Innovation in Software

Friend of Vagueware, Manoj Ranaweera has recently announced his web 2.0 play edocr.com has launched some new services for companies wanting to create a public repository of all their documents.

It’s no secret that many in the local tech scene have marvelled at Manoj’s persistence and enthusiasm for edocr, but for a while some have been waiting for him to carve out his own unique niche, and I think this is a big part of it.

Yes, there are other document sharing sites out there, but how many of them are so focused on business and business research? There are lots of clever widgets on the other sites, but how many of them allow a company to start producing their own document channels easily like Howarth Clark Whitehill, allowing anybody in the organisation to upload a file and have it converted into a web-friendly Flash document? Yes, you could produce your own repository, but is it findable? Where is the serendipity? Isn’t it easier to outsource it all to the brains behind the scenes at edocr?

I’m starting to get what he goes on about now, and think if he keeps this up he’s on to a winner. Manoj’s twitter stream suggests a tweak to the design of the site and a move to EC2 is on the cards – I think if/when those things happen, there’s nothing stopping him building this into a major web industry player.

I’m almost human again after last week’s ‘grand tour’. I am however a little behind on blog articles. As promised though, some notes from Thursday’s mashup* event:

Sun Microsystems were providing space for this event at their office in Sale. It’s a great venue, but the trip out of central Manchester during rush hour left your correspondent a little frazzled. All trips out of Manchester leave this correspondent frazzled though, and it may have just been the task of crossing 8 lanes of heavy traffic that did it.

We opened with David Terrar from Blognation giving us a run down on where he’s seeing ‘Web 2.0’ technology in the enterprise. He touched on the BBC using blogs and wikis extensively, and discussed Pfizer’s use of the same. A lot of people seem to be trying to lock into consumer-orientated applications because the current success stories – Facebook, Flickr, MySpace – are in that arena. I think David is onto something in that the real money is bringing this style of social technology into the enterprise.

Simon Grice then did a more bi-directional talk on the premise that Web 2.0 doesn’t exist. I piped up and got agreement with Simon on the point that indeed the very first web browsers had “edit” capabilities and at some point, somebody decided it was too anarchic and turned the web into a broadcast medium. We’re now just getting back to where the web should have been more than a decade ago.

I also had to admit to the room that I have hired deviants in the past. Long story, I’ll fill you in some other time…

Simon discussed the disruptive nature of new media, and cited his own recently-launched testcard.tv – a site lawyers working on behalf of media companies will no doubt be particularly interested in.

UPDATE: Checking URLs, I notice that testcard.tv has been put into an “Under maintenance” mode, citing the takedown of a similar service and asking people to head over to their blog – it’s one way to get traffic I suppose. :-)

Next up, was Lee Strafford of Project Sahara. He’s trying to gauge interest on this side of the Pennines in what could be an interesting project. Talking to people after the meeting, the consensus was “wait and see where it goes”, which is unfortunate as it needs people to get involved now for it go anywhere. I’m going to do some talking around over the next few weeks and see what interest there is in getting stuck in at an early stage.

We then skipped the break – Ouch! Don’t do that again! My brain was hurting! – before moving onto case studies of NetVibes, edocr and Meecard. All interesting stuff, but I was already quite familiar with NetVibes and edocr – Meecard was a little food for thought though.

There then followed some discussions, some light networking, some pizza and a few beers before wandering off home.

All in all, this is a more polished and business-focused version of GeekUp. As a format it has a lot of potential, and providing the case studies and speakers can be lined up it could be a regularly anticipated event. Some people complained about the £25 entry fee (a sentiment I broadly agree with), but I know several people want to try and help out on that front.

I also find myself a little disappointed that I’m going to have to wait until February until the next one, so that has to be a reassuring thumbs-up for Manoj and Simon.

About a year ago, if you got mentioned on Techcrunch, it was the first step to getting 20,000 users. Basically every reader would sign up for an account and give things a work out. It was the case that many drifted away, but if you were able to keep their attention, it could make you another darling on the Web 2.0 scene.

The impact so far today for edocr appears to be a little less dramatic, but Manoj was still pleased to be shown some love by the guys at TC. I’m pleased that I know somebody who finally made it onto Techcrunch – those of us outside of the valley and London tend to struggle.

It’s just a shame really that they didn’t really quite get what it is he’s trying to do with it, which he discussed at tonight’s mashup* event. It’s not just about sharing documents, but about building data around them and helping people understand businesses and services better together in a collaborative way.

I’ll write up tonight’s event properly in the morning – I’m a bit dead on my feet right now – but it was definitely worth attending for me, and I’ve met some really interesting people tonight.