Open Threads — GigaOM

Open Threads

A recent survey of New Year’s resolutions found that workers want to get organized, stay connected, and respond more quickly to business communications. What are your New Year’s resolutions? How do you plan to manage your work life in 2011? Read More »

One of the key topics that we’ll be discussing at our Net:Work conference is how to manage workers remotely. As the workforce becomes more mobile and distributed, with people working on projects on an ad-hoc basis, it’s a problem that more businesses will need to tackle. Read More »

 
 

One of the sessions I’m most looking forward to at Net:Work, Designing the Organization for Real-Time Collaboration, relates to how companies using collaboration tools are adapting to those tools. How are you using collaboration tools, and how have they shaped your work and your organization? Read More »

Over on GigaOM Pro, my latest Long View takes a look at some of the lessons that vendors of enterprise apps could learn from the the vibrant and innovative consumer web apps market. Here’s a quick rundown of my five key takeaways: Read More »

Conventional wisdom suggests buying into the convenience and performance of converged infrastructure means buying into the dreaded vendor lock-in problem. As it turns out, however, that doesn’t have to be the case — Dell and Egenera are two players leading the charge for open converged infrastructure. Read More »

Because of the catalyst of the stimulus funds, many of the 4G smart grid networks that Alcatel Lucent is helping utility customers build right now are based on WiMAX. Go figure. Read More »

Oracle Exalogic Networking: Performance or Lock-In?

In introducing Exalogic, Oracle has made a big bet on tightly integrated solutions thinking that enterprises don’t want to be in the systems integration business and has made a networking technology choice that favor performance in place of interoperability and broad data center applicability. Read More »

I would like to get the opinions of the corporate web workers in the WWD readership about the tools that you use. How do you find the equipment and software that are issued to you by your employer? Are they hindering your productivity? Read More »

Skype’s S-1 notes that it is planning to introduce more products for businesses, although it doesn’t go into any detail as to what they might be; I thought it would be interesting to get your thoughts on what products Skype should be working on. Read More »

One thing that struck me while reading this interesting Guardian article by Phil Daoust about the rise in the number of people working from home were the figures claimed for the increases in productivity of organizations with telecommuting employees. Read More »

Open Thread: What Non-tech Tools Do You Use?

Here at WebWorkerDaily, we understandably spend rather a lot of our time talking about technology: The gadgets and software that enable web working. But what about the tools that many of us rely on every day that aren’t “tech”? Read More »

Open Thread: What Collaboration Tools Do You Use?

The collaboration market has grown rapidly over the past few years, with many companies trying to grab a slice of an ever-expanding pie. The result of this healthy competition is that there’s now more choice than ever before: Read More »

More Must Reads

Entrepreneur and VC Mark Suster believes that in-person teams are much more effective than those that collaborate remotely. Suster says that it’s hard for distributed teams to communicate effectively with fewer non-verbal cues and no in-office chatter? But can better technology bridge that gap? Read More »

Apple’s hotly-anticipated new smartphone, the iPhone 4, went on sale today. While there were long lines at many retail outlets as people clamored to get their hand on the new phone, there have also been reports of reception problems caused by the design of the device. Read More »

It’s been a week since the rollout of the new version of Hotmail began and I’m still waiting for my account to be updated. While Liz described the new Hotmail as “no knockout” over on GigaOM, I’m keen to try out the new release. Read More »

Google occasionally incorporates Labs features into Gmail, but many of them seem destined to remain stuck in Labs forever, so probably won’t be seen by most Gmail users. With that in mind, which Gmail Labs features you think should “graduate” and become part of Gmail itself? Read More »

Aaron Stannard has written an interesting and very candid post about his recent experience of doing what many developers dream of: taking an unpaid, month-long leave of absence from his regular job to try and create his own web-based startup company. Read More »

Safari 5, released for both Windows and Mac yesterday, is a major update to to the browser. It boasts improved support for HTML5, a new “Safari Reader” view that makes it easier to read articles online, better performance and (still to come) browser extensions. Read More »

I’m happy with my two current bags, but am looking for another. Why? Neither have enough space for other stuff when I’m traveling, which means I always have to take another bag, even on really short trips. What would you suggest I buy? Read More »

I believe there are valuable lessons that corporations can take from web workers to help their workforces. Many of the struggles that we’ve had will be experienced by corporations over the next few years as more of them adopt flexible working practices. Read More »

Next month will see our cloud computing conference, Structure, returning for its third year, which got me thinking about the impact of cloud computing on web working. It is amazing how cloud computing has revolutionized the web working landscape in such a short space of time. Read More »

While the proportion of the time that Britons spend on social networking sites is up (now taking 25 percent, from seven percent in 2007), IM usage has decreased quite markedly, taking just 5 percent of online time, compared to 14 percent three years ago. Read More »

Microsoft will reportedly roll out a new version of Hotmail on Monday, one that incorporates message threading and tagging, improved mobile access and social network integration, all at speeds faster than ever. But will it be enough to tempt users away from Gmail? Read More »

Over on Ghacks, Martin Brinkmann describes how he has been living without Flash installed on his work computer, due to an increase in the number of hacks targeting Flash. Brinkmann’s now four weeks into his experiment, and says he mostly hasn’t missed Flash. Read More »

Recently, I was talking with my accountability partner about email marketing. She’d had a bit of a mishap with one of her email campaigns, and we were trying to figure out how she could possibly correct the situation. Read More »

Not only is it just plain cool that field testing new toys often falls to us and then trickles up, it’s also a responsibility I think web workers and the places that support them should openly and actively embrace. Read More »

I’m currently looking to buy a new office chair. The trouble is that there are so many available that the choice is bewildering, and as I’ve had back problems in the past I’d like to get a chair that is both comfortable and ergonomic. Read More »

Generating buzz about a new service or product is one of the toughest things marketers will ever have to do. It’s hard enough to achieve when you have real-life publicity events, where employees can display enthusiasm about a product, but online you don’t have that advantage. Read More »

Om and the team over at GigaOM recently shared “7 Things We Hope Will Come True in 2010.” While that list of things are all well and good for our industry as a whole, I’ve identified a list of … Read More »

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how people behave in different environments. It first crossed my mind a month or so ago, while out shopping with one of my sisters. She was driving, someone cut her off, and she commented on the person’s rude … Read More »

Yesterday, I watched my Twitter stream transform into a spirited conversation, complete with hurt feelings, wounded pride, and genuine attempts to put forward logical and eloquent arguments. Online friendships were torn asunder, and strong new allegiances formed. The culprit was a deceptively simple question: What makes … Read More »

UPDATED: Salvatore Cuffaro, an former Italian politician who was found to have ties with the Mafia in Italy, is taking legal action against 4,609 YouTube commenters. This story comes via Techdirt and Boing Boing, and there are some issues with translation, but here … Read More »

There was a flurry of activity this week in the over-the-top video space as Samsung announced that its HDTVs will start streaming content from both Amazon VOD and Blockbuster (which will also be available on select Samsung Blu-ray players). This follows on the heels … Read More »

As Om reports over on GigaOM, Amazon’s Kindle device has taken a price cut and is now available internationally. I’ll be adding one to my holiday wishlist this year; it’s the perfect device for anyone who likes to read and travels frequently but doesn’t … Read More »

I confess: I’m a terrible scatterbrain. It takes a lot for me to force my thoughts into a nice, orderly line and to keep them there — particularly in those busy times when I have a lot of competing priorities. In those times, I’ll often … Read More »

Almost exactly a year ago, Apple introduced its unibody aluminum MacBooks. “Unibody” means that the case is a single piece, with the battery being sealed inside. My immediate reaction, shared by many road warriors and web workers, was horror: “They can’t do that!” Not only … Read More »

There’s a temptation to title this piece “Local Boy Makes Good!” or something similar, for it’s extremely exciting to see that Dan Harmon (Heat Vision and Jack) has got himself a bona fide TV show. As the co-creator of Channel 101, Harmon is indirectly responsible … Read More »

Paid tweeting is nothing new. We’ve all seen spam users and posts in our Twitter feed and our following list, but usually the attempts are painfully obvious and easily dismissed. A new venture, Sponsored Tweets, by IZEA founder Ted Murphy (the guy … Read More »

Recently I realized that I haven’t done a good job of measuring how successful I have been as a freelance consultant. Don’t get me wrong, I measure many things and look at the results with a critical eye. I have analytics to measure my blog traffic, … Read More »

Hi, my name is Dawn, and I am an information junkie. I love learning new things and sharing them with others, and you can see this trend by looking back across my posts here on WebWorkerDaily and elsewhere. You’ll see many posts focused on … Read More »

Recently, I was commiserating with a friend looking for a new job about the unpleasantness of that task. I remembered the hours of fruitless toiling, sending countless resumes off into the void, along with unique, individually tailored cover letters for hundreds of positions. Days that first … Read More »

Microsoft launches IE8 to the public this morning; you can now download it from the Microsoft web site. But do most web workers even care? Despite using a Windows machine, I haven’t touched IE for weeks. I downloaded the release candidate to check it out … Read More »

The news that Gmail went down this morning (UK time) got me thinking about how we increasingly rely on third parties for essential business services. With a proliferation of web apps offering to meet our every business need and the inexorable rise of cloud … Read More »

Or at least it feels that way every time it happens. Gmail, including Google Apps, went down for about four hours or so this morning (or this afternoon, depending on where you are). It says a lot for Gmail’s reach that when it does go offline, … Read More »

We’re always looking for new sources of information about the major players in the mobile tech space and will be watching a new site just launched by the folks at Via.  How To Be Mobile promises to offer tips and advice on how to better … Read More »

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