dot-com collapse. But underneath that are a series of technical revolutions that have made building powerful web applications easier, cheaper and more widely available. (XML, AJAX, Web Services and broadband are the four pillars of the new platform—more on the bits and bytes of this in weeks to come.)
The result in the past year or two is wide-spread content creation by the people we formerly called “consumers,” and much more powerful applications by the big shots like financial, media and travel companies. We’ve got a good high-level article from Buziness Week on this:
BUSINESS WEEK “THE NET’S NEW AGE” What is “Web 2.0?” How does it change media and marketing? Where do ideas like “brand” and “marketplace” go in the next five to ten years? This week Business Week offered a very solid overview of “Web 2.0,” the more user-driven, networked, and mobile world of the new Internet. A must read: "The Net's New Age"
MACROMEDIA “FLASH 8” + FOX PICTURES “WALK THE LINE WEBSITE” Flash is the ubiqutious animation software that allows shops like ours to develop sites with much more compelling graphics and animations. It relies on a “player” installed in all the major browsers---98% of all US Internet users have some form of the Flash player in their browser.
Last Fall Macromedia announced Flash 8, which emphasized much better integration of video. This is great news for designers who work in Flash (especially us, since we think we’re pretty good at Flash) but its potentially very bad news for Microsoft and Real Networks---the Flash 8 video capabilities could make it theplatform of choice for delivering video. (Here’s a CNET article that explains the threat: CNET: "The Flash Threat"
Each new realease takes some time to get distributed to consumers through an application update or upgrade. Best guess is that this new Flash player is at about 70% penetration, on track to hit 90% by this summer.
Here’s a great example of a site built in Flash 8, for the Johnny Cash bio-pic “Walk the Line,” my candidate for Picture of the Year: Walk The Line Website
BBC “WANNABEES” News comes from London that the BBC will be launching an online interactive drama this Fall, aimed at teen-agers, called “Wannabees.” People will be able to interact with the episodes, following different story lines, as well as offering advice on how the characters should act. This could get traction if a community of fans begins to collaborate with the writers in real-time to guide the plotlines of the show: Wannabees
MAMMUT “MARY WOODBRIGE’S MOUNT EVEREST EXPEDITION” Leo Burnett in Geneva designed this viral campaign for Mammut, a retailer of outdoors apperrel and camping equipment. It’s a site for Mary Woodbridge, who is supposedly an 85 year woman from England preparing to climb Mount Everest (with her little dog) The site was built in HTML 2.0, which gives it a pre-1996 look, so it really appears to be the work of an enthusiastic amateur. (BTW, it’s all a hoax. There is no Mary Woodbridge, but shhh! --this is comedy!) Some funny viral movies. It’s like a big branded entertainment comedy skit: Mary Woodbridge's Expedition
THE GUARDIAN UNLIMITED “RICKEY GERVAIS PODCAST” Rickey Gervais is a Britrish comedian / writer / self-proclaimed philosopher and he is the star of what is widely regarded as the most popular podcast in the US and the UK. It’s basically a comedy radio show on the go, a bit like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.” It’s meandering and really not much more than an R-rated radio show, but astonishingly popular: 2 million downloads since it launched in December. The advantage of podcasting it, I suppose, is wider distribution because of greater portability. You can listen to it while you’re on the train, in the car, in the gym, etc. The Guardian newspaper in the UK has a digital arm called “Guardian Unlimited” and this is part of its first programming salvo outside of news. Gervais gained fame as the creator and star of the original BBC comedy series “The Office,” which has been re-created in the US on NBC: The Rickey Gervais Podcast
BONUS: This week at Periscope we re-launched the Arctic Cat website, which we think raises the stakes for recreational sites. Have a look at our latest and greatest: Arctic Cat.com
See you next week. Until then, keep walking the line...Thanks-RJ
Welcome to Web 2.0
Good morning:
The new new buzzword this year is "Web 2.0."
It means the re-surgence of the Internet as a communications and information channel, after the dot-com collapse. But underneath that are a series of technical revolutions that have made building powerful web applications easier, cheaper and more widely available. (XML, AJAX, Web Services and broadband are the four pillars of the new platform—more on the bits and bytes of this in weeks to come.)
The result in the past year or two is wide-spread content creation by the people we formerly called “consumers,” and much more powerful applications by the big shots like financial, media and travel companies. We’ve got a good high-level article from Buziness Week on this:
BUSINESS WEEK “THE NET’S NEW AGE” What is “Web 2.0?” How does it change media and marketing? Where do ideas like “brand” and “marketplace” go in the next five to ten years? This week Business Week offered a very solid overview of “Web 2.0,” the more user-driven, networked, and mobile world of the new Internet. A must read: "The Net's New Age"
MACROMEDIA “FLASH 8” + FOX PICTURES “WALK THE LINE WEBSITE” Flash is the ubiqutious animation software that allows shops like ours to develop sites with much more compelling graphics and animations. It relies on a “player” installed in all the major browsers---98% of all US Internet users have some form of the Flash player in their browser.
Last Fall Macromedia announced Flash 8, which emphasized much better integration of video. This is great news for designers who work in Flash (especially us, since we think we’re pretty good at Flash) but its potentially very bad news for Microsoft and Real Networks---the Flash 8 video capabilities could make it theplatform of choice for delivering video. (Here’s a CNET article that explains the threat: CNET: "The Flash Threat"
Each new realease takes some time to get distributed to consumers through an application update or upgrade. Best guess is that this new Flash player is at about 70% penetration, on track to hit 90% by this summer.
Here’s a great example of a site built in Flash 8, for the Johnny Cash bio-pic “Walk the Line,” my candidate for Picture of the Year: Walk The Line Website
BBC “WANNABEES” News comes from London that the BBC will be launching an online interactive drama this Fall, aimed at teen-agers, called “Wannabees.” People will be able to interact with the episodes, following different story lines, as well as offering advice on how the characters should act. This could get traction if a community of fans begins to collaborate with the writers in real-time to guide the plotlines of the show: Wannabees
MAMMUT “MARY WOODBRIGE’S MOUNT EVEREST EXPEDITION” Leo Burnett in Geneva designed this viral campaign for Mammut, a retailer of outdoors apperrel and camping equipment. It’s a site for Mary Woodbridge, who is supposedly an 85 year woman from England preparing to climb Mount Everest (with her little dog) The site was built in HTML 2.0, which gives it a pre-1996 look, so it really appears to be the work of an enthusiastic amateur. (BTW, it’s all a hoax. There is no Mary Woodbridge, but shhh! --this is comedy!) Some funny viral movies. It’s like a big branded entertainment comedy skit: Mary Woodbridge's Expedition
THE GUARDIAN UNLIMITED “RICKEY GERVAIS PODCAST” Rickey Gervais is a Britrish comedian / writer / self-proclaimed philosopher and he is the star of what is widely regarded as the most popular podcast in the US and the UK. It’s basically a comedy radio show on the go, a bit like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.” It’s meandering and really not much more than an R-rated radio show, but astonishingly popular: 2 million downloads since it launched in December. The advantage of podcasting it, I suppose, is wider distribution because of greater portability. You can listen to it while you’re on the train, in the car, in the gym, etc. The Guardian newspaper in the UK has a digital arm called “Guardian Unlimited” and this is part of its first programming salvo outside of news. Gervais gained fame as the creator and star of the original BBC comedy series “The Office,” which has been re-created in the US on NBC: The Rickey Gervais Podcast
BONUS: This week at Periscope we re-launched the Arctic Cat website, which we think raises the stakes for recreational sites. Have a look at our latest and greatest: Arctic Cat.com
See you next week. Until then, keep walking the line...Thanks-RJ
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