The Future of the Internet

The CloudCamp unconference returned to London for the 14th time this evening, regaling a capacity crowd in the Crypt below Clerkenwell’s St James Church with several hours of discussion and debate on the somewhat elusive topic of ‘Big Data’. Rather rough notes of the proceedings follow, after the break. LEF‘s Simon Wardley kicked proceedings off as usual, once again managing to pepper an on-topic canter through the topic with a seemingly never-ending stream of Flickr images of cats… and analogies to electricity. You possibly had to be there? His core message, though? There’s nothing new under the sun… and the cycles of change just keep on coming. Next, Peter Matthews from CA Labs, on “is big data mutually compatible with the cloud?” Erm, yes. Data volumes with big data are so large that it’s difficult to move it around… which creates opportunities for lock-in that ... (more)

Vendors Survival: Will Google Survive until 2021? - Part 2

Searching the Web Search Engine is Google's most strategic product. Some of its other products are using it as component of the services they provide.  Limitation or failure of it, as described in Why we desperately need a New (and Better) Google cited in part1 of this post, could negatively affect Google's market position. This is a major challenge facing Google. Google has no control of some of the factors limiting its effectiveness. Challenges in Searching the Web The following bullets describe major Web Data problems, which could affect Web Search: The data is growing exponentia... (more)

WebMediaBrands 4th Quarter 2011 Financial Results Conference Call Scheduled for February 28, 2012

WebMediaBrands Inc., (Nasdaq: WEBM) today announced that its conference call reviewing 2011 fourth quarter results is scheduled for Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at 5:00 pm ET. Results will be released on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 after market close. The conference call number is 888-450-5996 for domestic participants and 719-955-1371 for international participants; confirmation code "179040". Please call five minutes in advance to ensure that you are connected prior to the presentation. The conference call replay will be available until Monday, March 5, 2012. Replay call numbers ... (more)

OutWit Hub 2.1 – A Web Harvesting Power Tool for All

OutWit Technologies, publisher of innovative software based on its original data collection technology, announces the release of the first cross-platform Web harvester allowing the general public to easily collect information from the Internet, feed it to various destinations or open it in common applications. This release of OutWit Hub is a mature, more powerful, easier and fully automated version of the harvester. Now available as a standalone application for Windows, MacOS or Linux, as well as a Firefox add-on, it grabs, organizes and exports millions of rows of data from sta... (more)

Draft: What’s new about social media?

I’m on a panel about “What’s Next in Social Media?” at the National Archives tonight , moderated by Alex Howard, the Government 2.0 Correspondent for O’Reilly Media, and with fellow panelists Sarah Bernard, Deputy Director, White House Office of Digital Strategy; Pamela S. Wright, Chief Digital Access Strategist at the National Archives. It’s at 7pm, with a “social media fair” beginning at 5:30pm. I don’t know if we’re going to be asked to give brief opening statements. I suspect not. But, if so I’m thinking of talking about the context, because I don’t know what social media wi... (more)