Modern Geographical Information Systems (GIS) [1] provide a service-oriented architecture for interacting with geographical data sets and related maps. Web-based GIS systems are architected around the same principles as more general Web service systems based on SOAP [2], WSDL [3], and REST. Mirroring the World Wide Web Consortium and OASIS Web service standards-making bodies, the Open Geospatial Consortium [5] defines open standards for messages, XML data formats, and access protocols that are specific to the GIS community. In addition to OGC-based services, there are many companies (such as ESRI and AutoDesk) that provide proprietary, commercial solutions. Services from these various providers are not normally interoperable.
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The digital age has vastly expanded people’s access to all sorts of information and resources, including educational materials. The Internet has also fostered a new culture of sharing, one in which content is freely contributed and distributed with few restrictions. Indeed, the latest evolution of the Internet, Web 2.0, is creating a new kind of participatory medium that is ideal for encouraging multiple types of learning.
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The digital age has vastly expanded people’s access to all sorts of information and resources, including educational materials. The Internet has also fostered a new culture of sharing, one in which content is freely contributed and distributed with few restrictions. Indeed, the latest evolution of the Internet, Web 2.0, is creating a new kind of participatory medium that is ideal for encouraging multiple types of learning. Web 2.0 has blurred the line between producers and consumers of content and has shifted attention from access to information toward access to other people. New kinds of online resources — social-networking sites, blogs, wikis, and virtual communities — have allowed people with common interests to meet, share ideas, and collaborate in innovative ways.
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As we all know, online (or virtual) communities are groups of people that primarily or initially interact with each other over the Internet. People who are active in the same social spaces on a regular basis will probably start to recognize other visitors after a while [Wolf, 2006]. With some of them, they will interact by sharing or exchanging information or thoughts. Communication plays an important role in everybody’s life, professionally as well as personally. Lately, the demand for efficient communication ‘tools’ has steadily increased. Most newly developed technologies have resulted from this trend. The main drivers involved are users’ mobility and their continuous need for ubiquitous communication: mobile applications make it possible to communicate whenever and wherever people want [Jaokar & Fish, 2006; Lacohée, Wakeford & Pearson, 2003].
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This paper presents the results of a study on the leverage of web 2.0 technology and open business models to expand service providers’ IMS and SDP (Service Delivery Platform) and offer new services and service composition capabilities for existing business partners such as MVNO, ISV, ASPs but also sophisticated end users, so called “prosumers”. We have collected the requirements from different users and customers which were all converging to an expansion of existing environment to offer a much more ‘internet’ like service offering : simple APIs, mix of content and communication capabilities, graphical composition tools, open portal, widgets, developer communities, easy to share, try and comment set of services, etc. Based on that, we did an evaluation of different tools and technology and defined an architecture that could meet these expectations while leveraging existing IMS-SDP environments and built a proof of concept.
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Everybody who wants to install a web server database but does not know which software is necessary and how it is installed should benefit from reading this text. This text provides all information necessary to get a SQL database for a web server going; it does not go into any detail of CGI programming, nor does it explain the SQL database language. Excellent books are available on both topics, and it is the intention of this text to provide a working platform based on which a user can then study CGI programming and SQL. For getting a small scale SQL system running (not the notorious example of a major airline booking system, or space mission management database) it will be sufficient to have the software described in this text and the documentation accompanying it. The user manual of msql (a database introduced in this text) provides sufficient information on SQL for building your own database.
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Web 2.0 – user-generated content, rich user interfaces and co-operative, dynamic services – has also brought with it a new and extremely virulent breed of ‘Malware 2.0’. A key motivation for this study is the link between Web 2.0 and the increase in ‘drive-by’ malware infections requiring no intervention or awareness on the part of the user. To give some idea of the threat posed, a Scansafe report analysing malware trends reports that risks from compromised websites increased 407% in the year to May 2008.
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The peculiar nature of services requires a multidisciplinary approach to investigate on their impact in the economic growth, to define models, to identify terminology, to describe scenarios and user profiles. The integration of several disciplines is a key point for the improvement of the Service Science capacity to find solutions and answers for services, especially for studying and designing new ICT services, the fastest growing segment within the service sector.
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