Traditional job search sites are spammy and inefficient. In the real world, when we look for a job, we start by tapping our connections. We're In The Door, and we show you jobs at your friends' companies. Users log in with Facebook, we scan for their friends' employer data, tap into a filtered job aggregator database, and with some magic, users can:
View Companies - See all companies hiring in their network and get an introduction from friend who works there.
Explore by City - See job opportunities hiring in most popular cities and see friends who live there.
Search Jobs - Search all jobs in their network by job title, company, and city.
We're using three APIs, scaling a huge database, so we must prioritize our resources to run lean. Our company is brand new, one product/bizdev, one front-end engineer, one back-end engineer all located in San Francisco, and a Ukranian who does some pretty decent HTML/CSS work for very cheap. While others were taking twitpics of Ashton in Austin, we were firing away on our computers back at home.
Eric Ries, the Godfather of lean start-ups, says entrepreneurs must continuously deploy, and also be ready to cut features. We obtained a $17 lifetime deal for Optimizely back in November, which lets us easily determine if a feature change increases convergence rate, by just inputting a few lines of code. CrazyEgg, which is wrapped into their lean-start-up bundle, enables us to see a heat map of where our users are clicking to provide valuable insight on page layout.
We crowdsourced our logo to 99 designs, getting over 400 submissions [which was great, because they guaranteed us 200], and are glad to pick up a discount with the Appsumo deal. The lean start-up mentality is the commitment to innovate, to improve, and to push through with what little you've got, to provide value to the customer. We are launching to the public soon, and ready to obtain more user feedback.
Tech Trends Move from East to West, Inverse to Bad Pop Music.
Noting that my Belgian friend smelled like bad memories from high school, I called him out, instructing him to switch his cologne from Abercrombie to Armani. Allegedly, the A&F brand is considered exotic and trendy above age 15 across the pond, since they do not have any European stores.
Across the other body of water, Japan is 17 years ahead of us gadget wise. One idea that came to mind the other day was mobile QR payments... and I soon found out that this concept was already successfully executed by the Japanese and, naturally, in a handful of Starbucks stores in the Bay Area. My initial source of inspiration was one-upping Jack Dorsey with his luscious hair and precocious Square, a small device which plugs into your phone to facilitate a commercial transaction.
The Japanese don't use credit cards. Payments are done with mobile QR apps and Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile apps. QR codes are 2D bar codes containing an additional level of digital data, which could be read by or generated from your mobile device to communicate information.
NFC is short-range, high-frequency wireless communication. The behavioral shift to relinquish plastic is a roadblock in itself, but the biggest issue is infrastructure adapting the current POS (Point of Sale in the business world) system in retail stores across America. One day three tech buddies and I were brainstorming the best ways for mobile payments to work and weighing the various options: Bluetooth (currently effectively used in the US with EZ tags), NFC (in Japan, in vending machines and public transporation), and QR codes. Euros have built the Mobio app enabling users to make mobile payments, as well as access online content, via QR codes, and it will be interesting to follow if the technology will catch on further west.
Mobile Payment, Without Your Phone
A guy I know is friends with the founder of Mobibucks. I initially assumed this was some fancy mobile payment app. It's much more simple. You don't need an iPhone, or any smart phone for that matter. You just need to have a phone number. Users can go to their site and put money on an account linked to your cell phone number. People can go to participating stores, buy something, and pay for it by typing in your phone number and a passcode for security. Who would use such a thing instead of a credit card (is the swiping motion that difficult)?
Kids. Instead of going to the store and buying them a gift card or setting up a checking account with a debit card (which could easily be lost in a backpack or dropped at reccess) you simply put a certain amount of money into a Mobibucks account and let them pay for things that way. With a digital trace, you'll rest assured that your kid didn't spend their allowance on street drugs. So simple. Mobibucks should have a three-step graphic on their landing page describing this easy process and try their best to avoid the technical language, i.e., "using text messaging protocols... our P2P system... with the POS... in the Cloud."
YouTube now creates a "Mix" when you go to play a song. Like Pandora's stations, it provides users recommendations of other songs by the artist and of similar music in that genre. When you click "Disco" for "Discover related music," it shows you a drop-down list of approximately 40 other songs. Songs can play on shuffle or autoplay consecutively.YouTube quietly released it's Disco project in January, and now has done an entire system overhaul, incorporating these features with the musical content throughout its site. Is Google Music Next?... (I suggest Google 'Beats' for a higher level of radness and double entendre.)
On my Miike Snow Mix: Pieter Bjorn And John- Young Folks
Apple recently ousted Microsoft in market cap as the world's largest tech company, edging ahead with exquisitely designed high-end gadgets and its Apps store money machine. With its Iron Gates attitude to just about anyone who dares to enter its coveted app shop, the new AppleTV will karmically receive a similar reception by television studios, distributors, and sponsors.
Toss It and Leave It...Google Will Show Up to Retrieve It
Apple notoriously shut out Adobe Flash from the Apps store. As 75 percent of online video content runs on Flash, many believe this was a Pyrrhic victory. Now Google hops into bed with Adobe, as its new Android 2.2 will debut with Adobe Flash Player 10.1 compatibility. Furthermore, NBC and Time Warner are holding their ground, refusing to let go of Flash to deliver their content. Side tidbit: YouTube, which runs on Flash on your computer, is not Flash based on the iPhone/iPad, but has been re-compressed as H264 video (mp4).
Battle Dance, Go: Apple TV vs Google TV
Correction 6/4/10:Google TV is also a box with a small form factor that fits behind your TV, so the viewer cannot see it. Other than that, it is still just a widget platform.
AppleTV: The TV that isn't.
The fearsome tech giant recently launched Apple TV. I want to draw attention to the product description on Apple's own website: Buy the latest commercial-free episode of your favorite show the day after it airs, and then watch it whenever you’re ready. Choose a Season Pass and get a whole season of a TV show automatically. Or get a Multi-Pass for shows that air every day, such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and enjoy a month’s worth of episodes downloaded to Apple TV as they become available. Individual shows cost as little as $1.99. HD versions are $2.99.
People want to watch TV when it is on. The fact that you can't watch TV while it airs with Apple TV, such as the evening news, Oprah, and Glee makes this product incomplete. It brings the web to your TV, just not TV to your TV.
Funny you mention Jon Stewart. Jon, who you can watch on cable or for free online, has this to say to Steve:
[Stewart dubs them 'Appholes' in regards to the freak-out over the leak of their new iPhone]
If you want to watch the entire last season of American Idol on FOX (a station available on regular TV for free), the day after each episodes airs, when you already were told what happened by then, it will cost you: 43 x $1.99, or $85.57. In HD the cost is $128.57.
Your cable box is connected to HDMI 1 and AppleTV to HDMI 2, so you would have to switch inputs to watch on-air television.Apple TV like recent competitor, Boxee, are not TVs, but rather additional hardware called OTT (over the top) boxes. Boxee can only access web pages that are built for its platform. Also Hulu has blocked them, and they cannot access iTunes store, so content is rather limited akin to Roku and MSN TV systems.
Apple actually tried, and failed, earlier in the year to talk to studios to see if they would allow users to subscribe to live streams of network programming through iTunes. Apple had a taste of their own medicine when the networks said "no way" because its system is closed (sound familiar?), and as it has yet to make a dent in market-share, it has zero leverage. Moreover, it is highly unlikely influential network TV sponsors would welcome the new product with its commercial-free day-old shows which block out market reach to an affluent consumer group.Good related blog post
Google TV not a TV, but rather is a widget platform like Yahoo! TV for your TV. People can build applications for a "connected TV," which cost 25% more than normal TVs. Similar to Apple TV, users can access content from popular sources like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube. Unlike Apple TV, Google TV is Flash compatible. Google TV lets you do one main thing: You can type in a search query and it will look through your program guide for live TV and online at certain video sites to find exactly what you want. However, people need to buy a new keyboard and mouse setup to do this. While humans surf the web through our Google search toolbar, we channel surf with a remote. Below: Vague cartoon video introducing the world to Google TV, released May 18:
Verdict: Fear The Underdog.
While Apple TV eliminates the effort it takes to connect your computer to your TV with a cord, pop a disc into a dvd player, or dock an ipod into speakers, without complete on-air television it simply fails as a TV. Apple's mantra has been: "Make it and they will come." This simply cannot fly in this market if they do not deliver on what the benefits of a TV actually are. At this point, with Google TV, users cannot channel surf with the ease of a remote.
The victor will provide a service that fully integrates the benefits of the Internet with your TV for a better, TV-like user experience. ViaClix, a Los Gatos based start-up founded by the woman who invented the two-tone demodulator (rad), by working with distributors like Comcast, integrates live TV and web content, enabling users to navigate between the two without having to type in urls all through one remote. Knowing Google, they will eventually figure this out, whether it requires adapting product, partnering with, or buying out such competitors.
Reflections And as Apple is improving its gadgets, Google is working on its cloud operating system, and both are releasing new 'TVs,' Facebook is probably working with Microsoft on an email system to rival Yahoo! and Gmail. The battle strategies of today's tech giants remind me of war plays between European nations in the sixteenth through eighteenth century (maybe I just think it's funny to compare Apple to France). Google's willingness to partner with anyone (even known enemies) against other competitors and Facebook's ability to both shape and adapt to the demands of the social sphere are why they will be on top for a long time. Apple can't simply rely on its sexy UI to stay on top, it must be flexible with the changing marketplace, better cater to the proletariat, and cultivate strategic alliances with both the little guys and the major players. Or else, the iTunes store will go down in history like the Bastille.
Good engineers are worth their weight in heroin, only harder to find on the street. Start-ups six months ago were commonly giving away Apple products in exchange for a software engineer, and have now are offering large cash rewards for referrals.
My big sister's friend, founder of Doostang, has a new project called PulseJFK. He's looking for a "shit hot" front end engineer and willing to drop some serious dinero. Last week he texts me about it. "Yo, want $1000? Find me a shit hot front end engineer for pulsejfk." Two days later: "we need a front end. Ill give u 2k."
He's willing to do whatever it takes. Front-end or back-end, entrepreneurs and CEOs are bending over and willing to pay whoever will give them the goods.
In the mean time, Box.net, an online file sharing company, is trying to keep up with its rapid growth. They are willing to shell out $2,000 in cash, or Subway sandwiches, to the person who delivers them an engineer. My software engineer friend Tomas, who posted this offer on Facebook, spends late nights building the Box when he's not playing Rock Band and probably could use some scaling reinforcements. Don't bother poaching him, he'd never break up the band.
Back in January, the CEO of Thread.com offered a new iPad to the person who hooked him up with a gnarly software engineer. Meebo, which allows users to master their IM universe from a single point of command, now is offering $5,000 for an engineer captured alive! Soon, even large sums of cash won't be enough, you'll probably have to offer a kidney, or perhaps your first born child.
San Francisco, May 22, 2010. Want tickets, but will be in NYC at the TC Disrupt conference, having lunch at the NYT cafeteria, and most importantly visiting Grandma and Grandpa Valmis and big sis!
Cooler Than a Ninja Turtle It's sexy to look like Jesus, if you're an engineer, that is. My Berkeley friend was telling me about this guy. Apparently he can build ANYTHING. Perhaps my favorite part is the Misc section of his website, specifically under "Random notes" where he writes "To build and install the opengl version of geda/pcb (which is awesome)..." and then reveals the code. I can't say that I know what the opengl version of geda/pcb is, but I know that it's got to be awesome!
Morgan Quigley (above), Stanford PhD in Artificial Intelligence, collaborates with Willow Garage, a Silicon Valley robot factory. ROS is Willow Garage's software platform (which stands for both Robotics Operating System and Robotics Open Source), based on a system built by Quigley. Every Linux software distribution throughout time has had a name consisting of two words. Willow Garage's ROS distribution version is called the "Box Turtle" because if you work on your computer just to test the basics, you write code for a turtle running around a box.
Willow Garage is basically a charity for robots, as it's primarily funded by it's founder, Scott Hassan, one of Google's earliest lead architects. Some philanthropists save starving children and empower women, some rescue cats, some build robots to help save lives...and fold towels. Willow Garage picks 10 universities and research centers to lease their robots for two years, under the condition that they do cool stuff with it. On May 4, 11 recipients of PR-2 Beta robot were revealed out of 78 applicants. Berkeley, one of the winners, received recent media buzz after dropping the YouTube video of the PR-2 prototype folding "previously-unseen" towels. The PR-2 Beta is more polished than the prototype, but functionally about the same.
According to one of the 11 ten PR-2 Beta robot recipients: "If you download the towel folding app, it will fold your towels. If you download the ironing app, it will iron your shirts. If you download the cooking app, it will cook for you. None of the apps are available yet; but that's the future." The PR-2 Beta is designed primarily to perform various household tasks and retrieve objects. MIT plans to have their robot follow human orders without any back-talk.
Repairing Humans and Feeding Them
Beyond laundry, scientists are building micro-robots that travel through your bloodstream to deliver drugs exactly where you need them. Significant progress in machine learning has occurred in recent years. Computer algorithms are able to identify objects with much precision. The applications for image recognition are endless-- If a sock is inside out, if a scalpel is about to hit a blood vessel, if your car is about to hit a bicyclist in the street (these examples are all new, actual advancements in artificial intelligence).
Researchers in the field are largely operating in uncharted territory. Some of the challenge isn't if they can make it, it's if they can dream it. Most members of the general public, however, when directly questioned what they'd like robots to do, reportedly said they simply want a robot that will make them a sandwich. I shit you not.
Fierce Military Technology Slash Cool Toy
Some of the same scientists who brought us the towel-folding robot also worked on the autonomous robot helicopter. The robot actually learned by observing experienced copter pilot, Garett Oku, fly the 4-foot model device via remote control. Advances in object recognition coupled with such advances in autonomous flight could potentially save the lives of military men and women.
Another application for this drone technology is one hella sick toy. Check out what the engineers at Parrot have rolled out.
Battle Dance: Do the Robot While there are people actually working on sex robots, I'm referring to the dance move. My best friend Bunz, Duke Law '10, and I are newly inspired and determined to learn how to tectonic dance.
Cool Robot Infographic
Who would I be if I left you without one?
A Case Study on the New York Times as it embraces Web 2.0 technology
CEOs everywhere are faking it. The median age of a CEO is 52. Most are number smart, business savvy visionaries, but their kids probably know more than they do about the Internet. Corporate officers are attempting to use the correct lingo to convince investors they are taking adequate measures to stay relevant in the Web 2.0 era. They have turned to the nerd community for answers.
Many top companies initially ignored Facebook, passing it off as some fad. Now they are scrambling to effectively harness its potential. Take the New York Times. In early 2009, there was an internal push to integrate Facebook with TimesPeople, its lackluster online community which enables users to follow what other readers are recommending and commenting on. The bosses scrapped the idea - considered too low-brow at the time.
Now The Times' SVP of Digital Operations delivered a keynote address at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, heralding the wonders of social media. Even the number one newspaper in the world knows it cannot afford to hang on to the coattails of a reputation built over one hundred years.
During his speech, Martin Nisenholtz took the opportunity to discuss his aspirations for nytimes.com. He stated: "We’re beginning to experiment with badging, by including user photos and other identity-based design cues."
Tell me if I am wrong, but that is not badging, basing this more on my experience in the Girl Scouts than my budding tech savvy. Badging, if its even a verb now, is when someone is awarded a specific badge icon for performing a certain action or earning a certain amount of points. For instance, FourSquare users can receive the Mayor badge for checking into a certain location more than anyone else and even unlock the Douchebag badge if they frequent trendy locations.
He also used the term "adaptive routing," which he explains "picks the best people in a given network and forwards just the right questions for them to answer." Aardvark, which was acquired by Google in February, attempts to do exactly that by tapping into your social network. The Times believes the quality of answers and conversation from its readers will be superior, and the secret of this is real identity (which Facebook Connect enables). *TimesPeople Suggestions*
Fact: Full page print ads in the Times go for $250,000. However, online ads are sold for as little as $5 a pop. The stuff that is printed on trees is paying everyone's salaries. While newspapers continue to rely on revenue from print ads, they are hoping to expand revenue streams for digital content.
New York Times Digital is in the process of building up a restaurant review section, part of their masterplan to create a high-caliber, reputable city guide. New York City's Subway CEO recently fed NYT web developers tacos, expressing their desire to integrate an app into the online newspaper. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), in fact, is looking for anyone to build them an app that could get more people to ride the subway. If there was a show or restaurant review in the New York Times, the reader could ideally identify the best subway route to get them there.
As every successful conversion is $2 more in their pockets and tomorrow's financial forecast unknown, free tacos seems like a reasonable gamble.
In the mean time, entrepreneurs are building products that bring print media to the digital space. Japan has already integrated 2D bar codes into its print media, which can be scanned by mobile devices and can redirect users to a certain website. QR (quick response) code readers are available for free in the Apps store for all mobile devices. In the future, a person reading a play review could scan the QR code embedded next to the article with their mobile device, be directed to a ticket website, determine the best public transportation route to get there, or share the information on Facebook.
Though it is important to facilitate consumer conversions, businesses must also seek to engage users on the digital forum to keep them coming back for more. Fortune 100 companies are desperate to figure out how to use social media to keep a leading edge and should look outside for answers. The Huffington Post has recently integrated gaming dynamics into its online community to engage readers, with avatars, points, and badges. Software companies like Bunchball are able to transform such websites into dynamic user experiences.
The business savvy CEO must reach out to the tech geeks to keep in pace with Gen Y. Today's companies need nimble digital product managers who can take a vision and best translate it to the engineers on how to execute it. Companies ideally want someone who can do it all (drive product, build the database, improve UI), but these superhumans are rare. The CEO of the future may not know how to make a website or app themselves, but he or she should be familiar with the technology, or at least know who is.
NYT could better follow the live music scene(noting their Arts section largely focuses on Broadway and symphonies, with an occasional shout-out to Jay-Z.)
Blades of Glory It's my 24th birthday tomorrow. I came to the unanimous decision that I was going to single-handedly make rollerblading socially acceptable outside of Venice Beach. For granted, I have not rollerbladed since 1999, but expect to see me gliding down the Embarcadero on a killer pair of blades in zebra striped spandex.
As others try to bring back the 80s, it seems only natural to try to stay ahead of the game by falling back to the 90s.
Let's hear it for the 80s.
Today on BoingBoing.net: "After a troubled and turbulent decade, one of the most iconic faces on the planet during the post-punk era is returning to active service, and in a most unpredictable and chaotic style. Over the last few weeks, Adam Ant has been turning up unannounced at assorted club nights for quick guerrilla gigs - a dandy highwayman in the underworld - and joining other artists onstage for surprise duets."
Dave S's take: Quite frankly, I find it offensive when your generation fetishes the 80s. You weren't there, man. I had to live it. Met a girl in a coffee shop - was listening to a discman! She was maybe 21. She said she wanted to get some cassettes.
Cassettes? Well a couple of my friends, hipsters who hate hipsters for being hipster, have record players. Vinyl is the new polycarbonate plastic. A hot-new-thing, that's actually been around for a long time, but now we call it something else: Push-To-Talk. Hip Voice is a cool new app that works on all mobile devices with any carrier that enables Push-To-Talk technology. You know what 'PTT' technology really is? It turns your cell into a freakin' Walkie Talkie. Whether you asked Santa for it or it was a Hanukkah demand, this was on the top of your list if you were a product of the 80s. HipVoice is supposedly the hottest thing out of the Founder Institute in LA. I am not a fan of the name, but I think it is a pretty neat product. When luring investors, throw around "Push-To-Talk," but if you want to win the masses, for Christsake, just say "Walkie Talkie." Roger That.
For more 80s, if you can't get enough. Anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh computer, and the people who created it.
Saturday I survived my first baby shower. I believe my friend registered at Babies R Us, but I decided the bookstore was safer territory, and picked up some classics. Since it's a boy, I bought Clifford, Curious George, and a couple books about trains. If I know one thing, if anything at all, about boys, they dig transportation. I personally do not know of any cool kids' book about computers that contain important life lessons like honesty and perseverance and not trusting big bad wolves. Gosh Mom and Dad, if only I learned html with the ABCs!
In today's post, I wanted to mention a new buzz word for a phenomenon that's actually been around for a long time. Cloud computing. Oracle and IBM have been doing it for years, referring to it as "grid computing," before the buzz-word "cloud" appeared on the Doppler. IBM has actually distinguished between the metaphors.
In my search for a definition, I found that Wikipedia's was the most cohesive and coherent. However, my friend, NYT Dave, one up-ed them all.
Definition: Cloud computing- "If you use Gmail, you are cloud computing. People find the concept hard to grasp, but I don't know why. When you keep your shit on the Internet, instead of your computer, you are cloud computing. That's all there is to it."
Wow.
Random Hot Finds: This Times article fails to give away the mind blowing content contained within. Best find in weeks.
Nothing is Safe from the Mark of the Beast(TechCrunch article via tputh.com): Facebook's Open Graph API project will have us not only sharing, but "liking" what's on the Internet. "Google spends billions of dollars indexing the web for their search engine. Facebook will get the web to index itself, exclusively for Facebook."
You Want to Fudge With Me, You Fudging With the Best: Even though this has 'stunt' written all over it (the woman who posted this is supposedly a Bible-loving Sarah Palin groupie), does that make it less outrageous? Little child actors were exploited to carry out this sick genius prank, yet those most outraged seem to be convinced it's real.
Scaling: a network's ability to function as the number of people or computers on the network increases.
Ruby - coding language; Rails - the framework used to implement it.
Ruby vs PHP: What people are saying "While PHP appears to be dominant today, the rapid growth in new projects in Ruby indicates that it is currently positioned as 'the language of the next wave of applications.'" - feld.com
"Not that one is better than the other, but PHP has a much more extensive library of extensions and modules, and it’s object oriented model has been implemented over time. Ruby on the other hand has been designed from the ground up as an object oriented language, and definitely has a very modern well thought out syntax." -nerd search blog
What Stephen says
Stephen is a software engineer friend at Viralogy building gnarly conversion rate optimization software.
PHP is NOT for scaling. Facebook has had numerous talks about how they've run into so many problems because of it. Java is made for scaling and maintainability. Ruby is about 20x slower than PHP. And PHP is about 20x slower than Java. Twitter was written in Ruby, not PHP. It was crashing so much they moved to *Scala. The front-end is still partial Ruby. Facebook is predomoninatly PHP with major building blocks in Java and C++ (the fast parts). Java is what every serious business uses now that isn't a start-up, because it takes longer to develop in, but start-ups usually have to move to Java once more developers come on board. Unless you reach Facebook scale, you will not have to worry about PHP. I'm actually building this new stuff in Java now. It's so... smooth.
*What's Scala?: It's a subset of Java. I actually LOVE the language. But it's brand new... like a year old. So there is very, very little support for it. There are seriously like... hundreds of people using it. and that's it. but it's very sexy.
What Mareza says PulseJFK is currently rewriting its website in Ruby on Rails and a hot new version will be up shortly, according to entrepreneur friend Mareza Larizadeh. Me: Cool. I hear Ruby is a cult, should I join it? Mareza: Yes, join. Learn to code, then work with me :)
What David S. says David is a New York Times web developer, blogger, cinematographer, and sometimes scholar.
I've met the Ruby freaks and to give them credit I've seen how fast they can pump out something really great. And I've also seen some of the nightmares that can come as the app grows. It is indeed easy to get something started, but you need smart people with real skill as it grows in complexity, it's not "easy" to run something that a million people want to look at RIGHT NOW.
Like a lot of guys I'm used to PHP, but in the newsroom the boys area all Ruby, so I've learned from them. [I think he was using "Ruby" as a verb here.] We did all the NYT Olympics stuff in Ruby on pretty short timelines. I wouldn't mind using it more.
What I've gathered Ruby on Rails is essentially the Mac to PHP's PC in terms of its elitist groupies.
SEO pro and business partner-in-crime, Dave A., is convinced that Ruby people drink the kool-aid. Web developer, not the news correspondent, Brian Ross, explained to us his take on the PHP vs Ruby holy war. There is a huge push in the tech world to convert to Ruby on Rails. Mid-twenty something hot-shot Ruby disciples are coming into existing start-ups, and attempting to indoctrinate the rest of the team. Brian (Mac-owner) thinks Ruby is very interesting and logical, but he's a PHP pro and prefers to practice what he already knows. Basically Ruby is a cleaner way of coding the same shit. With PHP, you are writing more lines of code to do the same thing. PHP's language library is more extensive, through Ruby's is rapidly increasing. Websites run faster on PHP, though I'm assuming some genius will soon figure out a way for Ruby scripts to run equally as fast. The effects of speed are minimal on less complex websites. If you're building a massive ecommerce site - and have massive scaling needs - you'd go PHP. If you want to get a concept up and running and easily maintain it - you'd go Ruby. Right?
I'm starting to figure out that it has less to do with the language as it does the people writing it. When it comes to finding a developer - the Ruby cats (for the most part) got talent. PHP anyone can learn, but few have mastered. The idea that Ruby is easier to maintain only holds true if you have people maintaining it well versed in Ruby. If you want someone new to come in to further develop your website, or maybe even just bring on an intern, chances are they will know PHP. Moreover, the Ruby people typically are already well versed in PHP. So stick with what you know, or follow the trend, it depends on the project and the people. Beware of those who preach one doctrine, the good guys are nimble and can see the benefits in multiple.
Verdict: Learn Ruby if you want to get in the boys' area.
Facebook Suggestions: Insult to Injury
Reconnect with your friend's sibling who shot you down. Friend a stranger who responded to your Craigslist ad. Be friends with a domain squatter you once emailed. Facebook your friend's dog. Reconnect with a PBR can. Be a fan of Parma, Ohio. A friend's Facebook status once stated that Facebook recommended that he reconnect with a friend who died, and it ruined his day. Does Facebook know how antagonizing this feature is? While recommendations for fan pages and groups like "See if this pickle can get more fans than nickleback" and "Anne Frank would be so pissed if she knew people read her diary" do make me laugh at my computer screen for a couple seconds, nearly all of their suggestions are completely unwelcome. The upper right corner of the Facebook Homepage is prime real estate. It should not annoy us, or at least have a better recommendation algorithm compared to the crap bombarded upon us. There is a REASON we are not friends with someone who shares 58 of our facebook friends. We obviously know that person, and deemed them facebook friendship unworthy.
Here's a suggestion:
Use this corner space for good. Give me music recs. Maybe movie recs. Facebook could be Pandora. Show me what friends are listening to. There is an iLike app on Facebook. iLike is MySpace's baby. Why doesn't Facebook have their own gig? They are effing EF BEE. It would be cool if you could build playlists with your Facebook friends. There are user friendly ways to profit here, so it boggles me why they rather use this space to harass people into writing on a random wall. The kid in your high school Spanish class and group partner in your Accounting project junior year do not actually care about your life, as we are misled to believe.
There is all this smoke about how Facebook may start charging users monthly fees to stalk one another. There are countless avenues they can pursue to profit without upsetting the proletariat.
Market Your Marketplace Rhetorical Question:
Why does Facebook categorize the Marketplace as an "application" versus just having it as a key component of their website? Ask a person on the street to tell you what "app" means. Facebook apps have a bad rep. I fathom that over 90% of Americans believe it's something that steals your personal information and sells it to advertisers. You are the #2 website in the world. Your marketplace should be marketable, not (cr)app. The options to monetize are endless.
Easy as Pi:
For me to access the Marketplace, I typed 'marketplace' into Search. It took me to the Marketplace Fan page. I then clicked the button "Go to application" and was directed to a poorly designed amalgam of classified ads. Later, looking at my Application Settings under the "Account" tab, I now see that Marketplace appears on my Application list with the option to 'remove' it... essentially equating it with a third party app like What Disney Princess are You? (Pocahontas). In a world where we want to clear out any unused programs and spyware, why does Facebook depict their Marketplace as if it were an extra program taking up space on your hard drive? Does having Marketplace as an application, mean you have granted them permission to spam you with ads based on your interests? People don't know. Perhaps it's in the Terms and Conditions that everyone reads.
Sidenote:
When I have ever clicked on applications out of curiosity (usually without realizing they were applications), but pressed the back button when a pop-up window appeared asking me to "Allow Access," the app still appeared on my list of Applications even though I never clicked "Allow Access." Even if it's harmless, this pisses people off. People like to think they have control, so don't let them feel like they've been tricked over something silly, because they may retaliate by never clicking on anything that even looks like it could be a third party app out of paranoia. Be straightforward about apps, eliminate the mystery and avoid deception.
Photo Privacy Settings: Tag and Hide-and-Go-Seek
Facebook has an all or nothing approach, like that O-Town song. I had my privacy settings set so friends of friends could see all albums. I'm a team player, and I had it this way so my friends' friends could see the good photos they were tagged in. Then, I realized I had friends who were pretty important and knew other important (..and not so important) people who I did not want peering through my photos, seeing my "true colors."
A Win-Win Solution:
Provide a privacy option so that friends of a friend who is tagged in a photo can see the specific photo(s) your friend is tagged in without having access to the rest of the album (..there may be some incriminating photos). Your friend's friends can click on your name and see no photos except your default picture, though still see this one great photo of your friend under his or her tagged photos. Everyone's happy.
Red Flags, Blue Balls
This one is huge. You hope a hottie posted a link to a cool band on your wall. What actually happened was your coworker's aunt commented on her Facebook status update, that you indiscriminately thumbed up last week to show moral support. Is this event really red-flag worthy?
I long for the days of Old School (The)Facebook. You saw birthdays, pokes, and if you were lucky... a large envelope appeared on your screen letting you know someone had sent you a message. It was quite magical. And was from a person just to you. Now we get little red flags alerting us a friend canceled her birthday that you only 'Maybe' wanted to attend and when 8 invitees reply-alled to this message. I vote that we color coordinate alerts. Mass group emails could be yellow, personal messages could be color coordinated based on gender. The hotter the pink the hotter the girl. The technology is probably out there.
Social apps try to make money by selling the data they collect from users to businesses, the lastest: Foursquare.
Checking in with Tristan Walker of Foursquare (via Restaurant News) Q: Some restaurateurs have said they’re testing an analytics dashboard for Foursquare, where owners can pay to create custom offers and badges. Is that coming soon? A: Yes. We hand-selected about 30 of our most passionate venue owners to test this. All of them care about two things: retention and acquisition. We help with acquisition by letting you see who comes in where, when, and where they go before and after they stop in.
When I wrote comments for The Times every day as a 22 yr old, my TimesPeople nom de plume was "Liz, NY" with no icon. I not-too-secretly longed for a gold star, or something recognizing that I was consistently the top readers' recommendation and highlighted by the editors.*
I believe they should incorporate Facebook's API but still allow people to create disguised identities of themselves.* By not requiring users to log into Facebook Connect to participate, but rather providing it as an option, would not exclude potential active users who wish to remain anonymous. Disqus, a widget platform for comments, allows users to log in with Facebook, Twitter, or anonymously. It would have to be customized to enable ability to rank commenters *within* the site.
Having a leaderboard which gives readers more incentive to stay active on the site, simply by getting recognition from their peers, would definitely bring in more hits.
First Try The Idea My best friend Jennifer and I were part of the Business Club at our all girls Catholic high school. There were 30 other students who wanted the similar item on their college resume. We came to a consensus to sell Finals T-shirts, pending approval by the administration for the non-uniform item. On AIM that night the ideas started to flow. The Survivor logo. After all, our school was ruthlessly competitive and Ms. Stasio's Calculus exam was the equivalent to walking through fire. Tagline: Outsmart, outcram, out ?
Outtahere. Yes. We wanted to get the hell out of there. Slyly subversive to capture student sentiment, yet tasteful enough to get Dean approval. I can come up with a good line, just can't draw one. Jennifer, who is now a successful freelance graphic designer, designed the logo to hand to the t-shirt maker. A girl clutching her Starbucks cup centered within the Survivor insignia. The shirts were navy blue and long sleeve with white print, as our school was frigid cold, navy complemented our uniform skirt, and one color was the cheapest option.
Marketing On top the teen beat, at the height of OC's popularity, I felt the only clear option was for the nerd-sexy Seth Cohen (played by Adam Brody) to sell these shirts. So we copied a cute photo of him and posted flyers on lockers and bathroom stalls that said "Seth says buy a finals t-shirt." His orders were followed and 40% of the student body bought shirts. Mission accomplished. While profits exceeded $1000, Jen and I each received $37.
Swing, and a Miss Every sports team had a small budget for T-shirts. As a proud member of the golf team (my friends do not consider this to be an actual support), what I lacked in distance I made up for in style. "Dude, Where's My Cart?" was a hit sophomore year. However, my "All Tiger (Our mascot animal), No Flakes" concept resulted in failure. At 17, I wasn't versed in copyright law, so instead of Tony the Tiger on the back of our shirt, the t-shirts came back with a poorly drawn cat.
Wayne Gretzky has a Quote About This In mid-September 2008 I came up with a cool idea. Obama "08" basketball jerseys. No one was making them. A basketball player had one specially made to present to Obama at a fundraiser. Some awkward t-shirt company made Obama Punahou t-shirt replicas. These babies would have made a killing (according to a straw poll of about 12 guy friends - number 13 said he would have purchased one labeled 'McCain'). The election would be over in a few weeks, and by the time I had a chance to design it, raise capital, find a manufacturer, and sell them it was over. Of course Obama (the man, the myth, the legend) was going to win. I did not exactly consider the magnitude of the situation - how campaign material wasn't just fan material, but rather memorabilia for such a momentous occasion and would continue to sell weeks past the inauguration. I had contacted a friend who worked for the Obama campaign for help, but he was not going to make it happen for me. If I wanted to do it, I would have to get it done. That involves taking a risk, and going balls to the wall. If you don't shoot, you don't score. Lesson learned.
I just want to make music videos. Santogold - I'm a Lady (they had their chance.)
The Tough Alliance- Looking for Gold (perfect song to play on a boat.)
Say Hi to Your Mom- These Fangs and Band of Horses- Our Swords don't have official vids and would be awesome to make.
Hillary, Sadaf, and I could do this song more justice: Discovery- Orange Shirt (download the Rock Remix, this is a side-project of Ra Ra Riot and Vampire Weekend)
Subscriptions are the New Black "If they forget their password, and/or can't recover it, then guess what MoFo -- YOU DON'T GET PAID. Which means you don't get Laid, you don't get Acquired, and you sure as friggin' hell don't get to Go IPO."
Cut Copy- Lights and Music, Feel the Love, Hearts on Fire
Santogold- Lights Out, I'm a Lady, L.E.S. Artistes
Discovery- Orange Shirt
Gorillaz- Rhinestone Eyes
New Order- Temptation 7" edit
Miike Snow- Animal, Sylvia, Black and Blue
The Big Pink- Dominos
Band of Horses- Our Swords
Andrew Bird- Fake Palindromes
Walter Meego- Forever
Kurt Vile- Freeway
The Sounds- Hurt You
Matt and Kim- Lessons Learned, Daylight
Manchester Orchestra- I've got Friends, I can feel a hot one
Miniature Tigers- Tchaikovsky and Solitude
We Were Promised Jetpacks- It's Thunder and It's Lightning
The Tough Alliance- Looking for Gold
Basement Jaxx- Raindrops
Hey Champ- Cost Dust Girl, Face Control
Say Hi To Your Mom- These Fangs, Sweet Heartkiller
Francis and the Lights- On a Train, Strawberries
Teddybears feat. Iggypop- Punkrocker
Pela- Lost to the Lonesome
The National- Slow Show, Brainy, Blank Slate, Fake Empires, Start a War
Crash the Satellites- Learning to Land
The XX - Islands, Heart Skipped a Beat, Crystalised
Sleigh Bells- Ring, Ring