Web 2.0 Summit and Ajax

The Web 2.0 Summit was just concluded in San Francisco. There are various updates from various Web 2.0 sites plus innovations and upcoming trends in the internet world. What’s disappointing though is that there’s not much to listen if you’re looking for something really technical. Of course we understand that the event is no Ajax World convention but at least they should give more meat on what they’re saying especially on how they were able to implement change and create updates. Some actually came to see recent updates in their websites technology particularly in Ajax. The Ajax World Convention was just finished and every big name in the internet world is in the Convention but when they crossed over to Web 2.0 Summit, the technology of Ajax was only mentioned twice! Developers were not looking for something really big as the previous convention but at least developers should be able to see where their programs are going. Only two companies were able to mention Ajax. The first was Google which is quite expected. The company has been using the web technique for years and they are seen as the leader in this technology. Without Google, we might not have seen how powerful Ajax can be when implemented properly. In the Web 2.0 Summit, the representative of Google was Marissa Meyer, the Vice President for Search Products and user Experience. In her 10 minute talk, she highlighted the use of Ajax in Gmail and Maps. According to Mayer, the very reason Ajax was implemented in these products was because of speed, which is actually a very Good reason. It’s even implemented in Google Video so that users will not wait for 24-48 hours before they can see their videos posted. The other company that mentions Ajax is Adobe. This time the CEO of Adobe, Bruce Chizen, explains the relation of Ajax to Flash. Most of the time, users might mistook the site as Ajax based instead of Flash based. Both give the users the same experience. But with Ajax’s popularity, it was though that Ajax will replace Flash, the product of Adobe. Bruce doesn’t see it that way. In fact, he sees it as something complementary to Flash. To quote the CEO, “We don't view that as competition. Google Finance uses Flash because Flash can do some things that you just can't do with AJAX. We want to pick up what people are already doing and take it up one notch.” When they say a notch that means they’ll be participating more in Open Source to give themselves leverage against Microsoft. As Ajax is more developed in Open Source, Adobe will go from that point and get more out of Ajax and use Flash at the same time. The bad thing about Ajax not mentioned much in Web 2.0 Summit is that Ajax could be not that hot. It could just be hype by developers in order to attract more customers. However, even though they are just mentioned in two accounts, those accounts are not just small accounts so they certainly give hope to Ajax developers.