The $50 million investment is in Slide, Inc., proprietors of the Top Friends app. Top Friends attempts to drive up stats by doing things like emailing people’s friends, “Sarah just updated her mood!” I know it’s a tough marketplace but come on.

Reminds me of this Hugh Mcleod cartoon:

“It wasn’t a venture fund. It was a fifty million dollar sympathy fuck.”

I’m delighted to tell you that on Wednesday, December 12, Internet Explorer correctly rendered the Acid2 page in IE8 standards mode. While supporting the features tested in Acid2 is important for many reasons, it is just one of several milestones for the interoperability, standards compliance, and backwards compatibility that we’re committed to for this release.

That’s pretty impressive.

Could’ve guessed this one though: Six Apart Announces New Home for LiveJournal.

Brad Fitzpatrick, who moved on from 6A to Google a few months ago, comments.

That’s what someone asks in the Facebook Developers Forum. He continues, (login required)

I have an idea that i think could make sum money which i am willing to sell to anyone how thinks they can develop it, as i am too lazy and dont hav the skills to make it happen!

If your interested let me no

Um, no?

I don’t mean to single this guy out—feeling possessive about one’s ideas is a common enough sentiment. But it shows an exasperating lack of understanding about the value of ‘concepts’. Hint: zero. Ideas are worthless.

Venture capitalist Paul Graham expresses this fact in testable terms:

If you go to VC firms with a brilliant idea that you’ll tell them about if they sign a nondisclosure agreement, most will tell you to get lost. That shows how much a mere idea is worth. The market price is less than the inconvenience of signing an NDA.

Exactly. If you believe that ‘hot new things’ online are the result of brilliant new ideas, you’ve not been paying attention. (Flickr is just a bunch of images with some javascript!)

Why are ideas worthless? Besides the usual Edison line (“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration”) or Woody Allen’s “eighty percent of success is showing up”, here’s a couple reasons:

• True innovation occurs at an implementational level that’s far abstracted from the end-user experience (would you buy a book from Amazon.com just because of s3?)
• When there is consumer-facing innovation going on, the market capacity or demand just isn’t there for another gee-whiz contraption (The Change Function is a great book about this.)

So if ideas don’t matter, what does? I’m going to weasel a bit, because what I think actually matters is hard to define: Taste.

Yes, taste. Style. I don’t mean innate talent, but a skillset that you pick up with experience. General von Moltke was convinced that “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”. Similarly, no ‘idea’ will survive contact with your actual human user community.

So don’t ‘implement an idea’. Design an experience.

[T]he only reason I know this, is because I happened to download the WordPress software and looked at it. WordPress isn’t even true XHTML or XML script or code, It’s PHP Script. and this is why it is so easy to hack. From what I’ve gathered, Blogger is a True blue XML Blog. For those that don’t know this, PHP script, is the same script that is used by your PhpBB message boards. and anyone with any kind of good computer knowledge, knows that PhpBB is *very* easy to be hacked. VBulletin is a classic example, as is InvisionFree.

Uh-huh.

And this, boys and girls, is why you shouldn’t punch way above your weight. Without a touch of savvy, all the courage of your conviction just makes you seem like a kook. My advice:

Step away from the keyboard and no one gets hurt!

It’s the ultimate flashcard replacement. I’ve mentioned Quizlet before; it launched to the general public a couple weeks ago.

Andrew Sutherland, the one-man band behind Quizlet, says:

My mission for Quizlet is to make learning vocabulary not a chore. I know a lot of teachers assign vocabulary to students, but few students actually “absorb” words into their vocabularies after they take their test. Which kind of defeats the purpose, right?

When Andrew was ten, he made the typical Geocities first-stab website—his dad promised to upgrade their net connection if he pulled it off. Six years later, Andrew helms the company Brainflare, poised to bring Web 2.0-style disruption to the world of educational software. Here’s his story.

Tell us a bit about yourself—where you’re located, what you do, when you got into web development?

Hey Firas, thanks for setting this up. I live in the Yay Area. I’m in a little town called Albany, right next to Berkeley. It’s a nice place to live, because I’m close enough to the Valley that I can go down there whenever I like, but I’m far enough to not be (overly) affected by Valley fever.

I’m a high school junior by day. That takes up a lot of time, but less time than you might think. I used to do a lot of freelance web development and contracting, but these days I’ve got my own startup and I’m focusing on that. It takes a lot of energy to stay on top of everything.

I got into web development when I was about 10. I’m very lucky in the sense that I had the chance to grow up on computers and the Internet. I made a deal with my dad that if I could build my own website and do it to some specifications, he’d upgrade us from our 28k modem. So I built my first Geocities site, complete with black starry background, green text, and <marquee>s, and I guess I got addicted to the business. I’m pretty sure my dad thinks it was a good long term investment, as he now has shares in Quizlet

What’s the Quizlet Story? Where did you get the notion, what made you decide to take it on as a major project, and what kind of time/work has gone into it?

Quizlet got started in the beginning of my sophomore year in high school—about 16 months ago. I had a list of vocab terms I needed to know for my French class, and I was fumbling with flash cards. I had already built some big WordPress plugins and some freelance sites, so I knew the beginnings of programming fairly well. I just hacked away and eventually arrived at what you now see at Quizlet.com. It wasn’t fast or easy, but the journey was a lot of fun. I’ve worked on it so much, I’ve completely lost track of any notions of time I’ve spent on it. Right now I’d say I work on it 15-25 hours a week, after school and on weekends.

Where do you see Quizlet and Brainflare going in the next few months, and (say) an year from now? Are there any revenue models you’re mulling for Quizlet, and are you planning to seek angel investment?

I think I’m in a really good situation right now. Quizlet isn’t exactly making any money yet, but the only thing it’s costing me for is hosting. That’s one of the benefits of a one-man team. And so now I can take it in any direction I want, as I’m not tied down by any VCs or project managers or anything.

I expect Quizlet will continue growing a lot. I’ve gotten 3700 new signups since it launched 13 days ago. Last night, I was at 3000. I’m hoping it will just keep spreading. Once I reach a nice hunk of users, say 30,000, I’ll start actively seeking out advertisements. The target market for Quizlet is very focused on motivated high school and college students, and I could run some very relevant ads for study-aid books and test-prep stuff. I always have to remind myself that I am my target market, so I won’t do any sort of advertising that I’m not interested in myself. I’m also exploring possibilities in licensing the technology. As far as investment, I’m undecided. I like being on my own timeline and owning all of Quizlet, but there will be some aspects of its general development I won’t be able to realize myself. We’ll see about that one.

As far as Quizlet itself, there are tons of features and enhancements I’ve got coming. Image sets, wiki-editing, internationalization, and an API are all at the top of my list.

OMG, an API? Tell me more.

Yup, everyone has an API these days, so why not Quizlet? An API could bring about all sorts of cool ideas in memorization. The great thing about APIs is you have no idea what people will do with it. There are so many possibilities! Right now I’m in the beginning stages of planning it and deciding its capabilities, so I’ve asked for feedback on the Quizlet blog. At the most basic level, I want to open up its data and let people embed lists of sets or terms in their own sites. Beyond that, I think developing some sort of memory game would be great. I just spent the last 3 AP Bio classes diagramming and planning one, and I’m just sitting down to code it now. Perhaps we’ll see that soon

What are your favorite tech blogs? Are there any major software companies, people, or just ‘movements’ you’d count among your influences?

Favorite blogs, let’s see. The usual stuff, TechCrunch, Signal vs. Noise, they’re all very good. But the ones I really love seeing pop up in my newsreader are:

• Cabel Sasser’s blog—Anything that comes out of
  this guy is pure gold. He convinced me to get Nike+…
• Brand New—a fascinating blog about corporate branding.
• Dreamhost’s blog—Their CEO comes off as a total amateur, but I always laugh at everything he writes.
• Shaun Inman’s blog—Is there anything this guy can’t do?

Among my influences, I might say WordPress and its whole community. It was my gateway to programming addiction. One day I found this website that had a live AJAX chat room and my jaw dropped. Instant chat in a website, with no Flash or Java! So I downloaded the source code and just tore it apart. I didn’t know anything about javascript, PHP, or MySQL. I just fumbled around till I got it to do what I wanted, and I developed a WordPress plugin for it. That plugin has since received 30k+ downloads…

That got me hooked, and with Quizlet I just got the idea and ran with it.

[Ed. Note: The plugin in question is Wordspew Ajax Shoutbox]

Are there any other projects that’ve struck your fancy in the pipeline?

None that I can talk about —I’m focusing on Quizlet right now and developing the business aspects of the site. Coming from a background as a developer/designer, it’s a whole new world to explore. Business isn’t nearly as cool as programming, that’s all I have to say.

Alright, that’s all. Thanks for the interview! I’m sure I’ll see you around Boston some time soon.

Thanks for your time, Andrew!

You can follow developments at the Quizlet Blog, his personal blog at Jalenack, or his development blog, Jalecode.

‘Hello World’ looks more forbidding in Java, one of the workhorse programming languages in today’s business world:

     class HelloWorld {
          public static void main (String args[]){
               System.out.println("Hello World!");
               }
          }

Public static void: gazillions of chunks of program code written in Java include that cryptic sequence. The words carry specific technical meaning. But I’ve always heard them as a bit of machine poetry, evoking the desolate limbo where software projects that begin with high spirits too often end up.

• Firas:
  i really dislike how danah boyd is all like, ‘myspace rocks!’ just because it has so many users. you might as well say AOL rocks.
• Nikkiana:
  hmm.. i never really got that feel off of her…
• Firas:
  it’s obviously the charge she’s leading among the technicalites, that interfaces don’t matter, that this doesn’t matter, that doesn’t matter
• Nikki:
  because she’s right…. to the AVERAGE 15 year old kid, it doesn’t matter.
• Firas:
  i know, and if you’re working on msn spaces or something, maybe you should listen to that advice. but for those of us who care about interfaces ‘cloning myspace’ is the last thing we want to do—we’re in a different camp altogether
• Nikki:
  the thing about MySpace is it’s the equivalent of the internet ghetto…
• Firas:
  i’m not saying it doesn’t work for them
• Nikki:
  MySpace was made popular by normal people. Not nerds.
• Firas:
  just saying that saying it works for them doesn’t mean it’s ‘good practice’ in all contexts
• Firas:
  myspace runs coldfusion, that’s nerdy!
• Nikki:
  yes… but i’m talking about the users.
• Firas:
  yeah, i know. ok, let my clarify what i’m saying here. (a) MySpace works for people. Agreed. (b) MySpace’s sucky design decisions don’t hinder its success. Agreed. (c) Everyone should do what myspace does. Disagree!
• Nikki:
  But who implied C?
• Firas:
  http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/ultrafast_relea.html
• Nikki:
  That said, I predict that MySpace will fade as the current teenage userbase gets older.
• Firas:
  i guess my point is that the main thing going for it is ‘social capital’. ie, everyone uses it, hence everyone uses it.
• Firas:
  i like how boyd’s analysis focuses on the userbase changes as a reason for friendster’s demise. because it’s like the most important asset of social networking tools—the actual users, not the software they use.

Just because something has a large usage share doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s any good. Just because many of Microsoft’s victims have to use Outlook Express for reading their email doesn’t mean that Mozilla Thunderbird should copy Outlook Express (the very idea is disgusting).

I don’t disagree with Danah Boyd’s analysis of social networking apps (au contraire, I really admire her essays about these things), and I also like Kathy Sierra’s writings in general (I think they’re great, enthusiastic and inspirational.) I agree with the particular conclusion Sierra was drawing in the article, that fast release cycles are good things. But quick and informal development methodology doesn’t necessitate thoughtless design. Your work style in the kitchen doesn’t matter, but wouldn’t you like to produce tasty meals when you’re done?

Sierra ties the 37signals way (fast development) with this quote from her daughter:

She said they respond to feedback, “As soon as you think of something, it’s in there.”

This is the antithesis of everything 37signals preach. Throwing in feature after feature doth not good software make!

So because MySpace ‘worked out’ (ie. sold for millions) doesn’t mean you can dismiss a point by saying ‘well, MySpace does it’. What makes for ‘good software’ is a subjective decision. Here are some characteristics people tend to lump together:

• Widespread
• Popular
• Enjoyable
• Powerful
• Easy to Use
• Revenue-Generating
• Well-Designed

MySpace is widespread, popular, revenue-generating, and enjoyable for its users. Ok. Is it well-crafted? Maybe the fact that it’s users enjoy it suggests that it is well-crafted. I think the best way to put my position here is that I’m in a different faction. As with David Hansson speaking of ‘Enterprise Java Architects’:

So by Enterprise, Architect, and Enterprise Architect standards, this gent must be the top of the pop. Thus, allow me to make this perfectly clear: I would be as happy as a clam never to write a single line of software that guys like James McGovern found worthy of The Enterprise.

If Ruby, Rails, and the rest of the dynamic gang we’re lumped together to represent, is not now, nor ever, McGovern Enterprise Readyâ„¢, I say hallelujah! Heck, I’ll repeat that in slow motion just to underscore my excitement: HAL-LE-LU-JAH!

If the software I like, the software I’m influenced by and the whole user-experience oriented gang we’re lumped together to represent, is not now, nor ever, similar to MySpace™, I say hallelujah!

I guess it works, but can’t imagine what thought process would culminate in deciding that ‘Cancel’ should be a button and ‘Connect Now’ should be a link.

Screw you guys, I’m already onto building Web 3.0! HAH! In other words: I’m unsubscribing from all feeds that use the term ‘Web 2.0′ in more than one entry a month! I’m sick of hearing about Web 2.0!

Bah, Michael is just behind the times. He’s like the Catholic Church irritated about Galileo. Personally, I’m all for Web 2.0, being the Chief Financial Officer for a hot new company—p.et/s—that Dr. Dave just unveiled:

This time around, we’ll be using AJAX and RSS technologies. You won’t have to reload a single page to order your dog food. Just. Brilliant.

Please send your contributions to the first round of funding via Paypal.

We’ll tag the food by taste and brand name, and then map the tags using variable font size! We’ll integrate with Flickr, so in return for a picture of your cat, you get virtual money spendable anywhere our proprietary currency is supported! I get to sip champagne on charactered jets while flying across the world on ‘crucial business trips’! All employees get paid in stock options! What’s not to like? Join us in irrational exuberance, it’s Web 2.0, after all!

Gah! Even the rants are about Web 2.0 now! —Joey Brooks

I know people are sick of hearing stuff like ‘Ajax’, but at least it’s a legitimate descriptor for a certain application of technology. Even fuzzy stuff like ‘The Long Tail’ means something. ‘Web 2.0′ means nothing; the phrase is useless. Unless you were aching in search of a marketing term to obscure your technology offering, hoping to bluff your way into taking a huge unredeemable investment, itching to revel in the aforementioned bubble scenario.

Somewhere along the line people forgot that Flickr, del.ico.us etc. are just good software, not heralders of a revolution. For example, tags are just keywords; they won’t solve all your problems. You can’t package a handful of design patterns into a ‘oh my god, technology revolution!’ concept and expect to deliver it with a straight face. Wait—apparently you can, and have bunches of people buy in, hook, line and sinker. But I suppose you can’t fault software geeks for having their eyes light up upon noticing ‘DotCom Bubble, Reloaded’ coming their way.

Here’s a ‘meme map‘ for Web 2.0.

The meme map is visual indication that “Web 2.0″ has joined “SOA” as a buzzword that is too ill-defined to have a serious technical discussion about. It is now associated with every hip trend on the Web. Social Networking? That’s Web 2.0. Websites with APIs? That’s Web 2.0. The Long Tail? That’s Web 2.0. AJAX? That’s Web 2.0. Tagging and Folksonomies? That’s Web 2.0 too. Even blogging? Yep, Web 2.0.

I think the idea and trend towards the ‘Web as a platform’ is an important one and I find it unfortunate that the discussion is being muddied by hypesters who are trying to fill seats in conference rooms and sell books.
—Dare Obasanjo

By the way, why are they specifying it to a tenth of precision if they can’t decide what it means?

What’s my point here? Simple: don’t say “Web 2.0″. It makes you sound clueless. Do you want to sound clueless? You wouldn’t say things like “vertically integrated solution leveragance” or “synergetic paradigm shift”, now would you? Web 2.0 belongs in the same category—phrases enunciated by gaping idiots to signify that they don’t have anything particular to say.

Dare identifies some common points of the phenomenon referred to as Web 2.0: having an API, taking advantage of collective intelligence, harnessing the long tail. Notice that they’re absolutely independent of each other: Google and Amazon implement all three; UrbanDictionary uses mainly the second; Rhapsody, just the last. Determine which concept you wish to talk about, and say exactly that. Do not be a dolt—don’t say ‘Web 2.0′! Refer to ‘the emerging web’ if you absolutely must.

In any case, what staid, sedate person would run a released, versioned iteration of the web anyway? Web Unstable for life!

In IE7, we will fix as many of the worst bugs that web developers hit as we can, and we will add the critical most-requested features from the standards as well. Though you won’t see (most of) these until Beta 2, we have already fixed the following bugs from PositionIsEverything and Quirksmode:

• Peekaboo bug
• Guillotine bug
• Duplicate Character bug
• Border Chaos
• No Scroll bug
• 3 Pixel Text Jog
• Magic Creeping Text bug
• Bottom Margin bug on Hover
• Losing the ability to highlight text under the top border
• IE/Win Line-height bug
• Double Float Margin Bug
• Quirky Percentages in IE
• Duplicate indent
• Moving viewport scrollbar outside HTML borders
• 1 px border style
• Disappearing List-background
• Fix width:auto

In addition we’ve added support for the following

• HTML 4.01 ABBR tag
• Improved (though not yet perfect) <object> fallback
• CSS 2.1 Selector support (child, adjacent, attribute, first-child
  etc.)
• CSS 2.1 Fixed positioning
• Alpha channel in PNG images
• Fix :hover on all elements
• Background-attachment: fixed on all elements not just body

Four years late, and still way behind most other browsers, but at least it’s something, right? No more guillotine bug! Attribute selectors! :hover and even :first-child pseudoselectors! Fixed positioning! My cup runneth over.