Google, IBM, Sun cite developer outreach

With its Web 2.0 outreach, IBM is leveraging technologies such as podcasts and gizmos, to syndicate content. "Gizmos basically allow any of the portlets on developerWorks to be syndicated out to a lot of other popular social networking sites," such as Facebook and iGoogle, Mandelstein said.

Use of RSS feeds in developerWorks has grown 64 per cent since the same time in 2006. IBM also received 1.4 million referrals from social bookmarks in 2007.

Blogs have experienced 100 per cent growth year to year, Mandelstein said. Use of forums also has grown. Additionally, IBM has an interface enabling access to developerWorks from an Apple iPhone. Other efforts include activities in the virtual world via Second Life and development of IBM Codestation, for sharing scripts and objects in Second Life.

IBM also has set up its Jazz.net platform for collaborative application lifecycle management, Mandelstein said. Jazz has Web 2.0 features such as real-time chat as well as a virtual world component called Project Bluegrass, she said.

Asked afterward about benefits of developer outreach, Mandelstein said IBM gets input on development of products and enables more people to develop applications

Sun's Jean Elliott, senior director for developer and university initiatives, cautioned against attracting developers and then having no idea on how to work with them to build business. Sun itself, though, has a very transparent business model, she said.

"We've got between 4,000 and 5,000 employees who blog," Elliott said. Suddenly, all these voices are coming out of the corporation, each reflecting their view of what is interesting, she said. But internal inconsistencies could be revealed by openness, which can cause confusion about what a company is doing, she said.

"The question I've been grappling with recently is how open is too open," said Elliott.

Problems could arise such as scaring customers, who might be better off finding out about things privately than publicly, Elliott said. "The creative process actually benefits from a little bit of privacy," she said.

Other difficulties could occur such as stunting the creative process, spending time on damage control, and difficulty in hiring. Brand harm also could result or perhaps legal violations pertaining to intellectual property.