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Web 2.0: A Pattern Library

I remember demonstrating an AJAX interface to Social Ecology's software several years before the term was coined. That was at the same N-TEN conference where I presented on the need for open APIs in nonprofit software applications. And I think that may have been not long before I wrote an open letter to nonprofit technology funders promoting network centric innovation, among other things. I think I should have called it all Web 2.0, don't you? You think it would have caught on? Anyway, it certainly has now and for all my disappointment with gratuitous widgets, there is something worth paying attention to. Take a look at the Web 2.0 Pattern Library. Nonprofit software developers (including open source ones), are you paying attention? Funders, are you? Do you know how to support such things? It doesn't look quite like the winner-take-all approach anymore. Posted: 6/4/06; 11:45:03 PM #

Social Bookmarking For Scientists - The Best Of Both Worlds

I am waiting for social bookmarking systems to step further out from the walled garden model and become truly interoperable and peer based. (I think that might actually happen, whereas the social networking systems, on the other hand, will probably just build higher walls.) While we wait, if you're going to use a social bookmarking service, I highly recommend Connotea. Developed as an open source project by folks hired by the journal Nature, it is available to install on your servers or you can use their free system. I particularly appreciate it for how it plays well with other systems of citation, as described in this article from XTech 2006: Social Bookmarking For Scientists - The Best Of Both Worlds. Posted: 6/4/06; 11:32:59 PM #

Quick, It's the Feds! Hide the AJAX!

With the growth of gratuitous Javascript in web page showing no sign of abating, it's useful to remember one of its many drawbacks: It's often impenetrable to the screen readers used by people with vision impairments. I'm just waiting to see how soon we find organizations serving people with disabilities telling their designers to "add some of that web 2.0 stuff to our home page". In the mean time, it's good to read tongue in cheek appraisals such as this: Quick, It's the Feds! Hide the AJAX!. Posted: 6/4/06; 11:27:26 PM #