Is that THE Ryan Stewart?

That was the inside joke we had during 360Flex. Every time we saw Ryan strutting down the halls of eBay’s Town Hall, we’d scream that at him. (If you’ve never seen Ryan strut, it’s pretty sweet….I wish I had a strut like that).

Going into business with someone is not easy. Ask anyone who has a business and they’ll tell you that. In the case of John and I, when we thought of who we’d like on our side moving forward the choice WAS easy. Lucky for us, he was kind enough to drink our kool-aid.

Welcome, pardner. Let’s do this thing. =)

Adobe: Google’s Best Kept Secret Enemy

Everyone has been blogging and hyping the Adobe vs. Microsoft feud. The real power struggle is actually between Adobe and Google. I know this may sound a bit farfetched, but I think I have some valid points that prove my case.

Flex vs Google Web Toolkit (GWT)

Both are aimed at Java Programmers. Regardless of your thoughts on Java, you can’t deny the numbers. Thousands of enterprises have deployed this technology and therefore, there are A LOT of developers in the Java space. As Bruce Eckel pointed out, Java has not provided a nice way to deliver Rich Internet Applications on the web and that’s where Flex and GWT come in.

Both tools facilitate a simple framework to build dynamic web apps, but utilize different output formats. Flex spits out a swf file that runs in the Flash Player. GWT spits out AJAX code that runs in a browser. Both claim to eliminate the need to program for different browsers, a bane that turns off a lot of non-web developers. Whose version will Java developers buy? I don’t know, but whoever wins this battle will pull ahead in the enterprise space as all the Java-heads will preach that technology solution to those who sign their paychecks.

Apollo vs Firefox (via Netscape)

Both will perform a lot of the same functionality in the future. Google has the main Firefox guys on their payroll and obviously Adobe has the Apollo guys on theirs. What’s funny (in a weird way, not the “ha, ha” way) is how both companies can thank Netscape for their platforms. Netscape took Macromedia’s cash back in the day to include a new plug-in called the Flash Player, while Firefox got its first start toward the end of Netscape’s brief life.

Netscape publicly announced that it was going to take on Microsoft and win. This did do two things though: made Microsoft play catch-up (i.e. asked Macromedia if it could include the Flash Player too) and accelerated the browser as a platform (via the browser wars). Unfortunately, you shouldn’t challenge a giant until you know you can win, Netscape missed that somehow.

Now, both of these technologies are fixin’ to deliver on the timeless promise of a “Write Once, Deploy Anywhere” platform. Firefox wants you to program for its platform and Apollo wants you to build on theirs. Apollo will let you do Flash (Flex), HTML (AJAX) and PDF with any mix in between. Firefox will let you build apps on their platform frameworks such as XULRunner, XPCOM, etc. I’m fairly certain that a future version of GWT will likely support exporting code to the XUL platform. It would only make sense.

The holy grail is both technologies support the 3 big OSes: Windows, Mac and Linux. There’s one big difference to this support though. Adobe wants the OS to stick around, their tools depend on them. Google, however, does not and that leads me to my last point.

Desktop vs Nettop

One day, and sooner rather than later, Google wants the desktop to die. They want the world’s computers to run on their NetOS. I’m not here to speculate exactly what that entails, but let’s look at their profit model. The more time you spend online, the more money they make.

Adobe, however, have tools that run on OSes. They make money off these tools (Photoshop, Flash IDE, Flex Builder, Acrobat Professional, etc.) and they give away the runtimes that deploy content built with their tools (Acrobat Reader, Flash Player, Apollo, etc.) They don’t want the desktop to die anytime soon. In fact, if you look, Adobe seems to be trying to expand its tools to support all 3 major OSes.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, Adobe and Google are squarely pitted against one another. The only problem is that they both share a common enemy: Microsoft, who is bigger and tougher than both of them combined. There’s an old saying, “Keep your allies close and your enemies closer.” While Adobe and Google both want to win this war, it seems they want to kill their common enemy first. However, if Microsoft was to pick up on this secret rivalry and bring it to the forefront, Microsoft could force everyone into a 3-way battle. The key question will be how resolved Google and Adobe are at taking Microsoft down. If Microsoft tries to turn the two against each other, will they be strong enough to resist the bait? If not, can Adobe and Google handle fighting two battle fronts? I don’t think they can. If the war between these two goes live and loud, I think Microsoft will have a better chance on trouncing both. I guess only time will tell what happens, but it’ll be an interesting war to track nonetheless.

360Flex – My Thoughts

360Flex is over and guess what. I’m sad. =( I may be the only person in the world who enjoys making sure that 380+ individuals are having a good time and are learning. It was an honor for me to be both your conference host (as part of the 360Flex committee) and your location host (as I work for eBay and you were in “my house”). You attendees are amazing and make every bit of time and effort worth it.

The true stars of the conference were the community and the technology. Sure, we the committee gave a lot of time and energy, but it was the attendees and presenters that made this event into something special. I love that a lot of our speakers were just as excited to see other speakers as they were about presenting their sessions. Plus, we owe a big thanks to Adobe and their wonderful teams for creating the technology that we could spend 3 days discussing and learning.

Some have commented on how I didn’t appear stressed or nervous, despite the fact that I have never been involved in an event of this size before. The reasons for that is many. I had 2 trusted companions at my side in the committee. If you had John Wilker and Ted Patrick backing you up, you wouldn’t be nervous either. Another reason was that I was so excited to meet you all. I didn’t get a chance to meet everyone despite trying to while handing out badges Sunday evening and Monday morning. Next time though, we can shoot for me meeting all of you.

The feedback that you guys have been providing has been great. Please keep it up by filling out the survey and by posting your thoughts on your blogs. We want this event to keep getting better for you. I know we messed up some areas, and they have been marked for “repairs”. =)

I’m actually kind of jealous of Ted’s job now. He gets to meet you all throughout the year as he does his evangelizing. Well, don’t forget to drop a note to me and let me know how things are going, where you need help, etc. If your on the east coast and a big corporation/organization with a conference facility, drop me a line. The only way I’m gonna get to see my newest 400 friends is with another conference, so onward! =)

‘Til next time, thanks for coming and making our lil conference a success. If you’re local to the Bay Area, don’t forget to sign up for Silvafug (http://silvafug.org) so I can see you sooner. =)

Eternal Optimism of Youth

Just a quick little entry on how great the minds of our youth are.

When you hear, “Almost there…” You likely imagine the last few steps, the light at the end of the tunnel, the last few days of a year long project.

My little boy, TJ, and I were at the playground the other day. He was playing on the “big boy” playset. There was a climbing portion that was meant for kids much bigger and older. He was brave enough to try it though. I started telling him, “You’re almost there,” as he neared the top. By the third or fourth time, he put one foot on the first step and muttered, “Almost there.”

It just sorta struck me as a nice philosophy. Rather than, “I still have so far to go…” next time just say “Almost there” and repeat it to yourself with every step.

eBay/PayPal SecurityKey – Bye, Bye, Phishers/Scammers!

I just wanted to drop a quick little note. Everyone needs to sign up for this and pronto. http://www.ebay.com/securitykey is eBay’s newest way to battle Phishers and Scammers. It’s a little token that gives you a code to sign into your eBay and PayPal accounts.

Think of it as an always changing PIN for your accounts. Without that key, there’s no way for the scammers to get access to your account, even if you get tricked by a fake website. If you forget the key, eBay will call your cell phone and give you a temp number to login with! PayPal makes you answer your secret questions. In other words, it’s really, really hard for someone to steal your account.

It’s the best $5 you’ll ever spend. Trust me.

(Yes, I work for eBay but even if I didn’t, I’d be telling you to get this!)

User Optimization

Take a look at this.

How sad that must be for the peeps in the search groups at MSN and Yahoo. You can just hear the announcement now. “So, team, we appreciate your hard work but, um, we’re going down a different path towards product acceptance. Some may call it bribing, but we prefer to call it ‘User Optimization’.”

For those nerdy couple out there in the valley, here’s a perfect date for tonight.

Library 1.5 (No, not 2.0 quite yet)

A couple of American professors did a new study on auction bidding behavior. The data used was collected from a Korea auction site and the auction style is different than eBay’s, but it’s an interesting read nonetheless.

While the data used in the study was all publicly available data, the neat thing is that the data was provided to the professors by the auction company. This helped the professors by letting them jumpstart into the nitty-gritty, rather than wasting time trying to collect data.

All the megaNet companies (eBay, Google, Yahoo!, Amazon) have tons of this data. Being walled communities, privacy concerns, etc., yada-yada, they keep this information under lock and key in some dark closet. (Not really, because internal employees must be analyzing the hell out of the data, but we’re talking about the view from outside the company.) This leaves researchers/professors to fend for themselves in data collecting. Knowing how uppity sites are about their data, they probably wouldn’t take too kindly to researchers “collecting” what the company’s consider their data and would probably urge the researchers to stop. So, what are the academics to do?

It’s time we bring a bit of the Old World into the New World. When you wanted to (or were forced to, I should say) do research for a school assignment when you were younger, what did you do? You went to the library.

In the library, there were sections that had reference books that never left the building. You were free to use them all you wanted while at the library, but you couldn’t take them with you. This was a hassle because you had to leave your house, go to the library and look like a nerd. Sometimes though, things worked out and you’d find or bring a friend and things would move faster as you split up tasks. Soon enough, without trying, you’d be having fun and have a better project because of the interaction. If needed, you could copy the pages of info you needed and take that to go with you so you could continue the research until the wee hours of morning.

What if these megaNet companies created their own in-house libraries? Places where academia could come and share a common space and perform research on this fat collection of data.

Before you all go off on a rant about the infeasibility to do such things due to privacy issues, corporate espionage, etc, hear me out. Let’s tackle the obvious issues and agree on solutions.

The workspace – Lots of talking goes on at companies, not to mention other visible evidence of what’s coming but not out yet. Besides, the obvious NDA, you could put all the academia in a single room. This would prevent wandering eyes, fly on the wall eavesdropping, etc. I’m not saying the rooms have to be windowless, single door jail cells, just setup where nothing big and secretive is easily viewed.
The Information – The data these peeps will be after is full of personal information. We can’t possibly allow them access to this stuff and not be sued. Sure we can. We can put a DBA, network security and SOX compliance cop in the room with them. The DBA can be setting up temp tables and views into whatever data the researchers want, while carefully stripping personal data. The network security person can be setting up shared drives for the researchers and monitoring their net usage. The SOX cop can insure all’s okay from the legal standpoint. (Sure, this isn’t really SOX related, but SOX peeps are good at freaking out about the smallest bit of security and info breaching, so they’re a good fit.)
The Computers & Networks – The biggest fear is that these researchers are not going to be able to control themselves and start emailing troves of data out of the company and into the public. No problem. Have two networks in the room: one with access to the corporate network (that the employees are monitoring) and one with a direct connect to the internet only. This way, the researcher can query like mad on the corporate computer and then just manually type his results to the other computer.

Now, each library would be different. Some would be more aesthetically pleasing, while another more intellectually pleasing. Each library would in essence be a miniature version of the host company themselves.

Eventually, the companies would see the good work these researchers are doing for their line of business. They would ask the researchers to assist on projects and begin interacting with employees. Heck, I’m sure some companies will even begin to hire the researchers.

The point is that the data we’re holing up needs to come out somehow. I can think of no better way than having the academia go in there and help us understand what we do on these sites we practically live on. I know I’m curious, aren’t you?

Steve Jobs Aura

I’ve been watching Steve Jobs keynotes for years now. I’ve marveled at his ability to ahh and wow the audience during his keynotes. I’m not one for public talking and therefore, it’s nice to admire those that do it well.

For years, I’ve wanted to see the man in action. I’ve heard stories of how he enthralls the room, of how all attendees are sucked into the Steve Jobs reality vortex and transported to Jobsian Nirvana for the 90 minute talk. I wanted to take this little trip with him just once. Today, I finally did.

My impression: It ain’t all that. Now, before all the members of the Steve Jobs Fan Club jump all over me, hear me out. I too am a member, remember? I think the man is a genius! I love the output of both of his companies, Apple and Pixar. However, the Keynote wasn’t as hypnotic as I thought it would be.

Now, granted, I had two distractions. One the guy in front of me who had to keep standing up to take pictures. It wouldn’t have been too bad if each shot didn’t take 10 minutes to take. Then there was the idiot behind me who couldn’t be bothered to either turn down his cell phone’s ringer or just turn it off. You’d think after one call, he’d do something about it. No, instead he was too busy feeling important and wanted, “I’m in the keynote, can you just call back later? [hang up] Geeze, some people.” Yeah, buddy, some people.

Now, without those two distractions, would I have been mystified? I doubt it. Before I rag on Steve, let me comment on his better points:

1. He can relate to the common man. He makes you think he’s just an ordinary schmoe who just happened to be picked to talk about all this new “stuff”. He even calls it “stuff” too, not some technical term, just like Joe Neighbor would call it “stuff”.

2. He’s relaxed in front of the rabid Mac-fans, press, VIPs and countless cameras. I’ve seen very few people who seem generally relaxed in front of crowds. Watching him, you sort of forget how hard it is to public speak, until some other speaker comes on during the show, then it’s obvious.

3. He’s humble…now. I know that wasn’t always the case, but the Steve Jobs of today (literally) gave all the credit for these brilliant products to the engineers that made them a reality. He even made them stand so they could receive their proper accolades from the crowd. And boy did we heap it on them. =) Here’s a little more even: Great job, guys! You rock!

Okay, so there’s some good points for you; Now, onto the criticisms. A lot of you people will think the following, “Well, of course, he’s human, you know.” But that’s my precise point, Steve is not supposed to be human during a keynote, he’s the world’s closest thing to a demi-god to his worshippers in attendance.

1. You don’t know when to clap. A good speaker leads you in the interaction. You should know when to clap and know when you shouldn’t but feel the need to do it anyways. Today’s biggest awkward clap moment was during the .Mac talk. He said, “I’m happy to announce that we now have 1 million subscribers.” He paused…which I suppose was a cue for us to clap so one or two people did. However, since the response wasn’t enthusiastic, he quickly added, “And we expect continued growth in the future.” Another pause. By this time, we all had a clue and applauded. It was just a weird moment and there were several of those.

2. He misspeaks often. The funniest instance of this was when he said “Webshite” instead of “Website”. =) He also seems to get lost in thought sometimes. He never loses focus, but you can tell he tripped over a word or phrase and has to find his way back.

3. The “stuff” is the true magic. What is captivating about his keynotes are the demos and the ads. Now, I know he has a lot of input into those things, so you could say that’s part of his charm. Not really though, it’s the material that knocks your socks off. Whether the material is a new piece of hardware, software or advertisement, Apple has solid “Oh I gotta have that products.” Heck, I even get emotionally misty-eyed during the iLife demos because it usually deals with family themes and I’m a family man.

There you have it. This newbie’s impression of his first Steve Jobs keynote. Maybe he was just off this year. Don’t worry, I’ll give him another chance in June. I’m going to try to make it to the WWDC! =)