Just got back from my first attendance of the Web 2.0 Expo. It was pretty nice, but much lower key then the other conferences I’ve been to at the Moscone center (like Macworld or Linux World). I noticed the overwhelming theme was “Social Networking”. Basically offering social services (twitter, facebook, etc) but isolated within the customers own network, or offering some type of mashup/integration with the existing services on the web.
Here are some of the technologies I liked and picked up notes about:
- Caspio – offers “Do-It-Yourself Database Apps”. Basically they have a service that lets you import data (from csv, excel, access, etc) and then custom tailor a web app/interface around it using easy WYSIWYG type tools. No database or web programming knowledge needed. Once the database, fields, forms, view, etc have all been defined, then you insert a simple block of javascript into your webpage, and when visitors goto the page, it links off the Caspio’s servers and it feeds them the data/tables/views. It’s a great and easy ways to quickly implement a webapp for corporation/small-medium business. Unfortunately they do not have a free service, but considering how much work has gone into the interface (no browser dependencies) and that all of the traffic and data is hosted on their servers, I can understand their business model. You get a special promo (first 3 months with 50% off) if you use the code “web2009”.
- OER Commons – Is a non-profit that provides learning materials (lesson plans, syllabi, assignments, simulations, games, etc) that are freely available to use, adapt, reuse, or share.
- Universal Mind – Is a web design and development company that seems to specialize in rich Internet content and data mashups.
- Socialtext – Is a company that wants to bring the power of the social networking applications into your enterprise. They offer a service/portal that gives the functionality of Twitter/Facebook/Wiki’s etc, but contained within your corporate environment (which is great when you don’t want your internal projects being worked on/discussed on a public web site).
