Ajax Girl

FreeYourID is a new web service that allows users to register a personal .Name domain name which in turn can be used as an OpenID identifier, website URL and email host. Your domain name will be in the format of first.last.name and the domain can then be directed to a website, host email aliases or more interestingly, be used as login credentials for services that support OpenID.

For those of you unfamiliar with OpenID it’s an open standards based identity network similar to Microsoft Password that allows you to login to any website that supports the standard using the same credentials. It alleviates the problem of having multiple accounts and multiple identities at different serives and allows you to have a single unique username, password an in-turn profile. To use OpenID, your identity is stored on a trusted identity provider. Instead of logging into a site directly, you log into your identity provider, which upon your verification, shares whatever identity information you choose with the site.

Currently there are a number of steps involved for a user to setup an OpenID identity, but with FreeYourID you can use your own .Name domain and have your OpenID identity setup and served automatically in a simple single-step signup process. With your OpenID enabled .Name domain setup you can then automatically login to any of the growing number of services that support the open identity protocol (for a list see here). This automation is key to helping OpenID reach a wider audience.

In addition, FreeYourID will be rolling out integration with Lycos Europe and Pageflakes. Lycos will be releasing a new product, which will use .name URIs for identity across email, IM, and VOIP. Pageflakes, within a week, will be rolling out personalized .Name addresses for their users to access their accounts. FreeYourID also recently partnered with JanRain to act as their OpenID server.

FreeYourID is giving away free 90 day trial of .Name addresses ($2.99/qtr or $10.95/yr. afterwards).

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/91453472/

The Vista marketing challenge saw an interesting new development today with the announcement that Microsoft has hired Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg as Enthusiast Evangelist.  Gartenberg says in a blog post on his move that he will “find, engage and work with enthusiasts and other influencers and show them all the cool stuff that Microsoft is doing. In short, it’s our [department’s] job to act as the bridge between Microsoft and end users.”

The experiment with Robert Scoble as Microsoft’s blogging point man must have worked well, as the company has now hired two very high profile commentators to carry out functions similar to what Scoble did.  Bringing Jon Udell over from InfoWorld in December was the first of two notable coups.

Gartenberg has served as the Jupiter Research vice president and research director for the Personal Technology & Access and Custom Research groups.  He’s a highly respected analyst who was quoted extensively by press upon the release of Vista.  ”The challenge,” Gartenberg said about Vista two weeks ago, “is that it’s the only product on the market that has to appeal to the CIOs of Fortune 500 companies and my mother all at the same time.”  Presumably Gartenberg’s mother is now more favorably inclined than she might have been before.

The announcement has been received warmly but a few questions have been raised.  It’s a perfect example of one of today’s leading questions:  is the benefit of bringing a respected public figure onto the payroll greater than the potential loss of credibility that person risks?

Hiring social media power users to evangelize for your company’s product is becoming an increasingly common practice.  From Microsoft’s hiring Gartenberg and Udel to startups like Revver, who has Micki Krimmel, and Pluggd - who recently hired Drew Olanoff.  (Disclosure: post TechCrunch, I took a job doing similar work at SplashCast and I feel great about it.) The pioneer in this field, Robert Scoble, sometimes faces criticism for an alleged lack of clarity in the business model and editorial independence of the startup he joined, PodTech. Here’s one of Scoble’s responses.

Pure editorial independence may have always been an illusion.  Full disclosure may solve the problem all together.  What better way is there for a tech company, whose own executives are unlikely to be skilled in the use of new social media, to embrace the possibilities?  Consumers want corporate transparency but you’d better believe that companies are going to hired skilled practitioners if they are going to engage in the conversations that blogging and podcasting make possible.

Most pertinently perhaps, can an All-Star communications lineup make up for the PR mess and widely known problems that Microsoft and its software already face?  

Here’s some more of Gartenberg’s thoughts on the position.

Why Microsoft? There’s a revolution going on. A battle for the hearts and minds of consumers in terms of their digital lives. I firmly believe that Microsoft is the only company that will enable the seamless transition for users to move in and out of the different aspects of their lives. In short, no one else comes close to presenting a complete, unified and integrated view of the digital home of the 21st century.

Whether it’s work, school or home, Microsoft has the potential to change lives even more than they already have. Who else could deliver mission critical technology to the business world, create the best Smartphone operating system, build a successful platform for console games (and pioneer online and connected play) and take on the iPod. All at the same time.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/91325004/

Have a heavy load that needs lifting? Have the kids do it.

This picture was taken from a big heavy box delivered to our office today. We get the point of the illustration, but we couldn’t help but chuckle about how the people look like 9 year olds. Thanks for the photo, BB.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/273-get-the-kids-to-lift-it

Every once in a while we get an email from a customer asking about how permissions work with our products. They’re almost always asking how to prevent someone from doing something. “How do we prevent someone from posting a message or adding a to-do or downloading a file? How can we make our project site read only except for a select few?”

When we set out to build Basecamp we decided that it was going to be about communication, not control. It is our belief that when you collaborate with trusted parties it’s important for people to be able to communicate any way they see fit. Preventing someone from saying or doing something often breaks these free flowing communication channels and introduces miscommunication or silence—two cancers of collaboration.

We do have some permissions in Basecamp. There are some basic controls over who can do what, but as far as products like Basecamp go, Basecamp would be considered among the least controlling. If we started all over today we’d probably have even less permissions and less controls. Some of the controls we’ve put in place have turned out to make collaboration harder, not easier.

Back to the customers… When they ask how to prevent people from doing this or that I usually reply with something like “Have you tried asking them not to do this or that? If you don’t want them to upload files just ask them not to. If you don’t want them to create to-do lists just ask them not to. Communicate with them as you would if you weren’t using software.”

And to my delight, their replies are usually “Great idea! I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll try that and see how it works.” Follow-up emails usually come back as success stories.

Simply communicating with people about your expectations of their behavior is often the simplest and most effective solution. It’s respectful, it’s kind, it’s fair. And if someone does something you didn’t want them to do just remind them politely that they weren’t supposed to do that. They’ll almost always get it the second time.

So next time you are looking for more control, consider more communication. It may surprise you.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/272-control-vs-communication

CrunchGear reports that Yahoo recently received a ‘Dynamic Page Generator’ patent that has the potential to impact business development, and the futures, of many similarly featured companies including Google, Netvibes, Rojo and many other Web 2.0 companies.

More…

Patent Monkey

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/91259210/

In a substantial upgrade this morning, the TV listing discovery service MeeVee has integrated a number of online media types along with its broadcast TV listings, including viral videos.  It’s a good move that will make the company all the more relevant in a world that is increasingly blurring the line between traditional and online media.

MeeVee’s basic service allows users to input their favorite actors, genres and keywords to be cross referenced with their local TV providers listings for a personalized viewing schedule.  Though this is fun to use, as Michael Arrington pointed out it’s relevance is somewhat mitigated by the widespread move towards time shifted TV viewing.  The company also provides a widget that can be placed off-site to display what you’re watching on television - though I personally couldn’t care less how your personal interests intersect with your local TV listings.

Note that the company’s site is not Mac friendly - it crashes Safari every time I open the front page and requires a WMV viewer to watch the TV it offers.

Today’s addition of online video from a number of sites functions like a splicing of search feeds run along side your MeeVee TV recommendations.  That’s smart.  I don’t know why more companies aren’t using online video search feeds to facilitate personalized discovery.  

MeeVee’s blog is one of the most prolific of any vendor blog I watch; the company writes every day about TV news.  That’s built a strong brand awareness throughout the blogosphere. Today the company added a “blog central” section to the site, where hand picked posts from various entertainment blogs around the web can be found.  They are presented nicely.  In most cases, the company told me, those posts are used in a content exchange though I’m guessing that some other compensation may occur at times.  If that content proves wildly compelling to users I wouldn’t be surprised to see this become a more serious part of what the company does.  The blog central section of the site is, at launch at least, not positioned very prominently on the site however.

MeeVee was rumored to have raised approximately $8 million in funding last August.  If MeeVee could build some sort of tie in with PVRs and could send these recommended online videos to your TV set, I think its prospects could be greatly improved.  I’m sure they are thinking the same thing.

For now, MeeVee does well in the “wow” department and could be useful for some people.  It’s moving in a good direction and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become an important player in this space if it can pull of a couple more big moves.

Marshall Kirkpatrick is the Director of Content at SplashCast and will be assisting with TechCrunch while Michael Arrington travels.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/91233502/

Google actually relies on our users to help with our marketing. We have a very high percentage of our users who often tell others about our search engine. — Sergey Brin

So spake one of the co-founders of Google. But what happens when your users start to tell others about your search engines in ways that you don’t like? When they present your search results in ways that hurt or confuse your brand? You would probably try to control how those users used those results. That seems to be what Google has done with the release of their new Google Ajax Search API.

Somewhat lost in the hype around the release of the Ajax API was the discontinuation of the Google SOAP Search API. It’s still available to existing subscribers, but no new ones are being signed up. To see why this discontinuation is an exercise in brand discipline, you just have to look at the terms of use for the Ajax API:

You agree that you will not, and you will not permit your users or other third parties to: (a) modify or replace the text, images, or other content of the Google Search Results, including by (i) changing the order in which the Google Search Results appear, (ii) intermixing Search Results from sources other than Google, or (iii) intermixing other content such that it appears to be part of the Google Search Results; or (b) modify, replace or otherwise disable the functioning of links to Google or third party websites provided in the Google Search Results.

The key terms here are that the order and appearance cannot be modified. And that is the essence of the Google brand: the order of the search terms. Fortunes are made and lost based on Google search position. Business plans are build around it. Millions of people around the world use the top ten results to find information, guide purchasing decisions, and so on. Mess with that order in some consistent way — in some, god forbid, way that people find valuable — and you’ve lost control of your brand, who you are, and likely your ability to advertise.

Now, with the new API, you can only use and display Google data inside a tightly circumscribed, parameterized boundary. Their order, their look and feel, their ads, their brand.

Of course there are many other ways of presenting search results. Many of the more interesting.ways to present the data reorder the results according to other criteria or third-party data (like other search results), or even dispense with a linear order. Now if you want to pull in search data and manipulate it in this way, you’re going to have to use the Yahoo! REST API’s. But will Yahoo! follow suit and get rid of their general API’s in favor of brand-preserving Ajax widgets? Dave Megginson doesn’t think so, but sees some clouds on the horizon.

Data APIs are not going to disappear, of course. AJAX widgets don’t allow mash-ups, and some sites have user bases including many developers who rely on being able to combine data from different sources (think CraigsList). However, the fact that Google has decided that there’s no value playing in the space will matter a lot to a lot of people. If you care about open data, this would be a good time to start thinking of credible business cases for companies to (continue) offer(ing) it.

I view this as a Hertz vs Avis opportunity for Yahoo! — “we try harder” with web services. Where Google might have been the first choice for many developers, now many will build the Yahoo! API’s into their applications and their frameworks. It takes just a few common plugins for packages like Drupal to boost market share.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used copy of “Google Hacks?” Drop me an email. I’ll be busy helping Yahoo!’s marketing by telling other’s about their search.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/the-business-of-ajax-googles-ajax-search-api

Ex-Gizmodo guru Joel Johnson returns to the site to rant about why he hates gadgets and early adopters.

Stop buying this crap. Just stop it. You don’t need it. Wait a year until the reviews come out and the other suckers too addicted to having the very latest and greatest buy it, put up a review, and have moved on to something else. Stop buying broken products and then shrugging your shoulders when it doesn’t do what it is supposed to. Stop buying products that serve any other master than you. Use older stuff that works. Make it yourself. Only buy new stuff from companies that have proven themselves good servants of their customers in the past. Complaining online about this stuff helps, but really, just stop buying it.

You want to know the punchline? The average Joe that makes up the market is smarter than you saps. The market-at-large waits until a clear leader emerges, then takes a modest plunge. You may think you’re making up the “bleeding edge” of “gadget pimpatude” but you’re really just a loose confederation of marks the consumer electronics industry uses as free market research and easy money.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/271-ex-gizmodo-guru-says-average-joes-are-smarter-than-early-adopters

We look at a lot of Ajax applications, and we have seen a lot of trends over the last couple of years.

In general we are maturing, but as complexity has gone up in Ajax applications we are seeing one scary trend.

The first set of apps simply added some <script> that did some happy XMLHttpRequest dancing. Then we abstracted to libraries such as Dojo and Prototype. Then people tried to do the right thing and use unobtrusive JavaScript where we keep the HTMl structure separate from the code. We would all like to see more of this.

Unfortunately, we are starting to see Ajax applications that look more like Flash web pages:

The entire application is in JS that generates HTML to be embedded. If it wasn’t for Firebug and friends we would have no idea what was going on. Debugging this is a nightmare. Doesn’t it look like Flash pages with an embed/object pair of tags only?

I hope that the open web solutions can stick with nice unobtrusive JavaScript, or is View Source dead?

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/saving-view-source

Some quotes from an interview Stanley Kubrick gave about the film Barry Lyndon [via CP]…

There is an aspect of film-making which can be compared to a sporting contest. You can start with a game plan but depending on where the ball bounces and where the other side happens to be, opportunities and problems arise which can only be effectively dealt with at that very moment.

[On the topic of period costuming] What is very important is to get some actual clothes of the period to learn how they were originally made. To get them to look right, you really have to make them the same way.

(That’s a Christopher Alexander theme too…you can’t make “the same thing” with a different process.)

I think Nabokov may have had the right approach to interviews. He would only agree to write down the answers and then send them on to the interviewer who would then write the questions.

…and here’s a couple more interesting quotes from thinkexist.com’s Kubrick quotes page.

If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.

Perhaps it sounds ridiculous but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.

Related: All of Coudal’s posts on Stanley Kubrick (“A look back through our archives reveals an obsession with the work of Stanley Kubrick…”)

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/268-stanley-kubrick-quotes