Ajax Girl

Los Angeles based TutorLinker just relaunched with a new design and functionality. They’ve created a marketplace to find tutors based on geography (including a Google maps mashup), subject matter and pricing.

This is the kind of site that I really like to review. The creators are two UCLA college students. No venture financing or big team of developers. Just two guys creating the kind of service they’d like to use.

While the design is great, there are a couple of features that could be added that would make the service easier to use. Search is currently based only on location, although each tutor in they system has filled out a detailed profile that includes subjects they would like to tutor in. Allowing search or browsing by those subjects right at the top level would make things easier.

They should also allow user ratings of tutors, which isn’t there right now. Feedback will provide prospective customers a good idea of how well this tutor has done in the past, and it will also build community participation.

One way for them to expand beyond their current walled garden is to build an API into the service as well. There are lots of parenting sites, including social networks, that may be willing to add this functionality to their sites.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/102687240/

There are hundreds of Ajax libraries and frameworks out there. How do you choose one that’s right for you? Sébastien Just (Seaiji Design) has a few pointers.

server independant or not ?
server independant frameworks will help you in mashing-up server technologies and lowly ties your software architecture while server dependant frameworks may increase your productivity but makes difficult major changes to your projects.

structural Javascript enhancements ?
Javascript can become a maze if your team does not share a common development methodology . There are so many ways of doing the same thing ( like creating objects of accessing the DOM ) in JS, that you must formalize the way to do it. Such a framework may help via on-demand Javascript, packaging abilities, enhanced OOP…

re-usability of your written components ?
making use of it shall help you in re-using written components in your next projects.

framework current documentation level ?
often low for most projects, you must take care of it

features you need ?
you may look at your projects needs ( or near future needs ) and see if the Framework can handle them. Some are GUI oriented, special-effects oriented, Javascript centrics, communication only oriented. None will completely cover your requirements. What is the complexity degree in making the framework evolve ? can you add your own features in the framework ? will you help committers ? Can you mashup multiple Frameworks ?

How long will it last ?
Most projects are companies own projet spin-off. The Framework evolution depends on their ability to maintain and make the project evolve. A good user community is important as well as talking to developers when needed further functionalities.
Taking care of sponsors and the framework current uses in production web sites, is a good start in guessing if the Framework will last years or will be stopped in six months.

What sort of support ?
Is there a community support ? commercial support ? test reactivity while testing it.

How steep is the learning curve for the framework?
Can your team handle such a technology. Many developers are reluctant to Javascript . Can they handle such a change, is the Framework simple to understand ?

Who are my visitors ?
It seems that a very light framework is required for a public site. If your visitors need to upload a large Javascript API, they may not visit further your website, depending on your page’s download times. When working on intranets, or professionnal services, it may be acceptable that the first access to the application may be longer, moreover when the website is used daily. Also think about on-demand Javascript and Javascript compression.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/choosing-an-ajax-framework

I have the pleasure of confirming the rumors: Heather Harde, currently the SVP of Mergers and Acquisitions at Fox Interactive Media, will start her new job as the CEO of the TechCrunch Network (and my boss) by the end of the month. This isn’t the way I hoped to announce this news, but Om Malik broke the story after an internal Fox email got out.

It was tough to talk Heather out of leaving Fox, where she’s been for the last ten years. In that time she’s had a combination of operating and corporate development roles. Most recently, she was part of the founding executive team of Fox Interactive Media. At FIM she ran the mergers and acquisitions team, which was responsible for eight acquisitions, totaling $1.3 billion, and two equity investment deals. Prior to Fox, Heather was at business school at Harvard.

There is a lot for her to do. She will run every aspect of our business other than editorial, which I’ll be focusing on for now. TechCrunch has grown faster than I could manage over the last couple of years. Heather’s job will be to leverage the opportunities that we have sometimes let slip by, and to manage our organic and acquisition growth going forward.

If you can’t tell, I’m pretty excited to have her on board. More announcements are coming soon.

Photo credit: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/102532061/