One Year Later

Poking around my feeds, I found this really great blog from Adam Bosworth, currently VP of Engineering at Google, who has developed several really well known applications at some other really well-known companies. BEA Web Logic, Internet Explorer, MS Access, Borland Quattro. He is also known as one of the pioneers of XML. His blog seems to catalog his life since starting at Google a little over a year ago. Adam doesn't post very frequently, but when he does it is worthwhile reading even months later.

For example, in a post written exactly one year ago today, Adam defines and defends the idea of web services. His main argument is that web services will prove to be superior to desktop applications in the future. This is because of their ability to allow "much faster evolution in response to the natural selection of market needs, much cheaper and easier and more simple user interface, and much better ability to know what can be done better for the customer." With the vantage point of one year, his argument is increasingly becoming more believable, more mainstream, more evidence of evolution in action.

What I find so compelling is his remark that the power of web services cease when you are offline. His formula for solving this problem is as follows: "a local cache, a smart template model, and a synchronization protocol are required to build applications that run equally well connected and disconnected..." He followed up on this idea in a later post this past summer, where he lists the limits of AJAX - the most popular contender for powering web services. Even for the AJAX-ian approach, being offline is an extreme showstopper, especially if you believe, like Adam does, that the real tipping point in favor of web services over windows apps is mobile computing.

On this Hallow's Eve, that is last word from Adam on the subject of offline web services. As far as I'm concerned, this is one area that is wide-open and looking for a good solution. Not rocket science, but not anywhere near a good, working solution either.

Postscript: Adam is invested in the development of the postchild of web services, Salesforce.com. Unlike, Adam, I am not a trained historian, but perhaps because of his association with Marc Benioff, these posts of his may well be the historial record that proves Adam to be a pioneer in web services as well. Only time will tell.

Enterprise Search

Now that Google and IBM have teamed up on Enterprise Search, I wonder what is going to happen to X1's deal with IBM. Like most deals in a three-way situation, a diad will form that will clearly lead to a single winner. Too bad we can't wager this on Google's predictive market tool. Regardless, the water that will feed the growth in this case is the Google Economy, which is simply Google's uncanny ability to create a trusted eco-system inside of its marketplace. Since Google is already the best productivity tool in the workplace since the word processor, it follows that Google should come up as the winner in this deal. One day, Bill Gross is going to build a Google disrupter, but I now have my doubts about X-1 being the one. Is there still hope for Snap?

Apollo and Dionysius

If I don't really care about the underlying structure of the web (just give me the candy!), then am I being amoral? After thinking about this since my last post, I would have to say yes. But after seeing Episode III, I now know how the dark side can be so appealing. It is the quick and easy way. The guardians of the good side are out there watching us play and they are concerned. We, the celebrators, are not thinking about noble causes - we are dancing on graves.

Reveling in my amorality, I happened upon a series of articles from Bio-IT World about the Semantic Web and it's role in the Life Sciences. It was like the rays of dawn peeking through the curtains after a late night of heavy surfing. There is the noble cause - saving people's lives through curing and preventing disease. There are the knights (literally in the case of Tim Berners-Lee) who say, "we...will save this land from chaos!" Finally, there is the bioscience/medical industry like a network of castles closed off from the rest of the world, unable to communicate with each without serious bloodshed and in-breeding.

What is most intriguing to me about this whole attempt to make the Semantic Web come alive through this most vexing of enterprises - is the possibility that this rebirth of the web may be twins or even a multiple birth. One of the Bio-IT World article's quotes Eric Miller of the W3C who says "what the physicists were to the original web, the life science community is going to be to the Semantic Web." That may be, but the web started to really matter once the scientists and utopians stepped aside for people like John Doerr, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gross.

Speaking of Bill Gross - check out his latest creation - it's an enterprise desktop search company based in Pasadena, CA, that doesn't seem to care about Web 2.0 or Semantic Web. It just wants to beat the pancakes off Google.

Kid in a Candy Store

Everthing on the web is happening so fast now - the websites, the tools, the APIs, the features, the secret betas, the buzz. Inevitably, there are going to be bumps and backlashings. Some people want to see the next big thing in big lights already, others are having trouble seeing the news guns forcing the old order to fade away. Me? I am going to keep playing with the toys. Simply finding them is most of the fun, and through this discovery process something truly earth-shattering is bound to reveal itself. In good time.

Web 2.0 Workgroup

Here is a collection of some of the best sites out there on the whole Web 2.0 thing. I loaded them into my Google Reader and it has given the tool a whole new life. This is probably how things are going to go mainstream - all of this crazy cool stuff out there and somehow a few disparate things connected together make the sum greater than the parts.

Firefox Widgets

POV from Andrew Peaker, developer of Firefoxit: "Firefox and the whole concept of widgets and web apps is part of the future of desktop computing. Firefox is a kind of OS. Firefoxit could be like part of the shell. Online services and a horde of local webservices could act as the backend. An interface that's available from many OS and any place."

POW from the average user: "I don't care what or where my OS is. Desktop, Browser, Server. Who cares? I just want a nice interface that works. " Users don't care about the foundation, the pipes, or even the building materials - they care about the layout, the view, and the furniture.

But "where the OS is" matters because it can shift the functionality of the layout, view and furniture. For example, if you add to your home you change the use of the previously existing space. Similiarly, if you add a widget to a browser that allows application-like functionality, you get more that just an online email client. You get an email client that can interact with all of your online habits.

This is what Google has in mind by lending it's search functionality to Gmail, but with a widget you can now surf the web while you simultaneously connect with others. This makes emailing and surfing both open up to more interesting uses.

My POV on the OS: I don't care what or where my OS is. It can exist in several places as long as I get to keep adding to my house, moving around all my layout, view and furniture to accomodate several new possibilities of usage. Keep em coming!

(Suggestion for Andrew: change the name to Fidget!)

Posting Live From the Frontlines!

Posted this from Flock's Blog Topbar. Dragged the quote below from the page into a blog area and the link showed up automatically along with some HTML. I had to add this text from Blogger, so either I have some learning to do, or as stated by the Flock team, there are some glitches to work out on their product. Overall, though I give Flock an A+ on their first day of school. It is a sweet tool! BTW, I found the juicy little tidbit on XBox 360 using the StumbleUpon Extension, which I have also loaded in my 1.5 Firefox under a different username. The StumbleUpon website doesn't seem to let you login as regular user. Who cares though - it's also a sweet tool!

Does your local Wal-Mart have playable Xbox 360s?

Xbox 360s playable at Wal-Mart today? Confirmed. - Joystiq - www.joystiq.com