Twitter has quickly become a cultural phenomenon among the technorati and celebrity set who, for whatever reason, want to share their lives with their followers. And while a new study suggests that the majority of tweets are pointless babble, there is clearly value somewhere or else people would have dropped it months ago.
That's not to suggest that microblogging is guaranteed to be successful, and certainly not guaranteed to be lucrative, even for Twitter. With no clear revenue model and ever-increasing expectations, the monetization of Twitter remains one of Silicon Valley's favorite conversation topics.
Regardless, the service has introduced a new way to communicate that is unlikely to disappear overnight. As part of the microblogging evolution, Slate's Farhad Manjoo contends that Twitter itself needs to die. And he might be right, at least in the sense that for microblogging to become something bigger media properties and open standards need to find their way into the mix.
If Twitter worked more like e-mail or the Web--a system managed by different entities that were connected by common Web protocols--a hit like last week's wouldn't be crippling. A denial-of-service attack would have brought down some people's status updates, but Twitter would still work for most of the world.
The basic idea is that Twitter-like services should become more like RSS (Really Simple Syndication), an idea which not surprisingly comes from RSS co-creator Dave Winer. And while RSS is not the exact analogy as it's not real-time nor is it geared toward request/response scenarios, it is the model for disseminating information across a vast array of Internet-connected resources.
... Read moreI can't believe it took Yahoo! this long to create a Cloud Computing division. They are easily in the top 5 most impressive infrastructures and maybe will now take advantage of it.
In order to expand its cloud computing capabilities, the Company will form a Cloud Computing & Data Infrastructure Group, charged with developing a computing infrastructure that balances scalability with cost effectiveness.
Yahoo! is making changes to its technology organization, led by Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh, to better position the company to execute on its strategic priorities. Principal changes are developing a world-class cloud computing and storage infrastructure; rewiring Yahoo! onto common platforms; and creating a stronger partnership between product and engineering teams.
There are two main audiences for the SearchMonkey Guide:
SearchMonkey developers are front end engineers who build presentation applications, small PHP applications that enhance search results. Most presentation applications are fairly simple and do not necessarily require deep working knowledge of PHP.SearchMonkey site owners are site owners who are responsible for delivering data about their site's pages for SearchMonkey developers to build upon.
Site owners are responsible for data, while developers are responsible for presentation. Smaller projects might assign the developer and site owner roles to the same person, but larger projects tend to have more specialized roles.
This functionality will likely be glossed over by Yahoo's ongoing shareholder ordeal, but the innovation here proves that Yahoo has a lot more going on than we generally give them credit for. They also did a really nice job of documenting everything--which is a general engineering nightmare.
Salesforce.com's tie-in with Google Apps makes Salesforce the complete center of the user's universe.
But in a new-school twist, neither of these applications completely locks you in. You can get your data out, if you need to (albeit somewhat painfully) from Salesforce, and since you have your Google e-mail stored outside of the Salesforce system, you can effectively leave whenever you want and resplit the applications, should you so desire.
While the technical details are not totally clear, this appears to be an example of Web-oriented architecture, or it at least demonstrates the idea that an abstraction layer allows for data to be more easily integrated. Or maybe it's PaaS (platform as a service)--I am sure it's some acronym.
The theoretical benefits of the combined service outweigh the negatives (mainly clarity around service-level agreements, security, and Google's perpetual beta tests)-at least for now.
... Read moreI haven't been able to kick this back problem (2 weeks with a slipped disc) but we did manage to record episode 15 of the Open Season podcast series.
This time we talk about:
- The Cloud and why we need Java there
- The inevitable fall-out from Microsoft's Yahoo tomfoolery
- Google AppEngine
- and so much more!
If anyone out there has a better way to record these things we're open to suggestion. Ashlee's latest Skype move (port forwarding and all that) is pretty much crap.
The second part of my interview with Sarah Lacy over on Yahoo Tech Ticker is now live.
This time I explain what MuleSource (my company) does and discuss some of the other open source companies that I like, including Alfresco and Digium.
Next time I go on I plan to discuss why SaaS and open source are the only ways to build software companies going forward.
This weekend's NY Times article "Maybe Microsoft Should Stalk Different Prey" raises the point that perhaps Microsoft should reconsider the Yahoo acquisition to focus on what it knows, which is enterprise software.
New CNET Editor-in-Chief Dan Farber raises a different point in a post today--that there is still time for an internet land-grab and Microsoft should take this opportunity to nab Yahoo before it's too late.
Overall, I don't see the Yahoo acquisition paying immediate dividends. In fact, it's hard to see when it would pay off. Microsoft doesn't have the machine in place that would allow for a smooth transition with quick gains. There are a few companies, Oracle and Cisco, notably who are fantastic at acquisitions, but Microsoft hasn't yet built an effective acquisition engine.
There is another argument that says that internet is really not Microsoft's ball of wax, and instead the company should try to acquire SAP in more of an Oracle-style of leveraging assets across the same customer base. Unfortunately, that argument doesn't fly as it seems that Microsoft has finally realized there is a very real danger of losing the corporate desktop as it moves online.
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said today that the company is considering "a wide range of potential strategic alternatives," but it's hard to see an equitable ending for both shareholders and employees..
I wonder if Microsoft's attempt to acquire Yahoo will instead sink both companies? They are both working to defeat the Google-verse and one could assume that there is logic and synergy in the acquisition. Yet somehow it doesn't quite make sense. If it did, Yahoo would have said yes right away, or at least gone back with a counter.
A better tactic for Microsoft would have been to pull an Oracle and try to drive down the value of the stock. Instead, the stock has gone up and Microsoft will potentially be forced to do a hostile takeover. This is not a tactic that Microsoft is known for (unlike Oracle) and the ability to quickly integrate and further monetize Yahoo in that scenario seems highly unlikely.
The big questions:
- If Yahoo is on the ropes, can they recover?
- If Microsoft is finally admitting that their online strategy is weak, what will they do if the Yahoo acquisition flounders?
- Who else could Microsoft buy?
- Who else might buy Yahoo?
It's clear that Yahoo is struggling against Google, and it's clear that Microsoft wants nothing more than to be important in the online services world. But the combination of these two behemoths, neither of whom have been particularly innovative with technology or customer acquisition of late, is the next AOL/Time Warner debacle.
Does anyone think that the merger of AOL and Time Warner was a success? Does the marriage of two companies that have no clear strategies ever make sense?
Microsoft hasn't proven that it can take advantage of this scale of web property and has wasted a huge amount of time and dollars with all the Live.com junk. Yes, MS should move into new markets and look to the future but Yahoo is a massive undertaking with a completely different culture.
... Read moreVia Ars Technica: Yahoo filed a patent for a "smart" drag-and-drop user interface element, which consists of displaying drop targets in proximity to a drag-able selected object.
The patent is currently under public review via Peer to Patent. Here is the summary from the filing.
According to the present invention, methods and apparatus are provided for manipulating objects in a user interface. The user interface includes a first interface object operable to be selected and moved within the user interface. In response to selection and movement of the first interface object in the user interface, at least one additional interface object is presented in the user interface in proximity of the first interface object. Each additional interface object represents a drop target with which the first interface object may be associated.
This patent appears to have lots of prior art issues, but if granted would seem to cover a lot of software and pretty much every Web 2.0 site.
It's still not as ludicrous as Microsoft's attempt at patenting white space in documents.
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