Links for Thursday, April 16, 2009

• IBM Developerworks: Utilizing Web 2.0 in Business – “There’s no denying that most Web 2.0 services have, until now, been mostly useful for consumers and small businesses. But whether your organization has 10 or 100,000 employees, you can leverage these tools to bring true business value to your company. The likes of Twitter, Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, and Digg may not look like they are all that useful in a business context, but if they are used in the right way they can open new markets and sales avenues that may otherwise have forever remained closed.“
• Second Life Blog: Intensifying Open Source Efforts – “We have created a new version of the Second Life client in a public repository where we will allow direct committing from community members alongside our own daily work. We have also created a new build system to keep this version continuously building when new submissions are received, with new builds available to everyone. We will also make this version available as a download alongside the official SL client, once we have it sufficiently stable.“
• Digital Trends: Second Life Looks to Offer Enterprises Their Own Virtual Worlds – “*Linden Labs, the makers and operators of the popular virtual world Second Life, have announced they’re working on a version of Second Life for enterprises that can be deployed as a server product behind corporate firewalls. The effort would create stand-alone, behind-the-firewall versions of Second Life that companies and organizations could completely control—without having to worry about interference from (or reliance on) Second Life’s main grid. *“
• IBM Developerworks: Realities of open source cloud computing, Part 1: Not All Clouds Are Equal – “*Computing is certainly more than just storage, and that’s where cloud computing platforms come in. The platforms provide a way for you to take code and execute it on a cloud platform. This can certainly be combined with cloud storage and cloud Web services. There are many platforms available, with a wide variety of relative advantages and disadvantages. *“
• Internet Evolution: You’re Dead: Time to Allocate Your Internet Assets – “*With every passing year and every new generation, more of our life will be lived and stored online. We’d better figure out how to allocate, perpetuate, and/or exterminate our virtual existence. *“
• Seattle PI: A Seattle Geek Fest Spreads its Wings – “More than put Seattle on the geek map, Ignite has helped unite disparate communities of innovators in business, art and science with the lure of condensed creativity and the prospect of sharing their own burning ideas with a crowd who can’t wait to hear them.“