Today we design/develop the front-end for our web applications in XHTML/CSS/AJAX, with more or less pain, our work will render on every browser if we stick to standards and good practices, but is not always that way, just ask any front-end developer.
Also the possibilities of XHTML/CSS/AJAX are very limited, and a pain in the ass when you try to do something involving sound, video or just smooth animations. Also the data manipulation is poor without good libraries.
The developers are and will use this techniques for long time, for reasons including: cost, licenses, available documentation, popularity, libraries, etc. But…
There are alternatives. I’m talking of course about Flash/Flex/Air from Adobe and Silverlight from Microsoft, not mentioning Java here cause using a Java Applet today is just against common sense.
By far the favorite out there is Flash. But some will say that Flash is not meant to be used on the development of web applications, for those how said that just take a look at Picnik and see what they have achieved with Flash/Flex and please, STFO.
ActionScript 3 is powerful with lots of well designed libraries and now with Flex MXML is getting really close to the real thing. Plus the possibility to play with audio, video and animations.
What is bad with Flex? Adobe have even released the Flex SDK as Open Source (Sort of), but Flesh is still only been used mainly in Corporate Applications. I guess the main issue with Flex is the lack of Flexibility in the MXML code, also is not comparable to the beauty of the present XHTML/CSS markup in which a <ul> can be render as a menu, etc. Flex have a lot of useful controls and widgets and all they work great, but… all look the same in every Flex application. We want diversity and to get this diversity in Flex we have to write our own controls and libraries and that is just, not a good at all, specially for rapid development.
Also the Flash player version for mobile devices is very limited right now, and is not secret that the Flash player you have installed right now as a plugin in your browser is also a giant resource eater.
Flash is also the de facto platform for online video right now with only Silverlight in the horizon and video applications are really hot right now.
In 2 or 3 more iterations of the Flex team they will have something better, I hope… So Flex will go mainstream as a strong platform. Also with the release of powerful tools on the horizon (read Thermo) things just can go better, bigger and faster.
If you are thinking in develop you next big thing in Flex but are thinking in how expensive is Flex Builder, just take a look at FlashDevelop.org and take it for a Spin you will be more than pleased, no drag and drop controls here though, but the thing works if you know your ways into AS3 and MXML.
I will be keeping an eye on the new stuff that is coming up from Flex developers. Keep flowing.
What is the buzz with microbloging? Is the fast way to reach your friends or public with information, this information can be a short text, photo, audio, or video. The truth is that you can spread your content very fast with high possibilities of replication and viral interaction, if you have a big crowd following you… or your content is good of course (removed mention to Angelina J. here).
Twitter was the first of his kind, after that, the clones had make noise in the intertubes, even Facebook have Status (and now LinkedIn too, WTF, is this a way to follow the trends or just Xeroxing some features). Certainly is twitter the one with critical mass out there, also have a myriad of 3rd party tools and mashups. There is also Jaiku, bought by Google, and finally Pownce, the one personally use in a day to day basis.
Why I use pownce or microbloging? Is just, cause I can, is fun, share your thoughts and get feedback almost immediately. I am not fan of sending SMS to websites to update my status but many people does.
The last one to the kind is a hybrid from Yahoo: FireEagle, which can update you current location based on the info collected from your mobile device. I really find it… let’s say… clever, but… wait… was twitter useful when they go out.
I will not mention the outages that bring some darkness to this services from time to time (can you hear me twitter?). For example when twitter is down I get the complains all over pownce… come on you can not have a profile on every fucking website you stumble upon… oh wait… the register button is so pretty.
Anyway this myriad of microbloging services are generating others like hellotxt.com in which you can pownce/twitter/thumble/statusthefacebook/linkedinthestatus all at once. But the “Hi from hellotxt” messages are getting really annoying.
Someone is seeing the future applications of this services but just now is other way to friendspam a lot of people, or to get your plants talk to you when they run out of water, or even to know where (approximately) your stolen iPhone is entertaining someone else.
I just came from the Munich Online Network and just want to say that was awesome! Many people working in Internet related stuff, from bootstrappers to well established Internet properties. Munich is alive people!, err… in a web 2.0 way… still like more Berlin.
Also they where also uninteresting people which I was sat at the beginning. But after 2.5 liters of beer all star to take form. The truth is: I found a great group of people with ideas and motivated to make something great.
Expect the next blog posts with more info about this startups. Keep flowing.
PS: the photo is shity, I know, it was take with my iPhone, in the dark.
When entrepreneurs are landing his ideas have few possibilities for financing. Can go for Plastic, Angel Investors, Venture Capital or… Bootstrapping. Every one of this forms of financing have pros and cons of course, but, is up to the entrepreneurs choose the way to go.
Most of the startups fail in the end, but when are backed by Venture Capital they hit the ground very hard. Like in physics the velocity is directly proportional to the mass… on the way down. I guess this failures are due to multiple factors not only Venture Capital or financing problems.
Startups get other level when they get money from outside, they change from a fun and exiting environment, to stress, deadlines, broken expectations and such. Founders loose focus on the main goals and start to divagate and walk in circles, redefining the indefinite, as they have money to keep going, they turn lazy, unfocused and start to spend money on wrong places. Or in some cases the money start talking and give orders, precipitating the fall.
They are also smart money out there, like new venture capital animals like YCombinator, and others. They focus the invest not only on the money but also in helping the entrepreneurs to keep going and meet the goals, cause… no one know better about an idea like the creators. That’s why they are investing in the people not in future business or revenue. They invest small amounts of money to keep the ball rolling, so the margin of loss in case of failure is not so shocking.
In other hand they are financing occurring in other level, a very high level, like the projects, Theseus and Quaero, in which the money will reach more people and organizations also will be more bureaucratic, slow and finally will fall by their own weight, full of 400+ pages monthly reports and burning our money at the same time.
This way of invest is really doomed cause bring a lot of noise to the projects, to many Chief and few Indians and such, resulting in a risible result, like the one this 2 projects have right now: no visible results, they are just burning money away. But this 2 examples are also doomed by the politics and the lack of knowledge from the politicians about how works the intertubes.
Is up to the entrepreneurs choose the type of financing the need depending of the necessities of the project the are developing, I hope they recognize the smart money.
Facebook launched their iPhone web application, Pownce does too, and LinkedIn… Xing have put their 2 cents on that table too… nobody cares, why?
Just because Xing is just other clone of a successful web site: LinkedIn, but that is part of other story. Let’s get in details with our hands on the Xing web application for the iPhone.
With many other iPhone apps around is easy fall in the same UI/UX details like LinkedIn does with theirs (is just like Facebook, but other branding, colors, etc.) but no, Xing seems, this time, not willing to do more copycats. But the attempt to make something different just fail at the design and user experience. They have a great documentation with all stuff clearly explained at apple web site, also they can look how is the user experience with the device… and… still… they are doing it wrong.
How does it fail
The first thing noticed when you head to xing.com with Safari on board of the iPhone is a logging page, right, I know what’s Xing if I get there with my iPhone, so let’s move on… logged in… go to other page in safari and you are automatically logged out… hmm… they really don’t realize how hard is to type in a mobile device.
Once in, you get to your feeds page… but you can’t see any difference in the info text and the actual links or actions, and you have to make your way in the app in a delicious trial/error/back/reload manner.
At this time when you spend some goods minutes (and expensive data bytes) you learn how to get what you want from the site… but wait… What you can do inside? Not much… only read, answer and write mails from your contacts on the site.
The AJAX animations and pretended interactivity just froze on the middle of loading and others stuff I really don’t have the time to mention. Just take a look to the screen shots.
Finally
Xing application on the iPhone sucks! I am not fan of web applications on the iPhone (just Pownce make me feel better here) but they are 100s to look at, hope next time they do better. Why? Cause I am a paid user of Xing (try to sign up a German into LinkedIn and you will know what I mean) and after all, I live in Germany.
Well… today is 28 of February and still not sign of the SDK for the iPhone. Not surprise here, nowdays is better latter with hype than early. That’s is how Apple is failing again… but they still win… How? cause the iPhone is a great device, and the possibilities are endless, even now you can install and use 3rd party applications, previous jailbreak of course, and they are great. We have seen things like iBand, and I can say that is more to come.
Why the iPhone is so popular? Well is easy, the most easy to use device I have seen in years (since the light switch), also is… in the words of elJobso: Beautiful, indeed. And… come on.. is Apple.
Second act: the story of the ghost 1.1.4 iPhone firmware. Yesterday was quietly released the last firmware for the iPhone, and under the release notes you can read: “bug fixes” or some message of the same meaning… Nothing new here.
Why is this happen: just other move of Apple in the endless game of the Apple/don’t-mess-with-my-stuff vs hackers/jailbreak-users/think-different. In the end Apple is getting their stuff the way they wanted and are wining the game, cause right now, all hackers are trying to unlock/jailbreak/set-free the device with the new firmware. In the meantime Apple have just gain more time to plan the next move. Tip of the hat to Apple, well played… well played.
You want see more? just take a look at the iPhone page in Apple site and you will see that only the Jan08 update is listed, this ghost update is just dust in the wind to confuse the butterflies. Want more? my iTunes, here in Germany, don’t even know about this update.
Disclosure: I have an Apple iPhone, unlocked and jailbreaked and I am very pleased with it, so I am waiting a bit long and will upgrade when they drop something useful like AD2P support for instance. Also no Macs around me.
Waiting till March 06 and see what happens but as I see things now will be a mayor disappointment for the iPhone Development Community, Apple will release the SDK to big guys and charge an eye for the rest of us. Time will tell, hope I’m wrong.
Keep flowing.
Update: (06.03.2008 10:26pm) Almost all is written here came true moments ago.
Since last December I haven’t post to this blog, my last post was about Cloverfield, now I have seen it and is… well… too much viral hype.
This post is “A turn in the road” for one main reason, for now on, this blog will be more personal and egocentric, stop with the dreams of one Web 2.0 United Community. And… I will post what I like and that’s all.
Also I plan to write more frequently (in the train, I love when my train have Wi-Fi) and the articles will be far away from lengthy.
I have seen the site a little funny in IE, but I will do nothing to fix it, just get a better browser, I use Firefox and Safari and that browsers the site looks great. So grow up and get a real browser.
Finally the text surround the pic and this post is ready to go. Expect us! Muhahahahaha. To much YouTube I guess.
Viral Marketing is the new marketing, frequently used in the internet because the power of sharing to other, the most close thing to Word of Mouth. Cloverfiled is a film that from the beginning is using viral marketing as promotion. All the trailers are virally distributes on the video sharing files and get millions of views when some new video came out. Even unrelated events are often linked to the viral campaign of the film.
Now the creator of Cloverfield go to next level making a Widget for you to share on the mayors Social Networks and Blog Platforms or to send on email, embed on a web page, etc.
Here goes the widget with 5 minutes of the film. Enjoy and Keep Flowing.
With all this hype of Betas and web application in early phases, etc. You can do some things before you launch your private beta. Let’s take a look.
Getting a name and Domain
The first (very important) thing you may have, is the name for your app, we all know what a great name can make for a product, and we all know names like Apple, Nike, Google, Microsoft, Digg, Facebook, etc. Read on »
Adobe has redesigned their website. The new main element is the “Pizzazz” banner right below the main menu. Sure they have to promote their technologies; after all they sell software, but I don´t think is necessary have a ¾ of the screen covered with a pizzazz message.
When I visit Adobe.com I know exactly what I am looking for: the new beta of Flex or some news of the Spry Framework or something else. The pizzazz is not help at all, in this case. Looks like the marketing people jump over the UI/UX team this time.
Where I am?
First I noticed when see the new design was: Where the hell I am. Adobe is breaking some design rules here, putting their branding (logo, etc) on the right. Why Adobe why? Everybody notice the website they are by the logo on the top left, and everybody expect that. Making this change left some people lost in the dark. Read on »
Today we design/develop the front-end for our web applications in XHTML/CSS/AJAX, with more or less pain, our work will render on every browser if we stick to standards and good practices, but is not always that way, just ask any front-end developer.
What is the buzz with microbloging? Is the fast way to reach your friends or public with information, this information can be a short text, photo, audio, or video. The truth is that you can spread your content very fast with high possibilities of replication and viral interaction, if you have a big crowd following you… or your content is good of course (removed mention to Angelina J. here).
I just came from the Munich Online Network and just want to say that was awesome! Many people working in Internet related stuff, from bootstrappers to well established Internet properties. Munich is alive people!, err… in a web 2.0 way… still like more Berlin.
When entrepreneurs are landing his ideas have few possibilities for financing. Can go for Plastic, Angel Investors, Venture Capital or… Bootstrapping. Every one of this forms of financing have pros and cons of course, but, is up to the entrepreneurs choose the way to go.
Facebook launched their iPhone web application, Pownce does too, and LinkedIn… Xing have put their 2 cents on that table too… nobody cares, why?
The first thing noticed when you head to xing.com with Safari on board of the iPhone is a logging page, right, I know what’s Xing if I get there with my iPhone, so let’s move on… logged in… go to other page in safari and you are automatically logged out… hmm… they really don’t realize how hard is to type in a mobile device.
Well… today is 28 of February and still not sign of the SDK for the iPhone. Not surprise here, nowdays is better latter with hype than early. That’s is how Apple is failing again… but they still win… How? cause the iPhone is a great device, and the possibilities are endless, even now you can install and use 3rd party applications, previous jailbreak of course, and they are great. We have seen things like 
Since last December I haven’t post to this blog, my last post was about Cloverfield, now I have seen it and is… well… too much viral hype.
With all this hype of 
Adobe has redesigned their website. The new main element is the “Pizzazz” banner right below the main menu. Sure they have to promote their technologies; after all they sell software, but I don´t think is necessary have a ¾ of the screen covered with a pizzazz message.
