Web 2.0

Understanding the scene – a 10,000 feet view

by Mahendra MahetaKing Saud University

• What is Web 2.0?• Business Landscape• Software as a Service• Demos

• It is Second generation of services available on the Web that lets people collaborate and share information online

• O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International popularized the term

• Google is now seen as the torch bearer of the term by the media

• From a technology perspective Web 2.0 uses AJAX, Mashups and RSS predominantly

• Ajax is not a technology in itself• Shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML• The term was first used by Adaptive Path only in Feb

2005• Removes the need to reload entire web page each time

the user makes a change. Increase the web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.

• XML is used as the format for transferring data between the server and client. XML files may be created dynamically by some form of server-side scripting

• The Ajax technique uses a combination of: XHTML and CSS, JavaScript, XMLHttpRequest /IFrame object

• Though hard to believe by public, in reality it all started with IE 3.0’s IFrame (and later by Netscape’s Layer) innovation to do asynchronous loading of content

• Today’s AJAX core is based on Microsoft XMLHTTPRequest Object introduced in IE 5.0

• It was used and exploited by Outlook Web Access (OWA) in Exchange 2000 timeframe

*All Data/Numbers quoted in this section are from Wikipedia.com & respective corporate websites

• Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money.

• As of now, Microsoft doesn’t have a competing offering here, though there are tons of 3rd parties offering a similar model. Google has the early mover advantage here

• Google has released sister products – Adsense for Feeds and Adsense for Search

• For Quarter ended June 30, 2006 Google earned from Adsense (Partner Sites) US$997 Million or 41% of total Revenue

• 42% of overall Google’s revenue came frrom outside USA

• Pay Per Click (PPC) Model• Google AdWords allows advertisers in Google’s network which

includes Google’s own Property and Google Adsense Network. The overall Network reaches more than 80% of Internet users

• It works on Vickrey Auction where by Advertisers bid for a slot• Advertiser get near real-time reporting and can control there

spend for each day• It is believed to be powered by MySQL (Open Source) as

backend• For Quarter ended June 30, 2006, Google made US$1.43 Billion

or 58% of its total revenue from Google Sites

• Adcenter is Microsoft answer to Google Adwords

• Prior to Adcenter, Advertisers had to use Overture (Yahoo!) for placing their ads in MSN Networks

• Adcenter gives more control over Google Adwords in terms of targetting user demographics

• MSN Network reaches to 2 out of 3 web users

• If you thought blogging was passive, free and voluntary think again

• Commercial (so called) Blog sites• Netscape.com (new) owned by Weblogs, Inc.• Engadget.com owned by Weblogs, Inc.• Myspace.com

• The company is owned by AOL and has more than 90 commercial blogs meaning blog sites which employ FTEs to prepare the content

• Weblogs generated US$1 Million in revenue out of Google Adsense alone in 2005

• AOL bought Weblogs, Inc in Oct 2005 for US$25 Million

• The CEO of Weblogs recently announced US$1000 per month for bloggers who submit more than 150 Stories/Items per month in any Social Bookmarking site

• Myspace.com• Fourth most popular English Website• 95 million members, with 500,000 new members each

week• Bought by News Corp (Rupert Murdoch) for US$580 Million

in June 2005

• Orkut.com• A Google Initiative

• LinkedIn.com

• Software as a Service (Saas) is a model of software delivery where the software company provides development, hosting, maintenance, daily technical operation, and support

• SaaS can be for any market segment including home consumers, small business, medium and large business

• SalesForce uses SaaS to deliver everything over the web, no install in client, platform independent

• Only US$995 for five users for 1 year all inclusive. No additional CAPEX or OPEX

• Windows Live is Microsoft’s version of Web 2.0 services offerings.

• These will include Live Mail, Live Messenger, Live Favourites, Live Office Domains and more.

• Watch out Microsoft for more to come from them…

• Adobe® Flex™ 2 is an application development solution for creating and delivering cross-platform rich Internet applications (RIAs) within the enterprise and across the web

• Client environment just need Flash Runtime - which is available in over 90% of PCs. And works in IE, FireFox, Opera and others

• Flash Runtime is less than 500KB-1MB in size if needs to be downloaded

• Microsoft Live.com• Live Virtual Earth• Live Mail• Google Maps• GMail