Checking Out of the Hotel

beppu / 2008-02-28 14:43:04

AOL Workshop

  • chat widget
  • revenue share

UserPlane Boards—a realtime forum

  • API

Widgets and Monetization

  • Build – create right widget for you and your users
  • Distribute – get your widget out there
  • Analyze – can’t see
  • Monetize – can’t see

Build

  • Define your goals
    • (What do you want the widget to do for you?)
  • Understand customer appeal and value
  • What will the widget do (functionality)
  • Personalization
  • Performance

Distribute

  • Your site
  • Galleries
  • Snag / Grab / Copy
  • Social
  • Scale

Analyze

  • Understand how your widget is being used and improve…
  • Once your widget is out there, what tools will you use to understand how users are engaging with your widget? You should be asking questions like:
    • How many people are using your widget day-to-day?
    • Where are users coming from?
    • What environment are they using?

Monetize

  • Widgets as Ads
  • Ads Within Widget
  • Transactional Widgets (widgets that facilitate money transfer?)

beppu / 2008-02-28 14:43:25

Arriving at Srini's Apartment in Hollywood, CA

beppu / 2008-02-28 14:34:51

Arriving in Miami

beppu / 2008-02-28 14:39:32

Checking In to the Hotel

beppu / 2008-02-28 14:40:53

Dinner

beppu / 2008-02-28 14:41:29

Looking for a Better Hotel

hehe.

beppu / 2008-02-28 22:04:17

Lunch

The FOWA people provided bag lunches with:

  • a sandwich
  • potato chips
  • a cookie

They also provided soft drinks.

After lunch, we found a table to sit at and worked on MetaNotes.

beppu / 2008-02-28 19:05:07

Tantek and Brian

intro

beppu / 2008-02-29 14:21:03

Kathy Sierra

Cognitive Seduction 3.5

  • Legacy Brain (not your friend)
    • How do we get through to users?
  • Chemistry
    • The short path is to get people to feel something.
  • What makes people feel?
    • Scary
    • Novelty
    • Surprises
    • Cuteness
    • Joy
    • Mystery (things that are not fully resolved)
    • Thrill
      • Diane Ackerman—Deep Play
  • Key Point: LEGACY BRAIN (cater to it)
  • haha
  • Where there is passion, ...there is a user “kicking ass”.
  • (Sideways—wine snob movie?)
  • Being better is better. (Nobody is passionate about something you suck at.)
    • Suck Threshold vs. Passion Threshold
    • Get your users past the passion threshold as soon as possible. (That’s our job.)
  • But it’s not about the tools we build.
  • It’s not about being a “tool” expert.
  • It’s about what our tools let them DO.
  • Usability is merely a prerequisite.
  • What do you help your users kick ass at?

Why are you here?

  • In the beginning, there was the waterfall…. (requirements don’t change)
  • then the spiral (requirements do change)
  • then rapid? (requirements? lol)
  • TELEPATHY DRIVEN DESIGN
  • Design by Mind Reading
  • Facial expressions are important.
  • Movement is important.
  • Mirror neurons allow us to run simulations of another person’s brain.
  • Key: It’s not about reasoning.
  • In order to understand your users, you have to (physically) see them.
  • We need:
    • Prior Experience
    • Careful Observation
  • Bad news: You must observe “live” users.
  • Good news: It’s very powerful.
  • Give your app a way to know they are confused.
  • Add a “WTF?” button. ;-)
  • remember, even if your tool is easy, what about the thing they do with the tool? (people can still be confused.)
  • The point is to let users express their confusion.
  • Touch matters.

beppu / 2008-02-29 14:21:43

Matt Mullenweg (Creator of Wordpress)

The Architecture Behind WordPress.com

  • Scaling
    • Platform
    • Business
    • Community
    • People
  • Don’t underestimate spam

Scaling Platform

  • Matt’s Magic Mini-Cluster
  • 7 Boxes = $1500/month
  • 2 Load Balancers
    • Any CPU
    • 2 GB memory
    • Any disk
    • Pound + Wackamole + Spread
  • 2 Databases
    • Any CPU
    • 4 GB memory
    • Fast disks, RAID
    • Master + Slave MySQL setup
  • 3 Webs
    • Fast CPU
    • 2 GB memory
    • Any disks
    • Well-configured $Web_Server
  • HyperDB – wordpress’ db layer – only thing that’s fancy
  • put everything in subversion (or some source control system)
  • Be stateless
  • memcached

Scaling Community

  • (bootstrap your community by being your own most passionate user)
  • institutionalize serendipity
  • let people personalize
  • http://ma.tt/about

Scaling Business

  • Upgrades
  • He advocates against flat rates.
  • He likes a-la-carte style (...like a good buffet).
    • But it didn’t quite work.
  • Ads
    • Only show ads to certain users.
  • VIP

Scaling People

  • Great People = Rich Environment + Worthwhile Problems
  • Passion for (the) Space
  • Personality Fit
  • Ability to Learn / Curiosity
  • Familiarity with Technology (don’t over-emphasize)
  • Taste (you can’t really teach this)
  • Say No (if you get any red flags)
  • Firing is hard, but don’t put it off.

Scaling Brand

  • P&G White == Ivory (proctor and gamble)
  • Words are Important

beppu / 2008-02-29 15:04:46

Some Guy From Sun

The past, present and future of the UI for Distributed Applications

this was a sun commercial

beppu / 2008-02-29 16:19:20

Brian Oberkirch, Tantek Çelik & Joseph Smarr

The Future of Social Networks

Brian

  • The Problem with Social Networks
  • Make them work together! (like the web)
  • Work like the web—Small pieces loosely joined.
    • Simplicity
    • Modularity
    • Decentralization
  • Why don’t social networks work like this today?
  • Identity Management is a big issue.
    • Your identity
    • The identity of your friends
  • How can we make social networks work together?
    • microformats
    • rss
    • oauth
    • openid
    • creative commons licensing

Tantek

  • XFN
  • hCard
  • The Social Graph API is an API for the whole web.
  • The next big step is to import and subscribe your relationship information.

Joseph

  • Being open has been very good for Plaxo.
  • impressive aggregation of identity.
  • We are on the cusp of the Social Web.
    • The pie is about to get a lot bigger.
  • (Plaxo has been around for 6 years, even before social networking took off.)
  • Innovation happens when you don’t have to ask permission.
  • You don’t have to be more public, but you CAN.
    • (this was a concen of mine)

beppu / 2008-02-29 16:26:29

Edwin Aoki of AOL

The Evolution of Web Applications: They’re Not Just for the Web Anymore

beppu / 2008-02-29 16:59:09

Blaine Cook of Twitter

Building The Real-Time Web

beppu / 2008-02-29 16:58:30

Leah Culver of Pownce

The Future of Web Services

beppu / 2008-02-29 17:00:35

Panel Discussion

Launch a Web App in 40 Minutes

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:07:57

Sean Siebel of Microsoft

Upcoming web-apps from Microsoft…

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:08:23

Gary Vaynerchuk of winelibrarytv.com

How to Grow a Community in The Future

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:17:55

Live Filming of Winelibrarytv Episode

with complimentary wine for the crowd.

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:19:05

Matt Marshall of VentureBeat

What Makes the Next Great Startup?

  1. x
  2. x
  3. x
  4. x
  5. x
  6. x
  7. x
  8. x
  9. x
  10. x
  11. x
  12. x

(The guy needs to work on his delivery.)

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:12:25

Party at Nikki Beach

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:20:11

Emily Boyd of Remember the Milk

From the web, to the iPhone and beyond!

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:14:36

Kevin Marks of Google

The Future of APIs

Lots of talk about OpenSocial and its implications.

During the Q&A session at the end, people expressed their concerns about privacy.

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:16:20

Cal Henderson of Flickr

The Application of New Features to an Established Application

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:17:22

Beach Party at Nikki Beach

...

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:22:18

Breakfast at Jerry's Deli

There was no way we could wake up in time for this.

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:21:32

wow

It was good to see her back in action after her long hiatus.

beppu / 2008-03-01 17:22:51

FOWA Comment Wall

It was great talking to you guys at the FOWA after party. Best of luck with MetaNotes! – luke from awesomehighlighter

lbrdn / 2008-03-03 16:14:52

Picking up Matt from Ft. Lauderdale

beppu / 2008-02-28 14:40:03

Departing from LAX

beppu / 2008-02-28 14:39:07

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