Consulting with companies and working on web and mobile applications at Code Paint, LLC.
I am also the founder of the Lehigh Valley Tech which is a local group for startups, entrepreneurs, hackers, and technology enthusiasts in the Lehigh Valley to share and demo what they are working on. My Google Profile Connect on LinkedIn
There is an interesting article by the Business Insider about why Tumblr is beating Posterous at the micro-blogging game. Their main argument is that Tumblr is designed and Posterous is engineered. I have used both services and I would agree with that statement. Tumblr is a beautiful product and would recommend it to anyone who wants to quickly get a blog started.
However, I'm a Posterous user and I love the service. I use it because it is an engineered product and it has the features that I want. Their post by email feature is great. I enjoy working on the posts in Gmail and then posting to my website them by emailing it. I use the service to host my personal blog (markkoberlein.com) and then I pull the posts into the Koberlein Studios Blog through their easy to use API.
There are some features that Tumblr has that I wish Posterous would add. They have a great iPhone app, better templates, and better editing tools. I don't need any of these features but they are the features that make the product more usable for the general user. This is why Tumblr is beating Posterous by attracting more new users.
No matter how well a product is engineered, if it's not designed for the everyday user it will lose in the long run.
Last November, Paypal rolled out a new social network specifically for their developers called the Paypal X Developer Network. This is a smart move by Paypal to grow it's developer community. They must be taking a note from Steve Ballmer's "Developers, Developers, Developers...." and understanding that if they really want to grow their platform it takes the support of the developers.
Paypal has always had a large developer community around their platform and I'm sure this is going to be a hit with them. However, it will be interesting to see how many new paypal developers they will attract. I personally didn't like Paypal's previous developer site and from my initial review X.com looks to be an improvement by doing a better job of promoting it's suite of APIs and tools and also giving it's community of experts a platform to mentor and teach others.
One thing that I find interesting is they have included a level and point system for their members. I assume that points will be awarded for asking and answering community questions and the members will be able to "level up" after reaching determined membership goals. Another developer community that has used a system like this is StackOverflow and it has helped to promote an active community by turning the process of asking and answering questions into a game.
As a developer who specializes in Google platforms, I'm more inclined to use Google Checkout in my applications. I find that Google Checkout is cheaper and easier to integrate but the one requirement is the user must login or create a Google account in order to make a payment. Paypal prefers that user's create a Paypal account to make a payment but they do not required it. I believe that for a majority of online users this isn't an issue and they will create an additional account if they need to. However, I also realize that we should give our users as many methods as possible to make a payment and not solely rely on one platform.
If you're a Paypal developer let me know what you think about X.com and if you think it's going to broaden Paypal's developer platform.
I have mixed feelings about the iPad. I love my iPhone, Kindle and my HP Netbook but I'm not sure if I have a need for another small computing device. Of course, who couldn't use a huge iPod Touch to have on the coffee table to check email and Facebook statuses. I could see replacing my Kindle with one because I'm sure that it is going to be a better book reader. However, I'm not paying $500 to $700 for a book reader. I waited until the Kindle came down to $250 before I pulled the trigger on that.
I do have a feeling that the iPad will be successful because the mac boys and tech heads will flock to it. It will be the next must have gadget. I also see this device becoming very popular in educational circles. If it gains a lot of traction in these markets then I assume the mass market will eventually follow unless a competitor like HP or Dell can deliver comparable product with a good UI and a lot of marketing.
I just read an interesting article by Steve Gillmor on TechCrunchIT and it made me think about something. If the iPad is successful does that mean the beginning of the end Flash?
Take Flash. Please. When Jobs quarantined it on the iPhone, we all felt it was a tactical thing, more political than technical. Of course, it’s never been technical, even now when it’s kept off the iPad because it is responsible for such a great percentage of crashes in Safari or whatever. Actually, Flash is being kept off the iPlatform because It Sucks. Google’s HTML 5 liturgy is another contiguous example of how to sell the same message, but enquiring minds still want to know why we need a plug-in from a company that makes its real money from Photoshop.
As a web developer, I'm not a fan of Flash. I have a lot experience working with it because of my former life as a designer, but now I try to use Javascript and CSS whenever I can to avoid using Flash. Flash is a blotted web browser plugin and is the leading cause for web browser crashes. It is CPU and memory intensive and on low powered devices like netbooks is barely usable.
Flash is still installed on over 98% of the web browsers and I believe the primary reason it retains it's foothold is because of video sites like Youtube and Hulu that are built on on it. Video is Flash's killer feature. Also, there a Flash games like Facebook's Farmville that help to keep it on top. However, more and more mobile devices like smart phones don't have Flash installed and people are starting to get comfortable with the idea of not relying on Flash for their dynamic content. Also, websites are using Javascript for animations that would have required Flash to run in a browser.
So back to the iPad. Taking Steve Job's recent statements into consideration about Flash, Adobe, HTML5, Flash will probably never step foot inside of an iPhone or iPad. I bet that if Steve could, he would try to keep it off every Mac. If the iPad becomes a successful web browsing device without Flash, then that could be the final nail in the Flash coffin. It probably won't happen overnight because that 98% install base will take a long time to come down but I think that in 2 to 3 years we will no longer have the need for Flash in the browser.
Like I said, I'm still undecided about whether or not a tablet device like the iPad is right for me, but if it helps to kill off Flash and speed up the adoption of HTML5 then as a web developer, I'm for it.
Just in case you live under a rock and you don't know what the iPad is:
