Posted by Jacob Harris Thu, 27 Oct 2005 17:09:49 GMT
Apologies again for the lack of posting. I’m in the midst of another long rut of writer’s block and working on a lot of outside projects. In the meantime, be sure to check out this blog’s hosting company Planet Argon for their lovely new site design, written in Ruby on Rails of course. Things have been running a lot more smoothly since I moved this blog over, and I highly recommend them for your hosting needs.
Posted by Jacob Harris Fri, 07 Oct 2005 20:46:00 GMT
It seems like I’m not the only person thinking about the Web2.0 hype in terms of the previous bubble. There have been two interesting articles posted on the subject, sparked by massive interest in the Web2.0 conference this year (for me, it’s an effect of finding an old exuberant issue of Wired from 1998).
First up, there is a post on the subject from O’Reilly Radar titled If Everyone Thinks It’s a Bubble, It’s Not a Bubble. This quite frankly is an idiotic title. I’m not a VC, but near the end of dot-com boom, even I and everbody knew that things were undervalued and it was a bubble. Still, many people thought they could cash out in time. Anyhow, despite that disappointing start, this article redeems itself with the following insight
Here at Web 2.0, no one believes the mania, at least not yet. No one thinks, as they did in 1999, that we’re looking at new technologies that will, say, wipe away bricks and mortar retailers and leave online businesses in their place. No one believes that old and powerful industries are about to be destroyed en masse by the rise of asynchronous Javascript or data as the Intel inside. These Web 2.0 markers are great developments, and are enabling great applications to get attention and immediately dominate the Web applications they replace. They’ve clearly valuable. As of yet, though, Web 2.0 is a revision of the Web and what has been built on it, not a revision of the world, which was the premise of the last bubble.
Which is very true. As much as we can joke and fret about the Web2.0 hype, it has not been on the level of the hype back in the previous bubble. Where the web was going to annihilate geography, change the way we shop, and connect us all in one happy hive-mind. Expectations are more realistic now on the technical side, but I do wonder if people still believe in Google and Yahoo too much.
From a different perspective, Fred Wilson has answered my silent prayers and given me an example of what a VC thinks about Web2.0 . Fred’s a really smart guy (I am only slightly biased because he’s an investor in Alacra), so I like to think he reflects the thinking among the smart money in the tech sector when he notes:
Last year at this time we were talking about interesting companies like Skype, Flickr, MySpace, etc.
Many of them are gone, gobbled up by the web 1.0 giants or the mainstream media companies.
In their places we are seeing second derivatives. I heard one business described as Google Maps meets delicious, and another described as Skype meets MySpace. When the first derivative hasn’t fully figured its long term business model (other than getting bought), the second derivates are pretty scary.
I am a contrarian at heart. This situation bothers me.
Translation: VCs won’t just fund your mashup because it’s cool. As I was ranting the other day, there has to be more to a business plan than hoping to be be bought by Yahoo or Google, and it’s even sillier to expect fame and riches from doing a mashup. Thankfully, rational voices are prevailing here, so the innovations of Web2.0 won’t be lost in the disappointment of a bubble bursting.
Posted by Jacob Harris Wed, 05 Oct 2005 16:06:00 GMT
Back in the day of the first Web boom, it seems like a lot of companies were started on the simple premise of
And so, a boom and bubble was born. The problem here was a lot of VCs and rational investors found themselves swept up in the frenzy back in the day, and placed their bets even though there was no real knowable way to accurately estimate the future profitability or net worth of their investments. Sure, there was a risk of failure, but that wasn’t viewed as negatively as the risk of not getting in early while it was still cheap. Add that to the later shared delusion of being able to cash out before the bubble burst, and the shortsightedness of those days is a lot more understandable. It seems though we’re on the verge of a new way of thinking:
Maybe I’m being a bit pessimistic (and I will freely admit I’m no business expert), but I am slightly concerned about there being a new web bubble that could lead to disillusionment over Web2.0 technology. I like Google, but I think their stock is too overvalued at over $300 a share; thankfully, the company seems interested in correcting this problem. And Web2.0 has become such a hype word among investors, it’s led to a wave of people trying to define what it is, offering alternative definitions, and mocking the business world for caring Investors looking for the next big thing are starting to latch onto the Web2.0 excitement and I think some people think Google and Yahoo can do no wrong; I only hope they do their homework first this time.
On the technical side of things, I have a fear of web developers starting companies with the sole goal of being bought by Google or Yahoo in a few years or less. There’s a big difference between planning a business for the long haul and hoping to get snatched up before you burn through all your cash in two years. So, I must admit it was with some dismay today that I read that Yahoo has acquired Upcoming.org, just like it had with Flickr. This is not to begrudge Upcoming their success (it’s a great web app), but I’m just afraid of where the combination of lazy web developers and over-eager investors will take us. We’ve been there before, and I don’t want to see it again.
And of course, the biggest problem with all this is the way in which this weaking leads to the end of the openness and choice out there now. How many options are there really if your choice for web applications is between Yahoo and Google? Will this lead to a segmentation of content and communication? And more importantly, if you think that the Web2.0 is all about the free flow and interchange of data, won’t the growth of Google and Yahoo into all areas of the Internet choke that off?
Posted by Jacob Harris Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:55:00 GMT
A pleasant surprise was waiting for me when I got home today. A copy of Chad Fowler’s excellent book My Job Went To India was waiting for me in the mail. I’m not sure that I can give an objective review (for reasons I’ll go into here), but if you are serious about making a career in programming, you should buy this book.
What Mr. Fowler does here is to take a fair and interesting look at how outsourcing has affected the field of software development. If you want a breathy ode to a flat world where we’re all information works or a hysterical screed against them foreigners taking jobs, this is not a book for you. But if you’re a programmer like me who likes to develop, but also wants to know how to control his career, this book has the pragmatic information you need.
The problem is, most software devlopers really don’t deserve their jobs more than a given developer in India or somewhere else (don’t fault them for their zeal and definitely do not underestimate their smarts). We usually fail in several ways:
As I was noting earlier, self promotion is one of biggest failings of geeks these days. I realized this was my biggest problem last year, but I’m glad to see such an authoritative and well-crafted examination of the problem in Chad’s book.
Which brings me to why I must concede I can’t give an entirely objective review to this book. Around six months ago, I decided to get more involved in the online community. I started blogging, and I started reading blogs of alpha geeks whose judgements I respected. This included people in the Ruby on Rails community, and Chad’s blog was one of them. A short time later, Chad asked for test readers for his draft manuscript, and I offered to help. He accepted me as a test editor, and i enjoyed the experience immensely. It was a great way to test the strength of his book and correct weaknesses, and I have to commend Chad for it. And I’m proud I could help out and become more involved with my career in the process. It’s a good book. Buy it. It’s worth it.
Posted by Jacob Harris Fri, 30 Sep 2005 07:09:00 GMT
That said, I think one thing is missing from the picture they provide. Maybe I am a bit preoccupied with the subject, but I think RSS (or Atom here, I’m just using RSS as shorthand for syndication) is really one of the biggest things driving Web2.0 services and adoption these days, but it hasn’t even gotten a mention in the top as an influencing technology (unlike blogs or Gmail). I think blogs were great at establishing RSS as a way of keeping track of changes, but the really influential aspect of Del.icio.us and Flickr is not just tagging, but establishing RSS as a mechanism for tracking any possible view of the system you might want in as light-weight and user-friendly mechanism as possible (as opposed to the awkwardness of SOAP or even REST to the end user).
I think the source of my unease here is that I’m mostly a backend guy. A lot of my work at Alacra has been making sure that all sorts of information flows agilely between processes and servers. Backend stuff. It makes it happen, but if it’s working, you never notice how critical it is to success. Similarly, AJAX and other front-end browser mechanisms are very nice in my mind. But the biggest joys and successes of Web2.0 are all driven by the fluidity and ease of RSS and REST. “Hackability”, “Data as Intel Inside”, “Right to Remix” ... RSS made this a possibility and these are what drives me to take Web2.0 seriously and not just as another wave of web hype. All I’m asking for is a little recognition. Thanks.
Update: The good news is that it seems like I’m not alone in this view. The bad news is my company is Dave Winer.
Posted by Jacob Harris Fri, 23 Sep 2005 10:03:00 GMT
As you may have guessed from this site, I am hardly a person you would expect to praise Microsoft for their technical insight and forward thinking. Like the story about generals, they always seem to be fighting the last war, with their late arrival to the Internet and Web being a current and recurring example (now, rather than Netscape, it’s Google that is seen as their greatest threat). However, occasionally they get a thing right along the way, and I feel honor-bound to note it in this case.
Over at The Register, there is an article RSS Goes To Work In Windows detailing the ways in which Microsoft has jumped onto the RSS bandwagon with Windows Vista (shipping next year, maybe?). For those of you following along at home, Microsoft is planning to ship a built in RSS-store capability in Windows which will allow any application compiled against the appropriate API to be an RSS aggregator and manipulate feeds programmatically. This is a nice touch, but hardly a stretch yet.
What is interesting to me is that Microsoft discusses their plans to have the next release of their Dynamics CRM software to create RSS feeds that can be syndicated to. Other server applications with RSS extensions in the works are Sharepoint Portal, Exchange, and possible Office. As the article quotes it
“CRM is one of the first examples of how we see RSS unlocking data in the back end data systems,” Amar Gandhi, Microsoft Internet Explorer group program manager, told The Register during a recent interview. Microsoft revealed plans to RSS-enable its CRM last week at the Professional Developers’ Conference (PDC)
Chris Caposella, vice president for Microsoft’s information worker product management group, told software developers attending PDC Microsoft believes RSS would be transformed into a platform that embraces business applications.
That last paragraph was something I’d never see. Because honestly, I never thought people would “accept” RSS in the Enterprise. While we can joke about how meaningless the term Enterprise Software is, RSS is definitely not it by any usual sense of the term for several reasons:
That said, I think all of these aspects are why RSS has succeeded so widely in the world of the Web2.0, while SOAP has largely failed to gain traction. In fact, considering that one of SOAP’s biggest backers is Microsoft, this RSS announcement reveals what a disappointment SOAP has been as a web service platform. So, why is a company like Microsoft so willing to reject one of its software initiatives and embrace RSS so, in effect giving RSS an mantle of legitimacy in the Enterprise it might’ve taken years to achieve?
I think that if we want to consider the biggest Web2.0 trend for the coming year, it won’t be the proliferation of AJAX or increasing maturity of Web Frameworks. It’ll be the proliferation of RSS into every aspect of server-side content. One of the greatest things about Flickr and Del.icio.us is that you can subscribe to an RSS feed for every possible page. And since pages are dynamic content (combinations of photos, groups, tags, users), what you are really subscribing to is not a list of documents, but the latest matches for a search (ie, “find me all photos tagged Italy by this user”). And it’s easy to do, regardless of the site.
One of the cool features of Mac OSX Tiger’s Spotlight (and probably Windows Vista) is the ability to save searches as virtual folders which can be opened and browsed like regular folders in the Finder. This is a really cool way to manage ever-growing content. Now, imagine being able to do similar functionality with server-side content, and suddenly the appeal of RSS makes a lot of sense (admittedly since RSS usually shows only the last 20 items or so, there is a you snooze, you lose problem, the general metaphor holds). Most of the Web2.0 is about taking the applications of the desktop into the browser, this brings the web back into the machine and applications.
No wonder Microsoft suddenly has the RSS Religion. Done well, this might be their best chance to keep people hooked into Windows and all their software products for business. Of course, they are trying to do the old embrace, extend, extinguish trick, but this time it may not fly because Microsoft’s not in the driver’s seat for the technology. That said, I must admit that Microsoft has made a smart and proactive move for the future here, and I think it’ll benefit them well. But more importantly, it lends a large amount of authority to RSS in the Enterprise, which makes RSS and the Open Source Standards-Based community the biggest winner of all. At Alacra, we’ve felt that RSS will be much bigger in the Enterprise for a while. It’s neat to see we’re not alone.
Posted by Jacob Harris Wed, 21 Sep 2005 04:39:00 GMT
If you haven’t seen it already, Anil Dash’s blog article titled Web Development Trends for 2006 is a worthwhile read for those curious about the future of web technology in the next year.
For me, the overall theme of this list is “Web2.0 Grows Up”. For starters, I would agree that what he terms dampening and buffering are really the main ways in which AJAX use will mature from just a “gee-whiz” factor to a basic usability requirement. I think this will be helped along by sites standardizing basic interface designs and Ajax libraries like script.aculo.us easing the way for new users. This might also be what pushes more people to do XHTML/CSS, not because of Greasemonkey, but because it’s the only way to get your AJAX stuff to work reliably.
I think the ATOM API might be important as well, but I think the bigger trend for 2006 will be the widespread adoption of syndication support (be it RSS2.0 or Atom) in many more places. RSS shines right not as a lightweight information sharing mechanism that puts REST to shame, not to mention the huge mess that is SOAP. It’s small wonder that even Microsoft has adopted RSS support within Windows Vista. While I suppose the Atom API will create a new buzz, I think the bigger excitement will be web developers placing RSS in places there are none and finding new creative ways to use RSS that haven’t been dreamed of yet.
One area that Anil Dash highlights that I would like to see come to fruition though is geeks marketing themselves. On this, he is completely correct on the importance of this, but I haven’t seen much evidence of this in the past. However, I think it might change soon. For starters, more developers and geeks are actively getting their presence out there, mainly by showing that blogging is not just for livejournal teens talking about their daily emotions. The profusion of several active Wikis is also a promising sign. Finally, I have to hope that Chad Fowler’s forthcoming book My Job Went to India (which I had the honor of test reading) will be enough to convince the remaining stragglers of the importance of promoting themselves for their careers.
I believe it’s as essential as learning to code these days. Which is why I’ve started blogging in the first place. But I will write more on that later…
Posted by Jacob Harris Fri, 16 Sep 2005 01:49:00 GMT
It’s an interesting time for web development. Not only is Ruby On Rails steaming along towards version 1.0, but it’s spurring the development of other web frameworks in the MVC mold.
As a case in point, consider Django, a new web framework written in Python. Now, I have been dabbling in Ruby on Rails, but I don’t really have the time to learn Python yet sadly, and I can’t really figure out which would be better to do a site from scratch in. What is a developer to do?
Thankfully, fellow blogger Jeremy Voorhis has stepped into the gap. If you haven’t seen it, be sure to check out his entries on working with Django on his blog.
Incidentally, there does not seem to be much ire or competition against relative newcomer Django by the Rails people. In truth, there never should be. It’s a big enough web for both, and I think there are some things that each framework can learn from each other (Django could benefit from something like ActiveRecord, Rails would be improved if it had Django’s mechanism for specifying database schema). Such situations are rare in the computing world (see the eternal flames of emacs vs. vi, windows vs. mac, compiled vs. scripting, typed languages vs. dynamic typing, etc.), which makes such cooperation all the more remarkable.
Posted by Jacob Harris Fri, 26 Aug 2005 07:50:00 GMT
Posting will be light, my nonexistant readers for the next week. I am off to Cape Cod to enjoy the fine weather and calm beaches before September starts up. I hope to spend most of the time away from the computer too. So I will see you when I get back, and be sure to enjoy the last of summer and eat more ice cream.
Posted by Jacob Harris Fri, 26 Aug 2005 07:40:00 GMT
Mark my words, Hoodwink.d is one of the silliest and yet coolest new things to hit the web in a while. I won’t tell you more, but I hope to see you there soon.
Update: I stand corrected. Hoodwink.d is really a vile plot to destroy the Internet as we know it and rob us of all we love and hold dear. The resulting collapse of faith in our electronic friends will of course trigger despair, disillusionment, doubt, and more consumption of rich chocolately ice cream (it’s not all dystopic). It’s dire, but not inevitable. This can be averted now before it’s too late. Do your part. Keep using Internet Explorer. Try not to tinker. And definitely steer clear of a man called Json Parser. Thank you.
Nimble Code is the blog of me, Jacob Harris, a software developer living in Brooklyn and working on websites for the New York Times.
Oh yeah, I wrote a book too.
Contact me at harrisj at nimblecode.com
Site hosted by the excellent people at Planet Argon
Thanks to Damien Tanner for the iamrice theme of this site.
