David Duey

The Programmable Web

It's amazing how quickly a couple of APIs seem to be changing things.  Back when web services were first introduced, I thought we'd see a proliferation of APIs, but it didn't really happen to the extent I expected.  Now, with the Facebook API and the Open Social API, it seems like things are really picking up; the programmable web is happening.

Marc Andreessen has posted an excellent article that discusses the Open Social API.  He asks the question,

Are people really going to maintain multiple sets of front-end pages for their web sites for Facebook, Open Social, etc.?

He thinks people (websites) will maintain multiple sets of front-end pages.  I agree.  It's not that diffent than making provision for different browsers and mobile phones.  It's mostly front-end stuff; if you have a web site that's in demand, it makes sense to provide a UI for the social networks.

Just Call Me Defrag Dave

A sure sign of acute dorkism:  I'm pee-in-my-pants excited that I'll be going to the Defrag conference in Denver next month.  Can't wait!  Can't wait!  Can't wait! Can't wait! ...

Jeff Hawkins' Brain Theory

Jeff Hawkins gave a talk at the 2003 TED Conference where he presented his recipe for brain theory. He believes brain theory isn’t as complex or difficult as we’ve been led to believe. A few quotes from the talk:

• The intuitive but incorrect assumption that has kept us from understanding brains and building intelligent machines is: Intelligence is defined by behavior.
• Intelligence is making predictions about novel events.
• Are we going to build intelligent machines? Absolutely!

The Marginalized OS

I was recently talking with a friend about the value of the traditional operating system in the age of the internet.  I think the OS will be marginalized, but there’s still a lot of money to be squeezed out of that cash cow.  Below is a quote from a letter written by J. Scott Kasten to the Department of Justice in 2002.

Although Microsoft has managed to keep an artificial floor on the value of their operating system products through monopolistic practices, even they realized that the inevitable pressures to marginalize the operating system would become too great for even them to bear. Thus they planned its obsolescence. The new target development platform of choice is going to be the .NET infrastructure. Ancient PC's had a BIOS containing the BASIC programming language/operating system that was permanently embedded in their ROM memory. As full fledged disk based operating systems came about, they marginalized the BIOS. None of the BIOS products these days has a built in programming language. It's only roll is to pull the disk based operating system in off disk now. It has no real apparent value to the end user of the system that rarely even notices the brief BIOS messages that flash by as the system boots up. No one programs to that interface anymore. Microsoft is trying to do the same thing to their own Windows operating system and replace it with .NET. Windows will become little more than a fancy video display driver. No one will program to it anymore. The .NET infrastructure will be the actual target for most future software development.

Silverlight 1.1 does allow cross-platform and cross-browser development, so the statement above seems to have correctly predicted, at least in part, some of Microsoft’s strategic direction.  But I have to wonder about the more recent clamoring over all of the new Web “operating systems” (Web OS).

I took a whirlwind tour of Ghost, one of the new Web OSes, and it’s impressive.  I like the idea of a virtual operating environment that I can access from any machine with an internet connection.  But, why haven’t the heavy hitters like Microsoft and Google released their own Web OS?  There’s been rumor of a Google Web OS for a long time, but I so far, no beta product.  Both MS and Google have a most of the pieces and parts required for a Web OS.  I don’t think the release of a Web OS by Microsoft would cannibalize its OS sales in the near term. If a Web OS is so compelling, why don’t we see something coming out of those companies who are most likely to succeed?

Back in the 90’s, when object-oriented databases where all the rage, Microsoft stayed the course with their relational databases.  Looking back, that was a good strategic decision.  Maybe a Web OS just isn’t necessary or terribly useful when you can pick and choose applications and services via the browser. Here’s a statement I kind of agree with:

I still don't fully get the whole Web operating system concept. Why run an OS inside a browser when your browser is running in an OS to begin with?

I understand the need to virtualize and to run your own applications with your own data on any machine, but why do we have to be beholden to yet another “operating system”?  Why can’t we just mash-up the stuff we need?  In fact, I think we can, but it still takes a little more work and time than the average user would like to invest, and it may currently be beyond the skill level of most users.  (Popfly anyone?)  If so, maybe the Web OS is just a good way for smart people to spend their time so that they can’t create something that’ll really threaten the big guys.  I dunno, just wondering. 

Social Networks -> Knowledge Networks

Peter Rip posted a really juicy entry about social networks evolving into knowledge networks (well, there's actually more to it than that) titled, "More Than Who You Know, It's What You Know."  It's smells of the stuff of the implcit web. 

The Changing Face of the User Interface

A few days ago, after reading a TechCrunch article about Microsoft Tafiti, I played around with Tafti for a short time.  It has a really cool and impressive interface.  I don’t think Tafiti is something I’ll be using on a regular basis, but I think it's a good example of the direction that user interfaces will be going in the near future. 

  Based on my experience, hardcore techies often seem to be indifferent (at best) when it comes to the user interface.  During the early to mid 90s, I remember the shift from DOS character-based applications to the graphical user interface (GUI).  At the time, it seemed like the technical people preferred the character-based applications over the GUI.  The techies’ argument was that Windows required too much overhead to run (it did) and that DesqView (or whatever favorite TSR utility) was a superior environment.  But, users obviously embraced the richer environment of the GUI. 

During that period, I remember some of the software companies seemed to make the shift to Windows/GUI very slowly.  WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 were slow to change and ultimately released buggy Windows versions of their software.  I think part of their failure in the marketplace was because they didn’t move quickly enough to improve their UI.

I think things are a little different now that we’re in the internet era; we have a legion of web designers with a specialized skill set that is a mixture of a good sense of aesthetics, art, usability and technology.  With web applications, I don’t think we’ll see the huge shift in UI paradigms like we saw when we moved from character-based applications to the GUI, but I think we’re going to be seeing a new class (for lack of a better description) of web applications appear that are based on Adobe AIR, JavaFX, and Microsoft Silverlight.  AJAX has gone a long was to making web applications more appealing to use, but the new tools for building rich internet applications are taking web UI far beyond the clunky realm of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

I think there’s currently a lot of opportunity to take some of the applications of years past (desktop or web) and update them with a new and better user interface along with some collaboration/networking included courtesy of the internet.  Some examples are a web version of WinZip or possibly a screen snapshot utility.  I can’t wait to see the next round of rich internet applications.

Disappearing Computers

One of Ray Kurzweil's predictions during his talk at the 2005 TED conference was that computers will disappear by 2010.  That's not very far in the future, but I'm ready for it to happen. 

I use a Samsung Blackjack and it's as indespensable as my "regular" computer.  I can't wait for the day when we have better input devices (i.e. no mouse or keyboard) and better displays.  Currently, I'd say the Blackjack's biggest limitation is the small screen.

Forget the Book, Watch the Video

I read a lot of books; many of them are business books or business related.  In my opinion, one of the major problems with business books is that they’re too long.  They’re often repetitive and filled with too many anecdotes and stories that do little to support author’s assertions.  I’d much rather pay an equivalent price for a good, concise business book than I would the typical bloated business book that’s heavy on the anecdotes and light on insight. In fact, I believe that if you could iterate through the typical business book and remove redundancies and anecdotes, you’d probably reduce most of them down to a one page summary, or at best, a magazine length article.

That’s my segue to a really good TechStars video of the MyBlogLog founders’ session with the TechStars crew.  The video is a gold mine of information and advice for any web startup.  It’s 80 minutes long.  I’ve watched it twice.  I wish I could buy the book.  There’s a ton of information and I think watching the video is time well spent.  My only advice is to be sure to keep your favorite note-taking tools handy; there’s a lot of stuff you’ll probably want to jot down and think about.

WebOS on the Radar

Nova Spivak has a good post where he discusses the WebOS.  There’s already been a lot said about the WebOS, but it’s often vague.  Nova provides a little detail about where he thinks the WebOS is headed and even mentions his stealth company, Radar Networks.  Cool stuff!

In my view the coming WebOS will not live only on the desktop, rather it will be a web service that lives "in the cloud." Desktops will become views into it, rather than the center of it. The desktop PC era is almost over. We are entering a new era of mobility and plurality -- our digital lives will be spread across multiple devices, most of which will be mobile. We will require access to everything, no matter what device we are on.

When a user logs onto any device -- be it a laptop or a mobile device -- they will connect to their account in the WebOS. The local device will synch with their WebOS account to get their latest desktop layout, their preferences, and any new notifications or changes.

Photosynth Video

Brad Feld posted a link to an awesome video of a super cool imaging technology from Photosynth.  It’s the “must see” video of 2007 (so far).