Insights into how technology and the outsourcing of R&D are changing the software industry

For the folks who may now be finding my blog for the first time on PhoCusWright Connect, I provide a weekly shot of curation every Monday, highlighting 10 articles that I felt were worth reading from the week that was. Travel is certainly covered, but so are other topics and technologies. Enjoy.

1. Great roundup by Robert Scoble, showing some of the diamonds in the rough being formed in the crucible that is Israel. Scoble sums it up best himself: “Why should Silicon Valley look to Israel for good ideas? Well, because, simply, this small country has more than its fair share of great ideas, especially when it comes to social networks.”
2. Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang looks at the evolution of the Social CRM market. Expect many of today’s species to be extinct.
3. In the battle to determine standards for airline ancillary revenue, APTCO scores a win with support  from GDSs, OTAs and corporate travel management companies. However, direct connect proponents hold firm.
4. Sameer Patel has a nice post about marketing investments v. expenses. I like the term transactive elasticity. It’s new to me, but meaningful. Very much reminds me of traditional marketing “manipulations” that Steven Sinek writes about in “Start with Why”.
5. How much web video is available in H.264? Perhaps as much as 90%.  Adobe, we’re way beyond the tipping point.  Thanks for playing.
6. Nice post on the intersection of PR objectives and metrics and how digital/social channels have changed what we need to look at.
7. HTNG releases new specs on Kiosks, Payment Systems and Distribution.
8. Dennis Schaal from Tnooz asks who will fill the travel meta-search void if Google completes the rumored acquisition of ITA and shuts down their contracts with other meta-search engines and airline websites.  Expedia and Amadeus are contenders for sure, although I very much doubt that Expedia would come to the rescue of Orbitz.
9. Another week, another multi-billion dollar acquisition. This time SAP buys Sybase for $5.8B.
10. Simply terrific post by Tech Crunch’s MG Siegler on the converging paths taken by Twitter and Facebook.  Which one do you think is “Jacob” and which is the “Man in Black”?