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Since my last text, a lot of talk has gone into the blogs about the open social layer that Google is trying to implement.
As already pointed, this approach tries to rival with Facebook, by leveraging power and option for the developer, who has not to re-write its widget/app for each social network he intends to target.
But Google's proposal has drawbacks, too. I haven't seem any "license agreement" or something like that. To be truly open, the social layer has to allow social networks to join and feel safe about the environment they're joining. What if Google starts to charge then? What if Google starts to charge developers? Like Google's approach in many of their APIs and open initiatives, there's a lack of transparency that makes me feel a little "F. U. D." about sticking to them. Let's wait the official site on this.
Another thing to note is: everybody is taking this Google initiative as a reaction to Facebook "growth and profit", but it's real? I think Google is constantly and consistently advancing in this direction (open social layer and using social data beyond Orkut and other social web-sites/apps) since sometime now.
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I'm long wanting and talking about a social-powered internet, where your network (friends, co-workers, etc) matters. And where you can use they knowledge and data to make your life easier, to get your attention focused on what really matters. From anti-SPAM and anti-VIRUS systems to better search results/page rank, the use of social data can make our on-line life easier than never.
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Bob Sutton (writer of "The No Assrole Rule") talk about Mozilla Foundation and their commercial counterpart, Mozilla Corporation. It's a long but entertaining post about the numbers Mozilla has made. Worth the read but you have to know that actually, too many of this money comes from Google, who pays Mozilla for every search started through Firefox by Google's embedded search box.
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W3C finally has opened an office here in Brazil, aiming to help Brazilian's internet authorities to develop, promote and implement web standards. I sure hope this comes with some law enforcing the use of web-standards at least at government web-sites - or something like that for commercial web-sites.
As I love web opportunities and freedom, I'm also a web-developer since Netscape and iCQ days. The lack of standardization through user agents is a major drawback for the "web-everything" approach we all love so much.
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Finally, trying to find some answer to a strange bug in ColdFusion MX 7.0.2 - where cfdocument tag generates a PDF without justifying the text - I ran over a blog post by Andrew Powell complaining about the lack of standardization on CFML (the open-source language besides ColdFusion).
I'm with him: there's need to standardization through CFML implementations and that includes Adobe. People at Adobe has to know that we do not buy ColdFusion on the tags but on the surrounds, ie, the administrator interface, the possibility to extend CF power with other applications such as Flex, LifeCycle, Flash, etc.
The standardization do not need to go with ColdFusion being open source, Adobe can implement advanced functionality that will degrade gracefully in others implementations, at least until they can make something more likely what Adobe ColdFusion does.
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Talking about standardization, what is happening at Microsoft? SilverLight? (yeah, I know, old news). Come on! There's Flash out there for so many time, you really believe people will change? You're nuts. And you think we, web-developers, are learning machines of some kind and we do not need to sleep, eat, have sex, etc.
Go with what is already a standard - as everybody does with Windows - and stick with Adobe Flash.
Labels: adobe, cfml, choice, coldfusion, google, high-tech, internet business, microsoft, respect, simplicity
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UPDATE: TechCrunch reveal that Google will launch their Open Social approach on Thursday. More important, Michael Arrington's post explain better what will be this approach. Right on time!
Today, a co-worker saw my web-site and I felt ashamed about this blog. There's a lot of things to talk about, a lot of insights and readings to share. What a great incentive to come back, not be ashamed of my own employees!
The reality is that work, when done right, gives you the time of your life for (almost) anything you want to do. I have a lot of interests competing for my attention and I'm not a good time-organizer. So, this was to present my excuses about being away for so long and to introduce one of the subjects I want to discuss here.
Although widely discussed, time management and projects management (not work-related only) are still lacking something. Or maybe I have to study harder to understand how can I be more productive. Which is, for what I'm concerned, a great lack of all systems out there: they're not really easy to implement/stick with.
I'm not talking about changing habits - yeah, that's hard. But when you try to read "Getting Things Done" or "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" - for instance - you get stuck in an ocean of "why you have to do this", lame examples of how you can succeed and things like that.
Here I have to say that I do not finished "GTD" (nor the "7 habits"); although I really think it's great, I lost the will to apply the method by the first half of the book. I keep saying to myself "I'll try it again, I have to, it works for so many". But the main point is still there. Theres any stupid-proof method to get things done?
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Another thing that keeps annoying me is how my life isn't organized. Well, call me a librarian or a standard nerd, but I like to have my friends addresses just in one place. If this "one place" is somewhere that I can access through my cellphone, my e-mail app, my web-browser (and my web-mail) and from another devices/platforms, or it's something that will sync with then all, I don't care. I just want a simple way to have my data synchronized between apps, gadjets and even computers. And I'm talking about something as trivial as our "address book".
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All of this comes from some thoughts that are burning my head for a some time:
1. I want to use web-apps. Really! I'm connected almost all time. I develop them since 1996.
2. But when I'm not connected, I want to be able to access my data and use my apps, even in a simpler way.
3. My data is MINE. What the HECK? Let me export it, even if it isn't in a perfect way; let me get ALL MY data when I want to. I have to make backups, I have to access it offline - or maybe I have to change service. Yes, face it, your web app maybe isn't as great as you think - or maybe someone just made something better. Or I was in a bad mood when your server was down. So, give me what is already mine.
4. Besides finding old friends, checking possible future employees (or girlfriends ;) and other personnel-related tasks, social network should evolve to allow you to use your friend's information to decide what is relevant to you. I'll extend this in a post sometime latter this week, but imagine a social-relevant Digg. I'm talking about something like that - what matters to my network matters a lot more to me than what matters to a lot of unknown people. Complicated? I hope not.
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There's some technology - which I'm not already familiarized with - such as Adobe AIR (and MS SilverLight, maybe Prism?), Google Gears and the recently announced efforts of Google to build APIs and leverage the data under its hook to developers. This all will be targeted at this weblog now and then, as well as all web-related technologies, ColdFusion, Java and a lot more.
I hope it'll be fun for us all and I'm really glad to come back here. Let's see if I can stick with this.
Labels: adobe, coldfusion, google, high-tech, internet business, mashups, microsoft, simplicity, usability, user-centric
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It's pretty amazing to watch people still discovering the power and the ways the internet is used this days - and what uses people will have for it in the future.
For you to understand what I'm talking about: internet runs today over a "neutral network". What that means? Well, you can access any web-site, webservice, internet service (as e-mail over POP, SMTP or IMAP). Without the provider paying anything for their content to stream over someone else network.
The Forbes article linked above attacks net neutrality with poor arguments, in the bottom line, saying net neutrality makes impossible for network holders to improve their own networks, because they need to maintain the interoperability.
While this is true - interoperability is key concept in net neutrality - there's a lot more in play than that. Let's see:
- Free services: gone
When we talk about a net that is neutral, it's simple to provide a free service over that. You have to pay companies to host your application and people to develop it, but you don't have to pay anything to allow other to use it. Without network neutrality, this would not be true and zillions of web-sites, webservices and etc would never existed - or be invented, at all. - Universal access: gone
It's clear that when you're connected to a network that is not neutral, you'll have access to what that network allows you to. You'll not have access to anything that is not paying for them. - What more?
It's quite obvious: services like Skype will work... only if Skype pays something for the network holders. Calls would not be free anymore. The price of other calls would be astonishing.
And we can go over and over it. For me is clear that the talk here is something like "evolution for the consumer" or "evolution for the big companies". There's a lot of other questions related and such few lines like this (or the article I cite) aren't final words nor they even cover all questions. It's legitimate for the network holders to think and question "what they get when people just use their network to pass by". But ending net neutrality is not the answer - I don't even guess one answer at all.
But it seems to me that we're coming back to the days where big [TV|Radio|Journal|Publishing] companies ruled, overwhelming authors AND consumers with THEIR choices or, at least, with the ones who have the money to pay to publish/broadcast. In all cases, who lose? CONSUMER. The user. You, me and everyone who's not a network holder or a someone closely related to then.
Update: it seems like the proposal is to deliver some things faster than others and not to block content. BUT, it don't invalidate any of the above arguments AND it's like opening a hole in a dam - just take one to flood all the valley...
Labels: choice, freedom, google, internet, internet business, microsoft, net neutrality, us, user-centric, vint cerf
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