Richard

As more and more talk about facebook connect comes up it's time to think about ways to make OpenID more popular. IMHO the main thing to do is not to hide it behind different names. - Christian Scholz

Do you thinks so? - freebat

Bruce, I never looked at clickpass to be honest but will do so. I wonder though if yet another service is the solution ;-) Maybe transitionally but then again it might only be for geeks as it adds more explanation of what clickpass is again. - Christian Scholz

Kevin, thanks for the clarifications. I will dig deeper into the compliance tests you mentioned. I clicked through now and noticed a lot of red 'Failed' marks beside MySpace's name though. Which seems like it proves the commenter's point? - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Kevin, thanks for the clarifications. I will dig deeper into the compliance tests you mentioned. I clicked through now and noticed a lot of red 'Failed' marks beside MySpace's name though. Which seems like it proves the commenter's point? - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Thanks for bringing this up, Richard. I think that the different between DiSo and OpenSocial is still relevant to point out, as I would ideally like to see the ability to 1) use an identity provider of my choice or means (rather than merely one that's been whitelisted) and 2) to pick and choose which services I use for different services -- with the ability to mix and match and swap them out on the fly, as I do with desktop applications. OpenSocial seems to provide a platform for building applications that get installed into the context of a user's social network profile... I think that there are definitely great aspects of OpenSocial, and I've come to appreciate the work being done on the project (far beyond my initial impression as only a gadgets API). At the same time, I think it's important the perspective of the individual blogger or website owner/operator is represented in this work. Fortunately the "Open Stack" that is emerging is made up of building block components that can be used separately or - Chris Messina via FriendFeed MT Plugin

"In this Screencast I tried to explain what “Distributed Social Networking” is all about. I talk shortly about the building blocks of social networking in general, then point out where the problem is and show you with Noserub how a Distributed Social Network can work" - Sebastian Küpers

Thanks Sebastian for sharing this, I posted on it here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/ar... - Richard

Thanks Richard for mentioning the screencast in your article! :) - Sebastian Küpers

A nice set of companies and thanks for including UpTake. We've been big fans of the top-down approach as a way to get stuff going in Semantic Web and frankly we've stopped talking about our Semantic technology because people don't seem to care about it. But in fact it is a pretty important part of what we do--extracting meaning from over 20 mm opinions and reviews so we can rank hotels and other products in a way that makes them more searchable. Our blind spot is figuring out what bottom-up tools will get adoption and when and how that might help us in the travel space. Anyway, I know that Semantic Web is no longer in the limelight but I also know that it will happen and we'll be one of many companies that will use it to solve problems. Thanks Richard and crew. Elliott (@elliottng) UpTake Networks Inc. - Elliott Ng via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Richard, Thanks very much for including SearchMonkey. Your list demonstrates how much progress has been made in this space in the past year - and I'm sure 2009 will be even bigger. Graham Mudd SearchMonkey Team - graham mudd via FriendFeed MT Plugin

@Veetrag, the list isn't in any particular order. I probably shouldn't have used numbering, but wanted to also make it clear it's a top 10 list :-) - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

@Veetrag, the list isn't in any particular order. I probably shouldn't have used numbering, but wanted to also make it clear it's a top 10 list :-) - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Arn, it's similar, but key difference is that it's a list of all websites -- not just blogs. But certainly the concept seems to be the same - measure popularity based on links from blogs. - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Arn, it's similar, but key difference is that it's a list of all websites -- not just blogs. But certainly the concept seems to be the same - measure popularity based on links from blogs. - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

I gotta buy a new blue beanie! It's certainly good to see open standards starting to go more mainstream this year. - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Good luck Nadia! I can tell you when I finished mine in '03 it was such a feeling of satisfaction, achievement, and yes - relief! But it was worth it :-) - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Good luck Nadia! I can tell you when I finished mine in '03 it was such a feeling of satisfaction, achievement, and yes - relief! But it was worth it :-) - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

I'm quite taken aback by the number of negative comments here. We're all fans of digg and we understand that Diggnation is an irreverent show and pushes the limits. While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, all of us at RWW stand by this article. While Marshall was the one who wrote it, the team discussed it at length before posting. Also, before posting we sent an email to digg mgmt inviting them to comment. We could've easily posted something inflammatory last night, but we waited until the morning for digg to send us an official response - which they did. In any case, all the commenters here and on digg are of course welcome to voice their opinions. We posted ours and Kevin had a chance to reply, which he did. Now commenters here and on digg are having their say. Nuff said. I'll shut up now. Richard MacManus ReadWriteWeb Editor - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Stephen, sorry to hear about your recent diagnosis! I do encourage you to sign up to Tu Diabetes, it is really a great community of people with diabetes. - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

That's a good point Frank, money still talks in the music business. Arctic Monkeys got famous via the Web, but it's true there's still too few examples. It'll be interesting to see what Muxtape does when it re-launches, as it will specifically target bands. Also last.fm has a good artist program. - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

"It's hard to see GNR as anything but the trailing edge, though." Exactly, and that was my point in the post - that this is going mainstream now. I agree that Frank raised some very good points about how new bands and artists can tap into the Web. What's the Web equivalent of a new band suddenly getting rotation on MTV in the 80's and therefore tipping? Interesting thing to explore. - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

"It's hard to see GNR as anything but the trailing edge, though." Exactly, and that was my point in the post - that this is going mainstream now. I agree that Frank raised some very good points about how new bands and artists can tap into the Web. What's the Web equivalent of a new band suddenly getting rotation on MTV in the 80's and therefore tipping? Interesting thing to explore. - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

That's a good point Frank, money still talks in the music business. Arctic Monkeys got famous via the Web, but it's true there's still too few examples. It'll be interesting to see what Muxtape does when it re-launches, as it will specifically target bands. Also last.fm has a good artist program. - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Rob, why is it disappointing? It makes total sense to put long articles over 2 or more pages. Jeez, give us a break. Sometimes I get tired of whining from people about little things like that. It seems to be cool to dislike pagination, like the Friendfeed crowd gets brownie points for saying "ohhh, pagination is evil". But if you think about it logically, pagination splits up long content so that it becomes more readible. So you have to make an extra click, so what?! - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

I've had a *very* similar experience - good line about MBAs and lawyers! ;-) Ultimately incredibly frustrating for you, but I love the positive attitude Wild Apricot showed after it. Re exchange rate, that is a good point and I have been trying to look at ways where RWW can take advantage of that. However it is rather important we have writers in the US, and biz people too, as that is where all the action is in our business. - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

I'm already addicted! But for how long :-) It is very cool tho... - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

"commenter" (comment #8), I can tell you there's no developer bias. Of course though if you do a comparison of an API provider with two consumer apps you will see the websites of the consumer apps are much more traffiked. The whole point of an API after all is that third party websites can tap into their data *without* having to go to a consumer facing website. So your Compete graph really is meaningless, comparing Twine/AB to OpenCalais. Also, while I agree that both Twine and AB have traction, I would argue against the following statement in regards to Twine: "...both are way ahead of the other companies cited in terms of usability". Usability is precisely the issue that Twine has had most problems with in its beta. I do think I need to add a "more" to my statement about repeat users for AB. You are right that it probably has a lot of repeat users already (I am one of them). Re Twine, despite the negative portrayal, I do genuinely have a soft spot for that product. I don't use it as much as I thought I - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

"commenter" (comment #8), I can tell you there's no developer bias. Of course though if you do a comparison of an API provider with two consumer apps you will see the websites of the consumer apps are much more traffiked. The whole point of an API after all is that third party websites can tap into their data *without* having to go to a consumer facing website. So your Compete graph really is meaningless, comparing Twine/AB to OpenCalais. Also, while I agree that both Twine and AB have traction, I would argue against the following statement in regards to Twine: "...both are way ahead of the other companies cited in terms of usability". Usability is precisely the issue that Twine has had most problems with in its beta. I do think I need to add a "more" to my statement about repeat users for AB. You are right that it probably has a lot of repeat users already (I am one of them). Re Twine, despite the negative portrayal, I do genuinely have a soft spot for that product. I don't use it as much as I thought I - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Spock botched their launch by performing an awesome media blitz and then discovering that they could not handle the load. I'm guessing that they are still reeling from this missing opportunity. At least we can learn from that lesson... - Jean-Marc Liotier via FriendFeed MT Plugin

Hi Richard, This is an excellent anniversary review. Semantic Web has gradually entered mainstream. Though still slowly, it progresses. About the new Semantic Web applications in this past new year, I would like to recommend Imindi. Imindi is actually an untraditional Semantic Web service, or we may call it a new take of Semantic Web. In tradition, Semantic Web services focus on employing machines to understand better humans. By contrast, Imindi's semantic web approach is to encourage humans to understand better each other via machines. Though both thoughts aim to understand better of human semantics (hence both are semantic web services), Imindi approaches the goal in a fairly different (untraditional) aspect. Imindi believes that it might be too difficult to directly implement intelligent machine agents that can well understand human semantics. By contrast, the success of Web 2.0 has shown that we humans are capable of and willing to help each other if only we have been given proper services to perf - Yihong Ding via FriendFeed MT Plugin