Posted by Curt Hibbs Sat, 10 Dec 2005 08:00:00 GMT
Dion Hinchcliffe has posted his list of the best Web 2.0 software for this past year. There are some pretty impressive AJAX enabled sites on this list.
The future has arrived!
Posted by Curt Hibbs Tue, 25 Oct 2005 07:00:00 GMT
There has been a lot of buzz lately about how modern technologies are opening up long tail markets that were previously unprofitable to serve. At the Fifth International Ruby Conference, one of the most interesting sessions was Nathaniel Talbott’s talk about ‘long tail’ opportunities in software development.
His main point was that as things like Ruby on Rails continue to reduce the cost of developing software applications, it becomes more and more feasible to write specific, tailored applications for very small markets (like a couple dozen people). I think he’s right. New, high-productivity technologies will, in fact, make it economical to develop software for smaller markets.
However, in our rush to embrace the long tail, we may be overlooking an even longer tail—the longest tail of them all. Chad Fowler hit on this in his post Is the Long Tail wagging the dog?. Many problems (most problems?) are so far out on the long tail that user couldn’t justify even talking to a software developer (or more likely, wouldn’t even think about it). The ‘Longest Tail’ is about enabling the user to provide his own solution.
Excel spreadsheets do this. Quick, spur-of-the-moment applications are possible with a spreadsheet. You don’t need to find a developer, you don’t need to plan or describe your needs, you don’t need to spend any money, you just need to do it. If what you did stops being good enough, you can fix it. Not only do you own the data, you own the solution as well!
Of course a spreadsheet can’t do everything. For its niche, though, its very good and it totally enables the user. Apple Computer’s HyperCard did the same thing for a wider class of software solutions.
To serve the Longest Tail, we need software than enables users to create their own solutions. Chad Fowler pointed out a new web application, Dabble, that aims to do this. I haven’t tried it yet, but I can’t wait to do so.
Posted by Curt Hibbs Tue, 04 Oct 2005 07:00:00 GMT
ZDNet has kicked off a blog debate over the fate of the application server with Phil Wainewright’s article How AJAX kills the application server.
It all depends on your definition of “application server”. In the end, I think that splitting hairs over this definition is pointless.
There is a continuum between these two extremes: dumb-client and all the application logic residing on the server and smart-client with little or no logic on server (database only?). Desktop applications fit at one end and web 1.0 sites fit at the other. What AJAX does is shift the focus point on the line between these two extremes closer to somewhere in the middle.
The point is that there are things that the server does well and things that the client does well. Finding that ideal balance is what AJAX enables.
Posted by Curt Hibbs Sat, 01 Oct 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Tim O’Reilly just posted the clearest and most concise definition of Web 2.0 that I have seen:
Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.
Posted by Curt Hibbs Thu, 20 Jan 2005 08:00:00 GMT
Do you know how to use all of those advanced Google search commands (like looking up someone’s phone number with “phone:name-of-person“)? If you’re like me, you know a few (like the “site:” keyword), but you still have this nagging feeling that you’re missing out by not knowing more.
Well, fear no more—here’s a nice summary of the most useful Google search commands.
After reading this article, you might be thinking “well, I could probably find those results without remembering these advanced search terms”. Well, the truth is that you probably could. The reason you want to start to use these advanced search tips is because they will help you find what you’re looking for faster. They greatly help narrow down the results, and more often than not, the information you were looking for will be in the first two or three results.
