Category Archives: Media

Web 2.0 in an Occasionally Connected World

Posted on by
Reply

Cross-posted from the Particls blog.

Chris and I often converse with each other about a fantasy world where we would happily live. In this world, internet connections are high bandwidth, always on, and free for everyone to use, wherever you are. Sadly, “reality” just hasn’t caught up with us yet. Must be because it has a strong Liberal bias. 😉

Because we don’t have this free-for-use subspace ulra-wideband connection, Web 2.0 only works so far. It’s something that we feel sets Touchstone apart, but also means that we have this constant balancing act between the value we add into the cloud and the value we add onto the client.

It’s something which I am afraid to admit has always perplexed me about the Web 2.0 world – the plethora of diverse and spectacular applications available is staggering and inspiring; so long as I am connected when I want to use them. It’s one of the reasons I seem to be slightly more pessimistic about web-based apps than Chris.

We feel that it’s very important for Touchstone to bridge this gap by persisting information for Web 2.0 apps when the user is intermittently connected.

Filter the noise, whether you’re online or off!

According to Site Meter stats the average reader spends 96 seconds reading the average blog. Do our bosses know this?

Posted on by
Reply

Cross-posted from the Particls blog.

I know this isn’t really anything to get excited about, but I have to say that I’m really excited about us getting ranked 1 and 2 on Google. I think I really want to get ranked 1 for “rss gadget” but I guess we have to start somewhere.

BTW, TouchStone pre Alpha is running at the moment with Chris’ FeedDemon OPML file and “The Office – Email Scandal…” – apparently. 😉

I also had an argument with a person I work closely with (in the real world – as opposed to the ‘TouchStone’ world I seem to have found myself in recently) about the intrinsic value of blogs and other personalised content on the web. They were claiming that blogging is just as bad as the old days of the internet when every second person had a dodgy website made from Word saying “Under Construction” or “this is my website and i have 2 cats and a dog“.

I disagree with this. Passionately! I argued the virtues of blogging and RSS. Blogging is the long tail of publishing. And on the internet, nothing is as important as the long tail. If you think something – and write it down – then the odds are other people in the world feel the same way. It’s a way for us to connect to other people we otherwise never would/could.