Applications have brought on a plethora of innovations from social networks like Facebook and Myspace, to SmartPhones like the Apple iPhone. Nevertheless, monetization of these outlets is a continual hassle. Although Facebook and Myspace have found one solution to this problem through selling ads, and Apple charges for some applications, there is still room for more innovation. This is where the idea of micropayments would come in.
Micropayments would allow users to send payments to different users and would provide other conveniences. For example, Facebook sells virtual gifts on its site. Micropayments would facilitate this process. Tech Crunch also sites that “there are Facebook applications that have found a way around the problem by using third party payment services. Spare Change (powered by PayPal), Social Gold, Zong and other services let users move cash into the system, and applications like Mob Wars have gathered as much as $1 million per month from micropayments”. There would not be a need for these third party services if Facebook developed their own micropayment capabilities. In fact, third party payment sites often charge a fee for their services. If the site had its own micropayment option, these fees could go to Facebook, Myspace, etc. As 2009 begins, perhaps companies will be more open to the micropayment option.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts have long expressed the importance of appropriate content in order to achieve the highest quality in search engine traffic. Read Write Web’s Guide to the Contextual Web further emphasizes this point by introducing the importance of a website’s context. The contextual web helps a relevant webpage match a user’s needs through exploring the site’s context. The key component to the contextual web is, after all, user behavior. The contextual web tries to answer the question: what is the user trying to achieve?
The contextual web will have an even more personalized browsing experience because of the aforementioned question. Read Write Web also sites the need for relevancy. Much like search, the relevance of a site’s content is what drives the context. As more and more information on the contextual web arises, it is important to note its other components that will help it along. For example, Read Write Web writes that “e of the keys to inferring user context is understanding the underlying information that the user is looking at. This is why the contextual web is related to — and, to be more precise, is powered by — semantic web”. One will have to see how both the contextual web and semantic web evolve.
The mobile web has taken a prominent role in the development of many applications and innovations for users on the go. The increase use of SmartPhones such as the Apple iPhone and the Blackberry make the mobile market competitive and ready for fresh ideas. And while the mobile web is more widely used, it still does not compare to the traditional way in which people surf the web—at least not yet. According to a recent Media Post article, “Wireless devices will be the primary means of connecting to the Internet for most people worldwide in 2020”. Furthermore, mobile phones may function mostly as an on the go computer rather than as phones.
While we wait for 2020, companies continue to find ways to get users to embrace the mobile web—particularly those with SmartPhones. For instance a new iPhone application, Pinger Phone, is said to upgrade an iPhone’s communication by “giving equal importance to calling or texting your contacts and sending them tweets or Facebook messages”. The way it works is through the users’ contact lists. Users can go into their contact lists and select whether they want to call their contact, send them a text message or send him/her a message via Twitter or Facebook. Other functions include a “horizontal keyboard mode for instant messaging - a feature that’s missing from iPhone’s SMS capabilities for some reason - and free texting to US mobile phones, which Pinger does by sending IMs over the iPhone’s data connection instead of sending a regular SMS”. Pinger also plans on extending its support to other social networks like Myspace, as well as different phones like the Blackberry.
As the mobile web expands, it is refreshing to see the new ways in which people can use their phones to keep in touch instantaneously.
Google’s emailing service, Gmail, has taken over as one of the most widely used emailing services. Its innovations have let people simplify the way in which they email, create events in calendars, instant message and keep track of important documents. In fact, keeping track of documents through Google Docs has helped users (who might not have compatible software at home) access and edit all kinds of documents (word processing, spreadsheets and presentation applications) with ease. Now, Google is introducing a Google Docs gadget for the desktop.
The Google Docs gadget for the desktop allows users to pull up files in Google Docs directly from their desktop. The tool also features a drag and drop option, which would be highly convenient for multiple document uploads. According to Google’s blog, the gadget is open sourced, serving as a foundation for desktop application integration with Google Docs.
Social networking giant, Facebook.com, has become a phenomenon among users as well as those looking to promote their business, brand and/or product. According to recent reports, Facebook’s growth has reached 140 million active users. More important to note is the statistic that shows Facebook’s growth rate at 600,000 users per day.
Furthermore, the statistics show that users are highly engaged when it comes to browsing Facebook. For example, approximately 2.6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook daily (worldwide). The inclusion of Facebook available to users in different countries has definitely influenced the growth of Facebook. Facebook has over 35 translations available on the site, with more underway. Additionally, over 70 percent of users are located outside of the United States. For those wishing to grow their businesses, it is vital to note that more than 2.5 million users become fans of Pages daily.
Based on the trends shown, Facebook’s projected growth could reach up to 20 million new users by the end of December 2008.
Yahoo’s goal of creating an easier, more user-friendly experience for its audience looks more promising with the revelation of its new toolbar. The toolbar’s strategy focuses on making the Yahoo web browser more open to third parties in addition to its users. Yahoo’s emphasis on convenience could be the edge they need to compete with other toolbar creators such as Google.
What will set the Yahoo toolbar apart? Reuters reports that the “Yahoo toolbar available later this week will allow users access to a selected group of programs from the toolbar without leaving the page they are on”. That means users can open their email while looking at websites, without having to leave the actual site. Social networking features are also reported as part of the toolbar. Although the release of the new toolbar will come later in the week, it appears to be widely anticipated.
Social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon have recolutionized the way in which users save and share their favorite websites. A new tool, Browzmi, also aims to make web browsing easier to share. Browzmi’s first appearances showed promise in its browser-within-a-browser element. Complete with chat and collaborate web browsing, Browzmi allows users to surf the web with their friends. According to Read Write Web, “you can comment on a page, bookmark it, and make your opinions about it known by voting up or down on it. You can also ‘clip’ pictures from a site, making Browzmi a photo sharing application as well”.
Browzmi has recently updated its services by making them available through a Firefox plug-in. The browser-within-a-browser has transformed into a virtual toolbar. Keeping user privacy in mind, the tool bar can be turned on or off, depending on if the user wants their activity visible to their contacts.
Zentact is a new tool which helps users stay in touch with their contacts. Zentact works by optimizing one’s contact list. First, users upload their contact lists (from email providers such as Gmail) onto Zentact. Users can then organize their contacts with tags. These tags sync with sites that users will visit, and Zentact will in turn suggest they forward on the website to the contacts associated with those tags. According to Read Write Web, “The attractive little pop-up window that appears will show you why the page is relevant tell you when you last contacted that person through Zentact and give you a button to click to send your contact a link to the relevant page you found and a personal note”.
Although still under review (registration is solely done by invite for the time being), Zentact offers various opportunities for streaming the way in which users surf the web. Time will tell what kind of impact Zentact will have.
Google’s announcement to bring AdWords to the mobile web brings many opportunities for advertising. AdWords advertisers will be able to display desktop text as well as image ads on the iPhone, T-Mobile’s G1 and other mobiles with full HTML Internet browsers. Some of the advantages to this include mobile-specific calls-to-action. According to Google, using Google Search on the G1 and iPhones “used to show desktop results pages modified for these phones. Recently, the Google mobile team launched new results pages formatted specifically for the iPhone. Now, advertisers will be able to display ads exclusively on these mobile devices, create campaigns for them, and get separate performance reporting.”
Google also gives a breakdown of how advertisers can set up their mobile campaigns on AdWords. Because mobile AdWords is based on full HTML browsers, one campaign can run on both mobile and regular browsers. This will be of best advantage when comparing where advertisers get the majority of their traffic comes from. As mobile evolves, Adwords evolves along with it.
The innovation of an OpenID has different companies racing to provide the most widely used form for users. One might wonder what the differences between these options are. Two of the Internet industry’s largest figures—Facebook and Google—have created OpenID programs. Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect are widely anticipated as catalysts of the OpenID trend.
What differentiates the two from each other? The foundation for any OpenID platform is based on streamlining a users’ online identity (whether it is a Facebook or Google login) onto other websites. Some of the differences are in the companies’ purposes. While Facebook Connect might tie you to the social network, Google is tied to the user’s gmail account. Google already has several widgets (or gadgets as Google calls them) in place for users, while Facebook users would have to create their own applications. On the other hand, reports say that a “Facebook Connect application can send your activities back to Facebook; Google Friend Connect has no such central place”. Regardless of the differences, both platforms will have to further develop in order to see which one will come out on top.
