AboutUs.Org = domain WikiPedia

AboutUs.Org is an interesting Wiki. This site was launched in July 2006 and is in Beta. I would say it is a hybrid Wiki. Most of the wiki starts empty and community populates content. Folks at AboutUs.org came out with an idea to pre-populate all the domain information from WhoIs database. In otherwords AboutUs.Org, when launched was not an empty wiki. Since its inception AboutUs community has taken over and thousands updates are been done by users.

It categorizes information nicely. It provides Wiki search and Google search. I noticed interesting thing, I search for ”eInfotech” and somehow it found “malvania.com”. Well, It was definitely close. I also liked a feature that locates and displays the corporate address in Google Map.

It is designed using MediaWiki. It is the engine behind the success of wikipedia.

I won’t be surprise, if AboutUs.org turn out to be as popular as wikipedia.

Written by Pranav Malvania on November 17th, 2006 with 25 comments.
Read more articles on Web 2.0.

State of Blogosphere

Interesting blog is written by David Sifry, Founder & CEO of Technorati shows the strength of blogosphere and its imminent power.

Though I believe technologically blogging platforms are still in their infancy. Still content in blogs are not structured, it means machines can’t understand and properly organize information for us, But I can’t wait to see more and more resource description framework implementations are built into blogging tools.

Written by Pranav Malvania on November 14th, 2006 with 113 comments.
Read more articles on Web 2.0.

Google Acquires JotSpot

Google announced acquisition of first application wiki company, JotSpot. Aha, Now I understand what Larry Page meant when he said Google shall focus more on features. He actually meant Google shall buy companies to expand product portfolio, while it continue to add features in products.  :-)

Written by Pranav Malvania on October 31st, 2006 with 196 comments.
Read more articles on News and Web 2.0.

BrightCove may shape video sharing & storage Industry

A lot has been written on YouTube’s success. Like many of us, I always thought what is YouTube’s revenue model? Can YouTube ever make money? Well, Now it may not be question for YouTube. It is part of Google. Google may bundle advertisements, cut big deals with content providers, or cash in using video on demand. Still question remains for other video sharing & storage service companies like

• stickam
• brightcove
• fireant
• iFilm
• videobomb
• eyespot
• dailymotion
• metacafe
• blinkx
• myfilmz.net
• Ourmedia
• Peerflix
• videobomb
• Videoegg
• Vimeo
• vSocial

Yesterday BrightCove’s released Video Network. I tried to understand its buisness model. I think, I found what I was looking for. BrightCove has crisp business model. It works like this. For consumers BrightCove network is like open TV. Anyone can hook to any channel on BirghtCove network. Independent content creators and producers creates channels, grow them and earn money on revenue sharing basis. Media companies, broadcasters and marketers pay for publishing their content but they keep advertisement revenue.

Entire content delivery industry is shaping up faster than anybody envisioned. Well, I wouldn’t say this is how industry will mature. It is entirely possible that legacy players dig themsleves for trenched warfare and may prevail.

Written by Pranav Malvania on October 30th, 2006 with 219 comments.
Read more articles on Web 2.0.

Microsoft released ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 beta

This is a first public beta of MS AJAX toolkit previously known as ATLAS. As many of you know, in past Microsoft only released ATLAS as community technology preview. Developers who used ATLAS CTP in their projects, please take a look at migration guide before using ASP.NET AJAX beta.

Scott Guthrie of Microsoft has nicely compiled main features into his release announcement. Microsoft says beta is stuffed with many goodies, Let’s see what review developers give coming days.

Written by Pranav Malvania on October 20th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on News and Web 2.0.

Yahoo’s next steps

Yahoo’s Bradley Horowitz, Vice president of product strategy group shares his thoughts about Yahoo vision in an interview to CNet. He also takes jab at Google’s recent YouTube acquisition. Looks like Yahoo’s media team is in action after meeting a sales target for this quarter. I won’t be surprised to hear splash from Yahoo soon.

Written by Pranav Malvania on October 17th, 2006 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on News and Web 2.0.

Google Codesearch Boon or Threat?

When I heard about Google Code search launch, I was thrilled and thought this would help speed up software development but seems programmers and analysts are worried more than they are really excited about it. 

On Digg, I read that many are upset because it exposes email address. Just click here to get 8.1 million email addresses of developers. One analyst suggested, Google Code search may turn out boon to hackers. It can expose previously unknown code to hackers and potentially help them to break into many computers. In other words he meant that open source software are in trouble due to Google Code Search. 

I guess crazy but it again proves that fear rule. 

Written by Pranav Malvania on October 12th, 2006 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Web 2.0.

Google launches Docs & Spreadsheets beta

After YouTube acquisition Google ups the ante by announcing Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Google Docs is nothing but repackaged Writely. Google Spreadsheets is a re-launch. I didn’t see any major changes in Google Spreadsheet.

Timing of this announcement is interesting, Office 2.0 Conference is opening up today and it is well anticipated that upstart Zoho is announcing Virtual Office. I guess, Google doesn’t want to buy another company at 1.6 billion dollar.