I absolutely agree with Dewitt, Amazon.com Groceries is something very, very awesome especially given the fact that your selections are eligible for Amazon Prime. Obviously it isn't practical for all situations but if I was single or not close to a grocery store, it would be perfect.
I know I'm one of the last people to point out Cork'd but it's really a cool site, very nicely done. Here's the view from the two developers.
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rubyonrails, corkd
QueryTrace looks to be a very useful Rails plugin. It adds to the SQL query logging to give you a trace through the app as to where the query happened. Definitely good stuff!
Technorati Tags:
rubyonrails
About a month ago, Bill Burnham posted about what he dubbed persistent search. Basically, it is the continuous searching of content based on information given by the user. So for example, if I wanted any data about the Cubs to be sent to me, that would be a persistent search.
There are current companies who offer this type of service but many don't include all possible content as they are focused just on blogs and other data found in RSS files.
One problem that the post didn't address is the issue of displaying this new found data to the appropriate device. If I'm out and about, I don't want to get a constant stream of alerts to my cell phone especially if they are just news articles or blog posts. Instead, I want to be able to say that I only want the latest score on my phone and perhaps an hourly indication of how much other data has been found. This isn't an easy problem to figure out I don't think since having the user indicate which device they are currently using is doubtful to happen. Instead, it might just need to be a preference and some overlapping of sent data will be probably occur.
The other elephant in the room is what happens as the number of users increase. This constant stream of data is going to need to be indexed as well as alert users on this data. How would this publish-subscribe relationship best be architected? Perhaps when a user indicates the search criteria for the data, a subscription for that criteria will be created or if one already exists, the user will be added to the correct queue.
If the infrastructure is created, a company could definitely make an impact offering persistent search especially if they focused on indexing data as quickly as it was available.
Technorati Tags:
search, persistent+search
Here are a couple of good ones:
“We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.” – Frank Tibolt
and
“Far better it is to dare mighty things to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered with failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that know not victory or defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
The Yahoo home page must stop trying to squeeze content for every group at Yahoo on their home page. That only generates a cluttered and useless mess, filled with distractions. Different people should see different Yahoo home pages based on their interests and needs. The Yahoo home page should focus on helping me find and discover useful Yahoo content.
You could easily substitute EarthLink or most customer-focused companies for Yahoo in the above quote from Greg Linden. The art of the home page is still something not everyone has figured out.
Technorati Tags:
yahoo, earthlink
I know I'm not the only developer to get distracted by something new but invariably it happens on a Friday and I spend the majority of the weekend investigating this new thing. And it happened again today starting with Leigh's post about the recent Jena User Conference.
I remember looking at Jena a few years ago but haven't really kept up with it too much since I'm not doing anything with RDF. So after reading the post, I read another post from Leigh, this time about his presentation and paper about Slug, a Semantic Web Crawler. As an aside, I just finished reading the paper and Slug is now in my to investigate pile.
Moving along, seeing two posts like that, I started going back in time through the Lost Boy's archives, seeing things like the Scripting for the Semantic Web workshop from last year and this year. Of course I didn't even realize this was going on. Next, I found the FOAF workshop from 2004 which has a ton of papers to put on my to read pile. You can also think about subscribing to someone's brain which parallels some of my thinking of wanting to put together a master list of possible info points.
Another thing to read is Leigh's XTech paper from last year, Connecting Social Content Services using FOAF, RDF and REST.
So now, my mind is filled with thoughts of FOAF and how EarthLink could do some amazing things with it. Earlier today, I was thinking about Atom Stores and little machines. Before that, it was something else. That's how my mind flitters between technologies, landing on an idea for a brief time and then moving onto something else.
Many times this bums me out but lately I've been thinking it is a good thing. It keeps me on my toes and interested in everything. I've slowly started to focus my energies on certain big picture ideas such as search, peer-to-peer and bits of the Semantic Web. There's a ton of data out there and not always easy ways to bring it to people.
Technorati Tags:
jena, rdf, foaf, semanticweb
What an ugly West Coast swing for the Cubs! I know I've been lax at posting thoughts about the games but the past couple of weeks I've been too embarrassed to say much of anything. Ugh. It's been ugly and it really doesn't look to get better as the Padres are up again.
At least, Bonds didn't tie Babe against us.
So, I don't watch Will & Grace that often and obviously I'll won't be watching at all after next week but the Wife wanted to watch it so we did. I would just like to say that it is very disconcerting to have your name constantly mentioned while I'm sitting at home watching the show.
The actor, Josh Lucas, was one of the guest stars and he played himself. Just as an aside, I get about an email a week from some fan of his, asking me to reply or send a picture or whatever. At any rate, it was weird to hear people talking to/about me.
I've been a little lax on my secret Rails project and of course now I have ideas for many, many more. When I was last working on it, I was having some issues with my RJS templates especially since they aren't very easy to debug.
I should actually say weren't easy since now we have AjaxSpy, a CSS and JavaScript combination which you can add to your pages and easily see what's being sent in either direction.
Looks to be extremely helpful.
Technorati Tags:
ajax, rubyonrails, rjs
The SIGIR Conference on Research & Development on Information Retrieval looks to have posted the program for the week. Some very interesting topics look to be discussed. I'm hoping to attend this year since it is in Seattle. I've never been to an academic-type conference so it definitely will be an experience.
Technorati Tags:
search, sigir2006
Douglas Rushkoff breaks down the silliness of various ad campaigns as well as the reality that many current buzz campaigns really don't help their products.
These days, consumer goods are their own best media. Just as the Starbucks coffee cup and cafe experience sells more coffee than any TV or billboard advertising campaign, the shape of a automobile chassis or placement of its cupholders sells more cars than all that indistinguishable footage of cars taking turns on desert lakebeds. Great products are their own billboards, and satisfied customers (not to mention passionate employees) are their best spokespeople.
Obviously the wisdom in that goes beyond just advertising but should include your product development as well. Many apps on the Web get initial buzz and quick intake of users but do many actually stick around for long? We've seen it with things like Friendster, Orkut and various other things. After the initial use, most people either find some other shiny thing to play with or they go back to what they were using.
The challenge then is to build such a useful product ( and I really think that is the key to everything ) that people are not only using it constantly but they are telling folks about it. That's the kind of customer any company wants and needs.
Technorati Tags:
advertising, marketing, product+development
Hmmm, tonight, John is starting at 7 and the movie starts at 7:40 right next door.
I think I feel a plan coming together.
Technorati Tags:
john+battelle, bettie+page, vromans
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.--John Gall
[ via ]
My head hurts after following this code. Ruby can be pretty awesome though.
I couldn't agree more with Leslie about hacking being World of Warcraft. I only wish I could keep my mind focused on a subject long enough to put together some interesting ideas or to add to existing ideas.
Interesting paper from some Googlers, digging into mobile search. One million queries were analyzed over the course of a month. The queries analyzed followed many of the same characteristics as queries done from a desktop or laptop, for example, the average number of words in a query were between 2 and 3 for both mobile and desktop search.
One interesting find was that 17% of the mobile queries were for URLs. Perhaps it was easier for people to search for a URL than finding the address bar and typing it in.
Overall though, a good paper to read and think about if you are doing anything related to mobile search. [ via ]
Technorati Tags:
search, mobile+search
Friday night, I saw Brick. I thought it was a really well-done movie especially in regards to following the standard noir figures.
There was the protagonist who was both intelligent and tough. He could give or receive punishment yet still was able follow any clues left for him. He was haunted by a former flame and didn't know where his current female, the femme fatale, was really falling for him or just putting up an act. Other parts were effectively done by the mysterious villain and his hot-headed muscle.
Overall, go see it, you won't be disappointed.
Technorati Tags:
brickmovie, noir