Here’s a summary of the additions, changes, and corrections that I made in V54; for convenience, you’ll also find that they appear in red in the PDF materials, so you can see what has changed since V52 and V53:

1. On page 70, I added Google Maps to the list of Ajax examples.
2. On page 84, I added Google App Engine to the list of interesting products from Google.
3. On page 85, I provided a new (working) link and details about Zimbra.
4. On page 87, I added a link to IBM’s new “Bluehouse” product.
5. On pages 89-90, I added two new pages of details on the iPhone 3g.
6. On page 91, I provided additional details on CIsco’s acquisition of Five Across.
7. On page 132, I added a bullet point with a link to Nicholas Carr’s article on “Is Google Making Us Stupid?“

I probably won’t do any more updates for another week or two, but this should keep you busy for a while. Enjoy…

Here’s a summary of the additions, changes, and corrections that I made in V53; for convenience, you’ll also find that they appear in red in the PDF materials, so you can see what has changed since V52:

1. On page 6, I noted that the Michael Wesch “The Machine Is (Us)ing Us” video has now been viewed 5.6 million times, as of Jun 8, 2008.
2. On page 8, I added a bullet point indicating that while the “long tail” is not one of the main “Web 2.0 tools,” it is a “related concept”
3. On page 15, in the discussion of “risks of Web 2.0″ platform, I noted that the comparison between the Keynote/PDF version of this presentation, against the Google Apps version, was so bad that I recently deleted the Google Apps version altogether.
4. On page 17, I added a note to indicate that the chart showing usage of various technologies — including the Internet and Web 2.0 — was taken from a 2006 survey that had been cited on the previous page.
5. On page 20, I updated the Twitter example with a screen shot from my Twitter home page as of this morning.
6. On page 24, I updated the count of Twitter users to 1,811,515 as of Jun 8, 2008. I also added a new bullet point citing a Business Week article indicating that Obama and Clinton each had approximately 30,000 Twitter followers during their primary campaigns, but Obama used his more effectively.
7. On page 26, I changed the first bullet point to indicate that Zappos is a shoe-selling company, not a shoe-manufacturing company.
8. On pages 29-30, I updated the Dopplr example with screen shots from my Dopplr home page as of this morning, which shows that I’m in Rome, along with various other details about who’s in Rome, who’s in my home town of New York, etc.
9. On page 35, I added a couple of sub-bullet points about MySpace, indicating (a) that it’s larger than every other nation except China, India, the U.S., and Indonesia; and (b) that I had written a blog posting about this issue, titled “A United Nations Seat for Myspace?“
10. On page 37, I updated a note about Obama’s “Yes, We Can” video, indicating that as of Jun 8, 2008 it has now been viewed 8.0 million times.
11. On page 75, I added a citation to a blog posting entitled “Did Rails Sink Twitter?“
12. On page 80, I updated the first bullet point to indicate that the book Web 20 Design Patterns is no longer “forthcoming”; it has now been published.
13. On page 85, I updated a bullet point to indicate that, as of Jun 8, 2008, it was still unclear whether Yahoo would continue as an independent company, be acquired by Microsoft, or consummate some kind of marketing/advertising arrangement with Google.
14. On page 87, which discusses IBM’s activities in the Web 2.0 world, I added a note that IBM now has a Vice President of Social Engineering.
15. On page 88, I added a “placeholder” bullet point for the iPhone 2.0 that is scheduled to be announced/released on June 9th; and I also modified a bullet point to reflect my belief that Apple’s distribution of iPhone software apps via iTunes will represent an interesting example of the “long tail” concept.
16. On page 123, which discusses technology trends, I added a note to the bullet point asking whether computers might someday exceed human intelligence — noting that the June 2008 IEEE Spectrum journal has a special report, entitled “The Rapture of the Geeks: separating science from fiction in the technological singularity”
17. On page 127, I added a bullet point indicating that senior executives’ acceptance/non-acceptance of social networks & Web 2.0 will become a more and more significant differentiator; I also included a citation to a recent Wall Street Journal interview with Clay Shirky.
18. On page 130, I added a bullet point with a citation to another paper discussing the use of Web 2.0 in educational environments.
19. On page 134, I added a bullet point with the publishing details of Clay Shirky’s new book, Here Comes Everybody: the power of organizing without organizations.

As usual, I’ve provided several different ways of downloading the presentation materials. None of the material is copyrighted; it’s all “open source,” and you’re welcome to use it, modify it, share it with friends and colleagues, and collaborate with me to improve it in the days to come. For a simple overview of the presentation, you can click here to download the one-page, 24-megabyte PDF version of the “mind-map” shown below. This is likely to make more sense after you’ve seen the full set of materials, but it’s a nice concise summary of the key elements of the presentation.

You can also click here to download a 10.4-megabyte PDF version of the 19-page presentation itself; all of the embedded hyperlinks have been preserved, so you can follow the references to wherever they lead you. You can also find this version on my Slideshare.net page, which makes it easy to share the material with other people in your own network.

A couple days ago, in Ft. Lauderdale, I also made a Powerpoint version available; but I discovered that moving a Powerpoint file from the Mac to Windows is problematic, especially if you’re using something other than the usual boring Arial/Helvetica fonts; and since I find Powerpoint to be a pain in the neck anyway, I’ve thrown it out. If you have the good sense to be using a Macintosh and iWork, then you can click here to download the 15-megabyte Keynote file of the same presentation (which has the animations and builds that you won’t see in the PDF version, plus the native ability to modify the material). And finally, if you’d like to see the “collaborative” version (which is much uglier, but nevertheless sharable), click here to see the Google Apps version of the same material; if you actually want to modify this version, send me an email and I’ll add you to the list of collaborators.

Hopefully, this will be sufficient to let you view and access the materials in a way that’s convenient for you. If you have any questions or problems, please let me know. Meanwhile, enjoy …

For a simple overview of the presentation, you can click here to download the one-page, 23-megabyte PDF version of the “mind-map” shown below. This is likely to make more sense after you’ve seen the full set of materials, but it’s a nice concise summary of the key elements of the presentation.

You can also click here to download a 9-megabyte PDF version of the 19-page presentation itself; all of the embedded hyperlinks have been preserved, so you can follow the references to wherever they lead you. You can also find this version on my Slideshare.net page, which makes it easy to share the material with other people in your own network.

If you’d prefer a Powerpoint version of the same material, click here to download the 18-megabyte Powerpoint file. If you’re lucky enough to have a Macintosh and iWork, then you can click here to download the 13.2 Keynote file of the same presentation. And finally, if you’d like to see the “collaborative” version (which is much uglier, but nevertheless sharable), click here to see the Google Apps version of the same material; if you actually want to modify this version, send me an email and I’ll add you to the list of collaborators.

Hopefully, this will be sufficient to let you view and access the materials in a way that’s convenient for you. If you have any questions or problems, please let me know. Meanwhile, enjoy …

To download the 20.5-megabyte PDF of the mind-map summary of this presentation, click here (or on the thumbnail icon above). The hyperlinks are preserved in the PDF file, so you’ll see clickable links that you can pursue to get more information on 18 recommended books, and 41 other references (articles, websites, blog articles, etc.) on key aspects of software engineering.

For the fans who follow this blog closely, you may recall seeing a similar mind-map for a “Top Ten” presentation that I did in Jacksonville, Florida a couple weeks ago. Here is a summary of the additions/changes I’ve added to that material for tomorrow’s presentation in Albany:

1. For the mind-map branch that refers to Google HR strategy, I’ve now found an interesting article in the Oct 21, 2007 issue of The New York Times, entitled “The Google Way: Give Engineers Room.”
2. As an additional reference on “peopleware” issues, I’ve included a relatively new book entitled Leading Geeks.
3. For the mind-map branch that refers to “evidence-based scheduling,” I’ve found a better reference: a very detailed Oct 26, 2007 blog posting entitled “Evidence-Based Scheduling” (duh!) by Joel Spolsky, of New York City’s Fog Creek Software. Highly recommended!

Let me know if you have any suggestions for improving the material …

If you’d like to download a 18.4-megabyte PDF of the one-page mind-map for the presentation, click here. And if you’d like to see the Google Docs version of the presentation, click here. Because Google Docs presentations are sharable, there’s an opportunity for you to revise, enhance, correct, and generally improve the material. In order to do that, you’ll need to be added to the list of “collaborators” for the document; send me an email at ed-at-yourdon-to-com, and I’ll add you to the list.

But if you think Google Docs presentations look ugly, you can download the 6.2 megabyte Powerpoint file created as an export from my mind-mapping tool, by clicking here. And if that’s not enough, you can download the original 13.7-megabyte mind-map itself, by clicking here. But the mind-map document won’t do you much good if you don’t have the mind-mapping tool with which to open it and manipulate it; it’s called MindMap ConceptDraw. You can buy it for $119 (or get a free trial copy for 30 days) by visiting the ConceptDraw website (I have no business relationship with ConceptDraw, and receive no commissions, royalties, or financial remuneration of any kind from sales of their products).

Let me know if you have any questions or problems…

If you’d like to be added to the list of collaborators — for making additions, changes, enhancements, etc. — let me know.

Enjoy!

1. Only about 10% (or less) of the audience members indicated, in an informal show of hands at the beginning of my presentation, that they felt they were familiar with Web 2.0 concepts; this is roughly the same response I’ve gotten in other cities around the country during the past year. Yet everyone has heard of blogs, everyone has heard of Wikis, and almost everyone has heard of many of the other specific technologies and components of Web 2.0. Still, one gets the feeling that a lot of people feel that there’s so much going on that they only have a surface-level understanding of the topic. And what makes this most interesting is that I’m getting this response from an audience of tech-savvy, computer-literate IT professionals. Imagine how lost the average member of society feels!
2. “What tool are you using for presenting the ‘mind-map’ version of your Web 2.0 material?” As I’ve mentioned in various postings on this blog, I used the ConceptDraw MindMap product, developed by the ConceptDraw organization in Odessa, Ukraine. Alas, the latest version — ConceptDraw MindMap 5 — is (in my humble opinion) a huge step backward for those of us who had been happily using version 4.5 and its predecessors. But if you’re starting fresh, with no “legacy” mind-maps created in these earlier versions, it’s probably still a good choice. Alternatives include Nova-Mind, Mind Manager, and the open source mind-mapping tool FreeMind. Fro various reasons I don’t have time to explain in detail here, I’m frustrated by all of these tools, even though I think the basic concept of mind-mapping is far superior to the “bullet-point” list-presentation style that we see in Powerpoint presentations; on the other hand, I’m now thinking seriously of converting my presentation to a collaborative, quasi-wiki-style document using the presentation tool recently introduced as part of Google Apps… more about that in a future blog posting.
3. Speaking of Google Apps, someone in the audience offered an opinion rather than a question: he said that he had switched to Google Apps for most of his word-processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations — not because it’s free (as compared to whatever Microsoft is charging for MS Office these days), but rather because the sharing and collaboration mechanisms were so attractive. I think we’re going to hear this theme more and more often in the days to come.
4. Someone in the audience asked whether we were likely to see more examples of personal mashups in the future — i.e., a mashup created by an individual, for his or her private use, as opposed to a “professional” effort to create a mashup that might be introduced as a commercial product, or offered to the marketplace as an “industrial-strength” product/service. Personally, I think that’s what Yahoo has in mind with its Yahoo Pipes initiative; and I think that Google is moving in the same direction. Who knows: maybe Apple, Microsoft, and IBM will get on the bandwagon, too…
5. Someone asked the familiar question about the likelihood of senior management wanting to edit or censor blogs or wikis, in order to prevent outspoken, disloyal, subversive, or rebellious employees from saying something that contradicts the party line. I’ve blogged about this issue several times over the past year, and did my best to summarize my opinion that management has already lost control of this issue — and with the exception of tightly regulated organizations (e.g., financial-service companies, government spy agencies, etc.) probably never did have control in the first place. If a grumpy employee can provide “off-the-record” information to news-hungry journalists, who then proceed to write salacious articles in the mainstream media, how much worse can it be if those same employees start blogging?
6. Someone made the interesting comment that while management may be willing to let the outside public collaborate in the dissemination and distribution of information about their products and services, it’s less likely that they will be willing to collaborate with outsiders in the creation and invention of future products and services. I guess that’s true, but it’s a matter of degree: in my presentation, I gave several examples of companies (especially in the pharmaceutical industry, which I find intriguing) who are encouraging outsiders (e.g., retired employees, academic professors, students, research scientists, and others) to collaborate with them in R&D activities associated with the discovery of new drugs. Not every company will want to do this, of course; but I think the more ambitious, entrepreneurial, and innovative companies will do so, to an increasing degree…

All in all, it was an interesting night; and it gave me several ideas for additional material to be incorporated into my Web 2.0 presentation. Stay tuned for updates…

Here’s a summary of the additions and changes I’ve made to this version:

1. I made a number of minor cosmetic changes to clean up various items on the 32-page mind-map, in order to make it easier to read and understand.
2. On the “Cultural Issues” page of the mind-map, there’s a branch labeled “People Power,” with a sub-branch titled “Citizens,” and a sub-sub-branch titled “Products get used in unexpected ways.” To that sub-sub-branch, I added a link to a New York Times article explaining how Craigslist is now being used by prostitutes in various parts of the U.S.
3. On the “Miscellaneous books” branch of the “References-Books” page, I added an thumbnail icon, and a link to the appropriate Amazon page, for David Weinberger’s book, Everything is Miscellaneous.
4. Also on the “References-Books” page, I added a new branch titled “Books I haven’t read yet,” which lists 10 relatively new Web 2.0-related books … which I’m hoping to read, but probably not in the next month or two. I haven’t provided Amazon links, but if any of them look interesting, you should be able to find them easily.
5. On the main “References” page, I added a number of new items to the “conferences” branch — with links to an AJAX World conference, the Web 2.0 expo in Berlin, the Web 2.0 expo in Tokyo, a London-based conference called “Future of Web Applications,” a Paris-based conference called “Le Web 3,” an “Asia Web 2.0 Conference” in Singapore, a link to next year’s Wikimania 2008 conference (for which the host city has not yet been chosen), and a link to the upcoming Boston-based Enterprise 2.0 conference. This is in addition to several existing Web 2.0 conferences, all of which suggests that the topic has now become fairly “mainstream” in Europe, North America, and Asia.
6. On the main “Technology” page, there’s a branch labeled “Design Guidelines, best practices,” with a sub-branch titled “Agile.” To that sub-branch, I’ve added a new sub-sub-branch with a link to a blog posting by Scott Rosenberg (author of Dreaming in Code, which I discussed in several blog postings earlier this year, starting with this January 15, 2007 entry), in which Rosenberg argues that most of the Web 2.0 products and services actually have a 5-year development cycle.
7. On the “Google” branch of the “Big Vendors” page of the mind-map, I’ve added a link to an article in the Economist titled “Who’s Afraid of Google?“
8. On the “Wikipedia” sub-branch of the “Wiki” page, I’ve added a new sub-sub-branch with a link to an article noting that the 2 millionth article was added to the English-language version of Wikipedia on September 12, 2007. By contrast, Encyclopedia Britannica has approximately 100,000 articles.
9. Also on the Wikipedia sub-branch, I’ve added a new sub-sub-branch with a link to an August 19, 2007 New York Times article about “Wikiscaner” entitled “Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits.”
10. On the “Business Issues” page, there’s a branch titled “Government,” to which I added a new sub-branch, with a link to a September 2, 2007 New York Times article entitled “Logged In and Sharing Gossip, er, Intelligence” about the creation of something called “A-Space,” which is roughly analogous to MySpace for the various intelligence agencies of the U.S. government.
11. Also on the “Government” branch, I’ve added a new sub-branch with a link to a poll currently being conducted by Federal Computing Weekly, entitled “Is the government ready for Web 2.0?“
12. Also on the “Government” branch, I’ve added a new sub-branch to an article entitled “IBM on governmental blogging.”
13. On the “Introduction-Overhyping” page, I’ve added a new branch, with a link to the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator — which helps you come up with catchy phrases, like “integrate user-centred blogospheres” for your new Web 2.0-based product or service. And it’s free! Think of the millions you would otherwise be spending for creative marketing geniuses to come up with the same phrases!
14. Along the same lines, I’ve added a link to the Web 2.0 Company Name Generator to the “Small startups, small vendors” branch of the “Products-Vendors” page. Now you’re really ready to launch your own Web 2.0 company, create a lot of attention, and then sell out to Google for gazillions of dollars. Heck, maybe I’ll do that — and stop spending my time updating this damn mind-map!
15. On the “Political Commentary” branch of the “Intro-Society” page, I’ve added a link to a new article entitled “2008: the Web 2.0 election?“
16. Also on the “Intro-Society” page, I’ve added a link to a May 7, 2007 C|Net News.com article entitled “American public: wired, but not Web 2.0? That’s normal, study says” — which notes that roughly 73% of American citizens have Internet access, but only 8% make active use of Web 2.0 products and services.
17. On the “Cultural Issues” page, there’s a branch titled “Generational Issues,” where I’ve added a new sub-branch that provides a link to an August 23, 2007 Wired article entitled “Rise of the Silver Surfers: The Over-50 Social Media Opportunity.”
18. On the “Trends-Social/Cultural” page, I’ve added a new branch, with a link to an August 18, 2007 blog posting on the O’Reilly Radar site titled “Revenge by Gadget.” I think I’ll get me one of those gadgets.
19. On the “IBM” branch of the “Big Vendors” page, I’ve added a new sub-branch with a link to an August 23, 2007 article describing IBM’s acquisition of Web conferencing service provider WebDialogs.
20. On the “Reactions and trends in large companies” page, I’ve added a new branch with a link to a blog posting called “Knowledge Worker 2.0.”
21. On the “Yahoo” branch of the “Big Vendors” page, I’ve added a new sub-branch with a link to a September 17, 2007 Infoworld article describing Yahoo’s recent acquisition of Zimbra.

I could probably have added another hundred links, branches, sub-branches, and assorted details in addition to all of this, but I’ve run out of time. Hopefully this will keep you occupied for a while, and I’ll create yet another update in the coming weeks. I’ll be giving a two-day seminar on Web 2.0 technologies in Rome on October 29-30 (for more details, click here), so it’s almost certain that I’ll have at least a couple of additional updates between now and then.

Happy mind-mapping!

I’ve been offline for most of the summer, partly because the overall pace of business slowed to a crawl in July and August, and partly because of some family health issues that have taken up a lot of time and energy. But I’ve got a bunch of things on my calendar for the fall season, and hopefully that will generate a lot more activity on this humble blog. Here are some of the things that are currently on my calendar for the coming months:

• September 18th: I’ll be giving a presentation at the IT Metrics “Software Best Practices” conference in New York City. Details here.
• September 19th: I’ll be giving a presentation on Web 2.0 technologies and trends to an evening meeting of the Atlanta SPIN chapter. Details here.
• October 11th: I’ll be giving a presentation at the IT Metrics “Software Best Practices” conference in Detroit. Details here.
• October 16th: I’ll be giving a presentation at the IT Metrics “Software Best Practices” conference in Jacksonville, FL Details here.
• October 17-19: I’ll be attending the big Web 2.0 summit conference in San Francisco. Details here.
• October 29-30: I’ll be presenting a 2-day seminar on Web 2.0 in Rome, Italy. Details here.
• November 8th: I’ll be giving a presentation at the IT Metrics “Software Best Practices” conference in Albany, NY. Details here.
• November 13th: I’ll be giving a presentation at the IT Metrics “Software Best Practices” conference in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Details here.
• Novemberr 16th: I’ll be giving a presentation at the IT Metrics “Software Best Practices” conference in Austin, TX. Details here.

As you might imagine, all of these presentations will require some extensive updates to the Web 2.0 “mind-map” that I first began creating a little over a year ago. My last presentation on this topic was back in the middle of May, and lots of things have been happening in the field during the summer — including this morning’s amusing article in the New York Times about law enforcement officers’ concern about the use of Craigslist by prostitutes. Anyway, I expect to have an updated version of the mind-map uploaded shortly before I fly down to Atlanta; check back from time to time to see what’s going on…

If you’re unfamiliar with mind-maps, or wonder why I’m using them (instead of Powerpoint), take a look at my blog posting entitled “Sayonara Powerpoint.”

If you’re unfamiliar with mind-maps, or wonder why I’m using them (instead of Powerpoint), take a look at my blog posting entitled “Sayonara Powerpoint.”