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Designing Web apps for the entire world

The last panel sessions for day two of the Web 2.0 Expo just wrapped up. One of my favorites was global design trends, a panel discussing the Web design around the world. In my less than two years of tracking Web apps, I've seen a huge shift in the look and feel of mainstream sites, as well as seeing a slew of services that have pushed what I thought was possible on the browser.

There can, however, be huge differences between two versions of the same site in different countries. A good deal of what's important is … Read more

The mascots of the Web 2.0 Expo

I'm always interested to see what a company chooses to represent the look and feel of its products. On a day-to-day basis, we bloggers rarely see anything besides the service and its WebEx presentation. However, when conference time comes, they pull out all the stops with crazy booths, over-the-top swag, booth babes--and in extreme cases: the mascot.

For most people, the last time they saw a mascot was at an organized sporting event. Today's Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco might as well be the Super Bowl.

The two mascots seen below are for wildly different products. … Read more

Few answers, debates at a very civil Web 2.0 panel

SAN FRANCISCO--Inside Facebook blogger Justin Smith had quite an opportunity on his hands. He was moderating a panel called "Comparing Social Platforms," featuring five representatives of some of the biggest players on the social Web: Dave Morin of Facebook, Allen Hurff of MySpace, Jessica Alter of Bebo, Patrick Chanezon of Google, and David Recordon of Six Apart. Smith had the chance to be a digital devil's advocate and get a lively debate going.

Why won't Facebook sign on to the OpenSocial standard that Google kick-started? Why hasn't MySpace's developer platform caught on as … Read more

Zoho to integrate with Google sign-on

Zoho users with a Google username and password will be able to log directly into Zoho applications, according to Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of AdventNet, parent company of Zoho.

"Users won't need a separate Zoho account," he told me at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The Google sign-on integration should be finished within two weeks, he said.

Vembu was impressed by Google's cooperation and willingness to work with a competitor. Zoho and Google Docs are both trying to replace Microsoft Office. Google has been willing to contribute code, such as OpenSocial, to … Read more

Twitter techie Blaine Cook talks about leaving

SAN FRANCISCO--Here at the Web 2.0 Expo, one of Wednesday morning's talks was to feature Blaine Cook, Twitter's lead architect, talking about the Jabber protocol and "building the real-time Web."

The problem: Reports had surfaced earlier that morning that Blaine Cook was leaving the company. Awkward.

Cook told several blog sites that he was indeed leaving, attributing it to the fact that he was moving to the U.K. But a source close to the snafu told CNET News.com that Cook had indeed been ousted from his role at the microblogging start-up in one … Read more

Samsung S2 'Pebble' sounds familiar

Today, Samsung announced two new MP3 players, including a Zen Stone-like model dubbed the S2 Pebble. (Weird...why do I picture a cell phone in my head?) Doppelganger aside, the Pebble is about the most unphonelike music player you'll come across. The super simple device measures only about 2 inches across and offers no display for navigation. Instead, an LED built into the bottom edge of the device glows and flashes various colors and patterns based on the current EQ settings and playback mode, although goodness knows how you might easily adjust those in the first place with no … Read more

At Web 2.0 Expo, even the wheelchairs are sponsored

Sam Lawrence, the CMO of Jive Software, broke his foot a week ago. He wasn't looking forward to the hassle of wheeling around Web 2.0 Expo in a wheelchair, but found a way to take advantage of the situation: He turned his buggy into a mobile billboard. A metal placard mounted on the backrest advertises his own company, and he also got two other sponsors to pay for placement, offsetting the cost of the hardware.

Now that's a solid Web 2.0 business model.

Microsoft Live Mesh platform takes on Google, Adobe

As with most core strategies at Microsoft, Live Mesh has a strong platform angle.

At the Web 2.0 Expo on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled Live Mesh, a cloud service for synchronizing files, folders, and Web-delivered content, such as news feeds, across multiple devices.

Along with giving people access to a test version, the company offered a tech preview that will allow developers to access the Mesh APIs to write Web applications with the data-syncing features.

People have long said Microsoft doesn't "get" the Web or is too tied to its desktop heritage. Well, part of the PC … Read more

IBM servers run cool to woo Web 2.0 crowd

It's the confluence of the two hip tech trends: "green" IT and cloud computing.

IBM on Wednesday detailed its iDataPlex servers aimed at Internet companies that need compute power on-demand but also want to keep a lid on electricity costs.

They pack more than double the number of servers in a typical rack while using 40 percent less electricity.

To keep power costs down, IBM uses liquid cooling, which will allow servers to run at room temperature without costly, and often inefficient, air conditioners.

The systems allow people to create a pool of computing resources, rather than … Read more