Casual Democratization

Now for a something a little off-topic. In Australia (where I live) the idea of the 'casual web' and, more broadly, the era of 'casual business' is not really a pervasive idea. At least... not yet.

Most of us still either talk in very small business terms with phrases like 'mates rates' (which I guess is less 'casual' and more 'local/colloquial') or in monolithic large enterprise terms with corporate speak and a conspicuous lack of humanity.

This trend, the casual web/business, also accompanies another (perhaps parallel, perhaps interrelated) trend of social or 'democratic' media and technologies. The idea that technology and media is better and more powerful if it enables individuals and groups to create, publish and share their own perspective on the world - rather than waiting for mega-corporations to tell us what to think and how much to pay.

I bring this all up because I just found an article about a great startup that combines both the idea of 'Casual' with the idea of technology Democratization.

They call it 'Fon' and the idea is to, by leveraging a large installer base of regular users, create a tapestry of wifi hotspots around the world.

This isn't a pipe dream though. It is a venture that just received funding from Google and Skype (among others).

So the democratic part is the idea of giving citizens the power to make internet connectivity pervasive and free.

The 'casual' part is the terms they have chosen to use for participants. They call people who offer their hotspot for a price 'Bill'. People who give away their hotspot/internet access for free are called 'Linus' and people who just pay for access on the network 'Aliens'.

It's brilliant. A brilliant idea in decentralized/democratized technology and a wonderful play on geek culture that will get the early adaptors and 'influentials' talking.

Well done - I wish them the best of luck.

So who will you be in this growing eco-system? Bill, Linus or Alien. In a disconcerting way this reveals a little about each of us doesn't it!

Web 2.0 is so 2005

Sick of hearing about Web 2.0? After all it has become relegated to JABW (Just Another Buzz Word).

Well forget Web 2.0 - Web 3.0 is coming.

In this nice little article Anne outlines the progression from Web 1.0 where the HTML page was the most important part of the equation, the Web 2.0 world where the RSS item became the most important part, and the Web 3.0 where something a little more granular comes to the fore.

Read: More Web 3.0 Snark Bait

Welcome to the Voice of Reason

Looking back at the blog for the last couple of days, I just realized that one might assume that the post 'Why do we bother to maintain a blog?' followed by probably our longest posting absence ever (only a few days mind you!) was probably not a good idea!

So the first thing I'd like to say is we are definitely still here! We have just been working hard on implementing all the great feedback we have gotten from our rapidly growing testing team. Thanks guys (and girls of course).

Now that that’s out of the way - It is my pleasure to announce something new!

If you have followed our blog from the beginning you will have noticed us mention someone called 'Mike'. Well this Mike fellow is a pretty big legend when it comes to programming. So we asked him to come onboard and help us out full time! And he said... YES!

So I would like to welcome Mike to our team - he has blog posting rights so you might see him around the traps.

Welcome Mike - I look forward to building the first ever Attention Management Engine with you!

Update: I should say what Michael's main role will be. Ash and I often attack problems from totally opposite ends of the spectrum (my end is always right of course - but I like to let him think he has some good ideas heh).

Mike, on the other hand, has this wonderful balanced approach that takes in both our input and comes up with a great synthesis. Something Ash and I always do anyway - but Mike seems to helps facilitate an even quicker and more fruitful conclusion. So in addition to cutting code, I think his calm and measured 'voice of reason' will help us make even better decisions when it comes to implementation and feature choices.

Why do we bother to maintain a blog?

Sometimes I wonder - why we bother maintaining a blog when Alex Barnett does such a good job of cataloging Attention related content for us. Half the time I get the impulse to just re-post his posts but then I'd feel dirty for stealing so much of his hard work.

That being said - this one definitely deserves a re-post on our humble little blog. And in general, if you're reading this blog, go subscribe to Alex's as well... because... he rules (I know that's a very high-school explanation but you get the idea).

Alex has posted some musings from across the web about Attention Engines. As you can see from that last link - we have our own very specific idea of what such an engine is, because we actually call Touchstone an 'Attention Engine'. But I am sure we can't lay claim to owning the term - for now *rubs hands together with evil posture*.

Microsoft... now with 50% less evil?

Personally I have never thought of Microsoft as evil. They are competitive, aggressive, all encompassing and fierce. But I wouldn't say evil.

Truth be told, I would probably do most of the things they have done if I was in the same possition and smart enough.

But 'Microsoft is Evil' used to be a pretty common musing - even if it was just in jest. I think this is starting to turn around now with the growing transparency and 'Naked Conversations' coming out of Redmond.

People like Robert Scoble, Alex Barnett and even Ray Ozzie are turning it around and making Microsoft more agile - and putting faces to the faceless (minus Bill Gates) evil empire.

Robert even jokes that MS is loosing their Evil to google (look at me referring to him by first name - like I know the guy).

But something recently just freaked me out. I just downloaded the IE7 Beta 2 'Preview' and I was shocked to find that the default search engine for the Firefox'esque search box was.... *drum roll* GOOGLE!

Oh my god - *I* would never do something like that - I don't even think Ashley would (and he is a pretty hippy 'lets make peace with the world' sorta guy). Is this just my installation for some freak reason? Is this the default way it comes? Is this an oversight? Or is this a choice?

In any case - its funny and fun. I am glad we live in a world where Microsoft is becoming if not our friend... friendly.

So I say well done to Microsoft - and thanks for being so nice. If you're looking for your evil - maybe try the google-plex!

RSS is not just about News Reading

One of the principals under which we are developing Touchstone is that RSS is not just about news. This is why 'RSS News Readers', while a necessary and powerful way of using RSS to digest news, only represent a part of the overall RSS solution.

We are developing Touchstone with the understanding that sometimes RSS is about notifications. Notifications are more immediate, more compact and require a client-side alerts mechanism into which they can render.

Rich Zaide at Basement.org has worked this out and has posted his: Taking RSS Beyond Headlines : Part One. I can't wait for part two!

We envisage a world whereby there isn't just 1 RSS icon on a page, but multiple RSS tags that let you subscribe via various levels of 'priority'. Maybe they don't even mention the word RSS. Do web pages mention HTML?

Imagine a forum, on each thread is a 'Subscribe with importance 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5'. You can now be alerted of new posts with a given importance bias that Touchstone can use to determine the right level of alert.

Update: Here's an example - of course the real version would be powered by JavaScript so as you rolled over the numbers they light up. Clicking would activate Touchstone and add the feed in with the appropriate iAM rank.

RSS is not just about news.

Limited Alpha is here!

Today we released the first version of Touchstone that will be sent to both our closed community of testers and special members of the blog/press/development/publishing community. We call it the 'Limited Alpha'. This release is designed to start some people talking about our little project even before we are ready to release it to the public!

Here is the email that was sent to the testers mailing list:

Good afternoon everyone,

Chris and Ash here – AKA: “The Touchstone Development Team” (we have uniforms and everything).

We would like to announce the very first Limited Alpha of Touchstone. We have quite a few new people on this mailing so I’d like to extend you all a warm welcome.

Instructions for downloading and installing the build are on the website listed below. Please read these carefully – this is only an Alpha so it’s not as easy to install as we’d like.

You can get your copy at: [secret website address here]

We appreciate your involvement - we hope that, with your help, feedback and support, Touchstone can begin empowering people to keep informed while they work.

To refresh your memory:

Touchstone is a gadget that persists on your desktop displaying news and nformation that you subscribe to. Initially this will be based on RSS and eventually it could include all types of alerts/information from various programs (through 3rd party adapters),

In this release, Touchstone looks like a news ticker (like the one you see at the bottom of news shows/stations on TV). Eventually there will be a way for the user to set rules about what’s important to them and configure additional ‘visualizations’ such as a ‘sidebar’ version, and various ‘alerts’ that popup when important information comes in.

These features are hinted at in a couple of mockup screens (that don’t work!) in the setup screen in this build

Kind regards,

Chris Saad & Ashley Angell
Touchstone - Are You Paying Attention?

Great Posts about RSS & Attention

There are a couple of great posts about Attention Management Tools online right now that I thought I might post for everyone to read:

MTRaven over at Omniorthogonal talks about the Attention Deficit Problem and how we could conceivably develop cognitive enhancement technology which would create an interface between mind and the technosphere.

Over at MarketingStudies.net Rok Hrastnik talks about making RSS more useful by using Artificial Intelligence to cull all our information sources and help us focus our attention.

This all sounds very familiar!

Nothing matters anymore!

Ash and I are sitting here trying to make these 'important' decisions about various features and we just came to a realization.... nothing matters any more...

Why?

Because we have Auto Update! Now we know how Microsoft feels haha. We can always fix and improve things later. We are closer to a 37 Signals world where they can just release stuff and improve it later (because everything they do is web-based).

It's a great feeling and it frees us to focus on what matters.

[Goes back to creating a program to automatically update the blog for Ashley]

Continuing Sillyness

In continuation of the silliness of the previous post, I would like to submit this Blonde Joke I found linked from Scobleizer - it is the best joke I have ever seen!

Bloggers Lie!

With the work we're doing on Touchstone, we're assuming that the content that people want to read will have a level of integrity and relevance that will increase the very quality of our lives. Information that helps us connect to each other, understand and respect our differences and grow as a civilization.

But this shocking report reveals that most bloggers lie! They LIE!

It has dampened my faith in the human race.

In other news, I recently stopped running Touchstone because our experimental build was so experimental it didn't run. I usually only ever run the experimental build so when that stopped working, my Touchstone experience was put on hold. Recently I decided that I could go on no longer and ran the more stable Private Alpha 5 release. I can't believe how much I missed my ongoing Touchstone dosage. It's like I am back in touch with the world. Thank you Touchstone... thank you for saving Christmas.

[end of silliness]

Auto Update?

Recently we have been toying with the idea of building in Auto-update into Touchstone. Along with 'Anon Usage Stats' these two features have given us some concern as to possible miss-trust of our intentions.

This little note at 'Abandon the web' which links to Tim Bray's post about his IM software eases my mind a little about the Auto-update feature at the very least. Here is the quote they used.

Tim Bray: "There are two kinds of software: the kind that offers to update itself when appropriate, and the kind that's broken." Ideally, once users select a trade-off between features and code maturity (the range is from "bleeding edge beta" to "proven and stable"), the software is then updated automatically. An option to easily revert to a previous version should be provided if feasible.

Merry Chrismukkah and Happy new year!

Good morning everyone! We're back on deck after a couple of days break for Christmas. I am sure we will loose a few more days over New Years but that's another story.

Looking forward to 2006 it looks like 'Citizen Journalism' or 'Participant Created Media' are going to explode. My personal hope is that time-shifted media becomes a reality beyond BitTorrent and amature content (and beyond iPOD/Tivo). Not so much so I can begin paying for TV, but rather so that better TV gets made (my theory is when fan audiences pay for good content, Fox can't/wont cancel shows like Firefly).

In the web space this all means lots more RSS, and lots more clamoring for our Attention. That's ok - because very shortly the world will have Touchstone (hah)!

Here is a little post that talks about the actual business side of things (as apposed to my rant about saving my favorite TV shows).

I have a problem...

They say this is the first step to being healed - to acknowledge and accept your problem.

According to Chris Sacca's "At the end of the day..." post on his blog - I have a dependency on metaphorical crutches.

Ashley hates it - I can't live without it - what can I do? Help me dear friends.

*Goes looking for the 12 step program*

On a more serious note, as of yesterday, Touchstone now has the ability for basic rebranding. The whole ticker can now have its graphical elements replaced with someone else's. Why? So that publishers can use it as their own news dashboard!

We have also done further work on optimizing what is now called 'Items in transit' and building in an item buffer in the visualization engine that allows each widget (the ticker for example) to store and manage its "current items".

Soon this powerful collection system will be used for alerts and other widgets to keep track of what's what for the user in more intelligent and intuitive ways.

Oh - we have also given our default visualization a name - "Ariel". This is a homage to Joss Whedon's "Firefly". It's the name of a 'core planet' that's all Shiny and new. The fact that it is under strict control by the Malevolent Alliance is beside the point.

Touchstone v1 Private Alpha Release 2 is here!

It's been a great night. We are now at the second release of the Private Alpha - taking into account all the feedback we have recieved to date.

According to Trac - all our tickets are closed for this milestone. Look for yourself.

Here is the email going out to our Private Alpha testers (remember if you want to be included, please email us).

Good evening everyone. The Touchstone Private Alpha (second release) is here. I would like to invite you all to find out more about it at the download page.

[Secret URL Here]

You have received this information because you are friends, trusted colleagues or enquiring minds who have contacted us for a copy of the Private Alpha. We appreciate your support and look forward to your feedback! If you would like to stop receiving updates about Touchstone, just let us know!

Just to refresh your memory:

Touchstone is a gadget that persists on your desktop displaying news and information that you subscribe to. Initially this will be based on RSS and eventually could include all types of alerts/information from various programs.

In this current release, Touchstone looks like a news ticker (like the one you see at the bottom of news shows/stations on TV). Eventually there will be additional ‘visualizations’ such as a ‘sidebar’ version, various ‘alerts’ that popup when important changes occur etc.

You can find out more at the website linked above.

Thanks!

Chris Saad & Ashley Angell
Touchstone: What would you like to know today?

Abstracting Complexity

On "Abandon the Web" there is an interesting post about The Sky Ahead.

In it, there is a theory of how "The Net" will turn into "The Cloud" (which is a term that is already used to describe the internet) and the interface should become no more complex than a power point in the wall (which itself hides the complexity of the power grid).

This type of approach factors into our thinking with Touchstone.

How? Well the complexity that we geeks experience when finding, subscribing and using RSS is only the beginning when it comes to 'barrier to entry' for mainstream users. This barrier is being well looked after by Microsoft and Mozilla with their respective implementations of browser based feed subscription interfaces.

The problem is, though, that with hair trigger subscription mechanisms - we (and the mainstream) are going to run out of attention time.

This brings us to the second barrier - the one we are trying to solve - time. Mainstream users don't have time to read 200+ feeds like us geeks do.

So with Touchstone, we are trying to move the complexity of choosing what new items matter (and how much that change should interrupt the user) into the cloud. A decision making process that takes into account your interests, your feeds, your OPML profile, the current site your on etc...

Keeping informed should be as easy as glancing at your Touchstone news ticker.

What is Web 2.0?

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I love 37signals.

I read their blog - Signal Vs. Noise - religiously and most of it is blogworthy. I don't blog it all because:

a) some of it is off-topic and
b) we would have to rename this blog to 'the Signal Vs. Noise Echo Chamber'.

But I found a neat little post that embodies their humor and good nature while also linking to/discussing an Adaptive Path article that, I think, is one of the best examinations of 'Web 2.0'.

In their post, they make fun of the article because it uses lots of big business type words, but those who know me also know that I tend to use those words too.

The fact is, this article deals with the actual phenomena/psychology/technology categories of Web 2.0 - not the little technical details that make up the 'unwritten rules' about what a Web 2.0 app should feature.

So congrats to 37signals for continuing their wonderful blog with wonderful humor and great work by Brandon Schauer at Adaptive Path for writing a great article with a very pretty diagram (I love their design sensibilities too).

That's a lot of love - but you all get the picture.

Are you keeping Trac?

Tonight Ashley and I installed Trac for the second time. What is Trac and why did we install it twice? Well funny you should ask!

First, Trac is an open-source product by EdgeWell that helps geeks like us keep track of their software projects with a minimum of fuss. It's like Backpack except you get to install it on your own server and it has a number of software development specific features like SVN.

I love it - I have spent all night setting it up, lodging tickets and generally getting a handle on our project.

Why did we install it twice? Because the last time we did it (about a week ago) our server crashed. 900gig RAID Array - and it went *BANG*

Was very sad. Lucky Touchstone was backed up hey :)

Internet history in the making

I have to say this is a pretty fascinating piece of internet history for me. The 'Five Year's Today' post by Evan about Blogger.

I wish I'd have said something more visionary, like, "It's going to be huge, I tell's ya! In five years, Google's* going to own it! And even the president will have a 'blog.'"

I have often wondered what it would feel like to change the world (or at least part of it), and Evan Williams and his team have, with blogger, definitely made a big dent.

It's people like Evan that make you believe that great things are still possible, even for a small team who are just starting out.

The link to their first blog post and the screenshot of their early web page is a wonderful look back at how it all started. It also gives a glimpse as to their initial plans/strategy - for a whole site management tool it seems - and yet how one sliver of that tool (the innovative part) is what really mattered and made them successful.

As Evan said in his 10 steps, narrow your scope to focus on what you do best and beat the big boys.

*Rolls up my sleves for a fight*

Success in 10 steps?

Evan Williams was the co-founder of Pyra Labs which created Blogger. If you don't know these two brands, then you probably don't care about this post! He is now doing something called Odeo which is about recording and sharing audio (podcasts++).

He has written an article for the Web 2.0 generation about '10 things you need to know to be successful'.

I have come across it more than once and each time I think to myself that I need to read it - but invariably I get distracted.

Finally, I have found the time to sit down and read through it - and even some of the links! I think it's fantastic. Evan has a great writing style (Casual you might even say hah) and is obviously an authoritative source! There is also something surreal about his using blogger to communicate his thoughts.

Read the article: Ten Rules for Web Startups

Inside that article he also links to another post he has made about "Running your company on web apps" Beyond the fact that its a great list, he also mentions creating a 'dashboard' for keeping track of your web-based business tools.

Perhaps a 'Universal Gadget' will help? Now if only we could con Evan into using Touchstone ;)