It’s time for our weekly summary of Web Technology news, products and trends. This week Nokia launched an iPhone competitor called the Tube, Netflix released an API, Google Blog Search re-designed, and we ran a poll about Flash coming to iPhone. On the trends side, we investigated the lack of commercial RDF apps in the Semantic Web, reviewed 5 insightful science books, launched our ‘Gritty Entrepreneurs’ series, and interviewed a co-founder of last.fm. We also brought you the latest from our new Enterprise Channel.
Web Products
Nokia Reveals iPhone Competitor And Goes to Battle With iTunes
At an analyst and media event in London this week, Nokia unveiled their company’s first touch-screen phone, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, otherwise known as the Nokia “Tube,” a device designed to compete directly with Apple’s iPhone. Along with the phone, Nokia also detailed plans for their new “Comes With Music” service, a 12-month subscription service which offers unlimited downloads. There’s no charge to download the individual tracks because the cost for the music is bundled into the cost of the phone.
Netflix API Launches – Here’s What it Will and Won’t Include
The much-awaited Application Programming Interface (API) for movie site Netflix launched this week. It looks pretty good, but there are some major limitations, too. Millions of people love movies via Netflix, making this API an opportunity for all kinds of developers to add well-known value to any other application.
See also: Evernote Hits a Homerun With API, Data Portability
Google Blogsearch Relaunches as Techmeme Killer, Across 11 Categories
In its first major upgrade ever, Google Blogsearch relaunched and looks radically different. Instead of the blank page look of Google.com, Blogsearch now looks like Google News (but uglier) – with the hottest topics from the blogosphere aggregated on the front page. Readers can drill down in 11 different categories, from technology, business, sports and entertainment. Google says you can use Blogsearch to see what the world is talking about.
RWW Predictions: Will eBay Sell StumbleUpon?
Last week rumors were swirling that eBay was looking to sell StumbleUpon. eBay purchased StumbleUpon in early 2007 for a bargain price of $75 million. We’ve still yet to have these rumors confirmed, but what if eBay were to actually sell StumbleUpon? We ran a prediction challenge this week asking whether eBay will sell the service by the end of this year and if so, the price tag that it might fetch. Here are the results:
Poll: Adobe Confirms Flash For iPhone – Do You Care?
At the Flash on the Beach 08 conference being held in Brighton, England, Adobe’s Senior Director of Engineering, Paul Betlem, confirmed that a Flash Player is in development for the iPhone. The information was provided in answer to a direct question from an audience member during the Town Hall meeting sessions held during the conference. Also check out our poll on the topic:
SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS 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!
- FreshBooks offers professional online invoicing.
- SocialText provides an enterprise wiki platform.
- WildApricot is Membership Management Software.
- E.Factor is an online community for entrepreneurs.
- Strands provides real-time recommendations of products.
- Calais brings semantic functionality into your site.
- The Web 3.0 Conference is on October 16 – 17 in Santa Clara.
- Direct Media Exchange is a solution for managing ad networks.
- Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.
- The Defrag conference is on November 3-4 in Denver.
- 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.
Web Trends
Where Are All The RDF-based Semantic Web Apps?
RDF is the cornerstone of The Semantic Web, yet there still very few commercial RDF apps.
In the latest issue of Nodalities, a magazine about the Semantic Web by UK company Talis, there is an article by Talis CTO Ian Davis about the state of Semantic Web applications. Davis says that we’re still in “Generation Zero” of the Semantic Web, because there are relatively few compelling apps. Specifically he notes that “there are still only a handful of applications that incorporate RDF at their heart and none of these are using the full potential of the Semantic Web.” RDF is the Semantic Web’s equivalent of the Web’s HTML – its chief characteristic is the ability to ascribe meaning to data. We investigate…
See also: Swirrl: Newly Launched Semantic Web Wiki
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Times are now tougher. Which makes most people head home. The half-hearted entrepreneurs, the wannabes who thought it was going to be easy, the folks with connections to VCs who could get a $5m Series A for a copycat app. Who will be left? The gritty entrepreneur of the old school who knows that it is really, really tough to build a great company. At ReadWriteWeb we celebrate these gritty entrepreneurs and in a series that kicked off this week we will be writing about them – and for them.
See also: Gritty Entrepreneurs: Jigsaw, a Profitable Web 2.0 Venture
Interview With Last.fm Founder Richard Jones
This week we interviewed one of the founders of online music service last.fm, Richard “Mr Scrobble” Jones. We wanted to find out last.fm’s reaction to the launch of MySpace Music and the rise of Imeem, discuss business models in online music, and find out what’s new at last.fm. We ran the interview in 3 parts, over 3 days. Part 1 discusses the increasing competition in online music this year. See also Part 2, on business models and Part 3, on design and features.
5 Great Science Books to Expand Your Mind
From the dynamics of social networks to market bubbles, science has a lot to say about
the world of technology.
One of the great discoveries of modern science was the realization of
how interconnected the world is. The deterministic, Newtonian view of
a clockwork Universe was replaced by the much more dynamic, uncertain and entangled
world of Quantum Mechanics. The new world is the one where Godel forever cut hopes for
completeness in mathematics and Turing showed that computation, like the future, is
fundamentally unpredictable. Despite these unexpected setbacks, modern science
is wonderful, powerful and thought provoking – and relevant to technologists.
SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY
RWW Enterprise Channel
Mumboe Uses Semantics To Pull Key Data From Contracts
Mumboe isn’t just another enterprise collaboration suite. Instead, they focus on doing one thing and doing it well: making business agreements searchable. That’s a very unique need they fill, which is why is why they already have 3000 customers using their free Express solution after only having launched earlier this spring.
To compete with the handful of other vendors in this narrow space, Mumboe has now added a new feature called On-Demand Contract Intelligence, which takes advantage of the service’s semantic processing engine to deliver something the others don’t: automatic extraction of data.
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.
