In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup - our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week - we analyze how Google CEO Eric Schmidt thinks the Web will evolve, review Hulu's latest plans to make money, investigate use cases for Google Wave, ask why VCs aren't investing in Augmented Reality, review the latest Mobile Web statistics, and more. We also check in on our two main channels: ReadWriteEnterprise(devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' trends and products) and ReadWriteStart(dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs). SponsorSubscribe to Weekly WrapupYou can subscribe to the Weekly Wrapup by RSSor by email(form below).RWW Weekly Wrap-up Email Subscription form:Web TrendsGoogle's Eric Schmidt on What the Web Will Look Like in 5 YearsGoogle CEO Eric Schmidt envisions a radically changed internet five years from now: dominated by Chinese-language and social media content, delivered over super-fast bandwidth in real time. Figuring out how to rank real-time social content is "the great challenge of the age," Schmidt said in an interview in front of thousands of CIOs and IT Directors at last week's Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Orlando 2009.Mobile Web's Explosive GrowthMobile ad firm AdMobhas revealed the dramatic changes the mobile industry has seen in their latest Mobile Metrics Report. It was only a year ago that the Motorola RAZR scored as the number one phone in America. One year later and half of the top ten are touchscreen devices, six include Wi-Fi capabilities, and six have mobile application stores. And as you would expect, this new crop of super-powered phones are making heavy use of the mobile web. Why Aren't VCs Backing Augmented Reality?Some people believe that Augmented Reality (AR), the class of technologies that place images or data on top of other views of the physical world, could be the web browser of the future. AR has rocketed out of the research labs and is catching mass market interest fast - e.g. mobile phones displaying restaurant reviews when you look through your phone's camera. Why then are VCs not investing more in Augmented Reality? Here are three reasons why we think investment in this sector has been slow so far.Facebook Announces Roadmap for DevelopersThis week Facebook published a developer roadmapoutlining upcoming relevant changes and a rough timeline for each. Changes include developer access to user emails, more prominent app displays on user profiles, all-new homepage dashboards for apps and games, and improvements to Open Graph and Analytics APIs. Read on for details and screenshots of the new faces of Facebook apps.SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORYReadWriteEnterpriseOur channel ReadWriteEnterprise, devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' and using social software inside organizations. Calendaring, Scheduling Meetings: Timebridge CEO Interview Reveals Strategic Importance of This SpaceWe have looked at Calendaring many times (such as in our round-up of 10 players). In our own work, we have started working with both Tungleand Doodle. To understand more about why this market is strategically interesting, we recently spoke with Yori Nelken, CEO of Timebridge (see our previous coverage here).ReadWriteStartOur channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.Paul Graham: Priority Access to Twitter Is Practical NecessityIf hardcore hackers had any doubts whether the real-time web was a legitimate development environment, Y Combinatorco-founder Paul Graham is dispelling them. In an interview with Graham, ReadWriteWeb learned that the entrepreneur-turned-investor issued a "Request for Startups" (RFS) asking for ideas from companies utilizing Twitterand Justin.tv's live video API. Groups who are accepted to Y-Combinator and fall under these categories will be given "priority access" to Twitter and Justin.tv. SEE MORE STARTUPS COVERAGE IN OUR READWRITESTART CHANNELWeb ProductsGoogle Wave Use Cases: EducationGoogle Waveis a much hyped new Internet-based communications and collaboration platform. It was announcedat the end of May, released as a 'Preview' productshortly after and 100,000 more invites were made availableat the end of September. Early users reported mixed feelings. But one month after Google Wave was opened to tens of thousands of people, how are people using it now? What use cases are being discovered? We started this series by looking at the education sector.What are Hulu's Mysterious Plans?Everyone is looking to Huluas the future of Internet TV. A joint venture between several major networks, Hulu delivers free, ad-supported programming via online streams - an untested model for long-term profitability, at least when it comes to television. While consumers have been enjoying the service since its launch in 2007, recent statements by a News Corp exec have people wondering: can Hulu make the ad-supported model work? Or does the company have other plans? Google Launches Music Search: Partners with MySpace, Lala, Gracenote and OthersThis week Google announced the launch of Google Music. This new service is powered by Lalaand MySpace's iLike. Other partners include Gracenote, iMeem, Pandoraand Rhapsody. Google has also partnered with the major music labels: EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music Groupand Warner Music. Through Lala and iLike, Google will also be able to feature music from a large number of independent labels.Google Search Gets Personal: Social Search Launches in Google LabsSocial Search went live in Google Labsthis week. Google announcedthat it was working on this Social Search feature at the Web 2.0 Summit last week. Social Search taps into a user's social network profiles and displays relevant links and status updates that members of a user's own social network have shared at the bottom of the default search results page. According to Google, Social Search will enhance the search experience on Google by providing users with more personally relevant search results.Brizzly Adds Facebook - Aims to be The Blogger.com of Social MediaBrizzlywants to be to microbloggingwhat Blogger.com was to bloggingfive years ago. Currently, Brizzly offers a user-friendly browser-based interface for Twitter and Facebook. The Facebook integration went live this weekand more social media applications will be added as the product evolves. Brizzly shares much of the same philosophy as Blogger. It's simple to use and aims to make microblogging easy to understand and use by a mainstream audience.Currently Brizzly is in private beta, but ReadWriteWeb has scored 2000 invites for our readers to test it out! (see the post for the code). SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORYThat's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.Discuss

  Thanks to the popularity of social networking sites like Facebookand Twitter, it's a given that malicious hackers will devise ways to exploit the sites' numerous users in order to infect their computers with malware. This unwanted software is designed to do a number of terrible things ranging from identity theft to turning computer into remote-controllable"zombie" machines. Without sufficient anti-virus and malware protection programs installed, social networking users can easily become victims to these ever-evolving attacks. However, the best way to avoid becoming a victim yourself is to be aware of what's out there and what sorts of things you should avoid. Below are the best practices which you should use on Facebook and Twitter in order to keep yourself safe. SponsorThe Problem with Malicious LinksOne of the most common vectors for attacks are malicious links posted either to Twitter or to your Facebook wall. In the past, such as with the malware known as Kooface, the troublesome links could be easily identified because they would often use a consistent phrase followed by a URL. For example, in August, Koobface was posting linksthat read "my home video :)" which was followed by a URL and then a random component on the end such as "HA-HA-HA!!", "W.O.W.", "WOW", "L.O.L.", "LOL", ";)" or "OMFG!!!"Although the end piece changed from tweet to tweet, the message itself remained the same. However, security researcher Costin Raiu of Kaspersky Lab tells us that easy-to-identify messages are not as common anymore. Today, it's much harder to identify malicious links thanks to two newer techniques being used by hackers. Below those two newer methods are described in more detail as is the tried-and-true method of spreading malware via email. Method 1: Hijacking Twitter's Trending TopicsThe first technique, which really became popular in August of this year, involves hackers creating Twitter new accounts and then posting messages related to whatever trending, or "hot," topic was being heavily discussed on Twitter at that time. This would allow the post to be aggregated in Twitter search results where unsuspecting users would click on the included link. The text accompanying the link would be intriguing to those interested in the subject, enticing them to click through. Method 2: Hijacking Legitimate AccountsThe second technique involves infiltrating legitimate accounts through phishing attempts and other methods so that the hacker essentially has control over a "real" account. After control has been established, if on Twitter, the hacker will then tweet out links that redirect users to malware-infected sites. Because the tweets come from an account that already has an established set of followers, those reading the tweets assume it's safe and don't hesitate to click the links. After infecting the account of a Facebook user, malware often uses that particular person's account to spread, too. As with the malicious links on Twitter, because it appears that the links posted are from a trusted friend, other users don't realize that the posted link is harmful. On Facebook, one of the most problematic malware programs is Koobface, a particular type of malicious software that sees 20 to 30 new variations per day. Despite the number of variants out there, Koobface's M.O. is relatively consistent: it tricks people into clicking links. These links appear on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but also on MySpace, hi5, Bebo, Friendster, and others. Method 3: Dangerous EmailA third method to encourage social networking users to click on infected links is the old but still effective technique of sending out spoofed email. Hackers can create email messages that appear to be sent from a social networking site. The messages prompt you to "update your account" or open an attachment containing your new password among other things. Image Credit: Last WatchdogAlthough many users are now wary of email, these techniques are still being seen in the wild, so it's clear that to some extent they still work. How To Stay SafeThere are a number of best practices that you should follow in order to stay safe and avoid infection. They are as follows:Don't assume a link is "safe" because it's from a friend:As noted above, your friend's account may be infected. You should never assume that a link is safe just because a friend tweeted it or posted it to your wall. Use your common sense. If it doesn't sound like something they would say, be wary, don't click. If you're unsure, try to contact them through another channel and see if the link is legit. Don't assume Twitter links are safe because Twitter is now scanning for malware:In August, Twitter partnered with Googleto use Google's Safe Browsing API, a technology that checks URLs against Google's blacklist. This prevents spammers from posting malicious URLs to Twitter, but it does NOT prevent them from posting shortened URLs which direct users to those same malicious sites. It's better than no protection at all, but it's not going to keep you entirely safe.Don't Assume Bit.ly Links are Safe:Earlier this year, Twitter's default URL-shortening service Bit.ly, began warning users of malware. Bit.ly also uses Google's Safe Browsing API along with two other blacklists to identify malicious links. Although the service doesn't prevent users from posting these links, it will warn upon clicking that the site being linked to is infected. However, as Raiu tells us, this is not 100% effective either. Kaspersky has identified a number of malicious links which Bit.ly did not block. However, you can assume that Bit.ly is generally safer than the other URL-shortening services because it uses this technology and because the hackers are generally avoiding this service at the moment because of its built-in protection. But it is not completely safe - nothing ever is. Use an up-to-date web browser:Kaspersky recommends using the latest version of your web browser and keeping it up-to-date with the necessary patches. That means Internet Explorer users should be on IE8 - and since this browser is attacked the most, it's critical that you make sure it stays updated as needed. Firefox is the second most attacked browser, but fortunately, it has a self-updating feature built in. Google Chrome is also good because it has a self-updating feature as well as another security feature that runs plugins in "sandboxes," or restricted environments. If an attacker was able to exploit the browser and run malicious code, it would be isolated to this sandbox and would not able to effect the entire machine. Opera and Safari are also good browsers and should be kept current, too. Keep Windows up-to-date:As always, Windows users should make sure their systems are current with the latest patches from Microsoft. Automatic updates should be turned on. Keep Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash up-to-date: At the moment, Adobe Reader and Flash are the two most targeted programs by hackers. A lot of malware specifically goes after known vulnerabilities within Adobe's software. In addition, a common method of attack, such as that used by Koobface, is to redirect a victim to a malware-infested site where the user is prompted to update theirFlash player or Adobe Reader in order to see the website content. NEVER do this. Always go to Adobe's site on your own to download the latest version or update the software on your computer using its own built-in update mechanisms. Don't assume you're safe because you use a Mac:While it's true that Mac users are less targeted than Windows users, they are not immune to malware, despite what those commercials may say. Although Apple did include some malware protection in their latest operating system, it only protects users from two trojans; you cannot count on it alone to protect you. There are a couple of hundredof trojans currently in the wild that specifically target Mac machines, according to Kaspersky. In fact, there may even be as many as a thousand, but researchers are unable to identify all of them because Mac users don't typically run anti-virus software which is how much of the data is collected. These days, when a user clicks an infected link, the malicious web page will now sometimes identify whether that user is coming from a Windows or Mac machine and then display the appropriate version of the trojan accordingly. A particular family of trojans known as "DNS Changer" trojans are the most common ones used to attack Mac machines. The only way to really be sure that you're protected against these malicious programs is to run anti-malware software on your Mac, but most Mac users won't do so, preferring to take their chances since their risk is lower. Be wary of email messages from social networks:Because email addresses can be "spoofed" by hackers, you can't assume that an email from Facebook or Twitter is reallyfrom those the site it claims to be from. As always, you should never open attachments you were not expecting to receive and you should be wary of clicking on links - especially if you're being told to "update your account." If you do click on a link and are taken to a web page that asks you to log into the site, DON'T DO IT. It would be handing over your password to the hackers. Instead, you should always access the sites directly by typing in their URL in your browser or clicking a saved link in your Favorites. It's Not Just a Matter of Common Sense AnymoreAs the above best practices show, a lot of the things you can do to protect yourself from malware are the same as they have been in the past - keep your computer and browser up-to-date, don't open attachments, etc. However, malware is trickier to identify these days thanks to social networking sites. It now uses the trusted identities of your friends in order to lull its victims into a false sense of safety. You can no longer simply assume that because someone you know posted a link, it's automatically safe. You can't even assume that the networks themselves are safe, either. They're not always scanned for malware-laden links, and when they are, such as is the case with Twitter, it's not a 100% effective method. Security researchers are actively working on better ways to fight this problem - for example, Kaspersky just announced their "Krab Krawler" project which will help keep their blacklists current by scanning for malicious links on Twitter, but it's not a tool that end-users can download to protect themselves; it's only one of many methods that security firms use to collect data about the malware on the internet. The best way to stay safe is to follow through with all the best practices - not just one or two. Malware isn't ever going away, so everyone must do their own part in order to stay safe on the web. Discuss

  It's one day before Halloween and while other bloggers are writing about horror movies and costumes, I honestly can't think of anything more scary than the thought of myself attempting to raise a baby. ReadWriteWeb's own Sarah Perezis about to boldly go where many women have gone before. As a tribute to her bravery and baby bump we're doing a roundup of baby gift registries:Sponsor1. Kaboodle: This service offers parents-to-be a drag and drop interface for users to create their registries. Some of the featured stores within the site include Sears, Costco and BabyStyle. While a number of registries only offer toys and clothing, this site is great because it allows users to choose from a variety of items that they actually need. After creating your Wish List you can also share it via Facebook and Twitter. 2. The Bump: Brought to you by wedding network The Knot, The Bump is a baby registry where users can direct friends to their complete list of baby registries. Some of the available stores include Pottery Barn Kids, Baby and Child Restoration Hardware and Target. While the service is a great idea in theory, it could be improved if registration info was carried across sites.3. Amazon Baby: Amazon offers parents an easy registry tool and the fantastic thing is that most friends and family members can skip the credit card form as they've already got accounts. If you're worried that your friends will give your kid something impractical or dangerous, you may want to direct them to the baby buying guides.4. Babies R Us: Although a sub-site of Toys R Us, Babies R Us allows parents to register for practical items as well. The site offers a variety of strollers, car seats, cribs and pacifier sterilizers to choose from. The great thing about this site is that there is a wide selection of organic and natural products including warmers for BPA-free bottles and organic cotton washcloths. 5. Giggle: Some of the items on this list include high-end products like the Babycook BPA-free Cuisinart-style baby food maker and more affordable products like milk freezer packs. This service allows expecting parents to search for their favorite items or add items based on those that are most popular within the community. One of the nice things about this site is that parents can add items using an "add to registry" browser button. Photo Credit: Joel SchlabotnikDiscuss

  We see so many different collaboration tools that at times if feels like we are looking at the same environment over and over again.Proton Mediais entirely different. It is the most advanced collaboration environment we have seen in the market. We say this without hesitation.SponsorThe team at Proton have created a virtual world that includes application sharing; collaboration with 2D and 3D environments; video; 3D avatars; chat; VOIP; simulated environments and a social network that leverages the knowledge of the different users. Customers may pick from a variety of templates to pick their corporate worlds. They may get people together in a virtual conference room to do game shows for teaching purposes. British Petroleum has used Proton's environment to replace an annual event they did in Chicago every year. Previously, 3,000 people would fly in to Chicago for leadership training. Now they use Proton Media's technology to do the training over a five to six week period.Proton Media is a true social application that transcends the two-dimensional aspects of most social technologies. This is not to say that it necessarily replaces existing applications. But it has proven to be a replacement for web conferencing environments which have historically been defined as collaboration applications.We see three tiers to the collaboration space. All have merit and fit with the enterprise in a host of different ways.The first tier are the wiki-style players that evolved out of the time when portals ruled the corporate sphere. They may include an activity stream but are dominated by their roots in the wiki world. In the second tier are the profile-based and activity stream based applications that come right out of the Facebook age. Proton Media represents the third tier. It is an "always on," environment with virtual presence that integrates a whole array of social features and different forms of media. It has applications in such areas as e-learning, communications, knowledge transfer.Is it too much for most companies? Perhaps but the familiarity with 3D environments does give people comfort.In a demo today, CEO Ron Burns showed a place in the virtual world or "protosphere," where we could view the way a heart works to better illustrate the effects that diabetes has on people.In another part of the tour, he showed how a customer support center works in a 3D world. The avatars sit at desks where they are answering customer service calls via VOIP. Each person sits in a zone that is marked by a circle. In the circle, a manager can listen to the customer support call. Outside the circle, people may converse but the conversation is not heard by the people doing customer.We collaborated on a spreadsheet. If we were using Sharepoint, the document would would appear in the 3D world on what Proton calls "carousels." It would also be updated from within the Sharepoint folder. If we wanted to talk outside the medium of an avatar, we could have turned on our webcams in a live, video format within a 3D environment.Proton Media is an animated collaboration environment without all the fantasy trappings of an environment like Second Life. In Second Life, you meet dancing lions as often as beautiful women with long tiger tails. In the protosphere, it's perhaps not as colorful but it suits the corporate world. Discuss

  Few companies put as much effort into customer service as they do into member acquisition. However, in order to retain members, community-driven startups need to be conscious of the entire customer experience. No stranger to support techniques, Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane spends most of his time perfecting the end-user experience for his clients. Best known for its web-based help desk services, Zendesk launched in 2008 and even then ReadWriteWeb gave the company a favorable review. In 2009, Zendesk continues to establish itself as a great alternative to the traditional call center experience. Svane offers some helpful tips for our ReadWriteStart readers. SponsorSays Svane, "The good news for businesses starting out today is that the web offers a whole host of easy, affordable tools that can help to ensure businesses have a meaningful dialogue [with their customers]." Some of those tools include: 1. Web-hosted Solutions: Rather than investing in an in-house legacy customer support service, Svane advises startups to consider a web-based help desk product to eliminate any headaches associated with security, scalability, and ongoing maintenance. Says Svane, "Keep the human touch in-house but outsource the infrastructure." In addition to Zendesk, companies can look at services like Openbravofor web-based support. 2. Crowdsource Solutions:In addition to a Frequently Asked Questions page, consider incorporating a discussion forum or dialogue tool into your website. These tools allow customers with questions to interact with your best advocates. In addition to Zendesk's forum tool, companies can also look to Get Satisfaction, FixYaor Leforafor help. 3. Social Media:When your customers or ex-customers are going to complain about your company, they'll often do it via Twitter or Facebook. Take advantage of these tools and use them to keep a positive conversation going. Having a dedicated staff person that interacts with customers to answer their urgent questions on Twitter shows how responsive and committed a company is to its customers.Discuss

  Twitter Lists have rolled out to a majority of users on the site now and the uptake has been remarkable. Things will get truly interesting when lists can by turned into columns in 3rd party clients like Tweetdeckand Seesmic(one small client says it's shipped list supportalready and Tweetdeck says it's coming soon), when you can share items with particular lists exclusively (like you can on Facebook) and when you can search inside particular lists. Anyone who's worked with OPML files before is likely to find Twitter lists frustrating so far.tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/best_twitter_lists.php';tweetmeme_source = 'rww';Let's operate under the assumption that Twitter's own implementation of lists will be overshadowed by more useful implementations of the lists API. In order to help you get ready for that future, here are ten lists we think particularly worth following.SponsorTwitter Lists are exciting because curation of dynamic sources is exciting. This is a particularly accessible way to do what syndication geeks have been thrilled by for years.Here are some of our favorite curated lists we've found so far. We offer some description of these lists based on what we know about their creators and the short titles the lists have been given. The fact that Twitter doesn't offer a field to describe lists makes me wonder who they talked to when building the feature. (Turns out this is coming next week.) A lot of things make me wonder that, in fact. We've said before that groups are the secret weapon of the social weband we're excited to see this feature go live. Hopefully it will become more awesome with time.Here are 10 cool lists we suggest you follow. We found most of these lists by thinking of awesome people on Twitter, then seeing what lists they are on. Patrick LaForge's "Linkers" LaForge is an Editor at the New York Times and finds great links to share all the time. These are some of the people he finds them from. Josh Elman's Awesome SocialJosh Elman recently jumped ship from working at Facebook to working at Twitter. Silicon Valley super-geeks took notice, because Elman is a smart and connected guy. Here's a nice big list of people he created that you should know if you're interested in the social web.Robert Scoble's FoundersYou want to see curation taken seriously? Watch Robert Scoble, any day of the week. Scoble has built out more great lists than you can shake a stick atand this one is a favorite of ours. It's a list of company founders on Twitter. Strange beasts, these are, but good to pay attention to.Rebecca Leaman's Nonprofit GeeksRebecca Leaman works at WildApricotand she's created a great list of geeks focused on social good, nonprofit tech folks. These people should be on your radar.Chris Grayson's Augmented Reality PeepsWe like Augmented Reality and so does Chris Grayson, a New York City mobile marketing consultant. He's put together a nice long list of people working in AR. If you get to know these people now, you'll probably be glad you did later.Mike Taylor's XMPP ListMike Taylor, also known as Bear, does XMPP work at Seesmic. His XMPP list is a nice collection of real-time web developers, without bandwagon-jumping marketing types. Looking for early hints about where the real-time web is going? This list is one place we're watching.Raven Zachary's iPhone ListRaven Zachary is the founder of Small Society, an absurdly hot iPhone dev shop in Portland, Oregon. Raven is curating a giant list of all the people working on the iPhone that he can find. We'd love to see his list of just must-read iPhone folks, but this list is pretty cool too.Christina Braden's Disability ListChristina Braden goes by the handle @advocate4alland her bio reads: "There will never be justice in the world until those who are not harmed are as indignant as those who are." Hell, yeah. If you want to read biting, insightful critiques of social injustices, a list of disability rights activists is a great place to find them.Ben Turner's Anthropology ListBen Turner is a renaissance man with a pretentious Twitter handle (@xeus) but his Anthropology list is an awesome collection of people studying digital culture.The ReadWriteWeb Team ListCharming, intelligent, attractive and humble - the ReadWriteWeb team is a great source of news and analysis about bleeding edge trends and developments online. We'd love it if you'd follow us on Twitter and engage with us in conversation.Those are some of our favorite lists. Have you spotted (or built) any red-hot lists we should be sure to know about as well? Let us know in comments. Listoriousis a directory of lists, but isn't it more fun to see lists of lists from people you know and trust? Both have their place - hopefully this is just the beginning of a new period of Twitter fun.Discuss

  Microsoft just updatedBing's mobile interface. The new interface features tabs and is optimized for high-resolution touch-screen devices like the iPhone or Microsoft's own Zune HD. The earlier version of Bing Mobile worked reasonably well, but the interface was rather generic. The new version, on the other hand, makes good use of the iPhone's touch screen when searching for movies, for example. Bing now shows a list of movie posters that you can scroll through with a sideways swipe.SponsorNew Features: NFL Updates & Flight SearchThe Bing team also added a few new features to the generic mobile search. Users can now search for NFL teams and players and get real-time updates about games, stats and scores while a game is on. This feature is only available in the U.S.In addition, Bing has implemented a flight search feature. You can now type in the airline code and flight number and Bing will return the latest gate information and departure and arrival times.But Will Anybody Use It?The new mobile interface for the iPhone and similar devices looks a lot better than the earlier version and is also more usable. Given that users can only switch between Google and Yahoo as their default search providers on the iPhone, however, it's questionable how many iPhone users will actually use Bing's mobile search.Discuss

  According to The Next Web, the Google Waveteam is getting ready to open up its servers for federation. This announcement may come as early as today.The Google Wave we see today is only one part of what Wave is all about. Wave is also an open protocolthat allows different Wave providers to run their own Wave servers. These are notjust stand-alone Wave servers for internal use in a company, however. This protocol gives Wave providers the ability to exchange messages between different servers that are running Wave-based services, just like different email providers can pass emails back and forth thanks to standardized email protocols. SponsorUpdate: A Google spokesperson just told us that the company will have more news about the launch of the Wave federation program early next week - not today.What The Google Wave Federation Looks LikeThe Wave team likes to compareWave to email - and just like email, Wave users will be able to exchange messages and share waves with Wave users on different servers. Right now, Google is the only Wave provider on the market. This will soon change. Wave providers will be able to use the Wave federation protocol to share updates and users only have to know the other users' wave address. A wave address looks just like an email address: <username>@<domain>.To reach its potential as a ubiquitous new means for real-time communication, Wave has to be open and available to as many users as possible. If Wave only existed in Google's silo, it wouldn't be very interesting.If you are interested in the technical background, Google offers a very readable White Paper about the Google Wave federation architecture.  What Does This Mean for Users?Because it's a federated protocol, you could soon run your own Wave server. No pre-packaged distributions that would allow a user or company to set up a Wave server exist at this point, but it's only a matter of time before these will arrive. Hopefully, some of these will also experiment with alternative user interfaces that will extend the functionality of Wave beyond Google's current implementation.Companies will be able to host their own Wave servers and use them to communicate internally or with clients who run their own Wave servers. Many enterprise companies are still worried about storing their data in a hosted environment. If Google wants to make Wave palatable for this market, these companies need to have the ability to control their data and customize the experience for their employees. For our thoughts about Google Wave use cases, also see our posts about Wave in educationand arts and filmmaking.Discuss

  Microblogging clients, media players, news tickers and more built on Adobe's popular Rich Internet App framework AIRwill soon become a lot more powerful and efficient.Version 2.0 of AIR will hit Adobe Labs later this year and be available for everyone in the first half of 2010, the company said this week. A good list of new features were blogged about by Adobe's Christian Cantrell yesterdayand below are a few of our favorites.SponsorAIR has a whole lot of potentialbut a number of shortcomings have mitigated the impact it's made to date, especially the fact that AIR apps tend to be memory hogs. To see what kinds of apps are being built in AIR, check out the now mothballed but still useful 3rd party site RefreshingAppsor the official Adobe AIR showcase.Here's what we can look forward to for AIR 2.0.Multitouch and GesturesMac users with multitouch hardware can already perform multitouch actions in AIR apps today, but this feature will be available for Windows users in the next version of AIR. Both Windows 7 and Mac users will get new support for gestures like press and tap, pan, zoom, swipe and rotate.Think the design-savvy developers of the AIR world can come up with some awesome things to do with these new gestures? We suspect they will.Local Audio Encoding"Access audio data directly from the microphone," Cantrell writes, "You used to have to send the data to a server and access it from there, but now you can do it entirely on the client." With this increase in efficiency, we expect to see more AIR apps utilize audio. An AIR podcast recording app? That's an obvious idea, we'll see what else people come up with.Improved Memory UseAIR apps are memory expensive, that's probably the single biggest complaint about them. Cantrell says that AIR 2.0 will have lower CPU utilization when idle and lower memory consumption in general. That's great news. If Adobe can really pull this off and make dramatic cuts to AIR's memory requirement then AIR apps are going to see a big increase in adoption.The New York Times for example, one of the most new-media capable old-school institutions in the US, recently asked its staff to stop using the AIR app Tweetdeckbecause it's such a memory hog. That's probably one of the reasons why Times staff appears to be posting to Twitter less these days.AIR apps can offer a compelling user experience outside the browser but across computing platforms. We've had high hopes for AIR for a long time. These and other improvementscould help AIR deliver on more of that promise. Hopefully 2.0 won't be too long in coming.See Also: 10 Adobe AIR Apps Bloggers Will LoveDiscuss

  According to a post on Google's Webmaster Central blog, Google is now discovering web sites by automatically scanning RSS and Atom feeds. This new process will help Google more quickly identify web pages and will allow users to find new content in search results as soon as it goes live. While not exactly "real-time," using feeds to identify updates to websites is an arguably faster method than the traditional crawling techniques Google has used in the past. And Google may get even fasterin the near future - the post also notes that the company may soon explore using mechanisms like the real-time protocol PubSubHubbubto identify updated items going forward. SponsorThe blog post doesn't say whether or not RSS and Atom discovery is displacing traditional web crawling for sites that are feed-enabled, but it's likely that, if given the choice, Google will opt for the faster method if available. As Vanessa Fox notes on the SearchEngineLand blog, since it's unknown at this time whether Google is using the feeds in place of traditional web crawling, it may make sense to use full feeds rather than partial ones in order to get your content indexed faster by Google's search engine. Real-Time Web Crawling in the Future?Although only briefly mentioned in the post, Google hinted that they may begin looking into other mechanisms such as PubSubHubbub, an open protocol that provides near-instant notifications of change updates. No further details were provided beyond the one sentence, but the announcement clearly shows that Google has seen the writing on the wall and knows that the real-time web is the future. This is one trend the company isn't planning to ignore.The real-time web, heavily influenced by the speed of Twitter and other other rapid-fire social networking updates, has created a desire among internet users for faster access to information. This desire has, in turn, led to the creation of new real-time protocols such as the above mentioned PubSubHubbuband its counterpart RSSCloud. If Google began to use these technologies for scanning the web, their search results wouldn't just be updated faster- they would be updated in real-time. That means information would become available in the search results listings as soon as it was published to the web. That, of course, would lead to a whole new series of challenges for the search engine - most notably, how to rank the real-time results? Given that Google's search algorithm has been built on top of the concept of PageRank, a way to determine the relevance of a website by what other sites link to it, ranking search results that are so fresh that there is an absence of links could prove a difficult feat. However, Google is already doing this to some extent now. Over time, the PageRank algorithm has evolved and can now reward sites with fresher, more fitting content and rank them higher than sites with more links on some occasions. And if anyone can figure out the proper algorithm for mixing in real-time content and ranking it appropriately along with static pages, it's got to be Google. In fact, we'll probably soon see exactly how they plan on addressing this issue, when they incorporate Twitter search resultsinto their index, as announced last week. ...But Until Then, Google Delivering Faster, Fresher Results InsteadAlthough the PubSubHubbub mention may have been the most exiting part of the announcement, real-time search results aren't here just yet. In the meantime, we have to just be content with sped upresults instead. The post advises website owners who are blocking Google's search bot software known as Googlebot from crawling their RSS/Atom feeds to unblock it via their robots.txt file. If unsure, webmasters can test their feed URLs with the robots.txt tester in Google Webmaster Tools, as the post recommends. Discuss

  Yesterday we looked at how Google Wave(a new product that is part email, part IM, part something entirely new) is being used as an educational tool. In this post we explore if and how Wave is being used by the artistic community. This topic was suggested by Cory Huff, tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_wave_use_cases_arts_filmmaking.php';tweetmeme_source = 'rww';a commenter on the first post, who noted: "I've been looking for artists to Wave with, as I think artistic collaboration has some possibilities." We discovered that there is excitement about the potential for artistic collaboration using Wave. However the level of actual collaboration activity is still very low. Here's what we found...SponsorWave & The ArtsWe saw in yesterday's post that Wave is being used by educators mostly as a real-time collaborative note-taking tool. For artists, there is similar potential to use Wave as a collaborative creative tool. Cory Huff suggesteda real time painting app that allows visual artists to work together on a new project, or an event planning tool for Art events.Right now, there doesn't appear to be much artistic activity on Wave. The closest we could find was a public wave called 'Artists Wave,' created by Fernando Fonseca and others. That wave lists some videos, pictures and music works - which at least shows off Wave's multimedia features. However there was little evidence of collaboration, for example more than one person creating a new piece of art.Wave & FilmmakingThere was more activity in Wave around filmmaking. Jonathan Poritsky wrote a postback in June outlining his thoughts on how Wave could streamline the movie-making process - specifically, post production workflows. He's now made that post into a wave called 'Google Wave for Filmmakers: Wave Edition.' The following chart depicts how Poritsky conceptually sees Wave being used in filmmaking. In a nutshell, all of the participants in the filmmaking process would use Wave to collaborate. In Poritsky's words, "every job and step passes through the wave." Poritsky admits that "not all of this is possible yet," because it requires faster computers and network technology to process such large video files in real-time. However he says that "the basic precepts of digital editing could actually be done over a network today."Ultimately Poritsky is bullish on using Wave in filmmaking because "cinema is a collaborative art form." He cites the huge credits list at the end of every movie as proof of that.Sanctuary: Short Film Using WaveAn early example of a filmmaking wave is a short film called Sanctuary. Their wave is entitled 'Sanctuary - remixable film - dev wave.'Sanctuary is a "re-mixable Science fiction film"directed by Michela Ledwidge. It's been in production for a number of years, due to budget issues. The film is currently in post-production and Ledwidge is attempting to use Wave to assist with that process. Wave has a couple of geeky features that may be used by the Sanctuary team. One is 'gadgets,' which are add-ons similar to the mini web applications you can install in your Firefox browser. Sanctuary is looking for two gadgets: a Shot tracker UI and a "Production lingo translator."Another feature of Wave is 'robots.' These are automated participants on a wave. A robot, according to Google, "can read the contents of a wave in which it participates, modify the wave's contents, add or remove participants, and create new blips and new waves." Sanctuary is looking for the following two robots: an "AI character bot" and a "trac notifications integration" (to show different shots from the movie).As of now, the Sanctuary wave doesn't have much collaboration around the actual film in it - but this may change if the desired gadgets and robots get developed and deployed.ConclusionIt's clearly early days for the artistic community in Wave. There's a fair bit of discussion on possible uses for Wave, mostly around collaborating on artistic projects. But not much actualcollaboration on projects happening yet.Filmmaking appears to be the most likely to gain traction in the short-medium term. So we'll check back on progress in 6-12 months.Discuss

  The French Government's public finance department will switch 130,000 desktop PC's to Mozilla'semail and calendar applications.Mozilla's Thunderbird email service, Lightning Calendar and an open-source groupware will replace IBM Lotus Notes and Microsoft Office.The move signals how more government agencies from around the world are dropping enterprise accounts with major vendors to cut down on costs and get better license agreements.They are turning to open-source providers and companies like Google that can offer email and services such as Google Docs.Sponsor01net, a French IT news site, originally broke the news about the Mozilla win. The decision to go with Mozilla came after the Directorate General of Public Finance (DGPF) merged with the Directorate General of Taxes (DGI) and the Directorate General of Public Accountancy (DGCP). Each has their own email and licenses for Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook.The merger provided the opportunity to save money and better manage the licenses.OBM is the other player in this story. Linagora makes the open-source groupware that will be used by DGPF.The tax authority is one of several French agencies using OBM. More than 600,000 French employees use the application.The French Government's decision to go open-source follows the city of Los Angelesdecision this week to adopt Google Appsover Microsoft. Again, the win has almost everything to do with cost. The city will pay $7.25 million for the service.About 30,000 city employees will use Gmail and have access to Google Docs.Discuss

  Almost every TV channel offers some programming on the Web these days. Epix, a new premium movie channel that will launch this weekend, goes a step further. If you are a Verizon FiOS subscriber, you will be able to watchthe same movies that Epix shows on TV on the channel's Internet site. Epix is a joint venture between Viacom, MGM Studios and Lionsgate. If you are not a FiOS subscriber, you can still take a peek at the service. You can request a three-day pass hereor read on for instructions on how to claim a 30-day pass.SponsorWhile only FiOS subscribers can currently access the programming on Epix's site, the channel's chief digital officer Emil Rensing today told us that the company is actively pursuing deals with other Internet and cable providers as well. The company, though, isn't ready to make any announcements about these partnerships, yet.We got a chance to test the web site over the last week and the site, which will feature an exclusive Madonna concert to celebrate the launch this weekend, feels very similar to Hulu - just with a different kind of content. It's completely Flash-based, so users won't have to install any new plugins to use the service. This, Emil Rensing stressed when we talked to him today, was done on purpose to make the user experience frictionless. The quality of the videos on the site, which scales up to 720p HD depending on your connection's speed, is exceptionally good. A user needs to have at least a 500kbps connection, though this shouldn't be an issue for FiOS subscribers who are watching at home. The site currently features about 300 movies, including relatively recent releases like Iron Man and the latest Indiana Jones movie. Rensing told us that he expects to be able to offer over 3000 movies by the end of next year. Because of Epix's close connection to various movie studies, the site will be able to feature movies about 9 months after their theatrical release. Most premium channels like HBO have to wait about a year before they can show a movie.More Than Just Movies: Extras &SharingIf Epix was only a premium movie channel on the web, it would be interesting in its own right. The site, however, also offers a number of interesting additional features.Epix, for example, features DVD-like extras like interviews and behind-the-scenes specials for almost every movie. Right now, most of these are produced by the studios, but Epix will add more original programming over time.Another feature is the sites 'watch with a friend' functionality. This allows users to watch a movie together with up to 5 friends, no matter if they are FiOS subscribers or not. The host remains in full control over the video playback and can start and stop the video at any time. As Rensing told us, Epix wants to recreate the feeling of inviting your friends over to your house, so it doesn't care if your friends subscribe to the same channels you do. Get Your Invites (Even if You Don't Have FiOS)If you are interested in giving Epix a try, you can request an invite for a three-day pass here. These will be distributed on a first come, first serve basis. Epix also provided us with 180 30-day VIP passes. If you want to claim one of these, you have to follow these instructions:follow @epixHD on Twittertweet "@epixHD Experience Epix #readwriteweb"Discuss

  At today's Unite Conference, game dev platform provider Unity Technologiesannounced it will be releasing the latest build of its Unity Platform and making a previous version available at the low, low price of free.All platforms allow developers to create games for PCs, Macs, Nintendo Wiis, and iPhones. The free version, formerly known as Unity Indie, was previously priced at $199. Broke and/or stingy devs are welcomed to download the platform here. The pro version of Unity's platform will continue to sell for around $1,500.SponsorThe Unity platform is used in games such as EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online, LEGO's Tthe Quest for R2D2, and Cartoon Network's FusionFall. Since the company's release of an iPhone game dev platform earlier this year, more than 325 games have been built with the Unity engine. These games include Zombieville USA, one of the top 10 best-selling iPhone games.In a statement released today, CEO David Helgason said, "With the explosive growth in new platforms and performance improvement in our Unity suite of products, we believe that there are no technical hurdles remaining for high quality interactive content everywhere."Now we are removing financial hurdles as well. Unity is mature enough and easy enough to use that it can be the entry point for those developers taking their first steps with the technology."With the 2.6 release of the platform, Unity provides full support for external versioning tools such as Subversion, Perforce, or any other version control system. Unity has also added Visual Studio integration and can automatically sync a VS project to source code so all scripts are in the solution and IntelliSense is configured.Discuss