AWG - Collaboration

Lotus Sametime Supports XMPP (Jabber)

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 08:52:14 -0800

Lotus had adopted the SIMPLE protocol early in its branching off from SIP, and it still a work in progress. Now, like many others, Lotus has adopted XMPP, the protocol behind Jabber as well. This means that there is yet another mainstream product that is interoperable with other XMPP-based services, including APU IM and Google Talk.

Source: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2068781,00.asp

The Collaboration ASP Race

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:28:11 -0700

There has been more press lately about backpackit.com, the latest service from http://www.37signals.com/

Nate first showed me tadalist a long time ago. . Basically just a simple todo list but I have enjoyed using it for those todo items I only need to see when I am online. Its fast and very intuitive.

One of the reasons why Nate was so interested in 37signals is because of their open source web development framework called "ruby on rails". Basically a really easy to use inline scripting language (similar to php but more advanced). Nate and Mark both proved that you could produce a database driven application in short order.

More recently, 37signals have been implementing Ajax, the xml via javascript that gmail has made famous, in their ruby applications.

Backpackit is a interesting application. Its very easy to use, and has a good feel. However, I feel that it is a little more restrictive than most wiki applications. And their pricing model is a little off the mark, basically paying per page.

Really 37signals primary bread and butter is basecamp, their easy to use web based project management app. I have not yet played with it, but it appears to get that the project management problem is one about gathering all communication around a project space, more than just gant management. I think I may be suggesting it for my brother, an architect and general contractor who is faced with managing projects with dispersed office and field employees.

As far as ASP hosted wiki's, I think the one with the most potential is jotspot.com. They take wiki to the level of small "lotus notes" like application development, and there are some big names behind it.

Some similar functionality to backpackit, in that when you sign up you get a subdomain, and then each page has a randomly generated email address that you can use as an alternate method to update the page.

The list of available applications is impressive. I would suggest checking out the advanced tour.

I think the overriding principle driving success with these applications is that people really are drawn to the simple. Mobile users, and those who are fed up with reinstalling operating systems after viruses or other system failures, are growing soft to the concept of completely web based applications. Now that developers are pushing beyond the standards with things like ajax (standards being discussed at w3c even now), there is proof that web application feel can be improved without significant overhead.

Its a race for the best collaboration tool which can marry the "ease of publishing and sharing" found in blogs, wiki's, and social networking sites. Thus the emergence of new big name offerings like MSN MySpace, Yahoo! 360, etc. Should be interesting.

Blogging for the EDU Enterprise?

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 17:12:03 -0700

When reading posts relating to the latest 4.5 release of drupal, I came across an interesting post exploring the use of drupal for university wide blogging. Drupal for the EDU Enterprise (40K users?) I was immediately curious as to which University was pursuing this venture. Seeing that the post was from lhl, I followed his profile to his personal blog, the about in turn leading me to his USC personal page. I knew that USC was involved in internet2 and the middleware iniative, on the grid computing front, but had not made contact with anyone from USC participating in the WebISO and directory areas. USC also has a nice installation of [uPortal], http://my.usc.edu/. Apparently they are using Pubcookie instead of Yale CAS. David C., you may run into Leonard Lin at JA-SIG Summer 2004. Anyway, it would be good to follow up with him, about JA-Sig, WebISO, university blogging etc, since we don't have too many local contacts with uPortal and I2 Middleware. Anyway, I am quite interested in blogging as a feature for simple ad-hoc web publishing for our constituents. Students specifically would I think latch on to a blogging service if we were to offer one through Cougars' Den. There are some sites focused on the blogging and such in the classroom, such as kairosnews.org, also a drupal site btw. One drupal contributer, also a teacher, is using technical writing courses at his university to produce open source software documentation. I have seen anything that lends toward collaborative book writing, as easy as a blog, in eCollege. Of course blogging among Faculty and Staff within a university could generate more categorical knowledge sharing than any other currenlty available medium. The truth is, blogging is just the name for the simple publishing, sharing, and conversing of information. Its knowledge management in the most organic sense. Blogging brings something traditionally difficult, web publishing, to just about anybody. I don't think people care about having "home pages" beyond a simple blog with a customizable theme, links, their thoughts, and a simple way to attach images or files. Perhaps its time to start thinking of Enterprise Content Management is more than a three letter accronymn with a large vendor pricetag. Certainly blogging doesn't solve workflow, imaging and archiving and other advanced ECM topics, but I doubt one monolithic solution will do the trick. Worth a thought. Speaking of easy web publishing, I need to write about a next generation Wiki, Jotspot. Here's a great writeup about jotspot from social software expert Christopher Allen. I watched half of the flash demo, and will need to spend some more time with it before sharing my thoughts. It may not be "it", but something as simple as it, could take over the collaborative, workgroup, workflow, knowledge management software landscape easily.

Playing Catchup with Jabber Summer News

Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:17:07 -0700

It appears as though more of the industry is waking up to Presence Being the Killer App. With Jabber Inc. being a leader in this space. Jabber, Inc., which develops real-time communication server platforms for developing IM and presence-enabled applications, is fashioning its XCP platform into an application server of sorts not only for presence, but also for messaging, routing and XML-application development. In September, it will release a publish-and-subscribe technology called Information Broker for pushing content out to users.

Interesting too, is the increase in adoption of Enterprise IM (EIM) and consequent integration of presence in business applications. A recent Osterman Research study shows 44% of companies use IM with business applications, up from 21% just three years ago. Furthermore, 34% of users have standardized on an internally run IM platform, up from 24% just two years ago.

Jabber Inc. is has announced new versions of its commercial Jabber server and client.