Looking back on 2008, we’ve seen several trends in the web space. The web has transformed from a place to look for information to a place to share information. Social networking tools and applications exploded, with the release of the Facebook Platform and Google’s OpenSocial. Enterprises also saw an increase in the adoption of collaboration and social networking tools such as blogs, wikis, and LinkedIn.  Mobile web usage became increasing mainstream with Apple’s iPhone 3G and Google’s Android. Open source software gained popularity as the economy took a downturn.

So what’s in store for 2009?

Here are just a few things to watch out for in the coming year…

• Semantic web - what good is information if it can’t be organized? contextual web utilizing semantic technologies will be huge
• Web 2.x - in preparation for Web 3.0, the new wave of “intelligent web”, we will see an increased adoption of technologies such as semantic web, OpenID, and SaaS to name a few
• Cloud computing - will cloud computing gain enough momentum to be the next big thing?
• Facebook domination continues
• Open source continues to gain popularity within the enterprise
• Friend synchronization tools - to help ease the information overload from the social media revolution

In a time of economic downturn, when both consumers and enterprises are watching their spending and preparing for the worst, open source usage continues to thrive and even grow in the current state of the economy.

In a post by Matt Asay on “Where the channel is investing in 2009” based on research done by CMP Media, the findings seem in favor of an increased adoption of open source software.

Some interesting findings include:

“Economic uncertainty is pushing companies to prove technology before buying it, which skews toward open source, which is all about trying before buying.

End customers are planning smaller initial projects, with incremental add-ons. (Advantage: open source and SaaS, since both allow vendors to start small and grow organically).

Forty-eight percent of end customers are looking to streamline business processes, rather than endure pure cost cuts. Basically, they want to spend money more efficiently, rather than simply cutting heads.”

It seems like the overall trend is smart spending, whether it be the try-before-you-buy methodology or maximizing cost effectiveness.  All this seems to shine a light on open source software. Maybe this recession is actually an opportunity in disguise for OSS to emerge and establish its presense amongst enterprises??

Along with millions of Americans, I too watched the election results last night as the gap between Obama and McCain increased and the critical swing states turned blue one by one. While’s it’s apparent that the vast majority of Americans are ready for a change, part of Obama’s election success can be attributed to his modern way of campaigning, utilizing the power of people and technology in a way never done before during during the election process.

Obama’s campaign recruited Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, to build its own social networking site, myBarackObama.com. Talk about harnessing the power of the internet.

“The internet grew from being the medium of a core group of political junkies to a gateway for millions of ordinary Americans to participate in the political process, donating odd amounts of their spare time to their candidate through online campaign tools. Obama’s campaign carefully designed its web site to maximize group collaboration, while at the same time giving individual volunteers tasks they could follow on their own schedules.”

This collaboration of Obama supporters resulted in some creative contributions, such as the Obama ‘08 for iPhone, where social networking features allow users to participate in the campaign process with friends.

This next generation campaign strategy was able to reached out to millions of young voters whose voices might not have been heard otherwise. But by incorporating the technologies that are second nature to this generation into the campaign process, young voters throughout the nation found themselves wanting to take part in this historical landmark event. It wouldn’t be far fetched to say that it’s these young voters who helped convert traditionally republican states like Virginia to vote democratic for the first time in over 40 years.

“It was a peer-to-peer, bottom-up, open-source kind of ethos that infused this campaign,” says Benko, a principal of the political consulting firm Capital City Partners, in Washington, D.C. “Clearly, there was a vision to this.”

It’s undeniable that Barack Obama’s campaign took electioneering to a whole new level, one that harnesses the enthusiasm of his supporters. Needless to say, this landmark election will also serve as a turning point in how election campaigns will be approached in the future.

A recent research report by The 451 Group indicated that:

“Open source is a business tactic, not a business model. Open source is not a market in and of itself, nor is it a vertical segment of the market. Open source is a software development and/or distribution model that is enabled by a licensing tactic.”

For this report, “the business strategies of 114 open source-related vendors, including open source specialists such as Red Hat and Alfresco, and those for which open source is used more tactically, such as IBM and Oracle” were analyzed.

It appears that “there are few vendors generating revenue from open source software that are following a pure open source approach when it comes to developing all of their code in the open and licensing all of their software under open source licenses”.

Although this offers some interesting facts, I don’t necessarily agree with the conclusions of this report. It may be true that some open source vendors do utilize hybrid development or licensing models, but I don’t think it’s fair to call open source a business tactic. The fundamentals of open source haven’t changed. The report results seems like they could have been skewed by the inclusion of traditionally proprietary vendors with a few “open source” projects like IBM and Oracle.

With the “going green” trend gaining popularity, more businesses are starting to migrate towards a paperless office. Green computing is more than just choosing the right hardware for maximum energy efficiency, it’s also about reducing the amount of paper waste in our daily office operations. Going paperless would not only reduce clutter and increase productivity, but also help conserve natural resources at the same time. Think of all the times you’ve had to look and sort through piles of papers just to find that one small piece of information, all the while making more of a mess to make it even more difficult the next time around. Imagine that multiplied by the number of employees in your organization. That’s a lot of time wasted right?

With the right enterprise content management system, all those paper documents can be managed electronically. Better yet, those items can be tagged with keywords to make finding and sharing that piece of information hassle free. All that time saved can be used more productively. The fact that you’re helping to conserve natural resources is an added bonus. We all want a better environment for our future generations, right?

The next stop on Alfresco’s Road Show is the Big Apple, which will take place on November 14th.

Rivet Logic customer, Harvard Business School Publishing (HBSP), will be discussing the details of a major Alfresco implementation that we have under way.   In addition, our CEO will be presenting ConnectedWeddings.com as another real-world example of an Alfresco implementation, with a focus on social networking and Facebook integration.  And one of our technical architects will demonstrate what we think are some of the coolest features in the forthcoming Alfresco 3.0 release.

Some other interesting content to be covered include Alfresco Share, Alfresco Surf, and why the world needs an alternative to SharePoint.

Last but not least, the road show will conclude with one lucky winner walking away with a brand new Apple iPod Touch!

You can register here:
http://www.alfresco.com/about/events/2008/11/nyc-road-show/

Rivet Logic will be conducting a joint webinar with Alfresco on November 11th on Web 2.0 powered collaboration. Topics of focus will include how we’ve used Alfresco to build content-rich Web 2.0 collaboration platforms, with examples from real life case studies.

Join us to learn about building scalable yet cost effective solutions that leverage the value of content through a robust content repository like Alfresco. Some new Alfresco 3.0 features and highlights will also be covered.

Register here:
http://www.alfresco.com/about/events/2008/11/web2collab11nov08/

When people think about social networking, websites like Facebook and MySpace immediately pops to mind. It’s a way for Gen Y’ers to connect with each other for pure entertainment purposes, right? Or is it?

With Web 2.0 already a staple in the consumer web world, Enterprise 2.0 is quickly gaining momentum within businesses and enterprises. Social networking is going beyond teens connecting in cyberspace. It’s about enabling businesses to collaborate and work together as a community, both internally amongst employees and externally with customers and partners. Instant messaging, wikis and blogs are being used as tools to encourage communication, knowledge sharing and collaboration.

Facebook is venturing into enterprise applications with the help of Ringside Networks, an application server company, which offers an open source “social application server”. “Ringside Social Application Server is the first open-source platform that enables Web site owners to build and deploy social applications that operate with existing Web site content and business applications while seamlessly integrating with social networks such as Facebook.”

“It has a range of cool features like the ability to gather ‘social intelligence’. In other words, the Ringside platform allows business owners to gain insight into the social graph of users, relationships, groups, interactions, and sharing that is occurring on their Web site. Suddenly, socializing becomes smart business.”

In fact, investors see so much potential in the future of social networking that a couple of Facebook investors, Accel Capital and The Founders Fund, created the Facebook Fund for start-ups, which “offers grants to new ventures that specifically develop applications using the Facebook Platform.”

How’s that for enterprise social networking??

With the baby boomers fast approaching retirement, the workforce is making room for a new slue of younger Gen Y employees. What affect will this have on the technologies enterprises currently employ? Along with the influx of a younger generation of workers, will come an increase in the adoption of new technologies. This younger generation of workers grew up using computers and the internet, with “blogs”, “social networking”, and “instant messaging” a part of their daily vocabulary. Gen Y comprises the bright minds of tomorrow. They’re not going to want to work in an environment where the technologies are behind. They’re going to expect the tools at their companies to mirror what they use in their personal lives. Gen Y is going to change the Web in more ways than one.  It would in a sense almost force enterprises to come up to speed with Enterprise 2.0 technologies to recruit and retain the best of this generation.

Out with the old, and in with the new!

With cloud computing and Web 2.0 being all the rage in today’s tech world, it’s no surprise that somewhere would emerge a product that utilizes both technologies. Introducing WebOS, “a software platform that interacts with the user through a web browser and does not depend on any particular local operating system”. What does that mean? It basically means that you can run a desktop through a browser, almost like remoting into your computer, except this “desktop” is hosted by the provider.

Although I was familiar with the concept of WebOS, I never really paid much attention to it until a friend brought it up and said he’d be playing around with Cloudo. I decided to see what the craze was all about. After viewing a demo of Cloudo, I must say I’m impressed by the concept and see where it could eventually lead. I don’t think WebOS would ever completely replace personal or work computers, but I do foresee WebOS being a great collaboration tool. It reminds a little of Facebook, but on steroids. In addition to photos, you can store documents, music and all other files in a file system structure like your current desktop. Since everything is online, documents and files can easily be shared between friends or colleagues.  And the best part is, Cloudo features an open platform, so developers can develop their own apps or widgets, which can also be shared.

Although some of the security concerns involving WebOS may not make it immediately practical for enterprise use, what if enterprise versions of WebOS became available? Enterprises could build their own custom WebOS tailored to their business and only allow employees, customers, and partners access. It would behave similar to portals, but on steroids.