Web Technologies
Miles Metcalfe, 2009-01-27

Overview
• Software development
• SaaS in the browser
• Web 2.0 and social software
• The semantic web
• Sharing, sharecropping and pirates, arr

Software development
• Beyond tag soup
• Ajax
• MVC and other paradigms
• Frameworks

Quick demo

Software as a service
• In the browser
• Ajax: HTML+CSS+Javascript, or Flash RIA
• Ease of deployment
• Ease of maintenance
• Rental revenue streams
• Available anywhere (you have broadband)

Social software
• If it’s on the web, it’s easy to share
• Networked applications by default
• Adds value to “traditional” software
• Has “viral” potential
• Ubiquitous networking standard: new
tools, new business models

Semantic web
• Data, information … meaning
• You do it, the machine does it, or
somewhere in-between
• RDF, RDFa, Microformats
• Web 3.0. Why bother?

Sharing
• A crisis in intellectual property
• Bad for IP owners, and bad for consumers
• Bakunin, Schumpeter: “creative disruption”
• Advertising. Really?
• Who benefits from the “free content”
meme?

Questions