Adamcarew's Blog

lightweight models and cost-effective scalability

adamcarew — Tue, 11 May 2010 07:20:02 +0000

Websites today are able to start out very small and easily grow with demand and popularity. This is called using “lightweight models and cost-effective scalability” and a great example of this is the website Craigslist.

Craigslist is a free online community bulletin board that can be used to advertise anything from jobs on offer, houses for sale/rent, concerts, resumes and miscellaneous items for sale. The website also has discussion forums. Craigslist was founded by Craig Newmark in the San Francisco Bay Area in America. The site was founded in 1995 as a way for people living in San Francisco to keep up to date about all the local events in their area. Because the site became very popular over a short amount of time it grew more and more diverse. Today the website is used in over 50 countries and has been translated into 6 different languages. This is a massive feat considering that when it started it was run by just one man. Even now there are only thirty-two employees and the site gets over 20 billion page views a month. The site makes the majority of its money by charging users a fee for advertising rooms for rent and job postings, the fees are different in each city and country. However, a lot of items can be listed for free.

Craigslist is very similar to eBay, Amazon and another community bulletin board site Gumtree. However, eBay and Amazon have large numbers of staff working to keep the site running. Gumtree uses the same sort ofconcept as Craigslist, however, it is not as popular and does not have the user base to harness the collective intelligence in the same way. I feel that Craigslist offers a more diverse range of products, for example you can find house sitters, language instructors and university tutors. The simple design of the website means that with an increase of users and items, the site can be expanded quickly to accommodate the traffic.

I really enjoy searching for products on Craigslist and even though I only go on there a few times a month I always see new categories or an item that catches my eye.

Here is a quick video tour that I made:

Information was gathered from:

How Stuff Works

Wikipedia

Craigslist

Leveraging the Long Tail

adamcarew — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:02:37 +0000

Online shopping has become very popular over the last few years. When a person wants to start a new business, they have to consider many different factors before they can open their store. They must plan for issues ranging from the crowd they are specifically targeting all the way through to the location of the shop. Selling online solves many of these issues. Because online businesses are a very open environment, people nowadays are able to start an online store that would do just as well, and in some cases better than a store in a shopping centre or street front. I feel that there are also many advantages to shopping online, for example, no looking for a car park or waiting in long lines. With online shopping you can read detailed reviews and get recommendations on products. There is also a much larger range of items as the companies are not having to deal with limited shelf space.

ThinkGeek is a perfect example of the way companies are taking advantage of this “leveraging the long tail” pattern. ThinkGeek is a self service online geek shop that sells truly unique science and technology related items.

ThinkGeek reminds me of Amazon, because when you sign in it displays recommendations based on your previous buying/browsing history. It has also adopted the “customers also bought X item” which was pioneered by Amazon. Users can submit reviews and even pictures that will be displayed on the items page. Amazon, eBay, Gizmodo and a large amount of other online science and technology sites stock ThinkGeek’s items, however, the ThinkGeek website offers a larger and more up to date range. There are also a lot of unique items that they do not display at the other sites. ThinkGeek also uses embedded YouTube videos, FaceBook pages and Twitter to advertise its stock. The business operates much the same as Dell, where the majority of the items are bought from other businesses and sold through their website. This provides users with a way to submit their own products for selling.

As technology advances so too will the range of items that can be bought from ThinkGeek.

Here is a video that I feel sums up ThinkGeek:

Information was gathered from:

ThinkGeek

Perpetual Beta

adamcarew — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:16:01 +0000

The Internet has revolutionised the software industry, especially the Web 2.0 and online applications industry. More and more websites are delivering their products via a “perpetual beta” process, that is, their product has never reached a final version and is in continuous beta, sometimes for many years. I feel that this is a fantastic idea, businesses can now keep up with demanding internet trends and constantly be ahead of the competition. I believe that users truly benefit from this beta process because instead of waiting for patches to be released or sent out, they can take advantage of the updates immediately. A great example that I found was Zamzar, a free online file converter that supports a plethora of file types. Zamzar was established in 1996 and if you think about it, it was a good idea to stay in beta, just consider all the file formats there have been since 1996 and how many more there will be in the future.

Zamzar Home Page

Even though there are many other free online file converters, such as Free File Convert, Zamzar has a large community of followers. Through the use of Blogs and Twitter, users can provide feedback and suggest new file types, thus helping the developers fine tune the website. This utilizes the community as co-developers and real time testers. Other sites, like Media Converter, only specialise in certain file formats and may not be updated as regularly and so may not encourage users to return.

Zamzar has features that could be used to illegally download protected content, this misuse of the website is covered by their privacy policy which states that “We may disclose your information if necessary to protect our legal rights or if the information relates to actual or threatened harmful conduct or potential threats to the physical safety of any person. Disclosure may be required by law or if we receive legal process”.

To provide its users with the best possible support, I believe that Zamzar will always be in beta. Websites that fit the “perpetual beta” pattern also have another great advantage, whenever something goes wrong, you claim you’re still in beta. Problem solved.

For a demo of how to use Zamzar watch my video walkthrough:

Information was gathered from:

Zamzar

Cnet

Wikipedia

Software Above the Level of a Single Device

adamcarew — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 07:07:49 +0000

Videogame releases are becoming bigger and more highly anticipated each year. Some companies believe that in a few years videogames will outshine Movies and Television. The Playstation Network (PSN) is an online community for videogamers that can be accessed from the Playstation 3, the handheld Playstation Portable (PSP) and any computer with internet access. The PSN has been setup so that players from all over the world can find and play games online with each other. Using A Playstation 3 or PSP and in some cases a PC, users can also download demos for up and coming games, buy and download new games or updates for their consoles or games. This, I feel, is truly Software above the level of a single device.

Playstation Console

PSP Go

There are many different online communities for videogame consoles and computers, like the PSN, Xbox Live, Games for Windows and the Nintendo Wii online community. Both Playstation and Nintendo have handheld consoles. The Nintendo DS has Wi-Fi capabilities for multiplayer gaming, but does not have access to an online community like the PSN for the PSP. The Wii has its own service. The Xbox does not have a portable console, however, since the Xbox is a Microsoft product, users of Games for Windows and Xbox live can communicate but not play games against each other. With the exception of the DS, all of these networks allow gamers from all over the world to play against each other and take advantage of an abundance of online content. When accessed from a computer, players can access forums and create competition ladders.

Xbox Live

Games For Windows

Wii Logo

Because there are a lot of issues surrounding violent video games, there are two different types of accounts that can be created to access all of the Playstation Network features, a Master account and Sub accounts. Master Accounts must be setup by a person over the age of 18 and they can then create Sub account with restrictions such as parental controls and the blocking of games with explicit content.

These sorts of cross platform online communities are popping up everywhere today and I for one am enjoying every one as is every other gamer I’m sure.

Information was gathered from:

Kotaku Article: Activision boss bets games will eclipse movies and TV

Kotaku Article: Movies vs Games

Rich User Experiences

adamcarew — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:35:29 +0000

With so many advancements in internet speeds and availability, website developers have been able to focus more on providing a rich user experience for movie buffs. IMDb.com (Internet Movie Database) presents a very user friendly and easy to navigate site where users can find a great deal of information.

IMDb.com is a massive database of information about T.V Shows and movie reviews, user reviews, news, trailers, polls, picture galleries, daily quotes, biographies and much much more. The majority of the information on IMDb.com is submitted by movie buffs around the world and the integrity of that information is checked by the website’s data managers. Twitter users can also follow updates and information about up and coming movies. The website text is able to be translated into different languages, with more and more becoming available all the time. The most used feature of IMDb.com is the message board feature. The message board consists of two different places, Sandbox and Soapbox, where users get together and talk about a range of subjects. The Sandbox is for users of all ages, while the Soapbox is more for adults to really vent their feelings about pretty much any topic.

While there is a plethora of websites about Television and Movies, IMDb.com is definitely the best. Compared to places like TrailerAddict.com and Movies.com which are quite young and very basic, IMDb.com provides its users with much more detailed and the latest information almost immediately. RottenTomatoes.com is quite a contender, although it doesn’t have as many features as IMDb.com and in my opinion it looks very cluttered. Because IMDb.com is built on user submitted information it could be compared to Wikipedia or Openstreetmap, however, this is not the case as contributors are not in control of modifying any of the data or text.

In today’s cut throat industry of website design, a lot of time and effort needs to be put in to immediately catch people’s attention and to keep them coming back. Without a strong and steady source of information and the right kind of designs it’s easy to see why a lot of websites fail.

Information was gathered from:

http://www.imdb.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Movie_Database

http://au.rottentomatoes.com/

http://www.traileraddict.com/

http://www.movies.com/

Innovation in Assembly

adamcarew — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:10:46 +0000

Websites can often be confusing and hard to navigate, especially when they specialise in a large range of different types of products. Innovation in Assembly makes it possible for users and companies to create their own websites. By collaborating information that is taken from an existing source, developers can produce websites that focus on a specific genre or faction. An excellent example of this sort of collaboration is FoxyTunes Planet.

FoxyTunes Planet is a music mash-up website that displays the photos, videos, news and lyrics of a massive variety of Artists. When a user searches for an artist like Pink Floyd, information from sources including Amazon, Last.fm, Yahoo search, Flickr, YouTube, Technorati and OpenStrands is displayed. Users can access any of these sites very quickly to buy or download albums and DVD’s or watch live performances on YouTube. The search result page is fully customisable with widgets like ITunes and internet radio stations which can be added or removed. Users can share the info from FoxyTunes Planet on FaceBook, Twitter and even on their Blog pages. Website mash-ups like this are a fantastic idea for users who may be interested in only one genre.

While there is an abundance of music websites on the internet today, FoxyTunes Planet makes it possible for users to search from numerous different databases at once without having to visit several websites. This innovative search idea is not available on a lot of other sites, even on some of the parent websites like Amazon. The developers of other sites like MusicTonic.com have the same sort goal, however, they are not using as many search sources and will find it hard to compete with FoxyTunes Planet.

Without the generosity of websites like Amazon and YouTube in allowing their users to become developers and the freedom to create new and innovative collaborations, it takes too long for relevant information to be located on the web. I feel there needs to be more collaborations between websites, so that in the future the internet becomes more and more user friendly.

More information can be found at:

http://www.foxytunes.com/planet

Data is the next “Intel Inside”

adamcarew — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:10:15 +0000

Oasisactive.com is a free dating website that allows people from all over the world to search for new friends or a relationship with a person with similar interests. Popularised by website advertising, news reports and movies such as ‘you’ve got mail’ and ‘Euro Trip’, using computers to find a person’s perfect match dates back as far as the 1970′s. The main issue that can make or break these kinds of web 2.0 websites is the size of their customer information database, therefore I feel that dating websites fit the pattern, Data is the next “Intel Inside”.

There are many different types of dating websites, including ones that target a specific group, from goths through to convicts. The main difference between dating websites is whether users have to pay for access or have full access for free. Websites such as eHarmony and RSVP will allow users to sign up to the service for free, however, when the users want to read a profile or contact another user they have to pay. Compared to the free access sites, people using the paid websites usually get more refined results. Oasisactive.com is completely free and is heavily administrated, with lots of activities set up for people to meet in real life.

There are a lot of issues when it comes to dating websites, such as some sites don’t cater for same sex relationships and with the amount of information required to join they are an easy target for identity theft. A major issue is that some sites don’t delete old profiles or keep track of when users last logged in. Even though a user has abandoned their profile, it may still show up in searches. In the future this user data could be sold to other companies and the user wouldn’t know.

Through processes like data mining, these websites can use the information in their database to adapt the website to appeal to a boarder range of users. Some websites now seem to only focus on money and data where previously the product was their main concern.

Information was gathered from the following websites:

www.oasisactive.com

http://soleunet.ijs.si/website/other/final_report/html/WP5-s7.html

http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/Online_Dating_-_Evolution/history

http://hubpages.com/hub/Weird-Dating-Sites

Harnessing the collective intelligence

adamcarew — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:37:49 +0000

As an avid pet and animal owner/lover this website jumped out as a fantastic idea. AnimalSN does an excellent job of harnessing the collective intelligence. The website is used by a strong community of people from around the world who are provided with a place where they can share information on a topic that interests them in confidence.

AnimalSN is a social networking website that allows its users to upload pictures and information about their pets. The users have the ability to share stories and meet other people who have similar interests in pets and animals. For example, the users can connect with other owners who have the same breed of pet.

I feel that AnimalSN has a different purpose to other social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace. As well as user status updates and the ability to comment on photos, there are forums, blogs and chartrooms where discussions can range across different topics from home renovations to computer repairs, making it very a very versatile source of user based information. AnimalSN is also a lot different from other Web 2.0 pet websites, such as www.mydogspace.com or www.mycatspace.com, where a great deal of the status updates are from the animals point of view. This is a good concept, however, these websites are limited in the type of users they attract, because anyone who is not an animal lover would find it quite bizarre. The methodologies behind AnimalSN keep the users coming back to share more and more information.

Even though the site would have little value to people without pets, it is an excellent resource for people who are thinking of getting a pet or who cannot own one, whether it is because of allergies or the place where they live.

Websites like AnimalSN show what kind of ideas can be brought to life with some imagination and love for something. AnimalSN is an excellent example of how harnessing the collective intelligence is not always about gaining profit but a way to share knowledge in a socially diverse way.

Adam Carew