My friend Iain is running 10k this weekend for a charity that's helping a friend of his who has cancer. Consider pledging a bit of cash for this good cause.
I have to say though, that picture of Iain running - dude, what's with your arms, they scare me! We need to get some protein into that boy.
Adam Bosworth of Google has taken a look at how data is being used across the web, that is, how applications have evolved through popular usage patterns, rather than from a Computer Science view of how things ought to work, to draw lessons for application architecture. His article in ACM Queue called "Lessons from the Web" is oriented towards lessons for database design, but it's interesting that it ties in with many of the so-called Web 2.0 concepts, and I think is worth looking at and thinking about for anybody designing online applications and services.
If you're a Java programmer and interested in adding sexy Ajax goodness to your apps, a good starting point is Matt Raible's presentations, which he has made available for download for those of us who can't actually go see him talk.
update: The pdf presentation I downloaded actually doesn't seem that useful on its own, it doesn't contain as much information as I'd hoped. Most of the slides are just Matt's photos, that I assume illustrate personal ancecdotes that he uses to make points about the topic, but are kind of baffling on their own. I think the equinox-ajax.zip file probably contains code examples, but in the past when I've downloaded Matt's appfuse framework starter kit I couldn't really get into it, and I believe equinox is a version of that. Bram Smeets intro to using DWR may be a better start.
While I'm on the subject of former Syzygians, it seems that Irakli West is starting up a new venture, TRND, The Real Network Dialog (all in Deutsch, unfortunately for us non-German speakers). He describes it as a Web 2.0 based word of mouth marketing system, similar to bzzagent. He's also got one of Germany's top blogs, about Firefighting. Cool stuff, or at least I assume it is.
Fellow ex-Syzygian Iain Tait has been blogging for a month now. Iain's a smart guy who's a Creative Director at Poke, and it's fun for me to read what an old friend thinks about things going on today. He's mainly posting on technical/business trends, things like Web 2.0, and he's got a keen eye for quirky new gadgets and toys. So far Iain has been keeping up a good blogging pace, with frequent posts that are tight and to the point.
Brief posts are really the classic weblog style, and obviously makes it easier to keep the posts flowing. Personally I have a very difficult time writing short posts. Even when I start with a small, simple concept I want to post about, I tend to ramble on. Like starting a post about a friend's new blog, and carrying it on into a discussion of weblog posting styles. The result is I post a long, incoherent screed or two every few months.
Gotta work on that.
Update: Iain protests that he's not a Design Director, pointing to his blog's design as evidence.
London's mobile industry now has a monthly get-together, thanks to Mobile Monday London, aka momo london. I went to the first meeting Monday evening, which I enjoyed.
A show of hands showed the turnout to be roughly half and half techie/biz-marketing, with a fair chunk of designers (maybe 10%). Speakers were encouraged not to make a product pitch, instead there was a theme ("bridging the digital and physical worlds"), and the speakers oriented their talks towards their experiences and learnings that relate to the theme. Naturally they did mostly talk about their own products and used bits of what were obviously their standard presentations, but I think they did a decent job of not just coming in and pitching us.
There was a good bit of general discussion between speakers and audience. A common concern of the group that emerged was the difficulties of getting customers "into" a mobile product, in terms of the way platform incompatibilities, awkwardness of user experience, and legal and other obstacles that make barriers for users to register with and start using a mobile product and service. Since this is something that affects and requires all three of the types of mobile animals that came to this event to work together to solve, Mobile Monday has the potential to be quite interesting.
The organizer was Dan Appelquist, a technical manager of some sort for Vodafone. Russ Beattie also came in from Silicon Valley to attend. I was chuffed to meet him, since we've corresponded by blog years ago, and both still keep up with each others' blog. He prodded me to post more to my site, so here ya go Russ! I also met some other people, but I'm shit at remembering names, which is why I'm not a sales guy.
There were three speakers at the event, so I'll give a capsule review of each.
Dennis Hettema from OP3/Shotcode
Shotcode is one of those schemes where a visual code is put on a print advertisement, which users can point their mobile phone camera at to link directly to the advertiser's site. Hettema was the best speaker at the event, he was obviously more experienced at pitching than the others and so was more polished.
I have to say I'm not convinced that this kind of scheme is really likely to succeed. Hettema positioned this as a way to get around some of the limitations of the mobile platform, in particular the awkwardness for a user having to type a URL into their phone when they see an interesting advertisement. In reality though, this isn't how mobile advertising works, at least in the UK. Ads for mobile services ask people to send a text message with a simple keyword to a shortcode, a 5 digit phone number. When they do this, the advertiser can send a WAP push message, which is essentially a text message with an automatic link to whatever they like. This is a very widely used technique, and works on TV and other media where a visual code like shotcode would be difficult to use. Plus it doesn't need special software to be installed.
It was notable that when Hettema gave his stories of shotcode campaigns, talking about how successful they were, he didn't mention the total number of people that used it, which he would have if they'd had impressive results. Instead he mentioned how many times each user who did try it used the service. The one time he did mention how many people used it was a case where they handed out phones with their software preinstalled at a convention so exhibitors could scan shotcodes on attendees' badges to get their contact details.
Also, the speaker from the BBC gave figures for a campaign they did which used a shotcode-like scheme along with other ways for users to use their service, and the shotcode-like scheme got spanked.
Richard Jelbert from mTrack/KidsOK
KidsOK is a location-based service for parents to track their kids whereabouts. One tidbit I hadn't known is that there are location service aggregators that you can use instead of going to each operator. However, each operator still has to approve of every location based product, and they have different requirements, so it still sounds very painful. Jelbert is involved in a committee which is trying to come up with a standard Code Of Practice (COP) across operators. But it sounds like even with this, the requirements put up huge barriers to converting users.
KidsOK actually sell a product in retail stores, which is a registration kit. This involves getting a form by post, and
then going through a rigamarole with SMS messages to opt in. Jelbert says of the people who buy the kit and start the registration, 42% don't activate their account, and of those who do, 48% don't complete the opt-in.
The possibility of using a J2ME application to make this process smoother was raised, but Jelbert said this would make approval by operators more difficult. Basically, the standard Code of Practice outlines opt-in procedures using SMS, so if you follow that approval is easier, but doing something unusual means a lot of work to get the operators to sign off.
Location based services sound interesting, but very difficult to do in a way that is going to bring in the user. I think it's probably not worth doing unless you have a service that is killer.
Chris Yanda, BBC
Chris was a very non-marketing guy, but obviously into what he does. His story was about a project called "Coast", where they put up a series of signs at several hiking trails on the coast. These signs offered users several different ways to get information about their location via mobile, e.g. directions to other locations, trivia about the location, etc.
The signs were quite busy, crammed with various ways to access the service. The ways to access the information, and what I could gather about their level of useage, were:
Interesting stuff!
This site has been down for a couple of weeks, thanks to a problem with the hardware I have been running it on for years. Unfortunately I don't really have much in the way of spare hardware for my personal use, so I couldn't just whack it onto another box. Also, I had my server at the offices of a company I used to work for, which meant that working on the box required me to ask one of my old work pals to hang around with me for a few hours after work while I tinkered with it, which I wasn't comfortable with. So I ended up just taking the box home.
I thought I would host it at home at the end of my DSL line - although it's only 256K up, which is peanuts for a real internet server, for my dinky personal site I thought it would be OK. But I kept having problems with the hardware, even though I do have another, similar server, it was having the same problem, which I think came down in the end to some bad RAM that I inadvertently swapped between boxes.
But never mind, although I could have gotten the thing working, I realized I just don't need to be spending that much time on the hardware issues. I do that sort of thing at work, so it's not a learning experience for me, it's just a chore. In the end I decided to sign up for a virtual hosting service.
This is something I never wanted to do, as someone who builds, runs, and develops Internet servers and software for a living, using a crappy ol' virtual host would be a serious comedown. But I didn't get a crappy service, I signed up with verio, who I've used before for the (since sold and neglected) Web Developers Journal. They've always been technically excellent, they give a real virtual server, with root access, onto which I can install anything I want, run multiple sites, etc. The last point was the key selling point for me, I didn't want to just host kief.com somewhere, I have a handful of other sites I run for myself, family, and friends, and the new server has room for everything and new projects I'd like to be doing.
The last point is the key thing, I'd rather be spending what little spare time I have working on the interesting bits of my own projects, rather than wrangling the hardware.
Welcome back to kief.com!
My uncle Charlie has started this year's UK tour with his band. Like last year, they will end up at the blues festival in the Orkney Islands, but unfortunately hasn't got any London gigs. Check out his tour schedule, under the "Gator n' Chips Tour". Charlie's been playing professionally for over 20 years now, and has gotten damned good - his latest CD is superb. If you know me and are in London, and don't have a copy of this disc, let me know, I've got a bunch that I haven't done a good enough job of giving away.
One thing I've realized is that I haven't heard Charlie play in ages, and Ozlem hasn't seen him at all. I'm not sure quite how that's happened, mainly I guess we see each other when he's got a break in his touring (usually we visit them in Switzerland when he's got time off to hang and 'board with us). We would love to catch his gig in the Orkneys, because a) I know they had a great time last year, b) there's lots of other bands to check out as well, and c) it'd be cool to check out the Orkneys. But I doubt we'll make it, mainly because of the expense. We're plotting though, we're determined to check out at least one of their gigs, even though it means an overnight trip.
Last night we revisited a restaurant some friends had introduced us to a while back, this time with my Mom and Lucas. If you live in the west part of London and are into Turkish food, I highly recommend this place. Most of the good Turkish places are to the north and east, in the Turkish neighborhoods, so we're always a bit deprived. This place is called Best Mangal, and doesn't look like much from the outside. The front is basically a kebap shop, with rotating doner meat and people getting their takeaway kebaps, but if you look you'll see a few tables crammed in the back. The mangal - a barbecue in the middle of the shop with skewers of meat and veggies roasting over coals is the first sign that this place is the real deal. Go in, sit down, and check out the menu, and you'll see this is something different, and the food and service confirm it. The guys working there are friendly and fun, and the food is great.
Our friends took us there in a car, so we didn't know how to get there - we took a bus to Fulham Broadway, and walked for half an hour through a dodgy neighborhood. When we left the place, we realized you can see West Kensington tube station from the doorway of the restaurant, so next time it will be easier. From the tube station, just cross North End Road and go left a short way.
