Facebook version of QuizSender.com

I was reading an article on Facebook's strategy in Wired, it talked about the recent changes that allow any 3rd party to make a Facebook application.

I felt like giving it a go and have put together a Facebook version of my website; QuizSender.com. To use it go to http://apps.facebook.com/quizsender/.

Let me know what you think.

Thoughts on Freebase

I have been evaluating Freebase a fairly new site that is aiming to create an open database of everything. Think Wikipedia, but with user definable relational structure.

Here are my thoughts:

Weaknesses:

• Permissions too lapse.
  Not extendible for uses such as a social network, could not easily be used to store private data for a website.
• No notion of functions.
  Wouldn't it be really cool if users could submit functions as well as types, e.g. a function from post codes to latitude and longitude.
• Can Metaweb Technologies be trusted?
  This is a lot more complicated than Wikipedia for other organisations to replicate. If Metaweb goes bust or bad is all the data lost?
• Needs more data.
  It will be interesting to see at what rate the size of the database grows and what the typical method of inserting data will be. Many users will not go as far as learning the API but the current user interface is a bit too clunky for contributors. Refactoring using the Freebase site is currently more-or-less impossible, and a lot of refactoring should be expected for an openly writable database of everything in such an early stage!

Cool:

• Users can create HTML only data driven web applications.

Possible (Mis-)uses:

• To store low sensitivity, yet private, data (using cryptography).
  Think of it as a replacement for Amazon S3.
• A truly open social network.
  At some point soon Facebook, Myspace, etc. have to face the openness interrogation that awaits most successful technology companies.
• Free hosting with unlimited bandwidth.
  When the site is out of alpha anybody will be able to query the database.

A new interface for audio

I got an Ipod nano for my birthday. I had been debating getting one for a while because of the small size and slick user interface, I was just a little put off by the jump from Microsoft to Apple. As it happens, iTunes is only a bit worse than Media Player. Also, I don't intend to buy any DRM protected music so I should still be able to use Media Center to access my music collection elsewhere in the flat.

One really nifty thing Apple have done, that I didn't fully realise until I got my hands on an Ipod, is to provide an intelligent interface to the device. Portable audio devices have typically always had an analogue output for audio (the old 3.5mm jack). More modern players have come complete with some sort of digital input (usually no more functional than a USB mass storage device). Apple have created a new control interface, and opened it up to third party manufacturers so that you can get cool things like this low power FM transmitter.

Joost (on Vista)

I got myself a Joost invite the other day. First things first, I had to make it work with Vista (it moans about C:\Windows\AppPatch\AcGenral.dll). I found running:

cd /cygdrive/c/Windows/AppPatch
mv AcGenral.dll AcGenral.dll.temp
mv AcGenral.dll.temp AcGenral.dll

at a Cygwin prompt did the trick (the AcGenral.dll file is then owned by the user I am running Joost as and it stops complaining). If you don't use Cygwin, using a DOS prompt instead and running:

c:
cd \Windows\AppPatch
ren AcGenral.dll AcGenral.dll.temp
ren AcGenral.dll.temp AcGenral.dll

probably works just as well. As for Joost itself, there is a shortage of content so besides my short little test I have no reason to use it. The channels do start playing very fast after selection albeit at a slightly too low quality (you wouldn't want to pipe it into a nice TV). I'll certainly keep an eye out for improvements though.

Snap

I have added Snap Preview Anywhere to my blog. What a great idea! Whenever you hover over a link you get a thumbnail of the URL it leads to.

Amazon must be upset too because these are thumbnails of the exact page, not just a domain home page and they are captured very soon after being queued -- much better than Alexa.

I have some quibbles from a business point of view though: They appear to be marketing themselves as a search engine; that isn't going too happen there is way too much competition and their results aren't even taken from one of the top three (Snap adds a great new level to this cryptic linking technique doesn't it?) The behaviour is added by webmasters themselves by adding a JavaScript to their page, I think the decision to see these previews should be a user decision and not a content provider decision; this means the realm of browser add-ons.

The Guardian does it again

On the Google YouTube purchase

An article in today's Economist provides a good brief summary of Google's aquisition of YouTube. It also gives a good (but journalistic) summary of where all the big online players now stand in relation to each other.

However the article does carelessly describe Microsoft as the software giant that dominated "the first generation of the web" in a way that implies they are behind now. I hate to use the phrase "Web 2.0" but you don't have to walk far from "Web 2.0" before you see a JavaScript XMLHttpRequest object, and we all know who invented that!

Where will your data go today?

Google have recently integrated Writely and there web-based Spreadsheets service into "Google Docs and Spreadsheets".

What these two web-based applications miss in ease of productivity (which is a lot - there is only so much you can do inside the current web browser) they make up for in ease of collaboration. However, your data remains on Google servers, this is not good and should put most potential users off. Why-oh-why can't a software company send this modern web-based software vision in a slightly different direction and make the software to be sold to businesses as server software. Leave the businesses to scale their installations appropriately, organise backups, etc. Even if the software is designed so this can be done in an easy "click and build" kind of a way, the end user needs to be in control of their own data.

Google launches Writely Beta

Google has now made the Writely beta publicly available.

I still maintain that Google are missing the point on how the software industry should move away from thick desktop software to web-based applications. They have edged one step closer to implementing all features that one expects from a desktop application on the web (Writely even has a nice right click context menu). However the main problem still remains that everything uses their servers, their downtime is your downtime, their data loss is your data loss and their privacy policy is your privacy policy. This will be unsatisfactory for many users, and hopefully all businesses (isn't most money made selling software to businesses?).

When will Google start to license server software so that users can implement their own GMail, Writely, etc. system? I would also assume that there is nothing anywhere near as proprietry as Googles search engine within the code to Writely, so they shouldn't even need to insist on locking it away in their own metal box before selling it on either (as is done when Google licenses its search technology to businesses). Hell, if they are so up on their "do no evil" policy and trying to be the anti-Microsoft... why not open source it?