Netscape can make Digg popular

15 Thursday Jun 2006

Posted by in Technology, Web 2.0

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So the news today is that Netscape is launching a "Digg killer". (Note how the entry used to be say "Digg-like site" instead of "Digg killer". Gotta love the sensational headlines!)

OK, ok, I went to www.netscape.com this morning, and I was shocked to find out that it had a Google Pagerank of 9. Wow. Who still goes to Netscape? No one I know ever thinks about Netscape. Shows you how much I know about stuff.

Tech Crunch has some interesting things to say about it, but I think it's missing a big part about it. It's not really about the features or even the number of page views that Netscape.com gets. The interesting thing about this launch is that AOL/Netscape have the opportunity to reach a completely different audience than Digg. The editorial panel (who are getting slammed by the community purists out there) can guide the stories to of more popular interest than geeky interest.  And that's very important.  If they can get the mainstream market to vote on stories, and build a community around that, then they have something.

Check out Digg anytime and the top stories are the same: product launches, tech company announcements, or freakish stories of the truly weird. I know it might just totally suck, but people want to see stories about Britney's raging hormones and Brangelina's baby.

Despite the popularity of Digg in certain circles, the vast majority of people have not heard of it. And with the demographic that Digg currently has, it will never have the mass appeal that will attract the non-geeks out there. That's where the "evil" editorial panel is valuable: you can guide the direction of the stories, and therefore, guide the direction of the demographic that you attract.  And after you build up enough of that demographic, the editorial panel can step aside and let the community do it's magic.

You know who could do it better? I think CNN.com, actually, because they have the stories, they have the offline brand, and they also have a 9 Pagerank. And strangely, they also are owned by AOL-Time Warner.  Hmmm…. Conspiracy?

Google killing the Internet?

11 Sunday Jun 2006

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Interesting article at the Motley Fool about Google’s effect on the Internet.

Do I believe it? No, and I don’t think Seth Jayson believes it either. I bet he’s likes making controversial statements just to drive traffic, like a lot of journalists/bloggers do (like John Dvorak for PCMag and Skip Bayless at ESPN.com).

But, no, clearly Google isn’t killing the Internet, but they aren’t the champions of all that is good and wholesome in this world either (“the hype machine is all around you”).

Anyway, interesting read.

Google Spreadsheets falls short

06 Tuesday Jun 2006

Posted by in AJAX, Technology, Web 2.0

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Now, Homestead has as a fairly complex AJAX application for page editing called SiteBuilder Lite. I know it well and I know that while AJAX is really easy, really good AJAX is difficult.  And at that level, I appreciate what Google has done with Google Spreadsheets.  It’s a good feat of engineering.

I’m also a very experienced Excel user. I’m no great fan of MS, but I recognize that Excel is one awesome piece of software. In my humble opinion, it’s the best thing they have and is really indispensible in pretty much everything that I do, and everything that businesses (small and large) do.  So after watching the videos on Google Blogoscoped (I have to admit I haven’t played with Google Spreadsheets myself, as I didn’t get an invitation), it’s really obvious that MS has nothing to worry about.

Why?

  • Philipp Lenssen has a miserable time dealing with sorting data (can’t deal with header rows) and inserting data. (Starting at 1:28 in the first video)
  • While the formula list is extensive, the interface for dealing with them is really weak (especially it’s issues with reselecting cells for use in a formula). (5:22 in the first video)
  • No graphing capabilities.
  • Because I’ve only seen the video, I don’t know what the keyboard shortcuts are, but in Excel, keyboard interface is very important.
  • From the video, I can’t tell if formulas are translated relatively when copied.  I assume so, because if not, it is completely unusable.
  • Automatic column resizing (double click on a column border to resize the column to its minimal width).

And those are, to me, the most blatant things missing that almost all Excel users will miss. I won’t even go into the stuff that I use everyday that are missing (pivot tables, filters, cross-tab & cross-document references, borders, mapping cells to DB queries, etc).

To be fair, the collaboration is cool and could be useful in some situations, but I think it’s inadequate for most business applications.

TechCrunch lists a bunch of other AJAX spreadsheets and I still have to check them out. It’s been a while since I’ve played with them. Michael Arrington missed Tracker from Jotspot, so check that out, too.

Of course, this is just the first release and Google could make it better. But will they do that?  Or will this be one of those projects that sits on the Google Labs forever? I don’t know if Google cares enough about this to really take on Excel, but we’ll just have to see.

Mugshot, from Red Hat

01 Thursday Jun 2006

Posted by in Social Networking, Technology, Web 2.0

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Wow, everyone's jumping on the bandwagon.

First, sorry to all (heh) my readers. I've been gone for the past month and work was really wicked busy for the weeks preceding my break as I was preparing for the break. Homestead gives you a paid sabbatical every 5 years and I just took my second one. It was fantabulistic!

Anyway, Red Hat launched Mugshot.org, yet another social network.  Wow, how many can there be?  The buzz around is that Red Hat is more interested in getting an open source social network out there, as opposed to building a destination themselves.  Maybe that's true; in a strange way, that makes way more sense to me.

ajaxWrite: what about IE?

23 Thursday Mar 2006

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There’s buzz over at Memorandum about the launch of ajaxWrite. Some good (and good and good) and some not so good.

Technically, there’s not much there. We here at Homestead have a fully AJAX web page builder (before Google and MS), so we’re very familiar with how the designMode setting works and the power that it provides. The most interesting thing technically here is that it can open Word docs. Not rocket science, but it’s some work.

Some limitations that I noticed right away because Michael Robertson didn’t solve them (but we did):

  • There are only 7 font sizes. As I hope we all remember, HTML really only has 7 font sizes (CSS has more of course), and the designMode functions only allow you to set those 7 font sizes (1 through 7). We allow a ton more.
  • A bulleted list has a one-line gap from the line above it that can’t be removed.  Again, this is a limitation of HTML (without CSS), and so is a limitation that he just accepted from default designMode behavior.

Really, there isn’t much here. It’s still interesting; it just needs a lot of work. I hate the bloat of MSWord (I hate it when people send me Word docs when a rich text email would have been just fine), but this in no way competes with Word. I don’t think Bill is sweating just yet.

But what really gets me is this. I’ve complained about it before, and I’ll do it again. What about IE? In our experience, IE’s designMode functionality is better than Firefox’s (Homestead’s SiteBuilder app works in both IE and Firefox). If you are even remotely serious about taking on Word, why would you exclude IE? I’d love to hear any reason other than simple, short-sighted anti-MS politics. Again, Bill isn’t sweating just yet.

PayPal Mobile

22 Wednesday Mar 2006

Posted by in Gadgets, Mobile, Technology

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Now that’s cool! Like Russell Beatie says, it’s not that exciting to do person-to-person transactions (though the 20-somethings I know who text message all day long may disagree), but PayPal and eBay have the reach to do something really exciting to allow you to buy stuff:

Anytime you see Text to Buy next to something you want to buy—on a poster, in a magazine, at an event—you can securely order the item by text message. Use your phone to buy items like CDs, DVDs, books, electronics, accessories and much more.

Q: Where will I see these Text to Buy ads?

A: Look for Text to Buy in magazines and newspapers, on TV, billboards, posters, websites, and elsewhere.

Very, very simple. Very, very cool.

Never ending, these flame wars are…

21 Tuesday Mar 2006

Posted by in Blogging, Technology

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So Microsoft is getting into the classifieds space to do battle with Craigslist.  The guys at TechDirt think that there’s nothing that MS can do that Craigslist can’t just replicate, so MS will have a hard time taking them on. I’m sure I’m not alone in believing that that is a naive opinion. MS has the money, the reach, and the intelligence to do destroy Craigslist if they thought it was important enough and focused even a small percentage of their company on it.

That’s not that interesting, and I wasn’t going to write about it. The thing actually got me upset was the waste of electrons that passed as “discussion” on TechDirt. MS bashing by MS bashers, followed by MS-basher bashing by MS-basher bashers, followed by the spelling and grammar police, followed by just pure chalkboard-scratching.

Sometime, when you’re feeling good about things, head on over to Cnet News and read pretty much any of their comment threads on MS, Apple, Firefox, or Linux. I have more intelligent conversation with my 4-month old.

To get any decent conversation about anything, you have to dig through tons of silly flame wars and stupid insults. I’d love a community where people have to pass a test to join the conversation. For instance:

  1. Do you admit that the company you hate (e.g., MS, Apple, Oracle, Google, etc.) is often right?
  2. Do you admit that the company you love (e.g., MS, Apple, Oracle, Google, etc.) is often wrong?
  3. Do you admit that the technology you hate (e.g., Windows) has merit?
  4. Do you admit that the technology you love (e.g., Mac OS) has flaws?
  5. Do you admit that whatever it is you do, there is probably someone who does it better than you?
  6. Do you admit that just because someone doesn’t agree with you, they’re not necessarily an idiot?
  7. Do you admit that sometimes, just sometimes, you’re wrong?

Now, was that so difficult? Group hug…

Slacker…

19 Sunday Mar 2006

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Interesting article about how you have to slack off to be really productive. In general, there’s a lot of truth to what she writes. We do spend a lot of energy getting stuff done (a lot more than we spend thinking of what we should do). That’s the way it should be, I think. But her point is well taken; everyone needs to take time out to be creative.  It makes you a better worker and happier, too.

But the truly interesting thing is how she sites Google Page Creator as a shining example of this theory.

Within hours, this was such a smash hit that the company had to put a temporary limit on the number of Google users who can sign up for it.

Wha? Didn’t she see how Google got ripped apart by almost all journalists, technologists, and bloggers for releasing a poorly designed, poorly executed product.  I’m not saying that Google doesn’t release great products (they often do), but that’s a miserable example.

You gotta go faster, baby

18 Saturday Mar 2006

Posted by in Social Networking, Technology, Web 2.0

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Interesting article on why your website has to change, and when you’re done, has to change again. Often times, it’s too easy to think of websites as software, when frankly, it’s not. More often then not, websites are marketing. And marketing has to change and adapt to the needs, wants, and fantasies of your customer.

At Homestead, we try to push the envelope of this everyday. We want to move faster, while actually releasing stable, usable, well-written and well-designed software. Luckily, we are in a segment of the industry that isn’t as capricious as social networking, where the high-fructose-corn-syrup-powered whims of teens controls your fate. Our customers are a little more discerning and a little more consistent in their needs.

But, as we all know, only the paranoid survive and the paranoia just pushes you to move faster and faster.

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