Beware of your data in social networking sites !!!!

I recently read two different articles which say about the Data collected by social networking sites used out in the open. Facebook and MySpace are the sites which started off this whole social networking paradigm and popularized it. MySpace might be on a decline when compared to Facebook but they still see close to I billion user status updates every month. Moreover MySpace under the new management are trying to revive their position by realigning their business model and trying to be a major music seller. And the story of Facebook is known to everybody. Recently there was an article which said Facebook traffic has surpassed Google in the US to become the most visited website for the week (Of course Facebook still has a long way to go if you include Google's non-search properties)

Here is the article

Coming back to our original topic, there is a huge value on the data collected by these sites which mainly includes the web usage profile of each user. One of these articles talks about FBI and Feds collecting Facebook, social media data for identifying relationships, chasing the bad guys and going undercover etc. The other one includes news on how MySpace has put up user data for sale. According to the article the 22 sets of data being made available are cheap. Prices range from $10 for raw dumps from the MySpace API to $300 for everything broken out by latitude and longitude.

Here are the two links

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/myspace_bulk_data.php

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=31996

Now what do you make out of these news. Do you think Privacy is a big concern in social networking? Will these moves avert people from getting into social networking? Should there be some sort of law that protects these data from being utilized by Governments and big corporations???

Google Apps MarketPlace

After the success of AppStore from Apple every other Mobile vendor has rushed to put out a AppStore of their own. No one has attained the sort of success and buzz generated by Apple. Android is the only other market place where some sort of activity is happening, but even that is nowhere near the size of Apple AppStore.

Now Google has made a new move. They have opened up a market place for Google Apps. This though is more of a headache for Microsoft. This is clearly targeted to increase the popularity of Google Apps and take away some market share from the Office. Especially since Microsoft is pushing out Office 2010 with cloud capabilities. Google will be hoping this move will allow them to create a developer ecosystem around Google Apps. I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft came out with a similar one very soon.

This program enables integrations with such applications as Google Gmail, Documents, Sites and Calendar. All told, the effort begins with 50 vendors participating, including Atlassian, NetSuite, Skytap and Zoho. Users can link to an application via the UI in Google applications, offering benefits like single sign-on and sharing of data between Google Apps and third-party applications. Centralized administration also is featured. Participation in Google Apps Marketplace is open to customers of the Premier, Standard and Education editions of Google Apps. Applications are linked to the marketplace via REST Web services and APIs including OpenID and OAuth.

The real sweet part in this whole deal for Developers getting in is the fact that Google will pass on 80 percent of revenues from Google Apps Market sales to participating partners and keep the remaining 20 percent. Well what are you waiting for….There is money to be made!!!!!

Here is the link to Google Apps Marketplace

Google Ad Preferences

This was an interesting piece of information that I got from one my RSS feeds from Digg.

Google logs an astonishing amount of data, including the search logs from its flagship product. Europe's data protection supervisors have called for IP anonymization after six months and competing search engines like Bing do just that. Yahoo scrubs its data after 90 days. But Google does the "anonymization" only after 9 months. This has raised a lot of questions in the industry against Google and Google as always wants to defend their methods especially since they have the now famous motto of "don't be evil". The explanation provided by Google for keeping this sort of information for this long is that it gives better results(read as context and people sensitive ads). So basically they track the users browsing habits and creates profiles around people based on their browsing history in Google related products and applications. So it will not be advisable to do a search in Google (especially if you are logged into Google) that says "How to kill my Boss" .Next time you login you might be prompted with ads about rat poisons and hired guns :-)

Now to prove themselves as the "good guys" and to mark themselves as the most transparent, they have build a service called as Google Ad Preferences. If you open this service, Google will show you the profile that they have created about you based on your browsing history. You can go in and either opt out of Google Profiling or Remove a particular profile that you think you don't want to be in.

How to use Ad preferences? As always with Google it's very simple. Log into Google. Go to Google search and type "Google Ad preferences" (or you can try this link www.google.com/ads/preferences/). The page that results will show the profile that Google has created about you , with options to either opt out or removing a particular interest from the list or even add any interests. Have a look at this service and see what sort of profiling Google has done about you!!!

Is Google testing TV Search Service

There is a recent report on WSJ which says that Google is trying to introduce Search into the TV services too. The report is available only to the Subscribed users, but still the idea is a very powerful one. The rumor around is that Google is testing a TV search service on Android OS set-top boxes. The service, being tested in conjunction with Dish Network satellite TV service, would allow users to search Dish programming as well as video Web properties, such as YouTube. But we will have to wait and see what would be the input controls in this case. Will our TV Remotes act like a Keyboard to enter the search terms and options?

Linking Web content and traditional TV programming into a searchable database for viewing is a smart idea. Eventually, TV programming will be funneled through the Internet instead of cable and satellite systems. Viewers will need a way to not only find programming but discover new ones, as well. Also the more interesting part is the role of Android in all these. Android has already been ported to Netbooks and Archos tablet like devices. So making a Set Top box run in Android might not be an impossible idea. Still, it’s hard to imagine that set-top boxes will be around for much longer as Web technology moves directly to the TV screen itself and eliminates the need for add-on devices.

Another interesting point to note here is, how Google is trying to integrate its Cash Cow (Search) into just about anything!!!!

Here is the WSJ article

Google PubSubHubbub (PuSH)

Google is developing a system that will enable web publishers of any size to automatically submit new content to Google for indexing within seconds of that content being published. Search industry analyst Danny Sullivan told us today that this could be "the next chapter" for Google.

Google would some day use PuSH for indexing the web instead of the crawling of links that has been the way search engines have indexed the web for years.Google senior product manager Dylan Casey said yesterday at Sullivan's Search Marketing Expo in Santa Clara, California that the company plans to soon publish a standard way for site owners to participate in a program much like that.


PuSH is a syndication system based on the ATOM format where a publisher tells the world about a Hub that it will notify every time new content is published. Subscribers then tell the Hub "when this Publisher posts new content, please deliver it to me right away." So instead of the Subscriber checking back with the Publisher all the time to see if there's new content, they just sit and wait to be told that there is by the Hub. The Publisher publishes something, then tells the Hub that it's available, then the Hub goes and delivers it to all the Subscribers. This can take as little as a few seconds.

If Google can implement an Indexing by PuSH program, it would ask every website to implement the technology and declare which Hub they push to at the top of each document, just like they declare where the RSS feeds they publish can be found. Then Google would subscribe to those PuSH feeds to discover new content when it's published.

PuSH wouldn't likely replace crawling, in fact a crawl would be needed to discover PuSH feeds to subscribe to, but the real-time format would be used to augment Google's existing index.


PuSH is much more computationally efficient for Google but Slatkin says that even more important is the impact of such a move for small publishers. Right now many small sites get visited by Google maybe once a week. With a PuSH system in place, they would be able to get their content to Google automatically right away.

A richer, faster, more efficient internet would be good for everyone, but the benefits in search wouldn't be limited to Google, either. The PubSubHubbub is an open protocol and the feeds would be as visible to Yahoo and Bing as they would be to Google.

Sikuli - “God’s eye”

Sikuli, which means “God’s eye” in the language of Mexico’s Huichol Indians, could aid in the construction of “scripts,” short programs that combine or extend the functionality of other programs. Using the system requires some familiarity with the common scripting language Python. But it requires no knowledge of the code underlying the programs whose functionality is being combined or extended. When the programmer wants to invoke the functionality of one of those programs, he/she simply draws a box around the associated GUI, clicks the mouse to capture a screen shot, and inserts the screen shot directly into a line of Python code.

Read more in here

Would developers be needed in the future at all :-)

Getting into Mobile App Development?? …Good luck to you

I recently ventured into Mobile App development and found out one thing-Mobile App development is a real messy affair, unless of course if you are targeting a single deployment environment. There are too much of Platforms with varying length of influences across geographies. That creates a business problem. Think of a Mobile App that has to be catered for a wide range of consumers across geographies. Think of Maintainability and Standardization. Have a read through this blog. I’ll explain a bit about all the Major players in the Mobile market and give a small thought on how to counter this problem. Please let me know whether it makes sense

Time for some Gyaan. The start of 21st century has a seen a flourish in the mobile industry. There are some stunning numbers awaiting us about the mobile connection. Around 80% of the world's population has access to mobile phone coverage, as of 2006. This is expected to cross 90% by 2010. The pace at which it is growing, I don’t think you need to wait till 2010 to see those numbers. Another important number to note down, mobile devices vastly outnumber personal computers, telephones, televisions, and all other media and communications platforms. Now these points do give us a picture of the state the Mobile Industry is in. Mobile has become an unavoidable part of our lives almost like an extension of an individual. This holds true both as in a domestic consumer and an enterprise consumer.

But unlike the PC industry, where you have a 800 pound gorilla controlling almost 90% of the whole market (Read as Microsoft), there is no clear supremacy by any particular platform in mobile. Let’s have a look at the biggies in the Mobile platform market.

1)Symbian

Definitely not an 800 pound gorilla, but if any platform comes close to being one, this is it. With over 60% of market share (Thanks to its close association with Nokia) Symbian leads the pack. It had a wonderful run with its vastly successful S 40 series and currently shining out with its more polished latest release S–60. S-60 has helped Symbian to get a stronghold in the smart phone market which is being threatened by the new entrants. S-60 also features in non Nokia phones like Motorola and Samsung which has helped it in gaining more market in U.S (Nokia is the prima donna choice in the European and Asian market, not the same in US). Symbian has a very good developer base which is not an easy feat to achieve, and exactly the reason why Symbian will hold its lead for a good amount of time in the future.
Nokia recently brought Symbian for over $400 mn and what did they do after spending all that cash…They Open source it !!!!! Yeah you heard it right…They are going to give it away for free and make it as Symbian foundation. Looks dumb on first thought but the mobile market experts beg to differ. With Google coming out with its Open platform Android and “Daddy of all Open sources” Linux gaining more market share, it looks like a very smart move from Nokia.

You can find all about the Tools and SDK’s for Symbian in here.
And for more detailed read try this:

2)Windows Mobile

The original 800 pound Gorilla from the PC market have been trying use its muscle power to get into the Mobile OS market. To a good extent they managed to do well by having close to 13% of the overall smartphone market. But coming from Microsoft , you expect them to be at the top and that is the intend too. Major players like Sony Ericsson, Motorola , HTC etc are coming up with their latest smart phones like XPeria, Moto,HTC Touch Diamond and Pro etc (all of which are touted as iPhone Killers) are all based on Windows Mobile Platform. That shows the belief of these vendors in the capability of Windows Mobile Platform. When it comes to the developer base, nobody comes even close to what Microsoft has. With the provision given to code in a stripped down .NET environment and amazing Tool support in the form of Visual Studio ,Microsoft is here to stay in Mobile App development. Easy of synchronization with the PC also helps. The current version available is Windows Mobile 6.0. Windows Mobile 7 Codenamed "Photon” is a major upgrade planned for release in 2nd half of 2009. Not much else is known about the release, though leaked information suggests a revamped UI, multi-touch and motion-related features.
For more detailed read have a look at this:

3)RIM (Research In Motion)

You might not have heard about the Canadian wireless company RIM , But you definitely would have heard about their offering, Blackberry. RIM provides the OS that runs in Blackberry. Blackberry is a very familiar name in the Enterprise Community because of its ease of use in emailing, a feature that was unrivaled till now, until the phenomenon called iPhone came by. RIM is gunning to have a good run in the consumer market for the smartphone with Blackberry. They have done well so far. The competition is fierce in this segment. RIM usually develops its own softwares for its devices and you don’t see too much of third party developer support for RIM. This is OK as long they are planning to do well with the Enterprise customers, but to stay alive in the consumer market you need to build a good developer base.
For a brief overview have a look at this :

3)Linux

Embedded Linux has been ported to a variety of processors not suited for use as the processor of desktop or server computers.It is an alternative to the—usually proprietary—bespoke assembler or C software largely used in embedded development. Advantages compared to other embedded operating systems include: the source code can be modified and redistributed; relatively small footprint (a typical installation may require less than two megabytes of memory); no royalty or licensing costs; mature and stable; and a large support base. Embedded Linux systems combine the Linux kernel with a small set of free software utilities.
Motorola had in the past rolled out a lot of Smartphones using Embedded Linux and recently Open Moko is released into the market which is seen a gamechanger. Google Android also uses a Linux kernel at its heart. As said earlier being the “Daddy of all Open sources”, there is no shortage in the developer base and community support.
Try this :

4)iPhone

Apple shook the work with the release of iPhone. A touch phone was unthought of and even ridiculed by almost all other Phone makers. iPhone made them eat their words and they are scrambling around and trying to bring into market what popularly called as iPhone Killers. iPhone with its amazing touchscreen functionality and an even better browsing experience with an improved safari browser has really created a storm. The next version of iPhone was released last month and it managed to create the same frenzy that it created when it debuted. But in the version 2.0 what really made us to notice was its Software(apart from its 3G and push mail support). Few months before the iPhone 2.0 release Apple open sourced the iPhone SDK and came out with the concept of App Store where in individual developers can create applications for iPhone and host them in App store with a revenue share business model.
Coming from Apple, the iPhone app development is possible only with a Mac machine. Even though that reduces the scope for the SDK the number of applications that was hosted in App store are really encouraging. With plans to release the phone in over 72 countries, this one is really worth a watch.

You can get your iPhone SDK from here :
Also read this :

5)Palm

Palm with its Palm OS was a rage some time back. In fact there was a time when Palm was synonymous with Smart Phone. But their failure to provide a better platform in the recent times has eroded their market share and their developer base. PalmSource was acquired by Chinese Co. and there were plans to create a new platform for Palm on Linux kernel. Nothing has come of it yet. The way things are going for Palm, one could only see a sinking ship.

More on Palm OS:

7)Android

There is not even a single Hand Phone that is currently available in the market that uses the Android platform, Yet the whole world is downloading it , studying it and creating applications in it. The sole reason being, it’s an Open Mobile platform being developed by Google. But again it’s not just Google, its from the Open HandSet Alliance which is a business alliance made of Google, HTC, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Samsung, LG, T-Mobile, Nvidia and Wind River Systems to develop open standards for mobile devices. Android platform is build over the Linux OS and comes with an SDK, Development and debugging tools and emulators. Google also conducted Android Developer Challenge, which is a competition for the most innovative application for Android. Google offered prizes totaling upto 10 million US dollars.

Get the Android SDK and source code from here :
Read this too:

There are some more platforms or App development suites in the market like BREW, FlashLite, but not worth getting covered (or you could call me lazy). One could say that the same holds true for a Mobile Web app development too, but in a different sense. You have an array of Mobile browsers which are tightly bound with one of the above Platforms. Like IE for windows Mobile, Jb5 for symbian, Safari for iPhone etc..and other independent browsers like Opera. Even firefox is coming out with a mobile version…Watch out opera. But lately almost all the browsers are capable enough to show the original web contents as such without the need of any special definitions.

Coming back to my original statement.Now that you have seen the wide range of Platforms that are available in the Mobile App development, you would also be knowing the head ache involved in it. A Mobile App that needs to be catered for a wide range of consumers across geographies will give you a maintainability Hell. And add to that the thought of having Standardization. In a PC world you know you have to create the App for a particular platform and even if it has to be ubiquitous, you need to support it for only 3 OS. This gives way to a business problem and also to a opportunity to create a solution and selling it. There is an idea on hold. Why can’t we have a Mobile Code Generator?? Think of creating a DSL which will translate into Platform specific code. There goes your maintainability problem , add to it the Standardization too. Ain’t that Brilliant (Or Crazy) ??? Either way…Do please give me you valuable feed backs