InfoRift

• Apple Sues HTC - for patent infringement.  Outcry from tech community is loud and negative.  Paul Graham says "Apple is inching closer to evil."  John Gruber weighs in, lengthily, also against Apple's action, although he does come up with a couple of potential optimistic twists.  As an Apple shareholder, I'm slightly worried that they might start focusing on "defending their turf" (a la Microsoft) instead of continuing to come up with great new stuff.  As someone with aspirations towards entrepreneurship, I'm worried that the craziness that is the software patent system flares up instead of abating.
• Compression of Morbidity - Americans are living longer.  They are dying older.  Active lifespan is increasing faster than total life span.  How can you not be optimistic?
• Edward Tufte Appointed by Obama - to serve on the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, whose job it is to advise the Recovery Accountability Tranparency Board, in turn whose job it is to track and explain the $787 billion in stimulus funds.  Obama just went up points in my book.
• More Calacanis - I remember hearing about his latest site when it first came up.  I checked it out but it never really got any traction it seemed.  Apparently, I was wrong.  It did gain traction in one area: making money off SEO through very little content.  Some say spam.
• iPad Preorders - started.  I ordered two on wifi to get it early and a 3g one for real use.  Estimates are that Apple sold about 150k of them over the first weekend.  Also, iPad accessories are sold out.  I can't wait to get my hands on mine.
• Turing Award - given to Charles Thacker, designer of first modern personal computer.
• Jerry B. York - passes away after more than a decade as a member of Apple's board of directors.  Apple's home page temporarily made into a tribute.

(Please scroll down to the comments section for suggestions or bug reports.)

Dead Simple Backups

I built Backuperous in response to a conversation that was taking place on the Posterous help forums.  The intent was to provide a simple service for Posterous users and at the same time relieve some of the frustrations I was experiencing with my day job.  (Sometimes, you just want to get something, anything, done.  A lot of times, it’s just not possible at work.)

This application does exactly one thing: give users a one-click method for backing up their Posterous blogs.  Even less than that, it only backs up the text from their blog and none of the media associated with it (e.g. music, photos, etc.).

The story would end right there, were it not for my ambitions of building another web application, unrelated to Backuperous, with loftier ambitions.

An Exercise in Execution

Common wisdom in the startup-osphere holds that execution is the key to any successful startup.  This is a concept in which I believe, from a theoretical standpoint as well as from personal experience.  I spent several months last year working on the prototype for my own “great idea” and found that in addition to putting together a working version of the application, there were a large number of peripheral, yet intrinsic, portions of a web startup that needed to be addressed.  Successful execution of this type of business entails properly building and deploying these “peripheral” systems so that the core feature set has a strong foundation upon which to grow.

Reductio ad absurdum, now I have a single-feature web application.  It would operate perfectly fine the way it is, but I intend to use it as a guinea pig.  I will grow systems around it that will help provide me with the experience I need in building these types of tools.  The topics I plan to address are:

• User Experience - it has one feature.  How can I maximize the experience of using that one feature?
• Administration - what are tools I can develop to monitor and maintain the site’s stability?  The first thing I will do is probably to build a control panel (a la Bingo Card Creator and Panic).
• Application Robustness - back to the one feature: do I address all possible failure conditions and handle them appropriately and with finesse?
• Marketing - how do I let the right people know of this application?
• Monetization - is there a way to monetize this single feature?

I'm hoping to get started on my main project soon.  Later this year, my client gig will end and I will devote a few months (at least) to building it up.  At that point, I will be taking the knowledge I learn from this exercise and applying it to "the real thing."

In the meantime, I hope that people can actually use this application.  If you have any ideas for improvements or shortcomings of the application, please note it in the comments.  I don’t promise the addition of any new features, but if you have ideas for improved usability or knowledge of bugs that may exist, I will address those as quickly as I can.

(This was a response to my a comment from "Adblocking is Missing the Point."  It got way too long, so I decided to make another blog entry instead.)

Hi Chris,

Actually, I'm aware of the cost per mille model.  I guess it sounds like I’m speaking out of complete ignorance, but really I’m just trying to speak to how I think things should be, not necessarily how they are.

You're assuming that ads only make money for a publisher when they're clicked on. They aren't.

That’s not it at all.  What I’m saying is that when the publisher gets paid for my impression (specifically me), the advertiser is not getting value.  Neither am I.  If this phenomenon grows, the publisher will eventually lose out as well.

I’m Not Denying the Revenue

Let’s look at the numbers.  Your site gets 3% CTR and that’s considered pretty good.  However, another way to put that is that 97% of your readers are served up junk.  Even if you quadrupled or quintupled the positive effect the CTR may indicate, that still leaves 85% of your readers out in the cold.  I’m not denying the revenue it generates for you or the sales for your advertisers.  But what I’m asking is: isn’t there a better way?  There is a huge inefficiency there somewhere.  This is the shotgun blast to which I referred.

The Billboard Model vs. The Internet

Let’s also look at the model you cite when you speak of billboards and BMWs.  Back in the day, the only way to reach people was to broadcast, via radio, television and the like.  That was how companies formed “relationships” with people - by being omnipresent, they created a sense of familiarity within their potential customers.  This familiarity made customers more likely to purchase a product from them rather than a relatively unknown competitor.

Is this really how things operate these days?  Is the internet just a billboard on your computer screen?

I’m postulating that if you look around, you’ll notice that the old model is breaking down.  If you’re trying to decide whether or not a certain company’s product is worth the risk of purchase, you don’t care if they are familiar to you from television, glossy magazine ads…or banners on blogs.  What you are looking for are more accurate measures of their reputation.  Sites like Facebook, Yelp (despite the controversy), FourSquare and blogs like yours (the articles, not the ads, ironically) better serve this need.

Are you really buying the BMW because they say they are the “ultimate driving machine?”  I’m guessing you’re buying it because they make a great product and just about anyone who has one has only good things to say about it.  Let’s see how well those ad impressions work once rumors of  stuck accelerators start floating around.

There’s Got to Be a Better Way

In the end, I’m speaking as a consumer who sees an inefficiency and wants there to be a better way.  I’m not trying to get rid of ads, I want them to work better.  As subtle, insidious and lucrative the business of advertising is (yeah, I watch Mad Men), I still believe it can be improved.

After all, back when Yahoo was king ten years ago, CPM was the dominant form of internet advertising, and even though…

"...nobody at the time thought there was anything wrong with Overture’s model — it was making lots of money..."

...Google came along and developed CTR.  I just don’t think we’re done yet.

There’s a conversation going on right now arguing the merits and demerits of adblocking.  Ars Technica needs them turned off in order to generate revenue.  Readers like Brian Carper finds the need to look at advertising as ethically repugnant.  However, I think that they are both missing the point.  The fundamental problem is that the advertising model is broken.  There is no mechanism for properly trading attention for money.

Ars is basically saying: we know ads suck.  But we want to get paid, so please stop blocking them (even if we know you’re never going to buy from the advertisers).

On the other hand, Carper is saying: don’t play me for a sucker.  If I want to block the ads, I’ll block them - I don’t care if you take your site away.  If I find it valuable enough, then I’ll pay for the content.

But here’s the problem with the discussion: advertising is broken anyway!  It’s a mechanism that provides no value to anybody, be it Ars, the reader or the advertisers.  What if Brian and everyone like him capitulated and turned off the ad blocker?  He’d just turn on the same ad-blocker that I use - the one between my eyes and my brain.  I never click on ads.  Ever.  Ever.  Ever.

The intermediate result is that Ars would get paid - but not for long.  The end result is that advertisers will find ads not worth the cost and either take them away or ask for a reduced price…driving Ars to look for more revenue streams (read: advertisers).  Can you say Computerworld?

What is needed is a different system, one that provides value to all three entities.

• Provide Ars with revenue for their articles.
• Sell product for the advertisers.
• Provide readers with goods and services that they need.

I don’t know what that system might be, but maybe Daring Fireball and The Deck is a good place to start looking.  Instead of using a shotgun approach, they choose to be more selective.  I don’t know if this would work for Ars, but I know two things:

1. Via Daring Fireball - the Mac Sale is offering a $500 bundle for $50.  (And no, I’m not affiliated with Mac Sale in any way.)
2. I don’t adblock but I couldn’t name an Ars sponsor off the top of my head if you paid me.

• Buzz - Google takes their next stab at the social web and integrates status updates into gmail.  Backlash takes place due to the auto follow feature which blasts everyone's private relationship details to the world.  In my opinion, this was either a clumsy implementation or unscrupulous mining of personal data.
• Apple iPad - the conversation about the iPad continues.  This thing is going to make a lot of people look really stupid in about a year...one way or another.  Lots of discussion about Adobe, Flash and why it's not allowed on the iPad.  A developer explains why it doesn't even make sense to allow Flash on the iPhone/iPad.
• Facebook Users Confused - by ReadWriteWeb's article.  Internet mockery follows.  Analysis and counter-analysis follows that.
• Jason Calacanis vs. SEO Book - and Google and Google's Matt Cutts ends up looking bad.
• Googlers Convicted in Italy - four Google employees were indicted last year, three of them were convicted this month, for failure to comply with the Italian privacy code.  They were found at fault for a video that was uploaded to YouTube...by someone else.  They had no idea of its existence until someone complained, whent they promptly took it down.  Google thinks this is a serious threat to how the web works.  I agree.

a launch

As I sit at my desk at home, prepping for yet another project launch, I contemplate the rigors of the past several weeks.  I anticipate the next few as well: bugs that come to light only after we flip the switch; requirements - perfectly implemented! - that we somehow misunderstood (or even completely missed) despite our best attempts to model the processes.

As usual, thoughts on project execution come to mind: how could we have done better?  How did simplicity come to require extra-human (not quite superhuman) effort on the part of the team?  But these thoughts are par for the course.  I've spent more than ten years watching what happens when the clanking of an idealized computer infrastructure meets the demands of real world, real-time, business processes.  As stressful as they can be, these are often exhilarating times for me.

something else

But today is different, other concerns raise their heads.  In "The Mythical Man Month," Fred Brooks famously uses a woman's pregnancy as a counter-example to the software development process:

"If one woman can produce a baby in nine months, then nine women should be able to produce a baby in one month."

The statement proves its point by being patently untrue.  But the analogy is accurate in a different way: software projects are like pregnancies.  (With apologies to my mother and all the other wonderful women who have experienced the real thing.)

Launching a project is like birthing a child.

And unfortunately, launching projects for clients, as is all I have known, is like being a surrogate mother.  Any sense of accomplishment one may have is fleeting and, ultimately, borrowed.  Attachment to the end product is not only unwise, it is actively discouraged.

And in the case of enterprise software, the end products are often unwanted stepchildren anyway.  These are products designed by committee, hodgepodges of conflicting requirements thrown together using tools selected more for political or budgetary reasons than efficacy.  And although they ultimately meet their sponsors' goals, usability, grace and elegance take a back seat to maximized feature sets.  There is no room for craftsman's pride.

inspiration

And so I look up from my corporate cocoon, up and out at the world wide web and discover the many wonderful things being done, ostensibly with the same skills I know and possess.  Who are these people crafting such useful, beautiful and profitable works of programming and design?  How are they able to accomplish what they have?

The landscape has changed quite a bit since I first dabbled in web programming over ten years ago.  Today, many more tools are available that increase an individual's productivity exponentially.  A far reaching culture of entrepreneuship and creativity has developed.  An ecosystem has grown in which these attributes can flourish with minimal capital investment.

The web has become an artisan's playground.

So I'm striking out and building something of my own.  The circumstances are right and the time nearly so.  In a few months, this gig will be over, my time will be my own and I can dedicate it to creating a product of which I can be proud (and for which customers will pay).  I'll use this blog to track my progress, share my thoughts and ask my questions.

I'm excited.