Web 2.0 Summit: Microsoft, MySpace, Facebook, Cisco, Twitter, Flickr, Google... (and ZERO-factor auth.)

It's an all-new-look IT Blogwatch: in which we taste a flavor of the Web 2.0 Summit. Not to mention how NOT to secure an online banking site...

Heather Havenstein is here:

Steve Ballmer ... unveiled a public beta version of the company's Popfly mashup tool while offering his take on the Web 2.0 landscape ... [it's] built with Microsoft's Silverlight rich media software and is aimed at allowing nonprogrammers to build applications without having to code. "This is designed for ... somebody who doesn't necessarily have to be a conehead." [more]

[Did Ballmer just call our readers, "Coneheads"? -Ed.]

Microsoft's Don Dodge, too:

Rupert Murdoch (NYSE: NWS) and Chris DeWolfe (co-founder of MySpace) were on stage at Web 2.0 last night. Fascinating interview. MySpace was acquired by News Corp for $580M two years ago. Today it could be worth more than 10 times that.
...
You might think Rupert is an old media guy and doesn't get it. You would be wrong. He REALLY gets it. [more]

So is John Paczkowski:

The lobby of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco is like Costco on a Saturday morning ... Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of social-networking phenom Facebook ... notes that with so much available on the Web and via social-network connections, many people learn what they know from ... what he calls the “social graph” ... which “decentralizes information” ... as people become more familiar with the Web, they share more, especially when they learn how to control what information about themselves they release. [more]

Eric Savitz:

Cisco’s (CSCO) Dan Scheinman [is talking] about the networking giant’s strategy in social networking. (They have acquired Tribe and various other things.) ... Introducing EOS, entertainment operating system. Over 40 developers working on open software platform for creating and managing community based entertainment experience. [more]

Mitch Wagner:

Evan Williams ... co-founded Twitter ... He talked about how Twitter succeeded by taking away capabilities ... adding constraints can help your product ... we need to ask what can we take away to make something new ... because SMS was the primary platform, it made some difference. The interface is one field and a button. That gives it a "low cognitive load." [more]

MG Siegler:

Flickr, arguably Yahoo's best property, continues to improve ... a big update that puts much more of an emphasis on location ... a zoomed out view of the world will now show the major tags for areas instead of just a plain old dot ... The much cooler feature however is the new "Places Pages". As you might expect these are pages that focus on one particular area and pull all the image and tag information for pictures geotagged to that area. [more]

Erick Schonfeld:

The platform wars are over. Long live the Web. That was the basic message delivered by Jeff Huber, Google’s vice president of engineering ... noted that over 100,000 sites have already embedded Google Gadgets, with 63 of them attracting more than one million active users a week. While the first phase of these gadgets involved people using them to syndicate content out to other sites, the real promise he says is their ability to spread applications far and wide ... Take that, Facebook. [more]

But Owen Thomas has a different PoV:

A Valleywag spy camera caught ... Google cofounder Sergey Brin [and] Google executive Megan Smith, part of the team negotiating a fraught deal with Facebook ... heading into Maxfield's for dinner with an associate from Greylock closely involved in the firm's investment in Facebook. The meeting was hastily arranged ... Why the hurry?
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If this dinner is what it appears to be -- a sign of continuing negotiations -- then that means the game's still afoot. The Facebook deal is still in play. And Google is going all out to win it. [more]

Buffer overflow:

Around the Net

• Google Watch: Google Health: I'm Feeling Yucky
• Bill Ray: Apple opens up iPhone to app developers
• Brad Reese: Are CCIEs protecting their turf to the detriment of employers?
• Justin Berka: Comp sci researchers use economic theory to disrupt malware black markets
• Duncan Riley: Cyberwar: China Declares War On Western Search Sites
• The Open Sourcerer: Microsoft's IIS vs. Apache: is Apache really in decline?
• Gadgetell: Team of 16 emerge with clips of Daily Show: tagged and ready for you

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• Michael R. Farnum: Is the goal to protect our company or security for us all?
• Matt Hamblen: "Cap'n, he's gonna blow!" and other customer service ponderings
• John Monaghan: Here we go again, personal data set free
• Mitch Betts: IT pay around the world: Switzerland high, Vietnam low
• Shark Tank: Out of someone's mind, anyhow
• Michael R. Farnum: Does risk analysis always come first?
• Douglas Schweitzer: Location is everything!
• Shark Bait: End User Archetypes?

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• We're forever blowing bubbles (and joke etymology)
• Leopard leaps into life, latterly (and logical loosening)
• GOOG searches for $700: feeling lucky? (and autohose)
• Mobile Firefox, real soon now (and radarange UIs)
• Older posts

And finally... How not to secure an online banking site

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You too can pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.