Confluence now supports Open Social , allowing users to pull in gadgets to check Salesforce contacts, Gmail, Google Calendar and other items. The new features in Confluence 3.1, an Atlassian product, show that dashboard environments are certainly in vogue as the social web becomes a pervasive part of the business user’s daily work life. Sponsor Wikis, though are not a marketing term that has as much resonance. Enterprise collaboration is the holy grail. The release from Confluence shows the importance of open, collaborative services that provides the ability to stitch different data sources together into one environment. With its new release, Confluence is adding a number of new features: Open Social gadgets may be added by pointing and clicking. The upgrade to Confluence 3.1 includes two gadgets. Confluence Activity Stream displays a list of recent updates from a Confluence site. Quick Navigation provides Confluence search capabilities and suggests results while typing. Here’s an example of how a gadget is pulled into Confluence. Attachments may dragged and dropped into the Confluence environment. The idea being that Confluence can act much like a desktop application. Support is now provided for Microsoft Office 2007. Users may view attached Office 2007 documents, such as PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets within the Confluence wiki page. Users may search inside files and edit documents. Confluence is one of the leading service providers in the Enterprise 2.0 space. The service demonstrates how 2010 will see the continued integration of the open web within enterprise environments. As Bill Arconati of Atlassian said in an interview: “It’s all about interoperability.” Discuss

View original post here:
Confluence Supports Google’s Open Social, Microsoft Office 2007

Augmented reality browser Layar recently launched it’s v3 publishing site chock full of developer tools. The launch signifies more than 1000 active developers being given the chance to showcase their 3rd party applications. By exposing this immersive platform to outsiders, the company is solidifying its title as a pioneer in the “future of augmented reality”. In a recent blog post Layar outlined 5 cases to demonstrate the power of the platform. In addition to some of the company’s earlier 3rd party releases, below are some of our favorite layars. Sponsor 1. Civic Projects and Politics: A Netherlands-based Provast created a layar where users can see the final plans for the currently unfinished construction of the Markthal Rotterdam. Meanwhile developer Andree Toonk worked with NetKnowledge.ca on a slightly more political project. His layar gives information on all of the projects that receive funding from the Canadian government as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan. 2. History and Landmarks: Those visiting Liverpool and London can walk down music’s memory lane with a visual tour of Beatles-related points of interest. Layar developer Augmentedreality.co.uk created a layar where users can follow the exploits of the Fab Four. Meanwhile a number of developers have looked to historical landmarks as inspirations for their work. Similar to Junaio’s editable AR app , BuildAR lets you create your own points of interest and customize your layars to suit your needs. 3. Social: Dutch Squio.nl engineer Johannes la Poutré has a number of social applications for Layar. Similar to TwittARound , Tweeps Around queries Twitter for posts and marks the exact location that the post is given on an augmented reality layar. In his Foursquare application Poutré gives users access to the latest Foursquare venues and tips. 4. Advertising and Inventory : In addition to obvious product finding and advertising-based layars, Masternaut created a layar that allows users to track vehicles and assets across cities. Meanwhile developer Bastian Voight created a real time ship tracker for Vesseltracker with a layar that displays the position of moored ships in the world’s largest ports. 5. Specialized Reference : Developer Pablo Garcia created the Elipse Golf layar where users can find the exact location of a golf hole and tee up for success. Smallroomstudios.net developer Patrick O’Reilly focused on transportation with both a Dublin bus location layar and a layar for Dublin’s public bicycle program. Other layars also exist to locate hospitals, apartments for rent and wireless hotspots. Discuss

Read the original:
Layar Adds Foursquare, Beatlemania and Civic Projects to its AR Offerings

December 1 marks World AIDS Day , and every major social site around the Internet has come together to spread awareness about the disease, its transmission and available treatments. Thanks to efforts from Facebook, Google, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube, AIDS is a more visible topic today than perhaps at any other point in the history of World AIDS Day. Read on to see what each site has done and the impact this joint campaign is having on users. Sponsor YouTube Live Streams a Concert with Alicia Keys In partnership with the singer’s foundation, Keep a Child Alive , YouTube is live streaming an Alicia Keys concert starting at 8 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Pacific. The site is also asking suers to donate $5 toward medication and other support for these sufferers. The site is also hosting and promoting this video about the Lazarus Effect, the seemingly miraculous results seen in HIV/AIDS patients given two pills of a specific medication – pills that are available at just 40 cents a day: Flickr Asks How Users Are Living With AIDS In a blog post and a group dedicated to those living with HIV/AIDS, Flickr asked its community of users to print a PDF emblazoned with the words “Facing AIDS” and incorporate it in a photograph to share with the world as part of an initiative with AIDS.gov . Facebook, Google and Twitter Go (RED) Both Facebook and Google have announced they’re working with (RED), a brand that helps raise awareness and money for the fight against AIDS in Africa. Google set up a page just for today’s events for users to learn more about the global effort to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, to find volunteer opportunities in their area, to get involved with the ONE Campaign, to purchase (RED) products as holiday gifts and to unite with others at the Global Network of People Living with HIV. Facebook asked users to change their profile pictures to (RED)-themed avatars, shop for (RED) products and join the (RED) Facebook page. And Twitter, our generation’s megaphone, encouraged users to tweet certain terms, @usernames and hashtags, which would turn tweets red and have certain outcomes. For example, for tweets containing #red, @joinred, 40 cents, AIDS, World AIDS Day, HIV and #laceupsavelives would change the color of the text and help raise awareness with users across the site. At press time, AIDS, HIV and World AIDS Day were all trending topics on Twitter. The site is also offering a red profile theme. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote that the site would be partnering with (PRODUCT)RED to raise funds, and 100 percent of funds raised would be used to help AIDS sufferers in Africa. What Does a Social Media Campaign for AIDS Really Do? In a Facebook blog post , (RED) CEO Susan Smith Ellis wrote, “Our success is very much owed to the emerging world of social media that exploded, just when we needed it. Like social media itself, with (RED) the power is not so much in the act of one individual but in the incredible power of the collective acts of individuals. In just over three years, over 1.5 million people have joined (RED) via a range of social media.” Indeed, today’s efforts are a testament to the collective power of social media – and the power of all platforms united in the name of a single cause So, what does all this social media buzz do for real-world sufferers and their families? Ellis wrote of the (RED) campaign, “In three year… people’s choices have resulted in $140 million being contributed to the Global Fund, with 100 percent of that money going directly to helping fight AIDS in Africa. Millions of people like you together have created this impact. “But it’s bigger than dollars. This money flows directly to AIDS grants that have already reached more than four million people with testing, counseling, AIDS treatment and services – programs that truly change lives.” Discuss

Read the rest here:
Facebook, Google & Twitter Unite for World AIDS Day Around the Web

What exactly from Office Web Apps and Office Mobile 2010 can you use on your mobile right now and what will be available when the product ships next spring? Mary Jo Foley does the best job of outlining what is happening here. Let’s take a sky high look and see if we can make sense of things so you know what to do if you really have an interest in giving Office a try on the mobile. Sponsor First of all, Office Web Apps is now in beta and available for download. It is free. Here is the first point of confusion and in our book goes to the heart of the issue. The Office Web Apps you download today is NOT the Office Web Apps that will ship next spring. What you download today is actually the business version, which is the paid version of the product. We expect that if you download the application today then you will have to download a new one when the REAL Office Web Apps launches next spring. Let’s move on to the next issue. What is exactly available with Office Web Apps ? According to Foley, it works with the following phones and apps: * IE on Windows Mobile 5/6/6.1/6.5 * Safari4 on iPhone 3G/S * BlackBerry 4.x and newer versions * Nokia S60 * NetFront 3.4, 3.5 and newer versions * Opera Mobile 8.65 and newer versions * Openwave 6.2, 7.0 and newer versions Hold on one more time. There is more we need to explain. According to Foley, you can only view documents in Office Web Apps. You can not write to

Gartner has acquired AMR Research for $64 million, further tightening Gartner’s grip on the analyst world. Gartner is the leading IT Research firm with annual sales of $1.28 billion. AMR Research is a long time research and advisory services that specializes in serving supply chain management and IT professionals. It’s a far smaller operation than Gartner. Last year the firm did $40 million in revenues. The firm has 40 analysts. Sponsor Bruce Richardson of AMR points out that Gartner is about 32 times the size of AMR with 60,000 clients inside 10,000 organizations. What this means for Gartner is an expansion of tis research offerings. Gartner says it will also extend the company’s consulting and events business. AMR is reaching out to its customers today, saying it will be business as usual until January 1 when “integration,” will begin in earnest. That’s according to a l etter from Tony Frisca, president and CEO at AMR. Richardson points out that benefits will come with scale. AMR will write to a much larger audience. They will have stronger global reach. They will reach into more verticals. Richardson, who is generally viewed as AMR’s most high profile analyst, will stay with Gartner which he looks forward to in an amusing way: “While it will be a bit odd not to have the Advanced Manufacturing Research or AMR Research logos grace my business cards and PowerPoint templates, at least I will never again be introduced as being from “American Market Research” or “ARM.” Everyone knows Gartner.” The acquisition is expected to be completed later this month. Discuss

More:
Gartner to Acquire AMR Research for $64 Million

Firefox gets distributed social networking and identity management. The good people who work on the revolutionary, open-sourced, and occasionally maligned browser have been hard at work on making cross-site navigation and portable IDs a solvable problem. A discrete button to the left of the URL that can tell users whether or not they are logged in to a particular site and allow them to log in without further navigation? Accuse us of punning, but definitely sign us up. Google Chrome: Start taking notes. Sponsor Our friends at Mozilla posted this teaser back in the spring, when they touted a way to eliminate clicks and keystrokes between navigating to and being recognized by a given website. Our own Marshall Kirkpatrick enthused, “Earlier this week, we argued that browsers and social networks were fast converging, and that with more users and some feature advantages, Firefox could be the best real competition for Facebook… This is just one more chapter in a much larger story – but look how easy this makes OpenID to use!” But now, Mozilla’s UX chief Aza Raskin has posted more updates to his personal blog that indicate new hotness is coming soon. The new feature will harness the power of Mozilla’s Weave to make your online identity something that’s stored in your back pocket more than it’s stored in your cookies or a third party’s server. Decrying redirects and iframes , Raskin tells of a brave new world where an in-browser button that defies navigational difficulties allows for something closer to true identity portability than we’ve seen yet: Identity will be one of the defining themes in the next five years of the Web. Nearly every site has a concept of a user account, registration, and identity. Searching for “sign in” on Google yields over 1.8 billion hits. And yet, the browser does nothing to make this experience better save for some basic auto form filling. The browser leaves websites to re-implement identity management, and forces users to learn a new scheme for every site… Your identity is too important to be owned by any one company. Finally! They said it! And now, we give you screenshots: So, what’s the verdict, readers? Does this surpass Chrome’s identity-porting capabilities? Does this create massive privacy issues for users who don’t want their personal traffic tracked? Discuss

Read more here:
Firefox’s Plan to Kick the Login’s Butt

As we approach 2010, a number of new efforts are underway to make documents more social. One consultant told us how recently a client tried to turn Sharepoint into a Twitter client. That’s a monster! But we have to give SAP credit for developing a more innovative way to add social elements to PowerPoint presentations. Sponsor Last month, SAP launched a free PowerPoint Twitter tool. Yesterday they made a number of upgrades to the service, including: Auto-tweeting An additional feedback slide An option for secure internal use The ability to pre-format slide with Twitter values. For instance, create templates for conferences. Aspects of the service may be a bit complex for many presenters. But if you keep to the basics, it can be a smart tool for engaging audiences. The download for the PowerPoint Twitter tool is free. Auto-Tweet Let’s say you are presenting a PowerPoint deck and you want to tweet what you are saying about the slides. With auto-tweet, you can tweet your slide notes from the PowerPoint presentation. Timo Elliott writes on the SAP Web 2.0 blog: “You can use the twitter feed to reinforce the points you are making in your presentation, or ask the audience questions related to your content, and include a feedback slide later in the presentation to review the audience replies.” Feedback Slides The new feedback slide shows twice as many tweets as the original version. According to Elliott, the feature supports pagination and custom feeds. For example, it can use a service like http://TidyTweet.com for a moderated feed, or any other atom-based feed Features for the More Advanced User The remaining new features are for more advanced users. For instance, to secure feeds internally, Elliott recommends adding a server and installing the open-source microblogging platform from Status.Net . That usually requires assistance from a company’s IT department. The Basic Stuff Is Pretty Cool The more basic features make the SAP service worth checking out. For example, the service provides the ability for people to tweet their votes: Overall, the SAP service does work. it adds an interactive element to presentations. “Death by PowerPoint?” Maybe not so much with Twitter part of the equation. Discuss

Read more:
SAP Joins PowerPoint and Twitter – Does This Work?