Web Development Live

The future of application development might be becoming a little more social. Sun certainly hopes so, and has launched zembly, a new collaboration platform for writing small, and lightweight web applications. It’s a promising start, squarely aimed at small, long-tail developers, and a new approach to collaborative development over the web. Challenges remain, such as the long-term reliability of third-party application hosting and the findability of small long-tail applications on large platforms.
 
I was able to demo zembly, which attempts to lower the barrier of entry to writing applications for social platforms such as Facebook, Meebo, OpenSocial and the iPhone by sharing services and widgets and came away impressed with its focus on ease of use and belief in a new development process.  zembly is working to create a social setting for developers to share components between applications a “wiki for live, editable code that is more than just about trivial widgets, but rather about full-fledged social applications that can tap into the social graph and reach millions of users”.
 
Applications are written in javascript, rely on a widget / web service development model, and have an extensive architecture for securely managing developer credentials so that you can share outbound service calls without sharing your credentials.  These widgets and services can be shared, or cloned (forked) from other developers and carry a full change log with them, so you can freeze your dependencies to a given version.  The system makes source control and component sharing simpler for the uninitiated than tools like Git and Subversion that can be difficult to learn.
 
zembly hopes that network effects will kick in, as the service will be most successful if users trust others on the system, and share components freely - something that has been hard to accomplish even in large corporate development teams.  If successful, it will be this feature that distinguishes zembly from Google App Engine and other competitors.

Despite these concerns, as someone who sometimes needs a little peer pressure and social support to get started on development projects, I’ll be following zembly as they build out their community-oriented features and work to deliver on their promise to wiki-fy web development, and I’ll be looking forward to sharing code with friends online.

Two months after their Web site was hacked, the organizers of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign are looking for a network security expert to help lock down their Web site.

“Obama for America is looking for a network security expert who wants to play a key role in a historic political campaign,” reads the ad, posted to the Barackobama.com Web site.

Successful candidates will join Obama’s Boston team and should expect to find a new job come November.

Obama’s Web site, built by Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes, has been the model of Web 2.0 campaigning, using social-networking techniques to raise funds and build a broad base of active, Internet-savvy supporters.

But security experts have long warned that powerful Web site features also open new avenues for attack.

With the Internet driving the majority of the campaign’s contributions, Web security is probably more important to Obama than it has been to any other presidential candidate. A Web outage could cost his campaign millions of dollars, and a widely publicized privacy breach could put the brakes on his most important source of cash.

In April, a programming error allowed a Hillary Clinton supporter to redirect part of Obama’s Web site to Clinton’s, but today’s Web attack techniques could lead to much more serious consequences.

“Attacks like SQL injection would be far more of a concern,” said Oliver Friedrichs, a director with Symantec Security Response who has written about computer security and the 2008 presidential election. “If I was able to get access to the database that houses their donor information, that would be very concerning.”

So-called SQL injection attacks take advantage of programming errors and allow attackers to get unauthorized access to parts of a Web site. They can be used to install malicious software or gain access to sensitive information.

Obama’s site isn’t the only one to suffer from Web security bugs. A similar flaw popped up in Mitt Romney’s site in January, and Hillary Clinton’s name was used in a spam campaign that delivered messages laced with malicious Trojan Horse software programs, Friedrichs said.

While Web defacements and denial of service attacks may be the most common security problems, a Web privacy breach could quickly become a major campaign issue, Poole said. “For a big office, things like the reputation of the candidate are really important,” he said.

As an avid Apple afficianado and advocate of all things open source, my stance on Microsoft is usually clear-cut: I don’t care for it.  Everything about Microsoft’s business practices rubs me wrong.  With that said, I was surprised to learn that Microsoft has been toying with its own little pet social network since the beginning of the year.

Well “social” might not be quite the right term for Microsoft’s baby network, which is called TownSquare.  Consider it a more elite community of Microsoft nerds.  Perhaps a better term would be the anti-social network.  Townsquare is an intranet-based social network currently open to all Microsoft employees, and shares many similarities with Facebook.

All the normal social goodies - pictures, bios, updates, feed are included on TownSquare for each user and shared with the Microsoft community.  Additionally, Microsoft employees can see when documents and files on the intranet have been updated  or modified.  The whole thing is designed on enterprise newsfeeds to compile various public information about employees on the network.

Microsoft is also sharing TownSquare with a group of select consumers who are responsible for testing Townsquare.  All the testing and restructuring can’t possibly be for Microsoft’s own good time, though; it wouldn’t surprise me if Microsoft did a revision or two and marketed the intranetwork social structure to businesses.  As one of the main features is updating users on document and data revision on the intranet, many businesses could, no doubt, benefit from such advances.

Which brings me back to my original issue with Microsoft.  What could be a fantastic tool developed by some no-name third party developer will undoubtedly be marketed for sale by Microsoft to small business owners who will buy into the product simply because it has Microsoft’s stamp of approval.  If anything, I would be delighted to see a third party developer replicate the social structure for viewing profiles and updating intranet-public documents as open-source freeware, available to all.

The entire reason I believe that Microsoft will continue to spiral downward is because the who’s who in Microsoft’s management will never be able to adapt to the new, very open style of program sharing and development, and leave behind the monopoly mindset. In the end, Microsoft will have to buy into a little Darwinian theory and adapt and evolve, or go the way of the dinosaurs.

The survey, conducted by US market research firm Evans Data Corp, ranked Microsoft’s MSN/Live developer package above other offerings from Google, Yahoo, Facebook and eBay according to user satisfaction.

However, Australian web developer and co-founder of the Web Directions conference John Allsopp told ZDNet.com.au on Wednesday that the survey “doesn’t say anything meaningful at all”.

Allsopp added that the nature of Web 2.0 development and its accompanying technologies isn’t suited to this type of assessment, as developers don’t tend to compartmentalise which programs they use to Web Development build applications.

“It’s a misleading thing,” he said. “Web 2.0 is all about mashing and mixing things up to create something new, and using a whole lot of different programs to do it.”

“One of the criticisms of a lot of these technologies is that they’re tied to a certain property, such as Facebook, meaning you have to use their platform to build applications for their site,” he said.

Stewart Smith, president of the Australian Linux Foundation, echoed Allsopp’s sentiments, saying many of the Web Development programs “really aren’t as open as they’d have you believe”.

“People who really care about writing their own applications won’t be doing it for someone else’s platform, they’ll be writing them for their own sites, using a variety of things,” he said.

Allsopp said technologies are “still in their infancy”, and for many large companies, such as Google and Microsoft, “it’s still a pretty novel way of doing things… to open up and let other people start building things for you”.

“A lot of companies are still coming to grips with that, but I think that, over the next year or two, all of these programs are going to Web Development become more sophisticated and usable,” he said.

Minutes after attending a seminar titled “Use Social Networking to Your Professional Advantage,” I opened my e-mail and found two invitations to join LinkedIn.com networks.

One came from a person I’d had professional contact with previously. I clicked “accept” and went on to other things. I didn’t recognize the other name, so I closed the e-mail without response. And, thanks to Ellen Levy, I didn’t feel bad about the tacit rejection.

Levy, vice president of corporate development and strategy at LinkedIn.com, just presented an overview of Internet social networking sites at the Central Exchange’s annual Women’s Lyceum, an educational and networking event. Understanding that attendees came to the conference from many different backgrounds and levels of Web familiarity, Levy prefaced her user advice with a primer. First, she explained, there was Web 1.0 — the mostly one-directional flow of information over the Internet. Think of Web pages.

We’re now in the age of Web 2.0 — an era of two-way communication that in three years spawned a host of interactive social networking sites. A show of hands indicated that about half the people used LinkedIn, a professional networking Web site, to build business relationships.

Even if you’ve never been on a social networking site, you understand the concept: It’s a cyberspace handshake. It facilitates connections. It does what Rotary meetings, phone calls, cocktail parties and e-mail have done for years.

Let’s say Joe wants a job at Hallmark Cards. Joe doesn’t know anybody in the human resources department or target department where he wants to work. But he is good friends with Sally, who has a Hallmark Gold Crown store. Sally knows people in Hallmark’s retail division. One, Bill, is the main liaison with Joan in the human resources department. And Joan knows that Fred is exactly the right person for Joe to meet. Fred, meet Joe. Joe, here’s Fred, who has someone vouching for him.

I made up that scenario, but that’s the six-degrees-of-separation concept.

A professional networking Web site might help make the connections that have always been an essential ingredient in job hunting, business development and sales prospecting. (A user also can get a wealth of professional responses quickly when posting a question on the appropriate area of the site.)

Levy emphasized that Web-based networking sites are only as good as the veracity and relevance of the people using them.

A LinkedIn connection may not make sense if you accept an invitation to join one’s professional network if you don’t know the person or don’t have ties to one’s business skills or services. “It should be a tool to leverage relationships you already have,” Levy said.

And a good professional network site should never be confused with a social networking site such as Facebook. The purposes are completely different, she said.

A professional networking site can be a good way to put your business profile — basically your resume and the services you can offer — online, where they can be seen by millions of other site users. It can spread “the message of you” a lot further and faster than passing out business cards and shaking hands at meetings.

But as much as Levy championed the professional development possibilities of Web 2.0, she reminded attendees of something that most knew well: “Time is a scarce resource.” Use networking sites judiciously. Understand that others might not have the time you do to dig deep into the site. And, most of all, she said, don’t get sucked into making a contest out of how many “connections” you can list. It’s not a matter of quantity; it’s the quality that counts.

Live Mesh is both a development platform and a folder-sharing and synchronizing service for end users, according to Amit Mital, general manager of Live Mesh. From a Web-based Live Desktop, users can set devices or PCs to have access to different folders stored both on the devices and on the Web.

Using the desktop, users can set preferences for what machines or devices they want to make “a part of the mesh,” Mital said. Once they set a preference, software will be downloaded to that machine or device to activate it on the mesh.

Once a device or PC is activated, users can set what folders from that machine they want to be stored online. If they update folder content in Live Mesh, devices and PCs on the mesh will be updated with the changes the next time they are connected to the Web. Similarly, if information is changed locally on the device, then once the device goes online again, folders will be synchronized across devices on the entire mesh.

“The whole idea, from an experience perspective, is you still have access to documents online and offline, and we take care of the changes,” Mital said.

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie first introduced the idea of a mesh that could leverage the Web to connect devices, entertainment, business and development at the company’s MIX 08 conference in Vegas in March. Microsoft is expected to officially unveil Live Mesh at the Mesh It Up event at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

Users also can directly access and control any devices within their mesh through Live Remote Desktop, a feature of Live Mesh built on the capabilities of Windows Remote Desktop. For example, users can gain access to their home PCs from any computer by logging on to Live Mesh.

In addition to letting users set Live Mesh preferences for their own devices, people also can use the service as a collaboration tool, allowing people in their trusted network to access certain folders or files stored on their personal Live Mesh service.

Microsoft envisions Mesh as not only a helpful service to end users, but also a way developers can quickly build applications to enhance the experience of sharing and synchronizing files among devices, Mital said. As an example, Mital said an application built on the platform could allow users to establish a central storage place for data that they upload on various Web sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

The scenario he presented Tuesday sounded similar to how developers can easily build applications for the social-networking site Facebook and allow users to share those applications across the platform. Mital said Microsoft built Live Mesh on Web development technologies that are emerging as standards for Web 2.0 development — such as representational state transfer (REST) and Atom Syndication Format — that any developer has access to and can use.

Facebook has found a viable business model in advertising-supported social networking, so it may be that Microsoft is planning something similar for Live Mesh. Mital said Microsoft is considering several possible business models for Live Mesh, including using online advertising to support it or charging users a subscription fee to use it.

Microsoft is giving 10,000 users access to the Live Mesh preview by invitation, through a Windows Live ID. Initially, the service will be available only for PCs or laptops running Windows XP or Vista; in a few months, Microsoft will make Live Mesh available for Mac users and also mobile devices, beginning with the Windows Mobile platform. Eventually, devices such as the Zune, Xbox and digital photo frames could also be part of Live Mesh.

Mital acknowledged that once mobile devices can be added to Live Mesh, user access will be limited to the presentation and application capabilities of the devices. Microsoft is also working on a way to display an image of a document, such as an Excel document, from Live Mesh on a phone’s browser so that users can at least view a document, he said.

Mobile Internet devices and online communities are merging to a new kind of web diary: “micro-blogging,” where people fire off terse missives about what they are doing or thinking at any given moment.
The postings are bare-bones, on-the-go versions of online journals in which people share their lives and dreams — hence the name micro-blogging.
“Blogging has evolved and become more formalized,” said Yahoo Design Pattern Library curator Christian Crumlish, author of social networking book “The Tower of Many.”
“A beautiful blog entry is an art form, and it takes time. So, micro-blogging fits into your life where you take a minute or two to see what’s going on and go back to work.”
Hot website Twitter has attracted a large following since launching slightly more than two years ago as a way to share Haiku-like text message updates with unlimited numbers of friends instantly via mobile telephones.
The service entices users with its signature line, “What are you doing?”
Startup Utterz, publicly unveiled last year, goes a step further by allowing users to post text, video, photos or audio from mobile telephones to the Internet with a simple call.
“What are the four things you can do with a mobile phone? You can talk, you can send text, you can take pictures and send video,” Utterz president Randy Corke told AFP.
“We want to use the technology that you have in your pocket,” he said.
“We want to make blogging as easy as talking … Our users can literally take their mobile telephone out and capture the experience, and the emotion of their voice, and interview people.”
Websites where people post blogs or share pictures or videos have become ubiquitous and firms like Twitter and Utterz are positioning themselves as places to merge and manage the images and words.
The power of these technologies was unexpectedly unleashed at a recent US tech conference, SXSW, when attendees micro-blogged searing critiques of an on-stage interview of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
“The woman interviewing Zuckerberg is lame,” Utterz user Leora Zellman wrote beneath a live picture she snapped of the interviewer, BusinessWeek magazine’s Sarah Lacey, on stage during the event.
“Never, ever have I seen such a train wreck of an interview,” wrote Twitter user Jason Pontin. “Poor girl, flirtatiously awful though she was.”
Lacey “Twittered” her own response.
“Seriously screw all you guys,” she wrote. “I did my best to ask a range of things.”
Enthusiasm for micro-blogging has prompted numerous blogging and social networking sites to focus attention on ease-of-use and accessibility in a world increasingly fond of mobile net devices.
Top social networking properties Facebook and MySpace offer mobile versions of their sites to increase user accessibility.
Facebook invited Twitter to customize applications for the online community when it opened its platform to outside developers early last year.
Video-sharing superstar YouTube tailors links for mobile telephones, including a special player built into Apple’s iPhones, which combine video, music, Internet and mobile telephone capabilities.
Picture-sharing website Flickr, which added a video feature in April, encourages uploads from camera-equipped mobile telephones.
“New technologies are most accessible when they take something you need to do anyway and make it much easier and much more useful,” Corke said.

WEB 2.0 is well established, and sites such as YouTube, Flickr,
Facebook and Digg have turned the internet from a static source of
information into a huge, interactive digital playground. But where
to next? What will the next stage of web culture - which some
people call Web 3.0 - be like?
The expectation seems to be that profound changes are on the
way. If Web 2.0 is about generating and sharing your own content,
Web 3.0 will make information less free.
Privacy fears, new forms of advertising, and restrictions
imposed by media companies will mean more digital walls, leading to
a web that’s safer but without its freewheeling edge.
One reason for this is a new realism about personal information.
Most users casually store personal information on the web - email
on webmail servers, photographs on Flickr, appointment calendars on
Google Calendar, travel plans on Dopplr, and so on.
This openness is one of the defining features of Web 2.0. But
software specialist Nat Torkington, of high-tech publishing house
O’Reilly Media, predicts a backlash.
He argues that one serious leak or theft of private data could
change opinions overnight.
“It could be a Three Mile Island of the net,” he says, referring
to the 1979 accident that turned the US public against nuclear
power.
If this happens, users will start to remove their personal
details from web services, Mr Torkington believes, or at least
impose restrictions on it.
“We’ll see a hybrid model, with software that communicates with
the web while storing private information on your own computer,” he
says. So you might use Gmail to sort through your mail but download
personal messages to a more private spot.
Regions of the web now devoted to the unhindered exchange of
information, such as YouTube and Facebook, may evolve into gated
communities where only select people have access to specific
data.
Another factor that will restrict web freedom is advertising.
According to Brian Davison, a computer scientist at Lehigh
University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the influence of advertising
will continue to grow. Desperate to be noticed by people whose
attention spans are a mouse-click long, advertisers will invent
ever-more devious strategies to suck the punters in.
A few tricks are around already.
Say you are trying to reach Microsoft.com but you accidentally
type Macrosoft.com. That will take you to a page for a company
whose name has nothing to do with “Macrosoft” - they’re just parked
in that domain to get more exposure. You can find something similar
at Mycrosoft.com.
Web advertising is evolving quickly. The next generation will
sneak into search results, Mr Davison says.
For example, a website that sells movie posters might worm its
way into the results for a movie review. The link might look
useful, but clicking through will bring up an advertisement. The
danger is that such activity will gum up search results, stopping
people from finding what they need.
Web advertising is likely to balloon from another direction,
too. “Blogvertising” is expected to take off in the next five years
and produce a stark change in the medium. Already, ads are showing
up on blogs.
Bloggers stand to gain more of the advertising share because
they can create custom content for their advertisers, and that is
leading to a new style of blog on which the line between editorial
and advertisement is blurred.
Federated Media, a pioneer in the business of bringing bloggers
and advertisers together, helped Samsung advertise its HD TVs by
creating a blog called Defining Moment. Sports bloggers contributed
their posts about the best moments in sports in exchange for ad
money. All advertising on the site was by Samsung.
Neil Chase, a former editor at The New York Times and now with
Federated Media, doesn’t see this blurring of ads and content as a
problem. He argues that readers are adept at figuring out the
difference between ads and editorial. Such a model may be making
good on the old web dream of free media sharing for all; bloggers
can make their writing available for free but still be compensated
for it. Music and video content could go the same way,
incorporating advertisements to support the creators.
But wall-to-wall ads are not the only way to support media on
the web, says Michael Geist at the University of Ottawa. He says
another system can work for music and video: a media-sharing tax
that makes it legal to download anything you like.
Canada already has a version of this - a levy on blank CDs and
DVDs that allows Canadians to share music files without being sued
for copyright infringement.
“The developments we’re seeing (with media sharing) aren’t going
away,” Dr Geist says. “As more companies succeed with open business
models that could be stifled by copyright laws, they’ll seek to
have their voices heard.”
When people raised on file-sharing become politicians, Dr Geist
believes, they will support legislation that encourages models of
open media sharing online. For now, though, the name of the game is
restricting access.
Technological improvements mean that more and more content can
be delivered on the web, but with increasing control exerted by the
entertainment companies.
One way this is happening is through services such as Watch Now,
from DVD-rental company Netflix. It allows subscribers to watch
movies online without having to wait for them to download, but the
movies can only be viewed on Windows Media Player, severely
limiting where and how you can watch them.
The Netflix model represents the next step in media restriction
- part of a new, closed era when more content than ever is
available on the net, but only in limited ways.
Enjoy Web 2.0 - while it lasts.
NEW SCIENTIST

WEB 2.0 is well established, and sites such as YouTube, Flickr,
Facebook and Digg have turned the internet from a static source of
information into a huge, interactive digital playground. But where
to next? What will the next stage of web culture - which some
people call Web 3.0 - be like?
The expectation seems to be that profound changes are on the
way. If Web 2.0 is about generating and sharing your own content,
Web 3.0 will make information less free.
Privacy fears, new forms of advertising, and restrictions
imposed by media companies will mean more digital walls, leading to
a web that’s safer but without its freewheeling edge.
One reason for this is a new realism about personal information.
Most users casually store personal information on the web - email
on webmail servers, photographs on Flickr, appointment calendars on
Google Calendar, travel plans on Dopplr, and so on.
This openness is one of the defining features of Web 2.0. But
software specialist Nat Torkington, of high-tech publishing house
O’Reilly Media, predicts a backlash.
He argues that one serious leak or theft of private data could
change opinions overnight.
“It could be a Three Mile Island of the net,” he says, referring
to the 1979 accident that turned the US public against nuclear
power.
If this happens, users will start to remove their personal
details from web services, Mr Torkington believes, or at least
impose restrictions on it.
“We’ll see a hybrid model, with software that communicates with
the web while storing private information on your own computer,” he
says. So you might use Gmail to sort through your mail but download
personal messages to a more private spot.
Regions of the web now devoted to the unhindered exchange of
information, such as YouTube and Facebook, may evolve into gated
communities where only select people have access to specific
data.
Another factor that will restrict web freedom is advertising.
According to Brian Davison, a computer scientist at Lehigh
University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the influence of advertising
will continue to grow. Desperate to be noticed by people whose
attention spans are a mouse-click long, advertisers will invent
ever-more devious strategies to suck the punters in.
A few tricks are around already.
Say you are trying to reach Microsoft.com but you accidentally
type Macrosoft.com. That will take you to a page for a company
whose name has nothing to do with “Macrosoft” - they’re just parked
in that domain to get more exposure. You can find something similar
at Mycrosoft.com.
Web advertising is evolving quickly. The next generation will
sneak into search results, Mr Davison says.
For example, a website that sells movie posters might worm its
way into the results for a movie review. The link might look
useful, but clicking through will bring up an advertisement. The
danger is that such activity will gum up search results, stopping
people from finding what they need.
Web advertising is likely to balloon from another direction,
too. “Blogvertising” is expected to take off in the next five years
and produce a stark change in the medium. Already, ads are showing
up on blogs.
Bloggers stand to gain more of the advertising share because
they can create custom content for their advertisers, and that is
leading to a new style of blog on which the line between editorial
and advertisement is blurred.
Federated Media, a pioneer in the business of bringing bloggers
and advertisers together, helped Samsung advertise its HD TVs by
creating a blog called Defining Moment. Sports bloggers contributed
their posts about the best moments in sports in exchange for ad
money. All advertising on the site was by Samsung.
Neil Chase, a former editor at The New York Times and now with
Federated Media, doesn’t see this blurring of ads and content as a
problem. He argues that readers are adept at figuring out the
difference between ads and editorial. Such a model may be making
good on the old web dream of free media sharing for all; bloggers
can make their writing available for free but still be compensated
for it. Music and video content could go the same way,
incorporating advertisements to support the creators.
But wall-to-wall ads are not the only way to support media on
the web, says Michael Geist at the University of Ottawa. He says
another system can work for music and video: a media-sharing tax
that makes it legal to download anything you like.
Canada already has a version of this - a levy on blank CDs and
DVDs that allows Canadians to share music files without being sued
for copyright infringement.
“The developments we’re seeing (with media sharing) aren’t going
away,” Dr Geist says. “As more companies succeed with open business
models that could be stifled by copyright laws, they’ll seek to
have their voices heard.”
When people raised on file-sharing become politicians, Dr Geist
believes, they will support legislation that encourages models of
open media sharing online. For now, though, the name of the game is
restricting access.
Technological improvements mean that more and more content can
be delivered on the web, but with increasing control exerted by the
entertainment companies.
One way this is happening is through services such as Watch Now,
from DVD-rental company Netflix. It allows subscribers to watch
movies online without having to wait for them to download, but the
movies can only be viewed on Windows Media Player, severely
limiting where and how you can watch them.
The Netflix model represents the next step in media restriction
- part of a new, closed era when more content than ever is
available on the net, but only in limited ways.
Enjoy Web 2.0 - while it lasts.
NEW SCIENTIST

WEB 2.0 is well established, and sites such as YouTube, Flickr,
Facebook and Digg have turned the internet from a static source of
information into a huge, interactive digital playground. But where
to next? What will the next stage of web culture - which some
people call Web 3.0 - be like?
The expectation seems to be that profound changes are on the
way. If Web 2.0 is about generating and sharing your own content,
Web 3.0 will make information less free.
Privacy fears, new forms of advertising, and restrictions
imposed by media companies will mean more digital walls, leading to
a web that’s safer but without its freewheeling edge.
One reason for this is a new realism about personal information.
Most users casually store personal information on the web - email
on webmail servers, photographs on Flickr, appointment calendars on
Google Calendar, travel plans on Dopplr, and so on.
This openness is one of the defining features of Web 2.0. But
software specialist Nat Torkington, of high-tech publishing house
O’Reilly Media, predicts a backlash.
He argues that one serious leak or theft of private data could
change opinions overnight.
“It could be a Three Mile Island of the net,” he says, referring
to the 1979 accident that turned the US public against nuclear
power.
If this happens, users will start to remove their personal
details from web services, Mr Torkington believes, or at least
impose restrictions on it.
“We’ll see a hybrid model, with software that communicates with
the web while storing private information on your own computer,” he
says. So you might use Gmail to sort through your mail but download
personal messages to a more private spot.
Regions of the web now devoted to the unhindered exchange of
information, such as YouTube and Facebook, may evolve into gated
communities where only select people have access to specific
data.
Another factor that will restrict web freedom is advertising.
According to Brian Davison, a computer scientist at Lehigh
University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the influence of advertising
will continue to grow. Desperate to be noticed by people whose
attention spans are a mouse-click long, advertisers will invent
ever-more devious strategies to suck the punters in.
A few tricks are around already.
Say you are trying to reach Microsoft.com but you accidentally
type Macrosoft.com. That will take you to a page for a company
whose name has nothing to do with “Macrosoft” - they’re just parked
in that domain to get more exposure. You can find something similar
at Mycrosoft.com.
Web advertising is evolving quickly. The next generation will
sneak into search results, Mr Davison says.
For example, a website that sells movie posters might worm its
way into the results for a movie review. The link might look
useful, but clicking through will bring up an advertisement. The
danger is that such activity will gum up search results, stopping
people from finding what they need.
Web advertising is likely to balloon from another direction,
too. “Blogvertising” is expected to take off in the next five years
and produce a stark change in the medium. Already, ads are showing
up on blogs.
Bloggers stand to gain more of the advertising share because
they can create custom content for their advertisers, and that is
leading to a new style of blog on which the line between editorial
and advertisement is blurred.
Federated Media, a pioneer in the business of bringing bloggers
and advertisers together, helped Samsung advertise its HD TVs by
creating a blog called Defining Moment. Sports bloggers contributed
their posts about the best moments in sports in exchange for ad
money. All advertising on the site was by Samsung.
Neil Chase, a former editor at The New York Times and now with
Federated Media, doesn’t see this blurring of ads and content as a
problem. He argues that readers are adept at figuring out the
difference between ads and editorial. Such a model may be making
good on the old web dream of free media sharing for all; bloggers
can make their writing available for free but still be compensated
for it. Music and video content could go the same way,
incorporating advertisements to support the creators.
But wall-to-wall ads are not the only way to support media on
the web, says Michael Geist at the University of Ottawa. He says
another system can work for music and video: a media-sharing tax
that makes it legal to download anything you like.
Canada already has a version of this - a levy on blank CDs and
DVDs that allows Canadians to share music files without being sued
for copyright infringement.
“The developments we’re seeing (with media sharing) aren’t going
away,” Dr Geist says. “As more companies succeed with open business
models that could be stifled by copyright laws, they’ll seek to
have their voices heard.”
When people raised on file-sharing become politicians, Dr Geist
believes, they will support legislation that encourages models of
open media sharing online. For now, though, the name of the game is
restricting access.
Technological improvements mean that more and more content can
be delivered on the web, but with increasing control exerted by the
entertainment companies.
One way this is happening is through services such as Watch Now,
from DVD-rental company Netflix. It allows subscribers to watch
movies online without having to wait for them to download, but the
movies can only be viewed on Windows Media Player, severely
limiting where and how you can watch them.
The Netflix model represents the next step in media restriction
- part of a new, closed era when more content than ever is
available on the net, but only in limited ways.
Enjoy Web 2.0 - while it lasts.
NEW SCIENTIST