Expert Texture
The blogged wandering of Robert W. Anderson
May 10, 2008 at 6:59 am · Filed under Web 2.0
On the Friday Gillmor Gang, we discussed a decentralized Twitter. It was both constructive and sometimes contentious.
Chris Saad discussed his idea (GetPingd) — an interesting approach that got short shrift on the call. Bob Lee had some idea on how to do more with Jabber.
A couple more things (some of which I articulated on the call).
Twitter is not micro-blogging. It can be used for micro-blogging, but it is a different animal completely. It isn’t instant-messaging either, though it is used for that a lot. As a result, if you are trying to improve it — or replace it — don’t try to force it into these other paradigms.
Why do I say this isn’t just micro-blogging or IM? Look at the user contracts:
- Blogging has a simple Subscribe/Unsubscribe contract. Twitter has block / track / direct messages (and soon filter).
- IM generally has a friend approval mechanism to receive IM’s. That is if you want updates from me through IM, I have to say it is OK. Twitter allows this “private updates” feature, but the default is open.
Don’t try to architect a better Twitter by ignoring these contracts — your service will fail.
Tags: GillmorGang, Micro-blogging, Microblogging, Saad, Twitter
May 9, 2008 at 6:18 am · Filed under Grid Computing
Dan has a write up of some of the enhancements added to this release here. He said we should have probably called it 3.0, but it is really more of a 2.5. We’ll be hosting webcasts soon going over the new features.
Thanks to the team for all the hard work in getting this out the door.
Follow http://twitter.com/010111011010111 for Digipede announcements.
Tags: .NET, Digipede, grid
May 4, 2008 at 8:11 am · Filed under Web 2.0
I had to drop off the emergency Gillmor Gang last night before I had a chance to give my thoughts on the Microsoft / Yahoo deal. Not only did Steve call an emergency Gang, but it looks like the blogosphere did as well. Anyway, here is what I think:
All bad for Yahoo
- Yahoo fought the deal, lost a bunch of key employees, increased “golden parachutes” for employees, etc. While Yahoo didn’t ask for a takeover bid, it was pretty clear Ballmer was going to go after Yahoo again. Jerry Yang should have been ready, but wasn’t. His response was to take measures which make it harder for the company to do business as an independent.
- Yahoo’s stock price is about to plummet. My guess is well below its price before this all started.
- And, investor lawsuits.
Mixed for Microsoft
- Ballmer spent a lot of time and money on this and came up short. Unless he had the secondary goal of sabotaging Yahoo this was just a waste of time and money. Clearly he thought he could get it done, but he didn’t, and he failed there.
- Merging the companies together would have been very difficult culturally — and I think a long hard slog for everybody involved. Good thing this is avoided.
- Microsoft still needs to jumpstart their advertising revenues. It really isn’t clear how they do this. Live Mesh is a longer term play for building a stick and highly compelling services platform. This will convert to ad revenue, but not very quickly.
The real issue for Microsoft is how to convert the (still strong) Office / Windows revenues into a sustainable and growing advertising platform.
What I think Microsoft needs to do now:
- Robert Scoble says that Live is a damaged brand. Building cool services won’t fix this on its own. Microsoft needs to fix this by defining Live in a way that is clear. Live can’t be all things to all people! Define it.
- Windows Vista is a damaged brand. While this is slightly off the topic of a services platform, it is dead center on the Microsoft definition of S+S. They need to fix this. The whole “Vista Ready” fiasco really informs what Microsoft did wrong here. Number one priority for Microsoft on Vista should be to make it as performant and stable as XP.
- Wait. Keep building out their very cool services and dev platform. Get a Silverlight Office out. Keep an eye on Yahoo. Maybe after Yahoo gets hammered, the economics will make sense.
Microsoft clearly has had a two-pronged strategy here: build and buy. Buy is out for now — as it isn’t clear what other acquisitions get Microsoft what they need — but build is going like crazy. The problem with build alone is that it only works accompanied with brand. So I think the real question is:
How will Microsoft fix their brand woes?
Tags: Ballmer, GillmorGang, Microsoft, Scoble, Silverlight, Yahoo, Yang
May 1, 2008 at 11:45 am · Filed under Web 2.0
I have been wanting to go to the Internet Identity Workshop for some time, but for one reason or another I haven’t been able to. I am very interested in identity in general — this was at the root of my involvement with the Attention Trust and GestureBank and why I keep writing about user contracts. I hope to see you there.
The event itself is being held May 12th through 14th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
Monday afternoon is free and targets getting everybody up to speed on what is going on in the Identity space.
Go here for more information.
Tags: Identity, IIW, IIW2008A
April 28, 2008 at 1:00 pm · Filed under .NET
David Treadwell was on the latest Gillmor Gang talking about the recent Live Mesh announcement. David’s title is Corporate Vice President, Live Platform Services and has been described as Ray Ozzie’s point man on the Mesh.
It was a pleasure talking with him — and thanks to David for the LiveMesh invitations.
The synchronization capability in this preview is a big deal not in what it provides, but for what it promises.
That is why it is a little disappointing that there is such a heavy emphasis on Windows and Windows Mobile. I discount the coming Macintosh support because support for non-Windows mobile devices is really the issue. If iPhones and Blackberrys are out of the equation, then the synchronization story isn’t so compelling.
Nobody should be surprised about Microsoft promoting Windows. And I certainly am not, but Microsoft’s new openness had me hoping for a different alignment of Microsoft strategy. One in which their S+S play would de-couple the Windows, Office, Windows Mobile, and Live businesses. I saw this happening through the Silverlight runtime everywhere. I hoped that the mobile Live Mesh synchronization client would be written on top of Silverlight. I hoped that the next Office Mobile would be too. Then Live services could serve any device running Silverlight. And so on. I’ve written about this previously, so I’ll leave it at that.
Instead, Microsoft is approaching Live Mesh as a set of open protocols that anyone can implement. So, an iPhone version could be written by a 3rd party using the Apple SDK. Just implement the protocols — of which FeedSync seems to be the major part — and you are all set. That is very good and much better than requiring the use of a Microsoft runtime to make it happen.
But, in addition to the open protocols, I would still have preferred a vision where the Silverlight runtime lies underneath the Microsoft implementations of the Live Mesh client. That way, when the next big feature set for Live Mesh is released, the new client code could conceivably run everywhere.
I want to make one thing clear: I’m not saying that Silverlight in its current form could support this at all. And I know Silverlight’s (nee WPF/E) genesis emphasized presentation, but at the end of the day, it is a .NET runtime.
As David says (from the Gillmor Gang transcript on TechCrunch):
Treadwell: I really view mesh and Silverlight as orthogonal and complementary technologies. Essentially what the mesh client does, it’s the runtime for doing synchronization and collaboration those kinds of things. I view Silverlight as a runtime that does the presentation engine. Mesh doesn’t really have anything for presentation, Silverlight doesn’t really have anything for synchronization and mobile communications. Working together I think you have a very good thought there about the combination of these and how they’ll come together. We’re working actively on that but we don’t have all the I’s dotted and t’s crossed.
Yes. They are orthogonal if Microsoft says they are. And Live Mesh and Silverlight will somehow come together though this appears to mean in terms of presentation. Fair enough.
And more than a little cool.
Tags: .NET, FeedSync, GillmorGang, Live Mesh, Silverlight, Treadwell
March 19, 2008 at 8:21 am · Filed under .NET, Web 2.0
Now that we have the Adobe CEO saying, We’re bringing Flash to the iPhone.
How many more days until we hear Microsoft publicly commit to Silverlight on the iPhone? I bet we hear it within two weeks.
Why do I care? It validates some of my earlier arguments. Here and here.
Scott Guthrie? What do you say?
Update: Adobe clarifies CEO’s iPhone Flash comments. Maybe Apple will fight to keep their platform closed after all.
Tags: Adobe, Apple, Flash, iPhone, Microsoft, Silverlight
March 17, 2008 at 8:57 am · Filed under Web 2.0
Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch reports that Microsoft Adopts Flash Lite For Windows Mobile As a Stopgap Measure. For those not keeping track of this, Adobe stopped supporting flash on Windows Mobile some time back. And now it looks like Microsoft has licensed the Flash Lite run time for Windows Mobile directly.
This is good news for Windows Mobile users, but Shonfeld is wrong about Microsoft’s reasons. He says,
… for Microsoft, this is just a stopgap measure until it can gain more traction for Silverlight, its Flash-competitor. The mobile version of Sliverlight 2.0 does not ship until the second quarter. Making WinMo more capable won’t detract from Silverlight’s appeal. There is a desperate need to get a full Flash-like experience on a mobile device. Flash itself is supposedly too slow on mobile phones. That leaves an opening for Microsoft win over converts to Silverlight by bringing video, animation, and other rich-media experiences to mobile. Nokia is already on board.
Does he really think that Microsoft would get into bed with Adobe Flash just because the Silverlight runtime doesn’t ship for one more quarter?
No way.
Microsoft is licensing Flash because they realize that they are losing to the iPhone. Simply put, Microsoft wants to make Windows Mobile better. Only running Silverlight would be a limitation, not an advantage. So they license Flash. My guess is that they’ll have a pre-installed Java runtime too.
On a related note, licensing ActiveSync to Apple has been much debated. Was is a good thing for Microsoft? Yes, and it is consistent with Microsoft licensing Flash Lite. Why?
- I think Microsoft has made the decision that Windows Mobile has to compete on its own merits (and not because it is a part of a greater lock-in with Microsoft Office).
- Microsoft also wants to protect their back-office Exchange licensing; what better way to do that than to make it easier for mobile handsets to support Exchange?
Adopting Flash is a step in the right direction. And licensing ActiveSync forces this point home.
Tags: Adobe, Apple, Flash, iPhone, Microsoft, techcrunch, Windows Mobile
March 12, 2008 at 9:00 am · Filed under .NET, Web 2.0
Alex Iskold of ReadWriteWeb tells us Why Apple Will Dominate Next Gen Computing. He is wrong.
Apple’s success isn’t about the software
Alex Iskold’s premise is that Apple’s software platform is superior, therefore they will dominate. He says . . .
Apple’s secret sauce has been its software.
First off, this is not Apple’s secret sauce. Apple’s not-so-secret sauce is their ability to deliver highly-polished total product: hardware + software + services + image.
Controlling the hardware and software is a baseline requirement for a company to do this, but they go beyond that to build beautiful, desirable, and highly functional total products. A good part of this is observable beauty and another part is pure marketing genius: the creation of desire and belief in the hipness of the product.
Compare Apple’s total product approach with . . .
- Microsoft licenses Windows Mobile for a variety of devices, not being a handset manufacture, it doesn’t control the total product. For example, Samsung Blackjack. Popular phone? Yes. Windows Mobile a flop? No, but for user experience it compares very poorly against the iPhone.
- Microsoft licenses Windows Vista to a wide range of OEMs. Same story. A little worse because when they did have influence over the total product, they botched it. Example? The Vista Ready campaign and surrounding lawsuits.
- Palm? They had the slickest PDAs for quite some time. They controlled the total product but forgot the services part so Blackberry beat them handily. There death nell was selling of the software and licensing WM5.
- The XBox 360. Microsoft builds the hardware + software + service. Runaway success. Home run.
My point?
It isn’t the software, it isn’t the hardware, it is the total product. When a company controls the total product they can achieve Apple-level success.
Why Apple won’t dominate
To dominate, Apple has to penetrate into the greater computing space (and stop being a high-priced niche brand). Either
- their hardware becomes ubiquitous; or
- they broadly license their platform to other hardware manufactures.
The first one is ludicrous: user preferences are too varied for a single hardware vendor to be the one solution. Apple has mostly done it with the iPod, but that is a piece of consumer electronics and pales in comparison to the complexity of computer systems in general. If they believe this to be a good strategy, they would likely have to greatly broaden their product mix and lower their prices.
The second one, while certainly possible, would greatly complicate the Apple story, Apple software quality, messaging, etc. And still, broadly licensing technology will not result in domination.
Only if Apple chooses one of these approaches can they possibly dominate next-generation computing. And then they have to execute brilliantly. And then several years have to pass for people to be in a position to replace hardware. And then a huge migration has to occur. And then, Cocoa what?
Anyone think this is Steve Jobs plan? No way.
And if it is? Short Apple. There is too much choice out there in terms of hardware, developer platforms, better licensing models, nascent cloud platforms, etc., for Apple to dominate.
Tags: Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, Palm, Platforms, ReadWriteWeb, Windows Mobile, XBOX
March 7, 2008 at 2:56 pm · Filed under Web 2.0
Today while using Google Reader, the feeds for Recognizing Deven (http://munjal.typepad.com/recognizing_deven/index.rdf) and flow|state (http://miksovsky.blogs.com/flowstate/index.rdf) have both been serving the London Blog (which I have no interested in reading).
Is this a bug in Google Reader or TypePad? Anyone else experiencing this?
And congratulations to Mr. Farrell for giving up the drink.
Tags: Bug, Google, GReader, Reader, TypePad
March 7, 2008 at 12:20 pm · Filed under .NET
A little late, but here are my notes on the Steve Ballmer keynote at MIX08.
The Q & A format was certainly better than having Steve Ballmer just talk for an hour, though I got a little tired of Guy Kawasaki’s cracks at Ballmer — about his wealth and method of travel, how Microsoft “should have hired” him. It got better when he stopped that.
I thought the best questions were from the Audience:
On .NET being baked into IE
Why isn’t IE built on .NET.
This has been a common theme, that is, the lack of .NET adoption for some major Microsoft products. Part of that is dog-fooding, but a bigger part is that the developer stories for these products are harder for lack of deep .NET support. For example, Office and IE are not based on .NET. Connecting between their unmanaged, COM, BHO worlds and the managed .NET world is more than a little painful.
Anyway, his response was that .NET wasn’t expected to be as proven and as far along by the time Vista shipped. Fair enough, but I would have been happier if the delays in Vista were related to a real WinFx in the OS than the reasons given.
The iPhone
What about Silverlight for the iPhone?
Steve Ballmer responded (paraphrased) . . .
Would love to get it on everything;
Can’t say we’ve been having talks about it; and
Licensing model not so good.
Right. The licensing model is not so good.
Maybe Microsoft can pay Apple a bunch of money so Silverlight can run on the iPhone. Then developers can build the apps for free?
Sounds good to me.
Tags: .NET, IE, IE8, iPhone, Longhorn, Microsoft, Silverlight, Vista
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