Micah's Weblog

Beta in the Age of the Internet

Sat, 07 Aug 2004 19:20:11 GMT

Looking beyond Gmail, Friendster has been in Beta since the beginning of time, but they have well over 6 million users now. Technorati was in beta for a quite a while, but recently dropped that label just before being launched into the media spotlight by CNN and the DNC.

I suspect that if anyone even notices the Beta label anymore, they don't think twice about it. If the company was willing to put their service in front of millions of users, how likely is it that they're not reasonably confident that it's "almost there" in terms of usability and stability.

It's not like the old days when software beta programs required you to apply and then demanded regular feedback during the process. I think that in many (most?) cases, these on-line "open" betas are really just an excuse for launching services before they're ready.

Joel on Rich Internet Applications

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 14:44:54 GMT

Joel Spolsky wrote (a month ago, I'm falling behind):

The Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group is working on extending HTML4 forms to make Web applications work better.

In the previous rounds of HTML enhancement, the world's great graphic designers (like Jeffrey Zeldman) made the most noise and got us things like CSS which allow the kind of pixel-perfect page layout that the marketing people like, done in an intelligent way that separates content from presentation. Kudos. They got what they wanted, mostly, and quieted down. Now it's time for us application developers to start clamoring for the features we need to develop great web applications. Here are some examples of the kinds of features I'd like to see in web browsers:

Improved inline editing (step one: make contentEditable work in Gecko just like it does in IE 5.5+)
Javascript features to do fast REST queries back to the server, so I can implement things like a lush spell checker with the dictionary on the server. It should be possible to have a 300,000 employee directory on the server and create a web app that has a list box where you can type the first few letters of an employee's name and see a filtered list as fast as you can type on the screen.
A rich set of standard controls for application development that provide better ways to upload files, better ways to drag and drop with the desktop, etc
Compiled or compressed JavaScript, so that web applications can use really large amounts of JavaScript with decent performance
Better standardized windowing features. At the very least I'd like modal and modeless dialogs that pop up instantly, a standard way to do a menu inside a web page (with ONE consistent UI, not everybody's wacky DHTML menu that are all a bit different), TreeView and ListView controls, and a standard way to make a toolbar/button bar
The ability to get a "device context" (in a platform neutral way) on an HTML control and wail on it to paint just about anything you want
A far richer set of events. At the very least I need to be able to use the entire keyboard. Combined with #6 I should be able to develop any custom control I want that is 100% client side.
Media integration, so I can play sounds or stream music in standard ways without relying on <objects>
Graceful degradation for legacy browsers (IE. It's time to make Microsoft play catchup again. Fire and Motion Baby.)

This is just a random list, nothing organized. These things would have happened if browser development hadn't ground to a halt in the late 90s due to the misguided Netscape-rewrite-project and the lock-IE-developers-in-a-dungeon project.

What I do not want to hear about:

Proprietary tools like Macromedia's or Java Applets that embed clever widgets in rectangles in a browser. I want this stuff integrated with DHTML and CSS, deeply in the fabric of the web
Things that don't have any chance of degrading gracefully on legacy browsers. You have to be able to construct an interface that gets better if you install Firefox, but still works on IE, without too much testing on the part of the developer.
Boil the ocean schemes that require 400,000,000 users to install some thingamajig before you get anything useful. Such schemes will not go anywhere.

What are your ideas for improving the HTML/CSS/JavaScript infrastructure to make web app development better? Write them up and post them somewhere; I'll point to the best ones from my blog.

The next day Joel linked to some of the best responses.

Good Talks are coming and I'm leaving

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 06:39:07 GMT

Agh! What am I doing going on vacation! I'm going to miss two excellent talks. First BayCHI is putting on a presentation about Rich Internet Applications with presentations by Macromedia, OddPost, and Lazlo and the WebGuild is hosting a talk by Adam Trachtenberg, on Developing Applications on the eBay Platform with PHP.

What is Google building?

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 05:55:45 GMT

Jon Udell wrote:

Dare Obasanjo wondered, over the weekend, What is Google building? He wrote:

In the past couple of months Google has hired four people who used to work on Internet Explorer in various capacities [especially its XML support] who then moved to BEA; David Bau, Rod Chavez, Gary Burd and most recently Adam Bosworth. A number of my coworkers used to work with these guys since our team, the Microsoft XML team, was once part of the Internet Explorer team. It's been interesting chatting in the hallways with folks contemplating what Google would want to build that requires folks with a background in building XML data access technologies both on the client side, Internet Explorer and on the server, BEA's WebLogic. [Dare Obasanjo]

It seems pretty clear to me. Web applications such as Gmail and Bloglines are already hard to beat. With a touch of alchemy they just might become unstoppable.

I’m betting it’s something like Xopus a validating, WYSIWYG, standards compliant, browser based XML editor. Creating an easy to use publishing tool that allows for rich semantic markup is essential if you want to enhance the power of search. At least that’s my guess.

http://xopus.com/

TiVo vs. the Broadcast Flag Wavers

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 05:07:26 GMT

Washington Post: "if a programmer or an engineer with a bright idea has to go to Washington, hat in hand and lawyers in tow, to request permission to sell a better product -- and is then told "just wait awhile" -- we are on our way to suffocating innovation in this country. "

Yosemite National Park 2004

Mon, 21 Jun 2004 06:23:53 GMT

Pictures from a trip to Yosemite National Park this weekend with friends.

eBay ranks high in consumer trust and satisfaction

Sun, 13 Jun 2004 17:28:36 GMT

ClickZ Networks "Already a valuable resource for small businesses eBay has also proven to be the most trusted company according to a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe." The Ponemon Institutes didn't post the study on their website, but the ClickZ Networks article talks a little about their methodology.

eBay also did very well in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

From Forsee results "eBay is the one non-retail e-commerce company that is among the elite of the ACSI. Their score of 84 is among the strongest of any company measured in the Index."

The ACSI group publishes their results online, although some of the links are broken. Here are the results for Q4 2003.

Amazon's number are a little higher (88) than eBay's but we're growing faster.
I looked for Microsoft's Q4 numbers but the link on was broken.
- A little help from the google index turns up MSN's Q3 2003 customer satifaction score was 74.
- Scoble, you should tell the MSN fokes to get it in gear.
Googles score in Q2 was 82. I wonder what they received in Q4.

eBay announcement board and system announcements via RSS

Tue, 08 Jun 2004 05:40:27 GMT

from InternetNews.com:

Senior manager of developer relations at eBay, Jeffrey McManus, announced the RSS rollout on his weblog and said the feeds would be used to push special offers, promotions and system status messages via RSS. "[There are] highly recommended if you use a Weblog reader and are the least bit serious about using eBay," McManus said.
...
The RSS feeds, which appear to be targeting the hardcore eBay buyer and shopper, are available here:
General Announcements and System Announcements.

We'll we haven't gone as far as Phil Wolf is thinking but eBay is finally embracing RSS. Yeh!

Other 3rd party developers are out in front leveraging eBay and RSS in other innovative ways.

Rummaging: eBay is a platform for celebrity transactions.

Sat, 29 May 2004 17:36:50 GMT

Scoble writes:

Rummaging (a blog that follows eBay and auction trends) says I missed what makes eBay special. "eBay allows people their fifteen minutes in an explicitly transactional manner. In that, it epitomises the age. This seems far more important than statistics about year-on-year revenue growth."

Bay to Breakers 2004

Sat, 29 May 2004 16:58:24 GMT

Two weeks ago I "ran" in the Bay to Breakers race. It was a fun, silly, and crazy time. My friend Stacy has more pictures.