Web 2.0 information blog

Microsoft Releasing Standards-Based Web Design Tool

While it seems the feedback and criticism of IE7 has been predominantly on the negative side, Microsoft is getting set to launch Microsoft Office 2007 at the end of this week, and with it will come several other new web tools.

Apparently, Web Expression will be a tool that will actually be useful for designers, and not just for your average Joe, designed to be a professional-level product. It will eventually replace Frontpage, but will of course be going up against the big guns of Dreamweaver and GoLive.

Robert Scoble of Podtech recently shot a demo with product manager Wayne Smith - check it out.

(more…)

Raincity Seeking Flash Animator

Raincity Studios is currently looking for a kickin’ flash animator. Perhaps you? Know of such a person? Please, pass the word along.

Ideally, this candidate loves animating in flash, hence the whole flash animator slant. And we’re not talking about a bouncing ball across a screen - an honest to goodness animator. Actionscript 2 guru would be the ideal as well, but not as essential.

Please get in touch with us if you are interested, with “Flash Animation Position” in the subject line, or pass this along to anyone who you think may be.

(more…)

Technology Branding 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games

I’m here at Presentation Centre at the Great Northern Way Campus, the new home for New Media BC and the future home for the Centre of Digital Media. Today is all about bringing together different sectors of technology, government representatives and members of the VANOC team.

With the Vancouver/Whistler Olympic Games kicking off in a mere 1163 days, now is the time to initiate the vision and branding for how we are going to best represent ourselves to the world. With billions of people from around the globe watching in 2010, it will be a precious time to define BC and Canada for perhaps the 25 years following, so who do we want to be? Is this a time when we can take advantage of this opportunity to change the way the world views Canada?

(more…)

I am very much addicted to the Read/Write Web, that is to say: it’s where I like to surf for all the latest and greatest. And this upcoming week is no exception.

You want reviews of 2006 and all that shook down and what it all means as we launch into 2007? Richard MacManus and his 2.0 crack team of writers always seem to hit all the issues, news, conferences, and sum them up well, with honesty and realism in their writing, reporting and critiquing.

SO - I’ll be watching and reading and hopefully reporting back and linking on The Standard, as per the usual, but let’s be honest, it’s 11 days, yes, ELEVEN days, until the stores close and the 12 Days of Christmas (technically are supposed to, in theory) begin. So while I shop, or rather, make my homemade gifts (oh my family love me for it, really they do) and we all feast over and over again, you can always take a spin through the read/write to catch what you’ve missed.

(more…)

One of the basic consideration in web 2.0 concept is ‘tagging’ where any contents in the web can be associated with one or more tags, which can be shared among social community network. It lets others to find any content according to their chosen tag. Tag is nothing, but a way to categorize any web content. In real world, any visitor can quickly reach to a content thru it’s associated tags, can thus get a basic idea about whether s/he will consider it to read/download etc. “Search” is older concept to help users to find any desired content, but “Tags” provides users to have an open track to find his own choice which has not been discovered yet!

I am really a tag lover. All of the Web 2.0 sites I am using, I am associating web contents with tags, which helps me to properly organize and structure those. Well, the real world is not bed of roses, so I started to get confused, as soon as my contents get larger. For example, http://del.icio.us is one of my very favorite site, which is a award winning web 2.0 site, dedicated for bookmarking urls. Using browser buttons of http://del.icio.us, I can quickly bookmark any web page that I was just visiting into my http://del.icio.us account, with the URL, title, comment, as well as associate appropriate tags, which I have been defined previously in my account settings. From the beginning it really helped me to keep track of my web studies. So life got easier, it’s matter of few seconds for me to find any site of a specific category, that I have been visited and found useful.

The Real World

(more…)

Cisco Gets Jealous Over Apple’s Dream Toy

Based on the fact that it’s Apple, and Steve Jobs, and a tagline that reads: “Apple reinvents the phone”, I think that Cisco doesn’t have a hope in hell, and Apple Inc. knows it.

As of late Wednesday, Cisco Systems is suing Apple Inc. in US Federal Court for their trademark on their own handheld device, IPhone. That’s with a capital “I”. Apparently, Apple has been repeatedly asking Cisco for its’ permission to make use of the brand, a name the company has held for 7 years.

I think the legal team over at Mr. Jobs’ Mecca has likely been over this one, and this was just part of the grand master business plan in launching what is the most lovely phone ever to grace this land. Not to totally write off Cisco, I mean, it’s Cisco and all, but, well, come on, it’s Apple.

(more…)

Attention:

Raincity Studios is seeking an experienced Web Designer to perform work on a contractual basis. Applicant should have a sizable portfolio of their professional design work available for immediate review.

Details:

Two Positions available:

(more…)

Raincity Launches Social Networking Website For Kids

Kidzworld: a fully moderated, safe and secure social networking site for kids. In this world, internet savvy grade-schoolers can play games, enter contests, win prizes, test their knowledge in trivia quizzes, keep up to date on the latest sports and entertainment news, and meet other Kidzworld members from all over the world!

Even though it’s designed and created for kids online, the kid in you will dig this site. My favourite section is the photo and videosharing KW Zone. Once you set up your profile, you can upload pictures, videos, find friends, add friends, comment on others’ photos, and the coolest feature: edit the entire design of your KWZone to pretty much anything as many times as you want!

(more…)

The blogosphere flew into its usual uproar a few days ago when the inventor of the World Wide Web himself, the venerated Tim Berners-Lee, was recently recorded in a podcast calling Web 2.0 nothing more than a piece of jargon.  There is little love and plenty of misunderstanding for this term in many quarters of the industry, despite the fact it has been painstakingly described by those that identified it to the world.  For all the folks tired of hearing about Web 2.0 and very often not knowing what it means, there nevertheless remains the underlying reason for coining it: clearly apparent, widespread new trends in the way the Web is being used.

Of all the analysis I’ve read of the Berners-Lee podcast (and there’s a bunch, read Dana Gardner, John Furrier, even Dead 2.0), it’s Jeremy Geelan who has captured the real insight here with his post, “The Perfect Storm of Web 2.0 Disruption”, where he brilliantly explains what is probably the key to the real significance of the Web 2.0 phenomenon as a portentous crossroads between the old and the new: