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Posted by Richard Ziade on June 24, 2005, 03:40PMShades of Traits : Microsoft & RSS
Today, Microsoft announced broad support for RSS at both the browser (IE7) and operating system (Longhorn) level. This is very exciting stuff for anyone that cares about feed syndication. Few players can take a technology and pull it into mainstream use. Microsoft is one of them.
There are many angles to what Microsoft is planning for RSS. You can read about them here and here and here. This section in the official press release particularly caught my eye:
It allows publishers to embed useful information about the list itself. For example, an online retailer can supply additional information about each item in a list such as price, sales rank, average customer rating and type of merchandise. The extensions enable richer flexibility and capability for sorting and ordering. This enables users to sort their friends' wish lists by sales rank or popularity.
About seven months ago, I drafted up an RSS extension called RSS Traits. From the Purpose section of the spec:
The real power of Traits is realized on the consuming end. Equipped clients and applications can provide filtering, sorting and presentation enhancements that are driven by the Traits data provided for in the feed.
I’m intrigued that we (“we” being Microsoft and I) came up with what is effectively the same idea to expand the power of RSS. I’ve never spoken to anyone from Microsoft. Then again, I’ve blogged about this a few times, so maybe they read it (or maybe not). Either way, I’m pretty excited to see what they come up with.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 21, 2005, 09:32AMMicrosoft is Lovin' that Flash RIA Stuff
Powersdk : Ted pointedly points out that Microsoft has introduced shades of Flash RIA's (albeit they're kinda marketing-ish):
www.windows.com
www.xbox360.com
Google: Do No Evil (Sorta)
Much has been made of Google’s squeaky clean image and it’s “Do No Evil” philosophy. Ultimately, it’s a great (but risky) way to build user/consumer trust. If Google really believes that as long as they play nice they’ll continue to flourish then everyone is happy.
The problem isn’t with Google’s philosophy. There are plenty of successful companies out there that succeeded by providing good value to others. This is a good thing. The problem really lies with Google’s self-proclaimed altruism. Multi-billion dollar corporations should not be going around telling people how wonderful they are. Plenty of public relations firms would be glad to let that message seap into the collective consciousness of the masses without blasting it out on a megaphone.
But there’s another issue with Google’s philosophy. Is placing ads in RSS feeds evil? Is bundling Google Desktop with Winzip installations evil? Is caching the entire web (and thus breaking a bunch of web apps) evil? Not really. “Evil” is a pretty strong word. Annoying? Frustrating? Nagging? Intrusive? Of course they are. Google is a fast growing company that is going to continue to scramble to find ways to justify its valuation. The results will probably not be evil, but they sure as hell won’t make us think of butterflies and daisies.
In the end, Google is a thriving business, no more or less evil than Walmart or McDonalds. The only difference is others don’t patronize us with a warm and cuddly public image. As the pressure to grow continues, Google will reach farther and farther to justify their value, and closer and closer to…*gasp*…evil.
The Economist On Biomimicry
Speak of the devil, the hooligans of at The Economist have put out an article on biomimicry.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 11, 2005, 10:15PMGoogle Tinkerers
CNN: Google tinkerers make data come alive
RIA's On Wikipedia
The term “Rich Internet Application” (RIA) has graduated to the wonderful world of Wikipedia. There’s mention of the various techniques to make stuff Rich – Javascript, Flash. There’s even a plug for the new kid on the block – Backbase.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 10, 2005, 07:41AMBiomimicry & Design
Functioning Form (an excellent site/blog on interface design) points to an interesting article that covers how designers can be influenced by natural or biological forms. This approach is often called biomimetics. It’s a new science that studies nature’s models for inspiration to solve human problems. He mentions a concept car designed by DaimlerChrysler whose body is inspired by…a boxfish.
If you think about this from an evolutionary context, the way complex organisms look: their shape, color, size, texture, and how they behave: their locomotive patterns; their survival tactics, etc. you’re tapping into an enormous amount of “testing” and filtering of designs for something that simply works well enough to have survived through history.
As a designer, I’m always looking to other work for inspiration and I’m especially attentive to work that has been labored over and evolved over many iterations. Much of the hard work has been done. In nature, we’re surrounded by the latest versions of all sorts of complex systems.
This is all, of course, somewhat theoretical. “Inspiration” can drive design in a very specific way (like the DaimlerChrysler example) or it can simply unlock new ideas and approaches to solving problems. Lord knows staring at a blank Photoshop document rarely helps any.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 8, 2005, 08:34PMMicrosoft Now Offers Tabbed Browsing
The nutjobs at Microsoft obviously can’t wait to release IE7 to give the gift of tabbed browsing to the masses. With the release of the new MSN Toolbar, tabbed browsing is here for IE6.
Backbase Community Edition Available
With all the Ajax hubub swirling around these days, someone was bound to package it up into product. A European software company, Backbase, has put out a platform (so to speak) that ties together a set of server-side tags (.Net or J2EE) that wrap up rich client functionality. They've apparently hidden away the all the ugly details of Ajax and turned it all into a set of tags.
There are a slew of demos on their website. It's pretty interesting stuff. I think they're going to find a niche here because it would simply be too costly and talent is too hard to find to build this sort of stuff from scratch yourself. Not everyone has the cash or appeal of Google.
There's a Community Edition available sans the server side stuff. It's free to download and play with. Smart move there as well. I'd love to see Macromedia make Flex more freely available to the community.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 6, 2005, 02:04PMStart.com - Microsoft's Own Little Garage Shop
Something interesting is going on at Microsoft. Or at least in their start.com group.
For the unfamiliar, start.com appears to be Microsoft’s quiet foray into the world of web-based RSS portals. What’s interesting about it is it seems to be the product of a more off-the-cuff style of building software. There’s no beta, no promised release dates. It’s just a few people screwing around with stuff and making some cool toys.
Of course, this is all theory, but take a look at the site. If you go to www.start.com you get a “page not found” error. But if you go to www.start.com/1 or www.start.com/2 you get a couple of variants of a web aggregator. www.start.com/3 is their latest stab at it (you have to do this lame little quiz before you gain access).
I’ve gotta say, with version 3, they’re coming close to something really nice. It still has some issues, but I like their approach: hack away and throw some stuff out there. Nothing they have makes me want to uninstall FeedDemon, but they can get there. I think the most interesting thing here is how Microsoft appears to be trying to counteract the Big Company sluggishness with some slick, nimble little efforts. If they can infuse that into their culture, they will put some hurt on all the little guys.
Macromedia Taking Aim At Microsoft
Information Week has an article out on how the Flash/Flex recipe (along with a tweaked-out version of the Eclipse IDE) will prove a serious development platform that rivals Microsoft.
There is merit to what they’re saying. Flash is literally everywhere (arguably on more machines than Windows) and it is lightweight.
Longhorn is Microsoft’s answer to delivering rich applications over the Web. We’ll see if they deliver. Knowing Microsoft, it will be bloated – thus defeating the purpose of going thin/rich client anyway.
On the other hand, you’ve got the challenges of a merger (Adobe/Macromedia) and all the soap opera that often comes with that.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 4, 2005, 01:47PMFirefox Help, Tips and Tricks
For the dorky tinkerer in all of us, a solid collection of Firefox Help, Tips and Tricks.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 3, 2005, 12:50PMOne More Angle on Macrodobe Merrger
Just what we need, one more commentary.