Top 10 strategic technologies for 2008

Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2008

Among others Gartner describes i find interesting these two :

Real World Web. The term “real world Web” is informal, referring to places where information from the Web is applied to the particular location, activity or context in the real world. It is intended to augment the reality that a user faces, not to replace it as in virtual worlds. It is used in real-time based on the real world situation, not prepared in advance for consumption at specific times or researched after the events have occurred. For example in navigation, a printed list of directions from the Web do not react to changes, but a GPS navigation unit provides real-time directions that react to events and movements; the latter case is akin to the real-world Web of augmented reality. Now is the time to seek out new applications, new revenue streams and improvements to business process that can come from augmenting the world at the right time, place or situation.

Social Software. Through 2010, the enterprise Web 2.0 product environment will experience considerable flux with continued product innovation and new entrants, including start-ups, large vendors and traditional collaboration vendors. Expect significant consolidation as competitors strive to deliver robust Web 2.0 offerings to the enterprise. Nevertheless social software technologies will increasingly be brought into the enterprise to augment traditional collaboration.

Augmented reality is probably the real revoulution in the next few years. Amplifing our sense and introduce real time data in our perception, based on our location. It’s already happening with some experimental tourist guides and geo tagging.

Think you have a device (mobile phone with gps for example) and you receive information related to the place you are or related to your friend’s position. It’a already happening. Call it LBS (location based services) .

Web 2.0 framework

Future Exploration Network has created a great document on web 2.0 framework

There are three key parts to the Web 2.0 Framework, as shown below:

Web 2.0 Framework
* Web 2.0 is founded on seven key Characteristics: Participation, Standards, Decentralization, Openness, Modularity, User Control, and Identity.
* Web 2.0 is expressed in two key Domains: the Open web, and the Enterprise.
* The heart of Web 2.0 is how it converts Inputs (User Generated Content, Opinions, Applications), through a series of Mechanisms (Technologies, Recombination, Collaborative Filtering, Structures, Syndication) to Emergent Outcomes that are of value to the entire community.

Web 2.0 Definitions
* We define the Web 2.0 Characteristics, Domains, and Technologies referred to in the Framework.
* Ten definitions for Web 2.0 are provided, including the one I use to pull together the ideas in the Framework: “Distributed technologies built to integrate, that collectively transform mass participation into valuable emergent outcomes.”

Web 2.0 Landscape
* Sixty two prominent Web 2.0 companies and applications are mapped out across two major dimensions: Content Sharing to Recommendations/ Filtering; and Web Application to Social Network. The four spaces that emerge at the junctions of these dimensions are Widget/ component; Rating/ tagging; Aggregation/ Recombination; and Collaborative filtering. Collectively these cover the primary landscape of Web 2.0.

Pdf with the slides is here

Tagging

One of the most relevant aspect of the web 2.0 approach is the participation of people to create and classify information. Tags linked to hyperlinks, maps, photos, objects, video and people are the real revolution of web 2.0. They totally changes the transfer and classification of knowledge.

Information that today compose knowledge are chosen and transferred (with some piece of paper) by recognized experts of the related matter.

Now a totally new taxonomy made by tags linked to information by the community (known ad folksonomy) could change the way we find information and also which information are transferred through time.

When we tag links on del.icio.us , images on Flickr, objects in MyThings, places in MyMaps (and a lot of other places) and share this information with other users, we are building the tomorrow knowledge. Think about it when save a tag.

Recently we can also tag people and share this information on Spock. Globally sharing this information could lead to a level of transparency never reached.

Even better if we consider that from the chaos of tagging a new order is coming.

Start 2.0

Where to start?

Whoever had recently surfed the web had an encounter with web 2.0 . It’s more than a couple of years that this new definition has been coined. But where to start talking about the web2.0?

User generated content, social networks, blogs, tag-based folksonomy, social software, semantic web, syndication are just few words used to describe what I consider the evolution of the internet and therefore the evolution of our society.

But it’s more than just a technical evolution. It regards economical changes, new business models, new approach to media, new usage of information, new participation, new way we conduct our lives.

A lot is happening around web 2.0, a lot of people, experts, guru, bloggers are writing, talking, working … living the web2.0, me too.

A lot of information on the matter are at wikipedia. Maybe is a good point to start. The current end is at Web 2.0 expo.