More on the Knowledge Network

Microsoft Knowledge Network Blog: Dispelling the Myths

Web 2.0: I Told You So

Chris Pirillo: "Your favorite “Web 2.0″ (the ethereal movement) applications are still walled gardens – to the nth degree. Web 2.0, the conference, belongs to O’Reilly and CMP. Web 2.0, the ethereal movement, doesn’t exist."

I like some of the ideas affiliated with Web 2.0 although not so much the term. Chris is right now- the Web 2.0 apps are shinier versions of the old stuff with some crufty data feeds and hacked up integration points. Certainly not too much to crow about, and certainly not a real industry movement (from a technology perspective that is).

PC World’s Top 100 products? Ummm, I don’t think so.

PC World has posted a list of the "100 best products of the year" which includes various technologies including hardware, software, and other services. The list is junk- plain and simple. Here are a few examples:

• The Xbox 360 is #89 on the list. Quick- can you think of 88 products that are more interesting than the Xbox 360? No? How about 25? Maybe 10? I challenge anyone to come up with a compelling list of products that are more interesting, exciting, and innovative than Xbox. There are a few on that list that are worthy, but certainly not 88.
• YouTube.com is listed in the top 10. Why not Buzznet? Why not Google Video? Color me unimpressed with this selection.
• Engadget is #13. C'mon people. I like Engadget too but it is no more a product than my blog is. And since I didn't make the list, I'm complaining.

In short, the list stinks. PC World needs to go back to the drawing board on this one and come up with a real list.

SharePoint v2 vs. v3- Major Productivity Improvements

Lonnie's Blog: "The Sharepoint 2007 feature goal was a 2 deep task mentality, which essentially means that any task performed within Sharepoint 2007 should be accessible with just 2 clicks.  Believe me, after seeing the deep hierarchy and confusion in understanding administrative tasks in Sharepoint V2, this is a major time saver."

I'm hoping that we'll release some of the recent SharePoint conference content to the Internet so people can see how interesting this product really is. I'm giving a few demos of it to friends and colleagues this month and can't wait to hear their feedback as well.

Share Your OPML needs more users

Michael Arrington: "SYO (Share Your OPML) needs more users. My guess is a few thousand have already uploaded their reading lists, but it will take a lot more before the data is really reflective of what most people are reading. To do this, SYO needs to add more value than it currently does for users."

I think that in order for the service to become truly valuable, there do need to be many more users. I wonder if it would make sense to partner with some of the larger aggregators such as Bloglines or NewsGator to allow people to more easily opt-in to sharing their feeds? Not sure about the business implications, but it would grow the database rather quickly.