An emerging trend in Social Networking sites and Web portals is the opening up of their APIs to external application develop- ers. For example, the Facebook Platform, Google Gadgets and Yahoo! Widgets allow developers to design their own applications, which can then can be integrated with the platform and shared with other users. However, current APIs are targeted towards develop- ers with programming expertise and database knowledge; they are not accessible to a large class of users who do not have a programming/database background, but would nevertheless like to create new applications. To address this need, we have developed the AppForge system, which provides a WYSIWYG application development platform. Users can graphically specify the components of webpages inside a Web browser, and the corresponding database schema and application logic will be automatically generated on the fly by the system.
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Facebook is one of the most popular Internet sites today. A key feature that arguably contributed to Facebook’s unprecedented success is its application platform, which enables the development of third-party social-networking applications. Understanding how these applications are installed and used is important for the function and utility of web-based online social networks, e.g. to better engineer them and/or to design advertising campaigns.
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Electronic communication has been redefining the ways in which people communicate with each other since its wide-spread introduction in the 1990’s. E-mail, instant messaging, internet forums, and social networking have added entirely new meanings to interpersonal interaction and community. Through time, internet based communication has developed its own set of non-verbal communication (emoticons, select usage of certain punctuation, chat speak, etc.) Like all other communication technologies, it has also been adapted into everyday life and everyday communication (by those that have access of course).
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Social networking websites have been steadily gaining popularity over the last few years. A recent OFCOM report (OFCOM, 2008) demonstrated that 22% of adults in the UK had registered with a social networking site (the figure is highest for 16-24 year olds and decreases with age). Facebook is, at present, the most visited social networking site and has over 130 million active users (Facebook, 2008a). This article shares the experiences of University of Wolverhampton’s pilot project into the use of Facebook pages for academic libraries.
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Since the release of v2.5 many things have changed for WordPress users. While SEO still has some basic rules, optimizing a WordPress blog is getting easier as new plugins are added and upgraded. The most important change in WordPress v2.5 (and above) is the new improved dashboard. As with all change this revision triggered much controversy, pros, cons and confusion. Those users familiar with the previous versions of WordPress found it hard to adapt to the new interface, and many beginners found the navigation less intuitive than they expected.
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The rapid advent of “Web 2.0” applications has unleashed new HTTP traffic patterns which differ from the conventional HTTP request-response model. In particular, asynchronous pre-fetching of data in order to provide a smooth web browsing experience and richer HTTP payloads (e.g., Javascript libraries) of Web 2.0 applications induce larger, heavier, and more bursty traffic on the underlying networks. We present a traffic study of Web 2.0 applications including Google Maps, modern Web-email, and social networking Web sites, and compare them with all HTTP traffic. We highlight the key differences of Web 2.0 traffic from traditional HTTP traffic through statistical analysis. As such our work elucidates the changing face of one of the most popular application on the Internet: The World Wide Web.
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Technologies known collectively as Web 2.0 have spread widely among consumers over the past five years. Social-networking Web sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, now attract more than 100 million visitors a month. As the popularity of Web 2.0 has grown, companies have noted the intense consumer engagement and creativity surrounding these technologies. Many organizations, keen to harness Web 2.0 internally, are experimenting with the tools or deploying them on a trial basis.
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Web 2.0 is a general term applied to any website that reacts to the input and activity of its users, such as a blog, a MySpace profile, a forum, or a Squidoo lens. Social Networking is best defined as the regular interaction of people for some common cause. Of course there is really nothing new about social networking, and it’s something many of us do every day offline, especially in schools or in the workplace. But as a marketing trend this concept is growing more and more popular online. This is because unlike most high schools, colleges, or workplaces, the Internet is filled with millions of individuals who are looking to meet other Internet users and develop both business and personal relationships.
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