Tim Bauer’s Running Thoughts

Semi-daily webcast summaries/insights

David Armano: Enabling Doctors to be Patients

Ok, this one goes out to all the marketing and UX posse out there. Here is today’s riddle …

“Can any company really can weave into their DNA a ‘true’ understanding the customer? Really? I am talking an understanding so deep that they can honestly say they can represent, accurately, their needs and goals. If so, how?”

Now this webcast is by David Armano who quickly built a online community around him when working at Digitas. While the content is a bit old (18 months) the concepts being presented are rather timeless. How should individuals or companies use a blog to learn about themselves and more importantly those they serve. What is the biggest gain (hint it’s tied to the question above) from blogging?

I was curious and I have to admit I was amused by David’s cowboy hat (see his link below). So I fired it up to see what this advertising guru / rhinestone cowboy could offer.

Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

Duration:

  • ~20m

Speakers:

Recommend to Watch? No

  • Just because its dated. However, one of his strengths is visual representation of concepts. You can get a sense from a slide show he just posted covering micro-interactions.
 1. Four Keys of a Blog

  • Quality. Clarity. Vision. Community.
  • If you review his blog you can see he tries to add some visual sizzle periodically (and does well at it). But beyond that, he believes it’s the commentary interaction that is driving his readers to come back. So, as a business, you should ponder how your blog enables you to engage your consumer. Better yet enable them to engage with each other. Take a look at this example of how Nike is acting on these basic principles (i.e. enabling their customers to engage with one another). Same thing that David points out around comment interaction on blogs.

2. The Film That Defines How To Do His Job? The Doctor .

  • In his role focused on experience design, he feels this movie says it all. Doctor is brilliant but sucks at bedside manner (House?). Becomes patient and sees his weakness and why its important. Marketers struggle to understand the customer (patient) in cases in his view. They need to find a way to get into the skin of the people they serve and experience how what they are creating is interacting with them. Nothing earth shattering there … but his point was that blogs are a conduit for learning about your customers and what they think. Think about how twitter drives feedback to keynotes these days. Its a real time feedback loop. Marketers need the same thing … be it from blogs … or activity streams.

So, nothing to earth shatter but I would recommend tracking David because (1) he wears cowboy hats and (2) he creates excellent visualization on trends without losing the nuance of the point. A worthy add to any of your activity streams.

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

• To Digitas
• http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/blogs_eye_view_video/index.html
• Marketing is about conversations, community … pull vs push
• 4/27/2008, 7:56 AM
• Done in 11/09/06
• How started
…………..○ Been w/ digitas in a year
…………..○ Started in late feb 06
……………………….§ So was this an early adopter phenom
…………..○ Mark Beecham called him (so he was their proto blogger)
…………..○ Logic + Emotion is his blog title
…………..○ Broad
• 4/27/2008, 7:59 AM
• Focus
…………..○ He comes up w/ simple visuals to describe thoughts
…………..○ That is his fuel for growth
…………..○ Visual learner focus
• 4/27/2008, 8:00 AM
• Image of him being separate from the audience … chasm
• How did he cross the chasm (same riddle as their customers)
• 4/27/2008, 8:01 AM
• Another picture of community clusters … how to get engaged w/ various community clusters
…………..○ Bauer comment - that is the interesting thing w/ Friendfeed comments … ability to raise your hand (bad or good) and have a voice in a community by following a leader or their friends
• 4/27/2008, 8:03 AM
• Visual on how blog allows him to validate ideas
…………..○ Does have some nice process flow images and/or concept diagrams
• Value based on traffic uptake on his ideas
• 4/27/2008, 8:04 AM
• Another visual … more radiate between ecosystems … organic versus rigid structure … pebble into a pond … multiple ripples
…………..○ @ 9:00 into the presentation
• Seth Godin (Go-din)
…………..○ Purple cow concept
…………..○ Written a lot of books (platform)
• His case (no book platform)
…………..○ 4 ingredients
……………………….§ Quality
……………………….§ Clarity
……………………………………□ Voice is fairly consistent (style of writing)
……………………….§ Vision
……………………….§ Community
……………………………………□ People take time to comment .. He visits and embraces them
……………………………………□ You can’t fake that
• 4/27/2008, 8:07 AM
• Another visual @ 11:30
…………..○ McMarketing drive through … how do you do more than sell a supersize #6
• Learn by doing (blog)
• 4/27/2008, 8:08 AM
• Airplane slide
…………..○ Film in 90’s “The Doctor” … he becomes sick … learns what he lacks (bedside manner) by changing the role. That drives the presentation. Marketers need to become patients
…………..○ Develop
……………………….§ Empathy
……………………….§ Experience
……………………….§ Curiosity

** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

April 30, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 3-No Go (unless you are bored) | , , , | 6 Comments

Twitter: Utility or Also Ran?

Twitter. It doesn’t make much sense unless (a) you are following thought leaders who share their creative process or (b) you are following your friends and their normal stupid process.

Being interested in both, I took a gander at an interview FastCompany (Shel Isreal) did with the Twitter team a few weeks back. As usual my raw notes are below, but here are the thoughts that jumped out at me as I ran (i.e. jogged) along.

Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

Duration:

  • ~20m

Speakers:

Recommend to Watch? No

  • The probing questions were a bit lacking to warrant a 20 minute sit down unless you want to get a sense of the players at Twitter.
 1. Twitter Is A Utility

  • Well they want to be a utility. At the tail end Biz (nice name) threw that out as the model that will drive their revenue when they worry about that. Interesting. So, are we all going to get a bill each month with two fees (see the book Big Switch)? One fee for the twitter infrastructure and another for our usage of it? I assume Twitter is thinking of the Enterprise space when they say ‘we’ll be a utility’. The downside of that model is that there are a ton of players producing “Twitter like” support as part of their social platforms. Jive software just released it in their software.

2. No barrier to entry.

  • What is the barrier to entry for others cloning twitter? On one hand they admit most people are tweeting in a group of 10 people (their large user base, ala facebook, is not required). On the other hand they have the big boys studying what they are doing and have far more robust stacks to deploy it with (Live Mesh).

3. Friendfeed is Killing Twitter?

  • Why is Friendfeed gaining usage at the cost of twitter? Easy, twitter is a manual sharing of my movements. Friendfeed is easier … more automated. I just share stuff, digg it, recommend it, and it shows up on Friendfeed where I can comment on items that warrant it. In addition, I can push those items back into the twitter space. Sounds like checkmate to me. Granted twitter will stick around for certain things (like conference IM channels) but the primary social networking role might be changing.

4. Get to use it at work … by positioning it correctly

  • Biz points out that Twitter (and other social tools) can be embraced by corporations if positioned correctly. They aren’t ’social networking’ tools. They are lightweight inter office memo’s or dispatch services. They are IM’s with a memory. Think about it. Corporate hates IM because they can’t see what you are talking about. A twitter style IM is somewhat like campfire. At any time you can come in and see what was said since your last visit to the campfire (IM space). Better yet, you know your boss is one of those viewers … and he knows you know … which creates auto policing … on second thought .. you might not want to suggest this.

It’s interesting to watch the movement of how technologies like Twitter are trying to enable interaction between people. Even more so when you consider the daily conversations that happen in corporate environments. I am going to do a writeup on Jive software (one of the major Enterprise social networking stacks) in a bit … you will see strong similarities between it and the ‘free web’ tools like Twitter.

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/a-talk-with-twitter-guys

……………..○ 4/29/2008, 6:12 AM

……………..○ Biz Stone

…………………………….§ Story of how he went from seeing a txt to vision

……………..○ Twitter Users

……………..○ Jason Goldman

…………………………….§ 3 is average updates a day

…………………………….§ Program Mgr

……………..○ Stats

…………………………….§ API traffic is 20* web

…………………………….§ Web traffic 20% is non US

…………………………….§ Japan market is largest after US

……………………………………………□ They use a twitter app to talk to their virtual pet

……………..○ Use of twitter to build a follower set

…………………………….§ Scoble is only 5% of their use case

…………………………….§ 50% of twitter users .. Follow 10, have 10

…………………………….§ Real friends

…………………………….§ Interesting to hear about those you know.

…………………………….§ Mapped twitter activity versus superbowl and super Tuesday

…………………………….§ Match sxsw activity … Mark Zuckerburg keynote

……………..○ Odeo

…………………………….§ Started to thing beyond Odeo

…………………………….§ Realized they were not helping Odeo (podcasting) … plus they were not passionate about

…………………………….§ Told investors to look for a buyer … couldn’t come through

…………………………….§ Created Obvious company … they acquired Odeo (which had twitter)

…………………………….§ Twitter took off

…………………………….§ Side projects were killed

……………..○ Team

…………………………….§ 17 people, 5 are engineers

…………………………….§ Get ahead of curve … so they can build ahead not at capacity

……………..○ Pushback from business, not a fit

…………………………….§ Evan … not designed for that

…………………………….§ Bauer comment - Jive think it fits

…………………………….§ Biz … visited Nike … they wanted to know about tools

…………………………….§ Its just SMS or some client … no big deal like MySpace … fade in / out of focus of the employee … so its not as much of a risk of continual distraction

……………………………………………□ Bauer comment - true after the initial period ..

……………..○ 4/29/2008, 6:22 AM

……………..○ Example of remote teams

…………………………….§ Using this to keep the remote team together

…………………………….§ Check in for work

…………………………….§ Asking for help

…………………………….§ So great tool for distributed team

…………………………….§ Positioning is key for enterprise … how it is seen … not social … more of lightweight memmo dispatch … IM client w/ a memory

……………..○ 4/29/2008, 6:24 AM

……………..○ Jet Blue

…………………………….§ Was on twitter watching people talk about SXSW

…………………………….§ Added flights from AUS to SF … when all flights were booked … drove availability

……………..○ 4/29/2008, 6:25 AM

……………..○ How make $

…………………………….§ Realibility is core concern (TP99)

…………………………….§ Some success (per him) recently

…………………………….§ Super reliable

…………………………….§ Global utiliity (of IM w/ a memory) … so they want to centralize and provide at cost

** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

April 29, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 3-No Go (unless you are bored) | , , , , | No Comments

Arrington (TechCrunch): ShockJock or Caring Author?

Ready for some Silicon Vally drama?

It started normal enough. I figured, as much as I read TechCrunch and its Friendfeed activity stream, it made sense to listen to a spiel from their founder Mike Arrington at Startup School. Figured the guy had to have some notable perspective. Then I noticed Arrington duking it out with some guy over twitter on ‘defamation’ over, I believe, this blog (notes from that 2 minute spiel at the bottom of my notes). Watching that video (2 minutes of snippets from a 26 minute talk) … didn’t put him in the best light. I was now doubly curious on what he actually said in the real presentation … and what nuggets did he pass along. So I fired up the presentation and got to running.

As usual my raw notes are below, but here are the thoughts that jumped out at me as I ran (i.e. jogged) along.

Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

Duration:

  • ~26m

Speakers:

Recommend to Watch? No

  • Starts out slow with an implosion on his laptop but he regroups and delivers his topics. 10m of Q&A at the end was interesting. I would watch if you want to get a sense of his presentation style. Otherwise key points can be gleaned from raw notes below.
 1. Getting Noticed, Be The 1st To Own A Purple Cow

  • Man is the purple cow thing popular on the internet. Everyone makes references to it. Mike did as well pointing out that he will write about what hasn’t been seen before … which could be a purple cow IF its the 1st purple cow in your area. If not, no article. He then gave a good example of how news being ‘purple’ is really geographic in nature. Purple cows are mudane in the valley .. I guess bright blue is required.

2. Be a part of the community … signal to noise.

  • He points out how just pushing your agenda 24X7 on blogs and activity streams will get you blocked or tuned out. What you need to do is participate and add value with NO agenda the majority of the time. Then when you have a thing to push out there … it will probably get read.

3. The underbelly of online journalism

  • He was rather frank about this with examples like (1) leak me a story and I’ll remember you (2) link back to me and I’ll factor that in. I say “me” but he was referring to online rag writers in general. A fair, if not somewhat sad, description of how the process works in some cases. Granted there are methods for cream to rise to the top of its own nature … but it can also be pushed (in methods as he describes).

4. Don’t Hire A PR Firm

  • He felt the good ones were few and far between and booked. It would be better for startups to focus on blogging, activity streams and being involved. When inbound requests exceed their ability to process THEN look at a PR partner to handle that.

Solid (1) insight (2) honesty and (3) humility. Not what I expected based on the commentary from a few sources (i.e. Valleywag) … but hey … that is what some blogs deal in I guess (hype).

Keep up the good work Mike.

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

9:21 AM
4/26/2008, 9:22 AM
http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/mike-arrington
……………○ 4/26/2008, 9:24 AM
……………○ Funny - Mac froze
……………○ SXSW .. Reference .. Journalist got pressure from dev audience on how to do a startup
……………○ 4/26/2008, 9:26 AM
……………○ Still problems w/ rig
……………○ Reads the onion everyday …
…………………………§ Story of writer going from there to cards
…………………………§ Has a good story worth his telling
…………………………§ Whats your companies story
……………○ 4/26/2008, 9:27 AM
……………○ Slides are finally up
……………○ They write stories they don’t want written
…………………………§ Google acquiring youtube in 3 days … was their break story
…………………………§ Share news about competitors … if you can do it ethically
…………………………§ Helps you directly (via traffic)
……………○ 4/26/2008, 9:29 AM
……………○ Purple cows / Innovators Delima
…………………………§ Cows - We see em all the time … stop and stare at purple
…………………………§ One time trick … then you need a blue cow
……………○ Popula site
…………………………§ Event site in germany
…………………………§ Random videos …
…………………………§ Popula.de worked in germany (not seen before) would of failed in US
……………○ Purple cow
…………………………§ 1 800 free 411 … took 6% of share
…………………………§ Briticanna
……………○ Mobile social networking
…………………………§ Disrupts facebook
…………………………§ Facebook weakness is protecting data
……………○ Training class w/ dog
…………………………§ He doesn’t want you to be background noise
…………………………§ Single impact … intro … that is interesting
……………○ Be part of the conversation however
…………………………§ Twitter
…………………………§ Each dev should have personal and company blog
……………○ Blogger linkbacks influence how they see you
…………………………§ Influences how they decide to write about people
……………○ 4/26/2008, 9:34 AM
……………○ Digg reference how it was a good chunk of traffic
…………………………§ Also reddit mentioned
……………○ His twitter is spking in 08
…………………………§ Provides significant traffic via engagement traffic
…………………………§ 90% activity sharing what is going on (Research)
……………○ Criticisms
…………………………§ Don’t be nervous
…………………………§ Supportive of startups
…………………………§ Embrace criticism .. Not trolls
…………………………§ Example … In 06 he trashed a company … ning … 97 comments … he was wrong … inflammatory headline used … started conversation w/ company … now a good relationship w/ that company … so they practiced embracing critic (him)
……………○ Challenge
…………………………§ Nice place to be … less trolls … mostly experimentation
…………………………§ Not afraid of ideas in public
…………………………§ The valley is about that
…………………………§ Yosi Vardi (quote of T. Roosevelt)
………………………………………□ Not the critic that counts … credit to man in the arena
…………………………§ Are you part of the community … in the turning point
…………………………§ So how do you interact w/ the model
……………○ Q&A
…………………………§ A lot of power … power corrupts … how do you not get corrupted
………………………………………□ Genuinely loves startup and entrepreneurs … they are his rock stars
………………………………………□ So if he maintains that focus he will do well
………………………………………□ Question is does it show it in his writing … it doesn’t in his view … so he is trying to stay true
…………………………§ Phone-my-Phone … Efficient crank calling tool
………………………………………□ Branded as “efficient crank calling tool” … how turn around mislabelling
………………………………………□ He thinks you are a special case … since the story is not a purple cow w/o that angle
………………………………………□ Other companies … make it regardless … might be negative from them … other press might see the diaglogue
………………………………………□ Best thing is to embrace and discuss
…………………………§ 2005 hang in his backyard, beyond that vision, what is techcrunch going
………………………………………□ What happens when niche isn’t niche
………………………………………□ Slashdot, digg … not readable comments
………………………………………□ He might want to spawn a new focus blog
………………………………………□ 90% of startups used to be covered … that focus
………………………………………□ Focus on CNET is the business model for now … unless he spins off
…………………………§ PR Firm … when hire … who is good … better to talk to founder or PR Face Person
………………………………………□ Get inbound requests you can’t handle … due to volume
………………………………………□ Use Twitter, Blog
………………………………………□ Goto events
………………………………………□ Look for right story, right time
…………………………§ Comment on nomadism … employees work from wherever … no central office
………………………………………□ He has no idea how building other stuff (not articles) is better done w/ dispersed teams
*************************
*************************
*************************
*** NOTES FROM THE REMIX ***
*************************
………………………………………4/27/2008, 11:15 AM
………………………………………Remix By ValleyWag (2:30)
……………………………………………………® 4/27/2008, 11:16 AM
……………………………………………………® Show clutter debacle
……………………………………………………® Cussing
……………………………………………………® Leaking a story
……………………………………………………® News about competitors … give to them …
……………………………………………………® Don’t pull our leash … yank every now and then
……………………………………………………® Mention and link to writers
……………………………………………………® Don’t be a troll if you need them
……………………………………………………® If you link back you it influences us
…………………………………………………………………◊ Repeat 3 times
……………………………………………………® Criticism .. Embrace criticism
……………………………………………………® Avoid trolls
…………………………………………………………………◊ Repeat 3 times
……………………………………………………® Inflammatory headlines
…………………………………………………………………◊ Repeat lines
……………………………………………………® Blow smoke up each others ass
……………………………………………………® Snarky comments … cool kids
……………………………………………………® Look at this point … creating stuff
……………………………………………………® 99% will fail
……………………………………………………® Fail greatly
……………………………………………………® You are a loser

** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

April 27, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 3-No Go (unless you are bored) | , , | No Comments

Live Mesh: Goodbye Facebook & Friendfeed?

Ask 3 people what Live Mesh is you’ll get three answers. Ask 97 more and you’ll get blank looks. Good thing innovation is not a democracy.

Live Mesh was put to a ‘technical release’ last week to perhaps 20,000 of your closest friends. The interesting thing was as you listened to the jabber they all portrayed it differently. Some boring and some hinting at what could be. It was the latter that got my interest but it took three different webcasts (raw scribble from each below) to boil it down for me.

Details Notable Points
Webcast(s)

Duration(s) Respectively:

  • ~40m, ~10m, ~35m

Speaker(s) Repectively:

  • Vid 1 - Who knows. Guys on Mesh Team.
  • Vid 2 - Amit Mital. Faceman on Mesh for MSFT.
  • Vid 3 - Ray Ozzie. Head man @ MSFT (came from Groove).

Recommend to Watch? Depends.

  • Each one is a different audience. Vid 1is for the average consumer, vid 2 is for the companies that are in similar spaces (ISVs, partners of MSFT), and vid 3 is more of a strategist view.
 1. The Basics - A very transparent file share, remote PC control

  • For those looking for the quick answer. The features that are here and now is a very transparent sharing of files between your devices (phone, laptops, tower) AND friends (email em and they get a virtual folder of your folder). Plus you can login to that rig similar to remote desktop but via the mesh. Through firewalls (DOH! I just logged into my work PC without my RSA / VPN login - can you say security breach).

2. Now add some spice - Updates native with the folder view.

  • So the first thing isn’t too exciting (sharing folders) unless you are in charge of security (then its a headache). For those not grabbing aspirin, you more spice from the seamless injection of Mesh into typical tasks (excellent usability after MSFT’s Ribbon debacle). An example is how the any folder shared by mesh shows you automatically what changes your ‘mesh’ of friends have done to the folder at a document level. Holy smokes. Now we are starting to enable very nicely basic, document centric collaboration. This is like automatic twitters (I’m timbauer on twitter by the way) to the group you are collaborating on documents with. “Hey, I changed this file”, “I added this one”, “I nuked that one”

3. Now add some sizzle - You Become Facebook.

  • People in the blogsphere get their panties in a bind over the aggregation sites taking advantage of their pieces of content. Like the debate (nicely written by Louis Gray) around aggregation sites allowing conversations on content produced elsewhere (they lose potential visibility and traffic revenue). What if your comments on XYZ thing were shared to all people in your mesh peer-to-peer? Instead of a central site like Twitter or Facebook or Friendfeed … you just had a backbone like Live Mesh? The development style would shift to consuming peer to peer facades … facades that pulled from the mesh and synch your thoughts (basically files of data) back to the originating peers. You, in short, become facebook without facebook as it is today. All you need is your favorite “Live Mesh” facade on the local device. Presto.

3. MSFT Strategery - Use What They Have (Documents) To Get What They Don’t (Marketplace/Search).

  • MSFT is losing at this time the battle in search and social networks. The beauty of live mesh is the strategy it enables for them. They have always controlled a large share of the desktops and with it the digital assets that reside there. What they have realized (I think) is that if they can rebuild the social network into a social PEER-to-PEER network (where they provide the ‘to’ infrastructure) they can regain control or at least relevance. Ozzie’s tenure w/ Groove has to be behind this mindshift. Enable people share the chunks of social network activity (files, posts, articles, comments, etc) in a peer-to-peer synch model … not some push to a central site concept like Facebook. In doing so MSFTs software plays a central role. And with a central role they can inject things like … say … how to do an AdSense on the stuff you share on the mesh that gets views leading to commerce. I wonder what Google thinks about that … hehe.

In summary, Live Mesh is worth pondering. What you see now is misleading. It is NOT is just a repackaging of what has been around for awhile (synching files between PCs, remote desktop connectivity). If what is hinted at above is realized it could become the platform for transparency of sharing all files … links, tweets, comments, images, blog posts, docs … across all devices … pcs, phones, OTHER SYSTEMS. If you ponder that prior sentence you can see how it disrupts the current centralized model (sites like MySpace, Facebook, Friendfeed) for social networking. There is no facebook or friendfeed required. All the pieces are pushed around … peer to peer … via live mesh. All you need is your favorite “Mesh” reader to see all the ‘file data’ being synch’d to you and rolled up the way you want it. And MSFT has leverage in that market (PC devices per consumer).

Consider me sold. MSFT’s vision of peer-to-peer when fully baked will trump the current centralized sites that drive it today.

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

***********************************************
******** 1st VID - HANDS ON WITH LIVE MESH **********
***********************************************
• http://on10.net/blogs/nic/Hands-on-with-Live-Mesh/
• 4/24/2008, 6:13 AM
………………○ Live Mesh Team
………………………………§ Noah
………………………………§ George
………………○ Referenced at MIX a few months back
• 4/24/2008, 6:14 AM
• Goal put you at center of your computers and stuff
………………○ Data
………………○ Application / Computer access
• Use cases
………………○ Tie to your rigs
………………○ Data synch
………………○ Remote Desktop (Bauer words)
• BAUER COMMENT - ISNT THIS A FANCY UI ON EXISTING FUNCTIONS?
• 4/24/2008, 6:16 AM
• Demo
………………○ Blue folders allow synch and share across mesh
………………○ BAUER COMMENT - Team file sharing?
………………○ Uses remote desktops (through firewalls and NATs)
………………○ BAUER COMMENT - Might press AMZN’s AMI model … relative to vendor play of on demand usage … but AMZN has payment engine behind usage .. Not clear here if they can
………………○ Through a browser
• 4/24/2008, 6:19 AM
• Browser
………………○ Browser experience is slower
………………○ Also have client experience
• 4/24/2008, 6:19 AM
• Folders
………………○ Live on ALL machines
………………○ Auto replication?
………………○ INCLUDING VIRTUAL DEVICE
………………○ Bauer comment — So they are pushing to virtual storage (backup) …
• Timeline
………………○ See members
………………○ See timeline
………………○ See presence
………………○ Bauer comment - Looks like office live
• 4/24/2008, 6:21 AM
• Data
………………○ See anywhere
………………○ BAUER COMMENT - Might be a killer for sharepoint … alfresco … for users that use those tools soley around document share
………………○ BAUER QUESTION - File locking … edit conflicts
• 4/24/2008, 6:23 AM
• How hard to add device to mesh
………………○ Add piece of software … connects to cloud
………………○ BAUER ? - can you connect to multiple mesh’s
………………○ Not on mobile and Mac yet
………………………………§ Working on it
• 4/24/2008, 6:25 AM
• Roadmap
………………○ They say this is the 1st step to putting users in center of all their stuff
• How convert folders to mesh
………………○ Simple right click ‘add to mesh’
………………○ Choose what machines get the ‘push’ (versus pull) and force immediate
• Sharing to friends
………………○ Use LiveID … but to invite just send via email
………………○ Share (bauer ? - not edit)
• Location of files
………………○ In the cloud … right now … for sharing outside of mesh
………………○ You can synch to your mesh machines
………………○ So they do push down to devices AND the cloud (offline file)
• 4/24/2008, 6:29 AM
• File types supported, size limits
………………○ None
………………○ Initial release is 5GB of data in cloud
• 4/24/2008, 6:30 AM
• How did this come about / fit into SaaS vision of MSFT
………………○ Everyone has many devices
………………○ How make work as one
………………○ Bauer comment - Kills (depending if not tied to workflow, tagging, etc functions) the salesforce ‘content management’ play … why would you do that .. Create a mesh for you company and put the files there
• 4/24/2008, 6:32 AM
• Products and Solutions that Work Now
………………○ Windows Live … exists and augments
………………○ This is a platform to bring together data and devices
………………○ Then build from there
………………○ Easier file / data sharing platform
• 4/24/2008, 6:33 AM
• Platform .. Will we see different solutions making products from it
………………○ Live Mesh based on synch feeds (ATOM, RSS, etc)
………………○ Other people can plug in and store data in feeds
………………○ App to synch favorites
………………○ App to store todo lists
………………○ App to track stuff
………………○ Could have apps in their UI (Bauer comment - requires MSFT) or as an API (Bauer Comment - like AMZN)
• 4/24/2008, 6:36 AM
• How get access
………………○ Mesh.com … invitation only
• 4/24/2008, 6:38 AM
………………○ SkyDrive / Foldershare
………………………………§ They are all one group
………………○ Bauer comment - If they are all one group it is unlikely this is a free play (pricing not mentioned … key in what isn’t said). However office live is free (but its in beta) and does a similar function (w/o synch local, provides cloud).
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******** 2nd VID - AMIT KEYNOTE ******************
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http://blip.tv/file/854328/
Web 2.0 Expo
10m
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:30 AM
…………..○ Bauer comment - how about that pump up music at the start [wink]
…………..○ Amit
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:31 AM
……………………….§ Web is center
……………………….§ We connect via many devices
……………………….§ How to keep those devices in synch
……………………….§ Ours
……………………….§ And our trusted friends
…………..○ Settings and local favorites
…………..○ Device types - picture frames, macs, phones, laptops, towers, etc
……………………….§ Bauer comment - how many of those devices are on the web?
…………..○ Unified Device management
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:34 AM
…………..○ Feeds
……………………….§ Unified feeds
…………..○ Apps
……………………….§ Web based app management
……………………….§ Apps know devices and their capabilities
…………..○ Drop dead simple
……………………….§ Bauer comment - doesn’t jive w/ commentary so far on blog space
…………..○ Demo
……………………….§ Capture video of kid w/ phone
……………………….§ Dad sees on laptop real time on airport
……………………….§ Ims back
……………………….§ Shares a song to his daughter … next second
……………………….§ While kids next room are gaming
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:36 AM
…………..○ Everyone gets access to tech preview that is @ Web 2.0 Expo
…………..○ Device Ring is Core Metaphor
……………………….§ On windows PC
……………………….§ Mac / Mobile Next
……………………….§ Future more devices
……………………….§ Folder for anywhere access
……………………………………□ Bauer comment - interesting play … mesh compatible play on device sales like picture frames, touch tables, etc … fully compatible you get more features … becomes an iphone/ipod angle / barrier for MSFT devices
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:39 AM
…………..○ Mesh Bar
……………………….§ Single view of devices
……………………….§ Members in folder
……………………….§ News and events in the folder
……………………….§ Notifier lives on task bar … all up view of action on mesh
……………………….§ Also avail on live desktop to get webview
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:39 AM
…………..○ Use case shown is just ONE scenario
…………..○ Their focus is PLATFORM
……………………….§ Define model digital relationship between devices, people, assets
……………………….§ OpenAPI
……………………………………□ Yes, MSFT is about Open
……………………………………□ Shows Datamodel browser for Livemesh … dev can mesh format (xml, rss, atom, etc) … so you choose lang/tools … how you interact w/ live mesh
……Bauer comment - How is different than friendfeed?
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******** 2nd VID - END ***************************
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******** 3rd VID - AMIT KEYNOTE *******************
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Channel9
John Udell Interviews
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=399578
4/23
36m
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:43 AM
…………..○ Whats it like to be @ MSFT (3yrs now)
……………………….§ Was @ IBM. Tremendous on potential impact
……………………….§ He does business, product strategy … intersection
……………………….§ So great job for him
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:45 AM
…………..○ What like taking over Gates role
……………………….§ SKIP
…………..○ GOTO 7:30 IN (MESH STARTS)
…………..○ Talk about environment MSFT faces
……………………….§ Mainframe was todays sexy utility. Timesharing. All was there in 70’s.
……………………….§ PC revolution was empowerment to consumer.
……………………….§ Swing of pendulum
……………………….§ Web grew in era of dialup … so built for that … force decentralized .. Thin terminal
……………………….§ Broadband penetration allows fatter clients
……………………….§ Both sides have good power (CPU, Storage) now
……………………….§ What design patterns work for backend and frontend
……………………….§ PC started for one computer for a subset
……………………….§ Moving now to not just one pc person … multiple devices per user … how to tie together … data … personal and cloud … MSFT wants to enable those solutions that balance leverage both
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:51 AM
…………..○ Internet OP SYS Space (AMZN, Google). How does MSFT history enable or drive action for them.
……………………….§ MSFT’s Approach.
……………………….§ Knew Bill / Steve since 1981
……………………….§ DNA of MSFT is a platform company … so need ISV community
……………………….§ Platform
……………………….§ Discussions of what different industry models will look like, be built like … given cloud computing … no specifics
……………………….§ MSFT wants to just enable that building … not be the buildings
……………………….§ AMZN. Ground up. Make raw resources (VMs, AMIs) to the developer. Power play.
……………………….§ Google. Tries to simplify cloud w/ constraints. So they serve a niche
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:55 AM
…………..○ 16:30 in
…………..○ LIVE MESH … folder share … screen share … can confuse true vision
……………………….§ MSFT core environment — multi device environment
……………………….§ Enterprise side … solved by MSFT via SMS
……………………….§ Now solve for consumer (device management)
……………………….§ So that is one path
……………………….§ 2nd is devices don’t / aren’t built well to work together
……………………………………□ Bauer comment - Is this their trump of OPENID … or could they push to use mesh to push data to various devices (including SYSTEMS)
……………………….§ Data flow … like feeds
……………………….§ Applications … be configured and liscensed
……………………………………□ Bauer comment … again … is this a slow entry to single user
……………………………………□ Bauer comment … msft takes what they have (user content, consumer) and uses mesh to push into systems they don’t control … devices they don’t control … they maintain relevance by owning/channelling the user profile
……………………….§ 4/25/2008, 7:01 AM
……………………….§ File and folder synch gives user a taste of power
……………………………………□ Bauer comment - I think it just allows the user to dismiss … now if the goal is to addict and get them using it (fits theories above) … then this is smart
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 7:02 AM
…………..○ Go beyond files/machines … bring people into the equation … Less obvious … connection to the web … How to optimize … spell that out
……………………….§ Two things (1) rich apps enable on PCs to share settings across devices (2) also websites extend their function to the world of devices
……………………….§ Groove reference … stumbled on … centralized websites … provision workspaces .. Invite users in … users want to take offline … wanted website to go offline … groove was peer sharing … so it do that well
……………………….§ Live mesh fills void of groove … infra … one service … manage synch to devices … data might be peer-to-peer or encrypted or through the cloud … but devices don’t care … developers don’t care … use infra … to push to devices
……………………………………□ Bauer comment - This is alert thingy on steriods … if all apps are synching real time … you go to your mesh console to see the same activity
……………………………………□ Bauer comment - majority of consumers are not sharing over web … in theory … msft has high ground if they can convert that user base via mesh
……………………….§ Use that simple tech … website … device … website … cloud
……………………….§ A feed of feeds … one thing a “mesh object” … represents a site … an element of that feed is other feeds … so an app can have many feeds … members, news, calendar, etc … or custom ones (transactions, recommended links, comments on a site)
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 7:08 AM
……………………….§ Folder is a mesh enabled Object
……………………….§ Item in feed is sub feed
……………………….§ Standard schema by item
……………………….§ News feed off a folder … see to right of folder … item by entry
……………………………………□ Bauer comment — So it would be like alertthingy or twitter offline
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 7:10 AM
…………..○ Banking example …
……………………….§ Local host and do stuff w/ an offline app
……………………….§ Developers want one way of working w/ mesh
……………………….§ Web version of live mesh … and client … same code
……………………………………□ Bauer comment — like AIR
……………………….§ Called MOE (mesh operating environment) … cloud MOE or client MOE same one
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 7:11 AM
…………..○ Synch problems .. How evolved from mistakes of groove
……………………….§ New team … he sponsored
……………………….§ There is a DNA trail … playdoh, lotus notes, groove, live mesh
……………………….§ More work w/ them during his CTO tenure not as much lately
……………………….§ Basic synch, interaction … that is similar
……………………….§ Groove power of adhoc invites … bypass centralized security … so groove users will get that part of mesh
……………………….§ Hope people feel that mesh is very lightweight … notthing there … works across firewalls, nats, double nats … few knobs to turn
……………………….§ Developer kit is NOT on mesh.com right now
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April 26, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 1-Definitely Watch This | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Jeff Bezos (AMZN): Psst. Buddy. Want a Server? (AWS)

My life, as of late, is Amazon Web Services (AWS).

You see, my current client has me running their migration onto the AWS stack leveraging the AWS services around FPS, Customer, and Credit Card Management. So, I hadn’t been motivated to watch discussions on it … but when 2-3 people emailed me articles around AWS this week as fodder for the blog … I figured it was a sign.

So, as usual my raw notes are below, but here are the thoughts that jumped out at me as I ran (i.e. jogged) along.

Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

Duration:

  • ~45m

Speakers:

Recommend to Watch? Yes

  • The best part of this presentation was Jeff’s quick shift to Q&A. He spent 10 minutes overviewing AWS and then took questions for 30. The questions were excellent and off the beaten path.
 1. Is that “RED” line really red … or more yellow?

  • While I am not a doubter that AWS isn’t seeing a huge uptake in usage the stats they are using to prove it are rather interesting. Bandwidth? What might be more interesting is instances running or # of service calls made. Reality is that S3 is a large chunk of that growth as many customers are using it for large file storage. It takes A TON of transactions to equal the movement of 1 big video file or image and file storage isn’t that eye opening. Lets see the states on instances and/or service calls.

2. That jab aside, AWS is the best I see right now for Enterprise Customers …

  • The recent release of Elastic IP Addresses + the ability to soon have persistent storage make it viable to start thinking maybe 09 to pilot actual production applications running at AMZN (granted low risk apps to start). If you still don’t want to put 100% of an application out on their gear, unlike Google’s GAE, you can choose how much or how little you use of their stack.

3. More on the power of choice AMZN gives you

  • You can look at your app and chunk out pieces of the infrastructure like storage (S3), queues, or the servers themselves. Even more interesting is what they are in pre-release on … services to allow aspects of your systems to be hosted with them. Your customer records, credit card records (no liability of a leaky credit card security model), product, orders, payment processing, warehousing systems. All at a granular service level (not an application). Roll your own. Something to ponder for 09 or 2010 as I suspect it will stabilize later this year or early next.

So while the AMZN AWS offering has been focused on solving spike CPU usage problems for clients for the most part up till now (like running massive models over night) I suspect they are close to stabilizing an offering for those 7X24 applications (yes, I know you can kinda do it today). Bezo’s comment around package vendors assessing hosting models w/ AMZN where images of servers running their gear can be rented was an example of this (think of a server running MSFT Office or Photoshop when you need it across all your various PCs).

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

• http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/jeff-bezos
• 4/23/2008, 6:12 AM
• Bandwidth charts
…………….○ Blue line (AMZN)
…………….○ Red line (bandwidth w/ AWS)
…………………………..§ BAUER COMMENT - S3 could skew that #, service call metrics would be more interesting
• Offerings
…………….○ AWS
…………….○ S3
…………….○ Ec2
…………….○ Simpledb
…………….○ Sqs
…………….○ Fps
…………….○ Mechnical turk - get pieces done manually by work queues amzn enables
• 4/23/2008, 6:14 AM
…………….○ Goals - easy, fast, elastic, highly avail, pay by drink
• S3
…………….○ 18B objects in S3
…………….○ Double in 2 years in AWS developers (370k)
• Why are people excited
…………….○ Shows picture of electric power generator
…………………………..§ BAUER COMMENT - similar story to Big Switch book
…………….○ How people did electric by themselves
…………….○ How to … Go from idea to product … quickly …
…………….○ Costs of doing data center - server, contracts, bandwidth, purchasing, facilities, scaling, etwork, heterogeneous, legacy, large teams
…………….○ Vision releases occur over and over
…………….○ AMZN helps with the above
• 4/23/2008, 6:19 AM
• Examples who are using
…………….○ NY Times took archives back to 1851 (4 TB) to PDF
…………………………..§ AMZN provided virtual server for one time batch
…………………………..§ AMZN provided S3 to serve articles
…………………………..§ Search for computer 1892 reference …. Was a job type
…………….○ SanDisk
…………………………..§ USB drive w/ auto backup to S3
…………….○ Animoto
…………………………..§ Royalty free music + videos … program listens to music and auto edits photo and tweens to align … then you can regen till you like it
…………………………..§ Queue, s3, ec2 used
…………………………..§ Viral facebook … over 3 days ramps to 3500 server instances
…………………………………………□ BAUER COMMENT - KEY FOR VIRAL APPS, ? ON NEED FOR SLOWER ADOPTION MODELS
…………………………..§ Talk to graph of growth and how ec2 can spin up/down instances based on load (tailoring cost as you go)
…………………………..§ BAUER THOUGHT - TITLE - AMZN, MOVERS NEEDED
• 4/23/2008, 6:27 AM
• End point
• AMZN - They make electricity so you don’t have to
• Q&A
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:28 AM
…………….○ How did AWS idea get started?
…………………………..§ 4 yrs started idea
…………………………..§ Launch 1st service 2 yrs ago
…………………………..§ Internal issue 1st, abstracting apps teams from infra team internally
…………………………………………□ BAUER THOUGHT - MAKES SENSE FROM WHAT I SEE AT CURRENT GIG (WAY THEY ARE WRITTEN, ETC)
…………………………..§ Didn’t expect this level of traction this early
…………………………..§ 4/23/2008, 6:32 AM (restart, omnisio dropped)
…………………………..§ New customer set … buyers, sellers, and now (new) developers
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:33 AM
…………….○ Concerns around service interruption that happened 2 months back. How handle. How do people respond. Hard to get off gear?
…………………………..§ Low friction to switch off platform, no contracts.
…………………………..§ API’s simple … easy to switch
…………………………………………□ BAUER COMMENT — IT CAN BE PIECEMEAL
…………………………..§ Low latency, cost
…………………………………………□ BAUER COMMENT — Agree on the 1st point being a key in this arch. Working on that now. Roundtrips in system design are the key … not a specific interface latency. Logical unit of work
…………………………..§ Main change they made for up time
…………………………………………□ Improve communication around outtage or brown out
…………………………………………□ Goal is 100 Up (TP100)
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:37 AM
…………….○ Customer serving hospitals. Can’t provide AMZN due to patriot act if cross boundries. Where data resides.
…………………………..§ EU has data rules (medical data no cross borders)
…………………………..§ Availability zones is one answer (choose where you host globally)
…………………………………………□ Fault tolerant
…………………………………………□ Address data location (today all in US, expand globally)
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:39 AM
…………….○ Runs rails apps on AWS, spammers are ruining IPs
…………………………..§ Doesn’t know the answer
…………………………..§ Static IP solution (elastic IP) can solve the problem (but requires additional server) allows the external world to see a consistent IP
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:40 AM
…………….○ Hosting needs stable, EC2 pricing <> to traditional server hosting in a data center (like rackspace)
…………………………..§ He doesn’t agree
…………………………..§ Might be anomalies today … but goal is to be the low cost provider to customers
…………………………..§ Instance sizes may get more granular (they price by cpu power, etc in instance)
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:42 AM
…………….○ Whats it like to launch a rocket? (personal question to him)
…………………………..§ He Is funding a company for a trip to sub orbit … blue orbital … lands on tail like buck rogers
…………………………..§ 1st dev vehicle done
…………………………..§ 2nd in process
…………………………..§ One more after that
…………………………..§ Then take public
…………………………..§ Are a ec2 customers … do aerodynamic models on ec2 cloud …
…………………………………………□ BAUER COMMENT - Another example of high volume spike processing … keep in mind elastic IP offering came just in last 3-4 week … coupled with movement to attached storage drives to an instance …. so ability to host stable apps over time being viable for enterprise is new (granted you could hack it together).
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:45 AM
…………….○ Thoughts on Google’s offering
…………………………..§ They don’t talk about other companies
…………………………..§ They innovate more by focusing on the customer not the competitor
…………………………..§ That is why they have their policy
…………………………..§ AWS is unique is that its deep in the stack. API’s exposed like storage, queues,
…………………………………………□ BAUER COMMENT - Also services payment, customer, product, orders, checkout, etc
………………………….§ Give people control on knobs on sophis applications
…………………………..§ Not a winner take all space … there will be a lot of winners
…………………………..§ Rare for notable change to be driven by one company … so customers will find many
…………………………..options.
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:48 AM
…………….○ AWS Shared Infrastructure, can’t control spikes on ’shared’ infra … what if 10-100 customers go viral … others get impacted … how resolve
…………………………..§ Key question is how to manage risk
…………………………..§ Key is better than alternative (up time @ shared is better than internal) … inability to handle spikes .. Turn the question around .. How does your business handle spikes
…………………………..§ By aggregation … Pool is large can handle … so built for far larger spikes
…………………………..§ They manage averages of all AWS dev pool
…………………………..§ Insurance company example
…………………………..§ Onus on them to prove they can consistently scale and spin up/down servers … what is satisfaction rating
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:52 AM
…………….○ SLA promise from AMZN
…………………………..§ Not right now but they could look into it
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:53 AM
…………….○ Thoughts of spinning up a ERP instance … fully running
…………………………..§ He is talking about configured servers … license on go
…………………………..§ Vendors creating an AMI to run their stuff for awhile … servers setup
…………………………..§ BAUER COMMENT - Note that is somewhat available by the ERP vendors today
…………………………..§ BAUER COMMENT — Enables a ondemand sell model for vendors
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:55 AM
…………….○ Vendor able to sell hosted model to companies that ran internal in the past
…………………………..§ Yes, audit is key for the customer
…………………………..§ Application changes … encrypt data prior to storage
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:56 AM
…………….○ How is AWS going to enable the mobile platform
…………………………..§ They can see the mobile devices taking up share on their browser market
…………………………..§ So you will see more AWS tied focused on AWS
…………………………..§ BAUER COMMENT - They bought TEXT BUY to cover this (payment device like paypal via mobile phone)
…………….○ 4/23/2008, 6:57 AM
…………….○ 100 Domain limit on simpleDB. When lift?
…………………………..§ Not clear. Validating things.
…………………………..§ Exceptions could be handled by a call to them
…………………………..§ Availability is their priority #1
…………………………..§ Adam Slipsky (contact him)
…………….○ End

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April 23, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 2-Perhaps (what floats your boat?) | , , , | 2 Comments

Cal Henderson (Flickr): Automate, Automate, Automate

If you are wanting to hear how Flickr develops and manages their website and client software this is the webcast for you. That or if you want to see a picture of a kitty (you get 2). Doesn’t that cover everyone?

As usual my raw notes are below, but here are the thoughts that jumped out at me as I ran (i.e. jogged) along.

Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

Duration:

  • ~45m

Speakers:

Recommend to Watch? Maybe

  • The material was a bit dry but Cal brought out some points, to me, at various stages at the talk that were hidden gems. If you own similar responsibilities in your patch of the world I would watch this (and his other discussions around scaling).
 1. Commit all the time … to PROD ?!?! AMEN!

  • Are your hands sweating yet? Cal talked about how @ Flickr they are constantly pushing to PROD as in daily, hourly, etc. They do it via a scheme of configuration settings that enable and disable functions / features on specific boxes regions. In effect, there is latent code in PROD at flickr growing till they activate it. Amusing as I am working with a client right now where I was pushing this approach and getting push back. At least I don’t feel totally off my rocker now. Cal has my back.

2. Controls Via Yelling, Then IM, Then Something …

  • He talked about how Flickr evolved from just bellowing in their area on greenlighting a push to PROD, to IM, then to a tools based approach that they built. I found it to be good counsel. People tend to try and over automate early and bog themselves down. The key is making the pushes to PROD simple … which in small teams is a bit of talking in many cases.

3. SVG Lover … What No FLEX?

  • He gave love to SVG as their approach to charting, trending various statistics on their rigs @ Flickr. But, i assume, he probably should / would take a gander at FLEX if he had to do it over again as it doesn’t have the support issues of SVG (no Batik) and a far more powerful charting library.

4. Admin Everything … God Mode

  • He showed how they have “God Mode” on all pages in Flickr. From what I could tell … they enable a process where an admin can go into a page and see all the system objects supporting it AND edit them. Very nice. Stellent does a similar approach w/ their content management (a few keystrokes and you can edit a page you are viewing). Flickr’s God mode is just more technically focused (database tables, config tables, localization, etc .. all relative to a page).

The talk overall started slow but the points above coupled with his discussions of the toolset in play @ Flickr at the end made it well worth listening to.

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

• Did a talk at Webstock … Cal Henderson – arch for flickr
……………..· http://www.iamcal.com/talks/
……………..· his site à http://www.iamcal.com
……………..· his twitter à http://twitter.com/iamcal
• Notes
• Building Big on The Web
• 4/22/2008, 6:08 AM
• Flickr
• Usually he talks about scaling
• Not today
• Today talks about how to build
……………..· Interactive systems
• Over focus on process
……………..· It is important
……………..· XP, Waterfall, Agile, Scrum
……………..· He doesn’t care as much about process (methodology)
• 4/22/2008, 6:11 AM
• Don’t have methods slow down teams
• Todays talk is about tools … what they use and why
• 4/22/2008, 6:12 AM
• Old ways of tools
……………..· Txt editor, vi, emacs
……………..· People still use this … especially personal sites
……………..· Bigger sites can’t do it that way
• More tools w/ bigger
……………..· Release Management
• 4/22/2008, 6:16 AM
• Continuous Integration
……………..○ Martin Fowler
……………..○ Work, commit immediately, trigger test
……………..○ Update … get changes
……………..○ Test constantly
• Tests Are Good, Tests Are Dull
……………..○ On average test coverage is very small (dull, hard to keep up)
• 4/22/2008, 6:17 AM
• How deal w/ that … automate everything
……………..○ Automate tests to hit the trunk
• Mozilla’s Tinderbox
……………..○ Aggregate automated tests on clients … and see in one place
……………..○ Shows time new to old by build (y axis) … by machine (column, x)
• Flickr’s Tinderbox
……………..○ Run the test, about 1000 items, results on web page
……………..○ Wrap test cases on stuff that is most brittle … so most likely or core
……………..○ Run once an hour
……………..○ Email on failure
• Version Control = Blame
……………..○ They email on who changed code since last successful build
……………..○ Force of peer pressure to get fixes
• Continuous Production
……………..○ Example of glass, how it has to run continously to work
……………..○ Flickr calls it continuous deploy … constantly release their software to PROD
…………………………….§ BAUER COMMENT THERE IS A CONTENTIOUS POINT
• Process typical
……………..○ Dev -> qa -> stage -> prod
……………..○ 4/22/2008, 6:23 AM
……………..○ Reality … no QA … dev->stage->prod
…………………………….§ For medium to large sites
• Flickr process
……………..○ Dev, Alpha environments
……………..○ Version control line
……………..○ Staging beta1 beta 2
…………………………….§ Pull from version control
……………..○ Prod
…………………………….§ Comes from staging
• Feature flags, avoid branches
……………..○ Weird feature of flickr
……………..○ Avoid branching
……………..○ The more differences … the harder to merge
……………..○ He is against it based on that
……………..○ New features based on config flags … turn on/off features … environments flags control features what environment works
• Shrinkwrap-ware
……………..○ Process –> alpha, beta, rc, ga
…………………………….§ Rc — close to good enough
…………………………….§ Ga - golden master
……………..○ Box process also adds –> RTM (to cover boxing) … comes before GA
……………..○ Flickr uploader is of this type
…………………………….§ Alpha -> beta -> GA -> Push
……………………………………………□ Push, release force upgrade in PROD by users
• 4/22/2008, 6:27 AM
• Release tools
……………..○ Agile
…………………………….§ Release to PROD quick is the tools we need to enable that
…………………………….§ Makes releases to PROD simpler
…………………………….§ Many times a day / hour
……………..○ One tool –> Yelling between people
…………………………….§ Their first version …
…………………………….§ 2-3 people
……………..○ Another –> Via IM
…………………………….§ Scales a bit larger
……………..○ Deploy Log –> Web page
…………………………….§ Shows lines of change …
…………………………….§ Type into
…………………………….§ Shows tail of a file
…………………………….§ On deploy tools page
• Public deploy log
……………..○ Show beta site code.flickr
……………..○ Follow who breaks what
……………..○ Shows what people are up to
……………..○ Show people Flickr is working
……………..○ Public?
• 4/22/2008, 6:31 AM
• Staging tool
……………..○ Assemble lang pieces
……………..○ Put pieces on staging for testing
……………..○ A whole bunch of text on page
……………..○ Button -> perform staging for end to end process to run … key is one button
…………………………….§ Should be one script
• 4/22/2008, 6:33 AM
• Compile
……………..○ Build web interfaces quickly
……………..○ Ajax checks on compile status
……………..○ Look at file on disk check on progress
……………..○ See on deploy page on where they are in compile
• 4/22/2008, 6:33 AM
• Deploy system
……………..○ Single button again
……………..○ Press (if allowed)
……………..○ Done
……………..○ Button does 300 things … logs success / failure
……………..○ One touch deployment
• What changed from last deploy
• Config deploy
……………..○ Config files
……………..○ Flags change a lot in config files
…………………………….§ Bauer comment - configuration management
……………..○ Process to manage configuration changes
……………..○ Form, edit file … hit button … deploys to PROD boxes
……………..○ Things they do a lot they change to scripts
…………………………….§ Bauer comment — a lot is relative to process … if you are not agile like them what you do a lot is drastically different (so you might automate the wrong thing and think you are fine tuned …. But you forgot the re-engineer step)
• 4/22/2008, 6:37 AM
• Mozilla AUS - Auto Update Services
……………..○ Pings URL from desktop … gets if new version avail and downloads as plugin
……………..○ Http check …
……………..○ Not dependant on using mozilla … they hit the servers of mozila not the client
……………..○ Update scripts …
• 4/22/2008, 6:39 AM
• Development Process
……………..○ Bug Tracking
…………………………….§ Simple summary
…………………………….§ Not 25 fields like @ yahoo! Bug report … short /long tickets … training .. Egads
…………………………….§ Flickr … simpler
……………………………………………□ 2 fields … title / desc
……………………………………………□ Sits on top of a powerful system but doesn’t expose that to reporters
…………………………….§ Track projects
……………..○ Source control viewer
…………………………….§ UVC
…………………………….§ Diffs, Blame Log,
…………………………….§ Critical
…………………………….§ Track to track bugs … then use tracks on source browser
…………………………….§ Link mailing list to source control … mail w/ links to diff viewere
……………………………………………□ Could also do rss feed by dev
…………………………….§ LXR / Indexers
……………………………………………□ LXR - Linux Cross Referencer … Theory … looks at source code and looks at bits of it and see where it is used across the application …. Click on class name … find definition
• 4/22/2008, 6:43 AM
• Maintenance
……………..○ Monitoring
…………………………….§ Nagios. Ugly but awesome. Servers and services up / down
……………………………………………□ Most big sites use
…………………………….§ Ganglia - Gather stats on bits of apps, servers, services
……………………………………………□ Used a lot of @ Flickr
……………………………………………□ Overview by data center
……………………………………………□ Server drill down from data center
……………………………………………□ Color coded
……………………………………………□ Graphs on box stats - cpu, memory, etc
……………………………………………□ Zero config (easy setup)
……………………………………………□ Graphing over time , historical records
…………………………………………………………..® Ie hits on a server
……………………………………………□ Open source software
……………………………………………□ RRD - Round Robin Database Tool
…………………………………………………………..® Fixed space, snapshot of data over time … lose resolution as time goes by … auto drop of data long term
……………………………………………□ Stack stacks from RRD and look at trending and relationships of data
……………………………………………□ They build a custom tool to monitor mysql
…………………………………………………………..® They use that
…………………………………………………………..® Look at threads, logs, select performance … in open source program called DV Stats
…………………………………………………………..® Used for performance tuning … slow down trouble shooting
………………………………………………………………………….◊ Look at ganglia for tablelocks for example (pulling from RRD and mysql stuff)
………………………………………………………………………….◊ Immediate bug fix
……………………………………………□ RRD graphs look the same … time based sample data
…………………………………………………………..® Custom … mysql, svg, batik … views via that
………………………………………………………………………….◊ Svg - scalable vector graphics … define via code
…………………………………………………………………………………………► Bauer comment - FLEX knockoff …
…………………………………………………………………………………………► Limited support
…………………………………………………………………………………………► Batik … converts svg to regular graphics
………………………………………………………………………….◊ So they go from mysql -> svg -> batik
• 4/22/2008, 6:50 AM
• God Tools - Admin Tools
……………..○ Comes from GNE - Game Never Ending (company that built flickr built that then flickr)
…………………………….§ Collected paper game … (bauer comment - hrm)
…………………………….§ Actions performed by god … flickr.com/god
……………..○ Example
…………………………….§ So you admin from website … each page has admin pages tied to it
…………………………….§ In context of site
…………………………….§ See a product in site .. Click link and see / edit relevant files, configs, etc in PROD
……………..○ Cache Checker
…………………………….§ See what is database versus what is cache
…………………………….§ Dumps and troubleshoots data differences
……………..○ Customer care
…………………………….§ Help request via customer profile pages
……………..○ API data
…………………………….§ Graphs of various things (svg of course)
……………..○ Localization
…………………………….§ Multiple lang
…………………………….§ Every string has tags to localized
…………………………….§ Looked at 3rd party for localization … all sucked .. So they build their translation management interface
…………………………….§ So by string they translate
……………..○ Admin profile
…………………………….§ Bug tracker
…………………………….§ Flickr account
…………………………….§ …
…………………………….§ Obsessed w/ tools
……………..○ Very large system
…………………………….§ 32k lines of php
…………………………….§ 24k of html
…………………………….§ Update each time ask or do things … automate as they go
• 4/22/2008, 6:56 AM
• Final points
……………..○ Use robots to automate anything you do … single press of button

** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

April 22, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 2-Perhaps (what floats your boat?) | , , , , , | 1 Comment

David Heinemeier Hansson: Forget Free, Go Fee

For those not tracking the geek world, David Heinemeier Hansson is a rather successful coder that built some well adopted apps (e.g. Backpack) and a framework that got some people excited about its ease (Ruby on Rails).

O.k. So what …

Well, DHH went on a rant about how the new business model of FREE that everyone is jumping up and down about. Specifically saying how it was nuts. In his view, “real” business startups (not those looking to get bought by some big fish) should focus on bringing value that customers pay for … not how they can be free and gain adoption from that.

Novel thought … but why is he pointing this out?

As usual my raw notes are below, but here are a few key themes that jumped out me as I watched this webcast over lunch

Webcast Details Notable Points

Duration:

  • ~40m

Speaker:

  • DHH (see link above)
    • Partner @ 37 signals (consulting firm based in CHI). Force behind Ruby on Rails and apps like Basecamp.

Recommend to Watch? Yes.

  • DHH always does a good job w/ slide structure and making the flow of his points (with a bit of shock jock foul mouth thown in). Worth the listen just for that.
 1. Free. Fee. Why should you care?

  • David points out an interesting trend in industry. The movement toward free. Recently there was a hoo hah when Google offered an application for free that was just like one David’s company sells on a per month basis called Campfire. I guess that got David thinking about this free versus fee model. You should care because anything you do for free could be the next ‘free’ offering from one of the big boys. What to do?

2. What can you do? Nothing.

  • Momentum is just increasing for free services. The bar only gets lower now that Amazon is offering a cheap hosting model via AWS and Google is offering the free Google App Engine. If you can host and scale for pennies on the dollar … you can’t count on infrastructure for a barrier to entry.

3. O.k. I lied. David Pointed Out Niche As The Answer.

  • David’s solution was focusing on a niche product that you sign a set of dedicated enterprise (not consumer, too fickle) clients to for monthly / yearly offerings. Free solutions will come but will struggle to get mark