The enterprise bullseye consists of 4 concentric circles that describe layers of a person’s  relationships within an organization. McAfee finds ways that social software is appropriate to explore relationships and both gain and add value within each of these 4 circles. Very good stuff.

Like most of us, by the late 90s I understood that the same forces that were driving us to be always on meant that we would want to be “on” wherever we were. Hence, devices other than personal computers were important.

But I don’t think I understood exactly how powerful a driving factor mobile phones would become.

“Today, there are 1.5 billion television sets in use around the world. 1 billion people are on the Internet. But nearly 3 billion people have a mobile phone.”

That’s from the website of the Open Handset Alliance, which along with Google has just announced Android. Here’s what Google’s Andy Rubin has to say on the company’s official blog:

“Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications — all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation. We have developed Android in cooperation with the Open Handset Alliance, which consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders including Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC and T-Mobile… to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.”

The Android FAQ provided by the Alliance is particularly interesting:

“How will the open source effort be managed?
There will be a publicly accessible repository, similar to how the Linux kernel is managed. Each platform module is assigned an owner who validates contributions, and new module additions are governed by the original contributor.”

The reference to Linux is an indication of the scope of the intentions for Android. I’m extremely excited by the possibilities.

Note that “an early look at the Android SDK” will be available on November 12. I’m sure there will be lots of downloads that day! Andy Rubin notes that “some of our partners are targeting the second half of 2008 to ship phones based on the Android platform.”

I’ll be lined up to get myself one!

The post includes an interesting screencast showing how OpenSocial applications will work on ning (and other social networks). The post also offers some screenshots and interesting analysis and commentary — very much recommended.

OpenSocial “is a set of common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any social networks (called “hosts”) that choose to participate.” In effect, that means it’s “an easy way for developers to create an application that works on all social networks.”

More specifically, “OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:

• Profile Information (user data)
• Friends Information (social graph)
• Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)

Hosts agree to accept the API calls and return appropriate data. Google won’t try to provide universal API coverage for special use cases, instead focusing on the most common uses. Specialized functions/data can be accessed from the hosts directly via their own APIs.”

Marc Andriesson has a great post on OpenSocial too.

One more thing… it’s a beautiful day here in Lewes DE where I live. I’m about to go for a walk — check out the links above, then maybe you should go for a walk too?

Here’s a summary of their research.

There is an inherent connection between open source software, open APIs, etc., and the advance of social computing.

This is useful, but its problem lies in a narrow vision of what “social software” is. Roping in the oxymoronic phrase “team collaboration” is a hint as to what’s wrong. Yes, obviously teams collaborate (i.e. they work together). Yes, we’ve been trying to support that kind of explicit “socialness” for decades. But, the word “social” in “social software” means something different — it refers to the connections I have to people and intelligence at all times. I.e. not just to my explicit teams or projects. Here’s the quadrant:

Note the absence of companies moving core media and gestures like social bookmarking, tagging, collective knowledge, and so forth. Where, for example, are Connectbeam and Cogenz (disclosure: I own stock in Connectbeam) to name only two innovative companies, both strong on vision and starting to show an ability to execute?

Finally, it’s worth noting that Gartner’s quadrant identifies only Socialtext and SuiteTwo as “visionaries.” How SuiteTwo, which is a VC aggregation play, qualifies beats me. It’s positioned as an offering from SpikeSource, a company which itself originated as a VC play, and which still has a lot to prove.

On the other hand, note as well that only Microsoft and IBM are singled out for their ability to execute. How does that make sense? Well, ask yourself in what previous sea-change in the medium of computing established companies turned out to dominate? IBM in the transition to personal computing, and Microsoft in the migration to point ‘n click UIs. In this case, Gartner is showing that they are very clever indeed!

I’m not sure he even begins to answer his own question, but it’s an interesting read all the same.

…we are now seeing a massive transition to web-based cloud computing at a consumer and enterprise level. … We are really on the cusp of a world where everyone can create, share, collaborate and find their content in the cloud anytime and anywhere.

Virtualization will allow every significant function and application to be turned into a platform that people can easy use to create any and every kind of media.

Facebook was an interesting example of the way that “platformizing” your web application or website explodes its impact and its use.

For one thing, this vision is as old computers — or at least as old as transistor-based computers! it may not have been current in the world of vacuum tube computing. — and it has lost at every stage of computing to the competing vision that treats computing as a medium in the hands of human beings.

For another, “understands content” (the claim of a semantic Web 3.0) is itself an incredibly complex, soft-edge idea that cannot be reduced to any set of procedures no matter how extensive.

I will write about this extensively over the coming months, I think, but today I’ll just point you to Ajit Jaokar’s interesting article over at Open Gardens. Here is the synopsis:

“Beyond Web 2.0 is still more Web 2.0(for now). The full impact of Web 2.0 will be felt only in 2008 and beyond. The Semantic web is not the future of Web20. The full impact of Web 20 itself has yet to be felt because Web 20 technologies like cloud computing and ‘umbrella social networks’ (i.e. social networks encompassing the personal web, enterprise and the mobile web and incorporating presence) are still emerging and will gather momentum in 2008 and beyond.”

I very much like the concept of ‘umbrella social networks’ — indeed, of umbrella media in general. More on that one soon too!