Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Missing features in Google and Yahoo that I would love to have!!!!

The web world has been moving very fast to the Web2.0 with more standardized protocols and specifications. Some very recent features and protocols includes these:

1. OpenID - For user authentication.
2. oauth - For API authentication (still in draft)
3. RSS - Syndication
4. APML (Attention Profiling Mark-up Language) - For capturing a person's interests and dislikes.
5. Yadis - URL based identification
6. OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) - The standard for outlines.
7. hcard - Microformat business cards.
8. XFN (XHTML Friends Network) - Microformat to represent human relationships using links.
9. i-names - Human-friendly XRIs.

These are a few most talked about protocols and specifications on the web for the past few days. Still, biggies like Google and Yahoo are not involved fully on these. RSS is the only one which has been fully adopted by everyone. Though, Yahoo uses the hcard microformat, Google is still to support it. OpenID is also not yet supported by any of them.Owing to the popularity OpenID is getting, it is one of the hottest features to be adopted by them. Amongst these web 2.0 protocols, oauth seems to have a better future as it is a mix of all the current API standards and companies would be opting for it to increase their presence. APML would help a person save a lot of time online.Considering the amount of time a user spends on the network of Google and Yahoo, APML can be used to capture the interests of users and then provide service to the user based on his likes and dislikes. The social networking websites can effectively use the XFN. I see the way companies can improve their market share using these. But the question is, do they see it?