GigaOM

With 2008 right around the corner, it’s worth looking back at 2007. I had thought — or at least hoped — that people would stop talking about hybrid web/desktop apps this year because Internet access would be nearly ubiquitous. Was I right? Not exactly.

Social networking is starting to enter its next phase: distributed social networking. And some are looking to open-source blogging platform WordPress to be its foundation.

Although LinkedIn wants to emulate Facebook’s success by drawing users and applications through the use of a similar portal strategy, LinkedIn is no Facebook. Today the professional networking service unveils two new features that demonstrate how LinkedIn might reach out.

When you get book recommendations from Amazon or music suggestions from Last.fm, they’re based not just on your own shopping and surfing history, but on the preferences of people who like the same things you do. It’s called collaborative filtering, and it’s not always an ideal way to find new things to read, watch, or [...]

Google’s Marissa Mayer, VP of search products & user experience, proposed Google Trends as a way of polling the populace, suggesting in a webcast yesterday that Trends could help predict who will win an election.
Mayer showed how Google Trends accurately predicted George W. Bush’s dominance over John Kerry in 2004 and Nicolas Sarkozy’s win in [...]

There’s this idea wandering around the web that less is better: less work, generally, and less writing and blogging and especially less press release rehashing. But more and faster conversation about technology means more chances for interesting ideas and useful analysis to emerge. There’s certainly a place for deep thought, but the web mind can [...]