JS-KitCEO Khris Loux sees the Internet as a digital brain, a network of nodes and synapses firing signals through pathways in relays of ever-increasing speed and intelligence.At the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit, he talked to us about how the synaptic web, as he calls it, relies on real-time communication and distributed networking to tie together our communal body of online knowledge. In this interview, Loux talks about the new school of online reputation management, the essence of distributed social networks, and how the synaptic web shapes and heals itself as users collectively contribute to the dataset.SponsorDiscuss

  Google Website Optimizer, a powerful tool that allows website owners to split traffic and test the effectiveness and conversion rates for an array of variables, has traditionally required a lot of back-and-forth between any given site and the Website Optimizer interface.With the release of a new API, announcedtoday, Google is allowing site owners to conduct multivariate and A/B testing from their own platforms. Part of Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer (GWO) is a free tool that "handles splitting a website's traffic, serving different variations and crunching the numbers to find statistical significance." For site owners, these minute variations can widen conversion funnels and lead to exponentially greater engagement and profit if changes are executed correctly.SponsorFor an overview of how GWO and A/B or multivariate testing work, take a look at this Google-produced video explaining the product and the process:According to a post by Googlers Gary KaÄ�marÄ�ík and Erika Rice Scherpelz, "Creating experiments with Website Optimizer usually involves a lot of back and forth between your website and the Website Optimizer interface. Using the API, you can integrate Website Optimizer into your platform. In short, you can create and launch experiments from whatever tool you use to edit your site."The GWO API does not provide access to testing results. To see the experiment results, users must visit the experiment report page.In addition to simplifying the site optimization process, the API might also make it simpler for companies to conduct in-house testing, reducing both the cost and time of optimization. Site owners and others can register for the GWO API webinar, which will take place on October 28th at 10 a.m. PDT. During the webinar, Website Optimizer engineers will walk users through how the API works, and two platforms that have already integrated GWO using the API will demonstrate their products.Discuss

  In my last workplace, ordering food for the group was always a dreaded task. Regardless of how much you enjoy the company of your colleagues, there's always someone with a nut allergy, someone who wants their dressing on the side and someone who is quite simply, a pain in the butt. Best known for its web-to-door food delivery service, DiningInjust launched a group ordering feature. Rather than having to painstakingly record your staff's food preferences, users create an Evite-like invitation and give others carte blanche to fuss over their orders. SponsorDiningIn's guest service is available in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia and Denver. The company offers users a chance to create an event and set a delivery time at least 90 minutes in advance of an order. Hosts then choose menus from local restaurants and national chains including California Pizza Kitchen and The Cheesecake Factory. One of the unique features of the site includes the ability to set a spending limit on a per guest basis or a "guests pay" option on individual meals. After the parameters of the event have been set, guest receive their invitations with the terms of payment built directly into the invite. Although the dining selections for this service are currently limited, the convenience and flow of this site is phenomenal. In addition to the group ordering feature, DiningIn offers users online catering, a la carte orders and a meal concierge dial-in service for corporate customers. While companies like GrubHuband Foodleroffer similar delivery services, only DiningIn allows users to avoid the order-by-committee scenario. To test the service visit Diningin.com.Discuss

  Every year at the Web 2.0 SummitMorgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker does a fast and in-depth presentation of internet trends. The report is available here.Once again mobile is a big trend this year, with Apple's market share expected to "Surprise on Upside Near-Term."Overall the key message was that financial markets have rebounded now; and that technology is "relatively impressive."SponsorHere are some highlights from Meeker's high octane presentation:Discuss

  We're at the 6th annual Web 2.0 conference, now known as the Web 2.0 Summit. John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly opened the event. O'Reilly spoke about being at another transition point for the Web. They have termed this "web squared", a.k.a. "web meets world." O'Reilly said that in the current era "we're starting to instrument the world." He referenced a quote from VC Fred Wilson, that we are currently in a "golden triangle of mobile, social and real-time."O'Reilly remarked that we're seeing "what may be the next wave of internet business models." Speaking about the evolution of both the conference and the web 2.0 trend, he noted that the "revolution we're seeing today is as great as the one we saw five years ago."SponsorWe at ReadWriteWeb have been noticing something new in 2009 too. At the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summitlast week, I spoke to a number of startups and smart Web people. There was a real sense of excitement and innovation in the air, which reminded me of the first Web 2.0 conference I attended in 2005 (I wasn't there for the first 2004 event, although I followed it on the Web at the time). Last month we ran a series of posts outlining the 5 biggest Internet trends of this year: Structured Data, Real-Time Web, Personalization, Mobile Web / Augmented Reality, Internet of Things. Effectively this was ReadWriteWeb's State of the Web 2009. We compiled the main points into a single presentation, available on Slideshareand embedded below. We think these trends show that we are indeed at an inflexion point of the Web, as Tim O'Reilly noted at the Web 2.0 Summit today. We'll be exploring more of these and other cutting edge Web trends over the coming months on ReadWriteWeb.Structured DataThe Real-Time WebPersonalizationMobile Web &Augmented RealityInternet of ThingsDiscuss

  The problem with most contact management tools is that only a portion of your acquaintances are considered useful. Meanwhile, unconventional contacts like PTA parents, yoga partners and softball teammates remain invisible. Social graphing software PeopleMapsaims to change that. Similar to LinkedIn, the tool allows users to leverage their networks to gain access to new leads. In addition to importing professional connections from LinkedIn, PeopleMaps also provides a visual map of connections imported from Facebook, Gmail and Outlook.SponsorThe primary purpose of PeopleMaps is to shorten the sales cycle and increase deals and revenue; however, the tool offers a number of opportunities for recruiters, investigative journalists and PR specialists. One of the advantages of this tool is that instead of wading through multiple pages of notes, users search for a specific lead and the program lays out your best route to reach them in a single page. In addition to mapping personal and professional relationships, PeopleMaps aggregates data from public profiles, Thompson Reutersand other private business data feeds. Each connection between individuals or companies is given a strength rating based on contact frequency and the number of shared social and professional connections. From here, employees share their connection maps with their teams and sales groups designate the best representatives to close deals.While a free version exists for networking purposes, the $49 dollar per month premium version offers automated prospect ranking, lead assignment tools, a one-click contact manager and most importantly, Salesforceintegration. Rather than reinventing the wheel, PeopleMaps pulls together all of your contacts and provides an easy dashboard for sales and business success. To check it out visit mypeoplemaps.com. Discuss

  At the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summitlast week a great time was had by (almost) all and participants are telling us it was one of the most valuable events they've been to in a long time. We so appreciate everyone's support in making it a great event!Now that it's over - it's time to talk about what comes next. Below you'll find some thoughts - you can help us decide what ReadWriteWeb will do to follow up on this first event. Real-Time Web on the East Coast or Augmented Reality on the West Coast? Let us know what you think.SponsorParticipants: Send in Your NotesFeedback from the Real-Time Web"One day worth three of most conferences." -Adrian Chan, Social Software UX Consultant"Great coversations. Can't wait for the next one." -Mike Nimer, Director of Engineering, Nomee(sponsor)"Real-Time Web Summit was sweet! Thanks for a great event."- Jean-Paul Cozzatti, Technical Director, AIM LifestreamWe've got notes submitted for more than half of the sessions last week, but if yousend in yours then everyone else will magically do so as well and then we'll all have access to documentation of the entire day. Our documentation producer Heidi Nobantu Saulis putting everything together now and is taking notes by email sent to notes@readwriteweb.com.Trend-Watchers: Here Comes Some Heavy-Duty ResearchWe're also excited to announce that our next premium report will be on the topic of the real-time web and is available for pre-order now. Our first report, the ReadWriteWeb Guide to Online Community Management, was a commercial and critical success (most recently it got nice links from CNNand PBS).This next report should be even better - we've interviewed more than 40 companies building or using the real-time web and hundreds of people joined us to discuss various parts of the real-time story at the Summit. All the knowledge we've gleaned from all those conversations will be expertly concentrated into one high-value research report that you can pre-order nowso you don't miss it later and can save a nice bit of money.Everyone: Our Next Event!What comes next for the RWW Events Department? We've got a couple of things we're thinking about. We may want to do another Real-Time Web Summit on the East Coast, perhaps in six months. And/or we may do an event on the West Coast about Augmented Reality. What do you think of those ideas? Let us know in comments, we'd really like some feedback.Thanks to everyone who made our first event fabulous, we really appreciate everyone's help. An extra big thanks to our sponsors - if you found the event useful or of interest, please check out the websites of the people who played a big part in making it proffitable and thus sustainable.We hope you'll all join us for our next event!Discuss

  Barnes and Noble will launchits rumoredNook eBook reader later today at an event in New York City. Thanks to an earlyleakof the device on the B&N Web site, however, we already know most of the details about the Nook. We can now confirm, for example, that the Nook will retail for $259 and that it will feature two screens: a small LCD touchscreen at the bottom of the device and a standard 6-inch eInk display above the smaller screen. The Nook will be available for pre-order today and will ship on November 30. One of the most interesting aspects about the device, besides the two screens, the 2 gigabytes of on-board memory and the microSD card slot, is that B&N will allow users to lend books to their friends.SponsorJust yesterday, we wroteabout the dual-screen Alex eReader, which looked like an interesting design study, but didn't strike us as a very usable device. In many ways, the Nook looks similar to the Kindle, but instead of a hardware keyboard, the B&N eReader features a touchscreen that can show a keyboard and will allow users to browse books. The Nook mostly uses the small color screen for navigation and doesn't try to add a lot of additional features like web browsing. The touchscreen is also used for browsing the B&N eBook store and for buying books while on the go.Users will be able to lend out books for up to 14 days at a time.This is definitely an area where the Nook can outshine the Kindle. Users can just select a book and then send it to their friends' Nook, iPhone or iPod touch.Just like the Kindle, the Nook will also allow users to synchronize books across devices, so that the Nook knows where a users last stopped reading a book on the iPhone, for example.Judging from the images on the leaked Nook site, it also looks like the device will come in different colors.As far as eBook standard go, the Nook will support EPUB and PDF documents. In addition, the device can also play MP3 files.Wireless ConnectionJust like Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader Daily Edition, the Nook will also be able to download books wirelessly. To facilitate this, B&N has made a deal with AT&T. Interestingly, Amazon's Kindle International Editionalso runs on AT&T's network, though B&N's focus is squarely on the US and we don't expect the company to offer its eBooks and the Nook outside of the US anytime soon.B&N's eBook StrategyB&N is adopting an interesting strategy for its eBook store. Unlike Amazon, which only supports the Kindle, B&N supports a multitude of devices, including the iRex DR800SG, the forthcoming Plastic Logic QUE, and various mobile, including the BlackBerry, iPhone and Motorola Cliq. Thanks to a partnership with Google, B&N also gives its users access to over 500,000 public domain books - another feature that is currently not available on the Kindle.Thanks to the number of features like lending, bookmarking and syncing that the Nook can offer thanks to its tight integration with the B&N store, however, it remains to be seen if users will actually be interested in these third-party devices or if the Nook will simply become the de facto eReader for B&N customers.Clearly, though, the Nook will put a lot of pressure on Amazon this holiday season. While Amazon could bank on the name recognition of its own brand and the Kindle so far, B&N will surely get a lot of publicity out of this launch and the Nook actually looks like a more interesting device than the current generation of Kindles.Details from the Press ReleaseUpdate: Here are all the details about the Nook from the leaked press release, courtesy of our friends at Engadget:Product Highlights:Try, Then Buy - Once you sample for free, buying ebooks is easy. An entire book downloads wirelessly in seconds. Many bestsellers and new releases are just $9.99.No reading glasses required! Choose from 5 different font sizes so you can read with ease. The best-in-class E Ink ® display with a 16-bit gray scale offers great contrast with no glare or backlight making for hours of reading enjoyment.Just add an expandable Micro SD card , purchased separately, to add to your nook's 2 GB of internal storage space. Besides your ebooks, magazines and newspapers, add pictures, music, and personal documents. PDFs load directly and look great.Sample eBooks for free just about anywhere you are, on us. Browse eBooks, magazines and newspapers on AT&T's 3G Wireless Network or on Wi-Fi. And every Barnes & Noble has free Wi-Fi, so you can connect at lightning fast speeds.With 2GB of memory, nook stores up to 1,500 books, newspapers and magazines. Need even more space? Just add a memory card for storage of up to 17,500. An entire library light enough to take with you everywhere, so you'll never be without your favorites.Never lose your place. Use the virtual bookmark to bring you back to the last book you've read, right where you left off. If you forget your nook at home and are stuck on a bus, keep on reading with your iPhoneâ„¢, or BlackBerry®, using our free eReader software.You can share nook to nook, but it doesn't stop there. Using the new Barnes & Noble LendMeâ„¢ technology... you will be able to lend to and from any iPhoneâ„¢, iPod touch®, BlackBerry®, PC, or Mac®, with the free Barnes and Noble eReader software downloaded on it.Control your nook with an easy-to-use full-color touchscreen, created to work seamlessly with the crisp, clean E Ink ® display. Just use your finger to swipe through titles and tap open your next read.Visit the store, turn on your nook, and see what pops up on your screen. It's as simple as that. You will get exclusive content, special discounts and more. And soon, you will be able to read entire eBooks for free at your local Barnes & Noble.Designed for a Better Reading Experiencenook feels great in hand and features a contoured, easy-to-hold back. About the size and weight of a paperback book, nook is thin, small and portable. Its best-in-class E Ink® Vizplexâ„¢ display is easy on the eyes with text as clear and crisp as a printed book. And with no glare or backlight and adjustable text size, you can read comfortably for hours. Our minimalist design puts the focus on the content, not the technology, welcoming the reader to dive right in.Color Touch Screen for Easy NavigationThe first-ever color touch screen for navigation on an eBook reader offers an immersive experience, inviting you to virtually browse through brilliant cover art, flip through an expansive library, or search using a virtual keyboard. The combination of color and touch on the beautiful lower screen make navigating nook intuitive and simple, even for the tech novice. nook presents the controls, navigation and keyboard you need, only when you need them.Download eBooks WirelesslyWith fast 3G wireless and Wi-Fi access, nook is the most-connected eBook reader. Browse and instantly download eBooks, magazines and newspapers simply and seamlessly on AT&T's 3G wireless network, the nation's fastest, with no set-up required or additional wireless costs. Connect to the complimentary Wi-Fi, provided by the AT&T Wi-Fi network, in Barnes & Noble stores and download at broadband fast speeds.Lend eBooks to FriendsWith nook's breakthrough LendMeâ„¢ technology, lend a wide selection of eBooks to friends free of charge, for up to 14 days at a time. Just choose the book you want to share and send it to your friend's nook or iPhone, iPod touch, select BlackBerry® and Motorola smartphones, PC or Mac® with Barnes & Noble eReader software.A Continuous Reading ExperienceWith ―Reading Now,‖ your virtual bookmark, nook brings you back to the last book you've read, right where you left off. And it works across a range of devices. If you forgot your nook at home, Barnes & Noble's free eReader software on your iPhone, select BlackBerry and Motorola smartphones or laptop lets you pick up where you left off, including annotations. And when you're reunited with your nook again, the Reading Now page will be updated and ready to go.Over one million stories. Any time, anywhere.Browse and buy from our extensive collection of over one million eBooks, including thousands of free titles, virtually anywhere you are. Get your favorite eBooks, newspapers and magazines, plus exclusive reads from Barnes & Noble, delivered via fast and free wireless, with no PC required.Portability and PersonalizationYou can also easily transfer PDF-format documents from your computer to access and read business documents, legal contracts and travel information on your nook. And transfer your photos to create custom screensavers.Save Time, Money and SpaceCarry up to 1,500 eBooks using nook's 2GB of memory, and a virtually unlimited library using nook's expandable memory slot, which will hold up to 17,500 eBooks on each 16GB MicroSD card. Buying eBooks is simple and seamless. With just two touches, you'll be able to purchase and download eBooks in seconds. And many bestsellers and new releases are just $9.99, so you can enjoy more for less.Listen to nookUsing a standard pair of stereo headphones, plug into nook and listen to your favorite songs (MP3s), uploaded through your computer. Use the headphones or built-in speakers to enjoy listening to audiobooks, podcasts, lectures and more.Protect Your nook in Stylenook comes with a removable back cover which you can personalize from a selection of four additional great colors. You can also chose from a range of accessories by renowned designers and brands as kate spade new york, Jack Spade, Jonathan Adler, Tahari and others.Experience nook at Your Local Barnes & NobleCustomers will be able to browse complete eBooks for free on nook at any Barnes & Noble store, whether or not the actual book is in stock, beginning later this year. Plus settle into the café and get exclusive in-store-only content, free eBooks, special offers and much more using Barnes & Noble's complimentary WiFi, provided by the AT&T Wi-Fi network.Images used courtesy of our friends at the WSJ Digits blogwho deserve credit for discovering this leak.Discuss

  Mozilla plans to release Fennec, the mobile versionof Firefox, for Nokia's Maemo, Windows Mobile and Android devices in the near future. In an interview with Om Malik, Mozilla CEO John Lilly also said that Mozilla has fallen behind in the mobile space, as WebKit-based browsers like Safari on the iPhone currently have a large lead, but he is confident that Mozilla can deliver a better browsing experience. Mozilla, according to Lilly, wanted to wait for devices to get to the point where they could handle everything a desktop browser could. Mozilla, however, isn't likely to develop a mobile version of Firefox for BlackBerry anytime soon. SponsorFennec, the mobile version of Firefox, which was announcedin April 2008, reached its betaearlier this year. At that time, Mozilla was looking into OEM deals with Nokia, Windows Mobile and Symbian. At that time, it was unclear if Mozilla was going to develop a version of Fennec for Android and the browser was only available for the Nokia 810. Since then, the mobile browser market has shifted once again and now Maemo and Android are the prime targets for Fennec. In the mobile market, Fennec goes up against Opera Mobile and Skyfire, which are available on a wide variety of platforms. The most important competitor, however, is probably Safari, though Apple only makes its browser available on its own phones. Safari may not be available on a large number of different phones, but it has set the bar pretty high when it comes to the user experience that users now expect from a mobile browser. With the Awesome bar and Weave bookmark synchronization, Firefox, however, will offer a number of features that Safari doesn't currently offer. Fennec will also offer support for plugins. Om Malik looked at an early version of Fennec on the Nokia N900 and thinks that the browser "is perhaps its single biggest standout feature" on the device.Mozilla on the iPhoneEarlier last week, a number of rumorsabout a Mozilla app for the iPhone also started to make the rounds, though it remains unclear what this app would look like. Apple, after all, isn't likely to allow a full Firefox-based browser on the iPhone.Discuss

  The millions of blogs on WordPress.comwill now have a clean mobile theme turned on by default, removing most of the formatting and making the sites easy to load on a phone. WordPress bloggers may want to opt-out of the new setting; not everyone likes how the first mobile themes selected by WordPress look. As we wrote earlier todaythough, consumers are not happy with how the mobile web is performing. Turning on mobile themes by default could be one small step towards solving that problem in the large territory that is WordPress.SponsorOne theme, WPTouch, will be displayed on the iPhone, Android and other modern browsers and another simpler theme will be shown to users of other phones. WPTouchis not the only option available if users are instead on WordPress.org. Another favorite is Carrington Mobile.Earlier this month WordPress announced that users can now more easily publish linksto their new blog posts out into the world's defacto light-weight RSS reader, Twitter.From the slow emergence of mobile reading and publishing to the unwillingness of carrierers to solve bandwidth problems, it's clear that the mobile web is still in its very early stages. For now, little things like this make a very big difference.Discuss

  Earlier this year, the Associated Press, together with the Media Standards Trust, introduced hNews, a new microformat for describing news content. HNews allows publishers to easily attach machine-readable news semantics to content on the web. Today, the AP announced the completion of the first draft of hNews. In addition, TownNews, announcedthat is will support hNews in its BLOX content management system, which is being used by over 1,500 newspapers in the US. SponsorThe hNews MicroformatHNews, which is an extension of the hAtom format, only requires content users to specify information about the source organization. In addition, publishers can specify geo-information, a dateline element, license informationand informationabout the code of ethics that governed the behavior of the author of a given site. At its most basic level, hNews, just like other microformats like hCard or hCalendar, allows search engines spiders to identify and read semantic information that would otherwise be buried within a text and would be hard to identify for search engines.The Good and the BadThe hNews Schemasource-org. dateline. optional. Using text or hCard. geo. optional. Using geo. item-license. recommended. principles. recommended. It's noteworthy that the AP, which has had a rather contemptuousrelationship with the Internet, would push this standard, which would only make it easier for search engines and mash-up tools to discover and classify content. At the same time, though, hNews is also a central part of the AP's controversial'news registry' project, which is meant to track AP content across the web and to make sure that it is not misappropriated. While the hNews microformat is definitely an interesting development, we can't help but wonder about its role in the AP registry project. Today's hNews press release makes no mention of this project(unlike the press releasethat announced the registry), so there is some hope that the AP has given up on this scheme or is at least trying to downplay hNews' importance in it.Discuss

  An independent study by Equation Research found that today's consumers are disappointed with the performance of the mobile web. Despite the proliferation of smartphones with their full-featured web browsers, the majority of mobile web surfers have encountered issues with accessing websites via their handsets over the past year. The number one issue reported involves websites that are too slow to load, frustrating users to the point that over half said they would never return to the site in question.SponsorMobile Web Disappoints The research studywas commissioned by Gomez, Inc., a company that helps organizations optimize the performance of their web and mobile applications. Obviously, that means you have to take these findings with a grain of salt as the company clearly has a vested interest in making the mobile web sound worse off than actually is. That being said, in reading through the findings, you'll probably find yourself agreeing with much of what's being said. For example, the study found that the majority of mobile phone users said they expected sites to load as quickly, nearly as quickly, or even faster on their mobile phones as compared to their PC. While intellectually, most of us know that's not going to be the case - broadband connections at home or work are generally much faster than accessing the web via a mobile handset - there's still a feeling of wantingthe phone to perform the way we've become accustomed to...that is to say, FAST. Waiting for a non-mobilized site to load up in the phone's browser reminds us too much of the painful days of dial-up connections. It feels like we've regressed to an earlier time...like there's something wrongwith the site.When encountering these slow loading sites, half of consumers reported that they were only willing to wait 6-10 seconds or less for the site to load. Longer than that, and they'll give up, move on, and probably won't ever return. Sixty-one percent said it's unlikely that they would ever visit that site again from their mobile device while another forty percent said they would seek out a competitor's site that provided a similar service. While slow speeds were the number one complaint, with 73% reporting having issues in the past year, other complaints pointed to a lack of well-designed and stable mobile-ready sites. 51% percent complained of sites that crashed, froze, or received an error and another 48% reported the formatting of the site made it difficult to read. Clearly, there is overlap in these numbers as the survey respondents reported multiple complaints. Overall, though, 60% of mobile users reported having one or more issues accessing a site from their mobile phones. No Mobile Web Presence is Bad for BusinessFor businesses who maintain a web presence, the survey's findings highlight the potential consequences of ignoring the mobile web. There are more people surfing mobile sites than ever before - 56.9 million as of July, according to Nielsen. Companies who haven't given consideration to their mobile websites aren't just losing customers for that initial attempted transaction that goes bad - they're possibly losing those customers for good seeing as how many of those frustrated users claim they won't ever return to the site in question.    Although the survey sample size was relatively small (just 1001 total respondents) and the company behind this wants to sell web optimization services, the findings seem to be believable. Anyone who's spent a good amount of time on the mobile web can assure you that it truly is in its infancy. So many sites areslow, aren'toptimized for viewing from mobile handsets, and it isfrustrating when you encounter them. Hopefully, businesses will begin to realize that if they want to compete with the next generation of web surfers, a "web presence" alone isn't enough. Today, you need a "mobile web presence" too. Discuss

  Nimsoftis launching a benchmarking service today for enterprise customers that will help them define and measure the actual costs of cloud computing and monitor the performance of IT infrastructure.The benchmarking service monitors the multiple systems of an enterprise and pulls them into a unified view. These include internal systems, managed service providers, and cloud-based and Software-as-a-Service investments.SponsorThe service offers visibility on where to distribute workloads, identifies problems in the infrastructure and looks at performance metrics.Cloud computing is getting so much hype these days that chief executive officers are starting to ask a lot of questions. They want to know about using Google for email and other enterprise functions. The CIO does not always have an answer. That creates a shift in the relationship, forcing some answers about budgets and an examination of the actual costs of cloud-based services to internal systems.Nimsoft is offering benchmarking services for visibility into: Google Apps for Business, Rackspace Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and EC2, Salesforce.com, and other services.Nimsoft also provides similar services for visibility into virtualization environments.The service is offered in two packages. Customers can purchase a software package that is installed behind the corporate firewall. Alternatively, customers can work with one of Nimsoft's partners that work on a SaaS model.Nimsoft does the benchmarks by running direct tests, such as sending batches of email to measure how long it takes the email to get to its destination. What the benchmark does is help define the service equation. The costs are pretty clear to understand, but the value of the service is another matter. If there are three outages in the span of the month, then the email system may not be worth the drop in cost.That's some good information to have when making a decision about a SaaS provider.Discuss

  The Internet Archivehas just unveiled their ambitious project called BookServer, which will allow users to find, buy, or borrow digital books from sources all across the web. The system, built on an open architecture and using open book formats, promises that the books housed there will work on any device whether that's a laptop, PC, smartphone, game console, or one of the myriad of e-Readers like Amazon's Kindle. The project's lofty goal is to essentially create an open web of books where anyone can publish their books and make their content available via search.SponsorAny Book, Open FormatsAlthough still in the early days of development and potentially taking years to complete, the BookServer project will allow search engines to index books from all over the web. What that means for an end user is that you could type a title into a search engine and the engine would return results listing everywhere you could get that book in digital format including online bookstores, libraries, or a direct method from the publisher itself. Depending on your needs, you could borrow the book or purchase it and then download it to your digital device.While the project isn't exactly a direct effort to take down Amazon's online bookstore or Google's upcoming online eBook store called Google Editions, it will provider book publishers and online libraries with the means to more effectively compete with those companies. By allowing publishers to set their own pricing and manage the distribution of their books, they will be able to take back control from Amazon and Google who would rather dictate those terms for them.An Open Marketplace for eBooksA secondary goal of BookServer's open system is to fight back against the proprietary marketplaces, such as Amazon's Kindle Store, where books are only sold in a copyright-protected format (.AZW) that only works on the company's eReader device, the Kindle. Elsewhere, some book sellers use other proprietary formats, others use the open ePub format, and still others distribute books as Adobe PDFs. For consumers, this multitude of choices only leads to confusion. People don't know what formats their particular device can read or where to get them. It brings to mind the similar issues consumers have had with digitally distributed music. To this day, many are still confused about whether their iTunes purchased music can play on other devices or whether tunes purchased from other online MP3 stores will play on their iPods. While Google promises its Google Editions store will allow anyone to access digital books as long as they have a web browser and internet access, it's still unknown at this time how the company plans to make the digital content available offline. Will it require the use of special web browser plugins to do so? Until Google reveals more about the technical details, it is not possible to know how truly open their online store will be. And even if their store is 100% open, they are still a company whose ultimate goal is to profit from their work of digitizing books. BookServer's goal, on the other hand, is to provide universal access to book data made available in open formats. Today, a few booksellers have partnered with the BookServer system including Feedbooks, O'Reilly, Adobe, and the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project. Web Of BooksDiscuss