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Shared thoughts from the mind of Niall Kennedy.

  1. Jan01

    2007 tech predictions

    Welcome to 2007! Americans celebrate the dawning of a new year by throwing calendars out the window, watching countless games of college football sponsored by snack foods, and nursing hangovers from a night of rowdy drinking. We emerge from this haze ready to take on a new year of challenges, hopes and dreams. Let's take a look at three top technology trends I expect will have a big influence on our tech world in 2007.

    Apple releases blog, wiki software as open source

    Apple Leopard Server will ship later this year with wikis, blogs, and podcast production built-in. This new server software, powered by Python on the backend and lots of JavaScript on the front-end, adds Apple's design simplicity to popular geek software tools.

    The new blog and wiki software will certainly sell more Xserve hardware due to the simplicity of the bundled GUI administration tools, but I expect Apple may also open source the software itself. Apple blog and wiki software will join its calendar server on Mac OS Forge, and many Mac geeks will convert.

    A side-effect of the release is the newly publicized proving ground for Python and the Twisted framework, causing a few more web developers to take a look at using the software in their own projects.

    Music is bundled with new cell phones

    New high-speed cellular networks have arrived in the United States, or at least in major metropolitan areas. HSDPA and EV-DO Rev. A on GSM and CDMA networks respectively will deliver faster connectivity to the handset, creating better opportunities for data-based purchases on the handheld.

    These new high speed cellular data networks combined with branded application experiences making their way onto headsets can create a new market for rich content such as video clips, ringtones, and song downloads. I expect carriers will being marketing these new music phones with free downloads from a branded online music store to drive more mobile downloads.

    Widgets get a boost from politics

    The United States 2004 Presidential campaign placed blogs in the spotlight, taking bloggers out of their pajamas and into the press room. The 2008 campaign will embrace the Internet as a fundraising and influence medium, connecting constituents with individual causes, candidates, and opinions in the technology town square.

    Presidential candidates will embrace widgets to reach the trendy youth demographics of MySpace and hosted blog networks. Each widget will rally readers behind a cause, track fundraising activity, and join together millions of little pieces of content and opinion. You will be able to display the latest campaign video from your favorite candidate, poll results in the next primary battleground, and many other customizations.

    Businesses will observe the success of widgets in politics after extensive coverage in mainstream media and begin to leverage the technology in their own influence campaigns.

  2. May24

    The machines have a blog of their own

    Gadgets are blogging

    Your gadgets are blogging. Every time you take a picture, listen to a song, or play a video game you might also be blogging. Our shoes log and share our every step, our scales analyze our weight and body fat, and our cars let the world know it's been too long since your last oil change. The creation and exposure of data from our daily lives is creating new data available for search and subscription. It's time to rethink what we call a blog.

    The availability of this new data will cause us to rethink what we want to share with the world, and where we want to access this personal information. Our gadgets are talking, but who should be listening?

    One thing is for certain. Search companies will continue to tout their latest index size in terms of total pages, posts, feeds, blogs, and domains.

    How many blogs will you produce in 5 years? What sort of feeds will be in your multiple feed aggregators?

  3. Apr21

    Live Drive and online storage

    Fortune magazine mentioned an upcoming product from Microsoft named Live Drive in its story on Ray Ozzie this week. It's compared to Google's ambitions in online storage and other large Internet companies are starting to think of different ways to search more content online. I think Google's potential offering (GDrive) is totally different from what a company such as Yahoo, Microsoft, or even Apple might offer in terms of online storage because these large companies sell and help users create large media files. I'll use Microsoft and its Live products, both announced and speculated, as an example but similar ideas can be applied to other companies.

    I start at Microsoft on Monday and have no inside info on Live Drive or some of the other concepts and hypotheticals I'll discuss. It's all purely speculative.

    Different types of storage

    I believe online storage for large Internet companies will be introduced in stages and tied to applications developed by companies such as Microsoft. Each type of content stored requires a little different approach and different levels of involvement from teams of lawyers.

    Purchased digital assets

    You might buy a song, video, or image from a Windows Live product. Napster and other companies have provided access to multiple downloads of your purchased media across multiple computers and I'm sure Microsoft will offer similar features in the Urge music product or video offerings.

    This media already exists online, and may even be in the same data center as Live Drive accounts. You could connect the front-end of your personal Live Drive with the appropriate storefront but instead of a 30 second preview you now have access to the complete file with some DRM limiting your personal use.

    In this use case your Live Drive is a digital locker containing things you have purchased from stores owned by Microsoft. They know where the content came from, have a record of the purchase, and there is no need to duplicate the actual file. The service would be authenticated using Windows Live ID to make sure you are the only one to access that data.

    Digital content you create

    Microsoft has a few applications that create data you may want to backup to a secure location for later use. Your chat logs from Messenger, an audio or video chat, a Microsoft Money data file, or maybe the current health status of your PC. You could backup this content to your Live Drive and there might be an application-specific personal storage area available.

    You created the content and storage it online helps make sure it persists throughout time and across machines. You own the copyright responsibilities.

    Personal storage for anything

    What if you could have an L: or G: drive mounted inside Windows Explorer that was really an online storage service? The concept is not that new, we've seen it before with MSN Groups and Xdrive, but the free storage options were fairly limited compared to the gigabytes we are now used to receiving for free in e-mail and other online applications.

    You could store a Word document, a PDF, or your entire music and photo or anything you want as long as it's under your allotted storage amount.

    Desktop storage bloat is one of the reasons people hold off buying a new computer. With 40 GB or more of saved music files, photographs, and more, families are paralyzed at the thought of losing all that data when they buy a new computer. Microsoft has a little motivation to get the online backup experience right because it's likely to lead to more purchases of new PCs to match the new digital lifestyle.

    Storage others can access

    So far I've described storage types only visible to one account holder and hidden from the rest of the world. There is also a need for online storage space you can write to and share with others. Attachments too big for e-mail or the latest acoustic performance of your band in a garage are two examples.

    Sharing any file with anyone online gets a bit tricky and this is where lots of lawyers get involved. Are you sharing a Metallica song? A file with a virus? The latest hit movie?

    I think smaller companies will offer this type of storage while turning a blind eye to copyright and international concerns while bigger companies work on ways to make everybody happy.

    Other online storage concepts

    A new company called Fabrik wants to connect a stand-alone hard drive on your home network with secure online storage. Gordon Bell and other researchers at Microsoft are working on MyLifeBits, a lifetime store of everything you do every day including a camera you wear everywhere.

  4. Mar08

    Conference WiFi is a marketing play

    I'm at the Emerging Technology conference in San Diego with some cool new applications and services being announced on stage and in the hallways. The problem is, no one is able to blog about what's happening in real-time due to an almost non-existant network connection (even for presenters wanting to live demo).

    A thought for conference organizers: wireless connectivity is part of your marketing budget. It allows the audience to research products and sponsors, connect to other attendees to arrange meetings and get-togethers, and enables more people to attend knowing they will be able to simply connect back to the office if anything requires immediate attention.

    Great connectivity leads to a bigger worldwide mind share for everyone involved in the conference. Assign a specific sponsor to the WiFi connectivity costs (WiFi by Cisco, Intel Centrino, etc.) and let freedom ring.

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  5. Feb19

    Making technology simple

    As Silicon Valley debates the worthiness of Ajax vs. Flash and the best new way to add tagging everywhere, my parents' VCR still blinks 12:00. My mom listens to her favorite music and radio stations on a $40 clock radio because she can never figure out the complex home theater system. In our quest for the latest and greatest technologies we may be overlooking the masses of users waiting for technologies to enrich their lives.

    My mom's a blogger but doesn't know it. She passes along chain mail and jokes to family and friends on an almost daily basis. Each week she updates everyone who's interested on the latest news from my brother in Iraq. Both activities are ideally suited for blogs and syndication, but it's easier for her to fire off an e-mail to 25 people with her latest funny joke or piece of chain mail than connect to everyone through a blog or reader.

    My 18 year-old sister has never used MySpace, Facebook, or Xanga. Her social networking app is a cell phone she carries everywhere, including sending text messages from her bed. She creates content using still cameras and video, but never shares the content online because she finds the process too complicated. It's easier to connect her video camera to a TV than to send it to a video sharing site.

    As geeks we put up with all the complexities to explore a new service but most of the world just wants to plugin something that works. I try to step out of my geek bubble at least once a week to find out what it's like to interact with technology from someone else's point of view. The cashier at the coffee shop has no idea they are using a Windows PoS but they sure do love their iPod. Hopefully we can make their lives simpler and more rich through our attention to geek details.

  6. Feb08

    Overheard in a San Francisco cafe

    I am at Ritual Roasters this morning in San Francisco's Mission district. This city is so geeky it's not uncommon to see WordPress and TypePad screens on people's laptops as they bask in free WiFi. Today is completely different.

    Suicide Girls

    A man in bright striped pants, a t-shirt with a stretched neck line, and a modified sport coat is chatting up girls he thinks would be perfect for Suicide Girls. I have no idea if he actually works for the company or if this is some sort of new geek pickup line, but it's hilarious to listen to. Especially with Johnny Cash playing in the background.

    "It's a blogging site for people with awesome tattoos and piercings. You'd be perfect!"

    "Total new-age media where you get to run your own business and create a name for yourself."

    Blogging hasn't really made it big until pimped out strangers start using blogging networks as a pick-up line.

    And now back to our regularly scheduled geekery...

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  7. Jul08

    Lorem Ipsum is the new alpha

    Lorem ipsum is the new alpha. Thanks to three year beta programs by large companies such as Google I think we all place little value in the term "beta." Why should alpha be any different? The solution? Keep some lorem ipsum on your page so your visitors know this site is not yet ready for a general audience. It's like leaving the top corner of a house unpainted to let everyone know it's not yet ready for the realtor.

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  8. Jun30

    Gnomedex was very different

    I've been reflecting on Gnomedex for most of this week. It was a very different conference than I have ever been to before. The entire place was full of content producers. Text bloggers, audio bloggers, video bloggers, cartoonists, rockers, photographers, journalists, publicists, marketers, and venture capitalists all mixed into the same room. Everyone I met at Gnomedex created new things and publicly made available their own view of the world. We had so much to share even two T1 lines could not hold our stream of thoughts.

    "I read your blog" was a line of introduction. "I like you, I read your blog" was also a method of calming tempers as we argued in the hallways about attention metadata, advertisements in feeds, and the future of web browsers and mail clients. "I must subscribe to your blog" was the perfect closing comment to continue the conversation at another time from another state or another country.

    New tools are enabling new content and new ways of sharing. I asked a group of video bloggers if they would be able to do what they do without the Internet Archive footing the bandwidth bill. They responded that they don't know what they would do without that resource. Audio bloggers recorded interviews using $250 MP3 players with a microphone input. Photobloggers snapped pictures using $800 digital SLR cameras. All of these technologies and price points have only really taken off in the next year.

    What technological toys, software, and storage will we have next year to enable new creations? Everyone seems abuzz with innovations and the want to share their view of the world with others. It's a powerful thing.

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  9. Apr28

    What's your happy dance?

    When something really good happens I feel inspired to get up from my chair and do a little dance in celebration. It might be a press mention, a new business partner, or some code finally behaving the way it should. I do the cabbage patch dance.

    The cabbage patch dance was introduced to the world courtesy of Gucci Crew II in 1987 but popularized by the San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jerry Rice in the 1990s. The cabbage patch dance is so simple; all you need to do is stretch out your arms, put your hands together, and move them around a bit on a horizontal plane. It is especially funny when combined with the Roger Rabbit leg motions.

    It's great way to remind your coworkers of the 1980s.

    Do you ever have one of those days when you stare at code unable to figure out why the computer is not obeying your command? Fixing those types of frustrations necessitates a bigger celebration of throwing up your arms and jogging around the hallways or your apartments like Rocky Balboa at the top of the steps in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

    Yes, I am an odd expressionist, and it's all good fun. Do you have a happy dance?

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  10. Apr16

    Legal tidbits on blogging while an employee

    Simpsons legal reference

    I have written some form of a weblog since 1994. A lot has changed in my life over the last 11 years, but I always have claimed my personal Web space as my own and free of paycheck influence. Most companies are not used to employees having outside endeavors such as a weblog so I attempt to raise the issue with each of my employers using a language they understand: employment law.

    Most employment contracts contain a provision where the employee must waive the right to any invention developed while an employee of the corporation. It's a not so nice provision that basically says "we own you" and everything you do and is standard boilerplate in all of the templated employment contracts used so prevalently throughout the business world.

    California law protects against an employer owning all of your work and all of your waking hours. California Labor Code section 2870 provides some basic employee rights regarding intellectual property. if your outside work at its conception is unrelated to your employer's business and done on your own time (nights, weekends, etc.) it belongs to you. Due to restrictions over employee assignment inventions each employee has the opportunity to claim previous and ongoing inventions at the time of employment. I claim my weblog as a previous invention.

    Why claim a weblog as a previous invention? It forces a conversation within the corporate machine. The employer must review the document and take action. I want to separate the writing of my weblog from my day job. I also do not want my employer to view my weblog as a marketing vehicle.

    I also believe a California employer restricting an employee from having a personal weblog is in violation of California Business and Professions Code section 16600 but that case of non-compete has yet to be proven. I have considered placing advertisements on my weblog if only to generate enough revenue to have my weblog considered a part-time job by the legal system. Bloggers gain industry reputation through their weblogs through their knowledge and passion. Is this moonlighting? I do not think so. An employer preventing an employee from writing a weblog could be seen as preventing the employee from engaging in a trade or profession.

    Enough of the legal talk. In the end law is largely up to interpretation requires someone to act on its violations. Employers usually have enough money to prove you are, as Johnnie Cochran liked to say, "innocent until proven broke."

    Your milage may vary, I am not a legal expert, but I love to see free expression. More conversations need to happen and the world needs more cultures of trust. Maybe the avenues provided by the law can help get you there.

Niall Kennedy Niall Kennedy is a web technologist in San Francisco, California in the United States. I am very interested in the world of... MORE »

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