“We believe the feature film and TV content businesses are on the verge of structural changes that appear to impact the core revenue and profits of entertainment business models,” wrote DiClemente.

Viva la revolution! I just discovered Strike.tv last week. Just show me a way to watch Hulu and YouTube on my TV and I’ll be happy. Oh, and better quality re-streamed Tour de France coverage.

David over at Design Commission captured a sampling of 92 home pages. It is a great compendium of the state of the art in Web Design.

Start Screens - a set on Flickr

Image via Wikipedia

This is interesting, and certainly makes sense in the Facebook application world. Seems to me the Long Tail is already a prevalent concept in music though.

Prof. Elberse describes research showing that even in our cultural consumption we tend to be intensely social folks. We like experiencing the same things that other people are experiencing — and the mere fact that other people are experiencing and liking something makes us like it even more. Far from being cultural rugged individualists, most of us are only too happy to have others suggest to us what we’d like.

Portals - WSJ.com

Earlier this week I read about Zembly, a Sun “social” development project. One of the critiques against Zembly, is that it targets obscure app developers. I don’t see that as a problem for a development tool. Outfitters want to sell as many pick-axes as possible to gold searchers as possible?

Image via Wikipedia

Gnip: Grand Central Station for the Social Web - ReadWriteWeb

This is an interesting service making some really big claims architecturally. In fact the more I think about it, the more impossible it seems. Gnip is trying to become the hub for some really interactive sites. Piping all that data through their service and keeping up with all the changing APIs seems like a nightmare. Not to mention securing the requests and managing session keys…

I did have a related idea a few years ago about creating a unified (mostly read-only) interface to (non-personal) data provided by a multitude Web services. I will revisit that idea now that there the number of available datasources has multiplied 10 (or 100) fold.

Image via Wikipedia

I was googling around for a free (and legally re-usable) text dictionary, and found this one with a very creative software license.

WordWeb free version may be used indefinitely only by people who take at most two commercial flights (not more than one return flight) in any 12 month period. People who fly more than this need to purchase the Pro version if they wish to continue to use it after a 30-day trial period.

Guess I’ll categorize this under both Technology and Travel.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Steve Rubel had an interesting post today about where you should invest your time “contributing” online.

Micro Persuasion: Should You Rent or Buy Social Real Estate?

“Renting” in this context means participating in discussion on someone else’s site (like Twitter). “Owning” means collecting content on your own domain (or blog). From the post:

It seems to me like “renting” online equity is now what’s in vogue. Long-form blogging is less prevalent because the competition for attention from pro-bloggers is steep. That’s why I love the Friendfeed model. It’s like a co-op. I can invest in my blog and realize benefits not only here but also on Friendfeed. Or, I can invest in Twitter and see the same return on Friendfeed, though certain provisions apply. You’re still beholden to the landlord.

I think MyBlogLog had the potential to be a better example than FriendFeed. I’m still enamoured with the idea, and am eagerly awating Google’s Friend Connect.

Slowly but surely desktop software is being replaced with Web based software. The Web browser is becoming a platform for more complex software applications - the window through which you do everything - not just browse the Web. Web based software (coupled with “cloudcomputing”) has many advantages such as, automatic updates, portability from one operating system to another, and centralized data storage. It has traditionally had its downsides as well, like security, network speed, and user interaction.

As computers get faster, and internet connections more pervasive, Web based applications are becoming more practical. All Web browsers need are a few more features like local storage and support for working offline to make them a viable environment for 80% of all software. The remaining 20% will require specialized user interfaces or hardware that will probably never be fully “Web based”.

Several technologies have been invented to add these features. For a while, it looked like Rich Internet Applications (”RIAs”, see Silverlight and Adobe Air) would win out as the next application platform. However, recently I’m becoming more convinced that a combination of AJAX and browser add-ons will win.

Just 6 years ago it was conventional wisdom that (at least within Microsoft) Web browsers had become just as complicated as they would ever. I remember a Microsoft employ saying “their may not be another version of IE after 6, I mean what else is there to do?” AJAX applications were too slow to really replace destop applications.

In its early days, Javascript was a pain to write and debug. However, Javascript has matured. There are many libraries now exist to improve cross-browser compatibility and facilitate high level programming concepts. For example:

• Javascript is Object Oriented
• Firebug is a decent debugging tool.
• Namespace Hacks keep code clean
  
• JSON beats XML as a data transmission format
  
• Functions are first class objects
• Reflection (types can be inspected and modified at runtime)
• Decent development environments (code completion in Aptana)
• Threading hacks and event libraries
• Many advanced animation and UI libraries to choose from

Lastly,  Javascript (and JSON/XML) is an open standard that is not championed by any one particular company. This is not a technical advantage, but a cultural one. Javascript is pervasive and a safe (reluctant?) choice because it won’t be going away for a long time.

So, with these advances in mind, what exactly will the Javascript browser platform of the future look like? Here are the contenders:

• Firefox + Google Gears
• Safari (aka Webkit platform) with special features for client side storage and animation
• Internet Explorer + What?

Microsoft is in trouble for a couple reasons. I’m not sure if Silverlight is meant give code running in IE access to the Operating System. Even if it is, IE is only supported on Windows.

It may be a bit premature to predict the end of most desktop applications, but it sure seems like those who have switched operating systems will recognize and speed up the trend.

Appendix

see also Yahoo’s BrowserPlus

I think Prosper is a fantastic concept, I hope they weather the current economic climate, find away to improve borrower screening, and get even tougher on debt collection!

Playlist:

1. The Ting Tings - Great DJ
2. Dizzee Rascal feat. Calvin Harris - Dance_Wiv_Me
3. Weezer vs Nelly - Beverly Grillz (Edit)
4. The Wombats - Lost In The Post
5. Dead Kids - Fear and Fluoride
6. Art of Noise vs Rakim - Close to the soul (kozmikdj mashup)
7. Digital Rust - Bucky Done Gun
8. Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (Datassette Remix)
9. Dizzee Rascal - Flex (Dave Spoon Mix)
10. 50 Cent vs. Chromeo - So Gansta In Da Club (DJ Weekend Mashup)
11. Coldplay - Clocks (Latin Version)
12. Tegan And Sara - Dancing In The Dark
13. Regina Spektor - Raindrops
14. Ladytron - Versus
15. Weezer - Pork and Beans
16. MGMT - Electric Feel (Justice Remix)
17. The Ting Tings - Great DJ (Calvin Harris Remix)

Special thanks to Songbird and Hypemachine

SearchMonkey is interesting because it allows 3rd party developers to make use of Yahoo’s crawl of semantic data. This means the benefits of the index are shared without compromising Yahoo’s ownership of the index. The gamble is that Google won’t be able to keep pace with the 3rd party developers’ features, and that the features would be good enough to motivate publishers to provide feeds.

In the SearchMonkey architecture, publishers provide data (semantic information about what has traditionally been represented as text on their Web sites). App developers create Presentation Applications to match this data to search results (which is also semantically enhanced). So, if I search for “Coldplay” an Amazon search result could be enhanced with a Last.fm “listen now” link (or vice versa). The main point is that Yahoo search facilitates Coldplay being recognized as a band.

This seems to me like a good bet for Yahoo, if it isn’t too late for them as a business given their recent troubles. Assuming an audience of Yahoo searchers still exists, an app ecosystem like the Facebook developer ecosystem should develop trying to capture the users. Publishers will also be motivated Data Feed hosting will become just another part of SEO.

One last point is that this would be a great place for Evri (and Freebase) to plug in. Evri (still in private beta) has been criticized for not having a search box. This would be a great way to expose Evri’s semantic understanding of specific people when they show up in a Yahoo search result.