Martin Gordon's Blog

Robert asked for it, and I was bored, so here's my first attempt at a Greasemonkey script. It basically adds "[Add]" next to your followers list so you can easily add followers as friends. You can find the script here. Let me know of any suggestions/improvements in the comments:

Known issues:

• Doesn't check to see if a follower is already a friend (could be fixed by checking /statuses/friends.xml). Nothing seems to break by adding people multiple times, however.
• Doesn't create the link for users with default icons (because user IDs aren't exposed from followers page, but can get them from /statuses/followers.xml). I really hope that the xml returns users in the same order as the page lists them.

I discovered that after putting together this script that those two xml files linked above have the information needed to fix the two issues. I'll get this out there in case people want it ASAP, but I'll work on doing it via the API.

Also, check me out on Twitter.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, Greasemonkey, Firefox, Javascript

It's been 10 days since I posted. Last weekend was fall break so me and my roommate, Adam, drove up to Boston for the weekend. Boston is a pain to navigate, and the recently released Google Maps for Palm OS was a real time saver — when I got cell phone service. It's astonishing how such Cingular doesn't provide adequate service in such a large metropolitan area. I get great service anywhere else I've been but Boston seems to be a black hole of Cingular coverage.

A bunch of things just bunched up on this short week, including a reaction paper to Fred Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month (which coincided almost perfectly with 37signals' release of a free online version of their software development book, Getting Real). and a bunch of group meetings. I've been re-inspired by Marc Canter's post on "the amount of automation, modernization and catch-up that the health and medical professions require," as it relates to one of my group projects related to his conclusion (which I won't disclose publicly in case we decide to take it further than just a pedagogical exercise).

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Maps, Palm OS, Treo 650, Cingular, Boston, Fred Brooks, Mythical Man-Month, 37signals, Getting Real, software development, Marc Canter, health care, medical, modernization

We're going to see job boards pop up all over the place since it's a much easier way to monetize a site than traditional banner ads. Compare pulling in $200-$250 a job post guaranteed versus the crapshoot that is AdSense et al (click-thru rate, cost per impression, # of clicks and # of impressions are all variable). If you've got the traffic already (as 37signals, Om Malik and TechCrunch do), then it's a no-brainer, especially once you take into account the fact that geekier audiences are more likely to ignore ads.

Mike Arrington writes about how both Jason Fried of 37signals and Om Malik turned down offers to join forces. Mike envisioned a job posting API and all sorts of interoperability. The problem is that these job boards are simple revenue-generating machines. By keeping the boards closed from one another, each company looking to hire will have to pay Mike, Om, and 37signals a separate listing fee. If we open the system up, then employers only have to pay one fee and all but one job board site lose.

While the idea of a job board API for interoperability sounds great, I don't think it can come from a job board site (at least not one bolted on to a blog), it will have to come from the employers themselves. And since the employers are each competing with each other for the best talent, I don't see any of them really taking a lead on the project (see 37signals' response above). Dave Winer has volunteered to develop the API, and he possesses the objectivity necessary to do so (at least for the time being), but for the same reason Jason Fried and Om Malik didn't join forces with CrunchBoard, I don't see them adopting any API either.

Technorati Tags: TechCrunch, Michael Arrington, CrunchBoard, jobs, Monster.com, job search, job board, Jason Fried, 37signals, Om Malik, GigaOM, Dave Winer, Scripting News, API, open network, walled garden

Facebook launched their API this week, entitled the Facebook Developer Platform, which uses REST to make and receive requests from the Facebook service. The discussion on the dev site is already bustling, a Facebook desktop app is already in the works and an IRC channel #facebook is up on Freenode.

To stay up to date, use the FDN News RSS Feed. This is exciting not only because some really cool stuff will be coming out for Facebook, but also because it puts pressure on other social networks to open up their APIs as well (which is something I asked about way back in March).

Technorati Tags: Facebook, social networks, api, development, developers, programming, open, web services, REST

Rumors are running rampant in the hours leading up to Steve Jobs' Worldwide Developers' Conference keynote. The image I posted on Flickr last week got mentioned in places, but only to show how overzealous Apple fans can get. It was pretty clear to me that nothing new would be shown on such a prominent banner, I just wanted to tag it so others could see the same. In any event, two pictures of Leopard banners from inside the Moscone Center have popped up; one reads "Introducting Vista 2.0" and the other reads "Hasta la Vista, Vista".

No live video feed is available, but MacRumors (among others, I'm sure) will be providing live coverage from their MacRumors Live website. The keynote starts at 1PM EST/10AM PST.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Steve Jobs, keynote, Leopard, OS X, Mac OS X, WWDC, Worldwide Developers Conference

Apple WWDC Banner Revealed

Originally uploaded by Martin Gordon.

Someone was able to sneak into the Moscone Center and snap a photo of a banner they were putting up. I've gone through and added notes for most of the icons (check out the image's Flickr page), but there were a couple that I was unable to identify. This is also the first glimpse we get of the Leopard "X" design. It's hard to tell whether its the image itself or not, but it looks to be darker than the Tiger "X".

The keynote kicks off the conference on Monday morning, so we should know what Apple's been up to soon enough.

Technorati Tags: Apple, WWDC, Worldwide Developer's Conference, Leopard, Mac OS X, Mac, rumors, icons

The first tidbit belongs to Joel Martinez of Community MX, who has posted Part 1 of his Deconstructing MySpace series on what goes on behind the scenes at MySpace (albeit from an outsider's perspective) and how to build your own social networking app. This first part focuses on setting up the database that will drive the application and future installments will focus on other details of implementation.

The second piece comes from Luke Wrobleski's notes on a SxSW 2006 panel entitled, "Behind the Scenes: Developing OS X and Longhorn". What struck me most about the two operating systems was that Windows development appears to be more democratic in the sense that multiple people decide what goes in and what doesn't. At Apple, it was Steve's way or the highway. I suppose that may have to do with Apple being a smaller company, but with every decision going through Steve, it would seem like OS X would turn out to be a lot smaller than Windows, but it feels on par with it (in the most general sense).

Technorati Tags: MySpace, social networking, tutorial, development, database, SWSW, SXSW 2006, OS X, Longhorn, Windows, Vista, Apple, Microsoft, operating systems

The folks at I Blogged This have an extensive roundup of all the Ruby on Rails resources available on the Net. Hopefully I'll find something I haven't seen yet!

Technorati Tags: Ruby on Rails, Ruby, Rails, framework, Web 2.0, API

Rumors has it that Facebook is on the block and looking to get $2B.

I just heard a Knowledge@Wharton podcast by my former professor and Supernova founder, Kevin Werbach, entitled, "What Makes An Online Community Tick?" featuring Craig Newmark of Craig's List, Julie Herendeen of Yahoo, and Bill Flitter of Pheedo.

Scoble and others are raving about Second Life. They're going as far as claiming its an OS.

Social networks are on everyone's minds these days. Can they last? I'm not too sure.

Amazon believes it had a sound business model. They make money by selling stuff. If people can find things more easily they are more likely to make a purchase. So Amazon released an API. Take the load off the company's shoulders and let others make Amazon better.

Google: same thing. AdWords is a solid business model. It helps everyone make money! Advertisers don't waste ads on people they can't reach; Google takes a bit off the top. All this is funded by people buying things from the ads they see. AdWords has an API. It's in advertisers' best interests for AdWords to be as good as possible. "Fine, do it yourself", says Google. Google provides an excellent service, and advertisers make it even better for themselves. Most of the products Google puts out has an API. They say, "we don't need you to come to our site to make money, we do just fine on other people's sites."

MMORPGs are a different kind of social network. They have some bonus activity attached that only makes the network stronger. Blizzard/Linden can and do charge for this value-added. They also allow scripting of the game. They let others make their software better, driving more people to pay for the service.

What about Facebook and MySpace? They have no APIs. The "software" is closed off to tinkerers for fear that an API could do away with the need to visit the site and feast our eyes upon lovely banner and click-thru ads. Pretty much anything I could imagine wanting from a Facebook API would bring me alternate ways of getting information available on the site, ways that are far away from ads. Tom Carden's brainstorm of uses for a MySpace API mostly deal with getting data off of the network in a different way. He wants podcasts, RSS feeds, etc, just like I do. And I'm sure many others do also.

So will a lack of an API drive Facebook and MySpace into the ground? Probably not. MySpace is already owned by News Corp and Facebook will get bought out any day now. But the lack of an API does signal that these networks are scared and that their revenue models may be a bit flimsy.

Technorati Tags: MySpace, Facebook, social network, Wharton, Knowledge@Wharton, Kevin Werbach, Supernova, podcast, Craig's List, Yahoo, Pheedo, WoW, World of Warcraft, Second Life, API, programming, development, web services, Amazon, Google

DHH has posted to 37signals' Signal vs. Noise blog that Rails 1.1 is out, with a host of new features. Every new feature in there seems to have come out of a need for it in a real-world app. Instead of adding in things that they think developers might use, they added things that they know developers will use (because they themselves as developers have used it). Brilliant.

I think what I'll like the best is RJS (Javascript written in Ruby) since I never really picked up Javascript. I just wish I had the time to actually try this stuff out…

Technorati Tags: Ruby on Rails, Rails 1.1, David Heinemeier Hansson, Ruby, 37signals, frameworks, AJAX, Javascript, Web 2.0