Webtop

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Introduction

Definition

A webtop is a kind of rich internet application that runs in a web browser and that integrates various web-based applications, typically lots of different kinds of information feeds, some virtual office applications, some social software in particular the most popular ones such as Flickr or YouTube, RSS feeds (often preconfigured).

Webtops are some kind of mashboard. “These Web applications incorporate the features of a mash-up coupled with the concept of a dashboard; the Web application typically contains a collection of indicators that signal change when the status of content of personal interest changes. Aspects of these applications tend to be configurable and personalized for an individual's preferences.” (QedWiki FAQ, retrieved 15:08, 16 May 2007 (MEST)).

An associated and somewhat overly optimistic slogan is wherever you go, whatever you do, you can bring your desktop too.([1])

See also virtual office and social software. In some cases, distributed, but aggregated webtops are an alternative to running portalware like Drupal. However, this requires that personal webtops or parts of them can be exposed to others. With most simple webtops this is not (yet) the case.

Ajax Home Page or WebOS or in-between Webtop ?

It is difficult to make a clear distinction between a more simple Ajax homepage or aggregator (like Netvibes) and a web OS that could act as some sort of " office 2.0". It is even less clear whether a webtop should be just personal (mostly the case today) or wether it should be sharable and if yes in what ways.

“A web desktop or webtop is a network application system for integrating web applications into a web based work space. It is a virtual desktop on the web, running in a web browser as software. Web desktops often are characterized by an environment similar to that of Windows, Mac, or Linux, but are now considered to have much more functionality being dependent on the internet. Typical benefits include the ability to save work and settings over the internet rather than to the local desktop.” (Wikipedia, retrieved 13:03, 27 April 2007 (MEST)).

Now let's have a look at web OSs. YouOs, for example, is defined as “new type of platform for web applications. We're trying to build a single place from which you can access your data, and run a multitude of applications, written by anyone in the YouOS network. Ultimately, we want the data and apps on YouOS to be accessible not only through any browser, but from any number of devices. Your stuff, anywhere, anytime, anyhow. It's still early, but that's our vision.” (A Clean 'Slate', retrieved 13:03, 27 April 2007 (MEST)). This doesn't look that different.

McManus (2006) states that “the key difference from Ajax homepages is that a WebOS is a full-on development platform. The likes of XIN and YouOS are application development platforms that also offer things like file storage. Services like Netvibes and Live.com are more of an interface for web content and mini apps like gadgets (some, like Netvibes and Pageflakes, also offer APIs).” ([2], retrieved 13:03, 27 April 2007 (MEST).). Anne Zelenka agrees that “Ajax start pages like yourminis, Netvibes, and Pageflakes overlap in intent and function with the Web OS offerings, the difference being that a Web OS includes a full development environment and often email clients and other desktop software replacements.” ([3], retrieved 13:03, 27 April 2007 (MEST))

Daniel K. Schneider thinks that there will be an imitation effect and existing simpler ajax homepages will integrate features like file editing and storage and come up with stables APIs to integrate any sort of web application. The also will offer sharing functions (hey people want to show their cool webtop!). Therefore, I believe that the distinction between a webtop and a webOS is not clear anymore. E.g. one of the most popular webtop (Netvibes) is clearly moving into this direction. This is why I created a single page for individual/shared webtops and individual/shared webOS.

History

According to M. Bangham ([4]), the term "Webtop" was coined as early as 1996 to characterize the migration of desktop applications to the browser. According to Wikipedia ([5]), Webtop was first introduced by the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) in 1993 for a web-based interface to their UNIX operating system. A webtop is also called web 2.0 start page (520 hits), Ajax homepage (59'800 hits), Web operating system or WebOS (3'270'000 hits) web desktop (276,000 hits) or a webtop (3,350,000 hits). (Google hits, 16:49, 26 April 2007 (MEST)).

The Future

... is hard to know. Here is Nova Spivacks' timeline of the past, present and future of the Web. Webtops (mashups) and web wigets are considered later web 2.0 innovations:

Nova Spivack & Radar Networks Towards a WebOS

“Web 2.0 was really about upgrading the "front-end" and user-experience of the Web. Much of the innovation taking place today is about starting to upgrade the "backend" of the Web and I think that will be the focus of Web 3.0 (the front-end will probably not be that different from Web 2.0, but the underlying technologies will advance significantly enabling new capabilities and features).” ([6], retrieved 13:03, 27 April 2007 (MEST))

For Daniel K. Schneider the three big near future things could be:

  • Sharing of widgets accross mashups (webtops or other). This already sort of works for some.
  • Emergence of a series of widely supported APIs to create and integrate web widgets.
  • Sharing of webtops (or "views" of it), e.g. user can select modules to share and create a public "view".

Architecture

Some technical features of a typical webtop:

  1. It is started with a URL (no manual download, installation, or update process)
  2. Usually good integration between the user's native browser and the Webtop application, including browser-oriented navigation tools (forward, backward), but one also could imagine applications that run in a sandbox (like Java Webstart).
  3. Seamless communication with a central server using HTTP
  4. Rich GUI (e.g., native look and feel, including smooth dynamic updates without requiring frequent page refreshes). Usually this is implemented with Ajax (but it also could mean Java, SVG, whatever)

Technology

A crucial question is how to build these applications. Most of the webtop/webos seem to offer web-based IDEs and/or APIs for javascript programmers.

Discussion (some only ...)

The advantage of a webtop is access to a personalized desktop from any place and from several Web-supporting devices, no need to install and to maintain any applications, application sharing among users (i.e. groupware and social software support).

Disadvantages is that you don't know if you can trust the plateform and/or its components to stay around and so backup is also an issue. Then there may be security problems. Speed may an issue (both for client-server communication and GUI reactiveness). Therefore some authors, e.g. Ezzy (2006) rather suggest to webify desktop applications. A good example would by iTunes or various computer games or initiatives by Microsoft to integrate their office tools with their Sharepoint server technology. Finally, for educators it's important that webtops can be shared in one way or another.

In education

Webtops may have a huge potential in education since they are one of technical solutions to implement personal learning environments or learning e-portfolios. In addition, for some variants of project-oriented learning scenarios, webtops can replace more traditional portalware like C3MS.

Schools (or other organizations) may in the future offer a webtop to each student so that he can organize his activities on cyberspace. Some teachers then can integrated these into classroom activities and also pull together information from individual webtops in a sort of central class mashup. A similar solution would be the use of a social software like [[ELGG].

Webtops may turn out to be truly teacher empowerment software, but under the condition that they provide more writing tools and refrain from putting too much emphasis on development of widgets that implement software that is not really used in schools like multimedia content presentations (e.g. so-called learning objects), quizzing, etc. Webtops will be successful if they do not try to mimick e-learning architectures that clone old CBT dreams, but if they focus on learning with computers, and aim to become cognitive tools, collective environments, personal learning environments, learning e-portfolios and so forth.

Software Links

Below we include lists of webap/webos. Some of these webapps are open source and free, some closed and free, some in between and some may hope to provide these services on a probably small subscription basis. Since (useful) webtops are fairly new (most are in Beta stage on 13:03, 27 April 2007 (MEST)) it is difficult to choose and even difficult to know which ones are popular and for which reasons. E.g. most Wikipedia articles on the subject are fairly meager so far.

eyeOS probably will be the one most adopted by the educational technology community, since it is open source, free and popular. Also, the next release (1.0) promises an interesting Microkernel and API. Finally eyeOS has communities in several countries and one can either use an existing server or install ones own. But nobody can tell really...

See also the list in Web desktop (Wikipedia). Daniel K. Schneider would like find educators who are using such an environment in class, e.g. encourage students to build their personal learning environment ....

Regarding the list below: The lists are not exhaustive. Also, the distinction between a more ajax home page and a webos is not really clear. Not sure that it even makes sense - 13:03, 27 April 2007 (MEST).

List of web 2.0/ajax pages

Netvibes
  • Netvibes Homepage
  • Comments: Netvibes just announced sharing of pages. Some commercial "universes" already do exist in netvibes ecosystem. We can't do it yet, rumors say sometimes in June 2007, so use e.g. Pageflakes instead Daniel K. Schneider 19:27, 17 May 2007 (MEST). Note that individual widget contents can be share (but that's not as interesting).
Pageflakes
  • Pageflakes article in this Wiki (Some more technical information on how to set it up and how to make your own flakes).
  • Pageflakes Homepage
  • Comments: Pages can be shared. E.g. Here is D. Schneider's (just testing). Doesn't speak french though. An other positive thing is that individual "flakes" can be exported (copy/paste HTML code). Means that a teacher could build a composite page from student's work (a bit of work though). Alternatively, pages can be opened to a list of people (identified by their email/Pageflakes identity).
  • They also made a Pageflakes for Students and Teachers. It's the same environment, but you get a different soup of elements at start (and it's just one click + a sign up if you are happy with it).
iGoogle
  • Homepage
  • Of particular interest to educators in the "Add stuff" is the "tools" section, i.e. Google applications. However (unless I missed something), these pages can not be shared (of course, individual google applications can).
Protopage
Optrata
Purfect
Start
Webwag
My components of older portals
  • like MyYahoo, MyMSN, etc. However they are not done in the same spirit and use (so far) older technology.

Web OS

eyeOS
Desktoptwo
Oos
Laszlo
Xcericon
XIN
  • XIN Homepage
  • Xin (Wikipedia)
  • doesn't seem to exist yet (13:03, 27 April 2007 (MEST)).
YouOS
  • YouOS homepage
  • YouOS (Wikipedia)
  • Seems to quite popular with geeks (or may it's just their web page)
  • Client side javascript is available under a modified BSD license.
Virtual-OS
  • Virtual OS (Wikipedia). “Virtual-OS is an open source web operating system or distributed web desktop developed by Advanced Webhosting Network that creates a shared virtual desktop environment on a remote server to promote collaboration, simplify content management and potentially reduce the effort associated with network installation”.

Your own server

eyeOS - the server

To sort out

  • Flock, the social web browser
  • Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. The PLE for PhD students ?
  • More: Google Homepage, Clic!Dev, Computadora, eskobo, Favoor, HomePortals, Nowsy, ORCA Desktop, Windows Live, , YourMinis, Zimbio, Zoho Virtual Office, Firestoker, goowy, Joyent, Nsite.

Development tools

See the web widgets article. Also dig around in "web os" sites.

Links and References

  • Bangham, Michael (2006). Webtops: The Best of Desktop and Browser-Based Apps in One, DevX.com article, HTML.
  • Gail E. Kaiser, Stephen E. Dossick and Wenyu Jiang. WWW-Based Collaboration Environments with Distributed Tool Services. HTML.
  • O'Reilly, Tim, What Is Web 2.0 - Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, HTML
  • McManus, Richard (2006)., WebOS market review, ZDNet article, April 24 2006. HTML
  • Ezzy, Ibrahim (2006), Webified Desktop Apps vs Browser-based Apps, Read/Write Web, sept 07 2006. HTML, retrieved 13:03, 27 April 2007 (MEST).
  • Farber, Dan (2007), From semantic Web (3.0) to the WebOS (4.0), ZDNet Article, feb 14, 2007, HTML.
  • YouOS: YouHave To Be Kidding Me, 12.Apr.2007. HTML
  • Making the desktop fit in a browser, CNet 10/04/2007. [7]. Slideshow of some systems
  • Claburn, Thormas (2007), Xcerion's Internet Cloud Forms Over Google and Microsoft, Information Week, March 2, 2007. HTML.
  • VanDrimmelen, Jeff, (2007). Will Web 3.0 and 4.0 Change Education?, EduCause Connect, HTML
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