It’s time for our weekly summary of Web Technology news, products and trends. On the trends side, we analyzed the significance of MySpace’s new profiles, looked at how Google is tracking flu trends, explored a partnership between an online finance tool and a newspaper, and more. On the product side, we brought you an exclusive first look at a new IBM browser technology, reported on the latest big release of Windows Live, checked out a major update for Gmail, and more. We also have highlights from the Enterprise Channel and our new product, Jobwire. Finally, we have the recording from this week’s RWW Live about online job tools.
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Web Trends
New MySpace Profiles: Granular Privacy, W3C Compliance
MySpace launched “Profile version 2.0” late this week and a number of the changes are quite significant. The two biggest in our minds are the ability to set different privacy controls for different parts of a user’s profile and the near complete adherence to W3C HTML standards. As MySpace develops, so develop the next generation of mainstream web users and thus the web at large. Whether you’re a MySpace user or not, it’s worthwhile to keep an eye on what the company is doing – especially in terms of user experience.
Google Flu Trends: A Glimpse into the Future of Google Health
It stands to reason that people who are “starting to come down with something” often take the opportunity to search for information on what ails them, even before they discuss their symptoms with a healthcare professional. Who gets more of those searches than anyone? Google, of course. When Google started looking more closely at anonymous aggregate searches for “flu symptoms” and the like, they discovered that – after cross-referencing that data against information from the Center for Disease Control – they had the ability to predict flu outbreaks by monitoring search patterns. And now, they’ve published their findings as Google Flu Trends.
Would You Manage Your Money Through The Newspaper?
Wesabe and the UK Telegraph think you might. Online money management service Wesabe and the UK newspaper giant The Telegraph have entered a partnership to offer co-branded tools on the Telegraph website. It’s a daring move, we can’t help but admire it. We also can’t help but wonder how users will feel about it though.
SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY
A Word from Our Sponsors
We’d like to thank ReadWriteWeb’s sponsors, without whom we couldn’t bring you all these stories every week!
- VisualCV lets you stand out from the crowd when job-hunting.
- WildApricot is Membership Management Software.
- Crowd Science gives you detailed visitor demographics.
- Glue enables you to connect with friends while browsing.
- Strands provides real-time recommendations of products.
- Direct Media Exchange is a solution for managing ad networks.
- Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.
- SmartyPig is Simple. Smart. Savings.
- Quintura is a visual-based search engine.
- Eurekster is a custom social search portal.
- MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW.
- SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.
RWW Jobwire
Sam Whitmore on Vivian Schiller Leaving NYT to Become New NPR CEO
What do you get when you move the head of digital media at one of the world’s leading old-school press outfits into the CEO’s office of an even hipper large music and news organization? We don’t know, but we’re excited to find out! Veteran media exec Vivian Schiller announced this week that she’s leaving her position as head of NYTimes.com to become the new CEO of National Public Radio (NPR).
We’re excited about it from a technology perspective, but media industry analyst and RWW Jobwire guest editor Sam Whitmore discussed the move in terms of what it means for the Times as a business as well below.
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RWW Live: Online Tools for Career Discovery & Job Searching
We recently launched a new product, Jobwire, to track who has been hired for new jobs in tech and new media. In this week’s episode of RWW Live, we talked about the state of online tools for career discovery and job searching. We had executives from Path 101, Indeed and Simply Hired join us for a lively discussion.
Download MP3
Web Products
First Look at Blue Spruce, IBM’s Next Generation Browser Platform
IBM is about to commit itself heavily to browser-based applications. The giant IT company is quietly working on a project called Blue Spruce, which aims to create a fully browser-based application development platform. ReadWriteWeb was given an exclusive first look at Blue Spruce. Last week at Web 2.0 Summit we sat down with IBM’s VP of Emerging Internet Technologies, Rod Smith, for a “show and tell” of what IBM claims will be the next evolution of the browser. What’s more, it’s fully open standards based – so it is squarely aimed at challenging the proprietary rich internet platforms of Microsoft’s Silverlight and Adobe’s Flash.
Microsoft Releases Major Update to Windows Live: New Applications and Third-Party Integration
Microsoft announced this week a number of new and updated online applications in its Windows Live suite: Windows Live Photos, Profiles, People, and Groups. In addition, Microsoft also announced that it will allow its users to integrate content from a large number of third-party services, including Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, StumbleUpon, TripIt, Twitter, and Yelp. Microsoft will begin rolling out these new services to U.S. customers in the coming weeks and expects them to be available globally in 54 countries by early 2009.
See also: Microsoft’s New Photo Sharing Service: Live Photos and New Profiles Turn Windows Live Into a Social Networking Service
OrbLive iPhone App Streams Live TV Over 3G
In the past, any iPhone apps that streamed live video were restricted by Apple. The apps could only use Wi-Fi or EDGE, and not AT&T’s 3G network, if they wanted App Store approval. This week, though, Apple approved an app that streams live TV over Wi-Fi, AT&T’s EDGE and 3G connections. The updated version of OrbLive for iPhone which was previously Wi-Fi/EDGE only, now allows for the streaming of live TV, videos, music, and photos from your home PC to your iPhone over the 3G network.
Google Launches Video and Voice Chat for Gmail
Google announced this week a major update for Gmail: video and voice chat. To make this work, users only have to install a small browser plugin. Google will start enabling these new features for all Gmail and Google Apps users at 12pm PST today. As is typical for new releases in Gmail, Google will roll this feature out to all users over the “next day or so.” The new chat functionality will work on PCs with Windows XP or Vista, as well as on Macs with OS X 10.4 or later. The plugin will work with all the major browsers, including Google’s own Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari.
One month after their preview release was downloaded by over eight million people in October 2004, the Mozilla Foundation announced the release of Firefox 1.0 on November 9, making it Firefox’s 4th birthday this week. As the world’s second most popular browser, and with their recent milestone of reaching 20 percent worldwide market share, the folks over at Mozilla certainly have some celebrating to do.
SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY
RWW Enterprise Channel
Google Maps Now Available For Blackberry Enterprise Server Distribution
The iPhone may have outsold RIM’s Blackberry devices in the U.S., but Google knows that getting their software in the hands of business execs still means building Blackberry apps. The company’s recent offering in this arena is a new, deployable package of Google Maps for Mobile which IT admins can distribute using Blackberry Enterprise Server.
Email us if you’re interested in writing for ReadWriteWeb’s Enterprise Channel.
SEE MORE ENTERPRISE COVERAGE IN OUR ENTERPRISE CHANNEL
That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.