Web Applications

Network World's Web Applications Newsletter, 10/08/07

Redefining personal Web space

By Mark Gibbs

I wrote extensively about Webtops in both Gearhead and here in the Web Applications newsletter and in the intervening time not much has happened in that market that could be described as being “of note.” Until this week.

A few days ago I got a press release from Fifth Generation Systems (5g) about a service (in beta, natch) called Zude (it rhymes with “dude”).

Zude is remarkable. It provides a very sophisticated Webtop with movable, resizable, Z-ordered, overlapping in-browser windows; event handling; and drag and drop, but with far more architectural depth and flexibility than anything I’ve seen before.

I could only get Zude to work with Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows. Despite various help message within the system that mention using the service on Macs it doesn’t appear to work properly under any browser on the Mac and 5g unfortunately doesn’t have a “requirements” or “compatibility” page I could find. Also, although Zude will run in unmodified browsers, you need to install 5g’s browser plugin (an ActiveX component) to enable drag and drop functionality.

The Zude window header has a toolbar which provides access to the tools needed to create, explore, and navigate around what the company is pleased to call “your Zudescape.”

The toolbar is divided into three “tiers” of functions and you can choose to see just the main bar which is very media oriented or add in the information bar and optionally what you might call the editing bar which provides access to objects, tagging, your pages, and so on. I think the whole multi-level toolbar design is a little confusing for naïve users, and the top media-oriented toolbar presents an agenda that won’t apply to everyone.

Applications in the Zude environment are provided as “objects,” although “modules” might be a more accurate description as there’s nothing particularly object-oriented about them (there’s no inheritance, classes, etc., though I will grant you that I am somewhat nit-picking about this). There are quite a few objects for users to choose from including banners, guest books, news feeds, music and video players, buttons, Web sites, various kinds of text boxes, contact lists, and images.

All of the objects you use are shown in the Zude window and you can create any number of pages. You can arrange and customize objects on pages as you see fit; import and export pages from other sites; add images and links simply by drag and drop from other Web pages and local files; set pages to be private, public, or personal; restrict who can view specific pages; embed external Web content; and select page themes or create you own.

An interesting and potentially powerful feature is the ability to use widgets from many other companies such as Google, Widgetbox, flikr, and so on. I say potentially powerful because I found a number of problems with third party widgets in the Zude environment that required editing the imported functionality to make them appear well-integrated.

Another issue is that in a number of areas (for example, the “Welcome to Zude” help subsystem) Zude will launch the content in a new browser window when I would expect it to be embedded.

An odd thing I noticed with Zude is that a lot of content can’t be selected with the mouse even though CTRL-A will select everything in the currently selected window (this applies to both embedded and popup windows). Perhaps this is intentional to discourage copying content (which would be a bad idea) but if so, it doesn’t really work. If not, it’s a bug.

Another thing that appears to be a bug is that if you click on an image and drag it onto the Zude window you’ll create an image, unless the image is wrapped in a hyperlink in which case the result will be a link or a button with no way of choosing the picture instead.

So I’ve given you an overview of Zude, but it is actually rather hard to explain what it is like to use the service because it is so rich and attempts to do so much. And therein lies the rub: Despite the company’s PR pitch that Zude is a “Web application that allows anyone - Grandmas to Geeks, Coders to Kids - to quickly and easily build and maintain a personalized Web space,” the reality is that the environment is complex enough to make Grandma’s head explode.

One thing I don’t like about the Zude environment is that when you send someone a link to one of your Zude pages and they load it, they get to see the Zude toolbar. This provides access to things like the file manager and the navigation map which are useless unless you have an account and are logged in. While I understand the drive to recruit more users I think the distraction of what are system facilities for users makes Zude less compelling as a general content delivery system.

What Zude is aiming for is the personalized Web space, and the company sees itself as a contender to the likes of MySpace. In fact, there is the intriguing ability to import any Web content including a MySpace page and use Zude to modify and extend it.

Certainly Zude’s customizability and features beat that of MySpace hands down (MySpace is actually pretty lame in this area), but I think that 5g needs to polish the user experience not only for a Zudespace owner but also for people viewing someone else’s Zude pages.

One thing upcoming in Zude that will really make the service compelling is the plan to include personal productivity applications, such as a word processor and a spreadsheet. These additions could make Zude one of the most viable “desktop away from home” solutions around.

On a side note, I think 5g needs to ease up on the gushing prose they use to describe what they offer. For example, “Just remember that with Zude, it’s all about you. Your world, your way.” Sounds like a Coca-Cola or McDonalds ad. I know, I know, I’m being picky again but this kind of self promotion is so “me too” that it becomes meaningless (and irritates me intensely). It goes along with “express yourself,” “be yourself,” and “be different.” Translation: “Conform to our way of doing things and be a mindless consumer.”

Anyway as I said at the beginning, Zude is remarkable and one of the most sophisticated concepts I’ve seen in this market. I have high hopes for this service as it has the potential to redefine what an online personal space can, and for that matter, should be.

Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, and columnist and now blogger: Check out Gibbsblog.

Gibbs not only pens (well, keyboards) this newsletter he also writes the weekly Backspin and Gearhead columns in Network World. We’ll spare you the rest of the bio but if you want to know more, go here

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