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Davids vs Goliaths

Web 2.0 is here, like the buzzword or not. Web 2.0 is a platform or architecture that ushers in a new way that users can interact with websites and web applications. Browsing has been replaced with interaction where users can customize, personalize, and signify the way they view and interface with their computer appliances and applications. Organization and hierarchy of information is now critical to label and file the vast amounts of data and information available. Tags are now playing a major role in categorizing websites, blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, and the associated RSS and other feeds.

One new site called Blinklist.com is taking tags or tagging to a new level. Blinklist which was launched July 2005 offers users the ability to save and tag bookmarks, links, and favorites lists online, accessible from any web enabled browser. The benefits to this are numerous. First, if you are not at your computer and you need to pull up a number of your bookmarks this is now possible. You can also save a bookmark at work and access it from home or wherever. Backing up your links online is also a great idea if your computer happens to crash. There are many other social bookmarking or tagging solutions, but Blinklist offers a more aesthetic and user friendly interface similar to the popular digg.com. Blinklist also offers the option to import links from de.licio.us, furl, and browsers. The Blinklist mother company MindValley founded in October 2003 is expanding into other areas of opportunity including feed tags and ecommerce.

At a recently attended conference hosted by Qwest , voice mail was being imported into Outlook. Currently, many people access voice mail on a phone, browse the web on firefox, get news feeds on Google and Wizz RSS, email from Google and Outlook, and feed podcasts and vodcasts on FireAnt. Consolidation of tasks is now beginning to be trendy as users look for more comprehensive ways to communicate and assimilate information.

Google Labs recently launched a chat aggregator called Google Talk or there is meebo in alpha for chat aggregation. Feeds from reddit, digg.com, slashdot, de.licio.us are being mashed up to form one feed called reddiggdot.us.

As we move toward the next generation of web applications and their integration, technology goliath companies like Google and Microsoft will certainly be major players. But, this is forcing smaller “david” companies like MindValley and FireAnt to have further vision, more innovation, better products, and be faster to market to compete with the “microsoft” and “google” “goliaths”.

posted by feedscott @ 7:35 PM