Afterweb

WOW! Finally there is a way to bring some order to the data on the Web: http://www.freebase.com/ I am very excited about the project and the very elegant way of linking structural data, unstructured data, images, people, time, and place in a form that is both accessible by humans and computers. - Gene ( http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000005f1f68a )

Today, when Google stock reached a new high of 623.22 and company seems like a dominant player of the Internet game, I take liberty to declare that within 5 years Facebook will eclipse Google. Why: Social media potentially more profitable than search. Search is either "find-and-leave" pattern or "search-clickonthead-leave" (and only on this exit money are made by the search company) . Social media is where people come to communicate, express them self, play, hang around, date, and (one day) shop together. Longer people stay - more money could be made. Facebook already gained and most likely will retain leading role controlling big slice of the social graph. They are brilliant in terms of design, user focus, and execution. Facebook engaged developer community in the level I have not seen since Java days. Facebook is heading toward the application infrastructure and development platform that will rule the market similar to how Microsoft used to rule for many years ...

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=6024102215

Two must-read links for FB app developers dreaming about crowds of users: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2007/06/07/10-tips-for-releasing-your-facebook-application-and-maximizing-growth/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/03/seven-steps-to-graphing-your-facebook-strategy/

Read a nice book-blog recollection of an early days of Facebook. Stories are very much similar to early days of other companies, successful, or not. So what make it a fun reading is to decipher what really made this company a success story unheard since stratospheric flight of Google. Book is short. I read it in classic "paper" format but it is also available as pdf from writer's site: http://www.fbbook.com/ Inside Facebook: Life, Work and Visions of Greatness

Facebook (finally) allowed Java Script in FB applications outside of IFRAME http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/FBJS Among other things, I liked how elegantly they are creating namespaces separating different applications on the same page. Seems that it cold be a security hole here - it is possible to enumerate java functions on the page and "impersonate" user actions with another apps installed on the same page. Other than that - it's great that we can use JavaScript outside of the IFRAME sandbox.

Click here to check out The SF New Tech Meetup! Visisted SF New Tech September Meetup last night. Very exciting! People in the audience simply rock. Formal presentations, on the other hand, are behind the curve. Meaning that smart people are not presenting or presenting in other venues? Or rather "work" than "talk"? :) http://www.conduit.com presented upgrade to their browser plug-in. Good implementation but I do not personally see much of the future in the environment of customizable dashboards, gadgets and widgets with much richer experience http://www.sezwho.com also a couple years behind the curve http://www.us4real.com - good use of GMap mash-up with RSS feeds. Generated active discussion and bunch of suggestions that were "pushed aside" by the presenter as difficult or computationally intensive to implement. Do we create start-ups to solve exactly these kind of problems? Hire a part-time architect to sort-it-out. http://www.globalmotion.com - showed...