wubbahed.com

Thoughts

Dec

Integrating Social Search within Web Search

Posted by wubbahed at 9:19 pm

I spent the past two days at the Gilbane 2008 conference in Boston, and while I came away with some good information and had some good conversations with people, these conferences remind me how frustrated I get when people talk and talk and talk instead of demonstrating, showing, and using specific examples. I heard too many people say “well, that’s what young people are doing on Facebook,” when I would have found it much more useful if they’d opened up a browser and shown me real content, real people, real applications and real usage patterns.

Better yet, just make the whole thing a BarCamp.

But for all the talk in the sessions about the importance of Social Media, I’m curious why more sites aren’t doing mashups that integrate general web search results with search results from your own social network. Someone should build an OpenSocial container with a Google search bar in it, and in the results you could include recent status updates from your friends that include similar search terms.

Here’s an example. At the conference, FatWire was presenting a demo of its software during a keynote and thought it would be funny if they used “sanitized” images from Playboy. The audience was not amused and promptly let them know about it.

So how does this incident show up in search results? Below are some dynamic AJAX results comparing Google News and Google Blog search results for “gilbane fatwire” with the exact same search results from Twitter. I’m sure these results will change over time, but for now it’s a concrete example of how integrated search results can help you connect with the right information AND the right people.

[raw_html]

Searching for the term ‘gilbane fatwire’…

[/raw_html]

Nov

Dear Google, you missed your chance

Posted by wubbahed at 8:24 am

Yesterday I was riding the subway in NYC and saw something I had never seen before — a print advertisement for Google maps.

In true Google fashion it was a simple ad with a clear message saying you could use Google Maps on your phone. BUT THERE WAS NO QR CODE. C’mon Google, you clearly missed an opportunity here to show people the power of bar codes and you just dropped the ball entirely. There are so many other aspects of your business that are promoting bar codes — the launch of Android and the G1, your own open source bar code reader, and your in depth education about bar codes when trying to sell print advertisement.

Yet when you’ve finally given the opportunity to demonstrate the power of bar codes, test them in a public mass market environment and start collecting real data about how people are or are not using them, you just didn’t even take the chance.

I’m really disappointed.

Aug

Children’s PressLine – RSS and widget for S60

Posted by wubbahed at 2:42 pm

I’ve been doing some pro bono web work recently for Children’s Pressline, a youth news service that trains kids to be reporters and editors who write articles for mainstream media partners. It’s a non-profit open to any child in NYC, and currently their news stories are being run in the NY Daily News, Metro, and the Amsterdam News.

The work I’ve done involves some basic tweaks to their website, setting up a Children’s PressLine Facebook page and creating a Children’s PressLine RSS feed that shows you their latest stories and links to the major media outlet running the story.

There’s not a mobile website, but just by having an RSS feed, that’s all you really need to get started reading the content on your mobile. If you’re reading this on your S60 device, you can just click on the RSS feed, and automatically subscribe to the latest news articles.

If you’ve got one of the newer S60 devices, though, then you can get a richer experience using this widget I made which pulls in the RSS feed and displays the latest news stories directly on your phone.

$Children\'s PressLine S60 widget$

You can download the Children’s PressLine widget directly, or scan in this QR code to get it straight to your mobile:

Total development time for this widget was less than an hour, and most of that time was just deciding which colors to use in the CSS. If you haven’t seen the Nokia Web Run Time, then I’d recommend checking it out as it’s going to be a great way to build quick applications for S60 devices. Right now, it’s only drawback is that it has almost no access to the device itself (e.g. GPS, Contacts), but Nokia has already announced these features will be included in the next major release.

If you want to see the source code of the widget, then just download the file to your PC and change the file extension from .wgz to .zip. Then open the zip file and all of the source code is there. It’s a very simple setup with one HTML page, and one XMLHttpRequest call to retrieve the RSS feed.

Let me know if you have any questions about how the widget was built, and I’m also interested to see how other people are using widgets not just for their personal use, but also to help promote causes they believe in.

Aug

Google Maps blatantly copies Nokia Maps

Posted by wubbahed at 8:15 pm

So I’ve read a couple of articles lately about the new Google Maps that’s available for the Nokia N95. This is particularly exciting because they now offer Transit directions in some cities. Being able to get this type of information on your mobile is wonderful.

So I installed the app, and noticed that this updated version of Google Maps has a new icon. One that looks surprisingly like the Nokia Maps icon. Here’s some screenshots:

	Nokia Maps icon
	old Google Maps icon (compass)
	new Google Maps icon (ripoff)

I have a hard time believing that this new icon is just a coincidence… Thoughts? Is Google trying to intentionally confuse users so that they run Google Maps on their phones instead of Nokia Maps?

Aug

Product Idea – Embed a digital camera in your digital picture frame

Posted by wubbahed at 1:43 am

Digital Picture Frames are becoming more ubiquitous, and I was thinking it would be great if picture frames also had a camera lens embedded in the back. That way, not only could you look at photo galleries, you could also pick up the entire picture frame and have it act as the viewfinder of a camera. Click a button, and voila! The image would be saved automatically onto the picture frame (or into the cloud).

It’s a little meta I know, but it would work so well for family photo albums over time.

Jul

Wavelog test

Posted by wubbahed at 12:02 pm

Just downloaded a trial copy of wavelog, a wordpress blogging client for s60. Will let you know how it works out.

Jun

TodayFeels.com

Posted by wubbahed at 9:40 am

TodayFeels.com is a little website I’ve been putting together in my off hours and will be talking about in more detail today at MobileCampSF2. It’s a site that gives you a weather forecast relative to what it felt like the day before. So instead of just telling you highs and lows and the percentage chance it might rain, it says that today “is going to be a little warmer than yesterday” or that it’s “going to be wetter and colder than yesterday”. The idea is to create something more human and personal to you and your experience.

The site is still in early development, but check it out and let me know what you think. The biggest issue most people will encounter is that it might not work in your area. Right now, the service only covers about 25% of the zip codes in the United States, so if you’re international or in an area not supported, send me feedback with the area you’d like to see included. Eventually, the service will expand to the rest of the US and beyond, but if you ask for coverage in your area, I’ll be sure to give that top priority.

Text TODAYFEELS to 41411

In addition, to the website, there are several other ways you can use Todayfeels.com, including:

text ‘TODAYFEELS’ to 41411. You can also include your zip code as well to get an immediate response back. For instance, sending ‘TODAYFEELS 94114′ to 41411 will tell you how today feels in San Francisco.
for newer Nseries/S60 phones, you can download a widget (requires WRT)
add it to your iGoogle page
add it to your NetVibes page
if you have some other widget, blog or place you’d like to include TodayFeels, let me know and I’ll see what I can do there as well.

Next Steps

I’m going to keep adding functionality to the site, based a large part on user feedback. Also, it’s pretty obvious I’m not a designer, so any design contributions are completely welcome! Finally, I wanted to give an API Shout Out to the open source libraries and free web services on which TodayFeels.com is built, specifically:

Jun

MobileCampSF – June 14th

Posted by wubbahed at 5:02 pm

If you happen to be in the SF area on Saturday June 14th, be sure and check out MobileCampSF at the Swedish American Hall. If you’ve never been to a BarCamp before they’re lots of fun. It’s completely free, and as of this post, it’s already around 70% full so RSVP now if you’re going to come. I’m hoping to talk some about this simple little project I’ve been working on lately. If you want a sneak peek at it, just scan the QR code below. Otherwise, wait until after BarCamp when I’ll post a full writeup of the project.

qrcode

Jun

View from my office of a man climbing up the outside of the NYTimes building

Posted by wubbahed at 5:33 pm

Man climbs NYTimes
more on Flickr

May

Blueprint CSS framework — and new WordPress theme

Posted by wubbahed at 9:53 pm

blueprint css framework

My co-worker turned me on today to Blueprint, a CSS framework that’s based on typography rules so it helps you design websites in a clean way. Needless to say, I think it’s brilliant and beautiful.

A quick Google search turned up a few WordPress themes that had been developed using Blueprint, but the Blueprint theme by Fire and Knowledge stood out head and shoulders above the rest, so I’ve added it to my site. I still need to tweak a few things like the color palette of the Google ads, but if you’re like me and you typically just read RSS feeds in Bloglines or your favorite reader, then pop back to my site for a change and check out the theme.

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