Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Announcing the Notches Toolbar

  We released the first version of the Notches Toolbar today . From the start, we’ve always felt that reviews need to be delivered contextually and thus have emphasized partnerships over simply aggregating reviews. At the same time, we recognize that partnerships are not always possible for a variety of reasons. To that end, I’m very excited to be able to finally announce the Notches Toolbar , a Firefox 3 extension that enhances your browsing experience by adding reviews to sites that don't have them. Of course, this functionality builds on the Notches platform, so any reviews written on other partners (such as Facebook and Microreviews) will also be visible through the Toolbar (and vice versa). I hope you’ll try it out today and let us know what you think . Posted Sep 05 2008, 07:09 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Startup, Programming, NextNY, Notches

• Technology really only matters when it creates new possibilities

  I've gotten a bad rap over the years as a "gadget guy". Every time something new is released, people have come to expect me to have it. I'm definitely a gadget guy, but I think people often miss why I buy gadgets. Unlike, say, Alex , you'll rarely, if not never, see me buy something new just because it's new. I don't own an iPhone. I'm definitely an early adopter, but only when the new technology enables me to do something I couldn't do before (or makes what I could do before drastically easier). For example, let's walk through my history with music players. I first had a Walkman back in the day. It was great, because I could make my own mixes and run with it. (My favorite version was the yellow Sony Sport one. It even had a sweet strap for running. Kick ass). Then I got a DiscMan. This enabled me to skip to the next song, something that was more tedious with cassettes. It still sucked because I had to carry a whole ton of CDs based on what I was... Posted Jun 22 2008, 09:03 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Rants, Gadgets

• Twitter's problems are the result of architecture, XMPP may be the answer

  The problem with scaling Twitter is not the choice of framework, but the choice of architecture. In other words, abandoning Ruby On Rails probably isn't going to solve all of their problems. At the same time, I'm not sure that decentralization is necessary and comes with its own set of challenges. The real problem is that the polling model of the Twitter API doesn't scale for real-time communications. As it is today, many Twitter clients will poll (by default) every 3-5 minutes to see if there was an update. Not only are they not really participating in real-time, they are generating an enormous number of requests that - even while each payload is small - generate a lot of overhead in aggregate just in checking and responding. As I've suggested in the past , a better solution would be to move the "real-time" API around the Jabber/XMPP client instead of HTTP. The good news is that Twitter already has an IM presence so it's easy enough for third-party clients... Posted May 05 2008, 08:24 PM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Software Development, Programming, Twitter

• The Enterprise, The iPhone, and the Role of Silverlight

  With its recent announcement to support ActiveSync on the iPhone , Apple is clearly going after the enterprise user. The problem, as Colin puts it, is that the decisions that consumers make decisions on a radically different set of criteria than organizations . Lack of Exchange support was surely holding back enterprise adoption, so that move was both obvious and inevitable. The fact that they are also supporting remote wipe is a bigger deal than most might realize too - security is a major concern for large enterprises, and for a long time Blackberry was the de facto device in large part because of this. (Windows Mobiles devices weren't allowed at my last job until the Remote Wipe feature was enabled). Fundamentally, I think we're moving to a model where enterprises are going to demand a certain baseline for devices to play in their garden. Features like over-the-air Exchange connectivity, remote wipe, and support for .NET, Java, and Flash are quickly becoming non-negotiable. It... Posted Mar 27 2008, 09:00 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Rants, Gadgets, Microsoft, .NET, Enterprise, Apple, Programming

• Readybot cleans your kitchen

  Robot wars be damned, I want one of these things . Posted Mar 03 2008, 04:39 PM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Things that amuse me

• Being better than free when copies are ubiquitous

  The digital world fundamentally changes what a copy means for copyright. I wrote about this in the past from the legal perspective, suggesting an implied license to reproduce and a greater reliance on other rights. Kevin Kelly has a great post up about the Internet's role as a super-distribution center and how to make money in the face of this ( via Andrew ). Yet the previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine the established order. If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies? I have an answer. The simplest way I can put it is thus: When copies are super abundant, they become worthless. When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable. When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied. In other words, money is no longer in the distribution, but "rather... Posted Feb 22 2008, 10:15 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Copyright, Business, Law

• MTA's new Trip Planner

  MTA recently launched a new service called Trip Planner .  I've used it a few times since I'm still learning some of the buses and trains around our new offices, and it seems to work pretty well. What I like about it more than HopStop is that it gives you multiple routes and is actually tied into the schedule. After all, something may be 30 minutes of travel time, but if you're waiting on a bus that comes every 25 minutes or something, the real cost of the trip is longer. Of course, as Dan points out, it would be better if they actually tied into the service advisories, but like he said - maybe next version. Posted Feb 20 2008, 06:39 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Personal, Web 2.0, NYC

• Firefox 3 Beta 3

  I've been using the recently released Firefox 3 Beta 3 for a few days on my home machine. It's not quite ready for prime-time - I've found that in particular a lot of AJAX stuff, like on Twitter, doesn't work. Not sure if the implementation is just not finished, but that's a little concerning as a developer. There are two extensions I can't live without - del.icio.us and FireBug - and sure enough both are "incompatible". Luckily, it turns out you can make them load by turning off the compatibility check . I've been using them for a few days now with no crashes. Even though it hasn't been tuned yet, it definitely feels faster and lighter weight than Firefox 2 (which as we speak is using well over 400MB of RAM with 13 tabs open). If you want to try it out, I would recommend installing Firefox 3 side-by-side . Posted Feb 19 2008, 09:49 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Software Development

• Facebook opens up with a JavaScript API

  Facebook just announced a new JavaScript Client Library that allows you to make Facebook API calls from any web site . In other words, you can start building Facebook applications are live outside of Facebook. I agree with Charlie that this move " makes membership in Facebook that much more valuable ", and is probably a direct response to the openness promised by OpenSocial . Duncan calls it a clever move , but if their goal is to truly build the social OS - or what Charlie calls a "social dial tone" - then it's a necessary move. Henry calls the strategy "brilliant" . This move seems another smart step toward a hybrid strategy: Allow app makers (and Facebook) to extend social-graph functionality to the web, gather more app users, and recruit more members--but retain full control over the social graph itself. This is precisely the approach we are taking with Notches. A "walled garden" is nice because you retain all control, but these days you need... Posted Jan 27 2008, 12:38 PM by Tim with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Software Development, Web 2.0, Facebook, Notches

• Scoble, Facebook and Data Ownership

  I've sort of ignored the whole Scoble/Facebook fiasco, with people arguing on both sides who "owns" the data. Jimmy Gutterman misses the point a bit , because Facebook has already opened up the social graph through the Facebook Platform API. What they don't expose - and why this script resorted to screen-scraping - is any contact information. He paints this as a "lock in" issue, but I doubt that's their primary goal. We already complain enough about the spam we get on Facebook, and I would hate it if someone in my network shared - accidentally or on purpose - that contact information with spammers. So, yeah, I think what Facebook did is a good thing, which seems to be the majority sentiment. Mike Arrington said Plaxo flubbed it and Jeff Jarvis agrees . Loren Feldman called Robert Scoble a corporate spy . Allen discussed how we should approach the data ownership problem . Dare says Facebook is right - since Scoble did not enter any of the contact information... Posted Jan 09 2008, 11:08 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Copyright, Privacy, Blogging, Law, Facebook