Notes of Introduction of Social Media

Social media is the media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and Web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. 

In nutshell, Social media describes websites that allow users to share content, media, etc. 

Social media networking is really important for people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. 

Social interaction has been always considered as human to human interaction. On Internet, social interaction indicates a phenomenon through which you can collaborate, learn and share your ideas and opinions with others on Web. People are increasingly demanding the convenience of interacting with others in a self-paced environment where they can contribute effectively. 

Components of Social Media

Social media can be said to have three components: 

• Concept (art, information, or meme)
• Media (physical, electronic, or verbal)
• Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print

Common Forms of Social Media

There are many forms in which we can describe social media but the main and common forms of social media are: 

• Concepts, slogans, and statements with a high memory retention quotient, that excite others to repeat.
• Grass-Roots direct action information dissemination such as public speaking, installations, performance, and demonstrations.
• Electronic media with 'sharing', syndication, or search algorithm technologies (includes Internet and mobile devices). 
• Print media, designed to be re-distributed. 

Examples of Social Media Tools

Some examples of social media software applications include: 

• Publication Tools:
• Blogs: WordPress, Typepad, Blogger etc.
• Wikis: Wikipedia, Wikia, Wetpaint etc.
• Citizen Journalism Portals: Digg, Newsvine, Livejournal etc.
• Sharing Tools: 
• Videos Sharing: YouTube, Metacafe, Blip.tv etc.
• Picture Sharing: Flickr, Zooomr, Smugmug etc.
• Links Sharing: Digg, delicious, StumbleUpon etc.
• Music Sharing: Last.fm, Pandora, Odeo etc. 
• Social Networking:
• Social Network: Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 etc.
• Niche Social Network: LinkedIn, Boompa, Ning etc.
• Micro Publication: Twitter, Seesmic, Plurk etc.

[The notes above were taken from Anders Ross' blog entry@iShift] 

Linux is the Operating System for the Cloud

In the environment where service is king, operational efficiency is crucial. It is the company with the best execution and operational excellence that prospers. Yes, it is leveled the playing field, yet ironically the cloud providers themselves are the best examples of operational excellence being the competitive advantage of the 21st century.

There are a few companies who can affect these economies of scale and create these cloud offerings: Google, Amazon, and now IBM. All of these cloud offering run on Linux. "These large giants who have built their own businesses via their operational excellence, now have the ability to drive down the cost of computing per CPU to rates that no one can compete with on their own." As quoted, "IBM said it believes customers can cut IT labor costs by 50% and reduce software defects by 30% by moving development to the cloud."

Why Linux?

Linux is the operating system of the cloud. Why is every cloud provider using Linux?

• Linux can be optimized for powerful parallelized computing to run these types of environments efficiently. IBM is using KVM, built into every Linux kernel, to power their offerings and partnering with Red Hat, a company based entirely on open source and known for its technical skills and high levels of service.

• Linux has tremendous power management capabilities. This is due in part to the focus on enterprise Linux by companies such as IBM, Red Hat and Novell to bring the cost of running a data center down. But Linux also benefits from technical innovation by mobile/embedded developers who are using Linux in those devices and need advanced power management features.

• Linux because it is open and not optimized for a specific architecture can run on a multitude of hardware options, bringing down the price for the vendors building these massive data farms. Because Linux is open, IBM has optimized Linux for its mainframe computers, giving them an advantage operationally.

• It's pricing model. You can't build a data farm and charge $.15/per CPU hour if you have to write a check to Redmond or anyone else for every server. Microsoft may be able to run a cloud business with MSFT products, but anyone else who actually has to pay for them would not.

• Linux is the development platform of choice in today's world. IBM couldn't offer a Linux-based development and test Cloud service if companies weren't developing on Linux. Linux has steadily gained momentum as the development platform of choice, largely due to the points mentioned above that make it a great candidate for cloud computing platforms.

• Ownership. In the late 90's as one of the founders of a "cloud services" company called Corio, which offered hosted enterprise applications (we called cloud "application service providers" then). We were required to disclose a risk in our public offering S-1 filing that stated "We depend on software vendors to supply us with the software necessary to provide our services, and the loss of access to this software or any decline or obsolescence in its functionality could cause our customers' businesses to suffer, which, in turn, could harm our revenues and increase our costs." If we had run our business on open source software we would have owned our own software and this risk would not have existed. This may be the single biggest advantage to Linux in the cloud. Ask yourself if Google could be the company they are today if their search engine was built on .NET servers.



P.S. Microsoft already offers Windows Azure as a cloud service in the market, as a beta since last year, and in full release since February 10.

Google's 10 Design Principles

In one of Jon Wiley's speeches, who is the User Experience designer in Google, he introduced 10 principles used in user experience designs for Google. It is really useful for the UI/UE designers or enthusiasts to learn from.

1. Useful: focus on users, pay attention to their life, working and dreams;
2. Fast: save every possible second for users;
3. Simple: it is the power behind this scene;
4. Engaging: enable to invoke the newbie's curiosity and attract senior level users;
5. Innovative: brave to be creative;
6. Universal: the design can be used universally;
7. Profitable: preparing everything for the current and future business model;
8. Beautiful: the appearance can bring the pleasure to the sense of sight of users, but will not distract users' attentions;
9. Trustworthy: users trust the product;
10. Personable: introduce personalized factor into the design.

Every point is worth learning and understanding. For a long time, I have been trying to learn some corner knowledge of UI/UE because I think it is not only just a simple representation of the product, but a reflection of the product's style and its company's culture. In the meantime, I believe, the development of the product can borrow a lot of ideas from the UI/UE design. It is a two-way process.

另 | 软件分类

无论是按用途还是功能对软件进行分类的话，都可以将软件分门别类地进行很详尽的划分，比如说：系统类，应用类，多媒体类，杀毒软件类，互联网类，网络安全类，等等。许多软件行业中的奖项也是按如此分类进行评定的。这种评定对于秩序井然的软件市场是个很严格的分类标准，可是对于秩序混乱或者说没有一个严格标准的市场来说，这样分类就有种“小头带上大帽子“的感觉了。近日，下班时，在地铁里的Metro上看见一份报道，对当下的中国软件市场进行了一个简单但又明确的分类，有几分道理，值得一提！

• 上流软件：这类软件主要是卖概念，讲哲学，代表软件公司是IBM；
• 中流软件：这类软件主要是卖版权，讲升级，代表软件公司是Microsoft；
• 下流软件：这类软件主要是卖技术，讲服务，代表软件公司是用友；

      以上三类是针对企业软件而言，下面这类则涵盖了大多数软件的发展趋势，有种统一规划的意味。

• 非主流软件：这类软件主要是卖流量，讲公益，讲开源。代表的软件公司有360、QQ

      这类软件针对的是国内软件市场。

Re-Activate my Weblog

It has been a long time ago that I did not come here writing down my thoughts and following my feelings. During this period of time, I have not been used to organised my words by this mean, but been used to write them down on my paper notebooks/scratch-books because they were always staying with me. I need not save my thoughts for later inputting while the Internet was available. All I need to do was just taking out my notebook and scratching any thoughts on it. Everything was fresh and active!

I must admit that we are all connected nowadays. Apart from the concept of social network, the emerging interactive and collaborative technologies enable you to stay contacting with your friends all the time. It makes so easy. Even on the move, we are still on the line via your mobile device. "Keeping in touch" is so easy! There is no choice for you to think about whether taking it or not. You have to take it, otherwise you will be omitted by the most part of the social circle you are in. Don't doubt it! In the meantime, if you are in, you will be popular very easily and your thoughts can be spread across the network swiftly. Not to mention if you are proactive and creative, in that case, you could be famous with just a night time. Just do it!

Obviously I am not the person who wishes my own thoughts buried. I like collaborative ideas! I like feedbacks, ideas, advices, suggestions and critics. I cannot move all of my previous words from those notebooks to this space. But I can log them from now on.

Italian Job is Done!

World Cup is raised up by Italy! They truly deserve this final victory. As expected, Italian's defense line is unbreakable. This is contributed by the Cannavaro's important role at the back of the Italian team. This is Italian style. Lippi, this Italian pure coach, understands the team very deeply and thoroughly. His strategy of putting Gattuso in the back as the sweeper and Pirlo as the needle weaving the victory net for Italy works very well!

France lose the game. That is the fact. However, the truly fact is not the lost but the attitude they put on the field. Their attitudes have the serious problems. This could be exemplified by Zidane. His final action in his whole career on the football pitch is far more stupid. Remember everyone on the pitch is not just for fun. They are professionals. They play for prides. It is not a game that a group of naughty boys play the football on the grass ground after classes! Zidane is a great player, might be the greatest player in this century. However, his headbutts action against Materazzi's chest, might be this last action on the pitch, destroys all the honors earned with his efforts through the whole career life. He will questioned facing the French in the following days. He owes an apology to his country!

Another 12 years! It is time for Italy!

Since 1970, every 12 years Italy would enter into World Cup final. This year is so! Fance is a very strong team. Seeing the road they come into the final, they are the competitor to the Cup. Never mind. The Italian led bya Cnnavaro is waiting for them. Every game is a fight. Italian will conquer it. Everything is in their hands!

This is one to watch and one to enjoy! Come on Italian!

07/07

Today of last year is a nightmare for London and for UK. Bombings broke the city's silence! All these came from the terrorists! We need peace. That is not enought now. Our world still needs strong effective responses to the terrorists. Otherwise, it will be a disaster to see the whole society would be destroyed in their hands!

My Own Blog Arrive

It has been a long time that I thought that I should build up my own blog to collect my thoughts. The motivation behind this is that I want to know and understand deeply the technical sides of blog. Before this action, Blogger.com was the hometown of my blog and also temporal residence of my personal homepage. Google's technologies are still so attractive that I could not help stopping here to have a look at the updated services and buzz words as well which are always in the leading position in this field!

In the later stage, I will transfer this blog into a new face which will be in charge of collecting my atom-thoughts randomly, like one of collecting units "walking-and-picking-up". The main blog page, as well my personal webpage, will assembly these pieces into a record of the my blog.

My new blog is powered by WordPress. It makes me understand and learn more about PHP and MySQL. That is great because my research and study need me to use these tools to implement my ideas!

More than a Pack of Software

Google provides a pack of softwares, Google Pack, to save the time and energy for the users who just buy the new PCs, and who want to re-install their systems to make their machines working more efficiently. In any of the cases, we always spends lots of time looking for the softwares we needs and install them by clicking similar wizards' steps loads of time. If you are working to install the softwares to the machine for your customers, that will be a annoying job ever besides the customization requirements from various customers.

Google Pack is a one-stop software solution. It provides a integration solution of the essential softwares we need routinely. Of course, the software stuffs it contains could not meet everyone's requirements. However, it is really a shortcut for loads of people to install their machine as fast as possible. By downloading the pack, and clicking some times simply, you could sit back and enjoy the rest of your time. After finishing the installing, Google Pack will minimize down to the system tray as a icon instead of putting all of the program icons down to there seperately. It is convenient for maintainence! Very beautiful!

In my point of view, Google Pack is not simply just a pack of software bundling together to serve as the foods for the machine. It is different in that:

• Software Integration: All of softwares within the pack are integrated together minimizing down to system tray as a icon, which is a smart and creative design. In the future, the update and maintainence of those softwares would be performed by accessing this icon in the system tray in just a series of simply clicks. I would believe that if someday in the future the cost-effective end PC could come out from Google, this feature would be one of the characteristics.
• Business models: Google is working with a number technology companies together to identify which kinds of softwares are the best type for the users. They did not pay each other.