Yesterday we had quite a busy networking day. At lunch we met Alec from MoVoxx in Palo Alto. MoVoxx is a mobile ad agency focused exclusively on SMS marketing. The company already has some impressive customers, such as Mercury News in San Jose or NASCAR. You can find some case studies on the MoVoxx Website.
After a yummy lunch we drove to San Jose and were really enjoying the nice weather. It is so much warmer in the Valley than it is in San Francisco.
Around 8:00 pm we went to the Silicon Valley Startup Entrepreneur Meetup Group organized by Philippe Tregon, which also took place in Palo Alto. It was an informal meeting with other founders, freelancers etc. of the Bay Area. After everybody had introduced themselves and why they had come to the Meetup, it was great talking to so many people coming from different business areas and with different intentions.
Around 10:30 pm some people decided to go across the street to grab some food, unfortunately the probably best Greek spot in Palo Alto, Evvia, was closing already, so we ended up getting a coffee at Cuppa Coffee (free WiFi, power outlets and great coffee). We joined Tarun, Dan and Philippe and had a fascinating discussion about the mobile industry and the future of the Web itself. It was a real mind-opener in many ways.
We took off to San Francisco at 1:30 am. Thanks to the Meetup organizers for the organization and the chance for meeting new people so easily. That is what makes the Bay Area so special.
Mobile Internet SIG: Mobile User Experience
Last week we attended the monthly held Mobile Internet SIG: Mobile User Experience at the ACCESS building in Sunnyvale. The event started at 6:30 pm with pizza and free T-Shirts and it was our first mobile-oriented event here in the Bay Area.After 30 minutes of networking with quite some interesting people, e.g. Dr. Paul James of Nokia Inc. (Nokia also sponsored this event), the presentations started. The first one was held by Sergei Krupenin, Director of Business Development at ACCESS. Sergei showed some interesting innovations which we will soon see in upcoming versions of the NetFront mobile browser:
NetFront also supports web standards for web applications. They developed a widget framework that supports the creation and use of dynamic Web applications based on open standard Web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript/Ajax - sounds familiar, but they actually showed a widget in action on a windows mobile device. It was quite impressive to see how the widget was launched from the top menu bar and then became usable on top of the currently open application. In this case an excel sheet, just like a widget should work. Here you can find some more info and pictures of the NetFront browser in action.
The second presentation was held by Deborah Johnson, Technology Manager at FrogDesign. She introduced her company and their Celltop technology, which enables users to access, manage and organize a wide range of information already available on their Alltel Wireless phones. Celltop is only available on Alltel phones, free-of-charge and features 10 “cells” that come pre-installed and via download. Each cell is a category- specific half screen comprised of graphics and text that provides shortcuts for wireless users to navigate through information and applications including: call log, weather, news, baseball, basketball, football, rodeo, stocks, text messaging inbox and ringtones.
Both talks were very interesting and caused a lot of questions. It is very interesting to see how slowly data plans grow in the US. Mobile internet still seems like being in its early stages to some extend around here. Also if you compare the numbers of visitors (it were about 30) to the ones of Web 2.0-centered events like geekSessions, you get this impression.
After all it was a great evening in a nice location and hopefully there will be more of those - thanks to ACCESS and SDForum!
- Smart Swing Navi: By using the captured image of phone camera, you can scroll or zoom contents by tilting phone vertically and horizontally.
- Visual Bookmarks: Visual bookmark helps you to select bookmarks by showing page thumbnail together with page title and URL.
NetFront also supports web standards for web applications. They developed a widget framework that supports the creation and use of dynamic Web applications based on open standard Web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript/Ajax - sounds familiar, but they actually showed a widget in action on a windows mobile device. It was quite impressive to see how the widget was launched from the top menu bar and then became usable on top of the currently open application. In this case an excel sheet, just like a widget should work. Here you can find some more info and pictures of the NetFront browser in action.
The second presentation was held by Deborah Johnson, Technology Manager at FrogDesign. She introduced her company and their Celltop technology, which enables users to access, manage and organize a wide range of information already available on their Alltel Wireless phones. Celltop is only available on Alltel phones, free-of-charge and features 10 “cells” that come pre-installed and via download. Each cell is a category- specific half screen comprised of graphics and text that provides shortcuts for wireless users to navigate through information and applications including: call log, weather, news, baseball, basketball, football, rodeo, stocks, text messaging inbox and ringtones.
Both talks were very interesting and caused a lot of questions. It is very interesting to see how slowly data plans grow in the US. Mobile internet still seems like being in its early stages to some extend around here. Also if you compare the numbers of visitors (it were about 30) to the ones of Web 2.0-centered events like geekSessions, you get this impression.
After all it was a great evening in a nice location and hopefully there will be more of those - thanks to ACCESS and SDForum!
“Your Life Is Your Work of Art”
A couple of days ago I went to Borders and while wandering through the shelves I came across the book “Entrepreneuship 101” from the Trump University. I bought it and started reading it immediately at a cozy coffee shop inside Borders.
Although I have not finished the book yet, it is very interesting and helpful. I wished the professors at my university had teached business management so understandable. The book is a good guideline for startups with helpful practical examples.
On page 27 I stumbled across an interesting quotation of Shakti Gawain:
“Your Life Is Your Work of Art
I like to think of myself as an artist, and my life is my greatest work of art.
Every moment is a moment of creation, and each moment of creation contains infinite possibilities. I can do things the way I have always done them, or I can look at all the different alternatives, and try something new and different and potentially more rewarding. Every moment presents a new opportunity and a new decision.
What a wonderful game we are playing, and what a magnificent art form.”
Although I have not finished the book yet, it is very interesting and helpful. I wished the professors at my university had teached business management so understandable. The book is a good guideline for startups with helpful practical examples.
On page 27 I stumbled across an interesting quotation of Shakti Gawain:
“Your Life Is Your Work of Art
I like to think of myself as an artist, and my life is my greatest work of art.
Every moment is a moment of creation, and each moment of creation contains infinite possibilities. I can do things the way I have always done them, or I can look at all the different alternatives, and try something new and different and potentially more rewarding. Every moment presents a new opportunity and a new decision.
What a wonderful game we are playing, and what a magnificent art form.”
geekSessions
Yesterday we attended the geekSessions at City Club in downtown San Francisco. This event is pretty new and we were happy that we still got tickets (all of the 150 tickets were sold out on Monday). geekSessions will be held every month and they started it in June 2007.So, we were at the second geekSessions event and this months topic was Web Infrastructure: Surviving The “Hockey Stick”.
The event began at 6:00 pm and after some networking around 6:30 pm the panel started. The speakers were Sandy Jen - founder of Meebo, Nick Heyman from VideoEgg, Ron Gorodetzky from Digg and Jonathan Abrams - the founder of Friendster and Socializr. They were talking about their experience how keeping a web infrastructure alive and thriving when demand goes through the roof.Here are some pieces of advice from the panelists:
The event began at 6:00 pm and after some networking around 6:30 pm the panel started. The speakers were Sandy Jen - founder of Meebo, Nick Heyman from VideoEgg, Ron Gorodetzky from Digg and Jonathan Abrams - the founder of Friendster and Socializr. They were talking about their experience how keeping a web infrastructure alive and thriving when demand goes through the roof.Here are some pieces of advice from the panelists:- build your web application and look how people adopt it
- listen to your customers
- keep it simple and stupid (i.e. always choose the easiest solution)
- track your costs (especially expenses for servers can be huge, when your user base of your web app starts to grow rapidly)
- if you are not the best person for the job, find the right person for that job
- if (server or scaling) problems appear, find out why it happens
- light-weight non-sticky sessions can help
- cache as much as you can (memcached was mentioned by almost all panelists)
- decouple slow processes from the web app
- segment your database (vs. replication and load balancing)
- scale up not out
- avoid queries in loops (no brainer)
- MySQL replication is not good for scaling
Coworking in San Francisco
Earlier this week we started working from the Citizen Space offices. It is more efficient than working at coffee shops. We met Tara and Chris from Citizen Space there and a couple of other interesting people/companies. Everybody is very friendly and we really like the idea of coworking. Instead of sitting alone in an office you can meet lots of new and also international people.
If you are in San Francisco and need a place to work, then you should definitely try Citizen Space located at 425 Second St on the third floor - make sure there’s a place available by calling them before.
If you are in San Francisco and need a place to work, then you should definitely try Citizen Space located at 425 Second St on the third floor - make sure there’s a place available by calling them before.
San Francisco and Frost - a quick heads-up
It has been a busy month and our last post was already a long while ago. So here’s a quick heads-up …
Our Ajax library, Frost, is still in development, but we already received some good response and many requests for more info ranging from freelancers to people from well-known companies. There is a lot of interest out there and we try to get the initial library online within the next couple of weeks. There’s also a definite plan how users will be able to contribute by extending the library and by testing browsers. Let us know if you want to help either building the lib or the community pages around this (based on WordPress)!
For now we have a video on YouTube that shows how the demo page of the Frost library works and looks like on the iPhone (we actually found a bug in Safari), so check it out!
Meanwhile we moved to San Francisco, at least for the next few months. Our goals are to get in touch with like-minded people from the Bay Area, build-up some interesting contacts and cooperations and introduce Frost and our upcoming mobile service to as many people as we can. So, if you are also in the Bay Area, please let us know!
There are a lot of events happening and we gonna write about it and let you know what’s happening.
We’re currently looking for a space in an office (for 2 people) - we talked to Chris from CitizenSpace in downtown SF and might end up working there, but if you have a better idea or even a little space in your office, please let us know!
Our Ajax library, Frost, is still in development, but we already received some good response and many requests for more info ranging from freelancers to people from well-known companies. There is a lot of interest out there and we try to get the initial library online within the next couple of weeks. There’s also a definite plan how users will be able to contribute by extending the library and by testing browsers. Let us know if you want to help either building the lib or the community pages around this (based on WordPress)!
For now we have a video on YouTube that shows how the demo page of the Frost library works and looks like on the iPhone (we actually found a bug in Safari), so check it out!
Meanwhile we moved to San Francisco, at least for the next few months. Our goals are to get in touch with like-minded people from the Bay Area, build-up some interesting contacts and cooperations and introduce Frost and our upcoming mobile service to as many people as we can. So, if you are also in the Bay Area, please let us know!
There are a lot of events happening and we gonna write about it and let you know what’s happening.
We’re currently looking for a space in an office (for 2 people) - we talked to Chris from CitizenSpace in downtown SF and might end up working there, but if you have a better idea or even a little space in your office, please let us know!
Speaking at Mobile Web Americas in Orlando
I am speaking at the Mobile Web Americas conference, in October in Orlando, Florida. The Mobile Web Americas conference will take place 2 - 4 October 2007.
I am pretty excited, because this conference is all about the mobile web. My presentation will be about “Pragmatic Mobile Ajax - an Ajax Library for constrained browsers in action”. I am speaking about Mobile Ajax and how it can improve the user experience in mobile web applications. I will introduce the Frost Ajax Library as a tool for Ajax development on constrained browsers, such as those on mobile phones or gaming consoles. The session will show how and why the Frost library came to life and sheds some light on the underlying approach, which is quite different from other Ajax libraries.
If you are attending or speaking at Mobile Web Americas too, and want to catch up, please let me know. There are still some spots open, so don’t miss out this cool conference and register!
See you there, Rocco
Article on Mobile Ajax in .net Magazine
As previously mentioned I wrote an article about Mobile Ajax for UK’s .net magazine earlier this year.
The article got postponed but now finally appeared in the July issue of the magazine. Thanks go out to Oliver Lindberg and the rest of the .net staff.
Make sure you buy a copy of issue 164 and check out pages 106/107.
Mobile Ajax FAQ
The Mobile Ajax FAQ is created by Ajit Jaokar, Rocco Georgi and Bryan Rieger and is maintained at the Horizon Channel. We welcome comments and feedback at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com.This post has been moved to a page on PavingWays - the following questions link directly there.
- What is Mobile Ajax?
- Is there a Mobile Ajax checklist/minimum requirements?
- What does Mobile Ajax look like?
- Why should one do Ajax on mobile phones / what problem does it solve?
- What are the options to Mobile Ajax?
- How do Flash Lite and Java compare with Mobile Ajax?
- What is the difference between Ajax Platforms, Frameworks, Toolkits and Libraries?
- What existing Mobile Ajax frameworks, toolkits and libraries should I use?
- Can I use existing frameworks, libraries and toolkits?
- What is the relationship between Mobile Ajax and Mobile Widgets?
- Which browsers support Mobile Ajax?
- Which enterprise applications employ Mobile Ajax?
- What is the role of the Apple iPhone with respect to Mobile Ajax?
- How do applications like mojax or bling software fit in?
- How can you develop for and test on all those browsers?
- What are the (current) hurdles in implementing and running Mobile Ajax applications?
- What is AHAH / AJAH?
- Is there any standardization initiative for Ajax?
XTech 2007 - Widgets and Mobile / Slides
Finally I get to post something about my visit to Paris and specifically the XTech conference 2007. I went to XTech to speak about ”Ajax on mobile devices - making mobile web apps ubiquitous” and of course to attend as many of the other sessions as possible. Here’s some of my observations:
The location (Novotel Paris Tour Eiffel) was ok, I liked the last location in Amsterdam better though, because the different tracks were closer to each other. The organization was excellent as usual, special thanks to IDEAlliance and Edd Dumbill for that. I even did not have a problem accessing the wireless network - contrary to many others.