I often find myself wondering what will be next .. and then next .. and then next .. in the endless stream of applications that help us manipulate, manage and sometimes mangle the process of writing and publishing to the Web.

At Qumana we have been conscious for a long time that every individual has her or his own working style (have you ever watched over your friend's, or your sister's, or your dad's shoulder whilst they are doing something on the computer, or on the web ?  I'll bet you're just like me, and everyone else I have ever seen ... you just instinctively want to reach out ands steer, because they aren't doing it the way you do) ... ;-)

The Web is now a major part of hundreds of millions of peoples' lives.  Personal publishing of some form or another, whether it's called blogging or something else, won't be going away any time soon.

On the Web, info flows in to your conscious awareness all the time .. continuously.  Whether it's via an RSS aggregator, or through some search activity, or just by browsing and link-hopping.  You're always watching, reading .. using your cognitive capabilities and style to *interact* with the flows of information passing in front of your eyes.

Ours (and many other peoples') quest is to design, make and offer applications that give you maximum time for reading and thinking whilst you are at the center of this continuous flow of information.  Ideally, we would get most operations - most anything you want to do, other than  typing itself - down to one click, but it's not likely that we'll get every operation down to that level of simplicity.  But many, if not most will be.

In the blogging / personal; publishing environment, we want to make publishing all sorts of other digital content (think podcasts, self-created mp3's, photo slide shows, video clips) as easy as publishing text, links and images are now.  We want to make Qumana, and Qumana integrated with Lektora, formidably simple *information pivots* which will allow you, the personal publisher, read, think, write and express yourself as clearly and elegantly as possible ... whilst still offering you significant flexibility, versatility and power to address the wide range of individual's personal publishing habits.

We want to help you become more effective in the ongoing, never-ending, flow of information.  We will welcome any and all feedback that helps make this quest a reality, for you and all your fellow personal publishers.

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Via the Toronto Globe and Mail  ...

China gets own 'Wikipedia'
Associated Press


BEIJING — China's biggest Internet search site, Baidu.com, has launched a Chinese-language encyclopedia inspired by the co-operative reference site Wikipedia, which the communist government bars China's Web surfers from seeing.

The Chinese service, which debuted in April, carries entries written by users, but warns that it will delete content about sex, terrorism and attacks on the government.

Government censors blocked access last year to Wikipedia, apparently due to concern about its references to Tibet, Taiwan and other topics.

The emergence of Baidu's encyclopedia reflects efforts by Chinese entrepreneurs to take advantage of conditions created by the government's efforts to simultaneously promote and control Internet use.

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I picked up a cool headline from Mathew Ingram's (Globe and Mail) blog : Josh is wrong — geeks totally rule!

Anything about geeks ruling usually gets my attention.  Must be a like-seeking-like thing.  Regardless the point of Mathew's article was commenting on Josh Kopelman's article, 53,651 (the number of Techcrunch RSS subscribers at that moment).  Josh's thesis is that he's getting a tremendous number of pitches based on the idea of being like Flickr or del.icio.us ... and based on the massive influx of subscribers a mention (favourable) on Techcrunch can garner.  His closing thoughts are right on the money:

As I evaluate new startups these days I’m finding it harder and harder to see the big ideas that will appeal to a large, non-geek consumer audience.  Thoughts?

Mathew's commentary expands on some of the real geek truisms.  We sign up for betas like trading cards.  Ooh did you get an invite for this?  Hey can you spot me an invite for that?  But, just because geeks swarm to it, does it make it not a good business?

This is a great point, as my friend Paul Kedrosky and others, including VC Brad Feld, have noted. Most of the 50,000 people are probably just like me — they sign up for everything that comes along (as though there were a giant score sheet somewhere recording how many “invite-only” betas we have all managed to get access to) — use it maybe once or twice and then in most cases completely forget about it.

Not all that long ago, most people probably thought Google was just some geeky website with a stupid name, and I was likely one of the 50,000 or so who started using it early on because it was better — qualitatively better — than everything else. Obviously, every Digg.com clone isn’t going to become Google, but that doesn’t mean those 50,000 early-adopter geeks won’t turn out to be right.

So, based on Josh's commentary and question, what's unique out there?  Well if you're basing a business model on toppling Flickr or del.icio.us ... I'd think again.  Getting traction in social networking seems to be one of the hardest things.  I see two areas that are growing, collaboration and tools that allow people to make money via advertising.

The rest?  I think we're all waiting for the next Google or Flickr.

Tags: start ups, innovation, web 2.0

One of the great things about working for Qumana is getting to work from home. After the Lycos deal was announced the local paper was interested in talking to be about blogging, the Lycos deal, and most of all how I've been able to do this from the Island. Here is the full-text of the article ... with the picture scanned in :) .

Attack of the Blog: Islander on home page of Internet craze
Salt Spring-based Tris Hussey rides tech-sector success wave

By SEAN MCINTYRE
Driftwood Reporter
When 36-year-old software designer Tris Hussey first encountered the world of blogging back in 2004, he predicted the new medium would mark a sea change rivaled only by Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in the 15th century.

Today he’s turned what started out as a passion for technology and a love of communication into a modern-day tech-sector success story. And he’s done it all from a basement suite on Salt Spring Island’s north end.

“When I first got involved, I thought there was too much information,” he said during a recent interview. “Today, the amount of information out there is explosive.”

For the uninitiated, Hussey added, the sheer volume of data on just about any topic under the sun can trigger information overload. Knowing how and where to draw the line is an integral part of the learning process.

“It’s important to read outside your bubble, but you have to pick and choose who you’re going to read,” he said.

For millions of computer users around the world, the blogging boom is the best thing since, well, real living communities. Not only do blogs provide a space where people with varied interests can meet up, discuss and exchange information with each other, but anybody with access to a computer, an Internet connection and something to say can get involved.

“Blogs give individuals the ability to publish on their own, contribute to other discussions and find a place for their opinion,” Hussey said.

Blogs differ from more traditional home pages in that users can easily upload text, pictures, audio clips and even video to the Internet with only minimal computer knowledge. With help from free blog editing software like Blogger and WordPress, anybody can get in on the game and today’s blogs are published from all corners of the world in virtually every language.

The specific definition of a blog, or web log, is difficult to pin down since the medium is undergoing constant change. Wherever they’re headed, Husssey said, blogs have certainly come a long way from their origins as a collection of personal online diaries kept by small groups of computing enthusiasts.

Among the estimated 75,000 blogs started up on the Internet each day are an eclectic blend of opinions, interests and views on every topic imaginable. From relatively trivial matters such as where and how to drink your coffee, to the recent Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting from the heart of hurricane-battered New Orleans, blogs are here to stay. Even family blogs are popping up frequently as an alternative to the more conventional family album or scrapbook.

Hoping to capitalize on the blogging rush, Hussey, along with a handful of partners across North America, developed Qumana, a piece of software geared to help bloggers blog more efficiently.
Meeting with the company’s other partners via the Internet has not only allowed Qumana assemble a workforce from across North America, but allowed Hussey to work in an ideal environment, his home.

“Working out of my home lets me be flexible and spread things out throughout the day,” he said. “The commute to the office is also a lot shorter when you only have to walk across the room.”
After signing a major partnership last month with Lycos U.S., one of Google’s main rivals, Hussey said Qumana’s next goal rests on helping bloggers make a little money.
The online advertising industry is growing between 20 and 30 per cent a year and connecting bloggers with advertisers is already a lucrative business.

“While the vast majority of bloggers won’t get rich, advertising revenue may help them pay for their Internet connection or feed their latté addiction while doing something they enjoy,” Hussey said.

Tags: Tris Hussey, Gulf Islands Driftwood, Salt Spring Island, telecommuting, Qumana, blogging

I caught a post by Stowe about some "web 2.0 angst", and it got me to thinking about this whole idea of naming the state of internet affairs. This concern about what to call it, where is it going, etc. Frankly, it's just a name. Someone (whoever it is probably is pretty sorry now) came up with this descriptor to separate the current Internet boom from the one of the late 90s. Probably to answer an investor or someone similar asking "So, how is this different than the 90s?" "Well it's a new way of looking at it ... it's like Web 2.0."

Stowe has this closer to his article:

I see Web 2.0 as the gateway to another era, not the era itself. Like Moses, who led his people to the Promised Land, but could not cross the River Jordan, Web 2.0 is going to take us out of the desert into something better, which we have no name for yet: but there is milk and honey on the other side.

The way I see it we gave this rebirth a name because we had to, but really the core fundamentals of the Net haven't changed. The protocals that run the whole shebang haven't changed much (if at all). Websites, while cooler looking and with a few more bells and whistles, are still places to go get information. Yep, blogs and RSS are giving personal publishing a rebirth. RSS certainly has made pulling gobs and gobs of information easier. What is different, then?

Well technologies and users have matured and become more savvy. Lots more people have high-speed, always-on access to the Internet (this is a huge reason for the success, IMHO). Mostly, we've finally figured out the business models that actually work. Products and services people are actually willing to pay for and at the right price point. Advertisers (as I discussed in an Investors blog post) are putting more money into the system and we can provide better data out.

So I don't get tied up in names or terms for the current state of affairs. I'm not waiting for "nerdvana", and I'm not going to wondering when Web 2.5 or 3.0 is going to come. Technologies are steadily improving. More people are coming online and staying online. The Internet has become integral to the way many people live their lives (like me, with multiple computers and a BlackBerry strapped to my hip). And in the end ... that's the real revolution.

Tags: Web 2.0, Web 2.5, Web 3.0

David Sifry's State of the Blogosphere has another installment.  While the last one focused on the growth of the blogosphere (that it is still growing, but begs the question, but for how much longer), this one looks at two very important facets of the "modern" blogosphere -- languages used and the growth of tagging.

Let's look at language first.  While English might be the de facto language of commerce, and even the Internet, it is becoming less important as the language of the blogosphere.  English is steadily declining as the majority language of the blogosphere and Japanese and Chinese are growing quickly.  While Sifry admits that many languages, like Korean, might be under represented, it is clear that the nature of the online world is changing.  With that change all of us, from software developers to advertisers to ad networks, need to face facts ... we're going to need to support Asian languages better and cater to that huge (and growing) audience.

Now let's look at tagging.  Technorati pioneered tagging as a way for people to go beyond gross categories (say blogging or blog editors) to smaller, more granular descriptors (like Qumana).  To say that tagging has taken off is like saying Canadians like hockey.  The adoption of tagging has been nothing short of stellar.  The chart below shows that almost half of all blog posts are tagged and the rate of increase is just growing.  Unlike the growth of blogs, the growth of tagging can continue longer because as new bloggers join they have to "catch up" and start tagging.  Tagging isn't perfect.  Since it is a user-driven system different tags can be used for the same concepts, but the tags are necessarily linked.  Take blog editors and offline blog editors.  To me both of these tags mean the same thing, and Qumana is one of those tools, but are they linked?  If you search for blog editors will you find the same content as offline blog editors?  Probably not, unless the post is tagged with both of them.

So this is a clear flaw, but one that those of us who are thinking and writing about tags recognize.  I think it's only a matter of time before someone develops a way, probably based on search engine algorithms, to start linking tags together into larger groups ... even across languages.

In addition to the lack of connection among synonymous tags, there is the looming threat of tag-spam.  David doesn't think this is going to be a major problem:

Of course, one of the remaining open questions is whether or not that will lead to massive gaming of the system, but current trends seem to present evidence that large-scale gaming is not occurring. In fact, my belief is that because tags are built as hyperlinks inside the document, and thus visible to the reader, that a strong social pressure to use appropriate tags (or at least to not use inappropriate tags) manifests itself, especially with bloggers who want to cultivate influence and readers.

I don't share his opinion that tag-spam will be prevented by a self-policing system, but since it is on Technorati's radar--and many of ours as well--I expect (and hope) that potential solutions can be
found before it becomes a problem.

Qumana is, of course, big on tags and tagging.  We put one-click, easy tagging into our editor early on (first we believe).  We chat with the folks working on tags and tagging whenever we can.  Tags, once the connectors are built between synonymous tags, can be used to build larger and larger groups of interest.  All fun stuff to come down the road.

Where does this leave us?  This is David's summary of his State of the Blogosphere installment:

• The blogosphere is multilingual, and deeply international
• English, while being the language of the majority of early bloggers, has fallen to less than a third of all blog posts in April 2006.
• Japanese and Chinese language blogging has grown significantly.
• Chinese language blogging, while continuing to grow on an absolute basis, has begun to decline as an overall percentage of the posts that Technorati tracks over the last 6 months
• Japanese, Chinese, English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and German are the languages with the greatest number of posts tracked by Technorati.
• The Korean language is underrepresented in this analysis
• Language breakdown does not necessarily imply a particular country or regional breakdown.
• Technorati now tracks more than 100 Million author-created tags and categories on blog posts.
• The rel-tag microformat has been adopted by a number of the large tool makers, making it easy for people to tag their posts. About 47% of all blog posts have non-default tags or categories associated with them.

Hat tips: Bloggers Blog, WebProNews

Tags: Technorati, state of the blogosphere, tags, tagging, tag-spam, international blogosphere