Category: Web

Web technology

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Web

Please…do evil

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Google Blogoscoped Terms of Service:

By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the general public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, modify, adapt, publish and otherwise use, with or without attribution such Content on Google services solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services.

Book review of Tom Sawyer by Sandi W. Age 9:

When Tom met Huck Finn and became friends, it reminded me of when I met my friend Seu Mei. We became best friends for a few years. Between those few years, we met more friends. My favorite part in the book was when Tome tricked his friend. His friend had to paint the fence white and Tom got to rest. I read another book by the same author. It is called Huckleberry Finn. I enjoy reading these books because I like to solve the mysteries.

The main point of view of Google Base is that this is going after eBay and Craigslist, and online classifieds. I would say the target is Wikipedia, too. Is this a dangerous move? Depends. Ask yourself the question: at what point can you afford to lose Google and still do business?

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Web

Rosebud

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I didn’t know this post had actually published to my syndication feed until I spotted references to it in Bloglines. Since the URL is on permanent record now, I decided to provide something to fill the gap.

The best quote related to Web 2.0 comes from Nick Douglas at Blogebrity:

Web 2.0, says Jeff Jarvis, is made of people. As opposed to Web 1.0, which was made of spacer gifs.

Second best:

Like so many San Francisco buildings, it was old, and brick, and recently converted into brand-spanking-new office space. High ceilings and exposed beams and ductwork everywhere. An old black dog lifted its head off the floor next to the reception desk as I entered the roomy VC suite. He barked and grumbled. The receptionist was embarrassed and surprised the dog didn’t like me. I instantly liked the dog, but the feeling was not mutual. I kept my distance.

So I met with the VC. He just came on board at the firm; this was his second day. I already pitched to this firm 18 months earlier, at their old offices. He didn’t know that. Now he did. In those 18 months I’d raised an angel round and an “A” round from other VCs. While Jenny Ondioline played over and over in my head, we talked for a good while about my company and our plans. At the conclusion of the meeting we agreed to follow up in a month or so.

I wonder if the dog is their “invest” / “don’t invest” signal? If the dog excitedly wags his tail with the arrival of a visitor, give ‘em money. If the dog barks and growls, don’t. In a few months maybe I’ll know.

And his follow up is equally good.

Categories
Technology Web

The time is now 1997

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Back in 1996 and into 1997, frames were big, as was the use of HTML tables to organize a web page. The current look for this site was copied directly from backup files I had for 1996 through 1998. The links, if you try them, will open up various pages to example code, most of which hasn’t been touched in close to 8 years.

If you access a specific post, the page will open up my traditional look, primarily because this design from 1996 made use of frames, and frames play havoc with weblogging templates–the URI parameters don’t get passed to the each frame document. Just one of the many challenges we were faced with, daily, when designing web pages years ago. Back before XHTML and structured design; back before CSS had wide support; back even before Flash–when dynamic scripting was new and cross-browser development was an exhausting adventure into never-ever-again land.

From now through this weekend, I’m going to be revisiting much of my old, old content from the so-called Web 1.0 — revisiting it, republishing some of it, and writing on the state of the technology then and now. I’ll be putting up old designs and linking to associated pages in the Wayback Machine (such as Scenarios–check out the bottom of the pages), which demonstrate even more of the technology and philosophy that ruled the web then.

(I’ll be making screenshots of these pages for including when the design reverts back to the norm.)

For many of us, creating web pages and samples and bits of code to give away in the 1990’s was a true labor of love. We didn’t make any money, and didn’t really expect to; or to achieve any form of fame. We didn’t have ranking systems, comments, and such; the only feedback we had was when a person would send an email now and again and say thanks, or we’d see something we created in use elsewhere (and what a joy and thrill that was).

Back then, our pages were bright colors, because in prior years all the only color we had was white. We embedded images for anything because in prior years all we could add was text. And animated GIFs and BLINK weren’t the enemy the way they are now, because they were the first example of a living page.

All of this was new, and every month it seemed, some marvelous new technology would be released.

Welcome to the Web 1.0. Welcome to 1997. It was a good year.

Categories
Web

Sleeping around Web 2.0 Style

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

thespecksvol1-1

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Technology Web

October 5th is Web 1.0 Retro day

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Thanks to zo in my comments and Ken Camp, I was able to find out about the upcoming Web 1.0 conference:

Sponsored by 43 Folders and the year 1998, with generous contributions from Adaptive Path, Mule Design, WordPress, Blogger, Flickr, and Central Desktop.

We will meet to discuss line breaks, spacer gifs, and the ability to launch links in a new browser window.

…

Proposed format for brief, non-primarily-drinking-and-socializing portion of the Conference:

1. You sign up on a sheet to do your presentation
2. I hold and manage a timer (duh)
3. You have 2.0 minutes to make a case for your 1.0 technology or squirrely business model
4. Whenever you say “monetize,” “font face,” or any of a variety of secret 1998 words, everyone drinks
5. Repeat until a) 20 minutes, b) we get bored, or c) every person in the room completes a first round of funding

I was so sad to miss the last event. I plan on attending this one spiritually since I can’t make it physically.

So set your big honking digital watches, the ones with the face that’s at least six inches across, because October 5th is Web 1.0 day.