The Best and the Worst Tech of the Decade

 

It was the best of decades, it was the worst of decades...

by James Turner

I was looking at this article, which I enjoyed, and could not helping having some thoughts :).

The Best

AJAX - It's hard to remember what life was like before Asynchronous JavaScript and XML came along, so I'll prod your memory. It was boring. Web 1.0 consisted of a lot of static web pages,where every mouse click was a round trip to the web server. If you wanted rich content, you had to embed a Java applet in the page, and pray that the client browser supported it.

Without the advent of AJAX, we wouldn't have Web 2.0, GMail, or most of the other cloud-based web applications. Flash is still popular, but especially with HTML 5 on the way, even functionality that formerly required a RIA like Flash or Silverlight can now be accomplished with AJAX.

I love AJAX but to say that there would have be no Web 2.0, I think that is a bit much. Web 2.0 as I understand is a culture of participation and collaboration. Yes the web application are more friendly and usable, but I believe the collaboration was inevitable. Web services, XML (with or without JASON) were more important I think.

Twitter - When they first started, blogs were just what they said, web logs. In other words, a journal of interesting websites that the author had encountered. These days, blogs are more like platforms for rants, opinions, essays, and anything else on the writer's mind. Then along came Twitter. Sure, people like to find out what J-Lo had for dinner, but the real power of the 140 character dynamo is that it has brought about a resurgence of real web logging.The most useful tweets consist of a Tiny URL and a little bit of context. Combine that with the use of Twitter to send out real time notices about everything from breaking news to the current specials at the corner restaurant, and it's easy to see why Twitter has become a dominant player.

I have said enough about Twitter, staying or not it has brought a new dimension to our on-line presence and to the possibility of harnessing the opinions of the crowds. Some can be called wisdom, some no-one cares…

Ubiquitous WiFi: I want you to imagine you're on the road in the mid-90s. You get to your hotel room, and plop your laptop on the table. Then you get out your handy RJ-11 cord, and check to see if the hotel phone has a data jack (most didn't), or if you'll have to unplug the phone entirely. Then you'd look up the local number for your ISP, and have your laptop dial it, so you could suck down your e-mail at an anemic 56K.

Now, of course, WiFi is everywhere. You may end up having to pay for it, but fast Internet connectivity is available everywhere from your local McDonalds to your hotel room to an airport terminal. Of course,this is not without its downsides, since unsecured WiFi access point shave led to all sorts of security headaches, and using an open access point is a risky proposition unless your antivirus software is up to date, but on the whole, ubiquitous WiFi has made the world a much more connected place.

I am not sure we are anywhere close to universal internet access in the USA and definitely not there with WiFi. I only have an IPod Touch and the lack of connectivity is plainly felt on a daily basis. If we did I am not sure Google would be so involved in trying to give access to the white space now that we have only digital TV. We are no-where near the ubiquitous access which has been enjoyed in other countries but I believe we are doing better.

More on Twitter

I have been blogging about twitter for a while now (mainly twitter vs Facebook) and I have to say I am still baffled on how popular it is.

When not helping dealing with emergencies, and then I think the only advantage twitter has is how easy it is to post and search information, it seems to be a referral tool, a way for a user to advertise content posted at another address (which allows a lit bit more information to be posted).

Then I came across this article from someone who actually raves about Twitter and let you know why. Also there is a slight inconsistency there, the author does admit using either media to post information. I especially like the way he described posting questions and asking help from his followers.

Of course you would have to have followers, not sure I would be qualifying there. The only followers I get are the ones which seem to be disappearing from Twitter for disqualifying behavior.
He also admits to not following many people. Too much information is the same as no information. Seems a bit of a one sided relationship, but I have to say I understand the approach there.

I still think the best part of Twitter is the use of tags and its searchability. There might be a use for the individual but where it seems to shine is in using the crowd’s information. The danger of course is when it is not a fad anymore, and I hear some famous people are now disconnecting, if we do not find a way to make it more attractive for the individual, Twitter might very quickly loose its appeal.

Just found another article claiming that Twitter will be there forever. Well generally speaking it is hard to agree with it, if Twitter does not evolve it will surely disappear in favor of something else. But he makes some valid point as to why Twitter is useful now. It is worth the read.

Social media data analysis

As we put more and more data on-line, we will see different ways to analyze the data floating around. What is says about us, I am not so sure. I previously blogged about a tool to show trends in twitter.

Here is something else that was blogged on by O’Reilly (I do love those guys). This shows a different visualization of some of the information flowing in Twitter. This one also show trends but I have to say the visualization seems more effective to show what is being talked about at one point in time and the actual trends

In order to look at the trend, you need to read the text under each picture. I would be curious to see how they define boring and smart though. That might be more of a judgment call rather than a real data categorization. Actually I just read the article again and it defined by the author.

I wonder if there is a way to actually define boring vs smart. People who talk about some topics, would not really call those things boring (or would they). I suppose the x-axis might be used to represent the trends (getting hotter or cooler).