March 5, 2006 at 8:25 pm · Filed under Web 2.0
I had a good talk today with Ed Batista of the AttentionTrust today. The primary motivation was to get an update on my progress with the IE port of the AttentionTrust Recorder (or ATX). This led into a discussion about the perceptions of the Trust. I mentioned one perception in my TechCrunch 5 post. On the eve of eTech (which I won’t be attending), I thought it worth while to reiterate something about the Trust. Note, I’m no spokesmodel — look to Steve Gillmor and Ed for that.
The AttentionTrust is not spyware. This claim is either made from ignorance (willful or otherwise) or to sow FUD. The statement doesn’t even make sense because the AttentionTrust is not software. It isn’t a service. It isn’t the Attention Recorder. It is the 4 principles and the mission (they are right here for those who don’t like to click on links):
Principles
When you pay attention to something (and when you ignore something), data is created. This “attention data” is a valuable resource that reflects your interests, your activities and your values, and it serves as a proxy for your attention.
AttentionTrust and our members believe that you have the following rights:
- Property You own your attention and can store it wherever you wish. You have CONTROL.
- Mobility You can securely move your attention wherever you want whenever you want to. You have the ability to TRANSFER your attention.
- Economy You can pay attention to whomever you wish and receive value in return. Your attention has WORTH.
- Transparency You can see exactly how your attention is being used. You can DECIDE who you trust.
When you give your attention to any entity that’s an AttentionTrust member, these rights are guaranteed.
Mission
- Empower people to exert greater control over their “attention data,” i.e. any records reflecting what they have paid attention to and what they have ignored. We accomplish this by promoting the principles of user control, by distributing our Attention Recorder, and by supporting the development of other appropriate tools, standards and practices.
- Educate people about the value of their attention and the importance of attention data.
- Build a community of individuals and organizations that will guarantee users’ rights to own, move, and exchange their attention data, in a transparent environment that gives users the freedom to decide how their data will be used.
That’s it. The ATX (attention recorder) allows you to store locally and / or provide data to services (one right now, ROOT). Using it isn’t in any way a requirement of the AttentionTrust’s principles nor mission. The ATX also isn’t spyware. Spyware spies without your consent. The ATX records with your consent and gives you control over your own attention data.
Full stop.
March 5, 2006 at 6:47 pm · Filed under .NET
A question I ask Microsoft people frequently is: what are you doing to promote your tools in the Web 2.0 world / to help SaaS startups use your technologies?
I saw two posts today that, while not answering this question, seem to me like progress:
ASP.NET 2.0 Training Center
Microsoft (and CMP and O’Reilly and Dr. Dobb’s) have rolled out the ASP.NET 2.0 Training Center. This is to help PHP / JSP / ColdFusion developers learn about .NET. This looks like a great resource for developers to learn about the capabilities of .NET. If you are a developer using one of these other technologies, check it out. There is a free copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard in it for you if you view 3 webinars.
Obviously, this is a great tactic to get non-.NET users to see what ASP.NET has to offer — I’m sure they’ll get plenty of free-riders too 😉
I found out about this from an O’Reilly post (see ASP.Net on a Roll). According to them, ASP.NET 2.0 is gaining leverage (as measured by book sales). Good news for Microsoft and for developers. ASP.NET is really a great way to build Web sites and services. I personally much prefer this to PHP, for example. Scripting languages are fine, but I’m in the strong-typing camp. And now since ASP.NET 2.0 can recompile your code on the server, it takes away a major scripting advantage.
Microsoft Startup Zone
In Microsoft Startup Zone Launches, Don Dodge announces the new Microsoft Startup Zone, sort of a portal into Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team. This site is full of resources for startup companies. While I still would like to see a partner program for SaaS startups, this site is worth a visit if you want to see what Microsoft has to offer emerging companies.
Tags: .NET, asp.net, Microsoft, SaaS, Startup
March 3, 2006 at 2:44 pm · Filed under .NET, Grid Computing
Yesterday Dan and I discussed a pet peeve of mine: compute cycles being likened to electricity. This comes up nearly every time someone talks or blogs about utility computing. The catalyst this time was Nicholas Carr and his piece, Is the Server Industry Doomed? While he doesn’t even mention electricity here, it doesn’t take much to get us back on this topic. BTW, I agree that much of IT is heading toward utility computing; . . . but, the electricity metaphor doesn’t hold up because the cycles are not electricity.
I told Dan I might blog on this topic, but he beat me to it in this post: Because 1.21 gigaflops just aren’t 1.21 gigawatts (and then has apparently continued arguing with Mr. Carr since then). Even better than me having to write a thing! As Dan says:
Partly, it’s just physics. All electrons look alike (let’s not get into electron spin here: as far as my appliances are concerned, every electron looks the same). It doesn’t matter to me if the power that’s lighting up my life, running my refrigerator, and powering my PC came from a wind farm, a hydroelectric plant, or a diesel turbine. Well, for environmental reasons, I might prefer the former two, but the point is that when an electron gets to me, I can’t tell where it came from.
Computes just aren’t the same. Computes look different on different operating systems. Not all software runs on all operating systems. Different people prefer different toolsets, and they always will. Some OSs are better for some things than others, and people choose the appropriate OSs for them. Yes, we’ve all read about “write once, run everywhere” software–but a small minority of software actually runs that way. OSs are different, and they will continue to be different. People will continue to write software that takes advantage of particular OSs.
But, that wasn’t really my point either.
Lets allow that utility computing is the centralized generator (analogous to electric utilities), but what is being generated? Certainly not compute cycles. The generator burns compute cycles (and electricity and data) to produce . . . data.
So, is the commodity the data? Of course not. Data are almost always proprietary. Is moving the data the commodity? Bandwidth is a commodity, but it only scarcely resembles electricity transmission and distribution.
So, the commodity in utility computing is the compute cycle, but utility computing doesn’t resemble an electric utility. The metaphor just doesn’t make sense. I guess people like it because there was a time when electricity generation moved from a local to a centralized model.
How about a moratorium on the electric utility metaphor? Utility computing doesn’t need a metaphor to make sense.
Tags: Digipede, grid, Utility-Computing
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