Webify.Us

I’ve setup my accounts on a number of social networking sites. I’m adding friends and slowly building up my networks. But, I have not yet commented here on the likes of MySpace or Facebook for business use.

Tonight, thanks to Robert Scoble’s Link Blog, I found an interesting post on how Cisco is using Facebook. Check out “Cisco System Is Using Facebook To Let Folks Get to Know Their Top Employees Better” - by Garrett Smith.

Hello All!

I have just returned from a GREAT vacation at Disney World. I’ve spent the last two weeks acting like a little kid. Actually, that may not stop just because the vacation is over. But, at least I can get back to posting again.

I’ve also acquired a new Mac, running Leopard and all. I hope to be trying out some other screen capture apps with the new hardware this weekend. I’m not at all happy with the quality of my Del.icio.us demo video, so I need to find a solid solution before producing any more.

Check back for more soon. Or better yet, just subscribe to the RSS feed to receive updates automatically. Following me on Twitter (Marty_Beutler) will also inform you of updates to this site.

It’s official. I received the following email from Jaiku today:

Wonderful Jaiku users,

Exciting news, Jaiku is joining Google!

While its too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you’ll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together.

In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now. But fear not! All our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will continue to be able to invite your friends to Jaiku.

We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition at http://jaiku.com/help/google

Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

My last several posts have all been about Twitter. It is certain there will be more in the future. But, let’s move on for now. We have a lot of technology and tools to cover. I was just contemplating what to cover next, when I came across a tweet from master blogger Robert Scoble. In today’s post “Steve Ballmer still doesn’t understand social networking,“ Robert discusses Microsoft’s apparent disregard for social trends, specifically pertaining to social networking in this case.

Read through Robert’s post and the comments that others have left, and you’ll understand why there will not likely be many Microsoft products reviewed on this site (unless they release a product that is open and relevant). My take is that Microsoft tends to dismiss the relevance of anything they can’t make proprietary. So here is why Steve Ballmer doesn’t ‘choose’ to see the relevance of Web 2.0:

1) Web 2.0 is about collaboration.
2) Collaboration is reliant upon interoperability.
3) Proprietary and Interoperable are antonyms

Over the next few years, Microsoft will be trying to force themselves upon the business communications market. Business communications are becoming more collaborative thanks to Web 2.0 technologies. If they take a proprietary approach, their business communications customers will be taking a step backward. Industry standards are a good thing. Standards mean interoperability. I have yet to see any business value in walking backwards.