Thursday, December 22, 2005

Automatic Dotcom Predictions for 2006

Thanks to Matt McAlister's Dotcom Predicter, I bring to you for the first time James' dotcom predictions for 2006!

(Whats the bet Matt gets a whole lot of links out of creating this predicter?)

I had no Idea what would come out when I filled out his form, but some of it actually makes sense...

The Funniest thing is that bit where is says Jeremy Zawodny would up set Tim Bray for supporting Atom. Actually Tim would be over the moon if Jeremy was to start supporting Atom.

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Last year I made several predctions that now seem ridiculously humble. But a few ideas were pretty close. I've got a feeling that 2006 will be a big year, and here are some of the reasons why:

1. A Mt View startup is going to open our eyes to some new ways that The Semantic Web can influence culture. John Battelle's Search Blog will pick up on this and run several cover stories on the founders.
2. Jeremy Zawodny will be in the spotlight for his decision to support ATOM. This will upset Tim Bray, and the blogosphere will react interesting. The noise will quiet before the end of the year and it will all be forgotten soon after the shock.
3. a9.com will see their stock skyrocket after their search business starts taking off. We've seen it coming for a while now, but 2006 will be the year it really kicks into gear.
4. Either del.icio.us or akamai will seek to expand their content delivery business by acquiring wink.com. squidoo.com will be overlooked in the process, and they will see a management shakeout later in the year.
5. One of the big leaders in the steel industry will wake up to the threat of the Internet and the Web 2.0 trends. After months of speculation, they will make a key acquisition that will shake up the landscape for years to come.
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Friday, December 16, 2005

SNARF from Microsoft Research

Microsoft has recently released a tool that users information about who you email, and who emails you to attempt to prioritise your inbox. I'm about to try it now...

(Microsoft Outlook Only)

Read more at research.microsoft.com/...

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Google releases Firefox extensions

Google has just announced 2 new firefox extentions.

One is a sort of one page blogosphere search, telling you what the world is saying about the current page. And the other is designed to warn you about dangerous sites. Which I guess is google's entry into the anti-phishing toolbar arena along with other players:
NetCraft Anti-Phishing Toolbar (Internet Explorer)
Microsofts Phishing Filter (Internet Explorer)
Outfoxed (Firefox)

It is great idea for search engines to help protect customers computers, they have the right data in their index, and they want the data they will learn by giving away a service like this (all the urls that you visit). It seems like a fair trade to me, others will have their privacy concerns...

It appears that google safe browsing is only available for users in USA, with is a little bit sad for people like me in New Zealand. Interestingly Glen Murphy (the guy who wrote the google blog post) is an Austalian, so prehaps there is some hope for those of us who live down under...

BTW: Can we get it as a web service please google? It would be awesome if we could dynamically block sites at an isp or work place before you even get to the site!

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Yahoo! gets del.icio.us

This will make things interesting! Will MyWeb become del.icio.us? Or will they keep them both seporately? - I doubt it

I like the way yahoo is working very hard to integrate different services into the yahoo family of products, and makes it very easy for users like me to have a single login, and don't have to worry about signing up for everything seporately. They are innovating my aquisition, but at least they are willing to innovate!

Joshua (from del.icio.us says):
"I look forward to continuing my vision of social and community memory, and taking it to the next level with the del.icio.us community and Yahoo!"

I'm looking forward to seeing it happen...