In Brooklyn it’s clear that the market is inundated with tools and services to support community and commerce: Craigslist, Browstoner, and Etsy to name a few. I’ve been thinking about new tools for commerce and community development, but as the proverb goes, you can’t fill a cup that is already overflowing.
I just returned from visiting family in Oracle, AZ. I’ve been there before, but this visit was particularly inspiring. I observed the richness of the community and landscape, and the pervasive creative spirit.
Light Festival at Triangle L Ranch in Oracle, AZ
The town’s small size (population 3500), low visibility, high concentration of artists and creative people, and low saturation of technology tools make it the ideal testing ground for new approaches to social tech and tools to enrich community and connectedness. The town has a website and many of the artists there have some web presence. However, social tech goes much further than having a website. It leverages a variety of online and offline services, some customized, some 3rd-party. Furthermore, it’s important to democratize the technologies so that everyone in the community may use them.
I’m in the process of deciding how I might contribute to building a technology foundation for the community, while giving them the tools they need to continue building. Beyond specific technologies, training and education would be in order. Finding a few community leaders that can be proponents of the initiative, as well as some volunteers to take on and share technical training would be the main goals. Maybe a collaboration in Oracle can serve as a model for other small communities to spring-board into a more connected space. If you know of similar initiatives, please leave your comments.
Just launched Etsy Around, where you can search for Etsy listings by keyword AND location. This is something that Etsy hasn’t gotten around to, so I’ve used their handy-dandy API to create a prototype. Give it a whirl.
I hope that this prototype can serve as an inspiration for Etsy to develop a similar feature, or at least to implement a location search method to their API (this would make it much easier for developers to create similar apps).
Update 12.28.2009
Etsy Around is now Etsy Local. Added geolocation and limited search results to show more recent listings.
I just made the move to drop ATT, after a ridiculous conversation with a support representative. The upshot was that they refused to cancel my data plan on the iPhone (told me that the hardware wouldn’t update without the data connection, which is utter nonsense). I ported my number to Number Garage, forwarded it to google voice which is set up with a skype number. Peek is working great for email, and Boingo WiFi lets me get wireless when I’m not at home or school. The only downside is that VOIP services don’t support SMS, so voice and SMS have different #’s.
All in all, feeling good about the move. Good riddance, ATT.
My first experience with Google Wave proved to be entertaining and Wave seems promising as a useful collaborative tool. I was on a wave with 4 other people, and I think the more the merrier. We weren’t doing anything obviously meaningful, but as a backchannel for class it proved entertaining. I can see more constructive uses in a classroom environment, but I think it would take a lot of self-control or a moderator to keep it on-topic.
The ability to post comments on previous “blips” created an even more asynchronous experience than chat, that was engaging and fun. Also, youtube and image embedding was useful for trolling. My biggest gripe was that running it in firefox on my netbook was painfully slow and my screen could barely accommodate the UI overload. Nonetheless, it felt good to ride the Wave. If they can improve performance and get more people signed up, I would certainly use it more.
Right now I’m feeling especially good about technology innovation.
After experiencing the AT&T’s tyranny and crappy service, I’m ditching my contract and setting up an array of services and devices to do what I need, with no contracts and at half the price. I signed up for a Boingo wireless for my iPhone, getting lifetime Peek, and exploring Skype, SipDroid, and Google Voice. Right now I pay approximately $85 a month for AT&T service only to get a lot of dropped calls and a rigid contract. I’m estimating that all said and done I’ll be paying about $45 a month (over 2 years), factoring in the ATT contract cancellation fee and the cost of the Peek device. (This all follows a move from Time Warner Cable to Netflix streaming with a Roku box).
These are significant changes, not simply because of the savings, but because it’s even possible. It’s an exciting and palpable reminder that tech startups can effectively compete with massive companies.
Lately I’ve been questioning the advantages of native mobile app development over web apps. I’m impressed with the possibilities for web apps, especially now that Javascript includes an API for geolocation (code sample). iPhone 3.0 supports the feature out of the box, and Android phones can access it via Google Gears.
The major advantages I can identify for native apps are speed and visibility (in app stores). These are strong arguments for native development. Also, access to the phone hardware, e.g. bluetooth and accelerometer, is possible only in native apps.
We’re creating a prototype for BeeMe using a Ruby on Rails web app, mostly because I’m better and faster with web development than obj-c or Java. In the long run it probably makes sense to create a native version for iphone and android, but perhaps over time we will see a departure from proprietary app stores to web apps, which would bode well for cross platform availability and development.
Friday was the last day of my summer internship at Etsy. I met some great people and worked on awesome projects while I was there. My main focus was prototyping, both creating actual prototypes and documenting a process to promote ongoing prototyping there.
The tools I explored were balsamiq mockups, Adobe Dreamweaver (templating and libraries), Ruby on Rails, and scratched the surface on Google and Yahoo APIs. Balsamiq turned out to be an excellent tool for initial communication, discovery, and vetting. Ruby on Rails has a steeper learning curve but turned out to be an outstanding platform for high-fidelity prototyping, flexibility, and quick adjustments.
The exercise was useful and enlightening for both parties. Prototyping is an excellent means of product innovation, discovery, and user testing, and bridges the gap between product and engineering teams much earlier in the feature creation process. The result is clearer requirements and a higher level of consensus on feature details when time comes for development.
Big thanks to Etsy for allowing me a lot of freedom and flexibility, and for being so open and responsive to proposals and suggestions.
Over the past few years I’ve advised people and organizations wanting a basic web presence. In general they’ve had limited awareness of technology, so the work becomes an exercise in education rather than a development and design project. I’ve successfully helped these people, but it has been an uphill battle, and limited in scope.
To help the untold others who feel frustrated with the “technology puzzle”, I’ve created Love the Blog. It will be a home for tutorials, and eventually a forum for people to help one another. One of my mantras for some time has been “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life.” Creating a community will make the site self-sustaining.
The first tutorial outlines how to get a hosting provider and setup a wordpress blog and template to create a simple informational website.
My wife Kate has started a blog – Honestly Art – to promote “accessible artwork”. She has recently showcased Nahcotta Gallery’s Enormous Tiny Art show, as well as a handful of individual artists. She’s also creating a gallery/artist database for browsing.
SEO – linking the url from profiles on a myriad of social networks
It’s a daring move to go from management consulting to the art world/blogosphere, and very exciting. The fruits of her labors are beginning to show, and there’s been some great feedback. Looks promising!
BeeMe was awarded Best Product Concept at Microsoft Design Expo ‘09, with excellent feedback and interest from the judges, participants, and audience. Thanks to everyone at Microsoft Research for making it happen, to Nancy Hechinger and the Design Expo class, an the other schools: Dundee IMD from Scotland, CMU, Art Center, CAFA from Beijing, UI from Mexico City, and University of Washington.
