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Posted by Cyndy Aleo-Carreira on July 15th, 2008
"Android Developers Revolt." "Android Developers Flee to iPhone Platform."
The headlines on tech blogs lately are starting to read like supermarket tabloids, so I dug a little bit deeper to see if all the smoke has a fire behind it. What did I find?
Yes, there is a petition asking for more information from Google. Yes, I read it. But here's what it looks like to me: a vocal minority of Android Developers are frustrated and comparing the Android development process to that of the Apple iPhone. Let's compare the two, however, shall we?
Apple released its iPhone last year, with no SDK. Zero. No developers on the platform. No one seems to remember that the iPhone SDK wasn't released until March of this year, giving developers just slightly over four months of development time until the Apple App Store would be launched. And even then, it was limited to a set number of developers, not open to all. Google launched the preview release (and let's remember that's what they called it) of the SDK in November 2007, which would allow developers approximately a YEAR of development time, including planning, design, and coding, before handsets would hit the market.
We also need to look at price. Apple's SDK comes with a $99 price tag, a 30% cut in the App Store, and an iron-clad terms of use agreement including not building a GPS turn-by-turn application, giving no reason behind it. The Android SDK was released for free, and open-sourced.
Lastly, we need to look at the priorities of any development team. The Apple platform team had any amount of time to develop the platform, interface it with the (proprietary) hardware, and then get it debugged before ever releasing an SDK. The Android team is developing a platform that works with any number of phones. I, for one, would assume their priority is making sure the platform runs on the phones, not handholding developers, who should respect what directions the team is being pulled in and adjust their expectations accordingly.
Google has closed ranks after one of their team communicated his own frustrations to the rabble-rousers, giving them a bigger soapbox to stand on. (And I think I've made my opinions on developers talking to the public very clear.) A request to talk to Dan Morrill received no reply. Google did, however, issue a stealth response with an "accidental" email that went out to more than just the Android Developer Challenge Finalists who were "supposed" to get it, reading:
ADC Entrants, We're pleased to announce that SDK build 84853 is now available on your private download site. This will be the last build released for ADC Round 2 and is the build that you will need to submit your final application under. In addition, the final ADC deadline has been extended to Tuesday, August 5. This is the final ADC deadline. Thanks! Android Developer Challenge TeamI think that's a response letting the developers know that it's coming, and already in the hands of some of the developers who aren't whining and starting petitions.
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Posted by Leslie Poston on July 14th, 2008
AwayFind is a contact resource site created by Jared Goralnick, self described productivity evangelist, that is currently in private beta. I had the chance to test this out over the past few days, and I have to say I'm excited for its potential.
As with any private beta, it has a few glitches. That's the whole point of being in beta, however, to work them out. I found Jared to be quite responsive to questions and issues surrounding the AwayFind service. That bodes well for the success of his idea.
When I spoke with Jared about reviewing his site here on Profy, he was all for it, with one caveat - no disclosing of the release date plans. Fair enough - I can live with an embargo on the release details, especially as the product is so useful.
Over all I found the site very easy to use, with a simple, easy to understand set up process. Everything went smoothly except for a hitch at the end. Where I was supposed to send myself a test message to confirm my AwayFind page was indeed created, it kept thinking my message entry box was too full at zero characters. A quick mention to Jared via Twitter and the bug was fixed rapidly.
By providing a branded page with your name, photo or logo and a variety of contact information, AwayFind gives you all of the convenience of a multi-function contact form without having to know anything about programming. I liked that a lot. I do know enough to create my own basic form, but this is so much less hassle and offers many more options for people seeking me out.
What I liked most about it were the number of ways I could offer people to connect with me, and the number of categories I could create to make sure their needs were crystal clear to me right from the start. I ended up making a category for each blog I write for, both personal and professional (including a way to send me news items for Profy), a category for my friends and family and a category for events and speaking engagement invitations and announcements.
Once I had that done, I could associate each individual category with the notification type that I wanted. Each one goes to the specific email for that blog or company. Certain categories, like friends and family, also go to my cell phone as an SMS. That was the most invaluable feature of AwayFind to me - eliminating guess work. Now I receive an email with the subject I associated it with on AwayFind, and for important contacts, also a nudge on my phone.
I had a few people test my page. The delivery time was very fast. Of the several people I had try it out, I received my email and/or SMS message for the various categories in minutes. No waiting means I can trust I'll get important notifications and emails on time
What AwayFind is offering is a chance to disconnect from my computer on occasion. Knowing I won't miss that important email or call frees me to step away from the laptop and desktop again to pursue my interests outside my home office. That is invigorating. I'd love to see them eventually make a plug in for blogs like WordPress, but over all, I'm quite happy with the potential for this site.
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Posted by Triston McIntyre on July 14th, 2008
If I had to make an educated guess as to what keeps most people from leading a healthy and fit lifestyle, I would say that the lack of a training partner, a gym membership, and applicable real-life guidance are the biggest factors. I consider myself a relatively healthy individual, but I quickly admit to anyone that without a gym membership, training partner, and knowledge of proper workout routines that has been engrained over years of repetition, I would probably quite happily lead a sedentary lifestyle.
You might think that if there are only three barriers to becoming healthy, no people in their right minds would choose to miss out, right? Not necessarily. Finding a workout partner that can adhere to a similar workout schedule consistently is more than challenging. There are gyms everywhere, but choosing a gym that delivers a strong value with all the equipment and training areas you need at a competitive price can be a very time-consuming and discouraging process. Many people end up choosing a job that is over-priced and doesn't really fit their needs.
Once you actually get a gym membership and a workout partner, you are left with the truly overwhelming task of finding a workout that is tailored to your needs. There's cardio, weight training, kick-boxing, pole-dancing, swimming, running, water aerobics, circuit-training, high-intensity interval training, free weight excercises, machine and cable exercises, and every other method of working out that can thoroughly befuddle someone aspiring to be healthy and fit. Most everyone does one of three things: they spend hundreds of dollars a month paying for a fitness trainer (a helpful but expensive practice), they try to teach themselves (which usually yields very minimal results), or they get fed up with the whole thing and order a meatlover's pizza.
Wouldn't it be fantastic to be able to access all the information you need to make the decisions that lead to a healthy lifestyle in a single community-centric location? Such a community exists, and it's called Fitlink. Fitlink is a social fitness community designed to be a one-stop location for finding a trainer, a gym, and even a training partner. Though Fitlink has been around for a while, the site recenty received an update to make it significantly more social — users can now find gyms using a mashup on Google maps, participate in discussions on the site's forum, view a feed of user-created exercises and programs, and select a trainer from a list of trainer-created bios.
On the down side, I should forwarn you that a brief bio and explanation of goals or skills really isn't enough to make an accurate assessmennt of a workout partner or a physical trainer. Losing body fat is going to be different for a 27 year-old ex-collegiate athlete than it is someone coming off a completely couch-potatoe lifestyle at the age of 55 — chances are you won't be able to help each other much.
Still, Fitlink offers a lot of helpful tools in a sort of one-stop-shop location, which is something that many fast-paced people who have trouble finding time to do all the research necessary to get healthy prefer. The one thing to remember, above all, is that everyone will tell you something different about what it takes to get healthy because their method works for them. It won't necessarily work for you, so perserverance and actual dedication (not diet pills, popular diets or the ab-rocker) will work if you can apply yourself to working hard.
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Posted by Svetlana Gladkova on July 14th, 2008
I have received an invitation for our readers to attend private screening of the Dark Knight at the Matreon in San Francisco on July 17 (this Thursday) and the after party at the DNA Lounge (which is pretty good, this is where the VIP party for Web 2.0 Expo exhibitors and sponsors took place back in April so highly recommended). The previous day (Wednesday) MySpace and Techcrunch are hosting an exclusive screening in Los Angeles but for those living in San Francisco there will be an event organized by three prominent startups - Xoopit, Powerset, and Zivity as well.
Honestly, I myself find this practice of startups organizing pre-screening of movies for promotion to be a pretty peculiar one but this may be what it takes to reach mainstream users these days so I'm actually glad they think of such ways to increase brand awareness. As the organizers put it themselves, "The movie and party are aimed at building relationships with San Francisco's web creative and engineering communities.".
The after-party is actually open to anyone who sends an email batmanevent@gmail.com so I think you should shoot one if you live in San Francisco and have no plans for Thursday night. Getting to the movie is more complicated - since the three startups organizing the event are constantly hunting for new qualified developers to join their teams, they are going to offer interested developers a chance of watching the movie and winning some additional prizes. So if you are thinking about changes in your career and possibly joining Xoopit, Powerset or Zivity (and watching the Dark Knight in advance as well), send your CV or a link to your LinkedIn profile to batmanevent@gmail.com. And even if you don't win the pass to the movie itself, I'm sure that attending the after-party will be worth it anyway - you will meet great people and see how creative startups can be not only in their web projects but in throwing parties as well.
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Posted by Leslie Poston on July 13th, 2008
The URL shortener. Until recently, this was a niche market left mostly to itself. Who had real use for taking a regular URL and making it smaller just for the sake of a smaller footprint? Not many people
Enter micro blogs. When sites like Twitter, Pownce, Plurk and others started coming along with their 140 character restrictions, this niche market suddenly became all the rage. As micro blogging grew in popularity, so did the services that supported it.
First on the block was TinyURL. TinyURL is now the URL shortener of choice when it comes to Twitter. Twhirl' s Twitter application automatically parses your link through TinyURL and creates a shortened version of it for you, right in your post or tweet, for example.
In the world where 140 characters is king, that symbiotic relationship can't last long. TinyURL's shortened URLs are considerably longer than many would like, encroaching on the space of the post to Twitter.
Never fear, where TinyURL fears to tread other URL reduction companies are there to take their place, like Bit.ly, Is.gd and LinkBee. Each of the URL shortening services offers different features other than just making your URLs shorter.
TinyURL upped its game by adding custom url's to the mix, Which immediately caused everyone to start talking up their chosen TinyURL sites, as if laying claim to them or marketing territory. Along came Bit.ly with it's custom tag feature and enhanced social media look to compete.
In appearance, Bit.ly blows TinyURL out of the water. It also wins for ease of use and the tagging feature, though TinyURLs custom link is a nice touch. If you want TinyURL or Bit.ly or the other micro blogging and network possibilities they aren't hard to find and use, just Google "URL reduction" or similar terms to find all of the sites currently offering the URL shortening feature.
The first to monetize the tiny URL (or at least the first that I know of), is new company LinkBee. This company lets you shorten any URL, then cover it in ads. The ads are interstitial ads and hover ads, from what I gather of my very brief stint under the LinkBee umbrella. I have to say that the first time I click a link an have an ad popup will be the last time I click a link.
I don't really see a need for these services beyond what you are doing, and worry that they will mean an increase in spam over all. Do you use URL shorteners outside of Twitter? Share the one that is your preference and why in the comments.
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