Check out our super-rad Jambo myspace page. It was written/created by our good friend Dennis. Hoping he’ll be able to get off work for a few days to come out to SXSW – drive South Dennis!
If you’re on myspace – feel free to link to us.
When discussing application platforms, it used to be pretty simple – windows, mac or linux. You had an idea for an application, and you picked an operating system, then wrote the app for the particular operating system. Logical, right?
Not any more.
New apps are tapping web services as a PLATFORM. Beyond developing apps for Windows, now folks are developing apps for Google Maps. Apps for the Amazon API. Apps for eBay. These companies that were once just websites, are now becoming full-on application PLATFORMS, and this is a very significant change.
I think it should have Microsoft as nervous as linux does. The operating system is becoming less and less significant as the world continues to embrace open standards, and people spend more time using their desktop PC as a simple window into the web. The pendulum is swinging back toward the days of the dumb terminal. I find it amazing that lots of people are making a very good living by writing applications for these larger websites. Its a whole new web!
I had lunch the other day with a friend from Microsoft. We were discussing online social networks, and the fact that they are now coming off the web and starting to appear in more interesting places.
He told me a very cool story about a guy who got a job through his Xbox. The new version of Xbox live has alot of interesting social components, with the aim of making online games much more interactive – easy to find your friends and hop in a game with them. Easy to bond and form a friendship that lasts, after you blow up a tank with someone you really like. Anyway, some kid in Georgia had spent alot of unemployed time on his xbox, much to his mother’s criticism. He got the last laugh though, when all of those hours spent on xbox live turned into a job offer from Microsoft. Apparently, he bonded so well with a group of Microsoftians during their daily rounds of halo, that they were able to get to know one another, and he has since up and moved to Redmond, and is employed, to his mother’s delight. However, he is probably still logging alot of xbox live time!
The power of the social network is only going to become more apparent as we move away from web pages and let the social networks permeate our day-to-day lives.
Joi Ito talks about some privacy concerns w/ some current implementations of social software.
Social Software needs to show the seams
“I think when you are dealing with sensitive privacy related information, your UI has to make it very clear where your data is, when it is going to be transfered to another machine, and what the privacy policy of the said machine is. Every time data moves across a boundary, the user should know this an be provided a choice. UIs that deal with personal information should be about showing the seams, not being seamless.”