To the left is an example of how this platofrm will be divided and opened up. According to the keynote the 3 main startegic goals of Yahoo opening itself up are:

1. Rewiring Yahoo

2. Open Yahoo! to developers like never before.

3. Making Yahoo! more social.

It is interesting to see Yahoo! jump on the open developer platform bandwagon like MySpace, Facebook and others. Curious to jump on board and see what can be done. This opening up of Yahoo (together with the integration to Google’s Open Social) will make this one exciting initiative for this year and beyond. Curious to hear your thoughts!

If you don’t understand what that means then you haven’t heard of ‘micro-blogging’. According to Wikipedia, micro-blogging is:

“Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web.”

In other words, it is a new tool that allows you to write as it is known “micro blog” posts. The truth is, many people start blogs, but few actually have the patience and content to write consistent posts with quality content. Also, due to the fact that people for the most part need to access the internet to view your blog post be it directly or via an RSS feed, micro-blogging takes the blog to the cell phone which I am sure you are like myself it is always in your hand!

So to like all new technologies there are a few participants in this niche that provides a service (of course what is nice it always starts off ‘free’).

Let’s begin by giving you the Top 5 Micro Blog Websites so you can create an account and take micro-blogging for a test drive:

 1. Twitter - This is the main player according to the industry currently. It was started in July 2006 and has been growing rapdily ever since. This free service gives you the options to post status updates via Text Messaging (SMS), e-mail, or web browser. The great thing about Twitter is the fact that it has opened its platform to allow third party developers to build applications on top of it! Take a look at my cosmin ghiu twitter account.

 

2. Jaiku – Jaiku is considered the main competitor to Twitter. Most features are similar to Twitter as well. We already seem to have the Google / Yahoo competition brewing!

 

 

  3. Tumblr - My personal favorite due to the fact that it inlcudes a variety of features. Text is a staple, but also photos, quotes, links, chats, videos, and what is nice is the fact that you can select different templates for your micro blog along with being given the option for a ‘custom’ template if you want to get into the CSS of your template.

I also love the clean and elegant design of the site and the great usability factors throughout the website. Of course take a look at my cosmin ghiu tumblr account.

 

 4. Pownce - Pownce is one of the latest entries into this space. It was started by Kevin Rose (Digg.com founder). Besides text messaging, it allows users the ability to share links, files, and events with anyone on their contact list. It has a nice Web 2.0 design and feel to the website. Should be interesting how they continue to grow.

 

5. Frazr – Last but certainly not least is the international entry known as Frazr. This is the Twitter of the French and German markets. Of course it is very similar to twitter in its functionality.

The main reason I put this one last is to highlight the fact that micro-blogging is here to stay! It is not just an American niche but one that is expanding globally as well. According to Wikipedia since May 2007 there are over 110 international micro-blogging websites services. All have similar features with a few bells and whistles extra.

Now only to find a way to penetrate the micro blog directly to mainstream internet users and bloggers. Whatever that formula is, I will be on the lookout.

This new buzzword has been placed on something that has been going on a lot since the web 2.0 explosion the past year and a half now. According to bNET Crowdsourcing is simply put: “the basic idea is to tap into the collective intelligence of the public at large to complete business-related tasks that a company would normally either perform itself or outsource to a third-party provider. Yet free labor is only a narrow part of crowdsourcing’s appeal. More importantly, it enables managers to expand the size of their talent pool while also gaining deeper insight into what customers really want.”

One web company that has launched that tackles crowdsourcing exclusively is: CrowdSpirit.org . CrowdSpirit basically applies crowdsourcing to products. Products have been using crowdsourcing since the introduction of “reviews” and “comments” for websites that sold products or allowed such feedback from users and visitors.

Truthfully many times when I would comparison shop I would look at the reviews and/or comments for a particular product and in many times use that as the trump card to make a purchase on a specific brand or model. CrowdSpirit takes crowdsourcing and placed it in a nice schema:

Of course crowdsourcing as originally mentioned is just a buzzword currently. This idea can be applied to various other buzzwords such as:

• Fansourcing
• Crowdcasting
• Open sourcing
• Open innovation
• Crowdfunding
• Mass collaboration
• Collective customer commitment
• Wikinomics

Some enablers of crowdsourcing can be used such as:

• Email
• Blogs
• Wikis
• Online forums and mailing lists
• Internet services such as YouTube and MySpace

So we may be witnessing the beginning of a new phenomenon in marketing and enabling of success online. One thing is for certain, crowdsourcing is officially here.

Since I have so involved online in what I do, I need to create a centralized place to place my thoughts, findings, failures, triumphes, and most of all have it useful for You, the reader.

Hence, my decision to make this blog more centralized to what I want to call ‘Emerging Business’.

I have alwasy been fascinated by business and entrepreneurship. Perhaps it is the first generation immigration bug that I got form knowing that my father risked his life to come to the United States back in 1980 and being the first in my family to finish a Bachelors Degree (Class of 1998 – College for Creative Studies).

In any case, I have always loved the challenge of absorbing new information and having it blossom into something that impacts others. That is why the use of the internet together with a business model has always fascinated me. I’ve always wanted to know what the ‘next thing’ in busines would be. Something I love calling “Emerging Business”. I did a quick search on Google for the keywords: “Emerging Business” and it came back with over 230 million results. Though the top 10 were not that interesting.

To wrap things up for today. Lets talk among other things, “Emerging Business”.

p.s. Thats me the budding entrepreneur in Romania before hitting the plane for the”Land of Opportunity”. I know, I know, I was stylin!

i am really exciting that after months of working on this new company by our team at JumpEye we are in Pre Launch for FlashStore.com

Flashstore is a spin off from our highly successful flash component products we sell at store.jumpeye.com. We started store.jumpeye.com back in March of 2005 and almost 1.5 years later is well established among the Flash Developer community as a leader in high end quality flash components. With over 1,000 clients purchasing these Flash Components to date, we diligently began to work on a spin-off that would be independant and fill a niche that to date has no one. That is a to create a marketplace where Flash Developers can select from the BEST Flash resources (components, extensions, audio loops, etc.) all from other developers who sell their products via affiliate memberships.

So in a nutshell, the entire Flash developer community who can become an affiliate, place their products for sale on FlashStore.com and in turn the community benefits from the high quality and selection of products!

Now how will they be of high quality? This is where the FlashStore resources come in play. We are putting together a talented team of Product Specialists that will check and test all products submitted by affiliates to be available on FlashStore.com. Just like Macromedia itself has its Macromedia Exchange submission policies!

In the case of FlashStore though, after it a product passes the initial approval area, the community can rate and comment on the particular product for the rest of the community! Also, there is a Flash Support Forum that is part of FlashStore to further provide community help, feedback, and support!

In anycase, FlashStore will be the ‘facilitator’ of high quality Flash resources! Currently you can create a FREE account to view the products and also to setup an Affiliate acocunt if you have some Flash Resources to add!