Wow... Awesome pictures by some of the best photographers on Flickr. Check it out here.

11/3/2006 10:00:29 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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Internet

Do you remember how websites look in 1996? Here is a glimpse of what corporate websites look like 10 years agi. Yikes, they certainly look primitive.

7/26/2006 11:46:50 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Internet

Listen to any conversation about the Internet these days and you will hear terms like bittorrent, IM, wikis, and blogs. Today, a new generation of websites and software (collectively called social software) presents more than a mere web content on the browser. Indeed, social websites and software have enabled the next stage of the digital age evolution by enabling people to rendezvous and connect through Internet. Indeed, this phenomenon is observed by the numerous online communities, ranging from Wikipedia to Del.icio.us, that have sprouted all over the Internet in recent years.

Here are some of the social websites that I personally use on a regular basis:

• Wikipedia. Encyclopedia reference. You should know by now that I am a huge fan of Wikipedia and almost all my hyperlinks are directly referenced to Wikipedia.
• Del.icio.us - General url bookmarking and sharing. By the way, it is pronounced as "delicious," remove the periods and you will know what I meant.
• YouTube - Video bookmarking and sharing.
• Last.fm - Music bookmarking and sharing.
• PeanutButterWiki - Start your own wiki. It's free and incredibly easy to use (like making a peanut butter sandwich).
• Blogger - Start your own blog. It's free and easy to use.
• LinkedIn - Online social networking for professionals.
• Slashdot - Technology news.

Here are some social websites that I been dying to try:

• Digg - an alternative to Slashdot. Its coverage on technology news seem broader than that of Slashdot.
• Flickr - Photo bookmarking and sharing. I wonder if there's a simple way to upload my pictures from iPhoto to the site.

All this said and done, what was my motivation for writing this blog entry? Well, today I was asked to explain social bookmarking and wiki to a friend. My response to him was to watch for the posting of this blog entry on my blog.

Also, do let me know if you have any interesting sites that may have missed.

5/25/2006 4:31:34 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Internet

Lately, I have been hearing a lot about Web 2.0 - not just from the usual SDM software geeks like Yoav, Robbie, and Ilana but from other people who aren't software centric. Yesterday, I was asked "Hey MIT guy, you should know this. What is Web 2.0?" I shrugged and then proceeded to B.S. my way through by saying that Web 2.0 is a new paradigm in the Internet and it has something to do with AJAX, which makes the web is more interactive and blah blah.... The truth is I had no idea what I was talking about. Nonetheless he accepted my explanation and said "So it is like web services and wikipedia, huh?", which I then answered with a grin, "Exactly."

Being a geek myself (yeah, high marks on the geek test done 2 weeks ago), I felt embarrassed for not knowing what Web 2.0 is. So I did a little googling and found this out. Coined by Dale Dougherty, an associate at O'Reilly Media, Web 2.0 is a term that is used to describe the transformation of the Internet from an information-based architecture to a user-centric platform with applications and services centered around user's needs. Technologies like blogs, bit torrent, wikis, rss, web services, and of course AJAX (I was right after all) contribute to the evolution. This technological shift has social and economical implications. The empowerment of individual users through open communication, knowledge sharing, and decentralization led to radical changes in social networks and behaviors. For example, blogging has now replaced personal website as a form of communicating one's thoughts to friends and the rest of the word. Last but not least, new businesses, with Google being the prime example, have already started to exploit the potential of Web 2.0 by offering software products that intimately involve the users in the development cycle. Here are some good links for further reading on Web 2.0.

• Tim O'Reilly orginal article on Web 2.0
• Wikipedia on Web 2.0
• Tim Berners-Lee on semantic Web 2.0 (a different take on Web 2.0)
• Web 2.0 relate businesses

12/1/2005 4:11:39 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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Internet

This is surreal. Almost a year ago, National Geographic ran this article, which accurately predicted the consequences of major human-induced catastrophe if a hurricane were to strike head on to the Bayou.

9/2/2005 4:05:41 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Internet

The word "networking" often has a negative connotation to many people. Many feel that network is about smoozing and impersonal communication. Since coming to MIT Sloan, I have recognized the value of networking as a powerful career and professional development tool.

I am currently using LinkedIn to build a network of professional contacts to help each other with introductions, job search, and business opportunities. So what is LinkedIn? It is basically a social networking site like Friendster where you network with other people through a common contact. While you put social interests and favorite movies on Friendster, LinkedIn is a site geared to professionals. You see resumes, business interests, and organization affiliations on LinkedIn. If you are job seeker you can either scan for job openings or find out who's hiring from your network. You can also search for business opportunities from your network. Say for instance you want to set an import/export business in Germany but don't know anyone there; you can look up on your network for someone who can help. In fact, one of my classmates got 2 job offers by the 3rd week after joining LinkedIn while a friend of a friend was contacted by someone from his LinkedIn network with business opportunity in his home country.

The membership is free and so far I have not received any spam of any sort from the network. Unfortunately, for some of my friends, I have become somewhat of a spammer. I have been a little insistent on asking my friends to join LinkedIn. So for those of you would have been getting emails from me asking you to join LinkedIn, I apologize for the spam. Nonetheless, I highly recommend LinkedIn and it is a great tool to have if you want to network professionally.

3/3/2005 1:25:27 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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Internet