Cambridge24

  Web: www.cambridge24.co.uk
  Date: in development


Goblinfactory are currently building www.cambridge24.co.uk using the beta version of GoblinPortal, a powerful Web Community Development tool written by the Goblinfactory software team. Beta trials of the portal engine are currently in progress, and the Cambridge24.co.uk website is planned to go live to the public early in 2005. GoblinPortal (the engine driving Cambridge24.co.uk) will allow non programmers to easily share website data. For example, a guitar website owner using GoblinPortal could query the GoblinPortal engine driving Cambridge24, and fetch only the data for second hand musical instruments, filtered by instrument type=guitar, and display this data on his Portal, with updates on his website automatically synchronised with the "Cambridge24.co.uk" website.

GoblinPortal and Cambridge24 are planned for release as a peer to peer portal tool in mid 2005. (What is Peer to Peer?)

The new Cambridge website will be online at: www.cambridge24.co.uk after beta trials conclude. (Goblinfactory team are crossing fingers and toes hoping for a pre-Chrismas sneak peek!)

Anyone wanting to test drive Cambridge24, can contact Alan on 077341 57754. Other projects on the burner for GoblinPortal include London24, as well as www.swopshop.co.za in South Africa.

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What is Peer to Peer?

Click this link to see what Google defines as peer to peer.

GoblinPortal, the engine that drives www.cambridge24.co.uk (to be released early 2005) will be released as a peer to peer website solution for non-programmers. What this means is that if two business owners both use GoblinPortal, or if both use a tool that is compatible with GoblinPortal, then each website owner, can configure sections of his or her website to come from data provided from the other person's website.


Alan Hemmings, Director of Goblinfactory says,



Promote the value you add to data


It's not WHAT you know that counts anymore, it's what you DO with what you know that defines the "value" you bring to the table. Instead of hundreds of websites claiming to have the "ultimate pub guide", or the ultimate restaurant or property or accommodation guide in Cambridge, dotcom business owners will be encouraged to create services that add value to the data, and allow customers to transact. Most new dotcom owners are stymied by the fact that they know a wonderful service to provide customers and start their business idea by putting up a website. They then start to collect content, re-invent the wheel, and find they spend all their time collecting content instead of concentrating on what they do best § making that wonderful idea a reality.


The simplest form of this type of collaboration will be website portal owners that each choose to focus in their particular area of expertise to create a totally unbeatable source of fresh up to date content. For example, a chain of used cars throughout the country could put up several separate portals for each town or region that their organisation has a branch in. Each region would be responsible for managing their own data, but they would all share the same schema ( that's the shape of the data they maintain). If they all used the same software (GoblinPortal) or even some other software that could "consume" the GoblinPortal data feeds, then it would be a simple matter to define a master catalogue inside GoblinPortal admin section, and configure where the data comes from for each section of your website. So each branch would have access to national data, while only updating local data.


Guys, this is an important topic, so I'll come back to this and rework this web page. The implications of a free peer to peer tool are huge. One of the big challenges that faces Goblinfactory is making the technology easily available to non-programmers. There's a whole new vocabulary that new dotcom owners are going to have to learn, and I will try my best to explain the concepts as clearly and simply as possible so that the layperson can understand. My intention is that users will not have to have any HTML experience or any programming experience in order to operate and run an online business using GoblinPortal.


Goblinfactory are still deciding on the pricing model for GoblinPortal, but are committed to bringing out a powerful entry level version of GoblinPortal that will be available to download and use for free, which will be perfect for most small dotcoms during their infancy. For many businesses, including some large corporate companies, the free version will be all they need.


Goblinfactory will host free workshops on what columns of information are important to have in different types of data. For example, accommodation bookings, accommodation enquiry, property letting or room to rent. As an incentive for adopting the GoblinPortal schemas that get defined at the workshops, attendees will then be able to configure their GoblinPortal websites to make information requests, to other website owners, once their data has enough matching (or mapped) fields. (Sorry guys... I know this is very techno-babbly. Please bear with me.)

What do you mean by "mapped field"?

A mapped field is where two people refer to the same thing differently. Mapping is the process of deciding what fields in my exported data map to what fields or columns in your imported data. Goblinfactory plans that in future versions of GoblinPortal, trading partners can connect to you dot com through what's called a " set of webservices". Webservices are platform independent means of sharing and exchanging data securely (so only the people that you want to share the data with, are allowed to), and efficiently. Webservices provides a very reliable and easy way for developers to connect their systems together in realtime, or in daily or scheduled batch updates, depending on connectivity. The two trading partners do not even have to be using the same server types. GoblinPortal is currently written to run on a Windows server, but will quite happily talk to a Linux box when we release the developer webservices kit.

Goblinfactory is still deciding how we plan to license the webservices developer license.


It's no use having the simplest and easiest tool in the world to manage a large community and tons of specialised content, if you don't have any visitors visiting your website. Goblinfactory will be hosting free SEO workshops in Cambridge. These events will be free to any GoblinFactory customer, or any registered user of the beta, free or commercial versions of GoblinPortal. We hope that we can run workshops for beginners through to experts on SEO.


As of the date that this article was written, 13 December 2004, GoblinPortal is currently still being developed, and the opinions of the author here, are to serve only as a guide to what Goblinfacoty hopes to achieve with the development of the GoblinPortal products and services. Software development cannot be guaranteed, and changes in circumstances may require that Golbinfactory change certain aspects of the strategy for our products and services. Goblinfactory reserves the right to change any aspect of the services discussed and even withdraw any offers of free workshops without prior notification. The final features, pricing and license terms are at the sole discression of Net-Catalogue Ltd Directors. (Net-Catalogue Ltd, trading as Goblinfactory.) Any information provided on this website, are to be considered for discussion only.