ideas | Kris Smith has read these articles about "ideas" | www.croncast.com Kris Smith http://www.croncast.com/keyg/ideas This is the keyword feed for "ideas" from my read items in Google Reader. If you would like to search or subscribe to category/keyword rss feeds for items that I have shared with Google Reader visit http://www.croncast.com/c4_reading.php en-us Copyright for these items belong to their original publishers. No Croncast, Kris, Betsy, Comedy, Parenting, Funny, Palegroove, Croncast, eBay, Goodwill This is the keyword feed for "ideas" from my read items in Google Reader. This is the keyword feed for "ideas" from my read items in Google Reader. http://www.croncast.com/images/croncast_itunes.jpg ideas | Kris Smith has read these articles about "ideas" | www.croncast.com http://www.croncast.com/keyg/ideas This is the keyword feed for "ideas" from my read items in Google Reader. If you would like to search or subscribe to category/keyword rss feeds for items that I have shared with Google Reader visit http://www.croncast.com/c4_reading.php Croncast - Kris and Betsy Smith info@palegroove.com http://www.croncast.com Palegroove Bogus Copyright Claim Silences Yet Another Larry Lessig YouTube Presentation http://techdirt.com/articles/20100302/0354498358.shtml Shared item taken down, because his video, in explaining copyright and fair use and other such things, used a snippet of a Warner Music song to demonstrate a point. There could be no clearer example of fair use -- but the video was still taken down. There was some dispute at the time as to whether or not this was an actual DMCA takedown, or merely YouTube's audio/video fingerprinting technology (which the entertainment industry insists can understand fair use and not block it). But, in the end, does it really make a difference? A takedown over copyright is a takedown over copyright.

Amazingly enough, it appears that almost the exact same thing has happened again. A video of one of Lessig's presentations, that he just posted -- a "chat" he had done for the OpenVideoAlliance a week or so ago, about open culture and fair use, has received notice that it has been silenced. It hasn't been taken down entirely -- but the entire audio track from the 42 minute video is completely gone. All of it. In the comments, some say there's a notification somewhere that the audio has been disabled because of "an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG" (Warner Music Group) -- which would be the same company whose copyright caused the issue a year ago -- but I haven't seen or heard that particular message anywhere.

However, Lessig is now required to fill out a counternotice challenging the takedown -- while silencing his video in the meantime:
While you can still see the video on YouTube, without the audio, it's pretty much worthless. Thankfully, the actual video is available elsewhere, where you can both hear and see it. But, really, the fact that Lessig has had two separate videos -- both of which clearly are fair use -- get neutered due to bogus copyright infringement risks suggests a serious problem. I'm guessing that, once again, this video was likely caught by the fingerprinting, rather than a direct claim by Warner Music. In fact, the issue may be the identical one, as I believe the problem last year was the muppets theme, which very very briefly appears in this video (again) as an example of fair use in action. But it was Warner Music and others like it that demanded Google put such a fingerprinting tool in place (and such companies are still talking about requiring such tools under the law). And yet, this seems to show just how problematic such rules are.

Even worse, this highlights just how amazingly problematic things get when you put secondary liability on companies like Google. Under such a regime, Google would of course disable such a video, to avoid its own liability. The idea that Google can easily tell what is infringing and what is not is proven ridiculous when something like this is pulled off-line (or just silenced). When a video about fair use itself is pulled down for a bogus copyright infringement it proves the point. The unintended consequences of asking tool providers to judge what is and what is not copyright infringement leads to tremendous problems with companies shooting first and asking questions later. They are silencing speech, on the threat that it might infringe on copyright.

This is backwards.

We live in a country that is supposed to cherish free speech, not stifle it in case it harms the business model of a company. We live in a country that is supposed to encourage the free expression of ideas -- not lock it up and take it down because one company doesn't know how to adapt its business model. We should never be silencing videos because they might infringe on copyright.

Situations like this demonstrate the dangerous unintended consequences of secondary liability. At least with Lessig, you have someone who knows what happened, and knows how to file a counternotice -- though, who knows how long it will take for this situation to be corrected. But for many, many, many other people, they are simply silenced. Silenced because of industry efforts to turn copyright law into something it was never intended to be: a tool to silence the wider audience in favor of a few large companies.

The system is broken. When even the calls to fix the system are silenced by copyright claims, isn't it time that we fixed the system?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story




Tags: copyright video fair such lessig ]]>taken down, because his video, in explaining copyright and fair use and other such things, used a snippet of a Warner Music song to demonstrate a point. There could be no clearer example of fair use -- but the video was still taken down. There was some dispute at the time as to whether or not this was an actual DMCA takedown, or merely YouTube's audio/video fingerprinting technology (which the entertainment industry insists can understand fair use and not block it). But, in the end, does it really make a difference? A takedown over copyright is a takedown over copyright.

Amazingly enough, it appears that almost the exact same thing has happened again. A video of one of Lessig's presentations, that he just posted -- a "chat" he had done for the OpenVideoAlliance a week or so ago, about open culture and fair use, has received notice that it has been silenced. It hasn't been taken down entirely -- but the entire audio track from the 42 minute video is completely gone. All of it. In the comments, some say there's a notification somewhere that the audio has been disabled because of "an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG" (Warner Music Group) -- which would be the same company whose copyright caused the issue a year ago -- but I haven't seen or heard that particular message anywhere.

However, Lessig is now required to fill out a counternotice challenging the takedown -- while silencing his video in the meantime:
While you can still see the video on YouTube, without the audio, it's pretty much worthless. Thankfully, the actual video is available elsewhere, where you can both hear and see it. But, really, the fact that Lessig has had two separate videos -- both of which clearly are fair use -- get neutered due to bogus copyright infringement risks suggests a serious problem. I'm guessing that, once again, this video was likely caught by the fingerprinting, rather than a direct claim by Warner Music. In fact, the issue may be the identical one, as I believe the problem last year was the muppets theme, which very very briefly appears in this video (again) as an example of fair use in action. But it was Warner Music and others like it that demanded Google put such a fingerprinting tool in place (and such companies are still talking about requiring such tools under the law). And yet, this seems to show just how problematic such rules are.

Even worse, this highlights just how amazingly problematic things get when you put secondary liability on companies like Google. Under such a regime, Google would of course disable such a video, to avoid its own liability. The idea that Google can easily tell what is infringing and what is not is proven ridiculous when something like this is pulled off-line (or just silenced). When a video about fair use itself is pulled down for a bogus copyright infringement it proves the point. The unintended consequences of asking tool providers to judge what is and what is not copyright infringement leads to tremendous problems with companies shooting first and asking questions later. They are silencing speech, on the threat that it might infringe on copyright.

This is backwards.

We live in a country that is supposed to cherish free speech, not stifle it in case it harms the business model of a company. We live in a country that is supposed to encourage the free expression of ideas -- not lock it up and take it down because one company doesn't know how to adapt its business model. We should never be silencing videos because they might infringe on copyright.

Situations like this demonstrate the dangerous unintended consequences of secondary liability. At least with Lessig, you have someone who knows what happened, and knows how to file a counternotice -- though, who knows how long it will take for this situation to be corrected. But for many, many, many other people, they are simply silenced. Silenced because of industry efforts to turn copyright law into something it was never intended to be: a tool to silence the wider audience in favor of a few large companies.

The system is broken. When even the calls to fix the system are silenced by copyright claims, isn't it time that we fixed the system?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story




Tags: copyright video fair such lessig ]]> Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:26:29 -0500 tag:croncast.com,6089 3 New Ways to Measure the Social Web http://blog.mixpanel.com/3-new-ways-to-measure-the-social-web-11 Shared item

Post by Tim Trefren (Co-founder of Mixpanel, Inc.) guest posted at http://mashable.com/2010/02/02/social-analytics/

When most people think of web analytics, they think about pageview tracking; basically, measuring which pages on a website are being viewed. Pageview tracking is a well-established technology, but it's no longer meeting the needs of many of the most well-known companies in social media. Companies like FacebookFacebook, Zynga, Slide, and RockYou are spending tons of resources building their own internal analytics tools.

There's a reason for this: Social media is highly competitive, and the biggest advantage you can have is data. To improve and grow, these companies need to gather as much information as they can, and they need more than simple pageview tracking.

In the following sections I will cover three of the most important things to measure for social applications.

1. Funnel Analysis: Measuring Conversion Rates

One critical kind of analysis that social apps require is called Funnel Analysis. This is a way of measuring conversion rates, which is the lifeblood of all applications. The term conversion rate refers to the total number of visitors who came to a site, compared to the number of visitors who did a desired action (such as creating an account or purchasing an item).

What Funnel Analysis gives you is a more granular way of analyzing conversion rates. Instead of simply looking at signups divided by total visitors, you figure out the steps that have to be taken to get a user to sign up and measure the individual conversion rates between steps. As you can see from the image above, there's often a pretty steep dropoff between each step, giving you the namesake funnel shape. (Note: the image uses made up stats and is for illustration purposes only.)

This more granular look at conversion rates can have surprising results. Let's take a look at Twitter'sTwittersignup funnel:

1. Hit homepage
2. Go to signup page, fill out registration form
3. Browse suggested topics
4. Addadd e-mail friends
5. Search for someone

As you can see, the signup process is pretty complicated, and will benefit from detailed analysis. We might find, for example, that there's a huge dropoff rate (a dropoff occurs when many of the people who made it to one step don't make it to the next) at the Add e-mail friends step. Once we've discovered a dropoff rate like this, we have to figure out the root cause. The dropoff rate at the Add e-mail friends step could mean that users are unsure how to continue, causing them to leave, or they might not want to add their e-mail information. We would have to test to make sure.

Ultimately, Funnel Analysis is about finding and improving trouble spots in a website. With continual analysis, changes can be measured and ideas can be tested over time.

2. Engagement Tracking: Measuring What People Do

signup imageAs I mentioned earlier, pageview tracking is becoming less and less relevant for many web companies. Instead of the basic unit of measurement being the pageview, they are starting to track more directly relevant things, like the actions people are taking. Twitter, for example, may want to know how many tweets the average person sends and what they are searching for, not how many pages they viewed. Pageviews are just a way of approximating the information we really want, and as the web grows more interactive, they become less and less relevant.

Think about this: Sites exist today on which you never actually change the page. These are highly interactive sites, but they are impossible to track with pageviews, so traditional analytics tools are useless.

This will only become more common as time goes on and more companies develop highly interactive applications and adopt AJAX loading techniques.

3. Visitor Retention: How Many People Come Back?

This next technique measures a fairly complex but extremely valuable metric for successful web applications.

You can think of Visitor Retention as a measure of how sticky your site is. What we're really measuring is the percentage of people who come back again and again. The most common way of approaching this is to look at a group of users from a single time period (a week, for example) and track their behavior over time.

Here's an example of a retention table that should help clarify things:

Each row shows the weekly retention rates for a single group of users (sometimes known as a cohort). The first row, for example, is the cohort seen between December 7 and December 13, 2009. We can see that 15.15% of the users in that group came back after 1 week, 13.4% after 2 weeks, and so on.

This is crucial information, particularly for social applications, because most of the value lies in the size of the community. An application with low retention is like an empty shell many installs but few active users and you don't want to build an empty shell. You want a thriving, vibrant community.

Retention is a huge factor in building a strong community for a few reasons: You don't have much of a community if everyone is a newcomer (so more old users is a good thing), and the nature of retention is such that you get disproportionate returns on any increases you make. Without going into too much detail, an example would be that increasing retention by 33% might give you 50% more users in the long run.

Twitter is again a good example for us, as the network has been plagued by low retention rates. Twitter may seem successful now, but their low retention rate is troubling. In the past, companies that seemed to be extremely successful (think early Facebook apps) ultimately lost their edge because they couldn't retain their users.

It's entirely possible that Twitter itself could be a fad. With such low retention, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised but it is still too early to tell.

Conclusion

There's a lot to learn about analytics from the frontrunners in social media. The intense competition has resulted in many new and innovative ways to track and analyze visitor data.

We covered three such concepts in detail today: Funnel analysis, which lets you track conversion rates across whole parts of your site, engagement tracking, which is becoming more relevant than pageviews, and visitor retention analysis, which helps you understand and optimize the number of repeat visitors you get.

Permalink | Leave a comment



Tags: retention analysis rates users social ]]>

Post by Tim Trefren (Co-founder of Mixpanel, Inc.) guest posted at http://mashable.com/2010/02/02/social-analytics/

When most people think of web analytics, they think about pageview tracking; basically, measuring which pages on a website are being viewed. Pageview tracking is a well-established technology, but it's no longer meeting the needs of many of the most well-known companies in social media. Companies like FacebookFacebook, Zynga, Slide, and RockYou are spending tons of resources building their own internal analytics tools.

There's a reason for this: Social media is highly competitive, and the biggest advantage you can have is data. To improve and grow, these companies need to gather as much information as they can, and they need more than simple pageview tracking.

In the following sections I will cover three of the most important things to measure for social applications.

1. Funnel Analysis: Measuring Conversion Rates

One critical kind of analysis that social apps require is called Funnel Analysis. This is a way of measuring conversion rates, which is the lifeblood of all applications. The term conversion rate refers to the total number of visitors who came to a site, compared to the number of visitors who did a desired action (such as creating an account or purchasing an item).

What Funnel Analysis gives you is a more granular way of analyzing conversion rates. Instead of simply looking at signups divided by total visitors, you figure out the steps that have to be taken to get a user to sign up and measure the individual conversion rates between steps. As you can see from the image above, there's often a pretty steep dropoff between each step, giving you the namesake funnel shape. (Note: the image uses made up stats and is for illustration purposes only.)

This more granular look at conversion rates can have surprising results. Let's take a look at Twitter'sTwittersignup funnel:

1. Hit homepage
2. Go to signup page, fill out registration form
3. Browse suggested topics
4. Addadd e-mail friends
5. Search for someone

As you can see, the signup process is pretty complicated, and will benefit from detailed analysis. We might find, for example, that there's a huge dropoff rate (a dropoff occurs when many of the people who made it to one step don't make it to the next) at the Add e-mail friends step. Once we've discovered a dropoff rate like this, we have to figure out the root cause. The dropoff rate at the Add e-mail friends step could mean that users are unsure how to continue, causing them to leave, or they might not want to add their e-mail information. We would have to test to make sure.

Ultimately, Funnel Analysis is about finding and improving trouble spots in a website. With continual analysis, changes can be measured and ideas can be tested over time.

2. Engagement Tracking: Measuring What People Do

signup imageAs I mentioned earlier, pageview tracking is becoming less and less relevant for many web companies. Instead of the basic unit of measurement being the pageview, they are starting to track more directly relevant things, like the actions people are taking. Twitter, for example, may want to know how many tweets the average person sends and what they are searching for, not how many pages they viewed. Pageviews are just a way of approximating the information we really want, and as the web grows more interactive, they become less and less relevant.

Think about this: Sites exist today on which you never actually change the page. These are highly interactive sites, but they are impossible to track with pageviews, so traditional analytics tools are useless.

This will only become more common as time goes on and more companies develop highly interactive applications and adopt AJAX loading techniques.

3. Visitor Retention: How Many People Come Back?

This next technique measures a fairly complex but extremely valuable metric for successful web applications.

You can think of Visitor Retention as a measure of how sticky your site is. What we're really measuring is the percentage of people who come back again and again. The most common way of approaching this is to look at a group of users from a single time period (a week, for example) and track their behavior over time.

Here's an example of a retention table that should help clarify things:

Each row shows the weekly retention rates for a single group of users (sometimes known as a cohort). The first row, for example, is the cohort seen between December 7 and December 13, 2009. We can see that 15.15% of the users in that group came back after 1 week, 13.4% after 2 weeks, and so on.

This is crucial information, particularly for social applications, because most of the value lies in the size of the community. An application with low retention is like an empty shell many installs but few active users and you don't want to build an empty shell. You want a thriving, vibrant community.

Retention is a huge factor in building a strong community for a few reasons: You don't have much of a community if everyone is a newcomer (so more old users is a good thing), and the nature of retention is such that you get disproportionate returns on any increases you make. Without going into too much detail, an example would be that increasing retention by 33% might give you 50% more users in the long run.

Twitter is again a good example for us, as the network has been plagued by low retention rates. Twitter may seem successful now, but their low retention rate is troubling. In the past, companies that seemed to be extremely successful (think early Facebook apps) ultimately lost their edge because they couldn't retain their users.

It's entirely possible that Twitter itself could be a fad. With such low retention, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised but it is still too early to tell.

Conclusion

There's a lot to learn about analytics from the frontrunners in social media. The intense competition has resulted in many new and innovative ways to track and analyze visitor data.

We covered three such concepts in detail today: Funnel analysis, which lets you track conversion rates across whole parts of your site, engagement tracking, which is becoming more relevant than pageviews, and visitor retention analysis, which helps you understand and optimize the number of repeat visitors you get.

Permalink | Leave a comment



Tags: retention analysis rates users social ]]> Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:05:26 -0500 tag:croncast.com,6077 Connecting With Fans And Giving Them A Reason To Buy Requires A Lot Of Experimenting http://techdirt.com/articles/20100122/1630117881.shtml Shared item CwF+RtB concept in a lot more detail, complete with examples of many artists, small to big, who are using it, we've been hearing about more and more artists. It's really great, and it's often difficult to choose which ones are worth writing up. But sometimes an example comes along that really highlights a point that hasn't necessarily been driven home before, and that helps make the decision easy. ChurchHatesTucker points us to a recent blog post by singer Marian Call in which she talks about her various experiments in connecting with fans and the surprise result of giving them a reason to buy. I can't emphasize enough that the whole post is worth reading, but I'll share a few highlights.

First, she talks about how much value there is in really connecting with your fans over social networks, and that doesn't mean just putting out blast messages about what you're doing, but also reading about what they're doing -- and, at times, going beyond that, including visiting "their websites, blogs, photo albums once in a while." Obviously, you can't do this all the time or with every fan, but it certainly does help connect with many fans in a very genuine way. It's not marketing, it's about making a connection and building a real relationship.

But the bigger point that she makes is that all of this -- both sides of the CwF + RtB equation -- require an awful lot of experimenting:
About twice a week I think, "Why don't I try this crazy idea and see if it works?" about some element of my career. With no label, no manager, and no inner voice of reason slow me down, I get to experiment all I want. 90% of my crazy ideas have to do with social networking -- which I spend half a lifetime doing, despite the crap I take from my family and Real Life friends. (Hey, some of us actually do bond over web comics, starship replicas, the fail whale, and photos of stuff on cats.) Mostly my nutty ideas work just a little bit. Some are epic failures. But my experimental flopping and floundering inches me closer to the day when I'll be totally financially independent as a full-time musician. Plus it's more fun than having a real job.

But every now and then a crazy idea works really really really good. Bam!
The really good idea in this case? She was performing a live gig at Whole Wheat Radio that was to be streamed online, and in a quick & dirty way, decided to offer up a special limited edition "bootleg" CD of live tracks. She said that her Twitter and Facebook friends had been complaining that she hadn't released any new music in a while, and she's still working on her next "studio" album -- but in just two hours she was able to assemble everything she needed for the Marian Call Bootleg Album, which she decided to make available for one night only. How did it work out?
I planned to sell 20-40 of my little bootleg CD's. Silly me. I sold well over 200. My little stack of jewel cases looked so pathetic.

WholeWheatRadio.org broke every record for online listenership, CD sales, tips -- everything. The more listeners tuned in, the more tuned in, and the more money they gave, the more money they gave. The crowd online was thrilled to be breaking WWR records. I drove away from Talkeetna having earned about $4,000 in one night, with a new CD to produce in just a couple of days and an avalanche of e-mail and publicity requests to deal with. Seldom have I been so happy and so panicked.
Again, this isn't the solution for everyone. But it shows how really connecting with fans, and trying different stuff out continuously, helps. Eventually, one or more of those ideas takes off with great results. While she may not be a full-time musician yet, it certainly seems like Marian has all the right pieces in place (and, yes, that includes great music).

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story




Tags: fans connecting cd doing idea ]]>CwF+RtB concept in a lot more detail, complete with examples of many artists, small to big, who are using it, we've been hearing about more and more artists. It's really great, and it's often difficult to choose which ones are worth writing up. But sometimes an example comes along that really highlights a point that hasn't necessarily been driven home before, and that helps make the decision easy. ChurchHatesTucker points us to a recent blog post by singer Marian Call in which she talks about her various experiments in connecting with fans and the surprise result of giving them a reason to buy. I can't emphasize enough that the whole post is worth reading, but I'll share a few highlights.

First, she talks about how much value there is in really connecting with your fans over social networks, and that doesn't mean just putting out blast messages about what you're doing, but also reading about what they're doing -- and, at times, going beyond that, including visiting "their websites, blogs, photo albums once in a while." Obviously, you can't do this all the time or with every fan, but it certainly does help connect with many fans in a very genuine way. It's not marketing, it's about making a connection and building a real relationship.

But the bigger point that she makes is that all of this -- both sides of the CwF + RtB equation -- require an awful lot of experimenting:
About twice a week I think, "Why don't I try this crazy idea and see if it works?" about some element of my career. With no label, no manager, and no inner voice of reason slow me down, I get to experiment all I want. 90% of my crazy ideas have to do with social networking -- which I spend half a lifetime doing, despite the crap I take from my family and Real Life friends. (Hey, some of us actually do bond over web comics, starship replicas, the fail whale, and photos of stuff on cats.) Mostly my nutty ideas work just a little bit. Some are epic failures. But my experimental flopping and floundering inches me closer to the day when I'll be totally financially independent as a full-time musician. Plus it's more fun than having a real job.

But every now and then a crazy idea works really really really good. Bam!
The really good idea in this case? She was performing a live gig at Whole Wheat Radio that was to be streamed online, and in a quick & dirty way, decided to offer up a special limited edition "bootleg" CD of live tracks. She said that her Twitter and Facebook friends had been complaining that she hadn't released any new music in a while, and she's still working on her next "studio" album -- but in just two hours she was able to assemble everything she needed for the Marian Call Bootleg Album, which she decided to make available for one night only. How did it work out?
I planned to sell 20-40 of my little bootleg CD's. Silly me. I sold well over 200. My little stack of jewel cases looked so pathetic.

WholeWheatRadio.org broke every record for online listenership, CD sales, tips -- everything. The more listeners tuned in, the more tuned in, and the more money they gave, the more money they gave. The crowd online was thrilled to be breaking WWR records. I drove away from Talkeetna having earned about $4,000 in one night, with a new CD to produce in just a couple of days and an avalanche of e-mail and publicity requests to deal with. Seldom have I been so happy and so panicked.
Again, this isn't the solution for everyone. But it shows how really connecting with fans, and trying different stuff out continuously, helps. Eventually, one or more of those ideas takes off with great results. While she may not be a full-time musician yet, it certainly seems like Marian has all the right pieces in place (and, yes, that includes great music).

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story




Tags: fans connecting cd doing idea ]]> Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:09:01 -0500 tag:croncast.com,6037 The Man Who Looked Into Facebook's Soul http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/v1kLsy0tYwQ/facebook_user_data_analysis.php Shared item Youth social networking researcher danah boyd has observed that many people presume the way they use social networks is the way everyone uses them. "I interviewed gay men who thought Friendster was a gay dating site because all they saw were other gay men," she says. "I interviewed teens who believed that everyone on MySpace was Christian because all of the profiles they saw contained biblical quotes. We all live in our own worlds with people who share our values and, with networked media, it's often hard to see beyond that."

Now picture our perspective leaving our own experiences, zooming out and up until we can see how all the different groups are interacting on a worldwide social network. That bird's-eye view could be both beautiful and horrible if the resolution was clear enough. That's what a Ramen-eating, ex-Apple engineer named Pete Warden is about to release to the public this week.

Sponsor

This Wednesday, Warden will make Friend, Fan page and name data from hundreds of millions of Facebook users available to the academic research community. It's a move that Facebook has to have seen coming, a move that many in the data-centric community have been calling on the company itself to do for years, and an event that's been complicated by Facebook's recent privacy policy changes, which have muddied the waters of right and wrong but rendered even more data available for outside analysis.

If what people call Web 2.0 was all about creating new technologies that made it easy for everyday people to publish their thoughts, social connections and activities, then the next stage of innovation online may be services like recommendations, self and group awareness, and other features made possible by software developers building on top of the huge mass of data that Web 2.0 made public. It's a very exciting future, and Warden is about to fire one of the earliest big shots in that direction.

Nerds in Space: Social Graph Analysis For Solving Large-Group Problems

Warden studied Computer Vision in college in the U.K., then got into game development. After moving to L.A., he spent six years building graphics drivers for the original Playstation and the XBox. Then he started his own independent business, where, thankfully, he open-sourced much of his work (something he's still doing today).

When he found out that starting his own business wasn't going to work with his immigration status, he was very fortunate to have also caught Apple's eye with the software he had been releasing to the public. Apple bought his company in order to bring him on board. The proceeds of that small sale are now sustaining his next project after going independent again.

After spending five years at Apple struggling to navigate the maze of people and connections and types of expertise in order to get the information he needed, Warden decided to go independent and build a company that solved exactly that kind of problem. "I can't think of a better big company to work for, but it was still a big company," he says. "It was hard to find the right people to talk to, whether for particular expertise or for contacts at external companies." And so Warden left Apple to build a company that would use social graph analysis to solve problems like that. He called the company Mailana, a play on "mail analysis" since he was initially focused on email social graph analysis.

We've written here a number of times about Mailana's tool that analyzes the social graph of any Twitter user. Enter the username of someone on Twitter and Mailana will show you which 20 other people the user has exchanged the largest number of reciprocal public @ replies with. Find someone interesting or important? Mailana's Twitter analyzer will tell you who they most regularly interact with. See, for example, The Inner Circles of 10 Geek Rockstars on Twitter.

Pulling Down the Facebook Social Graph

Now Warden is about to unveil a much larger project along the same vein. For the past six months he's been crawling public profile pages on Facebook. He now has more than 215 million of them indexed and updated about once a month. When he began he was using the Web crawling service 80legs, but over time he had to build his own crawling infrastructure.

When I talked to him this afternoon, he had already begun uploading 100 GB of user data onto his server to make it available for academic research starting on Wednesday. Warden says he's removed identifying profile URLs but kept names, locations, Fan page lists and partial Friends lists. All those fields of data are just waiting to be analyzed and cross referenced. That's one very rich resource.

Yesterday Warden posted some of his own initial observations from the data on his personal blog. Those included:

  • In almost every state in the Southern U.S., God is number one most popular Fan page among Facebook users. Among people in the L.A., San Francisco and Nevada regions? "God hardly makes an appearance on the fan pages, but sports aren't that popular either," Warden writes. "Michael Jackson is a particular favorite, and San Francisco puts Barack Obama in the top spot." In the Oregon and Idaho region? Starbucks is number one.
  • In the Mormon-influenced areas of Utah and Eastern Idaho, the most popular Fan pages are The Book of Mormon, Glen Beck and the vampire book Twilight, which was authored by a Mormon.
  • The bulk of Warden's posted analysis yesterday was about location networks. People in the western U.S. tend to have Facebook friends all over the country; people in the southern U.S. tend to mostly be friends with people who have remained in the same area.

Taking a Deeper Look

These observations are interesting, but they are only the beginning of what's possible. Name, location, friends and interests are great data points to analyze. Warden has written a program that will estimate gender as well, based on names. All these data points can be cross-referenced with outside data, too. Members of Facebook's own staff did this kind of analysis when they compared user last names to U.S. Census data, which allowed them to estimate changes in Facebook's racial composition over time based on the likelihood of people with particular last names to report a particular racial backgrounds.

"I'm mostly thinking 'What do I try first?'," Warden says. "There's so many interesting ways to slice the data - especially as I'm starting to get changes over time. I'm also trying to map out political networks in aggregate; how polarized the fans of particular politicians are - so how likely a Sarah Palin fan is to have any friends who are fans of Obama, and how that varies with location too. One of my favorite results is that Texans are more likely to be fans of the Dallas Cowboys than God."

Warden says he hasn't talked to anyone from Facebook since he started crawling the site, but he did get an email from someone on the security team asking him to take down instructions he'd posted that exposed a security hole that made harvesting peoples' email addresses easy. So the company is paying attention. "I'd love to see them put me out of business by putting decent data out there," Warden says. He says his Amazon Web Services bill was over $5,000 last month.

Why is he indexing all this content and why is he going to hand it over to the academic world later this week? "I am fascinated by how we can build tools to understand our world and connect people based on all the data we're just littering the Internet with," Warden says.

"Nobody thinks about how much valuable information they're generating just by friending people and fanning pages. It's like we're constantly voting in a hundred different ways every day. And I'm a starry-eyed believer that we'll be able to change the world for the better using that neglected information. It's like an x-ray for the whole country - we can see all sorts of hidden details of who we're friends with, where we live, what we like."

For a great example of the kind of social impact that data analysis can make, Warden points to some of the fascinating ways that GIS data is illuminating the intersection of race and public services. Data has shed light on social injustices for decades, and measurable information about the interactions of hundreds of millions of people every day on Facebook offers opportunities to discover both good and bad news about the contemporary human condition.

Warden says he's not yet been able to interest any investors in his ideas for businesses based on this data, so his girlfriend Liz Baumann, a former insurance actuary, stepped in to help and is now running much of the crawling. He says he's now focused on "working on ways of presenting all this information in a form that answers questions for people willing to pay." His first experiment along those lines is the very interesting FanPageAnalytics.com.

What does Pete Warden hope for from this week's public release of all this Facebook data? "Hopefully I'll get to see a bunch of interesting [academic research] papers come out of it, worst case. And I'd like to be the guy people turn to when they need stuff like this."

Already well-respected among a fringe group of bleeding-edge geeks, we hope that Warden's work on social graph analysis will end up impacting a far larger number of people than may ever know his name.

Discuss



Tags: warden data facebook social analysis ]]>Youth social networking researcher danah boyd has observed that many people presume the way they use social networks is the way everyone uses them. "I interviewed gay men who thought Friendster was a gay dating site because all they saw were other gay men," she says. "I interviewed teens who believed that everyone on MySpace was Christian because all of the profiles they saw contained biblical quotes. We all live in our own worlds with people who share our values and, with networked media, it's often hard to see beyond that."

Now picture our perspective leaving our own experiences, zooming out and up until we can see how all the different groups are interacting on a worldwide social network. That bird's-eye view could be both beautiful and horrible if the resolution was clear enough. That's what a Ramen-eating, ex-Apple engineer named Pete Warden is about to release to the public this week.

Sponsor

This Wednesday, Warden will make Friend, Fan page and name data from hundreds of millions of Facebook users available to the academic research community. It's a move that Facebook has to have seen coming, a move that many in the data-centric community have been calling on the company itself to do for years, and an event that's been complicated by Facebook's recent privacy policy changes, which have muddied the waters of right and wrong but rendered even more data available for outside analysis.

If what people call Web 2.0 was all about creating new technologies that made it easy for everyday people to publish their thoughts, social connections and activities, then the next stage of innovation online may be services like recommendations, self and group awareness, and other features made possible by software developers building on top of the huge mass of data that Web 2.0 made public. It's a very exciting future, and Warden is about to fire one of the earliest big shots in that direction.

Nerds in Space: Social Graph Analysis For Solving Large-Group Problems

Warden studied Computer Vision in college in the U.K., then got into game development. After moving to L.A., he spent six years building graphics drivers for the original Playstation and the XBox. Then he started his own independent business, where, thankfully, he open-sourced much of his work (something he's still doing today).

When he found out that starting his own business wasn't going to work with his immigration status, he was very fortunate to have also caught Apple's eye with the software he had been releasing to the public. Apple bought his company in order to bring him on board. The proceeds of that small sale are now sustaining his next project after going independent again.

After spending five years at Apple struggling to navigate the maze of people and connections and types of expertise in order to get the information he needed, Warden decided to go independent and build a company that solved exactly that kind of problem. "I can't think of a better big company to work for, but it was still a big company," he says. "It was hard to find the right people to talk to, whether for particular expertise or for contacts at external companies." And so Warden left Apple to build a company that would use social graph analysis to solve problems like that. He called the company Mailana, a play on "mail analysis" since he was initially focused on email social graph analysis.

We've written here a number of times about Mailana's tool that analyzes the social graph of any Twitter user. Enter the username of someone on Twitter and Mailana will show you which 20 other people the user has exchanged the largest number of reciprocal public @ replies with. Find someone interesting or important? Mailana's Twitter analyzer will tell you who they most regularly interact with. See, for example, The Inner Circles of 10 Geek Rockstars on Twitter.

Pulling Down the Facebook Social Graph

Now Warden is about to unveil a much larger project along the same vein. For the past six months he's been crawling public profile pages on Facebook. He now has more than 215 million of them indexed and updated about once a month. When he began he was using the Web crawling service 80legs, but over time he had to build his own crawling infrastructure.

When I talked to him this afternoon, he had already begun uploading 100 GB of user data onto his server to make it available for academic research starting on Wednesday. Warden says he's removed identifying profile URLs but kept names, locations, Fan page lists and partial Friends lists. All those fields of data are just waiting to be analyzed and cross referenced. That's one very rich resource.

Yesterday Warden posted some of his own initial observations from the data on his personal blog. Those included:

  • In almost every state in the Southern U.S., God is number one most popular Fan page among Facebook users. Among people in the L.A., San Francisco and Nevada regions? "God hardly makes an appearance on the fan pages, but sports aren't that popular either," Warden writes. "Michael Jackson is a particular favorite, and San Francisco puts Barack Obama in the top spot." In the Oregon and Idaho region? Starbucks is number one.
  • In the Mormon-influenced areas of Utah and Eastern Idaho, the most popular Fan pages are The Book of Mormon, Glen Beck and the vampire book Twilight, which was authored by a Mormon.
  • The bulk of Warden's posted analysis yesterday was about location networks. People in the western U.S. tend to have Facebook friends all over the country; people in the southern U.S. tend to mostly be friends with people who have remained in the same area.

Taking a Deeper Look

These observations are interesting, but they are only the beginning of what's possible. Name, location, friends and interests are great data points to analyze. Warden has written a program that will estimate gender as well, based on names. All these data points can be cross-referenced with outside data, too. Members of Facebook's own staff did this kind of analysis when they compared user last names to U.S. Census data, which allowed them to estimate changes in Facebook's racial composition over time based on the likelihood of people with particular last names to report a particular racial backgrounds.

"I'm mostly thinking 'What do I try first?'," Warden says. "There's so many interesting ways to slice the data - especially as I'm starting to get changes over time. I'm also trying to map out political networks in aggregate; how polarized the fans of particular politicians are - so how likely a Sarah Palin fan is to have any friends who are fans of Obama, and how that varies with location too. One of my favorite results is that Texans are more likely to be fans of the Dallas Cowboys than God."

Warden says he hasn't talked to anyone from Facebook since he started crawling the site, but he did get an email from someone on the security team asking him to take down instructions he'd posted that exposed a security hole that made harvesting peoples' email addresses easy. So the company is paying attention. "I'd love to see them put me out of business by putting decent data out there," Warden says. He says his Amazon Web Services bill was over $5,000 last month.

Why is he indexing all this content and why is he going to hand it over to the academic world later this week? "I am fascinated by how we can build tools to understand our world and connect people based on all the data we're just littering the Internet with," Warden says.

"Nobody thinks about how much valuable information they're generating just by friending people and fanning pages. It's like we're constantly voting in a hundred different ways every day. And I'm a starry-eyed believer that we'll be able to change the world for the better using that neglected information. It's like an x-ray for the whole country - we can see all sorts of hidden details of who we're friends with, where we live, what we like."

For a great example of the kind of social impact that data analysis can make, Warden points to some of the fascinating ways that GIS data is illuminating the intersection of race and public services. Data has shed light on social injustices for decades, and measurable information about the interactions of hundreds of millions of people every day on Facebook offers opportunities to discover both good and bad news about the contemporary human condition.

Warden says he's not yet been able to interest any investors in his ideas for businesses based on this data, so his girlfriend Liz Baumann, a former insurance actuary, stepped in to help and is now running much of the crawling. He says he's now focused on "working on ways of presenting all this information in a form that answers questions for people willing to pay." His first experiment along those lines is the very interesting FanPageAnalytics.com.

What does Pete Warden hope for from this week's public release of all this Facebook data? "Hopefully I'll get to see a bunch of interesting [academic research] papers come out of it, worst case. And I'd like to be the guy people turn to when they need stuff like this."

Already well-respected among a fringe group of bleeding-edge geeks, we hope that Warden's work on social graph analysis will end up impacting a far larger number of people than may ever know his name.

Discuss



Tags: warden data facebook social analysis ]]> Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:15:35 -0500 tag:croncast.com,6009 Good Ideas Salon With Seth Godin Recap http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/psfk/feed/~3/VpJhc3u8OBc/good-ideas-salon-with-seth-godin-recap.html Shared item Good Ideas Salon With Seth Godin Recap PSFK's Good Ideas Salon with Seth Godin, held last Thursday at the Soho House in New York City, provided to be an inspirational and thought provoking morning where Seth shared ideas from his new book Linchpin. He talked about what it takes to to a be a successful Linchpin; one fundamental ...

Tags: ideas seth linchpin godin salon ]]> Good Ideas Salon With Seth Godin Recap PSFK's Good Ideas Salon with Seth Godin, held last Thursday at the Soho House in New York City, provided to be an inspirational and thought provoking morning where Seth shared ideas from his new book Linchpin. He talked about what it takes to to a be a successful Linchpin; one fundamental ...

Tags: ideas seth linchpin godin salon ]]> Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:51:29 -0500 tag:croncast.com,6001 Next Week: Mashable NextUp NYC, The Future Journalist [Social Media Week] http://mashable.com/2010/01/29/next-week-mashable-nextup-nyc/ Shared item

Mashable NextUp NYCLess than 100 tickets remain for Mashable's Social Media Week event, NextUp NYC The Future Journalist on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 92YTribeca.

Join us for networking and a conversation and Q&A with Sree Sreenivasan (Professor and Columbia Journalism School Dean of Student Affairs and contributing editor of DNAinfo.com) and Vadim Lavrusik (new media journalist and digital media graduate student at Columbia University Journalism School).

Details

Location: 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013

Socialize: Facebook Event Page

Pricing: $20 in advance, $25 at door. Tickets on Sale Now.

Food and drink: Full cash bar and food menu available

Schedule

  • 6:00 7:15 = Open Networking
  • 7:15 8:45 = Conversation and Q&A with Sree Sreenivasan and Vadim Lavrusik
  • 8:45 Bar Close = Open Networking

A Conversation and Q&A with:

Sree Sreenivasan Prof. Sree Sreenivasan, Columbia Journalism School Dean of Student Affairs and contributing editor, DNAinfo.com.

Sree Sreenivasan is a tech evangelist and skeptic specializing in explaining technology to non-techies. He is a professor and dean of students affairs at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he teaches in the digital media program. Sreenivasan is contributing editor at DNAinfo.com, a Manhattan-news startup he helped launch in 2009 with Joe Ricketts, the founder of Ameritrade and whose family just bought the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field. He also has been a fixture on NYC-area television. For more than eight years, he served as technology reporter for WABC-TV and WNBC-TV and now occasionally appears on various TV shows (on CNN, NBC's Today Show, CNBC and elsewhere) to talk tech. He has written articles for The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Rolling Stone, National Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes and Popular Science. You can find him on Twitter at twitter.com/sreenet and on the Web at sree.net.

Vadim Lavrusik Online journalist and M.S. candidate in Digital Media at Columbia Journalism School

Vadim Lavrusik is a new media journalist and social media consultant studying digital media at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where he is launching NYC 3.0, a tech start-up news site as part of his Master's project. He's reported for publications like the Star Tribune, The Minnesota Daily, the Mpls./St. Paul Business Journal and most recently was a guest feature writer for Mashable.com, where he covered trends in news media, and contributed to Poynter Online's E-Media Tidbits. You can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/lavrusik and the Web lavrusik.com.

Thanks to our Sponsors

Pepsi believes in the power of people and their ideas to make positive change. That's why Pepsi is giving away more than $20 million this year to fund good ideas, big and small, that move communities forward. The Pepsi Refresh Project invites individuals to share their ideas about how they can refresh the world. The public votes for their favorite ideas and Pepsi will give out up to $1.3 million each month to fund the winning ideas. Pepsi is leveraging the power of social media platforms to inspire ideas and encourage individuals to participate.

Zemoga is an award-winning digital innovation agency that specializes in the creation of meaningful and engaging interactive experiences and applications. With offices in the US and Colombia, Zemoga empowers customers with groundbreaking solutions through a model that provides efficiencies at every level. Zemoga's clients include Sears Holdings, HBO, ING, Yahoo, Viacom, A&E Television Networks, Toyota, SONY Music, and Rodale.

Thanks to our Partner

smac logoSMAC the Social Media Advertising Consortium fosters collaboration throughout the entire social media ecosystem, diving deep into critical issues and staying ahead of this constantly evolving industry. By bringing together buy side, sell side, and research professionals to develop relevant standards, comprehensive research and definitive measurement tools, our goal is to grow revenues and increase engagement. SMAC members are groundbreakers. Entrepreneurs. Thought leaders. Together, we form a community that feeds off each other's creativity, creating an environment for learning and discovery.

Tags: Events, nextup-nyc, social media week



Tags: media social sree ideas sreenivasan ]]>

Mashable NextUp NYCLess than 100 tickets remain for Mashable's Social Media Week event, NextUp NYC The Future Journalist on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 92YTribeca.

Join us for networking and a conversation and Q&A with Sree Sreenivasan (Professor and Columbia Journalism School Dean of Student Affairs and contributing editor of DNAinfo.com) and Vadim Lavrusik (new media journalist and digital media graduate student at Columbia University Journalism School).

Details

Location: 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013

Socialize: Facebook Event Page

Pricing: $20 in advance, $25 at door. Tickets on Sale Now.

Food and drink: Full cash bar and food menu available

Schedule

  • 6:00 7:15 = Open Networking
  • 7:15 8:45 = Conversation and Q&A with Sree Sreenivasan and Vadim Lavrusik
  • 8:45 Bar Close = Open Networking

A Conversation and Q&A with:

Sree Sreenivasan Prof. Sree Sreenivasan, Columbia Journalism School Dean of Student Affairs and contributing editor, DNAinfo.com.

Sree Sreenivasan is a tech evangelist and skeptic specializing in explaining technology to non-techies. He is a professor and dean of students affairs at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he teaches in the digital media program. Sreenivasan is contributing editor at DNAinfo.com, a Manhattan-news startup he helped launch in 2009 with Joe Ricketts, the founder of Ameritrade and whose family just bought the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field. He also has been a fixture on NYC-area television. For more than eight years, he served as technology reporter for WABC-TV and WNBC-TV and now occasionally appears on various TV shows (on CNN, NBC's Today Show, CNBC and elsewhere) to talk tech. He has written articles for The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Rolling Stone, National Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes and Popular Science. You can find him on Twitter at twitter.com/sreenet and on the Web at sree.net.

Vadim Lavrusik Online journalist and M.S. candidate in Digital Media at Columbia Journalism School

Vadim Lavrusik is a new media journalist and social media consultant studying digital media at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where he is launching NYC 3.0, a tech start-up news site as part of his Master's project. He's reported for publications like the Star Tribune, The Minnesota Daily, the Mpls./St. Paul Business Journal and most recently was a guest feature writer for Mashable.com, where he covered trends in news media, and contributed to Poynter Online's E-Media Tidbits. You can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/lavrusik and the Web lavrusik.com.

Thanks to our Sponsors

Pepsi believes in the power of people and their ideas to make positive change. That's why Pepsi is giving away more than $20 million this year to fund good ideas, big and small, that move communities forward. The Pepsi Refresh Project invites individuals to share their ideas about how they can refresh the world. The public votes for their favorite ideas and Pepsi will give out up to $1.3 million each month to fund the winning ideas. Pepsi is leveraging the power of social media platforms to inspire ideas and encourage individuals to participate.

Zemoga is an award-winning digital innovation agency that specializes in the creation of meaningful and engaging interactive experiences and applications. With offices in the US and Colombia, Zemoga empowers customers with groundbreaking solutions through a model that provides efficiencies at every level. Zemoga's clients include Sears Holdings, HBO, ING, Yahoo, Viacom, A&E Television Networks, Toyota, SONY Music, and Rodale.

Thanks to our Partner

smac logoSMAC the Social Media Advertising Consortium fosters collaboration throughout the entire social media ecosystem, diving deep into critical issues and staying ahead of this constantly evolving industry. By bringing together buy side, sell side, and research professionals to develop relevant standards, comprehensive research and definitive measurement tools, our goal is to grow revenues and increase engagement. SMAC members are groundbreakers. Entrepreneurs. Thought leaders. Together, we form a community that feeds off each other's creativity, creating an environment for learning and discovery.

Tags: Events, nextup-nyc, social media week



Tags: media social sree ideas sreenivasan ]]> Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:38:18 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5932 The iPad and publishers: A survey of early reaction http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/oreilly/radar/atom/~3/jWCHFuJsNbw/ipad-and-publishers.html Shared item What really jumped out to me as I looked over the iPad's feature set is that the device is clearly built for media consumption. Movies, music, books, news -- the bread and butter content that keeps iTunes humming. That's good for Apple, obviously, but it also creates an interesting opportunity for publishers. They've got a new distribution mechanism and a new canvas.

iPad.png

With that in mind, I decided to filter the barrage of iPad coverage through a publishing lens. What follows are intriguing ideas culled from all sorts of sources. Most revolve around content applications the iPad may provide.

There's no way I'll catch all the good stuff -- there's just too much out there -- so please use the comments area to post links and commentary that grab your attention, publishing-related and otherwise.

Ebook pricing could get interesting

The iPad's release portends a price-point battle between Apple and Amazon. That's ebook pricing, not hardware.

The Wall Street Journal says Apple is pushing book publishers to set two ebook price points, $12.99 and $14.99, with Apple taking its customary 30 percent cut from any sales. They key word in all this is "set." The big kahuna of ebooks, Amazon, controls its pricing. Most bestsellers are parked at $9.99, which is below what Amazon pays a publisher for a title. Amazon is subsidizing its low price point.

But that's the present. The future is a different matter. The thought is that Amazon is taking a short-term loss on ebooks so it can solidify its position as the dominant channel. Once it owns the ebook market, Amazon can ditch the subsidy and force publishers to renegotiate pricing.

That's the fear, and Apple appears to be playing to it by giving publishers an option: get a measure of pricing control through Apple, or make more with Amazon but pray they don't rewrite the rules later. (Apple could always rewrite rules, too ...)

What's really interesting about this -- and kind of bizarre -- is that the binary Apple-or-Amazon thinking obscures an important point: mobile devices already offer publishers plenty of pricing options.

What about e-reader applications?

Steve Jobs famously quipped a couple of years ago that "people don't read anymore." Well, I guess Apple changed its stance on that one. The new iBooks app -- and accompanying store -- is a big ol' cannonball in the ebook pool.

Early discussion on a back-channel publishing list I follow has focused on how Apple will treat its new ebook competitors. Will established applications, like Stanza and the Kindle app, be removed? Kirk Biglione, co-founder of Medialoper, thinks competitors will remain in Apple's universe. Just don't count on sharing titles across apps:

Look for books to be added as a new media type in the device media library. The other reading apps may be able to co-exist as long as they don't access books stored in that library. So, for example, you probably won't be able to use Stanza to read iBooks. [Note: Kirk gave me permission to post his comments.]

One thing to consider here: Past inquiries from the Federal Communications Commission may soften Apple's competitive instincts. At least for a while.

Of course, FCC heat doesn't preclude Apple from a little friendly rivalry. Digital Trends picked up on the backhanded compliment Jobs gave Amazon during the iPad presentation:

... [Jobs] basically told the online retailer that we'll take it from here.

The reading/viewing experience

Apple has already shown what it's capable of on the music and video front, so I'm curious to see how it handles the book experience. Early word is positive from folks who've had a chance to demo the iPad. Here's Gizmodo's take:

It's an optical illusion, but just seeing the depth of pages makes the iBook app feel more like a book than a Kindle ever did for me. The text is sharp, and while the screen is bright, it doesn't seem to strains the eyesbut time will tell on that.

The iPad is backwards compatible with existing iPhone applications. That seems useful on first blush, but Joshua Topolsky of Engadget called out a big issue with "old" apps:

It's kind of silly looking. A lone app in the center of a black screen.

More to come

I'll be adding to this post in the coming days as more analysis bubbles up. Again, please use the comments to point out interesting or informative links you come across as well.



Tags: apple amazon ipad pricing ebook ]]>What really jumped out to me as I looked over the iPad's feature set is that the device is clearly built for media consumption. Movies, music, books, news -- the bread and butter content that keeps iTunes humming. That's good for Apple, obviously, but it also creates an interesting opportunity for publishers. They've got a new distribution mechanism and a new canvas.

iPad.png

With that in mind, I decided to filter the barrage of iPad coverage through a publishing lens. What follows are intriguing ideas culled from all sorts of sources. Most revolve around content applications the iPad may provide.

There's no way I'll catch all the good stuff -- there's just too much out there -- so please use the comments area to post links and commentary that grab your attention, publishing-related and otherwise.

Ebook pricing could get interesting

The iPad's release portends a price-point battle between Apple and Amazon. That's ebook pricing, not hardware.

The Wall Street Journal says Apple is pushing book publishers to set two ebook price points, $12.99 and $14.99, with Apple taking its customary 30 percent cut from any sales. They key word in all this is "set." The big kahuna of ebooks, Amazon, controls its pricing. Most bestsellers are parked at $9.99, which is below what Amazon pays a publisher for a title. Amazon is subsidizing its low price point.

But that's the present. The future is a different matter. The thought is that Amazon is taking a short-term loss on ebooks so it can solidify its position as the dominant channel. Once it owns the ebook market, Amazon can ditch the subsidy and force publishers to renegotiate pricing.

That's the fear, and Apple appears to be playing to it by giving publishers an option: get a measure of pricing control through Apple, or make more with Amazon but pray they don't rewrite the rules later. (Apple could always rewrite rules, too ...)

What's really interesting about this -- and kind of bizarre -- is that the binary Apple-or-Amazon thinking obscures an important point: mobile devices already offer publishers plenty of pricing options.

What about e-reader applications?

Steve Jobs famously quipped a couple of years ago that "people don't read anymore." Well, I guess Apple changed its stance on that one. The new iBooks app -- and accompanying store -- is a big ol' cannonball in the ebook pool.

Early discussion on a back-channel publishing list I follow has focused on how Apple will treat its new ebook competitors. Will established applications, like Stanza and the Kindle app, be removed? Kirk Biglione, co-founder of Medialoper, thinks competitors will remain in Apple's universe. Just don't count on sharing titles across apps:

Look for books to be added as a new media type in the device media library. The other reading apps may be able to co-exist as long as they don't access books stored in that library. So, for example, you probably won't be able to use Stanza to read iBooks. [Note: Kirk gave me permission to post his comments.]

One thing to consider here: Past inquiries from the Federal Communications Commission may soften Apple's competitive instincts. At least for a while.

Of course, FCC heat doesn't preclude Apple from a little friendly rivalry. Digital Trends picked up on the backhanded compliment Jobs gave Amazon during the iPad presentation:

... [Jobs] basically told the online retailer that we'll take it from here.

The reading/viewing experience

Apple has already shown what it's capable of on the music and video front, so I'm curious to see how it handles the book experience. Early word is positive from folks who've had a chance to demo the iPad. Here's Gizmodo's take:

It's an optical illusion, but just seeing the depth of pages makes the iBook app feel more like a book than a Kindle ever did for me. The text is sharp, and while the screen is bright, it doesn't seem to strains the eyesbut time will tell on that.

The iPad is backwards compatible with existing iPhone applications. That seems useful on first blush, but Joshua Topolsky of Engadget called out a big issue with "old" apps:

It's kind of silly looking. A lone app in the center of a black screen.

More to come

I'll be adding to this post in the coming days as more analysis bubbles up. Again, please use the comments to point out interesting or informative links you come across as well.



Tags: apple amazon ipad pricing ebook ]]> Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:42:05 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5920 How to Make the Most of the Fresh Start of a New Year http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zenhabits/~3/eCEYakBxhS0/ Shared item

Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most. ~ Buddha

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

We're several days into the New Year, and many of us are still basking in the glow of a fresh start.

Every year, January brings renewed optimism for change, for a better life, for a better you. And that's a wonderful thing.

It's wonderful, because this fresh start gives us a chance to reinvent our lives and ourselves. It allows us to reinvigorate ourselves, to shed the baggage of the previous year and do anything. Anything is possible!

That is a gift, my friends, and I suggest we make the most of this gift. Not just by creating and sticking to resolutions (here's my guide for doing that), but by reinventing the way we live.

Here's how.

1. Let go.
Many times we are held back by the tangled web of previous failures, commitments, emotions, barriers. We cannot change careers because we're used to what we're doing and it's too hard to change. We cannot find time to get healthy and fit because we have all these other things to do. We cannot find time for our loved ones because we have too many commitments.

This is all old baggage. A fresh start demands a clean slate. Let everything from the past go (easier said than done, I know). Clear your plate and your palate.

Let go of attachments to what you've been doing for the past year, or years. Let go of failures. Let go of fears you've built up. Let go of reluctance. Let go of your ideas about what your life has to be like, because that's the way it's evolved so far. Let go of long-held beliefs and habits.

You have a fresh start. Let go of last year, and start anew.

2. Decide what matters most today.
Forget about your goals for all of this year. Instead, decide: what do you want to do today?

What matters most to you, to your life? What are you most passionate about, right now? What excites and invigorates you? What would give you the most fulfillment?

Often the answer is in creating something, making something new, helping other people, becoming a better person, working on a project that will be an accomplishment to be proud of. But whatever your answer, have it clear in your mind at the beginning of the day.

This might be something you work on all year, or it might just last a month, or it might last a week or a few days, or just today. It doesn't matter. What matters is today that you're going to work on this with all your heart, today. Tomorrow we'll decide on that tomorrow.

3. Clear away distractions and focus.
Clear away email and Facebook and Twitter and your favorite blogs and news websites and social forums, clear away the iPhone or Blackberry or Android or cell phone, clear away all the little nagging work and chores and errands that pull at your attention, clear away the clutter that surrounds you (sweep it off to the side to deal with later).

In fact, if you can, shut off the Internet for awhile. You can come back to it when you take a break.

Now, find focus. Even if only for 15 or 20 minutes at first, but preferably for 30-60 minutes. You can take a break and check your email or whatever after you've focused. Focus on the thing that matters most. Do it for as long as you can, until you're done if possible. Feel free to take breaks, but always return to your focus.

When you're done, focus on the next thing that matters most, and so on.

4. Find happiness now.
Don't look at happiness as something that will come when you're done with this goal, or when you've attained a certain accomplishment or certain amount of wealth or material goods. Don't look at happiness as a destination, something that you'll get later.

Happiness is possible right now. Always remember that. When you push it back until later, it'll never come. When you learn to be happy now, it'll always be here.

When you're doing whatever you're passionate about, whatever matters most, whatever you decide is worthy of your time and heart and focus be happy! You're doing what you love. And that is truly a gift.

5. Reinvent yourself, every day.
Every day, you are reborn. Reinvent yourself and your life, every day. Do what matters most to you, that day.

It might be the same thing that mattered most yesterday, or it might not be. That isn't important. What's important is today right now. Be passionate, be happy, right now.

You'll have a fresh start every single day not just on January 1. And that, my friends, is the best thing ever.

If you liked this guide, please bookmark it on Delicious or share on Twitter. Thanks, my friends.

Read more about simplifying in my book, The Power of Less.



Tags: year matters start clear fresh ]]>

Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most. ~ Buddha

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

We're several days into the New Year, and many of us are still basking in the glow of a fresh start.

Every year, January brings renewed optimism for change, for a better life, for a better you. And that's a wonderful thing.

It's wonderful, because this fresh start gives us a chance to reinvent our lives and ourselves. It allows us to reinvigorate ourselves, to shed the baggage of the previous year and do anything. Anything is possible!

That is a gift, my friends, and I suggest we make the most of this gift. Not just by creating and sticking to resolutions (here's my guide for doing that), but by reinventing the way we live.

Here's how.

1. Let go.
Many times we are held back by the tangled web of previous failures, commitments, emotions, barriers. We cannot change careers because we're used to what we're doing and it's too hard to change. We cannot find time to get healthy and fit because we have all these other things to do. We cannot find time for our loved ones because we have too many commitments.

This is all old baggage. A fresh start demands a clean slate. Let everything from the past go (easier said than done, I know). Clear your plate and your palate.

Let go of attachments to what you've been doing for the past year, or years. Let go of failures. Let go of fears you've built up. Let go of reluctance. Let go of your ideas about what your life has to be like, because that's the way it's evolved so far. Let go of long-held beliefs and habits.

You have a fresh start. Let go of last year, and start anew.

2. Decide what matters most today.
Forget about your goals for all of this year. Instead, decide: what do you want to do today?

What matters most to you, to your life? What are you most passionate about, right now? What excites and invigorates you? What would give you the most fulfillment?

Often the answer is in creating something, making something new, helping other people, becoming a better person, working on a project that will be an accomplishment to be proud of. But whatever your answer, have it clear in your mind at the beginning of the day.

This might be something you work on all year, or it might just last a month, or it might last a week or a few days, or just today. It doesn't matter. What matters is today that you're going to work on this with all your heart, today. Tomorrow we'll decide on that tomorrow.

3. Clear away distractions and focus.
Clear away email and Facebook and Twitter and your favorite blogs and news websites and social forums, clear away the iPhone or Blackberry or Android or cell phone, clear away all the little nagging work and chores and errands that pull at your attention, clear away the clutter that surrounds you (sweep it off to the side to deal with later).

In fact, if you can, shut off the Internet for awhile. You can come back to it when you take a break.

Now, find focus. Even if only for 15 or 20 minutes at first, but preferably for 30-60 minutes. You can take a break and check your email or whatever after you've focused. Focus on the thing that matters most. Do it for as long as you can, until you're done if possible. Feel free to take breaks, but always return to your focus.

When you're done, focus on the next thing that matters most, and so on.

4. Find happiness now.
Don't look at happiness as something that will come when you're done with this goal, or when you've attained a certain accomplishment or certain amount of wealth or material goods. Don't look at happiness as a destination, something that you'll get later.

Happiness is possible right now. Always remember that. When you push it back until later, it'll never come. When you learn to be happy now, it'll always be here.

When you're doing whatever you're passionate about, whatever matters most, whatever you decide is worthy of your time and heart and focus be happy! You're doing what you love. And that is truly a gift.

5. Reinvent yourself, every day.
Every day, you are reborn. Reinvent yourself and your life, every day. Do what matters most to you, that day.

It might be the same thing that mattered most yesterday, or it might not be. That isn't important. What's important is today right now. Be passionate, be happy, right now.

You'll have a fresh start every single day not just on January 1. And that, my friends, is the best thing ever.

If you liked this guide, please bookmark it on Delicious or share on Twitter. Thanks, my friends.

Read more about simplifying in my book, The Power of Less.



Tags: year matters start clear fresh ]]> Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:38:27 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5839 Social Media: Connecting Thoughts Not People http://www.techstartups.com/2009/12/10/social-media-connecting-thoughts-not-people/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

Listening in to 'Wordpress for Social Media'
Image by croncast via Flickr

Are you the sum of your thoughts? It's a hard question to answer, right? I'm trying to sort this out and would like your help.

The dissonance between the physical and ethereal nature of disembodied communication like the internet is a minefield for human interaction. Primarily because we rely heavily on physical cues and environmental variables to base our levels of connection with a person. We rely on their actions, not just words.

My assertion is that social networks exacerbate this inability to fully understand the people we are linked with in these networks due to experiencing their random thoughts.

Sure it is interesting to read what someone is doing throughout their day, but the only value is what the reader places on that thought to make it a reality in their own mind. Maybe that is the nature of connection?

What I am really trying to understand is that if a person can create real bonds simply through sharing their thoughts in social media?

I've personally been at what turned into social media for over 7 years. I've become many things to many people based on the types of content that I was producing. Much of that content was dependent on what I was interested in or experiencing at that time. Like this piece.

The sum of interactions in social media are related to those fleeting thoughts. When shared repeatedly with networks of people a notion of who that individual is are created. This give us the ability to create baselines for who we think a person is. A baseline for example being, they're nice or they are a jerk.

Again, we are only dealing with thoughts to create these notions. They are assumptions as to the true nature of a person that most have yet to meet. I would posit that what happens in social media and across social networks is the connecting of thoughts. If you like someone, you like their thoughts. If you dislike someone, you dislike their thoughts. Any judgments are based on these and most likely very little on physical actions. So, if you met them in the real world you would need to attempt to ascertain all over again who that individual in front of you is.

Maybe we're connecting thoughts first and then people with social media?

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Tags: social thoughts media connecting networks ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

Listening in to 'Wordpress for Social Media'
Image by croncast via Flickr

Are you the sum of your thoughts? It's a hard question to answer, right? I'm trying to sort this out and would like your help.

The dissonance between the physical and ethereal nature of disembodied communication like the internet is a minefield for human interaction. Primarily because we rely heavily on physical cues and environmental variables to base our levels of connection with a person. We rely on their actions, not just words.

My assertion is that social networks exacerbate this inability to fully understand the people we are linked with in these networks due to experiencing their random thoughts.

Sure it is interesting to read what someone is doing throughout their day, but the only value is what the reader places on that thought to make it a reality in their own mind. Maybe that is the nature of connection?

What I am really trying to understand is that if a person can create real bonds simply through sharing their thoughts in social media?

I've personally been at what turned into social media for over 7 years. I've become many things to many people based on the types of content that I was producing. Much of that content was dependent on what I was interested in or experiencing at that time. Like this piece.

The sum of interactions in social media are related to those fleeting thoughts. When shared repeatedly with networks of people a notion of who that individual is are created. This give us the ability to create baselines for who we think a person is. A baseline for example being, they're nice or they are a jerk.

Again, we are only dealing with thoughts to create these notions. They are assumptions as to the true nature of a person that most have yet to meet. I would posit that what happens in social media and across social networks is the connecting of thoughts. If you like someone, you like their thoughts. If you dislike someone, you dislike their thoughts. Any judgments are based on these and most likely very little on physical actions. So, if you met them in the real world you would need to attempt to ascertain all over again who that individual in front of you is.

Maybe we're connecting thoughts first and then people with social media?

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Tags: social thoughts media connecting networks ]]> Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:34:10 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5805 The Feed Yard http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/23/the-feed-yard/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

junkThe feed yard is a place filled with rusted out digital representations of days gone by. It is home to the lost feeds of blogs and corporate sites that once used them diligently to share their ideas.

Like any scrap yard there is money to be made in this yard. It has been quite a surprise to me that a market for dormant or abandoned RSS feeds hasn't sprung up. The opportunity to engage subscribers within a niche without being required to go out and earn those subscribers is has been hanging around for years.

The concept was first introduced to me by a failing at Current TV years ago. They had a master feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/currenttv that I was subscribed to.

For nearly 6 months not a single update came through the feed. Then one day it was firing off 20 updates every few hours. Only the updates weren't for Current TV, they were for items on eBay with current' in the title.

Surprised, I got in touch with a friend that I thought might have contacts at Current to see if their feed had been hijacked. My friend did get me in touch with the right people and we traded a few emails. However, they were less concerned with the content in the feed than they were that it was still active.

At the time their FeedBurner account was currenttv and all other feeds were labeled currenttv/topic. This legacy feed was the only one that was cranking out eBay data so it went under the radar. I'm sure if you click the link for the feed above you were able to see what goodness was left inside.

I'm not sure whether this type of feed yard would lead to genuine commerce or nefarious activities but that isn't for me to decide. My guess is that it would be a gray area shunned by many and praised by others as an opportunity to extract value from failed properties. I think this is a revenue stream worth exploring for the right startup that doesn't mind a little rust.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

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Tags: feed yard current feeds feedburner ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

junkThe feed yard is a place filled with rusted out digital representations of days gone by. It is home to the lost feeds of blogs and corporate sites that once used them diligently to share their ideas.

Like any scrap yard there is money to be made in this yard. It has been quite a surprise to me that a market for dormant or abandoned RSS feeds hasn't sprung up. The opportunity to engage subscribers within a niche without being required to go out and earn those subscribers is has been hanging around for years.

The concept was first introduced to me by a failing at Current TV years ago. They had a master feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/currenttv that I was subscribed to.

For nearly 6 months not a single update came through the feed. Then one day it was firing off 20 updates every few hours. Only the updates weren't for Current TV, they were for items on eBay with current' in the title.

Surprised, I got in touch with a friend that I thought might have contacts at Current to see if their feed had been hijacked. My friend did get me in touch with the right people and we traded a few emails. However, they were less concerned with the content in the feed than they were that it was still active.

At the time their FeedBurner account was currenttv and all other feeds were labeled currenttv/topic. This legacy feed was the only one that was cranking out eBay data so it went under the radar. I'm sure if you click the link for the feed above you were able to see what goodness was left inside.

I'm not sure whether this type of feed yard would lead to genuine commerce or nefarious activities but that isn't for me to decide. My guess is that it would be a gray area shunned by many and praised by others as an opportunity to extract value from failed properties. I think this is a revenue stream worth exploring for the right startup that doesn't mind a little rust.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

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Tags: feed yard current feeds feedburner ]]> Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:47:22 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5781 Top 5 Ways to Gain Traffic Beyond SEO http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/24/top-5-ways-to-gain-traffic-beyond-seo/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

grindermanThis short list is a way to gain site traffic beyond SEO. I should also say beyond PPC, affiliate marketing or hiring a social media expert.

It hurt me to type those last three words.

As Nick Cave said in his Grinderman role, Get it on.

In no particular order . . .

1. Be the first in a niche

Take the thought about that next great business and simply flesh it out on paper. Then implement. Even in the simplest form if you are first in a niche you will get the rank and community support to grow. It will start out small but over time if it is the right idea and execution traffic will grow.

2. Insightful content

Being first is awesome but if you aren't first, ahem, which you most likely aren't, you'll need to deliver insightful content. Regardless of whether it is video, audio, text or non-digital products the content around the item needs to add value.

3. Controversy

If you're doing it right it will find you. On accident you will step on some toes of competitors or even your own users. Remember this isn't always about always being right, it is about the battle that you can win. And if you lose, be gracious and admit the defeat. If you despise confrontation maybe this one isn't for you but it sure can help in promoting your wares.

4. Offer more

Much more than your competitors. Give visitors a reason to come back. If you nearest competitor offers a message board then offer a message board and live chat . . . and standard 3rd party social tools like Twitter or Facebook. Take the time to review your road map and go off the reservation with brainstorming. Get crazy with ideas and you'll find a solution that you didn't know was there to differentiate you from the competitor. In other words, innovate.

5. Celebrity love

This isn't the layup that it seems. The site doesn't have to be flashy and filled with paid celebrity users. One engaged celebrity user would do. Hell, that engaged celebrity could come from the site community and simply need the spotlight to shine themselves. Offer your users the chance to become the rock star of their dreams.

Conclusion

Be a grinder and get it on. Stop languishing as competitors in your space pass you by. Maybe you are already in the lead and feel that you are not meeting your goals grind it out.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

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Tags: traffic site first beyond seo ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

grindermanThis short list is a way to gain site traffic beyond SEO. I should also say beyond PPC, affiliate marketing or hiring a social media expert.

It hurt me to type those last three words.

As Nick Cave said in his Grinderman role, Get it on.

In no particular order . . .

1. Be the first in a niche

Take the thought about that next great business and simply flesh it out on paper. Then implement. Even in the simplest form if you are first in a niche you will get the rank and community support to grow. It will start out small but over time if it is the right idea and execution traffic will grow.

2. Insightful content

Being first is awesome but if you aren't first, ahem, which you most likely aren't, you'll need to deliver insightful content. Regardless of whether it is video, audio, text or non-digital products the content around the item needs to add value.

3. Controversy

If you're doing it right it will find you. On accident you will step on some toes of competitors or even your own users. Remember this isn't always about always being right, it is about the battle that you can win. And if you lose, be gracious and admit the defeat. If you despise confrontation maybe this one isn't for you but it sure can help in promoting your wares.

4. Offer more

Much more than your competitors. Give visitors a reason to come back. If you nearest competitor offers a message board then offer a message board and live chat . . . and standard 3rd party social tools like Twitter or Facebook. Take the time to review your road map and go off the reservation with brainstorming. Get crazy with ideas and you'll find a solution that you didn't know was there to differentiate you from the competitor. In other words, innovate.

5. Celebrity love

This isn't the layup that it seems. The site doesn't have to be flashy and filled with paid celebrity users. One engaged celebrity user would do. Hell, that engaged celebrity could come from the site community and simply need the spotlight to shine themselves. Offer your users the chance to become the rock star of their dreams.

Conclusion

Be a grinder and get it on. Stop languishing as competitors in your space pass you by. Maybe you are already in the lead and feel that you are not meeting your goals grind it out.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

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Tags: traffic site first beyond seo ]]> Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:09:56 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5782 WordPress 3.0 Wish List http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/25/wordpress-3-0-wish-list/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

wordpessWith the imminent release of WordPress version 2.9 on the horizon and my subsequent lack of excitement, it only seems fitting to put together a wish list for the next version. It is even more fitting since Raanan (@raanan) asked, What's on your wishlist for 3.0 ?

I partially answered that question in the comments with the following:

  1. Semantic integration with Zemanta or OpenCalais
    1. This would be like having a librarian with a fancy masters degree in categorizing everything on the planet riding shotgun with you while you write.
  2. WordPress recommended vocabulary for categories
    1. This could mirror NYT Open Linked Data RDF or other semantic tools
  3. Image upload and modal window to open in advanced mode for properties control
    1. This could be a combo of both tabs but something more powerful from the first time the window opens so that users don't need to perform multiple actions to add padding or custom links to images
  4. Feed only choice for publishing posts
    1. This doesn't have to be authenticated and would work by same rules with tags, categories, etc. to syndicate for apps or widgets
    2. Imagine being able to use WP as a CMS to manage the data that is delivered to mobile apps on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Palm as one standard

In addition to these four I have some more wishes for this list

  1. The return of horizontal navigation to the administration panel or the option to choose vertical left side or horizontal suckerfish style
  2. Integrated gallery function for display in themes
    1. Yes, there are plenty of plugins to do this but some of that code like the integration of the fabulous WPTouch mobile theme into central codebase would be huge
  3. WordPress.org installs that allow for gravatar uploads through profiles
    1. Hook this into the .com API and welcome these users into the fold
    2. This could turn out to be a great way to make them familiar with the .com platform
    3. But mainly so users can swap them on the fly with their own installs
  4. Content libraries from media companies
    1. Stock photos, video, quotes
      1. A new API component to allow multiple third parties to supply this content

I'm sure that over the next few weeks I will think about this some more and come up with a couple other ideas. But for now, what's on your wishlist for 3.0 ?

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

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Tags: wordpress list mobile users wish ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

wordpessWith the imminent release of WordPress version 2.9 on the horizon and my subsequent lack of excitement, it only seems fitting to put together a wish list for the next version. It is even more fitting since Raanan (@raanan) asked, What's on your wishlist for 3.0 ?

I partially answered that question in the comments with the following:

  1. Semantic integration with Zemanta or OpenCalais
    1. This would be like having a librarian with a fancy masters degree in categorizing everything on the planet riding shotgun with you while you write.
  2. WordPress recommended vocabulary for categories
    1. This could mirror NYT Open Linked Data RDF or other semantic tools
  3. Image upload and modal window to open in advanced mode for properties control
    1. This could be a combo of both tabs but something more powerful from the first time the window opens so that users don't need to perform multiple actions to add padding or custom links to images
  4. Feed only choice for publishing posts
    1. This doesn't have to be authenticated and would work by same rules with tags, categories, etc. to syndicate for apps or widgets
    2. Imagine being able to use WP as a CMS to manage the data that is delivered to mobile apps on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Palm as one standard

In addition to these four I have some more wishes for this list

  1. The return of horizontal navigation to the administration panel or the option to choose vertical left side or horizontal suckerfish style
  2. Integrated gallery function for display in themes
    1. Yes, there are plenty of plugins to do this but some of that code like the integration of the fabulous WPTouch mobile theme into central codebase would be huge
  3. WordPress.org installs that allow for gravatar uploads through profiles
    1. Hook this into the .com API and welcome these users into the fold
    2. This could turn out to be a great way to make them familiar with the .com platform
    3. But mainly so users can swap them on the fly with their own installs
  4. Content libraries from media companies
    1. Stock photos, video, quotes
      1. A new API component to allow multiple third parties to supply this content

I'm sure that over the next few weeks I will think about this some more and come up with a couple other ideas. But for now, what's on your wishlist for 3.0 ?

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

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Tags: wordpress list mobile users wish ]]> Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:06:29 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5784 Success is Predictable http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/20/success-is-predictable/ Shared item By Staff Writer Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

1269362950_98f53d839d

The iPhone and Google changed our life. What's next?

Whatever it is, it might be predictable. After looking at a 30 year analysis of 300 products in 225 countries, Ad Age concluded that a product's success can be predicted. Business dynamics; consumer insights; creativity and design; and innovation patterns drive the success. Of the four, you really need to look at innovation patterns before you can make good predictions about the future.

Consumer needs are also predictable. This is not surprising, considering our every decision is tracked online. But innovation is evolutionary. A good idea is inspired when someone thinks about previous ideas and thinks about ways to introduce a small change. Pretty soon this new product has competition. When the product reaches a tipping point, it hits critical mass.

That's what happened with Crest Whitestrips. Who would have thought a decade ago people would want to put strips on their teeth so they could make their teeth whiter? But nicotine and estrogen patches and breath strips created a market for Crest Whitestrips.

The same goes for the music industry. There was portable music before the iPod. (You probably have an old Sony Walkman laying around your house somewhere). We got used to being able to carry our cameras and computers around with us. When the iPod hit the market in 2001, we went crazy for it.

Then we went crazy for the iPhone. Esquire discussed how Steve Jobs' idea transformed into a wildly, popular gadget:

First, for the first time in his life, people understood one of his products better than he did. And second, he began to die.He wanted to build a device that moved the world forward, that would take people further. He wanted to build a reality that wasn't there.The first was that people realized that the iPhone wasn't primarily a phone; it was a computer a powerful one, with a full OSX operating system that could make phone calls.

The iPhone soon evolved beyond what it was designed for. And it all began with a small idea.

Image: flickr/ csitscenter

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Tags: success predictable iphone market idea ]]>By Staff Writer Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

1269362950_98f53d839d

The iPhone and Google changed our life. What's next?

Whatever it is, it might be predictable. After looking at a 30 year analysis of 300 products in 225 countries, Ad Age concluded that a product's success can be predicted. Business dynamics; consumer insights; creativity and design; and innovation patterns drive the success. Of the four, you really need to look at innovation patterns before you can make good predictions about the future.

Consumer needs are also predictable. This is not surprising, considering our every decision is tracked online. But innovation is evolutionary. A good idea is inspired when someone thinks about previous ideas and thinks about ways to introduce a small change. Pretty soon this new product has competition. When the product reaches a tipping point, it hits critical mass.

That's what happened with Crest Whitestrips. Who would have thought a decade ago people would want to put strips on their teeth so they could make their teeth whiter? But nicotine and estrogen patches and breath strips created a market for Crest Whitestrips.

The same goes for the music industry. There was portable music before the iPod. (You probably have an old Sony Walkman laying around your house somewhere). We got used to being able to carry our cameras and computers around with us. When the iPod hit the market in 2001, we went crazy for it.

Then we went crazy for the iPhone. Esquire discussed how Steve Jobs' idea transformed into a wildly, popular gadget:

First, for the first time in his life, people understood one of his products better than he did. And second, he began to die.He wanted to build a device that moved the world forward, that would take people further. He wanted to build a reality that wasn't there.The first was that people realized that the iPhone wasn't primarily a phone; it was a computer a powerful one, with a full OSX operating system that could make phone calls.

The iPhone soon evolved beyond what it was designed for. And it all began with a small idea.

Image: flickr/ csitscenter

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Tags: success predictable iphone market idea ]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:36:40 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5739 Best iPhone App Developer http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/10/best-iphone-app-developer/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

Picture 34So who is the best iPhone app developer? You.

Get your iPhone startup rolling by making it happen all by yourself well, with some help, but you can claim the blood, sweat and long hours needed to build your biz from the ground up.

What follows is a mock interview that I just had with you five minutes ago.

Kris:

  • That's right you. And I said it to your face.
  • Okay, the criteria for best in this case being the most motivated, cheap and geographically close developer. Face it, you can't get any closer to your coder than yourself.

You:

  • Kris, listen . . . I can't make an iPhone application or write a program in Objective C, let alone in any other language.

Kris:

  • Shut up and teach yourself to fish.
  • Learning this will save you the hassle of finding a developer, translating your idea and getting stuck because you don't understand the iPhone developer spec or limitations of the device before masterminding the next greatest iPhone app.

You:. . .

  • You're crazy.
  • Am I supposed to buy a book and sit a dark office after my kids are asleep and figure this out?

(You see where this is going, right?)

Kris:

  • Sure, you can do that.
  • But if you want to jump start this process and make your app a reality without paying $30k or spending that much of your time translating your ideas to a developer go to an iPhone Boot Camp.
  • They're happening in major US cities.
  • And, seriously, it might be something that you think is out of your league but taking a day to spend with the authors of two of the most popular iPhone development books will shorten the time you're going to spend in that dark room trying to sift through this.

You:

  • How do I make it happen?

Kris:

This interview is over. I've gotta go punch a papper in the face, drool about a Portillos and look for money in my couch cushions to get myself to one of these events.

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Tags: iphone developer app kris best ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

Picture 34So who is the best iPhone app developer? You.

Get your iPhone startup rolling by making it happen all by yourself well, with some help, but you can claim the blood, sweat and long hours needed to build your biz from the ground up.

What follows is a mock interview that I just had with you five minutes ago.

Kris:

  • That's right you. And I said it to your face.
  • Okay, the criteria for best in this case being the most motivated, cheap and geographically close developer. Face it, you can't get any closer to your coder than yourself.

You:

  • Kris, listen . . . I can't make an iPhone application or write a program in Objective C, let alone in any other language.

Kris:

  • Shut up and teach yourself to fish.
  • Learning this will save you the hassle of finding a developer, translating your idea and getting stuck because you don't understand the iPhone developer spec or limitations of the device before masterminding the next greatest iPhone app.

You:. . .

  • You're crazy.
  • Am I supposed to buy a book and sit a dark office after my kids are asleep and figure this out?

(You see where this is going, right?)

Kris:

  • Sure, you can do that.
  • But if you want to jump start this process and make your app a reality without paying $30k or spending that much of your time translating your ideas to a developer go to an iPhone Boot Camp.
  • They're happening in major US cities.
  • And, seriously, it might be something that you think is out of your league but taking a day to spend with the authors of two of the most popular iPhone development books will shorten the time you're going to spend in that dark room trying to sift through this.

You:

  • How do I make it happen?

Kris:

This interview is over. I've gotta go punch a papper in the face, drool about a Portillos and look for money in my couch cushions to get myself to one of these events.

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Tags: iphone developer app kris best ]]> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:54:49 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5728 Shape the Next Web Next Week with Augmented Reality and the Semantic Web http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/11/shape-the-next-web-next-week-with-augmented-reality-and-the-semantic-web/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

marcoIf you are looking for a meetup with more brainpower than horsepower you need to be in New York next week. Don't come for Web 2.0 East, come for the Augmented Reality Lounge being hosted by and at Portner Novelli on November 17th at 7:00 p.m..

In this room will be some of the brightest stars from the Augmented Reality and Semantic worlds. You heard that right, AR and Semantic nerds in one room. Two of the most powerful forces that are shaping how the next web will be architected and delivered both on pc's and mobile. The work of both groups will be the defining factors in how you experience the world around you.

If you would take part in shaping the future of the internet, these are the folks you should meet and talk to. Many of them are going to be in town for a panel on AR at the Web 2Open, an unconference event at the Web 2.0 Conference. The others are based in New York and take part in the Semantic Web Meetup Group. That group is organized by one of the AR panelists and semantic technologist, Marco Neumann (@neumarcx).

Other members of this panel include:

This meetup before the event is the brainchild of John C. Havens (@johnchavens), the author of the book and blog Tactical Transparency and lead organizer for the first PodCamp NYC that helped to define all that followed. John has a strong interest in Augmented Reality and saw the obvious ties between the AR world and the Semantic side that I was talking to him non-stop about.

The Augmented Reality Lounge is an event that Marco described as:

The Semantic Web is an ideal candidate to become the fabric for Augmented Reality applications in the near future. The global availability of HTTP and the flexibility of RDF, the foundational framework for the Semantic Web, make it a perfect match for distributed, heterogeneous and networked applications that can help to enable emergent Augmented Reality services.

Believe me, if there is an iteration of the web that you should be a part of it is this one. The foundation that is being built from semantic data and the interaction with the real world that augmented reality presents is one that your ideas should be a part of.

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Tags: web semantic augmented reality meetup ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

marcoIf you are looking for a meetup with more brainpower than horsepower you need to be in New York next week. Don't come for Web 2.0 East, come for the Augmented Reality Lounge being hosted by and at Portner Novelli on November 17th at 7:00 p.m..

In this room will be some of the brightest stars from the Augmented Reality and Semantic worlds. You heard that right, AR and Semantic nerds in one room. Two of the most powerful forces that are shaping how the next web will be architected and delivered both on pc's and mobile. The work of both groups will be the defining factors in how you experience the world around you.

If you would take part in shaping the future of the internet, these are the folks you should meet and talk to. Many of them are going to be in town for a panel on AR at the Web 2Open, an unconference event at the Web 2.0 Conference. The others are based in New York and take part in the Semantic Web Meetup Group. That group is organized by one of the AR panelists and semantic technologist, Marco Neumann (@neumarcx).

Other members of this panel include:

This meetup before the event is the brainchild of John C. Havens (@johnchavens), the author of the book and blog Tactical Transparency and lead organizer for the first PodCamp NYC that helped to define all that followed. John has a strong interest in Augmented Reality and saw the obvious ties between the AR world and the Semantic side that I was talking to him non-stop about.

The Augmented Reality Lounge is an event that Marco described as:

The Semantic Web is an ideal candidate to become the fabric for Augmented Reality applications in the near future. The global availability of HTTP and the flexibility of RDF, the foundational framework for the Semantic Web, make it a perfect match for distributed, heterogeneous and networked applications that can help to enable emergent Augmented Reality services.

Believe me, if there is an iteration of the web that you should be a part of it is this one. The foundation that is being built from semantic data and the interaction with the real world that augmented reality presents is one that your ideas should be a part of.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

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Tags: web semantic augmented reality meetup ]]> Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:34:47 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5710 Proximity: The Power of Space http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/11/proximity-the-power-of-space/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

burkeFifteen years ago I listened to James Burke at a symposium deliver a speech titled, Axe Makers of the 21st Century. It was the precursor to his writing of The Axemaker's Gift. A book that dealt with the problem that Burke was working through in his head before the internet exploded.

Axe Makers was a syllogistic study of mankind's ability to restructure society based on how the internet age would create a diaspora of talented workers. These workers in turn would be able to lead a nomadic lifestyle based on their connectivity to the internet as information workers. At this time, part of his hypothesis was that these workers would then raise the standard of living for local inhabitants.

Some components of Burke's look into the future have come true. A connected information worker can now perform their duties from anywhere they choose as long as their employer has signed off on it. Another was his correct assumption that the ubiquity of near real-time information would change global culture.

His book, The Axmaker's Gift, was an attempt to reconcile this new culture shift with cultures of the past. Burke was concerned that technology was and would strip away our humanity. That our future needed to have a moderated technological lust passion interest. In the book he advocates for the simplicity of life and a continued movement toward small communities but not through technology.

What really got me going down this path today thinking about James Burke was my experience at another small conference here in New York. As an information worker in one of America's largest cities, I find myself more connected to a community of like people than ever before.

For the last three years I was one of the diaspora working from remotely from home for businesses that at their closest proximity to me were 900 miles away. An opportunity that Burke described in detail. But in this space I was isolated. I had a few friends that could identify with my work life and worked in similar ways. However, most of the people that I was in contact with on a daily basis I couldn't connect with. We existed in two separate realities.

What Burke didn't account for was this loss of community due to the lack of commonality in the experience that nomadic workers have with the locals they take up residence with. In New York I am able to continually find common experiences with other people, workers that have similar experiences to mine.

The proximity of information workers even in this large city is due to the multitude of businesses that need our services. Many of them in media and others in financial or advertising benefit from the central location of talent. What makes this talent even more valuable is its ability to connect to one another and flow through these businesses to keep culture and ideas fresh.

The ability to capitalize on common experience, talent and proximity is what has made certain locations on our planet the centers for varying industries. Information workers, like Burke described, should be considered skilled tradespeople that for the better should be concentrated into spaces so that they can produce their best work.

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Tags: burke workers information proximity talent ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

burkeFifteen years ago I listened to James Burke at a symposium deliver a speech titled, Axe Makers of the 21st Century. It was the precursor to his writing of The Axemaker's Gift. A book that dealt with the problem that Burke was working through in his head before the internet exploded.

Axe Makers was a syllogistic study of mankind's ability to restructure society based on how the internet age would create a diaspora of talented workers. These workers in turn would be able to lead a nomadic lifestyle based on their connectivity to the internet as information workers. At this time, part of his hypothesis was that these workers would then raise the standard of living for local inhabitants.

Some components of Burke's look into the future have come true. A connected information worker can now perform their duties from anywhere they choose as long as their employer has signed off on it. Another was his correct assumption that the ubiquity of near real-time information would change global culture.

His book, The Axmaker's Gift, was an attempt to reconcile this new culture shift with cultures of the past. Burke was concerned that technology was and would strip away our humanity. That our future needed to have a moderated technological lust passion interest. In the book he advocates for the simplicity of life and a continued movement toward small communities but not through technology.

What really got me going down this path today thinking about James Burke was my experience at another small conference here in New York. As an information worker in one of America's largest cities, I find myself more connected to a community of like people than ever before.

For the last three years I was one of the diaspora working from remotely from home for businesses that at their closest proximity to me were 900 miles away. An opportunity that Burke described in detail. But in this space I was isolated. I had a few friends that could identify with my work life and worked in similar ways. However, most of the people that I was in contact with on a daily basis I couldn't connect with. We existed in two separate realities.

What Burke didn't account for was this loss of community due to the lack of commonality in the experience that nomadic workers have with the locals they take up residence with. In New York I am able to continually find common experiences with other people, workers that have similar experiences to mine.

The proximity of information workers even in this large city is due to the multitude of businesses that need our services. Many of them in media and others in financial or advertising benefit from the central location of talent. What makes this talent even more valuable is its ability to connect to one another and flow through these businesses to keep culture and ideas fresh.

The ability to capitalize on common experience, talent and proximity is what has made certain locations on our planet the centers for varying industries. Information workers, like Burke described, should be considered skilled tradespeople that for the better should be concentrated into spaces so that they can produce their best work.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

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Tags: burke workers information proximity talent ]]> Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:38:30 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5712 Make Your Site Fly With Raven SEO Tools http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/04/make-your-site-fly-with-raven-seo-tools/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

Picture 15Startups are often in a position of being bootstrapped or strapped for cash when it comes to what is considered outside the core product roadmap.

Often in that category is the marketing of the product site online. The crew at Sitening as an ever maturing offering with Raven SEO Tools that won't hurt a startup budget and could prove a big return on a $79 monthly investment.

Raven SEO Tools is an internet marketing tool set. Designed to be a powerful tool for those in the know and accessible to newbies to manage site marketing, research SEO, monitor linking campaigns, reporting and integration with the Google Analytics API.

If there is one thing that Raven could do to improve upon this application it would be spin off components of the functionality into separate interfaces or other product offerings. Raven doesn't suffer from bloat, but it does put a lot of options for monitoring and reporting in front of a user.

Raven's interface is like opening a tool box to find the shiniest most sophisticated wrenches when you would settle for a rusty vice grip. After some time you can get to the rusty vice grip but you have to know where to find it.

The team at Sitening has begun to address with the addition of a Wizard for entering in a new site for monitoring and some social components. The social monitoring is a must for today's market in monitoring tools and a welcome addition for a startup to gauge the pulse of concerned users.

Beyond the Wizard integration there is something very interesting that Raven has that no other monitoring application I've reviewed has a content manager. Raven has a built in mini-CMS consisting of the essentials, title, keywords and body with a TinyMCE WYSIWYG wrapper that currently will connect with a WordPress blog.

Picture 14

The ability to blog from within a robust set of tools when a users mind is full of ideas, keywords, strategy and tactics is a powerful addition. It turns Raven into a hybrid monitoring SaaS that has the ability to help make your startup budget go further.

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Tags: raven tools monitoring seo site ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

Picture 15Startups are often in a position of being bootstrapped or strapped for cash when it comes to what is considered outside the core product roadmap.

Often in that category is the marketing of the product site online. The crew at Sitening as an ever maturing offering with Raven SEO Tools that won't hurt a startup budget and could prove a big return on a $79 monthly investment.

Raven SEO Tools is an internet marketing tool set. Designed to be a powerful tool for those in the know and accessible to newbies to manage site marketing, research SEO, monitor linking campaigns, reporting and integration with the Google Analytics API.

If there is one thing that Raven could do to improve upon this application it would be spin off components of the functionality into separate interfaces or other product offerings. Raven doesn't suffer from bloat, but it does put a lot of options for monitoring and reporting in front of a user.

Raven's interface is like opening a tool box to find the shiniest most sophisticated wrenches when you would settle for a rusty vice grip. After some time you can get to the rusty vice grip but you have to know where to find it.

The team at Sitening has begun to address with the addition of a Wizard for entering in a new site for monitoring and some social components. The social monitoring is a must for today's market in monitoring tools and a welcome addition for a startup to gauge the pulse of concerned users.

Beyond the Wizard integration there is something very interesting that Raven has that no other monitoring application I've reviewed has a content manager. Raven has a built in mini-CMS consisting of the essentials, title, keywords and body with a TinyMCE WYSIWYG wrapper that currently will connect with a WordPress blog.

Picture 14

The ability to blog from within a robust set of tools when a users mind is full of ideas, keywords, strategy and tactics is a powerful addition. It turns Raven into a hybrid monitoring SaaS that has the ability to help make your startup budget go further.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

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Tags: raven tools monitoring seo site ]]> Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:12:43 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5695 The Lifestyle Startup 5 Reasons to Do It http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/02/the-lifestyle-startup-5-reasons-to-do-it/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

lifestyleWhen it comes to deciding what direction you should take your next great idea it is helpful to sort out what you want from the startup.

In every case you should be answering that with revenue. But, also at the top of that list should be your decision of going for VC backing or turning your idea into a lifestyle startup.

A VC backed startup is a different beast than a lifestyle startup.

Lifestyle startups in this case being a business that you start and run to make your living from. The type of startup that you hope to sell for better than $500k so you can float till the next idea comes along or simply a business that dissolves into your next business based on a newer greater idea. It is a two to three year investment of your time that pays dividends closer to a traditional mom and pop type business.

Here are five reasons you should choose a lifestyle startup:

1. You've got a lot of passion (read: hard headed)

There's not much to say about this one.

Being the captain of your own destiny is something that you thrive on and know that the only way you can make this startup work is with your vision.

That, and if someone recommended how to do something differently there might be a physical altercation. You might get to this point if your idea has elements of the next reason.

2. You're idea is future forward (read: hard to pitch)

At your first pitch to a VC you're told that you should integrate X service. Of course, X, being the hottest new startup that isn't even in their portfolio. This is the moment you should realize that your pitch has failed for any number of reasons. On the ride back to the airport you run through the list of variables with friends and realize that idea if solving a future problem. One that is a little farther in the future than you are going to be able to pitch successful for funding. And that's cool.

Without pulling back the scale of your vision too much, you should look for an opportunity to move forward building it out. Especially, if you got number 3 covered.

3. You can really focus (read: blinded by desire to succeed)

You're a competitive freak that is only competing with yourself. Really. You might be a laid back person but you've got an inner desire to win that could turn a three legged pony into a stakes winner.

This in turn gives you an ability to focus on a business plan or road map with precision. It aids you in your ability to execute at a C-Level all the while handling low level strategy and tactics. This is how you make your startup profitable. That brings me to number 4.

4. You understand physical labor (read: you grew up on or near a farm)

Look manual labor of the farming variety is enough to skew the tables greatly in comparison to a tech startup. Waking up at 3:30 a.m. to milk and feed cows followed by a day of bailing hay, walking beans or other intense physical labor makes working at a startup a piece of cake. Sure, you'll be working all the time, just like the farm but you're going to be using a different set of skills and attributes that aren't as physically demanding.

However, if you found that this type of physical labor suited you, a lifestyle startup could be for you. See number 5.

5. You need to always be working (read: hobby is job/job is hobby)

You eat, sleep, breathe your idea. When you are in the shower you are solving problems from the night before while you take a huff of your bar soap. You find great satisfaction it the ability to get work done in your down times while you should be relaxing.

I don't think this one is very healthy, but for many people it is a reality and something that would be difficult for you to change. This behavior is learned or is a mechanism to avert from another issue . . . either way the behavior is ingrained in you and should be embraced as an asset for building a successful lifestyle business.

Lifestyle startups can be very rewarding for those that enjoy having the ability see their ideas blossom. They're also a great fit for those that aren't ready to jump into the startup world with both feet. If you've got a job or career that can keep you afloat while you dabble with a startup, this one is for you.

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Tags: startup lifestyle idea business labor ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

lifestyleWhen it comes to deciding what direction you should take your next great idea it is helpful to sort out what you want from the startup.

In every case you should be answering that with revenue. But, also at the top of that list should be your decision of going for VC backing or turning your idea into a lifestyle startup.

A VC backed startup is a different beast than a lifestyle startup.

Lifestyle startups in this case being a business that you start and run to make your living from. The type of startup that you hope to sell for better than $500k so you can float till the next idea comes along or simply a business that dissolves into your next business based on a newer greater idea. It is a two to three year investment of your time that pays dividends closer to a traditional mom and pop type business.

Here are five reasons you should choose a lifestyle startup:

1. You've got a lot of passion (read: hard headed)

There's not much to say about this one.

Being the captain of your own destiny is something that you thrive on and know that the only way you can make this startup work is with your vision.

That, and if someone recommended how to do something differently there might be a physical altercation. You might get to this point if your idea has elements of the next reason.

2. You're idea is future forward (read: hard to pitch)

At your first pitch to a VC you're told that you should integrate X service. Of course, X, being the hottest new startup that isn't even in their portfolio. This is the moment you should realize that your pitch has failed for any number of reasons. On the ride back to the airport you run through the list of variables with friends and realize that idea if solving a future problem. One that is a little farther in the future than you are going to be able to pitch successful for funding. And that's cool.

Without pulling back the scale of your vision too much, you should look for an opportunity to move forward building it out. Especially, if you got number 3 covered.

3. You can really focus (read: blinded by desire to succeed)

You're a competitive freak that is only competing with yourself. Really. You might be a laid back person but you've got an inner desire to win that could turn a three legged pony into a stakes winner.

This in turn gives you an ability to focus on a business plan or road map with precision. It aids you in your ability to execute at a C-Level all the while handling low level strategy and tactics. This is how you make your startup profitable. That brings me to number 4.

4. You understand physical labor (read: you grew up on or near a farm)

Look manual labor of the farming variety is enough to skew the tables greatly in comparison to a tech startup. Waking up at 3:30 a.m. to milk and feed cows followed by a day of bailing hay, walking beans or other intense physical labor makes working at a startup a piece of cake. Sure, you'll be working all the time, just like the farm but you're going to be using a different set of skills and attributes that aren't as physically demanding.

However, if you found that this type of physical labor suited you, a lifestyle startup could be for you. See number 5.

5. You need to always be working (read: hobby is job/job is hobby)

You eat, sleep, breathe your idea. When you are in the shower you are solving problems from the night before while you take a huff of your bar soap. You find great satisfaction it the ability to get work done in your down times while you should be relaxing.

I don't think this one is very healthy, but for many people it is a reality and something that would be difficult for you to change. This behavior is learned or is a mechanism to avert from another issue . . . either way the behavior is ingrained in you and should be embraced as an asset for building a successful lifestyle business.

Lifestyle startups can be very rewarding for those that enjoy having the ability see their ideas blossom. They're also a great fit for those that aren't ready to jump into the startup world with both feet. If you've got a job or career that can keep you afloat while you dabble with a startup, this one is for you.

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Tags: startup lifestyle idea business labor ]]> Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:58:15 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5687 The Remix Culture Brings You Better Software http://www.techstartups.com/2009/10/16/the-remix-culture-brings-you-better-software/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith

remix_cultureThe adage, You get what you pay for, is true in almost every situation that would apply it to except the current state of open software. It is better than it has ever been and it is ready to help your business do the same.

Who is to thank for this? You are. That is if you are sharing your ideas online in the form of comments, blog posts or making media. Really. It is your ideas for combined with those of designers and developers that are pushing open source software development in new directions that better meet your business needs. By taking part in the conversation you are participating in the remix culture.

For years the remix culture was focused on art and music. It was based on the idea that prior art could be made better with with an individual's own spin applied to it. Software is not really any different. I would argue that the remix culture's largest impact, currently, is on software development and its ability to perpetuate itself . From this comes open source software that drives traditional software makers like Microsoft to make their products better.

So the next time you are listening to The Gray Album just think about how your endorsement for this art form is having an impact on your business in ways that help your bottom line.

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Tags: software culture better remix open ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith

remix_cultureThe adage, You get what you pay for, is true in almost every situation that would apply it to except the current state of open software. It is better than it has ever been and it is ready to help your business do the same.

Who is to thank for this? You are. That is if you are sharing your ideas online in the form of comments, blog posts or making media. Really. It is your ideas for combined with those of designers and developers that are pushing open source software development in new directions that better meet your business needs. By taking part in the conversation you are participating in the remix culture.

For years the remix culture was focused on art and music. It was based on the idea that prior art could be made better with with an individual's own spin applied to it. Software is not really any different. I would argue that the remix culture's largest impact, currently, is on software development and its ability to perpetuate itself . From this comes open source software that drives traditional software makers like Microsoft to make their products better.

So the next time you are listening to The Gray Album just think about how your endorsement for this art form is having an impact on your business in ways that help your bottom line.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

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Tags: software culture better remix open ]]> Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:56:41 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5659 I Learned It From Watching You http://www.techstartups.com/2009/10/23/i-learned-it-from-watching-you/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith

learnThe web is a wonderful place. It's got something for everyone. And it has become increasingly social due to new tools that connect our online and offline lives. Think Facebook and Twitter's abilities to move messages between the web and mobile phones.

With this connectivity there is a massive amount of information being created that allows us to find others interested in the same topics. Simply by using these services your own ideas, passions and causes spill out in the public eye.

The intersection of your media, by sharing, allows you connect to more people. That's a given, right? But it also allows you to be a teacher.

Yes, it's 99% Noise

We all know that most of what is shared online, especially via social networks is crap. It is a bunch of noise about going, doing and just did. Inside of this insidious sharing that we do, however, are some amazing insights, lessons and knowledge that wouldn't be captured without the services and electronic connectivity.

In a given day, our experiences lead us to create messages, content, that formerly would have been lost in the ether. Or, it would have been crammed away in some recess our minds and assimilated into our behavior, speech or thought processes.

Yes, 1% is Good

But that 1% that you didn't tuck away or forget to deliver ad nauseam can become the one message that helps those connected with you more than you expected or could have known the impact of.

This percentage claim I would also stake to academia. Name more than one time that you sat in a classroom and didn't have to filter out instructor bias, wheezing, indecipherable accent, bad hair, uncomfortable seat or delightfully appealing classmate. Distractions exist everywhere and online they are amplified, but no different than what one faces in a classroom.

By participating online, you are leading (up to you what direction that is) and by association you are teaching throughout the day. Professors and instructional designers call this associative learning.

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Tags: online social allows than associative ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith

learnThe web is a wonderful place. It's got something for everyone. And it has become increasingly social due to new tools that connect our online and offline lives. Think Facebook and Twitter's abilities to move messages between the web and mobile phones.

With this connectivity there is a massive amount of information being created that allows us to find others interested in the same topics. Simply by using these services your own ideas, passions and causes spill out in the public eye.

The intersection of your media, by sharing, allows you connect to more people. That's a given, right? But it also allows you to be a teacher.

Yes, it's 99% Noise

We all know that most of what is shared online, especially via social networks is crap. It is a bunch of noise about going, doing and just did. Inside of this insidious sharing that we do, however, are some amazing insights, lessons and knowledge that wouldn't be captured without the services and electronic connectivity.

In a given day, our experiences lead us to create messages, content, that formerly would have been lost in the ether. Or, it would have been crammed away in some recess our minds and assimilated into our behavior, speech or thought processes.

Yes, 1% is Good

But that 1% that you didn't tuck away or forget to deliver ad nauseam can become the one message that helps those connected with you more than you expected or could have known the impact of.

This percentage claim I would also stake to academia. Name more than one time that you sat in a classroom and didn't have to filter out instructor bias, wheezing, indecipherable accent, bad hair, uncomfortable seat or delightfully appealing classmate. Distractions exist everywhere and online they are amplified, but no different than what one faces in a classroom.

By participating online, you are leading (up to you what direction that is) and by association you are teaching throughout the day. Professors and instructional designers call this associative learning.

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Tags: online social allows than associative ]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:32:02 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5655 Where Do Ideas Come From? http://feeds.lifehack.org/~r/LifeHack/~3/ZK_OZpjBMQM/where-do-ideas-come-from.html Shared item Where Do Ideas Come From?

Since publishing a series of posts on dating and living in the last couple of weeks, I've been asked several times how I came up with the idea to see dating as a kind of metaphor for life. The immediate source of the story was pretty mundane someone asked me a question about another article and I used going on a date as an example to illustrate my answer, and thought hey, there might be something to this more generally!

But the response to those stories has gotten me thinking about ideas and creativity more generally. Writers are asked all the time about where we get our ideas. So are musicians, painters, actors, designers, and other creative people. It's a source of fascination for many, who perhaps see in the talent of others something they feel is missing from themselves.

Interestingly, most of the creative people I know don't see their creative impulses as particularly exclusive. What separates the creative from the not-so-creative isn't so much the ability to come up with ideas but the ability to trust them, or to trust ourselves to realize them. That trust lies at least in part in knowing we have the skills to bring forth a finished product from an initial idea, which is why so many creative people tend to take a craftsman's (or woman's) approach towards their work (and resent those who squander their ideas by refusing to do the groundwork needed to make them real), but skill is only part of it. There are plenty of skilled but not-particularly-creative people hacks in every field. What separates the creative from the not-so-creative is the willingness to take risks with ideas, to push both the idea and the self beyond the safe and comfortable.

There are two schools of thought about where ideas come from. One is the artist as antenna concept, in which ideas float in some barely perceptible aether waiting for someone to pick them up, the way a radio picks up a song when it's tuned to just the right frequency. This is Keith Richards waking up in the middle of the night with the main riff from Satisfaction fully-formed in his head.

The second school holds that ideas are the product of hard work and thoughtful concentration. It's just work, says Andy Warhol to Lou Reed about songwriting in Reed's album, with John Cale, Songs for Drella. Sit down with a pad and pencil and think, and don't get up until you have something! This school is the writer grinding out his or her 4 pages a day, the mad poet storming up and down the street in search of the perfect word to express exactly what s/he's feeling, and the designer who sits down with a brief and just starts working.

The reality is probably somewhere in the middle we get ideas from within ourselves and from without, or more to the point, from the interaction of the two. It is in the active engagement of the artist with his or her world, through preparation, conscious attention, curiosity, effort, and a dash of serendipity, that ideas are born:

  • Preparation: Ideas come to those who are prepared to receive them, whatever the origin. Scientists have ideas about science, not poetry unless they have also practiced at the craft of poetry. And vice-versa it's the rare poet who is struck by an idea that advances our understanding of molecular biology. Skillful musicians have ideas that translate into beautiful songs, and skillful writers create daring novels that illuminate our lives. Those who haven't prepared themselves to be creative rarely are.
  • Attention: Paying attention to the world around us whether the immediate activities of people in our vicinity or the distant events reported through the media, or anywhere in between is one source of ideas. You've heard the saying that necessity is the other of invention but it also takes someone paying close enough attention to recognize that need in the first place.
  • Curiosity: Creativity often comes from the drive to understand and take things apart, literally or figuratively. It stems from the desire to know what if and to follow that question until it gets somewhere interesting.
  • Effort: Whether you're the antenna or the bricklayer, creativity takes a commitment to work. Ideas are cheap, the saying goes. Execution is hard. Ideas need to be captured, given attention, followed up on, and committed to a plan of action, or they disappear back to wherever they came whether out there or deep in your unconscious mind. And they rarely come back.
  • Serendipity: Serendipity is two things. First, it's the luck to be at the right place at the right time, to be Newton at exactly the moment the apple falls from the tree. The second is the openness to making connections between unrelated things or events to see in a bathtub a lesson about physics, or to see in a date a lesson about life.

These elements of creativity all play together, of course. How many millions of baths were taken before Archimedes had his Eureka! moment? Yet it was Archimedes who was prepared to understand what it meant when he climbed into his bath and saw the water level rise, Archimedes who paid attention to what he saw, Archimedes who was curious enough to wonder what was happening, Archimedes who was willing to do the follow-up work to translate his experience into a general principle about volume and displacement, and Archimedes who just happened to bring all this with him into the bath on that fateful day.

The thing is, these are all things each and every one of us can cultivate in her or his own life. They aren't God-given gifts reserved to the few. And they apply well beyond the world of the arts marketers, parents, teachers, factory workers, salespersons, electricians, computer programmers, and just about everyone else face situations that call for creative responses, though we often miss them for lack of preparation, attention, curiosity, effort, or serendipity. Start making a conscious effort to develop these elements, though, and I bet you'll start engaging with your world more creatively in short order.

Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.

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Tags: ideas creative attention archimedes work ]]>Where Do Ideas Come From?

Since publishing a series of posts on dating and living in the last couple of weeks, I've been asked several times how I came up with the idea to see dating as a kind of metaphor for life. The immediate source of the story was pretty mundane someone asked me a question about another article and I used going on a date as an example to illustrate my answer, and thought hey, there might be something to this more generally!

But the response to those stories has gotten me thinking about ideas and creativity more generally. Writers are asked all the time about where we get our ideas. So are musicians, painters, actors, designers, and other creative people. It's a source of fascination for many, who perhaps see in the talent of others something they feel is missing from themselves.

Interestingly, most of the creative people I know don't see their creative impulses as particularly exclusive. What separates the creative from the not-so-creative isn't so much the ability to come up with ideas but the ability to trust them, or to trust ourselves to realize them. That trust lies at least in part in knowing we have the skills to bring forth a finished product from an initial idea, which is why so many creative people tend to take a craftsman's (or woman's) approach towards their work (and resent those who squander their ideas by refusing to do the groundwork needed to make them real), but skill is only part of it. There are plenty of skilled but not-particularly-creative people hacks in every field. What separates the creative from the not-so-creative is the willingness to take risks with ideas, to push both the idea and the self beyond the safe and comfortable.

There are two schools of thought about where ideas come from. One is the artist as antenna concept, in which ideas float in some barely perceptible aether waiting for someone to pick them up, the way a radio picks up a song when it's tuned to just the right frequency. This is Keith Richards waking up in the middle of the night with the main riff from Satisfaction fully-formed in his head.

The second school holds that ideas are the product of hard work and thoughtful concentration. It's just work, says Andy Warhol to Lou Reed about songwriting in Reed's album, with John Cale, Songs for Drella. Sit down with a pad and pencil and think, and don't get up until you have something! This school is the writer grinding out his or her 4 pages a day, the mad poet storming up and down the street in search of the perfect word to express exactly what s/he's feeling, and the designer who sits down with a brief and just starts working.

The reality is probably somewhere in the middle we get ideas from within ourselves and from without, or more to the point, from the interaction of the two. It is in the active engagement of the artist with his or her world, through preparation, conscious attention, curiosity, effort, and a dash of serendipity, that ideas are born:

  • Preparation: Ideas come to those who are prepared to receive them, whatever the origin. Scientists have ideas about science, not poetry unless they have also practiced at the craft of poetry. And vice-versa it's the rare poet who is struck by an idea that advances our understanding of molecular biology. Skillful musicians have ideas that translate into beautiful songs, and skillful writers create daring novels that illuminate our lives. Those who haven't prepared themselves to be creative rarely are.
  • Attention: Paying attention to the world around us whether the immediate activities of people in our vicinity or the distant events reported through the media, or anywhere in between is one source of ideas. You've heard the saying that necessity is the other of invention but it also takes someone paying close enough attention to recognize that need in the first place.
  • Curiosity: Creativity often comes from the drive to understand and take things apart, literally or figuratively. It stems from the desire to know what if and to follow that question until it gets somewhere interesting.
  • Effort: Whether you're the antenna or the bricklayer, creativity takes a commitment to work. Ideas are cheap, the saying goes. Execution is hard. Ideas need to be captured, given attention, followed up on, and committed to a plan of action, or they disappear back to wherever they came whether out there or deep in your unconscious mind. And they rarely come back.
  • Serendipity: Serendipity is two things. First, it's the luck to be at the right place at the right time, to be Newton at exactly the moment the apple falls from the tree. The second is the openness to making connections between unrelated things or events to see in a bathtub a lesson about physics, or to see in a date a lesson about life.

These elements of creativity all play together, of course. How many millions of baths were taken before Archimedes had his Eureka! moment? Yet it was Archimedes who was prepared to understand what it meant when he climbed into his bath and saw the water level rise, Archimedes who paid attention to what he saw, Archimedes who was curious enough to wonder what was happening, Archimedes who was willing to do the follow-up work to translate his experience into a general principle about volume and displacement, and Archimedes who just happened to bring all this with him into the bath on that fateful day.

The thing is, these are all things each and every one of us can cultivate in her or his own life. They aren't God-given gifts reserved to the few. And they apply well beyond the world of the arts marketers, parents, teachers, factory workers, salespersons, electricians, computer programmers, and just about everyone else face situations that call for creative responses, though we often miss them for lack of preparation, attention, curiosity, effort, or serendipity. Start making a conscious effort to develop these elements, though, and I bet you'll start engaging with your world more creatively in short order.

Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.

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Tags: ideas creative attention archimedes work ]]> Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:00:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5617 Why millions of brains loveand hate <b>twitter</b> | Psychology Today http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200909/why-millions-brains-love-and-hate-twitter Shared item Google Alerts - "google on twitter"
First shared by - tamihania
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There's another similarity to Google On Twitter you can scroll down very quickly to overview many different ideas choosing what's relevant to you This ...


twitter different overview ideas relevant

Tags: twitter google overview different ideas ]]>Google Alerts - "google on twitter"
First shared by - tamihania
syndication+ 2 | Search 1 | Shares 1

There's another similarity to Google On Twitter you can scroll down very quickly to overview many different ideas choosing what's relevant to you This ...


twitter different overview ideas relevant

Tags: twitter google overview different ideas ]]> Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:56:15 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5595 Why millions of brains love (and hate) <b>twitter</b> http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200909/why-millions-brains-love-and-hate-twitter Shared item Google Alerts - "google on twitter"
First shared by - tamihania
syndication+ 2 | Search 1 | Shares 1

There's another similarity to Google. On Twitter you can scroll down very quickly to overview many different ideas, choosing what's relevant to you. ...


twitter different overview ideas relevant

Tags: twitter google overview different ideas ]]>Google Alerts - "google on twitter"
First shared by - tamihania
syndication+ 2 | Search 1 | Shares 1

There's another similarity to Google. On Twitter you can scroll down very quickly to overview many different ideas, choosing what's relevant to you. ...


twitter different overview ideas relevant

Tags: twitter google overview different ideas ]]> Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:32:11 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5594 Building Scalable Databases: Denormalization, the NoSQL Movement and Digg http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2009/09/10/BuildingScalableDatabasesDenormalizationTheNoSQLMovementAndDigg.aspx Shared item Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life
First shared by - robdiana
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Database normalization is a technique for designing relational database schemas that ensures that the data is optimal for ad-hoc querying and that modifications such as deletion or insertion of data does not lead to data inconsistency. Database denormalization is the process of optimizing your database for reads by creating redundant data. A consequence of denormalization is that insertions or deletions could cause data inconsistency if not uniformly applied to all redundant copies of the data within the database.

Why Denormalize Your Database?

Today, lots of Web applications have "social" features. A consequence of this is that whenever I look at content or a user in that service, there is always additional content from other users that also needs to be pulled in to page. When you visit the typical profile on a social network like Facebook or MySpace, data for all the people that are friends with that user needs to be pulled in. Or when you visit a shared bookmark on del.icio.us you need data for all the users who have tagged and bookmarked that URL as well. Performing a query across the entire user base for "all the users who are friends with Robert Scoble" or "all the users who have bookmarked this blog link" is expensive even with caching. It is orders of magnitude faster to return the data if it is precalculated and all written to the same place.

This is optimizes your reads at the cost of incurring more writes to the system. It also means that you'll end up with redundant data because there will be multiple copies of some amount of user data as we try to ensure the locality of data.

A good example of a Web application deciding to make this trade off is the recent post on the Digg Blog entitled Looking to the Future with Cassandra which contains the following excerpt

The Problem

In both models, we're computing the intersection of two sets:

  1. Users who dugg an item.
  2. Users that have befriended the digger.

The Relational Model

The schema for this information in MySQL is: 

CREATE TABLE `Diggs` ( `id` INT(11), `itemid` INT(11), `userid` INT(11),
`digdate` DATETIME, PRIMARY KEY (`id`), KEY `user` (`userid`), KEY `item` (`itemid`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;   CREATE TABLE `Friends` ( `id` INT(10)
AUTO_INCREMENT, `userid` INT(10), `username` VARCHAR(15), `friendid` INT(10), `friendname`
VARCHAR(15), `mutual` TINYINT(1), `date_created` DATETIME, PRIMARY KEY (`id`), UNIQUE
KEY `Friend_unique` (`userid`,`friendid`), KEY `Friend_friend` (`friendid`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB
DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

The Friends table contains many million rows, while Diggs holds hundreds of millions. Computing the intersection with a JOIN is much too slow in MySQL, so we have to do it in PHP. The steps are:

  1. Query Friends for all my friends. With a cold cache, this takes around 1.5 seconds to complete.
  2. Query Diggs for any diggs of a specific item by a user in the set of friend user IDs. This query is enormous, and looks something like: 
    SELECT
`digdate`, `id` FROM `Diggs` WHERE `userid` IN (59, 9006, 15989, 16045, 29183, 30220,
62511, 75212, 79006) AND itemid = 13084479 ORDER BY `digdate` DESC, `id` DESC LIMIT
4;

    The real query is actually much worse than this, since the IN clause contains every friend of the user, and this can balloon to hundreds of user IDs. A full query can actually clock in at 1.5kb, which is many times larger than the actual data we want. With a cold cache, this query can take 14 seconds to execute.

Of course, both queries are cached, but due to the user-specific nature of this data, it doesn't help much.

The solution the Digg development team went with was to denormalize the data. They also went an additional step and decided that since the data was no longer being kept in a relational manner there was no point in using a traditional relational database (i.e. MySQL) and instead they migrated to a non-RDBMS technology to solve this problem.

How Denormalization Changes Your Application

There are a number of things to keep in mind once you choose to denormalize your data including

  1. Denormalization means data redundancy which translates to significantly increased storage costs. The fully denormalized data set from the Digg exampled ended up being 3 terabytes of information. It is typical for developers to underestimate the data bloat that occurs once data is denormalized.

  2. Fixing data inconsistency is now the job of the application. Let's say each user has a list of the user names of all of their friends. What happens when one of these users changes their user name? In a normalized database that is a simple UPDATE query to change a single piece of data and then it will be current everywhere it is shown on the site. In a denormalized database, there now has to be a mechanism for fixing up this name in all of the dozens, hundreds or thousands of places it appears. Most services that create denormalized databases have "fixup" jobs that are constantly running on the database to fix such inconsistencies.

The No-SQL Movement vs. Abusing Relational Databases for Fun & Profit

If you're a web developer interested in building large scale applications, it doesn't take long in reading the various best practices on getting Web applications to scale such as practicing database sharding or eschewing transactions before it begins to sound like all the advice you are getting is about ignoring or abusing the key features that define a modern relational database system. Taken to its logical extreme all you really need is a key<->value or tuple store that supports some level of query functionality and has decent persistence semantics. Thus the NoSQL movement was borne.

The No-SQL movement is a used to describe the increasing usage of non-relational databases among Web developers. This approach has initially pioneered by large scale Web companies like Facebook (Cassandra), Amazon (Dynamo) & Google (BigTable) but now is finding its way down to smaller sites like Digg. Unlike relational databases, there is a yet to be a solid technical definition of what it means for a product to be a "NoSQL" database aside from the fact that it isn't a relational database. Commonalities include lack of fixed schemas {TODO}. Below is a list of some of the more popular NoSQL databases that you can try today along with a brief description of their key qualities

  1. CouchDB: A document-oriented database where documents can be thought of as JSON/JavaScript objects. Creation, retrieval, update and deletion (CRUD) operations are performed via a RESTful API and support ACID properties. Rich querying is handled by creating Javascript functions called "Views" which can operate on the documents in the database via Map/Reduce style queries. Usage: Although popular among the geek set most users seem to be dabblers as opposed to large scale web companies.

  2. Cassandra: A key-value store where each key-value pair comes with a timestamp and can be grouped together into a column family (i.e. a table). There is also a notion of super columns which are columns that contain whose values are a list of other key-value pairs. Cassandra is optimized to be always writable and uses eventual consistency to deal with the conflicts that inevitably occur when a distributed system aims to be always writable yet node failure is a fact of life. Querying is available via the Cassandra Thrift API and supports fairly basic data retrieval operations based on key values and column names. Usage: Originally developed and still used at Facebook today. Digg and Rackspace are the most recent big name adopters.

  3. Voldemort: Very similar to Cassandra which is unsurprising since they are both inspired by Amazon's Dynamo. Voldemort is a key-value store where each key value pair comes with a timestamp and eventual consistency is used to address write anomalies. Values can contain a list of further key value pairs. Data access involves creation, retrieval and deletion of serialized objects whose format can be one of JSON, strings, binary BLOBs, serialized Java objects and Google Protocol Buffers. Rich querying is non-existent, simple get and put operations are all that exist. Usage: Originally developed and still used at LinkedIn.

There are a number of other interesting NoSQL databases such as HBase, MongoDB and Dynomite but the three above seem to be the most mature from my initial analysis. In general, most of them seem to be a clone of BigTable, Dynamo or some amalgam of ideas from both papers. The most original so far has been CouchDB.

An alternative to betting on a speculative database technologies at varying levels of maturity is to misuse an existing mature relational database product. As mentioned earlier, many large scale sites use relational databases but eschew relational features such as transactions and joins to achieve scalability. Some developers have even taken that practice to an extreme and built schema-less data models on top of traditional relational database. A great example of this How FriendFeed uses MySQL to store schema-less data which is a blog post excerpted below

Lots of projects exist designed to tackle the problem storing data with flexible schemas and building new indexes on the fly (e.g., CouchDB). However, none of them seemed widely-used enough by large sites to inspire confidence. In the tests we read about and ran ourselves, none of the projects were stable or battle-tested enough for our needs (see this somewhat outdated article on CouchDB, for example). MySQL works. It doesn't corrupt data. Replication works. We understand its limitations already. We like MySQL for storage, just not RDBMS usage patterns.

After some deliberation, we decided to implement a "schema-less" storage system on top of MySQL rather than use a completely new storage system.

Our datastore stores schema-less bags of properties (e.g., JSON objects or Python dictionaries). The only required property of stored entities is id, a 16-byte UUID. The rest of the entity is opaque as far as the datastore is concerned. We can change the "schema" simply by storing new properties.

In MySQL, our entities are stored in a table that looks like this: 

CREATE TABLE entities ( added_id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY
KEY, id BINARY(16) NOT NULL, updated TIMESTAMP NOT NULL, body MEDIUMBLOB, UNIQUE KEY
(id), KEY (updated) ) ENGINE=InnoDB;

The added_id column is present because InnoDB stores data rows physically in primary key order. The AUTO_INCREMENT primary key ensures new entities are written sequentially on disk after old entities, which helps for both read and write locality (new entities tend to be read more frequently than old entities since FriendFeed pages are ordered reverse-chronologically). Entity bodies are stored as zlib-compressed, pickled Python dictionaries.

Now that the FriendFeed team works at Facebook I suspect they'll end up deciding that a NoSQL database that has solved a good story around replication and fault tolerance is more amenable to solving the problem of building a schema-less database than storing key<->value pairs in a SQL database where the value is a serialized Python object.

As a Web developer it's always a good idea to know what the current practices are in the industry even if they seem a bit too crazy to adoptyet.

Further Reading

Note Now Playing: Jay-Z - Run This Town (feat. Rihanna & Kanye West)



data database key user relational

Tags: data key database relational user ]]>Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life
First shared by - robdiana
syndication+ 425 | Search 1 | Shares 2

Database normalization is a technique for designing relational database schemas that ensures that the data is optimal for ad-hoc querying and that modifications such as deletion or insertion of data does not lead to data inconsistency. Database denormalization is the process of optimizing your database for reads by creating redundant data. A consequence of denormalization is that insertions or deletions could cause data inconsistency if not uniformly applied to all redundant copies of the data within the database.

Why Denormalize Your Database?

Today, lots of Web applications have "social" features. A consequence of this is that whenever I look at content or a user in that service, there is always additional content from other users that also needs to be pulled in to page. When you visit the typical profile on a social network like Facebook or MySpace, data for all the people that are friends with that user needs to be pulled in. Or when you visit a shared bookmark on del.icio.us you need data for all the users who have tagged and bookmarked that URL as well. Performing a query across the entire user base for "all the users who are friends with Robert Scoble" or "all the users who have bookmarked this blog link" is expensive even with caching. It is orders of magnitude faster to return the data if it is precalculated and all written to the same place.

This is optimizes your reads at the cost of incurring more writes to the system. It also means that you'll end up with redundant data because there will be multiple copies of some amount of user data as we try to ensure the locality of data.

A good example of a Web application deciding to make this trade off is the recent post on the Digg Blog entitled Looking to the Future with Cassandra which contains the following excerpt

The Problem

In both models, we're computing the intersection of two sets:

  1. Users who dugg an item.
  2. Users that have befriended the digger.

The Relational Model

The schema for this information in MySQL is: 

CREATE TABLE `Diggs` ( `id` INT(11), `itemid` INT(11), `userid` INT(11),
`digdate` DATETIME, PRIMARY KEY (`id`), KEY `user` (`userid`), KEY `item` (`itemid`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;   CREATE TABLE `Friends` ( `id` INT(10)
AUTO_INCREMENT, `userid` INT(10), `username` VARCHAR(15), `friendid` INT(10), `friendname`
VARCHAR(15), `mutual` TINYINT(1), `date_created` DATETIME, PRIMARY KEY (`id`), UNIQUE
KEY `Friend_unique` (`userid`,`friendid`), KEY `Friend_friend` (`friendid`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB
DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

The Friends table contains many million rows, while Diggs holds hundreds of millions. Computing the intersection with a JOIN is much too slow in MySQL, so we have to do it in PHP. The steps are:

  1. Query Friends for all my friends. With a cold cache, this takes around 1.5 seconds to complete.
  2. Query Diggs for any diggs of a specific item by a user in the set of friend user IDs. This query is enormous, and looks something like: 
    SELECT
`digdate`, `id` FROM `Diggs` WHERE `userid` IN (59, 9006, 15989, 16045, 29183, 30220,
62511, 75212, 79006) AND itemid = 13084479 ORDER BY `digdate` DESC, `id` DESC LIMIT
4;

    The real query is actually much worse than this, since the IN clause contains every friend of the user, and this can balloon to hundreds of user IDs. A full query can actually clock in at 1.5kb, which is many times larger than the actual data we want. With a cold cache, this query can take 14 seconds to execute.

Of course, both queries are cached, but due to the user-specific nature of this data, it doesn't help much.

The solution the Digg development team went with was to denormalize the data. They also went an additional step and decided that since the data was no longer being kept in a relational manner there was no point in using a traditional relational database (i.e. MySQL) and instead they migrated to a non-RDBMS technology to solve this problem.

How Denormalization Changes Your Application

There are a number of things to keep in mind once you choose to denormalize your data including

  1. Denormalization means data redundancy which translates to significantly increased storage costs. The fully denormalized data set from the Digg exampled ended up being 3 terabytes of information. It is typical for developers to underestimate the data bloat that occurs once data is denormalized.

  2. Fixing data inconsistency is now the job of the application. Let's say each user has a list of the user names of all of their friends. What happens when one of these users changes their user name? In a normalized database that is a simple UPDATE query to change a single piece of data and then it will be current everywhere it is shown on the site. In a denormalized database, there now has to be a mechanism for fixing up this name in all of the dozens, hundreds or thousands of places it appears. Most services that create denormalized databases have "fixup" jobs that are constantly running on the database to fix such inconsistencies.

The No-SQL Movement vs. Abusing Relational Databases for Fun & Profit

If you're a web developer interested in building large scale applications, it doesn't take long in reading the various best practices on getting Web applications to scale such as practicing database sharding or eschewing transactions before it begins to sound like all the advice you are getting is about ignoring or abusing the key features that define a modern relational database system. Taken to its logical extreme all you really need is a key<->value or tuple store that supports some level of query functionality and has decent persistence semantics. Thus the NoSQL movement was borne.

The No-SQL movement is a used to describe the increasing usage of non-relational databases among Web developers. This approach has initially pioneered by large scale Web companies like Facebook (Cassandra), Amazon (Dynamo) & Google (BigTable) but now is finding its way down to smaller sites like Digg. Unlike relational databases, there is a yet to be a solid technical definition of what it means for a product to be a "NoSQL" database aside from the fact that it isn't a relational database. Commonalities include lack of fixed schemas {TODO}. Below is a list of some of the more popular NoSQL databases that you can try today along with a brief description of their key qualities

  1. CouchDB: A document-oriented database where documents can be thought of as JSON/JavaScript objects. Creation, retrieval, update and deletion (CRUD) operations are performed via a RESTful API and support ACID properties. Rich querying is handled by creating Javascript functions called "Views" which can operate on the documents in the database via Map/Reduce style queries. Usage: Although popular among the geek set most users seem to be dabblers as opposed to large scale web companies.

  2. Cassandra: A key-value store where each key-value pair comes with a timestamp and can be grouped together into a column family (i.e. a table). There is also a notion of super columns which are columns that contain whose values are a list of other key-value pairs. Cassandra is optimized to be always writable and uses eventual consistency to deal with the conflicts that inevitably occur when a distributed system aims to be always writable yet node failure is a fact of life. Querying is available via the Cassandra Thrift API and supports fairly basic data retrieval operations based on key values and column names. Usage: Originally developed and still used at Facebook today. Digg and Rackspace are the most recent big name adopters.

  3. Voldemort: Very similar to Cassandra which is unsurprising since they are both inspired by Amazon's Dynamo. Voldemort is a key-value store where each key value pair comes with a timestamp and eventual consistency is used to address write anomalies. Values can contain a list of further key value pairs. Data access involves creation, retrieval and deletion of serialized objects whose format can be one of JSON, strings, binary BLOBs, serialized Java objects and Google Protocol Buffers. Rich querying is non-existent, simple get and put operations are all that exist. Usage: Originally developed and still used at LinkedIn.

There are a number of other interesting NoSQL databases such as HBase, MongoDB and Dynomite but the three above seem to be the most mature from my initial analysis. In general, most of them seem to be a clone of BigTable, Dynamo or some amalgam of ideas from both papers. The most original so far has been CouchDB.

An alternative to betting on a speculative database technologies at varying levels of maturity is to misuse an existing mature relational database product. As mentioned earlier, many large scale sites use relational databases but eschew relational features such as transactions and joins to achieve scalability. Some developers have even taken that practice to an extreme and built schema-less data models on top of traditional relational database. A great example of this How FriendFeed uses MySQL to store schema-less data which is a blog post excerpted below

Lots of projects exist designed to tackle the problem storing data with flexible schemas and building new indexes on the fly (e.g., CouchDB). However, none of them seemed widely-used enough by large sites to inspire confidence. In the tests we read about and ran ourselves, none of the projects were stable or battle-tested enough for our needs (see this somewhat outdated article on CouchDB, for example). MySQL works. It doesn't corrupt data. Replication works. We understand its limitations already. We like MySQL for storage, just not RDBMS usage patterns.

After some deliberation, we decided to implement a "schema-less" storage system on top of MySQL rather than use a completely new storage system.

Our datastore stores schema-less bags of properties (e.g., JSON objects or Python dictionaries). The only required property of stored entities is id, a 16-byte UUID. The rest of the entity is opaque as far as the datastore is concerned. We can change the "schema" simply by storing new properties.

In MySQL, our entities are stored in a table that looks like this: 

CREATE TABLE entities ( added_id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY
KEY, id BINARY(16) NOT NULL, updated TIMESTAMP NOT NULL, body MEDIUMBLOB, UNIQUE KEY
(id), KEY (updated) ) ENGINE=InnoDB;

The added_id column is present because InnoDB stores data rows physically in primary key order. The AUTO_INCREMENT primary key ensures new entities are written sequentially on disk after old entities, which helps for both read and write locality (new entities tend to be read more frequently than old entities since FriendFeed pages are ordered reverse-chronologically). Entity bodies are stored as zlib-compressed, pickled Python dictionaries.

Now that the FriendFeed team works at Facebook I suspect they'll end up deciding that a NoSQL database that has solved a good story around replication and fault tolerance is more amenable to solving the problem of building a schema-less database than storing key<->value pairs in a SQL database where the value is a serialized Python object.

As a Web developer it's always a good idea to know what the current practices are in the industry even if they seem a bit too crazy to adoptyet.

Further Reading

Note Now Playing: Jay-Z - Run This Town (feat. Rihanna & Kanye West)



data database key user relational

Tags: data key database relational user ]]> Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:28:29 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5577 How Google Taught Me to Cache and Cash-In http://highscalability.com/how-google-taught-me-cache-and-cash Shared item A user named Apathy in this thread on how Reddit scales some of their features, shares some advice he learned while working at Google and other major companies.

To be fair, I [Apathy] was working at Google at the time, and every job I held between 1995 and 2005 involved at least one of the largest websites on the planet. I didn't come up with any of these ideas, just watched other smart people I worked with who knew what they were doing and found (or wrote) tools that did the same things. But the theme is always the same:

  • Cache everything you can and store the rest in some sort of database (not necessarily relational and not necessarily centralized).

    • How do you go about applying this strategy?

    read more



    Tags: google working necessarily apathy cache ]]>     A user named Apathy in this thread on how Reddit scales some of their features, shares some advice he learned while working at Google and other major companies.

    To be fair, I [Apathy] was working at Google at the time, and every job I held between 1995 and 2005 involved at least one of the largest websites on the planet. I didn't come up with any of these ideas, just watched other smart people I worked with who knew what they were doing and found (or wrote) tools that did the same things. But the theme is always the same:

  • Cache everything you can and store the rest in some sort of database (not necessarily relational and not necessarily centralized).

    • How do you go about applying this strategy?

    read more



    Tags: google working necessarily apathy cache ]]>     Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:31:05 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5535     7 Japanese aesthetic principles to change your thinking http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2009/09/exposing-ourselves-to-traditional-japanese-aesthetic-ideas-notions-that-may-seem-quite-foreign-to-most-of-us-is-a-goo.html Shared item Garden Exposing ourselves to traditional Japanese aesthetic ideas notions that may seem quite foreign to most of us is a good exercise in lateral thinking, a term coined by Edward de Bono in 1967. "Lateral Thinking is for changing concepts and perception," says de Bono. Beginning to think about design by exploring the tenets of the Zen aesthetic may not be an example of Lateral Thinking in the strict sense, but doing so is a good exercise in stretching ourselves and really beginning to think differently about visuals and design in our everyday professional lives. The principles of Zen aesthetics found in the art of the traditional Japanese garden, for example, have many lessons for us, though they are unknown to most people. The principles are interconnected and overlap; it's not possible to simply put the ideas in separate boxes. Thankfully, Patrick Lennox Tierney (a recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun in 2007) has a few short essays elaborating on the concepts. Below are just seven design-related principles (there are more) that govern the aesthetics of the Japanese garden and other art forms in Japan. Perhaps they will stimulate your creativity or get you thinking in a new way about your own design-related challenges.

    Seven principles for changing your perception
    Kanso () Simplicity or elimination of clutter. Things are expressed in a plain, simple, natural manner. Reminds us to think not in terms of decoration but in terms of clarity, a kind of clarity that may be achieved through omission or exclusion of the non-essential.

    Enso Fukinsei ()     Asymmetry or irregularity. The idea of controlling balance in a composition via irregularity and asymmetry is a central tenet of the Zen aesthetic. The enso ("Zen circle") in brush painting, for example, is often drawn as an incomplete circle, symbolizing the imperfection that is part of existence. In graphic design too asymmetrical balance is a dynamic, beautiful thing. Try looking for (or creating) beauty in balanced asymmetry. Nature itself is full of beauty and harmonious relationships that are asymmetrical yet balanced. This is a dynamic beauty that attracts and engages.

    Shibui/Shibumi ()     Beautiful by being understated, or by being precisely what it was meant to be and not elaborated upon. Direct and simple way, without being flashy. Elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. The term is sometimes used today to describe something cool but beautifully minimalist, including technology and some consumer products. (Shibui literally means bitter tasting).

    Shizen () Naturalness. Absence of pretense or artificiality, full creative intent unforced. Ironically, the spontaneous nature of the Japanese garden that the viewer perceives is not accidental. This is a reminder that design is not an accident, even when we are trying to create a natural-feeling environment. It is not a raw nature as such but one with more purpose and intention.

    Yugen ()     Profundity or suggestion rather than revelation. A Japanese garden, for example, can be said to be a collection of subtleties and symbolic elements. Photographers and designers can surely think of many ways to visually imply more by not showing the whole, that is, showing more by showing less.

    Datsuzoku () Freedom from habit or formula. Escape from daily routine or the ordinary. Unworldly. Transcending the conventional. This principles describes the feeling of surprise and a bit of amazement when one realizes they can have freedom from the conventional. Professor Tierney says that the Japanese garden itself, "...made with the raw materials of nature and its success in revealing the essence of natural things to us is an ultimate surprise. Many surprises await at almost every turn in a Japanese Garden."

    Seijaku ()    Tranquility or an energized calm (quite), stillness, solitude. This is related to the feeling you may have when in a Japanese garden. The opposite feeling to one expressed by seijaku would be noise and disturbance. How might we bring a feeling of "active calm" and stillness to ephemeral designs outside the Zen arts?

    LINKS
    Read more about The Nature of Japanese Garden Art by Patrick Lennox Tierney at Bonsai Beautiful dot com.
    Japanese Aesthetics (Stanford Encyclopedia).
    Enso: Zen Circles of Enlightenment (book)




    Tags: japanese garden design zen principles ]]>    Garden Exposing ourselves to traditional Japanese aesthetic ideas notions that may seem quite foreign to most of us is a good exercise in lateral thinking, a term coined by Edward de Bono in 1967. "Lateral Thinking is for changing concepts and perception," says de Bono. Beginning to think about design by exploring the tenets of the Zen aesthetic may not be an example of Lateral Thinking in the strict sense, but doing so is a good exercise in stretching ourselves and really beginning to think differently about visuals and design in our everyday professional lives. The principles of Zen aesthetics found in the art of the traditional Japanese garden, for example, have many lessons for us, though they are unknown to most people. The principles are interconnected and overlap; it's not possible to simply put the ideas in separate boxes. Thankfully, Patrick Lennox Tierney (a recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun in 2007) has a few short essays elaborating on the concepts. Below are just seven design-related principles (there are more) that govern the aesthetics of the Japanese garden and other art forms in Japan. Perhaps they will stimulate your creativity or get you thinking in a new way about your own design-related challenges.

    Seven principles for changing your perception
    Kanso () Simplicity or elimination of clutter. Things are expressed in a plain, simple, natural manner. Reminds us to think not in terms of decoration but in terms of clarity, a kind of clarity that may be achieved through omission or exclusion of the non-essential.

    Enso Fukinsei ()     Asymmetry or irregularity. The idea of controlling balance in a composition via irregularity and asymmetry is a central tenet of the Zen aesthetic. The enso ("Zen circle") in brush painting, for example, is often drawn as an incomplete circle, symbolizing the imperfection that is part of existence. In graphic design too asymmetrical balance is a dynamic, beautiful thing. Try looking for (or creating) beauty in balanced asymmetry. Nature itself is full of beauty and harmonious relationships that are asymmetrical yet balanced. This is a dynamic beauty that attracts and engages.

    Shibui/Shibumi ()     Beautiful by being understated, or by being precisely what it was meant to be and not elaborated upon. Direct and simple way, without being flashy. Elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. The term is sometimes used today to describe something cool but beautifully minimalist, including technology and some consumer products. (Shibui literally means bitter tasting).

    Shizen () Naturalness. Absence of pretense or artificiality, full creative intent unforced. Ironically, the spontaneous nature of the Japanese garden that the viewer perceives is not accidental. This is a reminder that design is not an accident, even when we are trying to create a natural-feeling environment. It is not a raw nature as such but one with more purpose and intention.

    Yugen ()     Profundity or suggestion rather than revelation. A Japanese garden, for example, can be said to be a collection of subtleties and symbolic elements. Photographers and designers can surely think of many ways to visually imply more by not showing the whole, that is, showing more by showing less.

    Datsuzoku () Freedom from habit or formula. Escape from daily routine or the ordinary. Unworldly. Transcending the conventional. This principles describes the feeling of surprise and a bit of amazement when one realizes they can have freedom from the conventional. Professor Tierney says that the Japanese garden itself, "...made with the raw materials of nature and its success in revealing the essence of natural things to us is an ultimate surprise. Many surprises await at almost every turn in a Japanese Garden."

    Seijaku ()    Tranquility or an energized calm (quite), stillness, solitude. This is related to the feeling you may have when in a Japanese garden. The opposite feeling to one expressed by seijaku would be noise and disturbance. How might we bring a feeling of "active calm" and stillness to ephemeral designs outside the Zen arts?

    LINKS
    Read more about The Nature of Japanese Garden Art by Patrick Lennox Tierney at Bonsai Beautiful dot com.
    Japanese Aesthetics (Stanford Encyclopedia).
    Enso: Zen Circles of Enlightenment (book)




    Tags: japanese garden design zen principles ]]>     Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:30:36 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5524     Reading Contracts: What am I Missing? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StartupToolbox/~3/Oc4BJnB0Uw8/ Shared item One of the hardest things to do when reading a new contract is to figure out what is not covered. It's relatively easy to review an agreement and pick out things that are completely wrong or run contrary to one's interests. On the other hand, the sea of words can prevent readers from noticing, for example, that a license agreement provides a nonexclusive, worldwide, perpetual license, but doesn't say clearly whether the license fee must be paid and once paid whether it must be periodically renewed.

    The best way to be sure a contract contains all the terms one needs is to do the same type of transaction over and over until you know it cold. Next best is to find someone else who has to rely on. Those aren't particularly helpful suggestions to someone in unfamiliar territory with a deal on the line, though, so here are some suggestions to help identify missing terms.

    1) Make up a hit list. Before you start reading, write down list of the important terms. This step takes a surprising amount of mental discipline but it is incredibly important. Avoid the temptation to dive straight in and see what the contract says. Even if you think you know what terms you need, write them down before you start reading.

    2) Take the contract in sections. This goes along with my piece on How to Read a License Agreement. Instead of reading front-to-back, search the contract to find all the terms on your hit list. Do they match your requirements? Is anything from your list missing? Bonus points for lining up your hit list in one column on a piece of paper and writing down the comparable terms in the contract in the next column. I have only taken this extra step a handful of times, but found it very helpful when the deal was complex or I was having a hard time getting through the contract language.

    3) Put it Back Together. Now that you have found the biggest points, you can read through and see how other terms flow around them. Do all the defined terms match your understanding of what they should be? Do any subparagraphs under one of the big points limit its applicability?

    4) Try to Break it. It's also easy to read a sentence, squint a bit and say yeah, that basically covers it. Instead of trying to read the contract in a way that fits your needs, do the opposite. How could a paragraph be read against you? E.g. if you quit vs. being terminated by your employer, will you lose any vesting in your stock?

    5) Read with a Friend. If the deal is important it merits more than one set of eyes. I frequently find that useful points come out of discussion with a co-reader.

    6) Search for Exemplars. I am putting this last because it's really hard to find good examples of many types of agreements. The SEC's EDGAR database is a good source, but search is very limited unless you pay for advanced search capabilities. Docstoc and Scribd have pretty good libraries but since there is no clear way to judge quality it is best to look for at least 3 samples of the type of agreement you need, then compare terms carefully before relying on any one contract.

    I hope these ideas are helpful. Reading carefully and catching everything is a genuinely hard task. Practice very much makes perfect and these are some of my favorite practice tools.



    Tags: terms contract read reading list ]]>    One of the hardest things to do when reading a new contract is to figure out what is not covered. It's relatively easy to review an agreement and pick out things that are completely wrong or run contrary to one's interests. On the other hand, the sea of words can prevent readers from noticing, for example, that a license agreement provides a nonexclusive, worldwide, perpetual license, but doesn't say clearly whether the license fee must be paid and once paid whether it must be periodically renewed.

    The best way to be sure a contract contains all the terms one needs is to do the same type of transaction over and over until you know it cold. Next best is to find someone else who has to rely on. Those aren't particularly helpful suggestions to someone in unfamiliar territory with a deal on the line, though, so here are some suggestions to help identify missing terms.

    1) Make up a hit list. Before you start reading, write down list of the important terms. This step takes a surprising amount of mental discipline but it is incredibly important. Avoid the temptation to dive straight in and see what the contract says. Even if you think you know what terms you need, write them down before you start reading.

    2) Take the contract in sections. This goes along with my piece on How to Read a License Agreement. Instead of reading front-to-back, search the contract to find all the terms on your hit list. Do they match your requirements? Is anything from your list missing? Bonus points for lining up your hit list in one column on a piece of paper and writing down the comparable terms in the contract in the next column. I have only taken this extra step a handful of times, but found it very helpful when the deal was complex or I was having a hard time getting through the contract language.

    3) Put it Back Together. Now that you have found the biggest points, you can read through and see how other terms flow around them. Do all the defined terms match your understanding of what they should be? Do any subparagraphs under one of the big points limit its applicability?

    4) Try to Break it. It's also easy to read a sentence, squint a bit and say yeah, that basically covers it. Instead of trying to read the contract in a way that fits your needs, do the opposite. How could a paragraph be read against you? E.g. if you quit vs. being terminated by your employer, will you lose any vesting in your stock?

    5) Read with a Friend. If the deal is important it merits more than one set of eyes. I frequently find that useful points come out of discussion with a co-reader.

    6) Search for Exemplars. I am putting this last because it's really hard to find good examples of many types of agreements. The SEC's EDGAR database is a good source, but search is very limited unless you pay for advanced search capabilities. Docstoc and Scribd have pretty good libraries but since there is no clear way to judge quality it is best to look for at least 3 samples of the type of agreement you need, then compare terms carefully before relying on any one contract.

    I hope these ideas are helpful. Reading carefully and catching everything is a genuinely hard task. Practice very much makes perfect and these are some of my favorite practice tools.



    Tags: terms contract read reading list ]]>     Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:08:06 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5499     Talkin' Bout a (Blogging) Revolution http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/RIwSs0LdNMU/ Shared item

    Chalk that headline as a hat tip to one of my favorite artists, Tracy Chapman is performing in San Francisco this weekend. In the slipstream of my post from earlier this month, The Evolution of Blogging, several folks have come-up with their own take on why there is a crying need for a new blogging revolution. Chris Saad, who works for JS-Kit.com, a start-up that makes social media tools and has been involved in various technical groups such as DataPortablity.org, today outlines seven reasons why the blog-builders and users need to rise-up. It's time we start re-investing in our own, open social platformsBlogs are our profile pages social nodes on the open, distributed social web, he writes. Well said, Saad! For his seven reasons,

    1. Twitter Inc decisions that have not reflected the will of the community particularly changing the @ behavior, changing their API without informing developers, making opaque decisions with their Suggested User List and limiting access to their Firehose.
    2. Facebook's continued resistance to true DataPortability
    3.The emergence of tools and technologies that turn blogs into real-time, first class citizens of the social web. Tools like Lijit, PubSubHubBub and of course Echo.
    4. A broader understanding that blogs are a self-owned, personalized, tool agnostic way to participate in the open social web.
    5. FriendFeed selling out to Facebook
    6. A flurry of great posts on the subject
    7. The broader themes of the Synaptic Web (via Chris Saad )

    The point number six is a bit of a stretch, but rest of them make absolute sense to me. By the way, I am going to be following up my original post with additional thoughts and ideas.

    The Future of Cloud Computing: GigaOM Pro provides you with insight to understand tomorrow's cloud computing market. Learn more


    Tags: social web open blogging saad ]]>

    Chalk that headline as a hat tip to one of my favorite artists, Tracy Chapman is performing in San Francisco this weekend. In the slipstream of my post from earlier this month, The Evolution of Blogging, several folks have come-up with their own take on why there is a crying need for a new blogging revolution. Chris Saad, who works for JS-Kit.com, a start-up that makes social media tools and has been involved in various technical groups such as DataPortablity.org, today outlines seven reasons why the blog-builders and users need to rise-up. It's time we start re-investing in our own, open social platformsBlogs are our profile pages social nodes on the open, distributed social web, he writes. Well said, Saad! For his seven reasons,

    1. Twitter Inc decisions that have not reflected the will of the community particularly changing the @ behavior, changing their API without informing developers, making opaque decisions with their Suggested User List and limiting access to their Firehose.
    2. Facebook's continued resistance to true DataPortability
    3.The emergence of tools and technologies that turn blogs into real-time, first class citizens of the social web. Tools like Lijit, PubSubHubBub and of course Echo.
    4. A broader understanding that blogs are a self-owned, personalized, tool agnostic way to participate in the open social web.
    5. FriendFeed selling out to Facebook
    6. A flurry of great posts on the subject
    7. The broader themes of the Synaptic Web (via Chris Saad )

    The point number six is a bit of a stretch, but rest of them make absolute sense to me. By the way, I am going to be following up my original post with additional thoughts and ideas.

    The Future of Cloud Computing: GigaOM Pro provides you with insight to understand tomorrow's cloud computing market. Learn more


    Tags: social web open blogging saad ]]>     Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:53:22 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5483     Am I Creating a Monster? http://blog.smartypig.com/rss-read/am-i-creating-a-monster Shared item

    SmartyPig Boy with Money

    Neale S. Godfrey, author of the book Money Doesn't Grow On Trees, writes: "Kids don't get it if you don't talk about." Mr. Godfrey is talking to people like me, and if I don't start listening, I'm going to have a big problem on my hands. My four year old daughter is a born shopper. And, as the Co-Founder of a company fighting everyday to bring sensible saving back into the public consciousness after decades of absence, I often worry that I enable her in the very habits I'm encouraging SmartyPig customers to break.

    Like most couples these days, my wife, Sara, and I have been engaging in serious discussions regarding money. How we spend money. How we save money. How we use credit. We are pretty normal in that these conversations, while productive, aren't all that much fun. That said, we force ourselves to sit down and talk about money and we are pretty diligent about maintaining healthy attitudes about spending and saving. But when it comes to how we use money with regard to our daughter, all common sense flies out the window.

    Our daughter has a piggy bank. And while it's our pocket change that goes into it, she understands the value of what we put in it and that she is rewarded when it fills up. We also require that she perform simple tasks around the house for which, when a series of days are filled in as "complete," she gets a reward. If she plays her cards right, does as she's told, and is patient, she usually ends up with a "treat" every few weeks or so. Problem is she never stops wanting or asking for the most trivial things, and we end up like this episode of Dr. Phil - indulging her whims, rather than being responsible parents who model fiscal fitness.

    I tell my wife, "It has to stop." Then I tell her again the next time and the next. But I'm just as guilty as she is. From my perspective, these little treats are almost immediately disregarded and considered "junk." If I sound frustrated, it's because I am. Our unplanned spending on small gifts for our daughter has gotten totally out of control. But it's easier to just go with it than to say no. Who doesn't want a smile and the baby blues? But what are we doing to her as a result? What kind of habits are we teaching her? Every other aspect of her life is meticulously dissected. We are completely focused on turning this healthy, intelligent, productive kid into a healthy, intelligent, productive adult. Why can't we be the same when it comes to teaching her about money?

    A recent issue of Better Homes & Gardens offered us three easy tips to begin the process of taking control:

    1. Don't Forget Who's In Charge - Marketing machine or not - and good God if there isn't a Disney princess on everything! - You can say "no."
    2. Talk About Spending Decisions - Don't lie and say, "I can't afford it." Explain priorities - even to four-year-olds.
    3. Hand Some Over - Give your kids the power. Let them make the transaction. Let them see the difference between need and want.

    So, can Sara and I do this? Do we need a chart that we make an "X" on every day we don't wimp out and take the easy road? From time to time, I'm going to let you know how it's going. And, of course, time will tell. We at SmartyPig are spending a lot of time these days discussing money and children and families. And while I pride myself on being a good listener, this is one conversation I'd really like to begin truly contributing to.

    And I'd like you all to contribute as well. I'd love any tips you might have or anecdotes about your successes or failures in teaching your kids smart savings habits, just send them here jgaskell(at)smartypig(dot)com. We may even feature your ideas or stories on our blog. Thanks!


    smartypig kids dr. phil better homes & gardens

    Tags: money spending kids daughter smartypig ]]>

    SmartyPig Boy with Money

    Neale S. Godfrey, author of the book Money Doesn't Grow On Trees, writes: "Kids don't get it if you don't talk about." Mr. Godfrey is talking to people like me, and if I don't start listening, I'm going to have a big problem on my hands. My four year old daughter is a born shopper. And, as the Co-Founder of a company fighting everyday to bring sensible saving back into the public consciousness after decades of absence, I often worry that I enable her in the very habits I'm encouraging SmartyPig customers to break.

    Like most couples these days, my wife, Sara, and I have been engaging in serious discussions regarding money. How we spend money. How we save money. How we use credit. We are pretty normal in that these conversations, while productive, aren't all that much fun. That said, we force ourselves to sit down and talk about money and we are pretty diligent about maintaining healthy attitudes about spending and saving. But when it comes to how we use money with regard to our daughter, all common sense flies out the window.

    Our daughter has a piggy bank. And while it's our pocket change that goes into it, she understands the value of what we put in it and that she is rewarded when it fills up. We also require that she perform simple tasks around the house for which, when a series of days are filled in as "complete," she gets a reward. If she plays her cards right, does as she's told, and is patient, she usually ends up with a "treat" every few weeks or so. Problem is she never stops wanting or asking for the most trivial things, and we end up like this episode of Dr. Phil - indulging her whims, rather than being responsible parents who model fiscal fitness.

    I tell my wife, "It has to stop." Then I tell her again the next time and the next. But I'm just as guilty as she is. From my perspective, these little treats are almost immediately disregarded and considered "junk." If I sound frustrated, it's because I am. Our unplanned spending on small gifts for our daughter has gotten totally out of control. But it's easier to just go with it than to say no. Who doesn't want a smile and the baby blues? But what are we doing to her as a result? What kind of habits are we teaching her? Every other aspect of her life is meticulously dissected. We are completely focused on turning this healthy, intelligent, productive kid into a healthy, intelligent, productive adult. Why can't we be the same when it comes to teaching her about money?

    A recent issue of Better Homes & Gardens offered us three easy tips to begin the process of taking control:

    1. Don't Forget Who's In Charge - Marketing machine or not - and good God if there isn't a Disney princess on everything! - You can say "no."
    2. Talk About Spending Decisions - Don't lie and say, "I can't afford it." Explain priorities - even to four-year-olds.
    3. Hand Some Over - Give your kids the power. Let them make the transaction. Let them see the difference between need and want.

    So, can Sara and I do this? Do we need a chart that we make an "X" on every day we don't wimp out and take the easy road? From time to time, I'm going to let you know how it's going. And, of course, time will tell. We at SmartyPig are spending a lot of time these days discussing money and children and families. And while I pride myself on being a good listener, this is one conversation I'd really like to begin truly contributing to.

    And I'd like you all to contribute as well. I'd love any tips you might have or anecdotes about your successes or failures in teaching your kids smart savings habits, just send them here jgaskell(at)smartypig(dot)com. We may even feature your ideas or stories on our blog. Thanks!


    smartypig kids dr. phil better homes & gardens

    Tags: money spending kids daughter smartypig ]]>     Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:00:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5470     Structured Data: Follow-Up to Palegroove Blog Post http://www.croncast.com/rss/1964/Structured-Data:-Follow-Up-to-Palegroove-Blog-Post_RSS-SEO_structured-data.php Shared item Improving your SEO with RSS in 3 easy steps," I shared some insight about how to setup your RSS feed URL's so that they are search engine friendly. After reading the post again, well, I missed explaining why search spiders like feeds so much. The answer is structured data.

    PC Magazine defines structured data as, "Data that resides in fixed fields within a record or file. Relational databases and spreadsheets are examples of structured data. Contrast with unstructured data." I'm sure a future revised version will include XML or RSS ;-).

    When your content is placed into feeds it has the benefit of being described by a template - structured data. It is described by elements in the feed the same as mine, CNN.com, Apple, Microsoft or anyone else with a RSS feed. RSS is the ubiquitous, defacto standard for syndication. The simplicity of RSS as a standard to describe your content's title, description, dates, content, enclosures, etc makes it a magic API for search engines, developers and database administrators. Your website doesn't do this. It is full of unstructured data.

    On your site the post titles could be in a h1-6 tag, div or a legacy table cell with a style applied to it. This makes it harder for search engines to understand your content. Sure, there are insanely engineered algorithms that are in place to create associations between the content on your site and the code that is used to display it, but RSS makes it uniform and much easier for search companies to cache, categorize, rank and re-syndicate your ideas. The primary reason is that the feed describes the data types instead ot telling a browser how to display it.

    So, like I said in the last post, "Treat your feeds with the same care that you do your pages," with the caveat that maybe you need to treat them better because the next iteration of the web is being built on structured data.

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    Tags: RSS SEO structured data feeds seo

    Tags: data rss structured search post ]]>    Improving your SEO with RSS in 3 easy steps," I shared some insight about how to setup your RSS feed URL's so that they are search engine friendly. After reading the post again, well, I missed explaining why search spiders like feeds so much. The answer is structured data.

    PC Magazine defines structured data as, "Data that resides in fixed fields within a record or file. Relational databases and spreadsheets are examples of structured data. Contrast with unstructured data." I'm sure a future revised version will include XML or RSS ;-).

    When your content is placed into feeds it has the benefit of being described by a template - structured data. It is described by elements in the feed the same as mine, CNN.com, Apple, Microsoft or anyone else with a RSS feed. RSS is the ubiquitous, defacto standard for syndication. The simplicity of RSS as a standard to describe your content's title, description, dates, content, enclosures, etc makes it a magic API for search engines, developers and database administrators. Your website doesn't do this. It is full of unstructured data.

    On your site the post titles could be in a h1-6 tag, div or a legacy table cell with a style applied to it. This makes it harder for search engines to understand your content. Sure, there are insanely engineered algorithms that are in place to create associations between the content on your site and the code that is used to display it, but RSS makes it uniform and much easier for search companies to cache, categorize, rank and re-syndicate your ideas. The primary reason is that the feed describes the data types instead ot telling a browser how to display it.

    So, like I said in the last post, "Treat your feeds with the same care that you do your pages," with the caveat that maybe you need to treat them better because the next iteration of the web is being built on structured data.

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    Tags: RSS SEO structured data feeds seo

    Tags: data rss structured search post ]]>     Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:02:54 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5465     Do Too Many Friend Connections Harm Unique Thinking? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/Wf2S9lebkiY/do_too_many_friend_connections_harm_unique_thinkin.php Shared item ReadWriteWeb
    First shared by - BrandonMendelson
    syndication+ 1 | Search 1 | Shares 1

    Does having too many friends in online social networks make radical, innovative thinking harder to develop and foster group-think instead? That's the conclusion of one scientist contributing to a recent issue of Science magazine, but we're not so sure.

    Viktor Mayer-Schnberger, director of the Information + Innovation Policy Research Center at the National University of Singapore, argues that "the over-abundance of connections through which information travels reduces diversity and keeps radical ideas from taking hold."

    Sponsor

    Mayer-Schnberger is specifically interested in what it will take to see the next major stage of the internet come into being and believes that extensive social networking could favor slower iterative development instead of radical paradigm shifts. Smaller networks of developers are more likely to allow unusual ideas the time they need to grow and mature, before other thinkers shoot them down or rip them off. Big networks can also be very distracting.

    Other factors to consider though, we would contend, include the positive impact of collaboration, serendipitous social discovery, rapid news dispersal, interdisciplinary cross-pollination and the increased scalability of support for ideas that living large on social networks enables.

    A "good or bad" analysis may be too crude for evaluating the effect of extensive social connections online on innovation: it seems true that both extended periods of uninterrupted work time are essential to innovation and that online noise is good for you. Is participation in large social networks a net positive or a net negative? That probably depends on the person, but smaller networks are probably an important option as well.

    We would post a poll asking for your opinion on the matter, but in writing about group-think online that would seem too ironic.

    Science magazine subscribers can read Mayer-Schnberger's article here. MSNBC's science blog and New Scientist have additional coverage.

    Discuss



    networks social online ideas radical

    Tags: networks social online ideas radical ]]>    ReadWriteWeb
    First shared by - BrandonMendelson
    syndication+ 1 | Search 1 | Shares 1

    Does having too many friends in online social networks make radical, innovative thinking harder to develop and foster group-think instead? That's the conclusion of one scientist contributing to a recent issue of Science magazine, but we're not so sure.

    Viktor Mayer-Schnberger, director of the Information + Innovation Policy Research Center at the National University of Singapore, argues that "the over-abundance of connections through which information travels reduces diversity and keeps radical ideas from taking hold."

    Sponsor

    Mayer-Schnberger is specifically interested in what it will take to see the next major stage of the internet come into being and believes that extensive social networking could favor slower iterative development instead of radical paradigm shifts. Smaller networks of developers are more likely to allow unusual ideas the time they need to grow and mature, before other thinkers shoot them down or rip them off. Big networks can also be very distracting.

    Other factors to consider though, we would contend, include the positive impact of collaboration, serendipitous social discovery, rapid news dispersal, interdisciplinary cross-pollination and the increased scalability of support for ideas that living large on social networks enables.

    A "good or bad" analysis may be too crude for evaluating the effect of extensive social connections online on innovation: it seems true that both extended periods of uninterrupted work time are essential to innovation and that online noise is good for you. Is participation in large social networks a net positive or a net negative? That probably depends on the person, but smaller networks are probably an important option as well.

    We would post a poll asking for your opinion on the matter, but in writing about group-think online that would seem too ironic.

    Science magazine subscribers can read Mayer-Schnberger's article here. MSNBC's science blog and New Scientist have additional coverage.

    Discuss



    networks social online ideas radical

    Tags: networks social online ideas radical ]]>     Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:23:08 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5430     Two-way Search http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/07/26/twowaySearch.html Shared item A picture named adjusted.gifWhen I started DaveNet in 1994 I had a bunch of ideas for products that I hoped one day to develop. But I had been waiting so long -- it was becoming apparent that I would never get to develop them. So I wrote emails about them, and sent them to all the people I knew from various industry events. What came back often were ideas that built on them. And eventually some of the products did get built. So the idea of dumping ideas publicly, ones that aren't doing you any good, is solid.

    In that spirit, here's another -- I call it Two-way Search.

    Here's the idea -- if the search engine knew a little about me, it could give more relevant answers. But it's too much trouble to enter demographic info, and I might not want to share that with the search engine company. But... There's a single piece of data that unlocks a vast trove of preference information -- the address of my weblog. From that it would be obvious that I live in the Bay Area and am involved in tech. So when I ask about New York style pizza, you might include places in Berkeley in the search results. When I search for a driver, I'm probably not looking for someone who drives a car. It goes on and on.

    I call it two-way because like most things that show up on the Internet, at first search was a one-way thing. I ask questions, the search engine provides answers. By using information on my weblog to provide context, now data flows both ways.

    BTW, it's conceivable that Google knows where my blog is, but I don't think they incorporate that knowledge in search results.

    PS: Of course this is the solution to the Suggested Users List problem as well, if the new user has a blog. You don't need to know anything but the address of the blog to make intelligent non-random recommendations of people to follow. For one, you'd know what language the user speaks, so you wouldn't recommend 20 English-speaking celebs if they only know Portuguese. For example.



    Tags: search ideas engine blog