The Internet seems to be crawling today.. so I did a little speedtest, and can’t believe my eyes:
Holy smoke! Please don’t tell Comcast, they might just have the idea of billing me extra. But it still feels sloooow.
Archives for 2007
The Shareware Awards Scam
Posted on August 17, 2007 ·
This is just hilarious: Andy Brice, a UK-based software developer started to get suspicious about the high number of awards displayed on software download sites, so he created a little experiment.
He created a new “product”: a text file with the words ” this program does nothing at all ” repeated a few times and then renamed as an .exe. He even declared the same on the screenprint submitted to shareware sites. That was not enough to prevent several sites from awarding him with “5 stars”. Apparently these awards are handed out left and right, hoping that subitters would display the badges with a backlink to the originating site. Andy’s conclusion:
The truth is that many download sites are just electronic dung heaps, using fake awards, dubious SEO and content misappropriated from PAD files in a pathetic attempt to make a few dollars from Google Adwords.
Here’s the collection of awards awardmestars.exe “earned” so far:
16 and counting. Well, perhaps it stops now, that Andy “outed” himself. Or who knows, given the attention level site owners demonstrated, they hardly read blogs.
Next time you download unknown shareware, you may want to think of just how safe it could be – apparently ratings mean nothing.
Additional reading: Google Blogoscoped, JD on EP , Christopher Null , Things That, Global Nerdy.
Romulan Attack Because of Microsoft Office
Posted on August 16, 2007 ·
The Romulans attack the Federation for they can’t read the Peace Treaty sent to them in Word 2307 format… they only have Word 2303. A hilarious cartoon by Geek and Poke. Joke? Perhaps … or not.
Yesterday I attended a (so-called) Enterprise 3.0 event hosted by the MIT Club of Northern California. So-called, as nobody really used the term, other than the moderator, Sramana Mitra. The panelists politely put the title on their slides, and then distanced themselves from the concept, Google’s Jonathan Rochelle being most outspoken: “we did not even get to Enterprise 2.0, why 3.0 now?” (Update: read JR’s follow-up post).
That said, it was an interesting event, clearly focused on Software as a Service (SaaS). 3 of the 4 presenters came with PowerPoint decks – kudos to Microsoft’s Cliff Reeves who only had 1 slide. In the spirit of eating one’s own dogfood JR’s “presentation” was a public Google Spreadsheet.
Next came Captain Picard Sramana: her slides suffered the same faith the Federation’s Peace Treaty did: they were created in a different version, and could not be opened on the presenters’s laptop. Host Nicolas Saint-Arnaud made a heroic effort trying to download a converter, but failed, so Sramana could not show her presentation. This happened in a room discussing SaaS where at least two (well, one and a half) online presentation tools were represented: Google’s future presentation app by Jonathan, and the existing Zoho Show by Sridhar. With a Web 2.0 tool, there s no dependency on having the correct software version on your machine, there are no updates, patches (in fact there are, managed behind-the-scenes by the service provider) – your slides (data) are instantly available anywhere, anytime.
I somewhat wonder if this was an intentional ploy on Sramana’s behalf: after all we can talk all we want about the benefits of working on the Web, nothing delivers a punchline as forcefully as a publicly failed download/patch… or the Romulan nukes, for that matter. (Will they still use nukes in the 24th Century?)
(Side-note to anyone delivering presentations: don’t ever try to download and apply an upgrade publicly, on a projection screen. Murphy’s Law will apply)
Update: See Sramana’s Nuggets from the event, including the slides. She says it was not a ploy… (but I may just have given her an idea 😉 )
Entrepreneur Assist Launched – Powered by Zoho
Posted on August 15, 2007 ·
TechMeme’s algorithm is either buggy or smarter than I thought. This morning it linked two seemingly unrelated posts that both tackle the same underlying concept: measuring web site use.
Read/WriteWeb reported that Web Office suite provider ThinkFree hit the 1 Million mark in number of hosted documents, up from 654,000 in late February. Their 335,000 users (up from 250,000 in February) upload between 60,000 to 80,000 documents per month. Impressive numbers. Of course, numbers can get tricky, revealing more than intended: comparing users and documents, it appears the average ThinkFree user creates 1 document every 4-5 months. Of course there is no “average user”, I suspect the real situation is that a lot of users just signed up and never came back (the famous 53,651), so in reality ThinkFree probably has a lot less but more active users.
Competitor Zoho does not track the number of documents created, but the current user number is 310,000 up about 110,000 on the last few months, showing a faster growth rate than ThinkFree. Today’s announcement of Entrepreneur Assist, a personal homepage by Entrepreneur.com, powered by Zoho applications will certainly accelerate that growth.
Entrepreneur.com is one of the largest small business sites, with millions of unique visitors per month… but why am I talking, let’s see some numbers:
Like I said, numbers are tricky, there are so many ways to look at them. Clearly a visit to search engine Google is a lot shorter than one to a content site, or one where users actually work, create a document, collaborate. For this reason the time users spend on a website is emerging as a an important metric. In fact if we look at time spent at the very same sites, we get a different picture:
As expected, users spend less time per visit on “read-only” sites, vs. the ones where they actually create something – and clearly teh Zoho apps will further improve this metric for entrepreneur.com. This is partly the reason behind the deal, but watch the video yourself.
The next video talks about what you can actually do on Entrepreneur Assist:
Related posts: CenterNetworks, Mind Petals, Web Worker Daily, Zoho Blog.
Somewhat related: American Bar Association launches free legal advice site for small online businesses.
Sun’s Web-search Enabled StarOffice Now Included in Google Pack
Posted on August 15, 2007 ·
The announcement is not a surprise (update: Sun kept the surprise for tomorrow) since Google Operating System outed it days ago: Google now includes Sun’s StarOffice, previously costing $70 in their free Google Pack. As you could expect, reactions range for labeling it as Google goes after Microsoft again (the New York Times) through shrugging it off to declaring a Microsoft victory.
What has changed? Star Office has been around for 8 years and has gained no traction.
I can’t believe he does not know the answer: it’s mass distribution, getting installed “by default” (even if selectable), that’s what’s changed.
Donna Bogatin, Defender of the Faith (in Microsoft, that, is) goes further, claiming this move a victory for Microsoft:
Who needs Microsoft Office? Who needs the Microsoft Desktop? StarOffice, Google do. WHAT ARE THE SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR GOOGLE PACK? You must have Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Vista. SO, every Google Pack download with, or without, Sun StarOffice, is a MICROSOFT WIN!
Wow, what a discovery, the OS monopoly means a victory for Microsoft even as their applications are replaced by competing products … I don’t think Microsoft would have loved this argument in the antitrust case. She goes even further:
Sun StarOffice itself needs Microsoft Office, big time. The StarOffice value proposition is Microsoft Office dependent: “Now you can have a full-featured office productivity suite that’s compatible with Microsoft Office at just a slice of the cost.”
Donna obviously mixes compatibility with dependency. Of course Office app vendors strive for MS compatibility, that’s simple due to the Microsoft monopoly no-one (other than Microsoft) would question. But to call the fact that these products are actually replacing MS Office a win for Microsoft is a stretch to say the least. In fact Donna spins so masterfully, is she ever goes into politics, she’ll have a safe place at the O’Reilly Factor on FOX News. Oh, and Donna, how about opening up comments on your blog?
Dan Farber at ZDNet is a lot more balanced, and he asks the right question:
But is StarOffice, Google Apps or whatever Adobe, Zoho, Zimbra, ThinkFree and others are doing a game changer, massive disruptors that will eviscerate Microsoft’s super-profitable Office business and free users from .doc and .xls tyranny?
Tyranny is the key word here. The Office monopoly means that millions of people are using it out of fear – fear of losing compatibility, or perhaps simply due to inertia. StarOffice will not be an absolute “winner” by itself, nor will the rumored Adobe product – but, along with the web-based offering from Google, Zoho and ThinkFree, together they make a dent… lots of small dents, for that matter.
Personally I am a big fan of Web-based services, and I don’t ever want to see bloatware that needs to be installed and constantly upgraded on my computer – unless it provides vital functions that are not available online (yet). But I understand it’s a matter of preferences. If I still was a world traveler like Vinnie, I’d probably prefer to have my apps and data “in a box”, too. Offline or online, the choice will largely depend on our lifestyles, and the need to collaborate or not.
What’s important is a behavioral, cultural change, the fact that business and millions of individuals – employees, students, freelancers, moonlighters, small business workers.. anyone – realize that they no longer need a Microsoft product to stay compatible.
You and I are likely using different email products or services. Yet we can email to each other flawlessly. Why wouldn’t the Office market be the same? If When we have a market with several capable products, when users don’t accept the default, but select based on features, service, price … you name it, i.e. when they have choice – we all win. Be it offline or online.
Update (8/16): Oh, you Fools, don’t you know that mindshare is everything?
VMWare – My Missed Fortune?
Posted on August 14, 2007 ·
Oh, this hurts. I’m looking at the skyrocketing VMware chart, close to doubling today’s IPO price. Somewhat reminds me of when I wouldn’t touch the Google IPO at the “already high” $85 IPO price
.
But VMWare is my big blunder in another way… back in January 2001, fresh out of the SAP world I was solicited for a Management position in the then 120-person startup. Being the application guy, I did not get excited in this virtualization thingie. Ouch… was that my fortune I will never have?
Oh, well, it’s nothing compared to Guy Kawasaki supposedly turning down the Yahoo CEO position in the early days… OK, I’m just renting, for real info, read: Between the Lines, The Register, Epicenter, PC World , Reuters, Paul Kedrosky,
Enterprise 3.0: Where Is It Headed? – Interesting Panel with the Wrong Title
Posted on August 13, 2007 ·
I’m not a big fan of the whole 2.0 /3.0 theme, but I have to accept the fact that Web 2.0 and related concepts have become commonplace, everyday terms that today we’re taking for granted. Enterprise 2.0, on the other hand is far more debated. Definitions range from loosely saying “Web 2.0 tools in the Enterprise” through Harvard Prof Andrew McAfee’s “Use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers” to MR Rangaswami’s much broader “ synergy of a new set of technologies , development models and delivery methods that are used to develop business software and deliver it to users.” Then we have a set of attempts to simply “get to the point”, without long academic debate, like lightweight software, or Meet Charlie, a simple yet effective slideshow that personalizes the story.
One thing there is agreement about is that there is no agreement – in terms of a definition, that is… but that does not prevent us from attending conferences like Enterprise 2.0 or Office 2.0, and more importantly, businesses from embracing Enterprise 2.0 to varying degrees. It is happening, whether we have a “final” definition or not.
However, I really don’t think we’re ready for Enterprise 3.0 – not now, not ever. There are quite a few articles on the subject, but they all come from the same author, Sramana Mitra (except for two old ZDNet articles quoting Shai Agassi and JP Rangaswami). Sramana has certainly “cornered” the market – except there really is no “market” if she’s the only one using the term. Her definition: Enterprise 3.0 = SaaS + EE. What’s EE? Extended Enterprise:
The modern enterprise is no longer one, monolithic organization. Customers, Partners, Suppliers, Outsourcers, Distributors, Resellers, … all kinds of entities extend and expand the boundaries of the enterprise, and make “collaboration” and “sharing” important.
Let’s take some examples. The Salesforce needs to share leads with distributors and resellers. The Product Design team needs to share CAD files with parts suppliers. Customers and Vendors need to share workspace often. Consultants, Contractors, Outsourcers often need to seamlessly participate in the workflow of a project, share files, upload information. All this, across a secure, seamlessly authenticated system.
Sounds familiar? Of course, back in the 90’s this is what we called (Extended) Supply Chain. I’m not sure we need to create another label just yet. But if and when something is so significant that it deserves a new name, let’s get a bit more creative … I’m with fellow Enterprise Irregular Thomas Otter, who humorously ranted:
- The car isn’t called horse 2.0.
- The lightbulb isn’t called candle 2.0
- Fax (Facsimile) isn’t called letter 2.0
If we are so innovative in the 21st century, the least we can do is to think of some new terms that inspire. Think ROBOT, Television, Velcro, Radio, even scuba (Self-Contained Underwater-Breathing Apparatus) … If this stuff is really that innovative then it deserves a proper word.
Back to Sramana and “Enterprise 3.0”: next week she will be moderating a panel discussion of the MIT Club of Northern California, with the ambitious title: Enterprise 3.0: Where Is It Headed?. Excerpt from the event description:
Collaboration, wikis, blogs and social networking are new tools igniting the enterprise market. Service based models are emerging as alternates to desktop software and enterprise servers. In March 2007, Cisco acquired WebEx for $3.2 billion, stepping in with a splash in the enterprise collaboration space. Meanwhile, Google has assembled a whole suite of word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet tools and just acquired Postini, an email management company. Microsoft has been adding collaboration and knowledge management capabilities to its Windows Platform and just announced plans to offer Web-based versions of its applications. Then, there are exciting startups that are offering alternatives.
This panel will explore the impact of Web 2.0 on the prosumer i.e. the individual user in the enterprise and the evolution and integration of office tools, communication and collaboration technologies.
Sounds vintage Enterprise 2.0, if you ask me.
That said, I think it’s an exciting subject, and they will certainly have a first-rate panel:
- Tom Cole, General Partner, Trinity Ventures
- Cliff Reeves, GM, Emerging Business Unit Team, Microsoft
- Jonathan Rochelle, Product Manager, Google Docs and Spreadsheets
Sridhar Vembu, Founder, CEO, Zoho / Adventnetlast minute change: the event site now lists Tim Harvey, VP Planning, Webex, Cisco Systems instead of Sridhar Vembu.
Whatever we call it, I plan to be there. If you are reading this blog, chances are you’re also interested in these subjects, so if you happen to be in the Bay Area Wednesday evening, perhaps I’ll see you there. Here’s the registration page. (Warning: the form is way too long, asking for way too much information – vintage 1.0 style
)
Additional reading: Open Gardens, Portals and KM, Anne Zelenka, Luis Suarez, the FASTForward Blog, Read/WriteWeb, Chris Pirillo, Fake Steve Jobs 
, just to name a few…
Update (8/21): as much as I hate this 2.0-3.0 labeling, I like Don Dodge’s new formula: Web 2.0 = web app + 2 founders + 0 revenue
Google Video: Do I Hear Class Action?
Posted on August 12, 2007 ·
Now you own it – now you don’t. That’s the new Google game. Videos you you “purchased” will no longer play in three days. Reimbursement? Forget it: you get partial and arbitrary credit to spend within 60 days on Google Checkout.
Boing boing is (almost) right to call it the Golden Opportunity for Class Action Lawyers. Why *almost*? Because this ignorant move is so ridiculously stupid, will hurt Google’s image so much that I’m sure someone higher up will wake up and revert it before the lawyers have a chance to file papers.
Update (8/21): Google finally reverted it’s position but what took them a week?
Related posts: TechCrunch, WebProNews, Google Blogoscoped , Googlified, Profy.Com, NewTeeVee , ResourceShelf, Ars Technica, Techliberation.
More Facebook Code Exposed
The Facebook code-leak (theft?) story is getting ugly. After leaking the source code for the social network’s homepage, and after Facebook’s lawyers started to send cease and desist notes, the Facebook Secrets blog has now published the code for Facebook’s search.
Facebook programmer Mark Slee (wow, his Facebook profile only says: “I’ll find something to put there”) may be getting more famous than he wanted – apparently not for his blank profile, not even his code, but for his comment in the code:
I wonder if Mark expected the entire world to see it.
Additional reading: Inside Facebook, Techomical and Mashable!