Google AppEngine: More About Google Labs than You?

There’s a long history of tech companies developing there own applications because it’s cheaper long-term than licensing, especially for core applications like: email, calendaring, text processing.

I’m confident Apple employee use Mail.app, iCal, and iWork in-house and those apps are cheap or free for the rest of use. Same for Sun and StarOffice/NeoOffice. Same for Google and Google Docs. One guess on who isn’t getting ongoing licensing fees for those apps? 😉

This is not only why ‘HuddleChat’ was the first AppEngine app but also why it was pulled. HuddleChat made it obvious.

I can easily imagine this conversation at Google:

“Campfire is a great tool, we should pay for it.”

“That sounds like a lot of money for something not built here. It’ll be cheaper long term if we build a clone in-house.”

Take a look at the number of applications in Google’s Lab page. Many of them need; some form of authentication, the general look/feel of Google, integration into Googles infrastructure, to be built at Google, etc.

What a perfect candidate for an abstracted framework like Google AppEngine.

Elsewhere:

“The Google App engine may some day be worth mentioning but as of right now its nothing short of comical. Essentially Geocities 2.0.” – Tom, Tom’s TechBlog

Confirming this theory and that AppEngine is all about future acquisitions (i.e. ‘Want to increase the chances of being acquired by Google – build on AppEngine’).

“Because of the difference in technology, it can take a company anywhere from a year to three or more years to move over to the Google infrastructure and architecture.” – Nik Cubrilovic

Free & Open Is Its Own Lock-in

A decade ago, one of the very first places I found that offering free websites gave everyone access to the same images directory. You could upload your own images, but then everyone else could use them as well.

Goofy, questionable, but free.

I’ve been hosting with Joyent for more than 3 years, purchased 3 different ‘lifetime’ accounts from them. I’ve played around with a hundred website ideas on those accounts, comfortable knowing I can do whatever I need to explore an idea.

Whatever the app; Rails, PHP, MySQL, Facebook, some other crazy technology sounds cool, I know Joyent’s servers are up for it.

At this point, a year after my last ‘lifetime’ purchase, I consider those accounts ‘free’.
Free, as in: I’ve got a crazy idea and some server space, let’s see if this thing has legs.

I suspect Joyent considers them free as well.
Free, as in: Here’s the pricing on our Accelerators when you figure out your idea has legs.
Not free as in: Sharecropping.

“If you’re developing software for the Windows platform, yes. Or for the Apple platform, or the Oracle platform, or the SAP platform, or, well, any platform that is owned and operated by a company. They own the ground you’re building on, and if they decide they don’t like you, or they can do something better with the ground, you’re toast. ” – Tim Bray, 2003

“Perhaps Google is thinking about acquisitions. How much would it be worth to buy companies without having to transition their technology to their platform?” – Dave Winer

“Try to leave App Engine. Or AWS. When you move can you install Bigtable? S3?” – David Young

From its very first iteration, Cullect.com was running on one of my ‘free’ servers. Late last year, I moved it to another, bigger, ‘free’ server. A couple months ago, ‘free’ didn’t cut it any more. The idea had legs and needed room to run. I opened my wallet and and purchased a 1GiB Accelerator.

While I briefly considered moving the app to a different host, I realized Joyent has me locked-in.

Not locked into their platform, but locked into their attitude. Locked into their community, and locked in because I know I can experiment for ‘free’ and when those experiments work, they sold another Accelerator.

“If the news is important, it will find me”

“In essence, they are replacing the professional filter – reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com – with a social one.” – Brian Stelter

We read through each other anyway. I’ve long read major news outlets through the people I trust and often know personally. Blogs and Twitter are great for that. Sure, I run the risk of missing things, but again

“if it’s important, it will find me.”

It’s great to see that ‘news’ is finally thought of in the same way a urban legends. Passed along when they capture the imagination of the social group, independent of timeliness. Unless the event is happening….NOW…any account of it is ‘olds’ anyway.

Importance is persistent and rises to the top.

Notes from Bob Garfield’s Chaos Scenario 2.0 Talk at Macalester

Bob Garfield’s Chaos Scenario 2.0 presentation on Monday night felt like the opposite of the Blind Men and the Elephant. He’s just one of the many people from different angles, proclaiming that Advertising is dying and it’ll kill media as we know it.

“That horrible crashing sound you hear is a gravy train derailing.” – Jeff Jarvis

While Garfield gave a number of statistics; P&G and GM dramatically cutting back TV ad buys, etc, my favorite example is:

“[Six Flags] wanted to give away 45,000 tickets for opening day to drive traffic. So we got a brief to do whatever: ads, microsite, whatever. But our interactive creative director just went off and posted it on Craigslist. Five hours later, 45,000 tickets were spoken for” – Jan Leth, Executive Creative Director of Ogilvy Interactive N. America, per Bob Garfield’s Chaos Scenario 2.0

This elicits a number of interesting questions:

  • How does Ogilvy bill for it?
  • Will Six Flags return to Ogilvy the next time around, or just do it themselves?
  • Is this solution more or less measurable than a new website, ad, etc?

The thing is, I doubt direct marketers are having this conversation. Remember, Amazon determined their customers find more value in really cheap shipping than in really expensive TV spots.

Bob Garfield’s 4 Reasons Advertising is Dead:

  1. People don’t like ads.
    🙂
  2. People crave information.

    “We are seeking out commercial information all the time…” – Dave Winer

    “Brands are a proxy for information…” – Chris Anderson

    “… the will be usurped when ‘real’ information is available at a mouseclick – Bob Garfield”

  3. People consumers are in control.
    People choose when and how they engage with advertising.
  4. Diversion of ad budgets

From the Q&A

“Radio broadcasters need to stop thinking of themselves as radio broadcasters and start thinking of themselves as cultural hubs for their communities. Otherwise, they are doomed to a slow but certain death” – Bob Garfield

When asked about the future of in-depth, reflective journalism when advertising ends, Bob joked:

“I have no skills, that’s why I’m in journalism to begin with…I’m hoping for the best, but I’m expecting to starve”

I’m more optimistic than Bob. I predict the removal of advertising will encourage depth and reflectiveness. There will be less pressure to publish for the sake of page views, stories will evolve and grow especially with a more active readership participating.

Lastly, I take issue with the large number of times Garfield used the word ‘consumer’. If mass-marketing in mass-media to a mass-audience is replaced by conversational marketing to small groups and individuals – then there are no consumers. Just people.

First Crack 108. Coffee Review – Honduras, El Filo – 49th Parallel Roasters

This is the third in the monthly coffee review series at the First Crack Podcast.

This month, I’m reviewing Miguel Moreno Leiva – El Filo as roasted by 49th Parallel Roasters.

It’s a very subtle and floral cup with powerful aroma off the grind. Andrew described it to me as, “technically good.” I quite agree. It’s a perfect example of a good cup of coffee.

As always, special thanks to Andrew Kopplin at Kopplin’s Coffee for putting this Cup of Excellence on my table and resetting my coffee judgement scale.

Listen to Coffee Review – Honduras: El Filo [9 min].

The Ongoing Beer List

On the tail of a Twitter conversation on Wisconsin beers and a renewed interest in homebrewing seemed like a perfect time to write up my favorite beers.

My Homebrew Favorites

  1. Owd Potters Field Ale
  2. Sour Cider – Mach II
  3. Sour Cider – Mach I
  4. Aloysius Amber Rye – 2011

Top 5 Anytime, Anywhere Beers

  1. Rush River Unforgiven
  2. Rush River ÜberAlt
  3. North Coast Brewing Red Seal Ale
  4. Affligem Abbey Blond
  5. Two Brothers Brewing’s Cane and Ebel

Special Occasion Beers
One beer at the end of a great day:

Killing time on a beautiful spring afternoon at the train station near Hannover:

In Belgium on vacation:

Weekend on the river in northern Wisconsin:

  • Leinenkugels Red
  • Leinenkugels Creamy Dark (after sunset with a campfire)

In Minneapolis (or Portland), watching a local bike derby under pouring rain in October with empties as the course marker:

  • PBR

Reading William Gibson

  • Tsingtao

(more later)

Spring ’08 Refresh

“not really blogging or podcasting for two weeks can hurt your page rank something fierce” – Kristopher Smith

Since I haven’t been writing here much this month, here’s an update for those of you that just read this feed.

  1. GarrickVanBuren.com got a facelift this past weekend. Primarily so I could explore all the shared feeds Cullect.com generates (check the sidebar for ‘Recommended Reading’), but also as a larger effort to bring more visibility to the work I do (more on that later).
  2. Big, exciting new client projects, that have really got my gears whirring.
  3. I’ve published 2 new First Crack Podcasts so far this month, with a 3rd on the way. W00T!
  4. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around RubyCocoa, more specifically the relationship between RubyCocoa and Interface Builder
  5. It’s March. Historically, I get a SAD funk in March. 😉

Cullect.com – Moving Servers

Cullect was fast out-growing the Lifetime M Accelerator it started out on last summer, so this weekend I moved it to a bigger, 1GB Accelerator. As I write this, the database is migrating. After that, Cullect will be faster and have room to grow.

As part of this, I’ve started a proper blog for Cullect where I’ll be posts status updates, in-depth pieces on the decisions behind Cullect, and general bloggy stuff.