Google Checkout has launched and I like it. It is not a direct PayPal competitor as some suggested but instead provides a checkout system for online stores and central place to store payment and delivery details for shoppers. Effectively Amazon could outsource their checkout steps to Google. You could then use your Google Account to buy products from Amazon.
This idea has been floated before but the problem was one of reputation. Google though just may have the reputation to make the idea finally work.
Derek Lakin also made a good point about Froogle. With just one more component (an order-placing system from Google to the store) we could buy directly through Froogle without ever going to the stores website. Google would aggregate multiple store products, show them through the flexible Froogle interface and let you buy through Google Checkout. A common ecommerce interface.
UPDATE
And in another move Google has half-launched Google Account Authentication which is easily described as Microsoft Passport by Google. It isn’t quite the same and Google isn’t even saying it is (they say it is just for add-on functionality to their existing services like GCal and GMail) but you can be sure some sites will use it like Passport. IrishEyes broke the news to me.
I really enjoy how businesses are lightening up in the modern era. Stiff collars are being loosened, walls pulled down and the sausage making business revealed with the “we are as human as you” disclaimer working well.
Case in point is an email I got from NetFlorist today. It started thus:
We couldn’t think of anything humorous to say about Proteas and Gerberas
they are fantastic value at R150 and R160 respectively but just not really
funny flowers (unlike strelitzias, for example, which are just hysterical).
So, we thought we’d tell you a joke:
Q: What goes ha, ha, ha … bonk?
A: A man laughing his head off
The good news is that we are much better florists than comedians.
Terrible humour but rather clever as it leaves me feeling familiar and friendly towards what is a large corporate.
This is a lovely idea as it allows people to passively show what they are interested in. You don’t have to do anything extra. Just put the widget somewhere that people can see, have your Attention Recorder on and browse.
There is one problem with the widget though. As you can see my top “click” is pagead2.googlesyndication.com which I assume is some Google AdSense service and is not something I have ever actively clicked on. Next is BlinkList, GMail, Google and BlogLines. Those are all services that I use all day but are not terribly interesting to anyone else. You really don’t need to know I use GMail all day, it is my main email client.
The widget needs a filter list so that I can filter out these common sites and let you rather see the new sites and pages I am paying attention too. Hopefully the Root.net team can implement this.
I am off to the Sea Fair Haven 2006 in Wales for four days. Won’t have email or net access so this will be the last post for awhile and I won’t be able to handle email (anything important text me on +353 86 896 8944.) I bought a Vango Delta 200 tent and a Vango Ultralight II 900 sleeping bag, I’ll report on how they faired.
So till Tuesday morn’ when I’ll be bringing back a hangover, blistered hands, bruised shins, lots of photos and a big grin. Enjoy the weekend all.
I wasn’t sure this was going to work but fantastically it does. Maybe I am ignorant but I think this is pretty handy.
You are working on a local Ruby on Rails app and you have your local webrick server running. Now you want to show your team mate your local copy but on their machine and in their browser.
Normally you run Webrick with ruby script/server and that fires up a server on http://127.0.0.1:3000/.
But to share it with your mate that won’t work (127.0.0.1 is localhost and peculiar to your machine.) Instead you can simply run Webrick like so; ruby script/server -b machinename (where machinename is your computer’s network name.) That will then make your Rails app available to your team mate on http://machinename:3000/. You can put in an IP address instead of a name if you want.
Apple, iTunes and his Nano are all potentially-connected segments of the same silo
Semi-ideally*, Ed is right. Apple is the silo and Apple is all knowing of my Apple.com, Apple Store, iTunes and nano silos.
But who here has worked in a large company with large databases spread across a large range of concepts? Ten to one the arse of Apple doesn’t know what the head of Apple has stored on me. Ten to one there is not a central Apple identity and attention server that aggregates all my Apple activites. I’ll bet my iTunes attention data is separate to my Apple Store attention data. They are probably running different systems in there with no linkage.
I don’t even need to go into Apple HQ to know this. My nano and my iTunes’ silos are already broken. I use last.fm and think it is a wonderful service. Before I got my nano I played 90% of my daily music on my laptop. That 90% was reported through iTunes to last.fm. However I now have a nano and that “what music has Paul played today” link has been broken. When I jack my nano into my laptop every evening iTunes does not suck down the play data and send it onto last.fm**. I actually cannot see what iTunes does with my nano data.
Another example is iTunes and the music I have bought elsewhere. I’ve ripped all my “physical” CDs into iTunes yet when I go to the Apple Music Store and check out the “recommended” lists I will often find recommendations to albums I already own. iTunes and the Apple Music Store are not communicating. They have all this play and asset data on me yet fail to link it all up.
So while they may conceptually be segmented areas of one mega-silo they are effectively separate silos.
* I say semi because ideally my “Apple” silo wouldn’t be one. Currently there is a silo there though and if it has to remain then ideally it should not be segmented.
** Technically there are plug-ins for iTunes that link your iPod to your last.fm account. I have tried at least three and could not get them to work. Considering I am a developer you’d think I could figure it out.
Don Dodge (via Jeff Clavier) reports on 7 features enterprise software needs. The interesting point is that they can just as easily apply to non-enterprise software. Isn’t this part of realising the independant and powerful nature of employees? Realising they aren’t cogs or resources? That we are demanding ownership of the tools we use in our companies.
The 7 features:
Instant Value to customers - solve a problem or create value with the first use
Viral adoption - Pull, not push. No direct sales force required
Minimum IT footprint, preferably none. Hosted SaaS is best.
Simple, intuitive user experience - no training required.
Personalized user experience - customizable
Easy configuration based on application or usage templates
Context aware - adjust to location, groups, preferences, devices, etc.
No more shall we use Lotus Notes because IT says we must.
