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Apple And Google's Awkward Mobile Marriage (AAPL, GOOG) - Silicon Alley Insider

June 4 at 9:50 pm - Link

Andrej Kostresevic liked this

I never got an iphone, but I am definitely getting an android phone - Mike

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The fbOpen Initiative: Facebook Confirms Plans to Open-Source Its Platform

May 27 at 1:32 pm - Link

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Eric Rice posted a message

“I think why I don't get sensory overload in Friendfeed is because I'm selfish. See, unless I'm bored (on Twitter) I live only on the replies tab. Same thing applies here. I will post shit and then let the ME tab reload. That raises questions about the self-centeredness of social media.”

May 27 at 1:11 am - Link

James Mowery, Andrej Kostresevic, possible248, Sin Trenton and 6 other people liked this

Some may think the world revolves around us. - Eric Rice

Eric, I'd read this but you aren't talking about me so I hid it. - Robert Scoble

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This is apparent with 'rooms'... people are inviting inviting inviting come to my room room room join join join. Who is the cause of the noise? We are! We think our content is the most important ever. So as a consumer, I have to join join join to you you you. And then bitch about it. Heh. So the key is be selfish, and noise goes away (except your own!) Wheeeee! - Eric Rice

In an odd way, it's less like the world revolves around any single person and more like the gravity of space as well as the atomic world...that everything revolves around something that revolves around something else. Tonight must be analogy night. - Simon

Truthfully tho, I think that people's patterns in a) dating and b) general conversation reflects how they use the free web service du jour. If you are the type to monopolize conversation in real life, don'tcha think that's how you'd use a tool like Twitter or whatnot? Seriously. Contrast and compare. Homework is due on Thursday. <3 - Eric Rice

Also: Scoble. - Eric Rice

Noise? Did you say noise? Your noise is actually pretty fun to swim in. UPDATE: I don't want to monopolize the conversation, just participate in it. - Robert Scoble

@Robert Scoble This noise is keepin me up. G'night all! - Simon

Eric, as always, you do tell some truth. But you gotta remember - egomaniac that you are (heh) - not everybody is YOU ;) (or Scoble) ... some genuinely ARE interested in other people (and not just in the likes of Godlike figures like you and Scoble - again, I'm appealing to your Christ complex). - melmcbride

I'm much more interested in the "friends" tab than the "me" tab. - Jason Wehmhoener

Yeah but the difference is, I'm not. I think far more people are egomaniacs regardless of numbers, which if you run, btw, I have little. I'm interested in others, just not whent he platform is a stage. There is no godlike here at all. Once we stop doing that to each other, we'll make progress. - Eric Rice

agree with Jason. I'm far more interested in the "friends" tab. I do check back in with the "me" tab sometimes, but usually only if I've been off of FF for a few hours or more to catch up and participate in those conversations. I spend 95% of my time in FF looking at the "Friends" tab. This tab is also now my homepage for my browser. - Thomas Hawk

I disagree. I think the egomaniacs are in the minority. - Jason Wehmhoener

i refuse to feed your "you" focus by replying to this message... oh crap. - tracy apps via twhirl

I don't think I've looked at the ME tab, I read stuff in Friends and occassionally Everyone if looking for something specific - Sally Church via Alert Thingy

egomaniacs are american ;) - Eric Rice

was being ironic in my use of Godlike :) especially when compared to the Zeppelin-like egos around the interwebs - melmcbride

That must explain why I'm fond of Canadians and Euros. :-D - Jason Wehmhoener

God, Canadians are so damn nice it pisses me off sometimes. ;) - Eric Rice

Haha, I liked that. - James Mowery via twhirl

Robert Scoble posted an entry on Scobleizer -- Tech geek blogger

Scoble has a productivity problem

May 27 at 2:26 am - Link

siavash, Gaurav Patel, Ro (Lilyhill), Heather Nasca Dulin and 49 other people liked this

I'd love to know how you think I should answer Bob Bly's letter in this post. - Robert Scoble

there is productivity and then there is productivity. It depends on where you are standing, and how you define it. I always had a bad conscience when checking out Twitter, Flickr or Facebook. But not anymore. I have gathered so much knowledge about social networks. I thought I was being procrastinating, but I was being productive all the time. Now when considering something I say, to scoble or not to scoble :-) - Baard Overgaard Hansen

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i don't get this discussion. Scoble does all the stuff he does cause it's his job. It's like asking a dude who reviews books if all that book reading is a time waster. - Stan Schroeder via twhirl

Stan: I was doing it long before it was my job. I've been playing with new things ever since I helped unbox an Apple II in my Jr. High in 1977. - Robert Scoble

we are doing all of these stuff because we like to do. - ahmet bulent

. - Stan Schroeder via twhirl

damn twhirl. Anyway, @Scoble: then it was your hobby. Same thing. A guy who's not interested in all this stuff should simply pick and choose what he likes and forget about the rest - Stan Schroeder via twhirl

Totally agree to the meaning of goals and motivation. That's why people are different and everyone is unique. - Carsten Ringe via Alert Thingy

Stan: I think it goes deeper than that. People who aren't looking to learn new things bug me for some reason. It's like they are celebrating their ignorance and their willingness to stay ignorant. I had a father-in-law who loved telling me he never touched a computer and never would. I found that fascinating. - Robert Scoble

Its not his (scobles) job unless he wants it to be his job. I think in Bobs case he might be unproductive if he was engaging in all those activities that Scoble spends his time on. It all depends on what you want to get out of your day/life? It all depends on who you are and what you do. I thin what bob is asking might apply to him or people who are not directly ingrained in creating technology. - Akshay Dodeja

I'll give you a simple analogy. Let's imagine that you're a car fanatic. You tweak your car every day, and it goes faster. You get to work at least 10 minutes faster each day, however, all the tweaking you do takes many hours of your time. A regular guy just sits in his car and drives, and goes to the mechanic when something goes wrong. Who's right and who's wrong here? No one, I say. - Stan Schroeder via twhirl

I've been answering this question a lot lately. Why is twitter better than my message board? Why not just use email? Who has time for that stuff? In my opinion, the fact that they are asking is just another sign that it is becoming more accepted. When my 85 year old grandmother knows what Facebook is, and why my 65 year old mom living in BFE knows what MySpace is, that is the definition of mainstream. - Robert Peterson

Btw, the nickname i sometimes use, "frantic" comes from my frantic desire to learn everything there is to know about a topic (i get this 2 times per week at least). So I get where you're coming from. But, not everyone is like that. - Stan Schroeder via twhirl

Stan: I understand that, but that's not what I'm talking about. I drive a car and don't care about tinkering with it, taking it apart, and all that, but I'm not going to celebrate my ignorance of it. If someone says "hey, here's a way to get more enjoyment out of your car" I'll at least listen and see if it interests me. Even if it doesn't, I'm not going to celebrate the fact that I'm ignorant. Like "I'll never see why we need Hybrid cars, my Hummer works just fine." - Robert Scoble

Good analogy, Stan. Although if you are tweaking your car, most likely you enjoy doing that. Even though you are loosing "productivity time" while tweaking you are expanding your knowledge. That knowledge has a worth to you as a car tweaker and would be worth nothing to another person. As you said tho no one is right or wrong. Just depends on how you look at it :) - Akshay Dodeja

Stan, you're analogy is great. - Timothy Neilen

@Scoble: Well, some people just go through life without knowing anything about anything. Don't think you can change that, either (;. - Stan Schroeder via twhirl

This is very normal for those who did not discover the potential of social networks, or whether the same technology. I live here and in Latin America is very common that everyone do the same question as Bob, but you have to have a lot of patience to explain the possibilities that the experience provides. The examples you gave were very good to try to explain to Bob and the list can continue. - Cesar Sanchez

Stan: a more accurate analogy is I come over with my new car that has GPS and a navigation system and you run on and on about how you'll never own a car with a GPS or a navigation system. I just don't like hanging around people like that. I guess we have Amish who still drive around in horse and carriage for a reason, though, but I won't choose to hang around with them, sorry if that makes me a jerk. I just don't like people who celebrate remaining in the past. - Robert Scoble

@Scoble: those same people who run on and on about not trying new things will buy those same things when they read it in the newspapers. Capitalism: replacing innovative thinking since 19th century. - Stan Schroeder via twhirl

I don't think I can improve on the original post (at all) but I follow these things to pursue my ambitions. It's that simple. And my ambitions (video game design) require that I stay current with the times. I just happen to have a blast doing it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to find out what Flickr is. - Avery Tingle

Bob is sadly very typical in my limited experience. It's like some people are proud of being and remaining ignorant. They have no curiousity and are stuck in their old ways. I'm a scientist; I love finding new things and simply cannot fathom why other people aren't equally fascinated. - Sally Church

Robert, i think you are being untypically nasty to good old BOB BLY. by the end of your long blog post you might of well called him a beer drinking TV watching ignorant slob. he says: -------"Can you help an old guy from the old school understand what he’s missing? - P.S. Your column is well written and there are obviously a legion of people who get all this stuff. I’d like to see if I could become one of them or at least understand what all the fuss is about."------- i don't think you answered him... - djp

Your post says it all. Thanks. My experience as someone coming from the non-tech world is that I need to defend the amount of time I spend in social networking on a daily basis. As an artist, I see this is THE new medium, not sure how it will manifest new work but very sure this is it. And that excites me and keeps me listening, talking when I think I have something to contribute, but present most days. Some of my friends don't get it and most don't participate. Oh well. More will be revealed. ;-) - Mary Anne Davis

djp72: fair enough. So, put yourself into my shoes. How would you answer it? - Robert Scoble

i think you took it too personally when BOB BLY says "I don’t have any of it — for that matter, I don’t own a Blackberry, iPod, wireless laptop, or even a cell phone — and I get along fine without them."------- your rant doesn't actually prove your point, if i put myself in Bob's beer stained shoes for a second, i'm sure he's sitting there going "i was right.... this is all about nothing...." - djp

djp72: again. One more time. Answer the damn question then. How would you answer it? Stop attacking me and answer the question! - Robert Scoble

one last point Robert, imagine if Bob was your uncle, or old high school mate, or someone you knew, i'm sure you wouldn't end up being all sarcastic and calling him ignorant. i'm sure you'd take your time and explain and answer his questions... sorry for the long comment out of the blue, it just struck me as a tad sooky..... - djp

djp72: again with the attack. Actually, when people get all Luddite on me I usually just walk away because I've learned long ago that you'll never convince someone to join you by fighting with them. They usually come around and if they don't, well, there's that photo on my blog to remind you what happens eventually. I really wish you'd answer the question yourself. - Robert Scoble

Mary Ann: Well said, that sums up my experience with my biotech peers too - they just don't get it and I spend a lot of time explaining it to them, to little avail. You have to wait for them to get it and the penny to drop. - Sally Church

The letter was a bit weird coming from a guy who has as a url www.bly.com. A 3 letter .com url? sounds as though he is extremely wealthy or way ahead of the game to me! - Geoff

Mr. Bob points are perfectly valid, but the question is if Robert is the right person he should address them to. ;-) - Peter

It's not all about quantifiably productive experiences for everyone, in fact personal progress seems to come when people just do their thing, find their groove..... and if Bob prefers to find his groove without engaging with the Twitters and Flickrs of the world then I say - good luck, enjoy your free time (probably alot of it spent waiting for the post)....if on the otherhand like me productive means immediacy, fulfillment, collaborative insights then you can't do much better than the web (and said apps) right now...not right, not wrong, just whatever floats your boat... - Mia Walczak

Scoble, you write a blog that is read by thousands. You answered your own question! How would WE respond to Bob? HA! That is the very thing: that you can engage hundreds into a conversation about this topic. The idea that anyone has access to this discussion is revolutionary. If you wrote out your blog posts and sent it by mail... where would be the fun in that? Who would be able to read it? Who would be able to comment? - Alana Taylor

You get excited about the internet because you understand it's potential for COMMUNICATION. Phones, cameras, pictures, blogs, micro-blogs... these are all means for bringing people together. The World Wide Talk Show is what I recall you telling me. A man who doesn't use these tools must not be very interested in communication at all. The irony lies in the fact that he used the internet to ask you why the internet is special. I think he also answered HIS own question: COMMUNICATION. - Alana Taylor

Really good post Robert, and really interesting question originally from Bob. I get excited about the things that I write about because through some of them, we see glimpses of the future - and, it's fair to say, in some of them I see glimpses of future failures too. The thing is that without playing with this stuff, it's much harder to understand its implications. - Ian Betteridge

Geoff - Maybe Bob is ahead of the game. Maybe this was his tactic to get his name out and to be talked about. ;) heh. - Alana Taylor

Robert Scoble is a scout and explorer and he likes telling people what he finds. You need that kind of person in order to introduct and create change. Some people have a natural inclination to do that. - Mark Dykeman

I think you missed Bob's point here, Robert. He's not attacking your choices, but rather wanting to find out what could be in it for him. The alternative to not engaging in all the social stuff does not have to be getting a beer in front of the TV, it could just as well be writing a book. When I read the question I immediately thought of Don Knuth who is rarely (if ever) online, yet manages to write books and software that will have a long lasting impact. - Niklas Morberg

Niklas: no, sorry, you aren't a very careful reader. When someone says "It seems to me that all these things — Twitter, Facebook, iPhone, Flickr — are a thundering bore and an utter waste of time" that does NOT mean that the writer is wanting to find out what could be in it for him. It means he's already considered whether or not these things could be useful for him and has decided no. And, further, he's decided to denigrate those people who chose to use their time that way. - Robert Scoble

Robert Pirsig wrote a book about this wormhole called "Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence"... changed my life - Peter

if you do it for a living and it puts food on the table and you enjoy it who cares, it's about finding balance to enjoy your personal life too - Jason C.

A little historical context here: In late 2004 Bob Bly famously wrote a newsletter dissing the potential of blogging as a marketing & communications tool, mocking it, some would say. Great link bait and blog fodder. He then, surprise surprise, started a blog himself. Talk about built-in attention & controversy. Funny thing, he maintains that blog pretty actively to this day. I'd say he's planning to get on Facebook, Twitter etc. in about 2 weeks & just wants to make sure people are paying attention ;) - Elisa Camahort Page

Scoble: Did you know the Amish are way ahead-of-the-loop on solar panels. Almost every Amish house has a solar panel. It helps that they are frugal with power. - Mitchell Tsai

there's an endless list of stuff people get into that from the outside, seems totally pointless, because we're not as into it - nascar racing, fly fishing, scrapbooking, cat shows, knitting clubs, professional dwarf tossing, whatever. Everyone should just be honest with themselves about what they love doing, and everyone's different. But one of the great things about the 'net is whatever nutty obsession you have, you can meet other people who share your interests more easily. - Jason Kaneshiro

Geez, Robert, what a long winded way to answer a simple question! :-) The short answer is, "It's simply human to want to 1) know more, and 2) be known more." AWARENESS is the key. Without it, there would be no UNDERSTANDING. First comes self-awareness, which is what makes us human. Then comes awareness of others, which is what the web and social software enable in a very efficient way and broad way. Lastly, it's helping others to become (more) aware .. by blogging, friending, writing books, going to conferences, etc. This is the virtuous cycle of BEING HUMAN! Anyone, who doesn't get this is simply not living up to his/her full potential. - Lawrence Liu

I'd say: "Bob, 5 billion years have working to make this neat little box. Wanna peak inside?" - phil baumann

Thanks for the great article. Already added the MarsPhoenix Twitter feed and other related RSS feeds. - Bill Bittner

Not everyone wants to keep in touch with the latest technology. Some folks just want to sit on a stoop and watch traffic. I don't understand that but I respect their choice. - Morton Fox

I posted my comment to your blog, but here's a snippet: It all boils down to this: We must *master* our productivity tools (technology included) in order to maximize production of our quality work in a time manner. So how do you use technology to accomplish this? Are you an advanced user that has figured out how to organize, sort, filter and glean the best data from all your tools? The person who is best capable of using each tool with mastery, will achieve the highest productivity ratio. - Susan Beebe

Great post Robert whether Bly is real or not - people often miss that this is NOT about technology but about connections and learning and PEOPLE. Alas, the problem today for folks like you and I who just freakin love learning new stufff is that well -we have SO many opportunities from so many people thanks to the tech! Well said Lawrence!! - deb schultz

http://bly.com/blog/?p=333 that's the link to Bob's blog post about this very letter he sent you Robert. - James Dasher

Great post Scoble...keep going after the interesting conversations! - Mack D. Male

I *just* had a chance to read the actual article. I don't know Bly, but I couldn't disagree with him more. Your response was dead on. I think Bly has missed the point that these are just tools. I also think his response is like writing in to Car & Driver and telling them they have too many articles about automobiles. - Harvey Simmons

Defining a choice not to use (or more properly) _venerate_ networking tools as "ignorant" is part of the problem. You assume that everything happening in the world is happening in these environments. It is not. And if you really are sitting on a couch watching TV when you're not on Twitter, you ARE missing out. When I was off Twitter yesterday, I was eating ice cream with 5-year-old nieces reading them a story. and being wrestled to the ground by them. I hope your son can look forward to such memories. - Shelly Brisbin

It's the same old story over and over again. Some will fight against new technology (tools), kicking and screaming all the way. Others will adopt and improve. At some point the tools that make it will have been subsumed into mainstream and we'll laugh about the early resistance. Telephone, yes, and railroad... come to mind. Is social networkiing here to stay? Who knows? But why condemn it without trying it out? - Alex von Halem

Life is about a Path of Curiosity - Either you choose to go down the path or sit down. Regardless of your chosen profession, the world is changing fast and you can either grow or wither. I just don't want to be the last one holding the buggy whip when the first car rolls on by Mr. Bly. Keep doing what your Doing Mr. Scoble - we are all better for having you in or lives. - Glenn Gleason

Two things that have really stuck with me from this article over the past couple of days: "Whenever I am faced with a productivity problem I ask myself “what do I want to get out of life?”" which is damned good advice. It might seem selfish but I now think that you can't ask yourself this enough. Too many people go through life doing things they don't want to do just because they ask themselves the wrong questions. Start asking this one. - william douglas watson

The second thing which I find infinitely for powerful than the first: "The real thing I’ve been doing for more than eight years now is to try to arrange my life so that I have an interesting conversation every day with someone interesting." What an awesome life you have made Scoble. The fact that you have come to a point in your life that this is a feasible goal is just awesome. Wow. Thanks for the inspiration. - william douglas watson

I think my answer to Bob Bly would be this: 'I was a copywriter. Then, while following Robert Scoble's Microsoft blog, I found out about tablet pcs. And have since become a visual facilitator, earning approximately twenty times more per gig than I ever did as a copywriter. Social media is the most powerful learning tool I've ever dealt with.' (Thanks for turning me onto tablet pcs, Robert.) - Roy Blumenthal

To me it seems that Bob Bly just wants to hold on to the wistful memory of how things were...freeze time, so to speak. And no matter what you tell him and how you do it, it's not going to make an iota of a difference. What for him is waste of time, is for you a dive into worlds unknown. What for you is old school and ignorance, is for him blissful existence in a world as tangible as the cup of coffee (or tea) he holds. And never the twain shall meet. - Mansi Bhatia

Great discussion. I started to comment, but it got too long, so it wound up here: http://philcrissman.com/2008/0... - Phil Crissman

Robert Scoble had a new status message on Gmail/Google Talk

“I'm writing a blog about how I have a productivity problem.”

May 27 at 1:32 am - Link

Andrej Kostresevic, RAPatton, Ginger Makela, Baard Overgaard Hansen and 4 other people liked this

Philipp Lenssen posted an entry on Google Blogoscoped

The Internet FAQ from 2085

May 20 at 12:00 pm - Link

Cyvros/fyc, Bernhard Bauer, Emily Miller, Amber and 17 other people liked this

Hilarious. I'm missing reference to some humans going by the name of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs or Robert Scoble though. - Thomas Frütel

"You can find representative entities of the human species in most local zoos. Visitors of model version 4.55 and lower receive special discounts; while the brain of humans is likely incapable of experiencing pain, please do not feed or break them." - Paul Buchheit

Yes.. I miss Douglas Adams too Philipp :-) - Brandon Werner

Thomas, "names" became irrelevant when the Universal Intelligence deployed IPv42 in 2035. However, there is an archival reference to a "Patrick" Scoble, one of the leaders of the Human Resistance Movement, with a footnote mentioning his father Robert. - Karim

"Other inhabitants of the planet such as Bonobo Apes or the Arrowtooth Eel are believed to have had higher brain capacities, but no intent to build the internet." - Emily Miller

Scott Beale shared an item on Google Reader

iPhone 3G Launch Date Confirmed [Breaking]

May 20 at 11:57 am - Link

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Is it okay to start squealing like a little girl now? - Kevin D. White

Looking for someone to send me one when it comes out. DM @intrinso on Twitter. - Mo Jawhari

is a rumor confirmation? - kosmar

If it ain't Apple, it ain't confirmed - Bwana McCall

MG Siegler liked a story on Reddit

"Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy"

January 30 at 5:01 am - Link

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Paul Buchheit posted a link

Another Clue To 'Old Time': Pre-Industrial 'Old Sleep'

January 9 at 2:25 am - Link

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Paul Buchheit liked a story on Reddit

Audio in Linux is awesome! (39 easy steps)

December 18 at 1:00 am - Link

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This pretty much matches my Linux experiences. I just now noticed that our one machine doesn't have to real vim on it, so I try to install and next thing I know it's installing libavahi and other random junk, and then it fails and I still don't have vim... - Paul Buchheit

I had no problems with sound on my kubuntu box at home. I did have problems with the machine I built myself, but those were hardware problems. Linux is still not as user-friendly as Windows or Mac, but it is getting there. There are certainly plenty of things to complain about on Macs and Windows as well. - Robert Felty

Paul Buchheit posted a message on Twitter

“Does anyone at Google still work on Google Groups? We'd like per-author RSS/Atom feeds.”

December 18 at 2:59 am - Link

Jesse Hattabaugh, Wojciech Polak, greg brown, Andrej Kostresevic and 2 other people liked this

Was that one of those features that was always on your list of things you meant to get around to implementing? - j1m

No, I worked on groups before RSS was cool. Also, groups has been rewritten 2 or 3 times since then. - Paul Buchheit

Dustin DeKoekkoek shared an item on Google Reader

Facebook for old people

December 18 at 8:33 am - Link

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Lu Tao shared an item on Google Reader

Orkut Connects With Your Gmail Contacts

December 17 at 8:11 pm - Link

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Brad Garland shared an item on Google Reader

NACHA Announces Mobile Banking Initiative

December 17 at 4:18 pm - Link

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Harry posted an entry on Spokeo Blog

We’re getting faster!

December 17 at 4:19 pm - Link

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Brad Garland bookmarked a page on Ma.gnolia

YouTube - Did You Know 2.0

December 17 at 4:21 pm - Link

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Paul Buchheit liked a story on Reddit

Centralization is a Bug

December 15 at 2:11 am - Link

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"The reason the Web worked so well is that...". Meh. I remember a startup founded by an ex-googler where every other thing was "at Google, we did XXX, and that's why Google was so successful, so we're going to do XXX". Not that I disagree with the basic premise, mind. - ⓞnor

What startup was that? The truth of course is that we can never be certain why something was successful, and even if we were, that same formula won't necessarily work in the future. - Paul Buchheit

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Dan, agree with your point but think you chose the wrong quote. Building a product in telecom land (my current work) is a lot different than building web apps. - Chris M

"The reason the Web worked so well is that nobody had to ask anybody’s permission to build a browser or a crawler or a search engine or an auction site or a dating service." - Chris M

It seemed as if you were saying that was founder fallacy in a nutshell. I thought the point was: what makes something successful is difficult to isolate and people often misapply concepts because systems are complex. The quote you began to cite seems like the light at the end of the tunnel: it allows for a system where you can hypothesize and test quickly without bureaucracy and buy-in if it turns out your assumptions about how to be successful were wrong. - Chris M

(Comment edited.) I see, thanks. Yes, I think Tim Bray's statement is a case of selective-attribution fallacy. You're right: Whether or not it was "the reason" the Web "worked so well", rapid experimentation can help suss out actual success factors. But, for context-dependent or network-effect systems, it's hard to tell: I can't really create five eBays (or five World Wide Webs!) with slightly different parameters to see what succeeds; the original has already won, and only something orthogonal (which may have different success factors) can succeed. So I don't think there is a "light at the end of the tunnel"; some things are hard to know. But well-lit spaces do exist: at this point, we can probably know the success factors for viral Facebook apps. And yes, systems that include large open spaces for experimentation may succeed better -- but (to come full circle) the relative importance of that particular success factor is unclear. - ⓞnor

Also, 5 eBays wouldn't be enough for an experiment anyway, you'd probably need at least 30 or 40 eBays to conduct a good experiment. - j1m

Paul Buchheit posted a link

New Amazon service: SimpleDB is a web service for running queries on structured data in real time

December 14 at 2:42 am - Link

jon bradford, Beau Hartshorne, Andrej Kostresevic, Amit Patel and 4 other people liked this

Pretty cool. "Amazon SimpleDB requires no schema, automatically indexes your data and provides a simple API for storage and access. This eliminates the administrative burden of data modeling, index maintenance, and performance tuning." - Paul Buchheit

Nice. So you could actually run a real, user-visible web service off of Amazon EC2 machines (do they have any load balancing options, though?) - Bret Taylor

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Bret, I read your comment while looking at the photo of the shoe-fitting machine, and didn't understand what you were talking about. :) - Paul Buchheit

I like how they charge only for actual queries executed (0.14/machine hr)+ bandwidth (0.10-0.20/GB)+ storage (1.50/GB/month). This will likely be cheaper, more reliable and less of a hassle than running mysql in ec2. - Sanjeev Singh

It uses "eventual consistency" so reads might see stale data :(. Consistency, yet another "complex DB feature" people don't need :) - Sanjeev Singh

apparently it was written in erlang. http://www.satine.org/archives... - Karl Rosaen

Anyone know what kind of read latency we should expect from an EC2 instance? - Beau Hartshorne

One take (Babes In Userland) http://tinyurl.com/2z23lv - Louis Gray

Paul Buchheit posted a link

Polymer Vision announces rollable displays are in production - Engadget

December 15 at 2:36 am - Link

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