Tomorrow's podcast will feature our recent interview with some of the Squeak Board members: Randal Schwartz, Jecel Mattos de Assumpcao, and Craig Latta. We had a couple of skype dropouts and add backs during the call, but I think it went pretty well.
I see that the AP is boldly running into the same wall that kicked the RIAA upside the head: policing copyrights the hard way. Take a look at their explanation of what they're doing to guard their rights - I particularly like number 6:
What do you mean by "search pages"?
When consumers look for news today on search engines, they often get directed in a random fashion to a wide variety of news sources, blogs and other Web pages. Searches on breaking news topics such as floods, earthquakes and shootings don't dependably produce results from authoritative local news sources, and often not even to those media responsible for producing the news stories. AP will work with its member newspapers, broadcasters and other media to create a set of search-optimized pages that will guide users to the most timely, authoritative coverage related to their searches
So the problem is that in searches, I may not get directed straight to the wire story - I may get someone's commentary on the wire story, or - heaven forbid - someone who isn't an AP stringer reporting on the story themselves.
The problem here is in perceived authority. The AP thinks they have it, and that no one else deserves it. Authority is earned though, on a case by case basis. People reading the new get to make up their own minds about this, rather than having "our betters" decide for us.
Ultimately, this goes back to the AP mentally living in a scarcity based news model - after scarcity has been replaced by abundance. They can't just assume they're the most authoritative news source any longer; they have to earn that designation on a market by market and topic by topic (and even location by location) basis. I'm sure that drives them nuts, but that's reality now.
It was inevitable, I suppose: there's a paid service for tweeting out there called Magpie.
As if the "I got my free laptop, lol" posts weren't annoying enough :)
Technorati Tags: twitter, social media
Via Charles Miller, I came across some real dislike of the new Diggbar thing from Digg. I had kind of mentally classified this like Joy Of Tech did, but there's some real movement against Digg on it
The podcast will be out this evening - I'm waiting for one bit of audio, and, seeing as how it's Easter Sunday, I don't think I need to rush :)
This week we spoke to three of the members of the newly elected Squeak Board: Randal Schwartz, Jecel Assumpcao Jr, and Craig Latta. We talked about the election, what the board does, and where Squeak is headed. To listen now, click here.
If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, squeak, squeak board
Enclosures:
[http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/audio/2009/industry_misinterpretations131.mp3 ( Size: 14762669 )]
We have our first Smalltalk Seminar for 2009 scheduled for April 29, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I don't have the full agenda firmed up yet, but here's an outline:
There's no charge for this seminar - you can register here to get complete details on the venue (and agenda when that firms up more). Register now - it'll be a lot of fun, and a great chance to meet with key members of the Cincom Smalltalk team.
Technorati Tags: seaside, web velocity, objectstudio, visualworks, cincom, minneapolis
Today's Smalltalk Daily covers command line scripting using the image itself as if it were an executable. To watch, click on the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly
You can also watch it on Vimeo:
Command Line Smalltalk from James Robertson on Vimeo.
Or on YouTube:
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, command line
Enclosures:
[http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/casts/stDaily/2009/smalltalk_daily-04-13-09-iPhone.m4v ( Size: 7409477 )]
I've got the podcast pages reorganized - instead of a bare set of links, there's a set meta information for each podcast, along with an embedded player and a link to the audio for downloading. I think it all looks cleaner, but feedback is welcome. The pages:
Technorati Tags: podcasts
Last night, I saw a few posts from people wondering why Amazon had started removing the sales ranking information for a specific category of books. Today we learn that there was nothing malicious going on; rather, it was your run of the mill error that managed to surface in a fairly embarrassing fashion. TechFlash has the rundown - it seems that Amazon managed to screw up their catalogue pretty thoroughly :)
Last week, Tor publishers announced that Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time will conclude with a trilogy authored by Brandon Sanderson, based on Jordan's notes. The first volume, number 12 in the series as a whole, is titled The Gathering Storm and will be published this November.
This was just a snippet in an article about ending SciFi stories - but seriously, three more books? I like the series, but good gosh, there's enough fluff in most of the books that Jordan could have whittled the first 11 down to about 3. I bet these final three could fit in one book, properly condensed....
Technorati Tags: wheel of time
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at using Smalltalk as part of the standard Unix/Linux command line. To watch, click on the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly
You can also watch it on Vimeo:
Using Smalltalk on the Command Line from James Robertson on Vimeo.
Or on YouTube:
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, command line
Enclosures:
[http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/casts/stDaily/2009/smalltalk_daily-04-14-09-iPhone.m4v ( Size: 9074911 )]
This is the kind of energy story I've been looking for:
California's biggest energy utility announced a deal Monday to purchase 200 megawatts of electricity from a startup company that plans to beam the power down to Earth from outer space, beginning in 2016.
There are just so many difficulties with huge arrays on earth: darkness, the need to keep them clean, the sheer size of the arrays (and the consequent NIMBY and environmental impact battles the size causes). Arrays in space just avoids all of that. Sure, there are costs (lifting them into space), but it just seems like a more workable idea.
Not to mention that it seems very Jetsons-y to me :)
Parts of our judicial system are just not up to the task of dealing with modern technology. Witness the awesomeness of what Massachusetts police based a search on - from the EFF:
Some of the supposedly suspicious activities listed in support of the search warrant application include: the student being seen with "unknown laptop computers," which he "says" he was fixing for other students; the student uses multiple names to log on to his computer; and the student uses two different operating systems, including one that is not the "regular B.C. operating system" but instead has "a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on."
I'm not sure the judge who issued that warrant has made it up to the AOL era, much less this century...
Technorati Tags: law
Livio Radio is the first and only dedicated device to offer Pandora's signature "thumbs up, thumbs down" controls on both the front panel and a remote, and while we suppose Pandora will be plenty for most of the targeted customers, it can also tune into a comprehensive list of other validated internet radio stations from around the world through Reciva. Outside of that, functionality is indeed limited, but Livio designed this thing to be a simple WiFi mix tape of sorts, not a bona fide home audio player. Naturally, all that's required to get tunes streaming is an AC outlet and an internet connection, so you can feel free to leave your PC / laptop at home. It's shipping now directly from Livio for $150
If you're in the market for Satellite radio, you probably already have a net connection. Why pay a monthly fee for music when you can hook a laptop, phone, or gadget like this to the net?
Technorati Tags: music, internet radio
From the "one more thing to worry about" files:
Cyberthieves have seized on new, sophisticated hacking techniques to bypass the encryption of bank-card Personal Identification Numbers (PINs), a new report says. The revelation could explain the millions of dollars lost in previously mysterious ATM frauds across America.
Read the whole story from Wired. It sounds like pin numbers are more exploitable than we thought...
Randal Schwartz did a really good job talking about Seaside and generating positive vibes about Smalltalk @ Omaha mtg. tonight.
Technorati Tags: seaside
We have a lot of rich media content available at this point - podcasts, videos, daily screencasts. However, it's not easily searchable in the aggregate. I'm putting together an application to make that all easier to find, but there's an initial problem that's slowing it down some: the sorry state of the meta data I need to make it happen :)
Right now that meta data is spread across blog posts, mp3, mp4, and other media files. I have to get all of that into a database before I can actually do the simple part - the application itself. The good news is, I now have the tools to do that. The bad news is, it still involves more manual steps than I'd like. Once I get there, I'll also have to make sure that all the new content gets tagged and archived properly, so that I don't need to do this again :)
So - stay tuned.
Today's Smalltalk Daily Looks at the interactive Smalltalk shell capabilities of the scripting support To watch, click on the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly
You can also watch it on Vimeo:
Interactive Smalltalk Shell from James Robertson on Vimeo.
Or on YouTube:
Technorati Tags: command line, smalltalk shell
Enclosures:
[http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/casts/stDaily/2009/smalltalk_daily-04-15-09-iPhone.m4v ( Size: 4389522 )]
Fox has a list of 10 obsolete techs - the story is interesting enough, but this bit on DVD's caught my eye:
What's that, you say? How can DVDs be obsolete? Facts don't lie -- DVD sales fell off the proverbial cliff in the first three months of 2009, with some retailers reporting a 40 percent drop from the same period a year earlier.
I suspect that Blu-Ray will just never catch on big for the same reason given for this: broadband and downloadable movies. You can stream and download easily now, and without having to worry about BitTorrent and legal issues - iTunes, NetFlix (et. al.) are quickly becoming the go to spot for this.
The next wave of problems this will cause will be to cable and phone companies that provide broadband and TV. They want you to buy "On Demand"; you'll want to stream. That's where the current cap argument is based, I think - if they get driven to being nothing more than a pipe, they transform from having huge margins to being a normal business with tight margins.
Rafe Needleman notes that TwitPub is trying to build a business around gated access to protected twitter accounts. Maybe Twitter considers this (and other things being built around Twitter) as beta tests for potential revenue models :)
Technorati Tags: twitter, social media
We've become trained to believe that all of our online services should be free - but every so often a reminder comes along that there are problems with that idea. Facebook is trying to raise more capital, ahead of an IPO they hope to have eventually. Mike Arrington reports that they are looking at a new round at a much lower valuation than the last one:
Will Facebook take the expensive new money from General Atlantic? They may be forced to. They're burning as much as $20 million a month in cash and are dealing with ridiculous growth. They likely have less than two years runway left, and possibly significantly less if they continue to add new users by the tens of millions that are currently flocking there every month.
I thought about that in terms of how people use Facebook. There are new photos and videos being uploaded every day, all day. That costs both bandwidth and storage. Right now, they rely on advertising as the sole mode of payment. As long time readers here know, I'm skeptical of the future for pure ad plays anyway, and this one seems to rely on getting TV network style ad buys. I don't know that anyone expects to see that happening for any website.
It costs actual money to run a service like Facebook. At some point, the people behind it (and similar services) will have to find a way to charge for it.
Technorati Tags: advertising, revenue model
Looks like Someone at Sun had another look at the books:
Sun Microsystems Inc would be willing to resume takeover talks with International Business Machines Corp if IBM made a stronger commitment to closing a deal, Bloomberg said, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Translation: "We'd like to talk to IBM again before they can just pick over our carcass during bankruptcy proceedings".
Jason Calacanis thinks monetizing Twitter should be easy - from his one of his recent emails, which I got a copy of:
The point is that Twitter has the ability to unleash a direct marketing business the likes of which the world has NEVER seen. I predict they will, and when they do, they will make the Twitter nay-sayers look like the donkeys they really are. (Note: you ever notice the folks who have the most to say about making money are the ones who've never made any? Exactly.)
This all relates to his offer to pay Twitter $250k to be placed into their recommended user list for a period of time. Sounds easy, right? Well, maybe. If it really were that easy, I presume Twitter would have gone that way already. However, a one time payment of $250k for placement into the list doesn't add up to that much money (unless you make the list so large that its value is diluted).
The thing is, his idea is an ok one, but it has limited value. It's great for the people on that list, and it would bring a quick infusion of cash to Twitter. But.... it would be limited. I suppose you could have a rotating list (just as you can pay Google to run ads based on a specified budget) - but it remains to be seen whether that could generate the kind of cash inflow Calacanis is talking about. It's not clear to me that this kind of scheme could raise enough money on its own to pay Twitter's bills.
It might be part of the answer for Twitter, but I seriously doubt that it's the full answer. This relates back to my earlier post on Facebook. Thus far, it seems to be much easier to gather users than it is to monetize them.
Technorati Tags: social media, twitter
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at the support for building up and using script libraries in Cincom Smalltalk. To watch, click on the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly
You can also watch it on Vimeo:
Building a Smalltalk Scripting Library from James Robertson on Vimeo.
Or on YouTube:
Technorati Tags: scripting, smalltalk, command line
Enclosures:
[http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/casts/stDaily/2009/smalltalk_daily-04-16-09-iPhone.m4v ( Size: 6760081 )]
MediaMemo has the numbers on print ads for the last three months, and they are pretty ugly - these numbers are in comparison to the same time in 2008:
Publishing advertising revenue: Down 34.1% (or down 29.8% if you exclude currency fluctuation).
Classified ad revenue: Down 46.5%.
USA Today ad revenue: Down 33.5%
TV revenue: Down 14.9%.
Now admittedly, a soft economy plays into that some - but I think it's simply accelerating the trend of ads moving online, and for those ads to be both more targeted and lower cost. It's not so much that print is dying, as it is that the broadcast model of advertising it has relied on is dying.
There was a conversation about this on "This Week in Tech" last Sunday that I agreed with. Basically, any company advertising on that show has a very good idea as to who the audience is - so ads for, say, audio books are a pretty good bet. It's much, much harder to come up with useful ads for a more general broadcast audience. There's also the fact that Leop Laporte is using a more conversational and believable model of advertising - he's plugging things he actually uses and likes, which makes them even more credible for his audience.
That's the model of advertising that I think still works - the broadcast model used by traditional media is having serious problems, and any business that relies on that model - like most newspapers - is going to be in a world of hurt.
Technorati Tags: advertising
I wondered what YouTube's revenue model was back before they got bought by Google - it's now clear that the revenue model was simple: "get bought by anyone". Slate reports that YouTube is burning through cash at a rate that makes me go "hmmm"
But it might surprise you to learn that one of the largest and most-celebrated new-media ventures is burning through cash at a rate that makes newspapers look like wise investments. It's called YouTube: According a recent report by analysts at the financial-services company Credit Suisse, Google will lose $470 million on the video-sharing site this year alone.
This is why - hearkening back to these two posts from earlier, I really, really wonder about the revenue model for free social media services. Advertising simply won't pay the bills. With YouTube, Google has been willing to eat the loss, but you have to wonder how long that will continue to be the case; eventually, some accountant is going to burst an artery in a management meeting.
Technorati Tags: video, social media, youtube
I'm kind of amused that the "big news" being touted by Twitter (and its many acolytes) is Oprah's nascent use of it from her set today.
Technorati Tags: twitter, social media
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at some functionality of Trippy (the inspector) that you might not be aware of - things you can do with drag/drop. To watch, click on the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly
You can also watch it on Vimeo:
Trippy and Object Exploration from James Robertson on Vimeo.
Or on YouTube:
Enclosures:
[http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/casts/stDaily/2009/smalltalk_daily-04-17-09-iPhone.m4v ( Size: 6358256 )]
This is awesome news - Hulu is coming to the iPhone:
Hulu is in the process of developing an app for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and iPod touch, we have learned from a plugged-in industry executive. The app is coming soon (within a few months) and is "badass" -- as excellent as Hulu's Web site. Video will work over both wi-fi and 3G, we're told.
Yes, I still have issues with the idiosynchratic nature of video availability, especially the couple of days wait before a show gets there. For what they have, it's a great service though, and I can definitely see it coming in handy when I have to wait somewhere.
I'm working on a catalogue application for all of the podcasts and videos we've got online - there's a lot. We have nearly 200 podcasts (including conference material), and over 500 of the daily screencasts. That latter number is actually low; as time has gone by, many of the older screencasts have been updated - which means that there are actually over 600 of them on the server.
Anyway, it's a lot :) I'm getting all of it categorized and entered into a database, so that it can all be searched more easily.
The topic of namespaces in Cincom Smalltalk (this now applies to both VisualWorks and ObjectStudio) has come up again. A new blog popped up recently, about the alleged faults of Seaside. Now, I'm not going to claim that Seaside is a perfect web framework - no large body of work is ever perfect, and Seaside, like any such work, has warts. Overall, I think it's a great system, which is why I pushed to have Cincom start supporting it in our Smalltalk products. When you follow the link through though, be aware - while you'll find a few good suggestions, it's hard to keep them in mind given the general level of anger and obnoxiousness on display.
Anyway
A few days ago, this post was made on namespaces in VW, with this assertion:
In VisualWorks accessing classes by their namespaces bindings is very slow!
Certainly that used to be the case; if you go back to the 5i releases, and I think the early 7.x releases, resolving dotted namespaces could be slow. That hasn't been the case for awhile though. Here's a small test I put together, with two classes:
Smalltalk.MySpace defineClass: #MyTester
superclass: #{Core.Object}
indexedType: #none
private: false
instanceVariableNames: 'value '
classInstanceVariableNames: ''
imports: ''
category: ''
Smalltalk defineClass: #MyTester2
superclass: #{Core.Object}
indexedType: #none
private: false
instanceVariableNames: 'value '
classInstanceVariableNames: ''
imports: ''
category: ''
I gave them both the same "doWork" method, which takes awhile to run:
value := 10000 factorial
Then, I used another class (in the Smalltalk namespace) to run this test:
| val1 val2 | MySpace.MyTester new doWork. MyTester2 new doWork. val1 := Time millisecondsToRun: [100 timesRepeat: [MySpace.MyTester new doWork]]. val2 := Time millisecondsToRun: [100 timesRepeat: [MyTester2 new doWork]]. Transcript show: 'With namespace: ', val1 printString; cr. Transcript show: 'Without namespace: ', val2 printString; cr.
What were the results? The time to run the test using the dotted namespace notation (in milliseconds): 54535. Running the same test without the dotted lookup: 54643.
That's a small enough difference that I can't draw any conclusion beyond this: dotted namespace lookups aren't actually slow, and it makes a lot of sense to use namespaces when working in a Smalltalk dialect that has them - it makes for simpler naming conventions.
This shouldn't be construed as meaning that I want to see the Seaside core team push for namespaces in Squeak and start using them; that's up to them, and I don't really have an opinion on that. My sole point here is to knock down the assertion that namespace lookups in VisualWorks (or ObjectStudio) are slow. They aren't.
Technorati Tags: namespaces, visualworks, objectstudio
If you live in the UK, BT has a message for you:
BT chief executive Ian Livingstone defended his firm's limited plans for faster broadband today, arguing there is not enough demand for fibre to the home to justify its cost.
"Of course a Ferrari is faster than a Ford," Livingstone said. "But most people are happy with a Ford."
I guess this answers one question I had: it is actually possible to have fewer clues than the larger US ISPs...
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