It's no secret that we at ReadWriteWeb have a lot of love for startups that make their homes outside Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. Over the last year, we decided to make a few videos spotlighting some unique, unexpected locations where startups thrive, where tech scenes are vibrant, where cooperation outstrips competition, and where creativity runs rampant. One of the first cities we'd like to introduce you to is home to between 150 and 170 startups as well as a thriving entrepreneurial and creative community. Welcome to Boulder, Colorado. Sponsor Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb! With the startup accelerator program at TechStars acting as a lightning rod, this area has grown from an earthy university town to a true hotbed of innovation. In certain parts of downtown, you can't throw a rock without hitting some startup's offices, and I could barely walk three blocks without bumping into at least one entrepreneur, developer, or designer working at a company such as Threadless or AOL. We interviewed a couple of local startup advisors and one startup team about the culture and community in Boulder. Watch and listen to what they have to say; there are more than a few reasons tech-minded residents love this gorgeous mountain town. Discuss

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A Startup Movie: Never Mind the Valley, Here's Boulder

A study released earlier this year by Anderson Analytics looked into the demographics and psychographics of social networking users on Facebook , MySpace , Twitter , and LinkedIn with a goal of providing marketers with information about users' interests and buying habits as related to their network of choice. The end result is a detailed look at the profiles and habits of social networking users on the web today. Some of the study's findings echo things we've already heard. For example, Facebook users tend to be old, white, and rich. MySpace users are young...and fleeing. Other info is new: Twitterers are more likely to have a part-time job, LinkedIn users like to exercise and own more gadgets. Sponsor Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb! The Anderson study sampled over 11,000 GreenfieldOnline panelists (an online survey community) over an 11 month period to understand social networking services' (SNS) reach and overlap among the U.S. Online Population. In May, the company surveyed an additional 5,000 panelists of which over 1,250 participated in an in-depth attitude and usage survey. They then grouped the participants into two categories: those who use social networks and those who don't. To be considered a social network user, the participant had to use one of the sites in question in the past 30 days. Of course, not everyone is devoted to one social network alone. The study found that there is some overlap between sites, as shown in the chart below. Social Networkers, in General Out of the 110 million Americans (or 60% of the online population) who use social networks, the average social networking user logs on to these sites quite a bit. They go to social networking sites 5 days per week and check in 4 times a day for a total of an hour per day. Nine percent of that group stay logged in all day long and are "constantly checking what's new." Interacting with Brands When it comes to brands online, the study found that: 52% of social networkers had friended or become a fan of at least one brand, 17% felt positive when seeing a brand on a social network, 19% felt negative when seeing a brand on a social network, 64% were neutral or didn't care about brands on social networks, 20% would like to see more communication from brands online, 35% would not like to see more communication, 45% were neutral or didn't care. Social Networking Myths Shot Down A couple of interesting things that came out of the study included the debunking of some social networking myths. Social networkers are not as interested in friending strangers or creating "fake" friends to boost their ego. Out of the group, 45% connect only to family and friends and another 18% will connect only to people they've met in person. In other words, two-thirds are connecting to people they actually know. Only 10% of those surveyed said they will friend anyone. Also interesting is that only 15% of social networkers say they log on at work, thus debunking another myth about how prevalent social network use is at the workplace. Non-Social Networkers The study revealed the reasons why some online users aren't into social networks. Surprisingly, it's not because they hate technology - they spent just as much time on the web as the networkers do. Instead, they don't use social media because either they don't have the time, they don't think it's secure, or they think it's stupid. Yet even out of the time-starved group, 22% report they'll start using social media in 3 months and 27% said they'll start using it in a year. Continue to Part 2 for details on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Discuss

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Who Uses Social Networks and What Are They Like? (Part 1)

Just as many of us are getting used to augmented reality applications for cellphones and digital cameras, Babak Amir Parviz and his University of Washington students are taking it one step further. The group is working on a human machine interface where LEDs are embedded into contact lenses in order to display information to the wearer. You heard right, in a few years your cyborg eye will talk to you. In an article with the IEEE Spectrum , Parviz relays the challenges of custom-building semi-transparent circuitry into a polymer lens roughly 1.2 millimeters in diameter. Sponsor Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb! Says Parviz, "We're starting with a simple product, a contact lens with a single light source, and we aim to work up to more sophisticated lenses that can superimpose computer-generated high-resolution color graphics on a user's real field of vision." For now, Parviz mentions that single pixel visual cues for gamers and the hearing impaired are already quite possible with the lens prototypes. The group has also experimented with non-invasive biomonitoring including checking glucose levels for diabetics. Some of the obvious challenges of building an augmented reality contact lens include: 1. The Need for Custom Parts: Regular circuitry and LEDs are incompatible with regular contact lenses. Every piece of this project must be fabricated from scratch. 2. Physical Constraints: The group must attempt to fit transistors, radio chips, antennas, diffusion resistors, LEDs and photodetectors onto a minuscule polymer disc. Additionally, the team is required to control lens position and light intensity relative to the pupil. And finally, because the lens is so close to the corneal surface, the group must project images away from the cornea using either micro-lenses or lasers. 3. User Safety: In addition to protecting the eye against chemicals, heat and toxins, the lens components must be semi-transparent in order for the wearer to view their surroundings. "We already see a future in which the humble contact lens becomes a real platform, like the iPhone is today, with lots of developers contributing their ideas and inventions. As far as we're concerned, the possibilities extend as far as the eye can see." And you thought the iPhone SDK was a tough nut to crack. For Parviz's complete seven-page article, check out the IEEE Spectrum's Biomedical page. Discuss

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Your Cyborg Eye Will Talk to You

This week ReadWriteWeb is running a series of posts analyzing the five biggest Web trends of 2009. Our first post was about Structured Data , our second about The Real-Time Web . The third part of our series is on Personalization . Personalization has long been a buzzword on the Internet. With the glut of information on the Web circa 2009, personalization in this era means providing effective filters and recommendations . Ultimately personalization is about websites and services giving you what you want, when you want it. That's the long-standing dream anyway. Let's see if the products of 2009 are fulfilling it. Sponsor Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb! All of the trends that we're profiling overlap. This is particularly so with personalization, as we'll see. Filtering the Real-Time Firehose Personalization is often used to provide an organization layer for users on top of real-time data. As Ken Fromm put it in his primer on the Real-Time Web : "The Internet is shifting from discrete units of websites and Web pages to discrete units of information organized in ways that are relevant and personal to each individual, using data gleaned from social graphs as well as recommendation and personalization services that allow users to set their preferences." If you use a dashboard product like TweetDeck, Seesmic or Peoplebrowsr to use Twitter, then you're able to group people, keywords and topics. This is effectively personalization at work. Open Web: More Data About You, Better Personalization Another aspect of personalization is the increasing prevalence of open data on the Web. A lot of companies make their data available on the Web via APIs, web services, and open data standards. And as we discussed in the first post in this series, much of that data is structured - allowing it to be inter-connected and re-used by third parties. How does open data lead to personalization? Simply put, the more data about you and your social graph that is available to be used by applications, the better targeted the content and/or service will be to you. There are non-trivial privacy issues about this, however the personalization benefits can be significant. There are a whole host of open data standards on the Web now. They include: Data portability - taking your data and friends from one site to another. OpenID - portable identity; single sign-on. OpenSocial - Google initiative for social networks, enabling developers to create widgets with one set of code; MySpace a member, Facebook isn't. APML - growing 'Attention' standard; Your Attention Data is all the information online about what you read, write, share and consume. Recommendation Engines Many consumer products on the Web aim to recommend you things that you may like . A couple of years ago, Alex Iskold outlined what he saw as the 4 main approaches to recommendations : Personalized recommendation - recommend things based on the individual's past behavior Social recommendation - recommend things based on the past behavior of similar users Item recommendation - recommend things based on the item itself A combination of the three approaches above Amazon is probably still the best example of recommendations on the Web, but an example of something new from 2009 was Netflix launching better personalization features in March. They included new taste preferences, allowing users to (for example) choose between movies that are romantic, suspenseful, or dark. Other additions included a personalized homepage and a feature enabling users to mix and match genres. Conclusion Personalization has shown slow but steady progress in 2009. It hasn't been as wild a ride as Structured Data or Real-Time Web, but we consider personalization to be a key facet of the evolving Web. ReadWriteWeb's Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Structured Data The Real-Time Web Personalization Mobile Web & Augmented Reality Internet of Things Image credit: davepatten Discuss

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Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Personalization

A hypothetical discussion between a cloud consultant and his client that is just too good not to post. Just be forewarned - this is NSFW. Sponsor Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb! No one is spared by "the consultant": "No one knows what is going on. Not even Gartner. Especially Gartner." " CloudCamp is just a bunch of vendors getting pissed, eating pizza and comparing the size of their case studies." "And what is this about Microsoft. They are considered to be one of the four big cloud providers and they are about as cloudy as Steve Ballmer is cool." It goes on. it does strike a chord. The hype about cloud computing is so ripe for satire. Almost as much as social media - which apparently was the inspiration for this sketch. The cloud consultant makes his point pretty well about the state of the cloud computing market. Hardly anyone is making any money. Have we not seen this before in our world of over charged tech enthusiasm? In the meantime, according to the consultant, the only ones making a dime (barely) on cloud computing are a bookseller and a search engine. "And maybe Salesforce," the consultant says. "And they were cloud before cloud was cloud." Discuss

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The Cloud Consultant Spares No One

If you want to help Mozilla to make Firefox better but you are not a developer, here is your chance. Earlier this year, Mozilla announced the launch of Test Pilot , the organization's new distributed usability lab. Test pilots will be enlisted in various usability tests and will be some of the first to see some of Mozilla's ideas for new user interfaces and Mozilla Labs products. We first wrote about Test Pilot when it was just a "still-in concept platform." Now, however, you can download the Test Pilot add-on for Firefox 3.5 here and begin to help Mozilla make Firefox even better. Sponsor Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb! First Tests Are Coming Soon For now, Mozilla will start the program with a survey that aims to get a better understanding of who is joining the Test Pilot community. The first actual tests should arrive soon after this first survey is complete. Mozilla stresses that it will take its users' privacy seriously. Participants have to opt-in and data will be stored in anonymous form. Only aggregate test data will be made available to the public. Overall, this looks like a great project. Usability studies tend to be slow and costly, yet with Test Pilot, Mozilla will be able to quickly enlist feedback about new design ideas from its large community of users. Discuss

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Become a Test Pilot: Mozilla Wants Your Help To Make Firefox Better