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Switching Horses at Cisco’s Collaboration Summit

Well, it’s official.  Cisco, the company that rebranded all its voice communications gear “Unified Communications” a couple of years ago, has demoted the term.  The ascendant star is “Collaboration”.  And I got some of the reasoning directly from John Chambers.  Here’s the story.

I’m at the Cisco “Collaboration Summit” in San Francisco where analysts, consultants, partners, and others have gathered to hear all about what’s new on the horizon.  If the title of the event didn’t give us a clue, then Alan Cohen’s opening remarks skewered it.  Third (or so) in a list of Cisco’s ongoing commitments was this gem:  “[Cisco will demonstrate] continued leadership in unified communications and other collaboration categories.”  In other words, UC is demoted to being one of a number of items under a collaboration umbrella.

Those of us toiling in these fields tend to view it in reverse — collaboration acceleration is one of a number of use case application classes under a UC umbrella.  It’s not just semantics.  There are many kinds of unified communications that have nothing to do with collaboration.  There are few /> [...]

Fri Nov 13, 2009 14:40 pm

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Unnamed Government Agency Shuts Down 70,000 Blogs for Undisclosed Reason

Something strange is going on. As CNET's Greg Sandoval reports, Blogetery.com and Ipbfree.com, blog/forum platforms that hosted massive amounts of user-generated content, have been shut down by unnamed law enforcement agencies for unnamed reasons. Blogetery is said to have hosted over 70,000 blogs.

  It is unclear if the two terminations are connected, but it would be a pretty big coincidence if they were not. As Sandoval says, both services have said they are not coming back, both claim to have obeyed copyright law, and both are saying they are legally required not to disclose any information.

A message at Blogetery's site reads:

After being BurstNet customer for 7 months our server was terminated without any notification or explanation.

We're trying to resolve the situation.

So, simply put, lots of user-generated content has been eliminated with no explanation of why, and no government agency has stepped up to at least say it was them who made the order. Naturally, this can only lead to speculation and rumor until someone is able to go on record and take responsibility.  That speculation will only escalate until that happens, and it is already starting throughout the Blogosphere.

Sandoval quotes an official from an ironically unnamed government agency, who says that he doesn't know of any government agencies that have the authority to terminate such services without going through the "legal hoops". ( [...]

Mon Jul 19, 2010 08:15 am

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Google Reconnects With/Acquires Aardvark

Aardvark has, in a sense, returned to its roots.  Or in other words: Two of the four men who created the social search engine are former Googlers, and now, it's been confirmed that the search giant's acquired Aardvark.

Details regarding timeframes and the fate of Aardvark's technology and employees are sadly lacking at this point.  "[A] source that has been briefed on the deal" just puts the purchase price at "around $50 million," according to Michael Arrington.

Still, we can at least say a fair amount regarding what Aardvark was like before Google pulled out its checkbook.  Aardvark essentially operated by posing different users' questions to one another.  The trick was that it would try to seek out the most qualified individuals to answer a given query, and then deliver a personal response to the original person. 

Aardvark had the social bases pretty well covered, boasting availability via email, instant messenger, the iPhone, and Twitter.  It was receiving a lot of positive attention, too, with the New York Times checking in on a regular basis and Time Magazine, USA Today, and PBS all taking a look.

As for the business side of things, Aardvark employed about 20 people, and had received financial support from August Capital.

We'll try to relay additional details when they become available.

UPDATE: Aardvark's become available in Google Labs.

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Sun Feb 14, 2010 20:45 pm

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Online Vendors Dare Buyers to Compare

Customers have comparison shopped since the first guy set up a table in the town square with more than one product. But the Internet has taken comparison shopping to a new level, with elaborate feature-by-feature comparisons and real-time price monitoring. Shoppers have never been more able to compare products to each other. But did you know that this information is no longer the sole province of review sites or shopping search engines? To see how companies are helping their customers compare their wares to their competitors, check out my latest post on Internet Evolution, "Online Vendors Dare Buyers to Compare."

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Thu Nov 19, 2009 08:45 am

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