Adam Loving’s BlogSeattle Facebook, OpenSocial, and Web Development

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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.

Joshua Allen wrote an interesting post about how SearchMonkey is disruptive because it could enable semantic Web technologies. Basically the “Semantic Web” is a more meaningful internet (see my post from 2004 for a better description). Internet inhabitants have been trying unsuccessfully to bootstrap the semantic Web for a while. Google has the power to make it happen, but doing so would risk loosing their competitive advantage in Web search. If Google supported semantic Web formats like RDF, publishers would use it a lot more, and other search engines would have an easier time searching the Web.

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.

Up until 2007, I had resigned to being on the  Microsoft bandwagon. Working with Microsoft technologies during the day paid my salary, and Windows XP delivered my TV at night. Being a Seattle native (and lover) - it seemed like a safe choice. In the last year, I’ve switched to a new faster moving bandwagon - Apple and Google.

The jumping off point for me was Windows Vista. Technology (particularly the internet tech that I pay attention to) has been moving so quickly - by the time Vista was done, it was a big disappointment. It just felt like the same old stuff in a shiny new package. The funny thing is, I can remember thinking “wow, how will I ever extract myself” from Microsoft if I decide to do so? It actually has been really easy.

I had tried Vista at work, and was not impressed - so when it came time to by a new lap top, I went for a MacBook Pro. Macs now run on the same Intel chips as most PCs, and there is great virtualization software (I happen to use Parallels) that lets you run Windows XP or Vista on your Mac quite easily. This was perfect way to learn the UNIX based Mac operating system through immersion, while still safely being able to do the Windows stuff I need. Now, I mostly just fire up Vista to maintain some code I’ve written, and access a couple Excel spreadsheets.

Getting stuff done seems faster and easier on the Mac. This is mostly because it comes with much less bundled software than your typical Windows laptop. Also, installing and uninstalling software is a much cleaner process. Because there is no registry, and applications are more tightly constrained to their own folders on your hard disk, you don’t get the sense that your computer is getting slower with every app you install.

Impressed by Macbook, I also took the leap to an iPhone. I’m not going to enumerate how freaking revolutionary the iPhone is - I just love it. Apple doesn’t deliver my TV yet, but it won’t be long.

The next major switch was going from Hotmail to GMail. I had used Hotmail for around 10 years. The last 5 or so it gave me an icky unprofessional feeling to use it as my primary address, but I stuck with it. The reason I finally switched was because you have to pay Microsoft for POP access to your mailbox. So even if you dutifully try to use Outlook, you can’t use it for Hotmail unless you pay. I’m not crazy about the much touted GMail AJAX interface. It gets the job done a bit faster, and with quicker search capability. IMAP or POP (free and lots of storage) work great with Apple Mail or Outlook - for free.

Another pain point for me was maintaining a calendar. The calendar attached to hotmail was unusable (why I kept trying to use Outlook). However, Google Calendar has been fantastic. Unlike GMail, the AJAX interface for Google Calendar has impressed me. My favorite feature is the “quick add” text box. You simply type “Meet TA for coffee at 9AM friday” and it creates an appointment at the right time.

I prefer Google bookmarks to delicious or Lookmarks because of their close integration with Google search and Web history (though I’m still waiting for a sharing feature). I bought Pages for the Mac, but for the technical writing I do - I reach for Google Documents more often because they are so easily shareable. I take research notes to prepare blog posts in Google Notebook. I’m sure I spend more time in Google Reader than probably any other app or Web site because I wanted a server based place to organize all my feeds.

The Apple and Google bandwagons aren’t linked in any significant way. Switching to Google tools just made the switch to Apple easier (as it would to Linux). I still live in Seattle and suspect I will continue to do work (directly or indirectly) for Microsoft. It won’t be long until entire businesses can switch the way I have. I hope for, but don’t bet on, Microsoft keeping their bandwagon in the race.

Are you thinking of making the switch? Add a comment below!

UPDATE: Here is a good argument for sticking with Windows XP (read to the bottom)

This weekend I finally overhauled this blog. I wanted it to update more frequently with everything I’m doing on the Web. Here is how it works:

1. I subscribe to all my RSS feeds in Google Reader and tag them “adamloving“. I use Google Notebook for technical notes because it is nicely integrated with Google Bookmarks which are easy to create from Google search results. I also pipe in my Facebook feeds - which captures my status updates and other pages I’m sharing.

2. I host my own Wordpress installation at Joyent. I installed the FeedWordpress plug in and use it to pull down and re-publish the aggregate Google Reader feed.

The great thing about this system is that I’m capturing all the content I’m creating all over the Web in my own database.

Oh, and I used the WP Decoratr plugin to find the cool image, and Zemanta to help auto-link.