Monday, October 13, 2008

Comparing Web 2.0 tools on different dimensions

Suppose i want to make a table that compares different web 2.0 tools with respect to a number of features or dimensions. Can I do that right here in my blog? No, formatting is too primitive. Of course, it does have a limited ability to insert html code. So perhaps I could use some htlml editor to generate the table, then copy the code into the blog post. I tried that, but the blog machine seems to understand only a subset of html. After much effort, I was able to generate the below, which is not great:



Dimension

Google

Group

Blogger

PbWiki

Frontpage

Website

Google

Docs

MS Word-level
formatting
no no no yes yes

Lets readers
comment or edit
yes
yes

yes

not easy
yes

Lets users edit
posts
yes no   no  

Has community
boundary
yes no for
editing
no yes

Collects
project-related emails together in one place
yes no      

Has manager,
co-owner, writer, editor, collaborator level
yes yes yes not
really
yes

Has (bounded)
community, reader, viewer level
yes up
to 100 readers
yes no no

Public can request
access to community
yes no yes n/a n/a

Has universe level
separate from community
no yes yes yes sort of,
through publishing

Can upload files
yes no yes yes yes

1 comment:

Steve Borgatti said...

Blogging is to general web sites as the old mainframe Adventure game is to video games. Blogging is very text-oriented in the sense that it is little more than Notepad. Why can't it be at MS Word level formatting abilities?