'Emerging Opps' Blogs New Technology

CRN's Emerging Opps

I've been a big fan of blogs for the past year. Blogs, if you're not familiar with the term, are ongoing web journals, written by individuals or groups, providing up-to-the-minute perspective on developments in a particular topic. In "Emerging Opps," Gillmor will be discussing cutting-edge technologies re-shaping the solution provider marketplace.

But as we were working out our own blog infrastructure, Steve was focused less on the web display of the blog than he was on the functionality of the blogs' RSS data feed, and that's where my familiarity with the topic ceased.

RSS, standing for Really Simple Syndication, is an XML format for distributing articles and headlines. If you want to see the RSS for Emerging Opps, click here.

My "Wow!" moment came when I saw RSS at work. We downloaded some RSS format readers (many free ones are available), and in a moment, we were pulling up the headlines from "Emerging Opps," together with hundreds of other RSS feeds, into one interface. At a glance, we could see hundreds of headlines from blogs and other data sources pouring in, in real time, and could click off to any article we wanted. It was like watching the whole internet at work.

Reading news in that style may not be for you, but just as we now offer magazines, web sites, web seminars, and e-mail newsletters, RSS feeds will become the next format in which we're providing content. And I can thank Emerging Opps for the insight.

Best of the Week

Networld Interop convened in Las Vegas this week. Much of the excitement focused on wireless product annoucnements. You'll find all the news in our News Center.

Hewlett-Packard added a new twist to its PartnerOne program, the SMB Network for smaller solution providers. Sun shipped a Solaris 9 Update while IBM will do the same for a new version of WebSphere next week. IBM executives also discussed storage virtualization tools, part of their On-Demand computing strategy.

Wow, Part Two

Last night, I tried out the new Music Store in Apple Computer's iTunes 4.0, and Apple has come up with a big winner. Within iTunes, I very quickly searched out a song I was looking for, (Elton John's live version of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," performed with John Lennon, to be specific), found it, heard a preview to make sure I had the right one, bought it--for 99 cents--and downloaded it. I never used Napster, but I'm guessing Apple has the edge in interface design. Apple's major accomplishment, though, may have been getting the record companies to sell songs for a mere 99 cents each. I know I'll be buying more.

Coming Up

Next week, our TechBuilder XChange conference brings system builders together with vendors in San Diego. It's also the first anniversary of the HP-Compaq merger: CRN and VARBusiness will each weigh in with perspective.