eWeek: A Forrester report says social networking, RSS and mashups will be among the fastest-growing technologies by 2013.

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Building Dynamic Web 2.0 Websites with Ruby on Rails is a new book from Packt which helps users to design, develop, and deploy a fully featured website using Ruby on Rails. Written by A. P. Rajshekhar, this book is a tutorial to create a complete Web 2.0 website with Ruby on Rails.

Ruby on Rails is an open-source web application framework ideally suited to building business applications; accelerating and simplifying the creation of database-driven websites. Often shortened to Rails or RoR, it provides a stack of tools to rapidly build web applications based on the Model-View-Controller design pattern.

Each chapter in this book adds a new feature to the site, adding new knowledge, skills, and techniques. This book is for anyone who has basic concepts of object-oriented programming as well as relational databases and wants to develop online applications using Ruby on Rails. Prior knowledge of Ruby or Rails is not expected.

For more details on the book, please visit http://www.packtpub.com/building-dynamic-websites-with-ruby-on-rails/book.

Collaborative Thinking: The issue of (in this case, successful use of wikis) culture is critically important when forming, nurturing and sustaining collaboration strategies. A key point is to understand the influence of "directed" collaboration versus "volunteered" collaboration. If we go back to the definition of Enterprise 2.0, one concept that anchors the meme is the notion of "emergence". Enterprise 2.0, by its very definition, does not address all types of collaboration.

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On the fence about starting a blog? If you’re thinking of jumping into the blogosphere, check out Mohan Mittal’s 12 reasons to start a blog.

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The alternate-reality game genre has a new friend, and a new format, thanks to Penguin Books, the famous British publishing house.

On Tuesday, Penguin and startup Six to Start launched their new ARG, We Tell Stories, a new-style game that its creators say is a hybrid of traditional story-telling, Web 2.0-style mashups, interactive games and classic novels.

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As recession looms, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Slide are taking a go-easy approach before selling shares to the public.

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"Social-media sites like Wikipedia and Digg are celebrated as shining examples of Web democracy, places built by millions of Web users who all act as writers, editors, and voters. In reality, a small number of people are running the show. According to researchers in Palo Alto, 1 percent of Wikipedia users are responsible for about half of the site's edits. The site also deploys bots—supervised by a special caste of devoted users—that help standardize format, prevent vandalism, and root out folks who flood the site with obscenities. This is not the wisdom of the crowd. This is the wisdom of the chaperones."

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"Web 2.0 is at the center of a wave of excitement concerning how enterprises—commercial or public organisations—are trying to exploit the current generation of Internet technologies. This four-part article series examines aspects of Web 2.0 relevant to the enterprise. In this first installment, take a look at the business and technical drivers behind Web 2.0, the challenges and opportunities Web 2.0 presents to enterprises, and the relationship between Web 2.0 and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)."

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Bitrix, Inc. is proud to announce the release of Bitrix Site Manager CMS V6.5, a new version filled with marvelous enhancements and new leading-edge features, including Web 2.0 tools, site wizards, Web services, photo gallery and other utilities. Bitrix Site Manager is a Web content management system that provides stable functionality and security, and promotes cost-effective growth of clients’ Internet projects.

A very nice article on RSS found at IBM's developerWorks:

Realize the power of RSS in Ajax and Web 2.0 applications - Tap this article's fully functional PHP code snippets that show you how to use PHP-based server-side functions to develop your own customizable RSS feed aggregator. [IBM developerWorks]

I'm still looking for an article that explains to those of the non-IT persuasion what RSS feeds are all about. Everytime I make an attempt to explain RSS feeds to those how don't even know what browser they are using...I get this "deer caught in the headlights" look from them. They then usually turn around shaking their head wondering if I will ever try to speak to them in English. Sigh...