Steve Yegge posted a must read transcription of a talk he gave at Stanford on dynamic languages. On the last question of the day he gives a great plug for Adobe’s Evolutionary Programming model and ECMAScript Edition 4 (ECMAScript Edition 4 was the basis for ActionScript 3, the language of the Flash Platform).
If you’re a language geek or just want some ammo for your “ActionScript isn’t just a toy” speech that you have to resort to periodically, you’ll want to read and reference this talk.
Twitter has always seemed like one part silliness and two parts vanity. I’ve just never seen the value in it (I blame my advanced age). However, I’ve been more inclined to jump in as a listener of late. I don’t know what changed. Maybe my multitasking capabilities have just improved enough to add yet another signal into the comm channel. Maybe I’m just becoming a wannabe 30 something hipster. Anyways, I finally took the plunge last Friday night and quickly reeled in my first high value tweet from coworker / friend Betsy Weber who noted that, “Community Server used Jing to make screencast demos at their Hack-A-Thon event.”
Now, its possible at some point in the future I would have received an internal email from Betsy with this link, but timing is everything. I would not have written this post if I had not received the message when I did and had a bit of personal time to write (yep, I call midnight to 3 am ‘personal time’). The point is that it looks like Twitter can be a sort of early warning filter as well as a place for social banter, networking, etc.
Were there other reasons for my caving? I’ve noticed that some of the people I’ve listened to inside the Adobe channel are much more active inside of Twitter and this activity has been sustained.
Then there was the bomb shell from JD that he was thinking of abandoning blogging for Twitter. I’m actually pretty discouraged by this given his importance to the community as a voice, listener and filtered aggregator. I don’t believe the short form microblogging Twitter offers up or the awkward access to historical posts is an ideal narrative, but I guess I need to just get over it and roll with change.
Scaling is not my thing, but Greg Linden continues to be a great source to poach from. His post on Facebook’s database architecture included a link back to a video presentation of YouTube’s approach to scaling during their buildup.
There’s lots of good info here, but I was struck by a couple of things:
After watching, I was rifling through some of Greg’s past thoughts on scaling and found the nugget above about how often you should push code on the web. We’ve being playing around with an *agile* SCRUM development process at TechSmith, but there is a ton of discussion / disagreement about how frequently our web dev teams should be pushing code. Do you push during the course of the sprint, at the end of the sprint or quarterly?
Lots of questions arise if you’re pushing frequently. How do you ensure quality? Is it worth the risk? How do you market changes and upgrades to the site when change is constant? I’ve waffled a lot on this topic. My web dev roots tell me fast and furious updates, but after 2 1/2 years in the commercial software world I’ve gotten cautious and felt like a web product should only really make major pushes quarterly. It’s hard for the organization’s other pieces (support, marketing, sales) to keep pace when change is so frequent. The question is, have I become tainted by the long cycle feature slogs of desktop development and lost my way?
I was doing a bit of research into my typing speed (turns out I’m average) and the Wikipedia article yielded some surprising additional data (if you’re really a perceptual psychology nerd check out attentional blink and repetition blindness).
This data dovetails into a Jakob Nielsen article on how much text users read that one of the project managers at work, Blake Nyquist, pointed me to.
And of course there’s Kathy Sierra’s learning theory wisdom.
I’ve got a few questions running around in the ol’ noggin:
Seesmic obviously is trying to answer some of these questions in the video realm, but it’s an open question if these ideas really have legs.
More questions than answers which means I need more time to mull things over. If you’ve got insights I’d welcome them.
I’ve got a bit of a man crush on Rands. I witnessed a very entertaining presentation he gave at SXSW and then was overwhelmed by the insight of his handbook and glossary. He seems to be a bigger geek, a better writer and more funny than me — your basic nightmare (it’s the funnier part that really hurts though).
My self-esteem had mostly recovered, but then was dealt a killing blow with his cool revelation that he can hammer out 90 words a minute when typing.
Now when I saw this I figured, “I’m a gifted windbag…urr, writer of long emails, maybe if I take a shot I can get this monkey off my back and get back a little bit of my mojo.”
Hmph–pathetic. However, the test is addictive — I’ve got to get nerd points for admitting that don’t I? Feel free to let me know how badly you kick my ass.
I just stumbled upon this Edelman white paper on social media which touches some aspects from my last post. The paper essentially breaks down 5 questions:
Recently I’ve been discussing communication in terms of passive broadcast and organic distribution, but the paper slices communication into subcategories of passive and participatory.
Edelman notes, communication is moving to the right hand side of the communication quadrant.
Edelman’s conclusion is that change is constant and new “centres of authority” are continually emerging. These new loci are in turn changing how we communicate, identify with and influence each other.
As someone actively engaged in building content creation tools here are my takeaways:
Media content is a communication tool and software developers must identify and enable collaboration via the new loci emerging on the web. To do otherwise is to risk becoming irrelevant within a very short time frame (you can be a dominant force, miss one wave and be forgotten by the time the next wave arrives). Desktop apps are particularly vulnerable if they don’t embrace collaboration with the cloud inside and outside of their stacks.
Content creation apps need to think very carefully about their role in the user’s narrative. This needs to go beyond the user of the desktop app and extend to the content consumer. Everyone who has a brain will be focusing on enabling sharing / collaboration, but the ability to truly add to the narrative will be prized.
It’s not enough to just get content to destination sites. Apps and services must facilitate continued participation / collaboration between content creators, content and consumers. Seamless integration and interoperability will be heavily emphasized. Apps need to be aware of the additional conversation in the cloud (tags, metadata, etc.) and incorporate them.
It must be easy and fast! There’s so much information available from so many different sources that simplicity of content creation and deployment are essential. Another reason I’m so geeked about apps like Jing.
It must be free. Content creation and delivery is dominated by free apps and free hosting — software developers must find business models that fit around this (so far ads and tiered services rule the day).
If you aren’t open and transparent you’re not in the conversation. Again the risk of becoming completely irrelevant overnight is extremely high. It’s not just analysts and journalists that need openness and transparency, but consumers. People crave inclusion — we must build communities / processes that allow consumers to invest in our organization and the tools / services we provide. If we do this there’s an opportunity to create truly passionate users and leverage some of that social surplus everyone’s been talking about lately.
Blended marketing strategies are a must. Finding folks skilled at grass roots marketing and evangelism is critical. Once you’ve found them, everyone in your organization needs to learn from them and get involved in the conversation as both listeners and participants.
I’m looking sideways at Tim Bray. Almost sounds dirty or sneaky, but its actually a reference to one of the most important aspects of communication on the web — the greatest value is often personal and organic. Individuals rather than professional organizations can offer the most credible insights and the message is typically delivered organically via the social networks we’ve established throughout our lives and linked together via the net.
The web is chalk full of information to the point that its overwhelming; which begs the question “where to look”? Do you settle on an aggregator or two or load up on a-listers? Tim is suggesting we “look sideways” instead and seek out credible individuals within the organizations that interest us the most and then rely on our social networks to pass us other meaty bits their unique angles offer up. There’s a safety in this approach that allows us to focus (who can keep up with the Internet news cycle after all) and bypass the misinformation created by eyeball pandering journalists who sometimes deliberately slant or misrepresent and often lack the technical acumen to provide meaningful insights even when they are being their dispassionate best.
As the snapshot from the New York Times above illustrates this phenomena is not confined to the geek class inside the tech industry, but is a broader trend that’s having an impact on how young people in the States are consuming political news. This leaves us with a couple of really big questions:
People are getting their information from all over — a combination of passive delivery via professional broadcast media, organic network references and self-initiated research (search) with the latter two being sourced from both individuals (sideways) and professionals (top-down). How this sourcing pie is sliced up will, of course, vary given the demographic and personal tastes of the individual. However, its clear that there’s a trend towards organic delivery of individual sources — passive broadcast, spin-handling, PR and professional journalists have jumped the shark.
The more interesting question is how do you reach your target audience via the organic information stream? I’m inclined to agree with Guy Kawasaki’s suggestion to target the fat cross-section of moderate influencers rather than the a-list. Its more than a numbers game though — moderate influencers aren’t in it for the eyeballs; they’re both consumers and participants who are more interested in spreading good ideas than self-promotion (see Pistach.io or The Deck for alternate models).
Below are a few of my favorite sideways looks. There are a boatload of others in my aggregator representing companies big and small (more Adobe staffers and community members than I can reveal without blushing). I would love to check out some of your favorites — leave them in the comments!
Red Monk’s Michael Coté has the most comprehensive and deepest analysis of Adobe’s Open Screen Project to date, including a look at how it plays against the other gorillas in the pen — Sun, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Strangely there was no mention of Tamarin, Mozilla or ECMAScript. I’ve always thought that Adobe was making a long term play with ECMAScript adoption and the Tamarin donation (at the very least hedging their bets). If you have the same virtual machine running in the browser as you do in Flash Player it adds a whole new twist to the write once platform concept.
Coté really knows his stuff (he’s got development in his blood), but he overlooks what I view as the smoking gun — rich experiences. Adobe has design tools in spades and a base of designers / devigners who have a track record for delivering rich experiences that differentiate brands. I don’t see Java ever making inroads in this area and I’m a bit skeptical of Microsoft’s ability to get real traction — I know devigners Microsoft and your .Net kids are no devigners. There are lots of good people at Microsoft who really push the notion that they’re a changed animal, but even so its a stretch to imagine them giving up their OS franchise which is where playing in a truly cross platform sandbox gets them.
Everybody likes to play on the epic struggle for zero sum domination and TechCrunch is the king of this “its all about the eyeballs” hyperbole. In, Erick Schonfeld’s opinion it’s Microsoft Live Mesh vs AIR vs Google Gears.
Mesh is a yawner, but even if you’re geeked I fail to see how it competes with the “write once, run everywhere” platform that Adobe is trying to build. Mesh is mainly about data synchronization between apps — you still have to write the client pieces for all of those different platforms. Mesh does have an offline storage component similar to Gears, but unless I’m missing something that’s where the comparisons end.
I’m noticing that Adobe is putting more and more emphasis on the notion of ‘delivering applications’ rather than ‘taking web apps offline’. AIR certainly allows you to move web apps to the desktop, but I’ve always viewed it as a way for delivering rich connected clients rather than just local storage / offline use. Few apps need to run ‘close to the metal’ which means AIR is a pretty good choice for a good chunk of the desktop apps that need to be built. And lets face it, there’s not a lot of call for building enterprise software (the domain of .Net / Java) for mobile devices, but there is a premium on rich client-side experiences (look at the iPhone’s reception) which is right in Adobe’s wheelhouse. Sneaky Adobe, very sneaky.
Huge announcements from Adobe on the Flash Platform front as detailed by Ryan Stuart. Here are the highlights:
I’ve been critical of Adobe in the past with regard to their tardy format documentation and restrictive licensing of the SWF format, but this response totally exceeds my expectations. I’m blown away by the open sourcing of Tamarin, Flex SDK and now the removal of licensing restrictions and full documentation of the formats.
I’m also very excited about the elimination of the device licensing fees and porting APIs — I want to see Flash in my fridge, in my car and on my iPhone (Apple help these folks out damnit).
I am a little bummed that Adobe is moving forward with its plan to use ‘custom’ file extensions (i.e. .f4v) for its MPEG-4 container files. The only reasons I can see for this are that lots of applications depend on file extension in order to import / playback files. For instance, audiobook applications expect .m4b / .f4b files and don’t know what to do with a video file, or want to do something different with video files, but don’t want to parse the container atoms. I can unequivocally say multiple extensions are extremely confusing. I’ve had 4 different conversations with folks at work just this week trying to explain what a MPEG-4 container is and what the various different extension signify. However, this point is minor compared to the continued openness of Adobe.
You can get more detailed developer info here on the Adobe site.
After watching Buzz Bissinger’s melt down and Bob Costas’ ignorance and hubris last night on HBO’s Costas Now, I was tempted to let the fingers fly and hammer out a scathing indictment on their Luddite and elitist worldview. I passed on the immediate opportunity, but Sporting News did it for me, albeit with a gentler treatment than I was likely to have offered up. However, 24 hours later with a full day at the office under my belt I’m up for the task.
The fact that a ‘credentialed’ and successful writer / journalist such as Bissinger failed to deliver a moving or even cogent argument for the news desk of yesteryear and instead ranted and raved about how unfair it was that uneducated, uncredentialed bloggers were able to broadcast on even footing with traditional print media is an indication of just how profound a socioeconomic shift is underway. Even more telling was Costas’ inability to differentiate between writers and commenters in blog posts — can you get any more out of touch?
Actually, it turns out you can because in Costas’ mind television isn’t in danger of being destroyed like traditional print media has been. Um, haven’t sports ratings been in dramatic decline for last couple of decades? Isn’t advertising beginning to pull out of television and move over to the web? Looks like Bob Costas is drinking a lethal cocktail of ignorance, hubris and outright denial.
Now Bob Costas isn’t alone. In fact I’d say his kind are still a majority of the population that I’d label the “old school” (age is an indicator, but not causal). The old school doesn’t really know what to make of the Internet. Some of them think its important, but they’re not entirely sure why. They keep thinking they can stick to the same tired old business models and worn out processes (sometimes guised under new names), formulas and viewpoints (Copernicus — the earth is the center of the universe) . When they look at it they see a lot of messy, unregulated noise and simply dismiss it, patronize, or even occasionally, like Bissinger, they lose their minds over it. Mostly though, they just can’t grok it.
They don’t see the enormous social shifts, how its reshaping our knowledge repositories, radicalizing our ability to educate ourselves, undermining traditional institutions, challenging the sovereignty of the nation-state and dramatically altering economics / business. The breadth and wealth of instantly accessible static knowledge alone is staggering, but when combined with the dynamic knowledge of social networks and the empowerment of the individual (everyone can access and contribute) you have a paradigm shift of monumental proportions. It’s pretty easy to foam at the mouth, pee yourself or stare blankly — fight, flight or deny — when confronted with this type of change.
I can’t help but think that the old school should be force fed some Lawrence Lessig, Clay Shirky or Don Tapscott. As Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb notes:
Passive media and advertising does not have a bright future, and many people in those industries who are watching the direction the internet is going know it.
Indeed. Traditional media and traditional business are dying — it’s time to get it, get over it, and get on with changing the world.