A New Class of Applications.

Took a look at SimpleViewer, "a free, customizable Flash image viewing application". It's downloaded to your webserver, simply installed, and configured by XML. The design philosophy has a lot in common with worldKit: simple, powerful, self hosted, swf ubiquity, low cost (well free). Zoomify, "Fast, hi-res images in Flash" is another flash based product, with a similar philosophy (and a really great product :: I'm working on integrating with worldKit).

It's different than Rich Internet Applications, because this software is designed to enable creation. Put sophisticated tools in the hands of people with millions of ideas, specialized knowledge, and the will to share it.

Laszlo and their stealable widgets are another take. It's also related to Marc's Digital Lifestyle Aggregators and the widespread New Kinds of Microcontent. And the mutlitude of javascript widgets, for blogrolling and weather and technorati and moods. Include myRadio nuggets too.

I'm not too sure a super, solve-everything, micro-content browser is coming around any time soon. It may not be doable. Putting together smaller, focused pieces definitely is.

[Brain Off]

Mikel is defineitely one of the smartest, most grokked in folks around.  I cried when he left SF.  But he seems to be flourishing "over there".

Giving BloggerCon A Run For Its Pixels.

Marc Canter has been keeping me in stitches today, sending piles of interesting email to my GMail account in an effort to get it to spew related ads and pages at me. (No luck — I must have the ad-free version.) All this in the middle of DaddyCon SF, hoo boy. MommyCon OC is on a semi-concurrent track:

Hello darling,
How're you feeling?
Mommy's tired,
Almost reeling!
You've been such a
Little grumpster,
It's a wonder you're not sleeping in the dumpster!

Such a sunny
Disposition,
Like the Spanish
Inquisition
Though you burble,
And you smile
That behavior hasn't been here in a while.

Where's the light switch,
Shall we dim it?
I've about reached
My limit.
Piles of laundry,
Poopy diapers,
You keep crying and I'll need some windshield wipers.

(That last was most unfair to the baby, who's being a little angel right now. Not even a fallen one.)

By the way, if Marc Canter, Shelley Powers and Jonas Luster all say WordPress is a good blogging tool, you'd better believe it. I'll second Marc's enthusiasm for Blogware too, Elliot knows his stuff.

[Bag and Baggage]

Hopefully Denise can make it up for E3. It'll be quite a scene. I can't wait to see what the gamers think of matching up their game collections.  As it was explained to me over and over again - games are to gamers what sex is to everyone else.

So I figured "let's apply social networking to these gamers and let them match up their game collections, game desires, game intentions, gaming status".  It's fun.

They'll also get journals, group journals (for their clubs), contests (every action triggers points), an arena (to submit stuff for public rating) and 26 front doors.

It's also too late to copy us for E3 - so I'm going to gradually lift the Kimino up on this puppy over the next three weeks leading up to......

Here's something I just wrote for a Client. I've removed the names to protect the innocent

^^^Blah Blah Blah idea

*Note my prejudice to what I think BlahBlah should be.*  My emphasis is not on positioning BlahBlah as a BlahBlah service (or even thinking of BlahBlah as some BlahBlah brokerage house.) BlahBlah is a fine business model, a fine way to attract investors and a fine path to profitability.

But to me - it's all about the conversations, media and social networking - not the money.  And the interaction between these huge forces.  That's what the aggregation, integration and customization capabilites of a digital lifestyle aggregator (DLA) is all about. Dynamic, multiple leveled, let the ants have fun.

From happy ants come good buzz, communal vibes and viral effect. Just like BlohBloh has now.  That's why you can't BUY BlohBloh . It's not for sale. Communal vibes don't happen for profit.  They happen for the benefit of the whole.  Not the owners. As soon as you sell it, it's not BlohBloh anymore. Get it?

OK - I'll credit both Shelly Powers and Matt Mullenweg for getting me to pay attention to WordPress.

Or else all I'd be blogging about right now would be Blogware.

Both tool environments seem fine to me. Nothing like giving those SixAparters a run for their money.

:-)

Jonas agrees...

Pressing the Word. Matt reminds me, Drupal isn’t the only developer-friendly blogging app out there. If Drupal seems to big of a task, or if you are looking for a pure webloggin app, check out the good folks over at WordPress. It’s impressive, easy to setup and use, and a sleek, non-bullshit, app.... [a preponderance of evidence]

Here comes another one.... Blogware PV8 is live.

Enjoy.

 [Random Bytes]

My keynote address tonight started with a bad case of diaper rash and a crying Mimi.

This segued to a interactive session of book reading, singing songs and row-row-row your boat.

We concluded with a Rugrat inspired get away and chase scene down the hallway, culminating with tickeles, goo-goo gah-gahs and off to bed.  Punctuated (I might add) with :15 of crying.

Here's Ted's DaddyCon notes....

DaddyCon: Day 1. DaddyCon is a multitrack conference punctuated by a number of general plenary sessions. There are usually three tracks, but occasionally two of the tracks combine:

• Track 1: Abigail
• Track 2: Michaela
• Track 3: Elisabeth
• Track 1 and 2: Abigail and Michaela

Today there were five plenary sessions: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two outdoor playtimes. All week the girls have been querying me about the nature of our diet while Julie is at BloggerCon. I'd given them a number of joking replies ranging from "worms" to "steak and eggs". It turns out that Julie actually did stock the freezer with steak, which I was not astute enough to defrost (perhaps on Sunday, since Michaela is a steak monster). I did succeed in producing a very passable set of scrambled eggs (I used sesame oil to enhance the taste). Lunch and dinner also passed uneventfully (all parties obtained the necessary nutrition, and no candy, pre-cooked, or fast food was involved). Outdoor playtime number 1 went fine. Outdoor playtime number 2 was really fun. The older two girls were taking turns going down a slide in the neighborhood, and I would boost Elisabeth up to them, so she could ride down the slide in one of her sisters' lap. Abigail and Michaela were doing such a good job of getting up the slide, that I was pretty much a human conveyor belt for Elisabeth. Then we moved on to the other playground in the neighborhood, which we had to leave because Abigail took a dive off a milk crate into some wood chips and ended up with some wood induced cuts, which turned out to look worse (due to the blood) than the actually were.

I found the combined track 1 and track 2 particularly enlightening. Elisabeth has a decent sized nap in the afternoon, leaving a large block of time to work with the girls on their schooling activities. Today being Friday, I felt that we should try to stick to a normal weekday schedule, so after lunch we did some more school like activities. Julie and I talk about what the kids are learning and how they are progressing, and of course, when I see Abigail reading a book to her sisters (which she likes to do), it's hard not to miss the progress that she's making. But working with them for an afternoon (not surprisingly) gave me a better picture of what and how they are learning. Actually, it hardly seemed like school at all. As soon as I released Abigail from the lunch table, she was practically begging me to be allowed to work on her workbook. Michaela was also enthusiastic, albeit perhaps not as much as her older sister, to work on her assignment as well.

Earlier this week, Julie had a post titled "The sensual, physical pleasure of caring for young children". I definitely felt that as I spent the day today. The girls were excited to be home alone with me today. They were really cheerful when they woke up in the morning, and Elisabeth was really sweetly cheerful when I got her up from her nap. People have told me that the 3-6 or 7 range is the golden age of having kids, when they are old enough to interact with but not old enough to start rebelling or whatever. I don't know if that's true or not, but a day like today makes me want to grab every day I can with these little people. [Ted Leung on the air]

Congrats to Adam, Nathan, Mike and Scott.

It rocks!

My favorite photo oriented social net just got better.  At this very moment I represent all of North America.