Bokardo writes:

In general, computers and software are taking an increasingly social role for us. Our behavior hasn’t become all that much more social (although it certainly has for some) but we’re learning how to effectively model our social needs in software. Three years ago the social aspects of software was email and chat messaging. Now, it’s forging online identity as profiles and embedded messaging within applications. It’s become always-on, which means that there is no distinction between “offline” and “online” anymore. We are not just modeling messaging, we’re modeling presence as well. This is a big shift…and our language reflects it. I’m “on MySpace” means that we are figuratively and literally on the site.

I quoted Wil Wright recently, and I think he’s (pardon the pun) right on. First thought of as super calculators, computers are now part of the social fabric of our lives. They are becoming integral to how we communicate with our family, friends, and colleagues. They’re still doing calculations of course, but the software that we’ve designed for them is all about human-to-human contact. Social contact. And since we’re social animals in the end, the trend of modeling this in software won’t be reversing any time soon.

ZDNet.com writes:

The service creates a dedicated retail environment that anyone can use to sell stuff in the Amazon catalog.
...
Everyone has something they want to recommend to others, and a lot of folks want to find ways to display their Amazon Wish List without looking too much like they are addicted to the idea of maintaining a permanent wedding registry—it's so unseemly to always be telling people what you want from them. The system was easy to understand and the product, a multi-page store with a front door consisting of feature products to which I was able to add my own descriptions, much more inviting than the typical list of Amazon links a blogger or Web site might display.

WSJ writes about the US:

Now, some parents and educators are having second thoughts over higher-than-anticipated costs and the potential for inappropriate use by kids. At the same time, there is a sense that the vaunted benefits of constant computer access remain unproven. The programs are increasingly under attack -- and in a few cases are crumbling.

Todd Zeigler writes how newspapers can improve their websites. One of the nine ideas:

Link to Relevant Blog Entries. Sites like the Washington Post are already partnering with Technorati to show "Who's Blogging" about the story you are viewing (see left). Why bother? If I'm a blogger writing about a news event, I'm going to link to the Post story as a way of promoting my entry. It is a great way to facilitate discussion about (and links to) your content. In addition, the "Who's Blogging" feature serves as a real time letters to the editor page.

MediaPost has an interview with Tom Burgess, CEO of Third Screen, the largest mobile ad network. Excerpts:

Burgess: We see the industry as being at a critical threshold. Specifically, we see 4Q06 and 1Q07 as a time when advertisers will, for the first time, be able to track unique users. Carriers never had a reason to track user behavior except for billing purposes. Over the past month or two, there's been the beginning of what feels like a sea change. We now are seeing tier-one carriers ready to leverage unique user ID data to collect information about content usage... by unique user number. So for the first time [there's] data about exactly where and how mobile users are spending their time, information carriers have had but never aggregated in advertiser-friendly form. If you're tracking by unique user ID, you now know when and where you're reaching a specific consumer, so can begin to use frequency caps so advertisers can better target timing and avoid extraneous placements.

In countries like India, however, even the Reference Web hasn’t been created well. There have been three problems. The first challenge has been that the existing Internet players haven’t really made the investments to build out this Web – focusing instead more on communications-oriented services like email and IM. The second challenge has been the diversity of India itself – especially, the languages spoken. English is not good enough for the mass market. Finally, the user base so far has not demanded an “India Reference Web” – primarily because access to the Web has been limited on account of both the low computing penetration, and the limited and expensive communications options. All of this has resulted in a Web that, from the perspective of Indian users, has excellent global information, but very limited local information.

This is not to say that the Indian Web is doomed. There have been a number of success stories – jobs and matrimonial sites have thrived, as have online trading and ticketing sites. In the first two cases, the Web serves as an information marketplace – connecting people much more efficiently than is possible through print-based classifieds. In the latter two cases, the Web is making commercial transactions much more efficient bypassing traditional intermediaries.

In this context, Search on the Reference Web has obvious limitations – since local content is still quite limited. Rediff has tried to provide an alternative to the single web search box with options to search for airfares, jobs, ringtones, classifieds and product prices.

All of this is just the start. What India needs is a grassroots revolution in the way publishing takes place. Users will come once they find the right information available online. The pain points in India are about finding the locally relevant information. Given the time that has passed, I cannot see this process being centrally driven. No single entity can make this happen. Also, building complex websites for consumption on the PC is going to be quite limited in its adoption – as we have seen. A large number of Indian websites that exist are not updated as often as they should be. No surprise – because the users aren’t really going out there and looking for them anyways!

Indian content creation will need to be focused differently. Instead of assuming consumption on PCs, the baseline should be that the content is more likely to be consumed on the mobile. Instead of trying to focus on static, reference-based content, the focus should be on what’s new, what’s happening now, and what is contextually relevant (near) the users. Another way to look at the N3 Web is to think of it as the Incremental Web for space, time and topics. Now is the Incremental Web centred around time. New is the Incremental Web centred around topics. Near is the Incremental Web centred around space.

Tomorrow: The Opportunity