Like Michael Rees, Kathryn Greenhill asked me to list “web 2.0” things that Microsoft has available to provide some balance to a Murdoch University event.
By web 2.0, Kathryn meant: “To me, Microsoft plays really well in the large corporate ap space and is very good at that … but if I want to show people about the conversation, re-mix, open access, interoperable web, then MS is not the first port of call…”
I can only agree with Kathryn’s statement. Microsoft hides all its cool web 2.0 things under a bushel. In fact, the problem probably is that the coolness are hidden under many bushels, all over its web footprint. But hey, I am not from marketing; I am a mere Professional Geek. That is also why these listed are free. Some are even Free-as-in-Freedom, too.
I think it important that people get to hear, see and try alternatives before defaulting to “the known and safe.” And yes, I realise can work both ways.
Another perspective, and my own opinion, is that Microsoft should not seek to do everything on the web. For instance, creating a “Microsoft Twitter Ultimate Edition 2010” is stupid. Nor should Microsoft seek to purchase every cool company that pops on the web. Again, that is my opinion. And I am the lowest on the low of the totem pole; a.k.a Individual Contributor or Sacrifical Unnamed Ensign (ref: Star Trek)
Here is an edited version of my email response; drafted quickly and by no means exhaustive. If you have other cool examples, just post a comment and I’ll update the list.
- http://Office.live.com for online mini-Sharepoint site for team collaboration. Office.live.com is a good place to start where people will use desktop apps for a full experience. Don’t forget other online app tools like EditGrid and Zoho.
- Don’t forget bing.com & associated sites (including Photosynth, Virtual Earth) as viable alternatives to google. Librarians use all sources available
- www.worldwidetelescope.org
- Live Is more than spaces (spaces.live.com) – there are photo storage, file storage (skydrive, as mentioned by Michael Rees in his post), and live.com integration into twitter, facebook and other online social media services.
- There is a Creative Commons plugin for Microsoft Office 2007 to permit correct (cc) for remix stuff out of spreadsheets, word etc http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D1DDBDC8-627F-415A-9B0A-97362BC9B480&displaylang=en
- Other remix things: apps.live.com is a single source for our desktop apps, including LiveWriter (don’t forget that Live Writer has a whole host of plugins: http://gallery.live.com/results.aspx?c=0&bt=9&pl=8&st=5 ) and video editing stuff, too. There are Wikipedia, FIickr, Twitter and all sorts of plugins. Office 2007 SP2 has both OpenXML and ODF (for OpenOffice) support.
- Don’t forget that the most-used online conversation tool in Australia is Live Messenger (MSN) which does video + audio conferencing, too
- RSS into outlook… hmm, possible but not something I’d recommend. Too clunky
- Don’t forget IE8; with accelerators and webslices http://www.microsoft.com/ie8 these use open formats to work
- http://visitmix.com/Lab has some cool tools, including Oomph with is a Microformats toolkit (works in all browsers, uses jQuery) … I use it on my blog. Licensed under MsPL (open source, OSI approved, BSD-like)
- Another good, slightly techy tool for Windows users is http://www.microsoft.com/web with the Web Platform installer. Permits installations of PHP, WordPress etc on your Windows machine without being a rocket scientist