Google Developer Day Sydney 2007 - Australia

Virtual sex in Second life

"And sometimes when people are talking across a table, that leads to sex. In real life and in Second Life, too. " This is the conclusion from review "Sex in Second life".

30% of second life economy is related to sex. Haha, why so, in real life, how much economy is relate to sex. In virtual life, avatar does not need to eat, does not need to sleep, so can always have have energy to have sex. Maybe this is one of the primary reason second life is so popular. Unlike World of Warcraft, its great animation and violence attracts people. In second life, its freedom, different lifestyle which you can not achieve attracts people. Well, people will get what you want, sometimes including people's dark side.

Not only individual, many big well-known companies took part in, hopefully 'not in sex'. Playboy will enter 'second life' in early of June, for sure, this would attract some new comers. Just wondering, how many more first-life jobs will be outsourced to second life.

Google Developer Day 2007

I had a few trainings recently, Asp.net, MS SQL, IBM Domino 7.0. Also I attended a few sessions for Macromedia in recent years. I likes MS ones. Well, the most exciting one, is Google developer Day, so many people are eager to go. In Sydney, its initial seminar was fully booked 1 month before the events. I was pleased knowing the room was changed to hold more audience and my late booking was accepted.

Rather calling it Google day, it is better calling it AJAX day. Back in 2005, after knowing Google map & Google suggest, I tried to use 'suggest' for my enterprise staff lookup. It worked great, I was so amazed to see how fast and powerful it can be used, but it took me very long time to configure it.

Since after, enabling AJAX is much simpler, for example PowerWeb is a nice tool allows developer to develop much quickly. Microsoft's Atlas now (AJAX) is also easy to use. Microsoft's samples make life easy, though not all of them are AJAX.

MS and Google, good work.... Great innovation and make developer's life better.

Google AJAX Search API - Access Google search results from JavaScript apps.
Google AJAX Feed API - Download and mashup public feeds in JavaScript.
Google Data APIs - Read and write data to Google services including Google Calendar and Blogger.
Google Gadgets - Write simple mini-apps for the Google homepage and Google Desktop.
Google Maps API - Embed Google Maps in your own web pages.
Google Web Toolkit - Write AJAX apps in the Java language

Today 100 million Chinese are trading Share

China stock accounts has exceeded 99 million weeks ago. It is reported, every day new accounts openned are more than 300,000 people, according to the cumulative rate, today it breaks 100 million mark. Thanks to the benign environment, people are becoming richer.

Stock market skyrocketed, the people involved in the stock market this year are also enthusiastic with a sustained manner. Since January this year alone, the new accounts as high as 20 million, that is, the market is as high as 20% of total people involved in the trend.

How many more people can pull into the bubble, and how high index can it go. Shanghai index now is 4,300, not long ago it was 1,000. Some expert claims reaching 6000 is not a dream in 2008. But in reality, it is very unlikely more capital can be invested into the market.

Actually, 1.3 billion people play with 1,300 shares. Sounds not a surprise why share index can rise that fast.

Comments on 50 ways to promote traffic

1. Write and submit articles to the article directories.

Well, not easy. Top article forum only accept top and unique articles. I had around 6 articles in GoArticles. To be honest, not many people read them at all. Because there are so many good articles there. I don't see a direct impact on my links increase in my Google crawl.

2. Leave comments on other people��s blogs with a backlink to your site.
3. Answer people��s questions on www.answers.yahoo.com.

Cross. Time consuming... I would prefer the second option, because at least you are learning.

4. Post in forums and have a link to your site in your signature.
5. Write a press release and submit it to www.PRWeb.com.
6. Advertise your website in the appropriate category on www.CraigsList.com.
7. Give an unbiased testimonial on a product/service that you have used in exchange for a backlink to your site.
8. Start a blog and submit it to the 100's of free blog directories.
9. Manually submit your website to the major search engines.
10. Optimize each page of your website for a particular keyword or search phrase.

11. Add a link in your email signature to your website. It��s a free and easy way to get a little more traffic.

12. Make a custom 404 error page for your website redirecting people to your home page.
13. Use PPC search engine advertising.
14. Add a ��bookmark this site�� link to your webpages.
15. Have a tell-a-friend form on your site.
16. Send articles to ezine publishers that includes a link to your website.
17. Hold a crazy content and make it go viral.
18. Give away a freebie (ebook, report, e-course) to keep people coming back to your site.
19. Add an RSS feed to your blog.
20. Submit your site to any related niche directories on the net.
21. Participate in a banner or link exchange program.
22. Create a software program and give it away for free.
23. Purchase the misspellings or variations of your domain name, or those of your competitors.
24. Buy a domain name related to your niche that is already receiving traffic and forward it to your site.
25. Pass out business cards with your domain on them everywhere you go.
26. Start and affiliate program and let your affiliates send you visitors.
27. Start a page on social bookmarking sites such as www.MySpace.com.
28. Submit a viral video to www.YouTube.com
29. Conduct and publish surveys to your website.
30. Find joint venture partners that will send you traffic.
31. Start your own newsletter or ezine.
32. Use a autoresponder or email campaign to keep people coming back to your site.
33. Purchase ads on other sites.
34. Send a free copy of your product to other site owners in exchange for a product review.
35. Sell or place classified ads on www.eBay.com with a link to your site.
36. Post free classified ads on any of the sites that allow them with a link to your site.
37. Exchange reciprocal links with other related websites.
38. Network with other people at seminars or other live events.
39. Purchase advertising in popular newsletters or ezines.
40. Advertise on other product��s ��thank you�� pages.
41. Create a free ebook and list in on the ��free ebook�� sites.
42. Buy and use a memorable domain name.
43. Do something controversial.
44. Create an Amazon profile and submit reviews for books and other products that you have read.
45. Start a lens on www.Squidoo.com.
46. Use a traffic exchange (low quality traffic, but can sometimes be worthwhile).
47. Get referrals form similar but non-competing sites.
48. Create and sell a product with resell or giveaway rights and include a link to your site in it o others pass it around for you.
49. Email your list. If you don��t have one, get one.
50. Buy a pair of sandals; get your website engraved on the bottom and walk on the beach, stomp in the mud or play in the snow.
51. Print your Blog URL on your T-Shirt, might be better than 50th.

Vertical Slideshow

Science picture, it looks like AJAX enabled. There is no page refreshing.

Code is named "js/image-slideshow-vertical.js" which can be found in www.dhtmlgoodies.com.

There are a number of ways of displaying picture on web as slide. Some of them are really advanced.

In reality, AJAX is still the weapon dominating the market. Flex looks good, just like mission few are really using it.

China has cash $1.2 trillion

China has cash $1.2 trillion, it can buy Microsoft at $300 billion, Exxon at $470 billion, GE at $380 billion.

Then what is the most valuable company to buy. Technology or resource, I would reckon resource. If I am the person to make the decision, I will buy BHP.

Try Javascript in Blog

Below code is testing how to use JavaScript in a blog document.

Normal JS code copied is not working straight away, need to code the (/p) tag in front and reopen it (p) for the next article. There should be no new line break between codes. Else, it would automatically insert (br) tag beween lines.

What do people say on affiliate

This article is worth a read, possibly highlights all people's questions and concerns with the new trend.

It needs patience and lots of effort to build the engine, it is not one night's success. Just like share investment, to make money successfully, the process is boring, dreadful. Need courage, tenacity, hard work to explore in the darkness.

There is a possibility to make money, there are so many other ways as well. People may tell you much adsense he has made, but he doesn't tell you how much is the profit after deducting adword cost. SEO, is the king, otherwise if relying on adwords and adsense the margins, it depends on massive volume to make some decent money.

I would think this is a one of the hardest way to make a living in the world. Just like making money from share market, everyone can participate, it does not need any skills, and experience, because it is easy to 'make money', the question is what is the chance.

Build a business in 3 months.

Sounds a good idea, "How to grow your business by taking three months off". I had 3 months parental leave last year, what I was doing was researching on CFD, possibly calling gambling in share.

What I will do,
1. Reading, studying, for example, eBay, affiliate, amazon, AdSense, auto blogging or shares, property.
2. Build my own business plan, elect you as the project manager, find resources required for the project, budget, labor. Create development plan, mile stones, review it periodically.
3. Find tools I will need to improve my productivity.

A few tools worth a look, ActiveWords, Text Expander, FeedDemon, etc.

From cubicle slave to business owner

From cubicle slave to business owner. If you have the dream, what to do from here,

1. Turn your leap into a small step
2. Go back to school to learn skills
3. Start talking about it to share ideas.
4. Learn all you can from your cubicle job, use your current experience.
5. Brace yourself for the downshift, prepare for bad, hope for good.
6. Consider starting your business part-time, step by step, less risk.
7. Don't wait forever, you would need a business plan and follow each milestone.

Working from home is the people's desire and market trend, eShopping or eAdvertising is replacing traditional ways of doing business. The hard part is entering to the business is not that easy as claimed in many website. How many new website created in a day, that is 120,000 according technorati. The virtual world is just expanding so rapidly. Letting people recognise you from ground zero in this massive virtual world is not easy. The same process applies to home business, producing, marketing, selling and supporting. The first 2 parts are hardest, what to produce, eBay, adword, eBook, how to advertise and how to make your site rank high in major search engines. In the first months or years, home business is not working 9-5, possibly, 8-10 everyday. As I said, worth a try, as far as you can get pleasure doing this.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics v.2 is just Astounding.

Google Analytics is cool to analyse visitor of your website. It knows what is your customer live and what is the most popular customer area. Who are your visitors, and what is their behavior while visiting your site, such as average time spent on your site, how many new visitors.

If you have a merchandise website, the tool will be so useful in terms of analysing markets, trend and profitability.

Fractal

Unreal landscape

Sound with Google Earth

Google earth will have sound soon from this month. One of the prediction last year. How about more, building the environment as second life, having real Avatar (teleport and I can fly), real animals around, real fishing experience, real wave...

Well, if I am 60, Google earth will be really nice, plug into a big TV (possibly at the Time it is 3-D image), no need to travel.

Second Life Interviews

The program interviews people on virtual life, it was recorded by Australian ABC.

The article tells story of the First Millionaire in second life.

OK, virtual, what can be virtual, land, life, travel, money. I would die, but my life in the virtual world not perish. I can live together with my grandson, grand-grand-son.

Create Picture Slide - Picasa

What is behind this, AJAX, similar Google map. Here are the steps to embed a slide into a page.
1. Create an account in Picasa, sign in, create folders and building images.
2. Get URL for the slide page.
3. Code uses iFrame to display the web page.

Sydney Opera House

Personalization

Search is always returning same results, particularly if searching customised websites , how about just searching document I have not read before. That would be nice, if the link has been opened before, the document would not come out and save my time. Optionally, user can choose searching all docs including read. So how and where to store which document or URL is read. IBM's domino application does this feature years before, and actually the tool is very well designed. I can go to a notes database, turn on show 'unread only' or all'. This is stored in people's desktop. Similarly, this can be done in user's computer. It can satisfy most of cases. If user is browsing web office, home and pub, such information has to be installed somewhere else and browsing has to be user-name driven. This can be done, if Google can provide such tool, log in once, store opened URLs centrally.

The other question is for all pages it does not tell you when it was created or last modified. If it is modified, then the document should be searched out. How to find out when the doc is modified has to rely on search index. I am sure by using Google's index and webmaster, and providing another place storing user's history (actually Google does provide such tool), this feature is not hard to implement.

Personalization is a large area to explore.

Flowers

Resolving Sudoku by IBM's Domino

The document is related to some discoveries I had resolving Sudoku puzzle. I did this in a IBM Domino application, or call it notes database years ago. Writting code is much more enjoyable than thinking by hand, the bad thing is after I wrote the application, I had never used my brain to do it.

Normally I would need 10-20 minutes to resolve a puzzle, the quickest I did is less than 6 minutes. I am not sure whether there is a world record for human brain. for programming, it takes less than 3 seconds.

There is something I can't understand, IBM's Deep Blue can beat chess champion (though I don't know how it was possible), but for another game, computer seems useless. This is "Go Chess" or "Wei Qi" which is popular in Japan, China or South Korea. I played with a number of computer before, all of them I can beat them easily.

It have a number of ways doing it according to wiki. Below is the logic I coded, it uses same logic if I do it by hand.

1. Eliminating number for a cell.
1 to 9 can be possibly assigned to a cell. A number of figures can be eliminated if same row, same column or the 3-3-cell group has the figure. If after elimination, only one number is left for the cell, it must be right.

I tried this first, tested a few it works fine. It can not resolve all puzzles. I found I overlooked figure constraint in the 3x3 group. So I wrote the 2nd part.

2. Allocating missing number in 3x3 cell, or eliminating cell for a number.
If a number is missing in 3x3 cell, normally it can be put into a few remaining empty cells. The question is how to eliminate cells for the figure. For example, if there are 3 cells left to put fiure 1 in a 3*3 group, but 2 of them are impossible because parallel cells in same column or row has got it, the last spot is must be right.

After this, it can resolve 80% puzzles in seconds, just by one click. 20% are really hard ones. It needs to take a guess to see whether all cells can be filled for the possibility, if it fails, try a different one until it works. I use this way to resolve the rest 20%, for most difficult puzzle, I took around 2-3 mins. I reckon, the step is extremely difficult for human, this needs a great member and fast analytical skill, if doing by paper, it would mess up quickly before the person is lost.

Computer is so powerful, so great, but it is not as good as human.

What is predicated for web RIA 2007.

RIA web in 2007 , now it is half way through, let us see how accurate is the prediction.

1. Vista is going to raise the bar for experiences across the board
Disagree, My view, Vista is not turning well. There are complaint 'Too slow'.

2. Adobe's Apollo is going to be much better than expected
Agree, Adobe is going to open source on this. Hotter and hotter.

3. Microsoft is going to make inroads into the design market
Agree, Visual studio is great, now it has WPF and AJAX. .Net 3.0 will fully released next year. So forget PHP programming, that is Web 1.0's product. Use Flex and Visual Studio.

4. The Designer/Developer workflow will get some mainstream press.
Agree, not that evident.

5. Apple is going to make a play in Rich Internet Applications
.....

6. Competition for technology in the online video space will heat up
Agree, the virtual world is just expanding so fast.

7. Flex becomes the primary technology for building Rich Internet Applications.
Can not agree more on this. Flex is so great, does not have the boundary facing for Java, JavaScript or AJAX.

8. "WPF/E" will have a higher penetration than Apollo.
Agree, fiece competition. Microsoft will be likely to win. Its foundation is so solid and strong. Looking at video provided for Asp.net programming, can tell its strength.

9. The Mozilla platform and Apollo will fight for the cutting edge Ajax developers
Agree. Crossing boundary more.
Sun microsoft has Java Fx. For Java developers, a great news.

10. OpenLaszlo is going to be a beacon for open source developers looking to build Rich Internet Applications
.....

Go chess.

Computer can not replace human, though Blue chip can beat Kasparov. It is useless for "Go chess". In chess programs, brute force is the only strategically or tactically significant factor in playing strength. It is done by repeating, elimination, optimization. It is very very powerful.

Why computer can not do it properly for 'Go Chess'.Human can recognize, can be strategic, can see the big picture, can have a great vision. Human can also be delicate, be subtle, can recognize pattern, can have 6th sense, feel space that is empty.

Computer boasts its speed, human brain is not good at speed and does not need to be speedy. Why human brain is so special, what is behind it. If computer engineers can realy develop a good application dealing with "Go chess", then we can resolve lots of mystery in our own body. Are we built by God? We can build machine, but not something with spirit, only God can.

Go chess, one of my favorite game, can not be replaced by machine.

YouTube API for Asp.net

This component interfaces with YouTube's API. The download comes with a website full of examples on how to use it. If you want to integrate it into your project copy the DLL from the bin folder and put it into your project.

YouTube's API

Fractal

Many people have planned to draw a nice Fractal gragh, I tried using VB6 years ago, at the time drawing a nice pic would take hours.
Now technology is ready, can draw a nice Fractal picture on web, speed should not be a problem, Google Map can be transmitted well, nice zooming feature can be also possible.

Either can be done by AJAX or by Flex. Flex might be better.

Tomato and Email

Below is a copied article from my email. My view, if he has email address, he could be rich as Bill Gates if he can be that so successful on selling tomato.
---------------
A jobless man applied for the position of "Office boy" at Microsoft.
The HR manager interviewed him then watched him cleaning the floor as a
test.
"You are employed."

He said.
" Give me your e-mail address and I'll send you the application to
fill in, as well as date when you may start."

The man replied
"But I don't have a computer, neither an email."
"I'm sorry",
said the HR manager,
"If you don't have an email, that means you do not exist. And who
doesn't exist, cannot have the job."

The man left with no hope at all. He didn't know what to do, with only $10
in his pocket. He then decided to go to the supermarket and buy a 10Kg
tomato crate.

He then sold the tomatoes in a door to door round. In less than two hours,
he succeeded to double his capital. He repeated the Operation three times,
and returned home with $60. The man realized that he can survive by this
Way, and started to go everyday earlier, and return late Thus, his money
doubled or tripled every day. Shortly, he bought a cart, then a truck,
then

he had his own fleet of delivery vehicles.

5 years later, the man is one of the biggest food retailers in the US . He
started to plan his family's future, and decided to have a life
insurance.

He called an insurance broker, and chose a protection plan. When the
conversation was concluded, the broker asked him his email. The man
replied,
"I don't have an email".
The broker answered curiously,

"You don't have an email, and yet have succeeded to build an
empire. Can you imagine what you could have been if you
had an email?!!"

The man thought for a while and replied,
"Yes, I'd be an office boy at Microsoft!"

Moral of the story:

M1 - Internet is not the solution to your life.
M2 - If you don't have internet, and work hard, you can be a millionaire.
M3 - If you received this message by email, you are closer to being an
office boy, than a millionaire. ..

Trend for "make money online"

Years before, from 2000-2003 I could always hear seminars teaching property investment, actually I attended one of them and bought 2 properties and had some profits.

In the last a few years, there were seminars teaching CFD, a highly leveraged trading method for shares. Now, recently, there are seminar on 'Make money online' or 'Home business'.

Yesterday I received a DVD from an Australian Company www.InternetMasterySecrets.com.au. I clicked an adword in one website and ordered it. The instructor mentioned from now on it is better to name every new website with 'secrets' because people are interested at knowing secrets. A friend of mine asked the DVD from newspaper advertisement recently as well. We are influenced by the same atmosphere.

In my working place, a few people are designing web pages. No wonder, 120,000 new websites are being created every day. The virtual world is expanding rapidly.

The DVD is titled 'how I went from wage-slave to 850K per year in just 12 months. It tells a number of good theories on marketing for selling eProduct. I think most people follow will not make a success. How a profit is made, is by selling eBook, audio, video, or providing coaching or seminar to people. Then what is the topic, teaching new member how to 'make money online'. Oh, the same concept of '1 to 100 dollar story'. More and more people have heard the story, less and less people will open pocket and pay.

Worth a try, just for a different experience. Concept is never wrong, multiple stream income, or passive income. This is another kind of investment, share, property...

Paramid scheme and make money fast

"If you give me a dollar, I can tell you how you can make you 100 dollars fast". Then what is the answer if I give you a dollar, finding another 100 people ask the same question. Paramid is better, can have multiple levels.

First time before knowing the term, is when I was in University. That was in Shanghai, in early 90. A Taiwanese is selling grocery and ask every person who joined buying stuff for 300 Yuan/month. How much you can earn for a year, he claimed 90,000 yuan is so easy. It was so appearing considering how much is my living expenses, is around 2000 yuan a year. When I was attending the presentation, the stadium is packed for around 20,000 people. I don't know how many people followed, and how many made some fortune. Later it was banned in China and such marketing is labelled illegal.

Second time is in 2001, when I was in Sydney, similar concept, similar introduction. But this time, it is on on-line shopping... This time, after the presentation, I spoke to my colleague it was not new for me. I have been very rich once.

Nowadays, similar scheme is often used. 1 level or multiple level. Because it really
sounds great... On the 13's level, that is world population...

Every one want to have a good living without much work. "want to earn $100,000?, without experience, without hard work" - I definitely want. But I never hear who is very rich because he is on top of a pyramid.

Microsoft is considering acquiring Yahoo

Microsoft is considering acquiring Yahoo! in what could be a $50 billion deal.

Well, search engine will be dominated by Microsoft and Google. Who have more innovative ideas will win. Microsoft is good at following and take over.

Apart from USA market, China is 2nd largest market in the world. China will be replacing USA as the largest internet market in 2010 by having 200 Million on the line.

Why buy Yahoo, can consider to buy Baidu, which is the largest search engine in China, taking 53% of market share. Li KaiFu, its CEO mentioned in near future, there will be no place for overseas company.

Hate the idea of creating Blogg is for making money only.

Recently I have tried a number of tools that is designed to make money by web site or Blogging. I would say they are just not impressive as they stated.

1. First I went to a advertisement, promising the website worth $1,200. Then I registered, what I found is 3 ads (with some nice pics) for other companies, the only way to earn money is by affiliate. Then I sent to a forum, suddenly, more than 60 people visited the site, by none of them registered the 3 ads.

2. I wrote a few articles in Squidoo, I put all kinds of affiliate in, after 2 weeks, there are around 50 visits totally, and earning is 0.

3. HyperVEE, is a software I downloaded, and upgraded to GOLD membership. Using the software can produce lots of website easily. Some people mentioned it was ever used for creating 600 web site easily. What I found is what it can possibly deliver is horrible. Searched article does not match its keyword title or it has no documents returned. From software development point of view, it does not meet the basic standard. If a web site is developed by this software, I don’t know who will visit, why they would click Adsense in the site. What it can do is precompiled searched articles in the site, which can be possibly done by customized Google search or searching Looksmart.

4. I bought EasyBlogGenerator, it is a very sophisticated software. It has high standard from development of view compared with HyperVRE. If the objective of using the software is to creating blogging quickly, saying creating 40-50 blogs easily, then it definitely would end into a wrong track. The software can be helpful for people wanting to have a decent web site without good knowledge of HTML. Also, I hate the idea of copying other people’s article and replacing a few words to own the article.

Come on, there are 120K blogs are being created everyday, if propose of creating Blog is to make money, then it is totally WRONG. Making money is a by-product of people’s thoughts or people’s great efforts.

Name of the Blog was also changed for a few times because of this investigation process.

The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, April 2007

Looksmart in Australia is not listed. Is the 101 search engine.

The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, April 2007

How many blogs

According to web study, every day there are 120,000 new weblogs are being created, in mid 2005, there are around 70 million websites in the world.

And website are indexed and searched out by a few main search engines, to make a living from web by Google Adsense, is difficult.

First needs to find a good topic, secondly create a nice attactive web site or blog, thirdly, need to consider ways to improve traffic.

No many clicks a day people are conducting, 20 billions. So, there is still a chance to get clicked if page is rank is low.

Blog in Flex

This is a blog application written by Flex, like to see its appearance in one of the server. RIA, this would be Blog 2.0 The flash blog

iGoogle and web applications

When I first experienced iGoogle, first thing in my mind is what application can bring business value. Unlike weather, time, or art tool, is there any application small and easy to be used by end users. On the other hand, it can also benefit the community. Then I come across the Amazon search tool, which I feel is one of the best to be used by every one.

When buying stuff online, unlike shopping in grocery, we are unable to compare product and ask people's advice. Therefore, 2 aspects are affecting people's decision most, 1) what other people's comments on the product, 2) what are similar products.

One tool can help comparing similar products, make sure you have used it well before you go shopping online. It is an application written in Adobe Flex 2, a new programming language that is able to move traditional windows application to Web based.

Now we are talking Web 2.0, what is it, Blogging, Wiki, AJAX, community sharing, Web services. Another important concept for web 2.0 is we now going to face "the Platform of Future", that is more applications will be used in web. There will be less dependency on operating system, less need for software installation. Its benefit is obvious, having better security & support, less maintenance cost. IT people call it Web 2.0, none- IT can call it business 2.0.

Google introduced iGoogle today (May 2nd 2007), a personalised web platform. It has hundred applications or gadgets allowing customer to customise. The trend is Google and other IT companies will bring more and more business related application to web based, such as Microsoft's Word, Excel, Visio. Microsoft is not far behind on this either, its windows presentation foundation to be release in 2008 is really fascinating.

Make sure you have searched Amazon properly before you go shopping online - search Amazon

What is iGoogle.

iGoogle is an application that focuses on implementing Google`s technology – and search technology in general – into different mediums, one being your desktop. It has 4 features
Google Search, Google Mail, Desktop Search and News Search, it will charge you $25 for a full version.

You are kidding, this iGoogle is published by YazaaWeb Inc. Not by Google.

Come to the real story, Google launched its personalised homepage today, calling YouGoogle might be a better name. Nowadays, there are too many names starting with "i", but less with "You".

The trend is personalised web will be replacing windows application or Lotus workspace (which is handled by IBM websphere), it is the platform of the future (possibly not future anymore, platform of now). What is behind it, XML, webservices, and AJAX.

One thing I am not satisfied is it browser compatibility, I played Google Bubbles (don't know what it is), but this is message I got, "Technically, this gadget does work with Internet Explorer but the animations are much smoother and faster in the Firefox browser. If you are still using IE this would be a good time to switch.". Well, possibly iGoogle should consider using Adobe's Flex more.