Social Software Explored

I have been talking a bit about the new web software age and how interesting it is being a part of this whole revolution. I am often struggling to make sense of this whole transformation that is going on. How Internet web sites (software) are battling for attention from users. I also, often try and separate the “technical” aspect (those individuals who knew what HTML was before Yahoo.com was popular) of this growth from the “human” aspect (those individuals who could differentiate HTML from RSS). I ran across two rather interesting posts today. Each one supporting and de-supporting some of my hypothesis that I (being from the technical side) am in a vacuum.

Digg.com still cannot compete with NY Times
This post has been around for a couple of days and has been reported on by a few people. The post that I like the most (because it has fancy graphs) is Hitwise US: Digg versus New York Times Reality Check from LeeAnn Prescott. In her post she talks about how many people have been talking trash about how popular Digg is and that it has enjoyed a serious 50% growth since February of this year. Since they just turned non-technical.

The share of page impressions for the NY Times was 19 times greater
than for Digg for that week. If I put the NY Times on the same chart as
Digg, Digg’s traffic would look tiny and relatively flat, even though
its share of page impressions has grown substantially in the past
several months, increasing 51% from February to June 2006.

Additionally, she goes on to note the top 20 search terms for users who were sent to digg.com:

1. sidekick3
2. chuck norris jokes
3. limewire pro
4. scary maze
5. mosquito ringtone
6. videora
7. digg.com (YES! Digg.com - clearly they have begun to reach the non-technical!)
…

As of the time of this writing here are the top 5 stories on Digg.com (Not the Technical Category - which is the default category if you visit the site - but the “All” categories).

1. Students used wigs to disguise the wireless gear used to cheat on exam
2. Resdesign From Scratch - first in a series of 50 redesigns
3. eWEEK Labs Bakeoff: Linux Versus .Net Stacks
4. Searching with “find” one of the least understood commands of Linux,
5. $200,000,000,000 isn’t enough. We need more money. Let’s tax the Internet

For me what this means is that there is still a divide between the technical audience and the non-technical audience. So my thoughts are, I am still in a vaccum.

YouTube.com nearly doubles in one month
Then I read about the tremendous growth of YouTube.com. YouTube.com could be classified in the social aspect of the new software that has been popping up. The site is new (founded as a company in February 2005) and allows people to upload their own video. Recently YouTube.com has been signing deals with major networks (NBC for instance) to publish their content. Not quite sure how that will work but it is turning into a numbers game with YouTube.com

YouTube had 12.6 million unique visitors in May (up from 6.6M and so putting it just outside the top 50 properties on the Web), Google Video 7M, and Yahoo! Video 4.2M.

Ok so if that doesn’t put it into perspective then I am not sure what does. YouTube.com went from 2 place (compared to Google and Yahoo! Video’s current numbers) to more than both combined — in one month! Incredible growth. With the Google Adwords on the right, Google just has to sit back, relax and buy YouTube.com at the right moment.

So what this means to me is that there are certain areas of this Social Networking, which is reaching beyond the Technical realm. Real ordinary people are flocking to this site to view video.

CNN.com reports on Rocketboom
Rocketboom is a vlog (videoblog) that has been around since October of 2004. While Rocetboom reports on many topics that are certainly considered non-technical, the fact that the very existence of this site is due to the Internet places it in a semi-technical realm. The fact that it receives over 100K visitors a day means that it is popular. Popular enough for the news about Amanda Congdon leaving Rocketboom, to make the front page of CNN.com.

Interestingly enough, the news about a non-mainstream news service loosing their host making it on the front page of a very mainstream news service proves that we are in some sort of paradox. Some large shift.

I will continue to ponder the change, what it means and how it will effect the technical and non-technical people in my life.

powered by performancing firefox

Internet boom 2.0, Software Development, Video, Web 2.0, What I am reading, society

Ok like a “Flock of sheep” or a “Flock of seagulls”? Nope, Flock as in the Web browser. I found this new browser by reading TechCrunch. I decided to try it out and I have been using it ever since. Sure it has it’s quirks and I don’t seem to mind some of the “pitfalls” (described below). I also, don’t use all of the features, but you know what? I like it… and here’s why.

1. It’s Firefox.
Yup, the core engine of this baby is Firefox. So, all of the same things I like about Firefox (read my earlier posts) are still here.

2. Best News Reader (for free!).
I was a huge fan of Sage - the extension for Firefox which handled all of my needs for news reading. Then I tried this. I have to say today that this is probably the single reason that I use Flock soo much.

2a. Downloads RSS Automatically
One of the things that I didn’t like about Sage (and I did not realize I didn’t like it until I tried Flock) was that you had to force Flock to retrieve your RSS. It did not do it on a scheduled basis. Flock is constantly reloading your RSS. That means it will notify you when there are new articles by changing the News Reader Icon (which is a part of the normal browser window icons - like Back, Forward, Stop).
2b. Reader is easy to use (once you understand it)
The news reader loads all of the feeds in the left pane (which shows and hides automatically whenever you go to an RSS feed). On the Right side it will show all of the posts pretty neatly.

2c. The look and feel is better
I like the way the news reader looks. Each feed has a little icon next to it (based on the icon located in the RSS or the favicon.ico on the site hosting the RSS feed). The layout of the content in the right page is preceded by a management header that allows you to mark all posts as read. Boy I could go on and on about the reader.

3. It’s cool.
The icons for the browser are a ton better than those of Firefox. It’s ice blue.

4. Integrates directly with Photobucket and/or Flickr
Yup, it has an integrated tool which allows you to upload images directly to your photobucket or flickr account. (I have since found this to not be as useful as the new Picassa - which I will post about soon).

5. Integrates directly with your Blog
Click Ctrl + B and it opens a little word pad window which allows you to post about something while your are reading. I have been using Performancing (which loads nicely in Flock too!) so this tool has little use for me.

6. Integrates the Stop button and the Refresh button
Yeah, never really realized how silly two buttons for Stop and Refresh were. When you start navigating to a site, you would not need to click refresh (at least not frequently - F5 works fine for me). So the refresh button automatically switches to a Stop button. Then when a page loads all the way it switches from a Stop button to a Refresh. No need to hit Stop when a page is loaded already.

It was some of these little things which interested me. Hey someone was thinking about how we use the web.

So what are some of the pitfalls for this product?

1. Doesn’t support folders (or sub-folders) in the bookmarks or Toolbars
I am a big fan of organizing. I have not switched over to this whole “Tagging” thing yet so I am much more efficient loading up a folder with common links. It makes it easier for me to manage my links. I may get better at using Delicious but for right now, I don’t have enough time to tag all of my links.

2. The settings on the News Reader were not intuitive at first and defaulted to a setting I found unuseful
The reader by default would not display anything. That is because by default when you clicked on the left nav to see a feed you had registered, it would immediately mark all the links in the feed as read. When I set the settings to be logical (or at least what I thought to be logical - to display only “New” items) nothing was “New”. They had all been marked as Read when I clicked on the feed so they were now all “Viewed” so, they did not show up.

Annoying at first, but with some help from a friend, we found the setting that “Mark[ed] feeds as viewed when selected in the sidebar”. Now the setting in the main window to only display “New” items was correct. Happy Day!

3. Some of the existing Firefox extensions were not compatible
At first it appeared that there was a complete difference between the two platforms when it came to extensions. Now it appears that there has been somewhat of a convergence and tools have been built to make Firefox Only extensions work in Flock.

So what does this mean (and why am I really using Flock)? For me it shows me how important (and powerful) the browser has become. This tool can now Read RSS, Aid in organizing and post pictures to your favorite image site, Post to your blog and oh yeah by the way…browse the Internet. I know that Firefox can do all of this with extensions but all of this is “Out of the box” with no extensions needed. It shows that there is some movement on the integration of applications with your web browser.

A quick note: Photobucket is now distributing a custom Flock browser which only supports uploading images to the Photobucket site. In addition, there are rumors that Yahoo will be doing the same (only removing Photobucket). Let the games begin.

Flock, Internet boom 2.0, RSS, Software Development, Web 2.0, firefox, society

One of the things that I have been thinking about a lot lately is the separation between the “Technology Web” and the “Web for the Masses”.  Sure there is some cross-over like the fact that a ton of non-technical people enjoy Photobucket but, I think that there is still a great divide.  When (and if) is that divide going to collapse and what will be the driving factors?

One sign that there is a great divide can certainly be found in a topic that I talk a lot about.  The browsers.  Firefox is currently very appealing to the technical audience.  Those individuals that are not afraid of change.  Try something out, give it a chance.  Heck if you don’t like it, go back to what you were using before.

So what if Web 2.0 isn’t just the applications, frameworks, social networks.  What if it represents something bigger.  THE CHANGE!  I saw it in 1992 when I did my first project in college for an Economics professor.  I saw what the Internet could truly be.  I didn’t see the Internet for what it had to offer now.  Nobody did.  At that time it was severely underdeveloped.  I saw it for what it could be come.  This incredible tool for improving the communication in our lives.  Ok, so I will be honest, it helped me talk to my girlfriend at the time who was going to school at Richmond College but it was truly profound.  When I got into Web development in 1995 I started to truly understand that the Web could solve problems.

I saw that a local businessman whose current business for connecting fisherman in Galilee RI with potential clients in Japan could be 10 times more efficient by switching from the current Fax system to an Internet based application.  I saw that a Claims management company which digitally scanned claim forms as TIFF’s could cut paper and personnel costs by switching to a reporting system that was Web based.  The Internet and Web applications in general represented the “new” way of doing things.

So what of this new revolution.  Surely it is great that I can now store bookmarks in a global space and access those bookmarks from any computer in the world.  I understand what that means.  But what about those people out there that have no idea how the bookmarks they use are stored.  I still know countless people out there who have no idea how to even create a bookmark.  And they are very successful people with more money in the bank then I have.

What does 2.0 represent to them and how does it reach them.  In one sense, I say that 2.0 reaches them without them even knowing.  I remember my first job at the local ISP.  I spent time teaching people how the Internet worked and how they could send email and find information on the Web.  Some of the people that I taught were like “That’s it??”  “That’s the Internet???”  I was like…uh…yeah…don’t you get it.  This is amazing.

If Web 2.0 represents applications and frameworks then I say it is not going to last.  But, if Web 2.0 represents an idea.  An idea that the Computer and Web ARE the means for communicating.  If we can truly manage our lives on the Internet and it’s EASY.  Then we are in for a hell of a ride.

All this talk about Social Networking.  That isn’t something that just “happened”.  It wasn’t driven by software.  It was driven by the fact that there are more people living in the on-line world now then ever before and the number keeps growing.  Social Networking too me as a participant in the on-line world is like a global voice saying:

“OK… we bought into these computer things.  We trucked big pipelines to our houses and pay a ton of money a month to get a descent connection to the Interent.  No What?  Where do we go from here.  Web 2.0 is a trial. Can we get the masses to participate at a level us technical people have been accustomed to for years.  What can we learn from the masses who are going to look at this technology differently.  With their head tilted and with less of a desire to say “OK, that works for me”.

Software Development, Web 2.0, society

I was just reading a blog post on “WeBreakStuff” about “Railsday: Pushing the limits of 24 hours“. I have always been a big fan of ColdFusion (CF) development and find it amazing the amount of steam applications built with Ruby are gaining recently. I found “Railsday” particularly interesting because in 2003 I presented an idea to Macromedia’s Event Marketing team which was built on the same premise. I called it 36 Hours of Max:

Excerpt from my original document:

What: A three-day competition coinciding with DevCon, for MX developers. The goal will be to coordinate the creation of a web site/application based on a strict specification in 36 hours using nothing but MX products. By holding the event at (or around) DevCon we would maximize exposure and create an added feature for future DevCon gatherings. (A humanitarian angle could be added to the “what” by choosing a Non-Profit organization and either re-designing or creating a site for them. Maybe an organization with little money or resources.)

Scenario:

- Teams of 6 (could be more or less) would work together to complete an application based on a pre-defined specification. The specification is the same for all teams and the application must be built exclusively with Macromedia Studio MX.

- On the final day all the entries are *collected* and the judging begins [may want to perform preliminary judging during the day on Saturday so that Judges are aware of the programs before actual judging]

- The awards ceremony follows the judging and is open to all attendees of DevCon

- [Optional] require no pre-coding by releasing the specification at the beginning of the contest

Since one of the values of CF is to be a Rapid Application Development architectures I was a bit surprised that Macromedia did not take me up on my idea. Maybe the idea was before its time (Hey Adobe if you are listening….) Now with the advent of Flex and the tight integration between CF and Flash I think that an idea like this has even more merit then it did in the past. I do not know a lot about the architecture of Ruby but I know a lot about CF and I can say that it would be difficult for any architecture to have the IDE/Application Development integration that CF is pushing.

Value of Small Agile Development Teams
One of the topics that WeBreakStuff spoke about was the value of small agile teams. I left a very small agile team at Seton Hall University a few weeks ago. The web team responsible for implementing our CMS has some incredible talent and interesting dynamics. Lee Clark and Mike Hyland are avid bloggers and compliment each other in their development/design skills. Where Mike leads the way in CSS and HTML layout, Lee produces database interactions in PHP and CF. In addition, there is Marie Somers (Team Lead) and Kevin Whary (Applications Development).

I have seen some good applications development teams out there but none with the dynamics that match this groups abilities. Covering the gammut of CSS/HTML/JS/CFML/Linux/SQL Server/MySQL support, the team is nimble and efficient. [Ok, enough promotion]

The real value here with teams of this size, is that they can get things done. There is no time to overthink things and rarely is any time wasted. In the fast moving environment of Web Development these are great qualities in a team. What makes this group really interesting is that they can cover start-finish an entire Web application.

Nimbleness + Proper Planning = Success
Often the notion of Rapid Application Development carries with it a connotation of poor quality. How can you produce proper applications in weeks in months?

CommonSpot, Design, PaperThin, Software Development