CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-18 19:43:16 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Dude at the Google+ Design Happier Hour at Local Edition last night: "you're like Doctor Who!"

Thank you, sir. I'll take it.

2013-05-18 00:22:26 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Here for the Google+ design happy hour.

2013-05-17 03:42:59 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

+Local Office Coworking is where I work from most of the time. It's a great spot in Berkeley, a really nice, bright space, and about half the price of many shared offices in the area. It's also near a bunch of nifty restaurants, 10 minutes' walk to 4th St (Apple Store, etc) and round the corner from the best pub in town. There are a few vacancies, so if you're (eg) a freelancer looking for a place to concentrate, or a postgraduate looking for a study space, you should take a look.

Why am I posting about it so much? Mostly because it's been a great space for me, and I want to repay by helping fill those empty seats.

#coworking   #coworkingspace   #eastbay   #berkeley  

2013-05-16 18:22:26 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

The future of enterprise video, featuring Adobe, Kaltura, Telefonica - and latakoo. Proud to be included!

(Okay, this is from February, but somehow I only just saw it.)

2013-05-16 15:00:31 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

OK Glass, Find Dogfood!

#Glass   #GoogleGlass   #Bucky   #DogsInGlassThursday  

2013-05-15 22:18:32 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

So it looks like GitHub passed the 10,000,000 repositories mark sometime this last Saturday.  Interestingly, there actually is no repository #10,000,000... it jumps from 9,999,999 to 10,000,001

Nonetheless, congrats are definitely in order!  That's a lot of code.

https://api.github.com/repositories?since=9999998

2013-05-15 22:13:00 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Really loving this redesign. Great use of CSS transitions and effects (the compose box is fantastic); lovely use of the Roboto font; great use of space. Enamored with the whole thing.

2013-05-15 22:01:27 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Google App Engine's PHP version is 5.4, which is great news - since 5.3, PHP's practically been a whole new language, and 5.4 adds more good stuff.

What's not great news is the database support. You need to use Google's Cloud SQL - so you're out of luck if you want, eg, MongoDB or Riak. (I suspect, but don't know for a fact, that those extensions aren't installed, either.) Of course, you can always spawn an alternative database infrastructure, but if you're doing that, you might as well customize your own web server, too.

2013-05-08 04:47:54 (1 comments, 5 reshares, 3 +1s)

Pretty neat. I like that they form a mesh network, and I like that it's all running on an open source OS with a REST API.

2013-05-08 00:43:50 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I really like this project: average income by BART / Caltrain stop, illustrating income inequality in the Bay Area.

2013-05-06 18:55:20 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Problem: How do you authenticate a mobile phone when it is sending a payment over the Web?
Solution: You make it digitally sign the payment request.

The HTTP Signatures spec is a digital signature mechanism for the HTTP protocol. It adds origin authentication, message integrity, and replay resistance to HTTP requests. This is useful for any application that currently depends on Basic, Digest, OAuth, or OAuth2 authentication when performing RESTful HTTP calls.

This spec will be used by the Web Payments / PaySwarm / Web Keys work to verify the sender and receiver of funds during a payment. The first draft of this spec was just published via the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF):

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-cavage-http-signatures-00

https://payswarm.com/specs/ED/http-signatures/2013-05-04/

#http #crypto #ietf #rest

2013-05-04 15:23:56 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I am sorry, but we as an industry completely fucked up the "social" part of the web building. It's 2013 and all my friends make amazing playlists on #Rdio and #Pandora. Can't listen to them cos' I'm on #Spotify. 

Wouldn't have you gone crazy if back in '92 you could not listen to your friends mixtapes or to their CDs in '99? 

I'm really getting tired of having to pick the platform before picking my friends and Google+ is just another avatar of this crappy crappy experience. How did we become so fool?

2013-05-02 01:53:52 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

A quick shout-out to my local coworking space, Local Office, which is where I work from most of the time. We're looking for a couple of folks to join us - if you need an Easy Bay coworking space, take a look, and I'm really happy to answer any questions.

2013-05-01 00:20:09 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Some thoughts on mobile and personal clouds.

2013-04-30 00:35:50 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Some thoughts on some of the woes developer friends are having in their startup jobs.

2013-04-17 00:08:45 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

+Ron Gilbert was responsible for the most important gaming experience of my life. A well-written, hilarious, taxing game that eschews violence entirely in favor of gameplay and brainpower? The Secret of Monkey Island and its SCUMM cousins were refreshing - a real literary experience, comparable to the Douglas Adams books I was devouring around the same time - and nothing made me want to make software more.

So, this blog post is a dirty, rotten tease, but I hope something comes of it. I'd love to see another Ron Gilbert Monkey Island, or something like it.

2013-04-09 20:12:19 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I'm at #NABshow, the National Association of Broadcaster's annual conference in Las Vegas. Think of it as CES for the broadcast industries: a giant (100,000+ people) event covering both hardware and software for audio and video broadcasting.

Coming from my web background, it's been fascinating to see what's on offer - from giant transcoding boxes through Avid systems and incredible new cameras from the likes of Panasonic.

And of course, latakoo, the company I work for, is in the mix. Being a startup, we've been showing up all over the show, demonstrating how you can duplicate a lot of the same functionality using just a laptop and a web browser. We've had so much positive feedback it's incredible. Here's a brief synopsis of what we offer: http://latakoo.com/enterprise/

Of course, if you're at NAB too, send me a message, or tweet me, and... more »

2013-04-02 20:43:55 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

Some thoughts on how RSS and Activity Streams, implemented in the right way, could be a profitable content delivery mechanism.

2013-04-01 19:23:36 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

My rejected April Fool's jokes for 2013:

A 16,000 word essay on why open source has no ethical center and a book publisher is a Godfather-like figure pulling the ideological strings of Silicon Valley.

Facebook reveals the power and flexibility of open platforms over closed ones with a slightly redesigned new screen for cell phones.

The Venture Capital community to become an integral part of decision-making about who can gain a visa to become a permanent resident in the US and Canada.

"Phablet" to become genuine name of new hardware market segment, in an attempt to compete with Apple.

Next version of Internet Explorer to pretend it's Firefox.

2013-03-31 17:14:43 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Hahah.

Google Maps, with Treasure Map mode: http://goo.gl/maps/2nYTc

2013-03-31 15:57:36 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I know people love to hate the Internet's April Fool's jokes, but if they're funny, they're funny. It's become an opportunity for companies to show they have a sense of humor and laugh at themselves a bit. This one from YouTube is pretty great.

2013-03-23 17:14:27 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

#starwars  

2013-03-23 14:17:24 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Awful.

2013-03-22 22:52:47 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Programming is terrible: reposting this smart, funny talk from my friend +Thomas Figg.

2013-03-22 07:44:50 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Proposals to add DRM to HTML5 open the door for Hollywood's gangrenous anti-technology culture to infect vital open Web standards. https://eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/defend-open-web-keep-drm-out-w3c-standards

2013-03-19 16:21:12 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I was skeptical at first - isn't this a return to Nokia-style predictive texting circa 1998? - but as the video moves on, they illustrate some really interesting use cases. Nice to see people thinking in this way.

2013-03-18 10:59:16 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

How computer science is taught in Vietnam.

Why aren't we doing this?!

2013-03-15 20:39:31 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

blog post from the FSF about Google dropping incoming subscription requests silently...

2013-03-14 23:09:21 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

An epic post by +Tantek Çelik about silos vs the open web. I really like his thoughts about selfdogfooding in particular, and followed up a little with some more thoughts over here: http://benwerd.com/2013/03/14/silos-the-open-web-and-selfdogfooding/

2013-03-13 23:28:37 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 13 +1s)

Google Reader was a tentpole of the web I wanted: open, with full freedom of expression that wasn't tethered to the platform you happened to choose to use. That web is now, largely, gone. In the same announcement, Google are talking about killing the standardized CalDAV API in favor of a Google Calendar specific set of calls.

You mean to say we're going to have to go back and build that web again? So be it.

2013-03-13 02:05:34 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Medium is a really comfortable platform to publish on - but also a bit intimidating, I guess because of the exclusivity they're trying to cultivate. I've had my invite for a few days, but it took me a while to decide what to write about.

I've talked about this subject before, but this somehow seemed like a good medium for it; at its core, it's both a personal story, and about how I look at startups and business. I expect I'll write more over there from time to time, although benwerd.com will remain my main blog.

2013-03-12 22:30:57 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Tonight friend, mentor, hero +danah boyd receives the SXSW Interactive Hall Of Fame Award for her work. If you have nice things to say, now is the time. For those on Twitter, she's @zephoria and we're using #ilovedanah  . Or you can just comment on this thread. Or you can post on your own profiles and tag the shit out of her here on G+

2013-03-12 01:10:46 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Edited: Was thinking about heading to Open Source Bridge this year (followed by IndieWebCamp). Decided, instead to just head to #IndieWebCamp. Can anyone recommend a place in Portland to stay?

2013-03-09 16:58:45 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Niche communities on the web are a big part of its power, yet they're often neglected. Supporting diversity and long-lasting grass-roots communities is an interesting problem.

Platforms like Discourse are one part of the solution, but there's a lot more that can be done. I've been thinking a lot about this recently.

2013-03-06 16:42:55 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I really like the new cover photo size - and I'm happy Google kept my original-sized image, so the new version looks great.

I'm finding Google+ a little less sticky than, for example, Twitter, but the functionality here has so much more to offer. Where do you find you're most active?

2013-03-02 01:17:59 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

I love this portrait of National Geographic Adventurer of the Year Renan Ozturk.

Climber, artist, and filmmaker Renan Ozturk has been held at knifepoint in the deserts of Chad, sustained a traumatic head injury while backcountry skiing in the Tetons, and suffered through hallucinations on Himalayan big walls. Through it all, the cameras have been rolling.

Over the course of the last two years, the 32-year-old’s athleticism, creativity, and storytelling have come together in accessible, inspirational tales consumed by hundreds of thousands of people online.

Oh, and by the way: RenanKoos.mp4

2013-03-02 00:30:09 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

On doing a lot with not a lot.

2013-02-28 05:11:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Digital music sales are gaining enough to more than make up for the loss in sales on physical media. Music revenue is up for the first time in 13 years - and services like Spotify account for 10%+ of it.

Can't wait for news and television to go through the same cycle. The experience of buying music is so much better than it was in 2000.

2013-02-28 04:13:45 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

All my TV comes through the web these days - but I've never had as many entertainment choices, and the people who make great shows still get rewarded for their work. It's easy; here's how I did it.

2013-02-28 02:38:19 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Crossing my fingers.

2013-02-27 23:05:42 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

This is awesome.

Bunch of photos of a photographer's girlfriend leading him around the world...

(via reddit)

More here: http://instagram.com/muradosmann

2013-02-25 16:59:31 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Naïve question: why do public roads have to be made of asphalt? For example, could new freeways be made of materials that induct charge into electric cars as they drive over them? This could be in the form of special charging lanes at first (which could double as carpool lanes). For bonus points, could these materials also charge themselves from the sun?

The trade-off could be revenue to the state / county from these lanes: you could potentially pay for them by the mile literally as you drove over them. The driver never has to fill up; the government gets pay-per-use revenue.

2013-02-23 21:25:43 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

The Estonian entry for Eurovision this year is clearly inspired by Pussy Riot's brand of punk, and I think that's really interesting - particularly considering Estonia's history in Eastern Europe. Not sure how the drummer's costume is going to go over in the more conservative states though.

2013-02-18 19:19:32 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

We started watching House of Cards last night. For some reason I found it a lot punchier than the original British version - tautly written, well-acted, with flawless direction from David Fincher. Maybe it's just that it's newer and our standards for drama have changed, but it's the best thing I've seen on TV for a long time; much better, in fact, than I expected it to be.

And, of course, the elephant in the room is that it wasn't on TV. Netflix paid $100 million for two seasons, and the first has been posted online in its entirety. I can guzzle my way through it at my own speed, with no commercials.

In a world where you can't get HBO without cable TV, this makes Netflix a must-have for me. I'm a cord-cutter; I just can't justify the price of cable vs online services like Netflix and Hulu, and buying shows on iTunes / Amazon. It was a smooth move on... more »

2013-02-17 08:59:28 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 3 +1s)

I enjoyed this very much.

2013-02-11 21:02:53 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

We've just announced that we plan to hold Google Summer of Code 2013!

Historically, Google Summer of Code has brought together nearly 6,000 students with over 300 open source projects to create millions of lines of code. We’re looking for mentors and students to join us in making 2013 the best Summer of Code yet!

The Google Summer of Code program is designed to encourage student participation in open source development. Kicking off in 2005, the program has several goals:

• Inspire young developers to begin participating in open source development
• Provide students in Computer Science and related fields the opportunity to do work related to their academic pursuits during the summer
• Give students more exposure to real-world software development scenarios (e.g., distributed development, software licensing questions, mailing-list etiquette, etc.) • Get ... more »

2013-02-07 03:26:39 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Interesting. I do think LibreOffice can't compete - the (honest) question for me is whether Linux users are prepared to pay for Microsoft software? I think the answer is "yes": in governments, universities and non-profits, for example.

2013-02-02 21:58:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

In the Mission tonight? Go see +Hannah Werdmuller and friends play at Cafe La Boheme for the Mission Arts & Performance Project from 6pm. I'll be listening live from the UCSF Intensive Care Unit with my mother, who just completed a successful double lung transplant.

2013-02-01 07:23:22 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Whatever you think about awards ceremonies, I can't argue with GitHub winning Best Startup. They absolutely deserve it, on every level. A joy to use, and a game-changing site that's changing open source software.

2013-02-01 00:42:49 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

The other day, I posted (on Facebook) that "learning to code is non-optional in the 21st century". It was more contentious than I thought it would be. So what do you think?