Holiday startups and the latest trends of the Internet - DEMO'08
Greetings habrachiteli. The site already had an article about updates from the DEMO conference, but there only briefly described several projects. I will try to tell more fully about those projects that I consider to be breakthrough this year. But first, all the same, but what is it, is it a DEMO?
I think it would be difficult to characterize in one word, but if you don’t strive for absolute accuracy and brevity, then this is a kind of festival, show and conference where all projects and their teams can present their achievements and solutions to interested audiences - journalists, venture investors, funds, private business angels and managers of various corporations who may become both investors and first clients or even offer to buy you immediately. Yes, and the opportunity to socialize, to stay in a boiling environment of the same "geeks" as you are expensive! Even in the literal sense of the word DEMO is not the cheapest pleasure - the usual participation “just to see” will cost almost a thousand dollars, and full participation and presentation of your project is already the sum of about 20 thousand. But according to the experience of previous meetings (and DEMO has been held for several years, and there are several shows in different cities of the world this year - this year, 2008, two meetings in the USA, one in Germany and in China), this money is often the most profitable and valuable project investment.
')
I would like to briefly talk about the projects that at the last first show in California this year seemed to me the most interesting and promising, perhaps some of these people will be heading the main industry trends tomorrow. By the way, a distinctive feature of the show is the strict limitation of the format of the performance - 5 minutes (well, in general, it varies from 4:30 to 6 minutes, but no more), but otherwise it is a completely free show, which does not impose any "corporate" framework - people can come out without a tie, and in broken English with an accent, and they are listened to and more than attentively.
Asankya, Inc .: Hypermesh Network - a company that has already received funding from a variety of well-known funds, offers new technology for distributing real-time data (we are talking about HD-quality audio / video content) through traditional IP networks. What is positive and can serve as an example for many start-ups, the company has already gained the support of Internet providers, because they constitute one of the key roles in the development and support of the network, as well as major customers and investors, so it is logical to start developing its infrastructure called Hypermesh together which, in turn, is based on the company's key development — a set of algorithms, protocols, and an architecture called Parallel Networking. In the light of the transition of the main video services under the banner of the distribution of HD content, as well as anticipating the emergence of new services focused on the possibility of simple delivery and interaction via the IP network of HD video, this startup has very strong prospects. However, as well as competition, both with traditional market players, global CDN providers, and key companies that have the opportunity to independently develop networks, for example, Microsoft and Google, for their own projects. But nevertheless, the market is very large and is just beginning to more or less consciously form, so there is a very large field for new solutions and improvements.
atlaspost.com - refers to the topic of social networks that is popular today (and everyone hopes, often with good reason that it will be popular tomorrow), while at the same time touching on two side niches, combining them into one synergistic project. On the one hand, atlaspost.com makes extensive use of the capabilities of modern map services, in particular, Google Maps, on the other hand, the social network is very similar to the initial prototypes of multiplayer, not even games, but more large-scale worlds. Users of such a social network are combined geographically, everyone can personalize their place on the map where they live, inserting various images and animated videos there, thus forming their profile (Village in project terms), creating albums (photo collections of some place). linked to the map), well, traditional blogging, or rather, something in between a normal god, microblogging in the manner of Twitter and Digg-site - posts are tied to geographic coordinates, evaluated and rated by users, as well as being broadcast in a live geo-feed (this is my name - in the widget from the side in real time the map flies from one place to another, showing who it’s coming from and what it writes at that moment). Well, the project is quite interesting, precisely because of the connection of different concepts together in one project, while using the synergy effect from the interaction of different possibilities, and the ability to create and build a map with different buildings and even put fantastic animals there (you can It’s interesting to add an animated Godzilla near your home (see if it’s really a “chain” factor to popularize the network, Google and the Google Earth project offer something similar, allowing you to create models of buildings and place them on virtual ground).
Blist.com - works in the market of "common databases for non-technical users." As it is easier to say - they are trying to create an online system for processing, analyzing and displaying data, like a full-fledged database or spreadsheet, in which one could store large and often multidimensional data arrays, while quickly and easily access them, search and select the necessary data, while not being a professional user of BI or data mining systems. Find a use of such a system can be, according to the assurances of the creators, both at home and in small and medium businesses, as well as somewhere at the interface between home and corporate users. On the one hand, that's right, there is a demand for such projects, there is a large market of requirements for operating and easy processing of large data arrays by completely distant users who are simply afraid of the usual database interfaces or file storage, there are many areas and markets where you need to merge immediately large and heterogeneous data arrays, where some parameters can be either a string or huge arrays or binary documents. On the other - as if, honestly, the project failed. Despite the colorful description and presentation, the interface personally seemed to me very loaded and oversaturated with details, buttons and different functionality, although it looks beautiful, but it’s hard for me to say that an unprepared user can not only effectively manage their tasks inside such an environment, but also just figure it out quickly. Although everything will depend on positioning - as it has been repeatedly in history, often companies orienting their product to one niche are wrong, and completely different people start to fan on their products and are the driving force of the community.
Buzka POPNets is also aimed at working with a promising segment of social networks, but it approaches the subject from a different angle. The startup has developed a platform for creating specialized social networking communities of users or just fans of any product, service or brand. The platform aims to integrate with third-party businesses and websites, allowing brands to create sustainable living communities around themselves and their products, shape audience loyalty policies and conduct special marketing campaigns, and allow users to communicate and find other people with the same interests and share information about the product. or service, thus forming some “information cloud” around the product. To accurately analyze the future of such an approach is difficult for me, but for example, the site itself has quite large communities on topics, and in light of the shift from mass production to greater personalization and adaptation to specific conditions, as well as leveling of each particular product against the background of the general trend and brand Such a solution can be both useful and interesting to both parties. Although, if you look at the largest and most massive social networks, even one developer or a similar startup that, for example, will offer a widget for Facebook that would connect different people within the community based on their ownership or use, would be a competitor of such a startup. specific brand. In fact, we are talking about super-networks, some superficial dynamic communities within an already stable social network.
Catalyst Web Services, LC: Catalyst Office is also quite a popular topic and market direction. The company provided its product - a web office focused on the small business market that is booming and already huge enough, at the same time it differs from corporate business in terms of volume and needs and solvency. CatalystOffice provides an integrated web office that will allow you to replace all the necessary tools, transferring them to a single web space on the server company provider (SaaS model). Customers are offered mail (already a standard offer), work with documents (creating, editing, collaborating, sending and working with them through standard office programs), calendar scheduler, contact manager and instant messaging system. A completely standard set, so in order to conquer the market, or at least a significant part of it, marketers will have to try - such solutions are no longer a novelty, therefore, the consumer most likely has already tried other systems or uses something from internal samopisny or OpenSource system to powerful free online services like GoogleDocs. But competition with similar products from other developers that provide at least high-quality and broad functionality, for example, Zimbra, will be quite difficult - everyone needs more or less the same and standard functionality that has already been implemented thousands of times, so the first boards have completely different parameters, For example, scalability, reliability, security, usability and usability, quality of technical support service and other factors. And this is a field where marketers and powerful support win, and not pure technical advantages, so no less tough struggle awaits us in this market than in other segments (the same video distribution or social networks).
CellSpin is a company specializing in the market for mobile communications and applications in the market, which, by analogy with Web 2.0, is called Mobile 2.0. There is some truth in this - there are a lot of tendencies and principles that can be transferred to a mobile platform, which will add its own nuances and possibilities, expanding and complementing the traditional web. The developers have created an application, or, it would be more correct to say, a platform for mobile terminals, which allows users, without knowing any technical features, to literally place phone information on websites with just a couple of clicks. This can be either video or other types - audio, text or photos. For example, a website is run by a community blog , which consists of user-defined multimedia information published using this platform. In fact, it is a fairly universal tool that can help users who do not have a computer or for other reasons do not want to use traditional methods of communication, to use the modern possibilities of the Internet media space. This is one of those niches that will actively develop, along with the evolution of mobile terminals and the improvement of their technical capabilities, so you should consider the mobile market as the next and powerful catalyst for innovation in the field of web-a.
Cozimo is another interesting startup in the area of ​​collaboration on information, this time with images and video. If for textual documents, for example, articles and other materials, as well as for documents that, although not textual, it is the text that contains the prevailing informational nature, these tools are already enough, and they cover almost everything that even a very advanced professional needs, This project provides us with unique opportunities for working with images, video files, online presentations, vector and raster graphics, which, in my opinion, is the most important thing in this service. After all, you can work together on Adobe Illustrator files or files of popular CAD programs. Do you understand what it is for? The distributed environment for real-time work of artists, designers, designers, web designers (I mean prepress) and other professionals is now completely real! And although the tools for working are more or less traditional - different types of brushes and tools for drawing geometric figures over the image, text chat, tagging, synchronization of video fragments between different participants - all this will have its say in the area of ​​professional interaction. The service, in my opinion, is very interesting and has a narrow niche among professionals, but in it it is the undisputed leader and the most interesting tool on the market.
Flypaper is a player in the RIA market, based on Flash technologies - Adobe Flex and is designed to significantly simplify to ordinary users the process of creating and distributing rich (Rich) and interactive content, of course, multimedia, because this is the main asset of the Flash / Flex platform. The Flypaper application can be useful in the areas of preparing business presentations (although in MS Office 2007 these tools are already perfected with the rigor of style), distance learning and multimedia courses, various marketing and advertising materials that, according to the plan, will take on a new form and will be able to actively engage participants in the communication process, rather than passively watching. By the way, it is in this direction that the breakthrough potential of the product may be - after all, the technology itself and even similar tools already exist and were before, but everyone lacked precisely the interactivity and feedback, preferably in real time. In some ways, the application resembles products, close to the non-professional user, at the same time allowing to operate with quite serious objects, something like MS Expression Designer probably. Yes, of course, all this can be achieved simply by using the same development environment from Adobe - Flex, but you must admit, it is very sharpened for professionals, and it means writing a large amount of code, but here the user deals with templates and visual structure when creating its RIA applications, so everything is done as quickly as possible. It seems that this tool can be, if not a mass future, then definitely a certain niche, since it is precisely the question of maximally simplifying the process of creating and placing multimedia content that a lot of companies are busy with and the demand for it is very large due to the increasing penetration of the Internet with its services and capabilities. into real life real people.
Kaazing Enterprise Edition is a much more traditional solution than you might think. By the way, different things come out of the description on the site and on the DEMO. In general, a corporate platform is proposed for applications that require real-time interaction. All this is based on Java and Comet technology, and according to the developers, it is applicable in a very wide range of applications, from trading platforms to online games. In my opinion, the topic is interesting, this platform can find application in many areas, although there is a lot of competition here and everything will depend on the company's business model, if we succeed in winning the market or not - we will see in the near future.
Ribbit is one of the most interesting projects throughout the conference. It works in the increasingly popular mobile segment, providing developers with an open system for creating support and distribution of multimedia Internet applications that will be the link between your phone and the web world. Using Flash / Flex and AIR technologies as well as open APIs for developers, you can create amazing things - honestly, what costs only the almost complete functional analogue of the Apple iPhone, designed as a Flash / AIR application, and allowing you to make calls and use other communication capabilities. It is this startup that I think is very, very promising today, so don’t miss the revolution and new horizons - registration and access to the platform and API on the website is already there, so hurry. Perhaps for someone (I mean myself) this project may be the impetus for learning Flash / Flex / AIR ...
SpeakLike - is designed to solve the perennial problem of misunderstanding of two people who speak different languages ​​and do not know one thing in common, but want to or need to communicate. It would seem that English is the most common in the network, but there is no, there are very, very many people who either do not know him or simply do not speak enough for communication.SpeakLike provides a chat that uses the internal mechanism of instant translation for real-time communication, when each caller speaks in a language he understands, and receives answers also in his own language, translated on the fly by the internal chat mechanism. The application is very similar to the Skype interface, I would even I wondered if they would soon make a plugin for other messaging systems. So far, only three languages ​​are supported - English, Simplified Chinese and Spanish, but I think there will be more. The idea itself is good, but attempts have been made before, and now if there are several services trying themselves in this market. If it is a separate standalone application, it will be used only by need, which means it will be rarely used or will be oriented towards professional users,that is, the business segment. The only way out for popularization is embedded plug-ins for popular IM networks, then the question will be in the quality of translation and the power of resources - after all, thousands of chat streams will be required to be processed simultaneously on the fly. But the idea is interesting and relevant for a long time, although science-intensive and very dependent on the technological basis (if you use your own translation engine).
SupportSpace- it is, without exaggeration, a new and well-made technical assistance service, where the users themselves are experts and provide paid assistance services upon user requests. You can search for helpers for a specific program or device, or look at general sections, such as PC-Tuning and others. The experts themselves are verified users who are checked by the company, so you can hope for a professional solution to your questions (many of them have a great experience and are certified specialists). The system looks quite nice, though it’s the payment service that confuses the consultation per minute from 1 USD, although the first consultation is free. Here for the small business segment and home users, who are rare, but face a difficult situation,and there is no familiar professional in the vicinity, this service can become a kind of magic wand. So the idea is not bad and will be in demand, although the business model and the verification procedure for the experts need to be worked on, now even public information on the site is only crumbs. Of course, there are popular social elements like the rating of experts, which will help you choose the best “solver” of your problem.
Uff, well, that's all the new items that caught my attention. Although no, I lie, there were several other companies that are developing promising technologies in my opinion, but still at the stage that they are not able to try to tell akin to fortune telling. A lot of companies work in the market for storing and distributing or delivering online video, including HD-quality, many rely on mobile content or the integration of mobile and regular work style. Social networks more and more penetrate into life, often building around rather unimportant unifying signs, and individual participants call the favorite man-centered search, which helps to navigate the world of a particular person, given his or her characteristics and preferences. And so, this year's trends - personalization, socialization (oddly enough), online video,mobile technologies, search and structuring with simplified access to large amounts of information of various kinds, as well as simplified creation of multimedia applications.
PS 2 ( 1 2 ) , .
I think it would be difficult to characterize in one word, but if you don’t strive for absolute accuracy and brevity, then this is a kind of festival, show and conference where all projects and their teams can present their achievements and solutions to interested audiences - journalists, venture investors, funds, private business angels and managers of various corporations who may become both investors and first clients or even offer to buy you immediately. Yes, and the opportunity to socialize, to stay in a boiling environment of the same "geeks" as you are expensive! Even in the literal sense of the word DEMO is not the cheapest pleasure - the usual participation “just to see” will cost almost a thousand dollars, and full participation and presentation of your project is already the sum of about 20 thousand. But according to the experience of previous meetings (and DEMO has been held for several years, and there are several shows in different cities of the world this year - this year, 2008, two meetings in the USA, one in Germany and in China), this money is often the most profitable and valuable project investment.
')
I would like to briefly talk about the projects that at the last first show in California this year seemed to me the most interesting and promising, perhaps some of these people will be heading the main industry trends tomorrow. By the way, a distinctive feature of the show is the strict limitation of the format of the performance - 5 minutes (well, in general, it varies from 4:30 to 6 minutes, but no more), but otherwise it is a completely free show, which does not impose any "corporate" framework - people can come out without a tie, and in broken English with an accent, and they are listened to and more than attentively.
Asankya, Inc .: Hypermesh Network - a company that has already received funding from a variety of well-known funds, offers new technology for distributing real-time data (we are talking about HD-quality audio / video content) through traditional IP networks. What is positive and can serve as an example for many start-ups, the company has already gained the support of Internet providers, because they constitute one of the key roles in the development and support of the network, as well as major customers and investors, so it is logical to start developing its infrastructure called Hypermesh together which, in turn, is based on the company's key development — a set of algorithms, protocols, and an architecture called Parallel Networking. In the light of the transition of the main video services under the banner of the distribution of HD content, as well as anticipating the emergence of new services focused on the possibility of simple delivery and interaction via the IP network of HD video, this startup has very strong prospects. However, as well as competition, both with traditional market players, global CDN providers, and key companies that have the opportunity to independently develop networks, for example, Microsoft and Google, for their own projects. But nevertheless, the market is very large and is just beginning to more or less consciously form, so there is a very large field for new solutions and improvements. atlaspost.com - refers to the topic of social networks that is popular today (and everyone hopes, often with good reason that it will be popular tomorrow), while at the same time touching on two side niches, combining them into one synergistic project. On the one hand, atlaspost.com makes extensive use of the capabilities of modern map services, in particular, Google Maps, on the other hand, the social network is very similar to the initial prototypes of multiplayer, not even games, but more large-scale worlds. Users of such a social network are combined geographically, everyone can personalize their place on the map where they live, inserting various images and animated videos there, thus forming their profile (Village in project terms), creating albums (photo collections of some place). linked to the map), well, traditional blogging, or rather, something in between a normal god, microblogging in the manner of Twitter and Digg-site - posts are tied to geographic coordinates, evaluated and rated by users, as well as being broadcast in a live geo-feed (this is my name - in the widget from the side in real time the map flies from one place to another, showing who it’s coming from and what it writes at that moment). Well, the project is quite interesting, precisely because of the connection of different concepts together in one project, while using the synergy effect from the interaction of different possibilities, and the ability to create and build a map with different buildings and even put fantastic animals there (you can It’s interesting to add an animated Godzilla near your home (see if it’s really a “chain” factor to popularize the network, Google and the Google Earth project offer something similar, allowing you to create models of buildings and place them on virtual ground). Blist.com - works in the market of "common databases for non-technical users." As it is easier to say - they are trying to create an online system for processing, analyzing and displaying data, like a full-fledged database or spreadsheet, in which one could store large and often multidimensional data arrays, while quickly and easily access them, search and select the necessary data, while not being a professional user of BI or data mining systems. Find a use of such a system can be, according to the assurances of the creators, both at home and in small and medium businesses, as well as somewhere at the interface between home and corporate users. On the one hand, that's right, there is a demand for such projects, there is a large market of requirements for operating and easy processing of large data arrays by completely distant users who are simply afraid of the usual database interfaces or file storage, there are many areas and markets where you need to merge immediately large and heterogeneous data arrays, where some parameters can be either a string or huge arrays or binary documents. On the other - as if, honestly, the project failed. Despite the colorful description and presentation, the interface personally seemed to me very loaded and oversaturated with details, buttons and different functionality, although it looks beautiful, but it’s hard for me to say that an unprepared user can not only effectively manage their tasks inside such an environment, but also just figure it out quickly. Although everything will depend on positioning - as it has been repeatedly in history, often companies orienting their product to one niche are wrong, and completely different people start to fan on their products and are the driving force of the community. Buzka POPNets is also aimed at working with a promising segment of social networks, but it approaches the subject from a different angle. The startup has developed a platform for creating specialized social networking communities of users or just fans of any product, service or brand. The platform aims to integrate with third-party businesses and websites, allowing brands to create sustainable living communities around themselves and their products, shape audience loyalty policies and conduct special marketing campaigns, and allow users to communicate and find other people with the same interests and share information about the product. or service, thus forming some “information cloud” around the product. To accurately analyze the future of such an approach is difficult for me, but for example, the site itself has quite large communities on topics, and in light of the shift from mass production to greater personalization and adaptation to specific conditions, as well as leveling of each particular product against the background of the general trend and brand Such a solution can be both useful and interesting to both parties. Although, if you look at the largest and most massive social networks, even one developer or a similar startup that, for example, will offer a widget for Facebook that would connect different people within the community based on their ownership or use, would be a competitor of such a startup. specific brand. In fact, we are talking about super-networks, some superficial dynamic communities within an already stable social network. Catalyst Web Services, LC: Catalyst Office is also quite a popular topic and market direction. The company provided its product - a web office focused on the small business market that is booming and already huge enough, at the same time it differs from corporate business in terms of volume and needs and solvency. CatalystOffice provides an integrated web office that will allow you to replace all the necessary tools, transferring them to a single web space on the server company provider (SaaS model). Customers are offered mail (already a standard offer), work with documents (creating, editing, collaborating, sending and working with them through standard office programs), calendar scheduler, contact manager and instant messaging system. A completely standard set, so in order to conquer the market, or at least a significant part of it, marketers will have to try - such solutions are no longer a novelty, therefore, the consumer most likely has already tried other systems or uses something from internal samopisny or OpenSource system to powerful free online services like GoogleDocs. But competition with similar products from other developers that provide at least high-quality and broad functionality, for example, Zimbra, will be quite difficult - everyone needs more or less the same and standard functionality that has already been implemented thousands of times, so the first boards have completely different parameters, For example, scalability, reliability, security, usability and usability, quality of technical support service and other factors. And this is a field where marketers and powerful support win, and not pure technical advantages, so no less tough struggle awaits us in this market than in other segments (the same video distribution or social networks). CellSpin is a company specializing in the market for mobile communications and applications in the market, which, by analogy with Web 2.0, is called Mobile 2.0. There is some truth in this - there are a lot of tendencies and principles that can be transferred to a mobile platform, which will add its own nuances and possibilities, expanding and complementing the traditional web. The developers have created an application, or, it would be more correct to say, a platform for mobile terminals, which allows users, without knowing any technical features, to literally place phone information on websites with just a couple of clicks. This can be either video or other types - audio, text or photos. For example, a website is run by a community blog , which consists of user-defined multimedia information published using this platform. In fact, it is a fairly universal tool that can help users who do not have a computer or for other reasons do not want to use traditional methods of communication, to use the modern possibilities of the Internet media space. This is one of those niches that will actively develop, along with the evolution of mobile terminals and the improvement of their technical capabilities, so you should consider the mobile market as the next and powerful catalyst for innovation in the field of web-a. Cozimo is another interesting startup in the area of ​​collaboration on information, this time with images and video. If for textual documents, for example, articles and other materials, as well as for documents that, although not textual, it is the text that contains the prevailing informational nature, these tools are already enough, and they cover almost everything that even a very advanced professional needs, This project provides us with unique opportunities for working with images, video files, online presentations, vector and raster graphics, which, in my opinion, is the most important thing in this service. After all, you can work together on Adobe Illustrator files or files of popular CAD programs. Do you understand what it is for? The distributed environment for real-time work of artists, designers, designers, web designers (I mean prepress) and other professionals is now completely real! And although the tools for working are more or less traditional - different types of brushes and tools for drawing geometric figures over the image, text chat, tagging, synchronization of video fragments between different participants - all this will have its say in the area of ​​professional interaction. The service, in my opinion, is very interesting and has a narrow niche among professionals, but in it it is the undisputed leader and the most interesting tool on the market. Flypaper is a player in the RIA market, based on Flash technologies - Adobe Flex and is designed to significantly simplify to ordinary users the process of creating and distributing rich (Rich) and interactive content, of course, multimedia, because this is the main asset of the Flash / Flex platform. The Flypaper application can be useful in the areas of preparing business presentations (although in MS Office 2007 these tools are already perfected with the rigor of style), distance learning and multimedia courses, various marketing and advertising materials that, according to the plan, will take on a new form and will be able to actively engage participants in the communication process, rather than passively watching. By the way, it is in this direction that the breakthrough potential of the product may be - after all, the technology itself and even similar tools already exist and were before, but everyone lacked precisely the interactivity and feedback, preferably in real time. In some ways, the application resembles products, close to the non-professional user, at the same time allowing to operate with quite serious objects, something like MS Expression Designer probably. Yes, of course, all this can be achieved simply by using the same development environment from Adobe - Flex, but you must admit, it is very sharpened for professionals, and it means writing a large amount of code, but here the user deals with templates and visual structure when creating its RIA applications, so everything is done as quickly as possible. It seems that this tool can be, if not a mass future, then definitely a certain niche, since it is precisely the question of maximally simplifying the process of creating and placing multimedia content that a lot of companies are busy with and the demand for it is very large due to the increasing penetration of the Internet with its services and capabilities. into real life real people.Kaazing Enterprise Edition is a much more traditional solution than you might think. By the way, different things come out of the description on the site and on the DEMO. In general, a corporate platform is proposed for applications that require real-time interaction. All this is based on Java and Comet technology, and according to the developers, it is applicable in a very wide range of applications, from trading platforms to online games. In my opinion, the topic is interesting, this platform can find application in many areas, although there is a lot of competition here and everything will depend on the company's business model, if we succeed in winning the market or not - we will see in the near future.
Ribbit is one of the most interesting projects throughout the conference. It works in the increasingly popular mobile segment, providing developers with an open system for creating support and distribution of multimedia Internet applications that will be the link between your phone and the web world. Using Flash / Flex and AIR technologies as well as open APIs for developers, you can create amazing things - honestly, what costs only the almost complete functional analogue of the Apple iPhone, designed as a Flash / AIR application, and allowing you to make calls and use other communication capabilities. It is this startup that I think is very, very promising today, so don’t miss the revolution and new horizons - registration and access to the platform and API on the website is already there, so hurry. Perhaps for someone (I mean myself) this project may be the impetus for learning Flash / Flex / AIR ... SpeakLike - is designed to solve the perennial problem of misunderstanding of two people who speak different languages ​​and do not know one thing in common, but want to or need to communicate. It would seem that English is the most common in the network, but there is no, there are very, very many people who either do not know him or simply do not speak enough for communication.SpeakLike provides a chat that uses the internal mechanism of instant translation for real-time communication, when each caller speaks in a language he understands, and receives answers also in his own language, translated on the fly by the internal chat mechanism. The application is very similar to the Skype interface, I would even I wondered if they would soon make a plugin for other messaging systems. So far, only three languages ​​are supported - English, Simplified Chinese and Spanish, but I think there will be more. The idea itself is good, but attempts have been made before, and now if there are several services trying themselves in this market. If it is a separate standalone application, it will be used only by need, which means it will be rarely used or will be oriented towards professional users,that is, the business segment. The only way out for popularization is embedded plug-ins for popular IM networks, then the question will be in the quality of translation and the power of resources - after all, thousands of chat streams will be required to be processed simultaneously on the fly. But the idea is interesting and relevant for a long time, although science-intensive and very dependent on the technological basis (if you use your own translation engine). SupportSpace- it is, without exaggeration, a new and well-made technical assistance service, where the users themselves are experts and provide paid assistance services upon user requests. You can search for helpers for a specific program or device, or look at general sections, such as PC-Tuning and others. The experts themselves are verified users who are checked by the company, so you can hope for a professional solution to your questions (many of them have a great experience and are certified specialists). The system looks quite nice, though it’s the payment service that confuses the consultation per minute from 1 USD, although the first consultation is free. Here for the small business segment and home users, who are rare, but face a difficult situation,and there is no familiar professional in the vicinity, this service can become a kind of magic wand. So the idea is not bad and will be in demand, although the business model and the verification procedure for the experts need to be worked on, now even public information on the site is only crumbs. Of course, there are popular social elements like the rating of experts, which will help you choose the best “solver” of your problem.Uff, well, that's all the new items that caught my attention. Although no, I lie, there were several other companies that are developing promising technologies in my opinion, but still at the stage that they are not able to try to tell akin to fortune telling. A lot of companies work in the market for storing and distributing or delivering online video, including HD-quality, many rely on mobile content or the integration of mobile and regular work style. Social networks more and more penetrate into life, often building around rather unimportant unifying signs, and individual participants call the favorite man-centered search, which helps to navigate the world of a particular person, given his or her characteristics and preferences. And so, this year's trends - personalization, socialization (oddly enough), online video,mobile technologies, search and structuring with simplified access to large amounts of information of various kinds, as well as simplified creation of multimedia applications.
PS 2 ( 1 2 ) , .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/20183/
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