More Web 2.0 fun?

Finished editing really long podcast file, need to take a break. About 17 hours ago.

Drove to band practice, listened to Minutemen CD in the car. "Tour spiel!" About 14 hours ago.

Gotta write my column. But what to write about? Wait, I know! Less than 20 seconds ago.

Well that's enough Twittering for now. Oh, you don't know what Twittering is? It's the latest in utterly self-indulgent Web 2.0 fun.

At Twitter.com, millions of people are constantly answering one question: What are you doing right now? It's sort of like a blog but without all of that, you know, actual content.

As I look at Twitter.com right now, some of the fascinating content includes a person going to get Indian food, someone waiting to get into a breakfast joint and a guy who has just signed up for DirecTV. Wow! What will happen next?

I have to admit that Twitter is one of those things that makes me feel like an old fogy. Even though I'm a cutting-edge, tech kinda guy, the whole constant-connection thing is one that just doesn't connect with me.

But I can definitely understand why this is a hit with the younger crowd. Every sub-25-year-old that I know is constantly on his or her cell phone, and the subject of 99 percent of the calls is similar to Twitter's content: "Hey, whatcha doin?" "Nothing, what are you doing?" "Watching Futurama." "Cool, talk to you later."

Heck, if Twitter cuts down on even half of the calls like that, it's doing society a great service.

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Opening the Door to Emerging Technology

When it comes to information technology workers, there's one thing we definitely need to survive. And that's new emerging technologies.

For IT, emerging technologies are our food, our Sun, air, water, you name it. Without new and disruptive technologies we would truly have the boring, never changing jobs that the "IT doesn't matter" types have been predicting for years.

To me, that's the greatest thing about working in information technology. Just when everyone thinks that they have the whole thing figured out, some new, unexpected and disruptive technology comes around that changes the rules of the game and makes things interesting for those of us who like the challenge of something new.

It is because of the importance of emerging technologies that we here are at eWEEK have decided to launch a new site called eWEEK's Emerging Technology. I'll be running that site and I hope that you my readers will check it out. We'll be doing everything from reviews to analysis to commentary to deep dives into what specific emerging technologies are about and how they'll effect your business and your job.

Of course I'll still be writing regularly in this blog, as well as in the pages of eWEEK. But when you want my take on a new emerging technology, head on over to etech.eweek.com. I'll see you there.

Connecting with IBM Labs

I recently attended a special media day at the IBM Research Labs. The point of the day was to showcase some of the new technologies being worked on at their labs both in products that are nearing releases and in new technologies that aren't that close to showing up in products. Along with researchers from the Labs, presentations were made by IBM bigwigs such as Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive of the IBM Software group. Click the thumbnails for full-sized screens Since this Labs day took place in Cambridge, Mass., at what is essentially Lotus headquarters, the day had a very distinct Lotus focus. Among the products and technologies displayed were well-known brands such as Lotus Sametime and Lotus Notes and Domino 8. One of the newer products that I found interesting was Lotus Connections. This has been covered as sort of IBM's entry into Web 2.0...