Innovation Toronto » Tech Crunch

“Set the Data Free”

ron — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 03:51:15 +0000

Is OpenSocial open enough? The problem with OpenSocial, Google’s new platform for social-networking apps, notes Tim O’Reilly, is that it doesn’t go quite far enough. It lets applications out from the confines of any one Website, but it does not let the data out. Apparently, you cannot mix and match data from more than one app to create a new social app. This is wrongheaded, argues O’Reilly:

Google’s Response to Facebook: “Maka-Maka”

ron — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:45:27 +0000

Google may have lost the bidding war to invest in Facebook, but it is preparing its own major assault on the social networking scene. It goes by the codename “Maka-Maka” inside the Googleplex (or, perhaps, “Makamaka”).

Maka-Maka encompasses Google’s grand plan to build a social layer across all of its applications. Some details about Maka-Maka have already leaked out, particularly how Google plans to use the feed engine that powers Google Reader (known internally as Reactor) to create “activity streams” for other applications akin to Facebook’s news and mini feeds. But Maka-Maka goes well beyond that.

Tech Crunch UK on “The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde”

ron — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:15:30 +0000

On July 7 this year a 23-year-old part-time cameraman started a venture known as StartupWeekend where he planned to create, with others, a startup in one weekend. Since then he has begun a global odyssey to create a startup in many cities, and next month he lands in London and Dublin. But for this Web 2.0 version of Phileas Fogg, the sailing around the world has not been all plain.