Kurt Jarchow's Blog

I set up a small e-commerce site for my sister-in-law the other day, who happened to read my recent post on apps impact on the web.  She asked me, half jokingly, “so does that mean I’ll have to create an app next?”.  I replied with something like “well I doubt someone will have to download an app whenever they want to purchase something”.  I probably should have followed this up with “And I doubt they’ll want to pay the 30% Apple surcharge”.  But that has me thinking…

I’m not a business major, but I do understand E-Commerce (I have a certification in it from UofT), and one of the major barriers for finalizing the purchase is trust.  How do I know I can trust this website with my credit card?  I’ve experienced these trust issues before, and even backed out of quite a few purchases by exiting a half-complete order form.  I see the Verisign logo, I can see locked icon in my address bar, but still…

Apple and Google, of course, can tear these barriers down by allowing you to purchase products using their payment process.

There is also the trust of the quality of their products, their return policies, and timely matter the purchase will take to finally reach me.  These are all mental barriers as well for making purchases.

Apple and Google already have a star rating and comments system in place to weed out the bad apps.  This could easily be applied to an E-Commerce application.

There are 2 things really that will have to happen in order for merchants to sell in-apps:

1. The seller must ultimately make enough sales to make up for the app store’s fee and;
2. People must be willing to download an app every time they want to purchase something.

Other thoughts:

I think Amazon will also have a big say in the space… but we’ll have to wait and see if they release a popular tablet.  You have to think they have this on their mind.

How could Google’s mobile payment factor into this?

One of the biggest things I’m looking forward to with iOS5 are the revamp of notifications (even though they still seem a little feature-light).

I think notifications will be very, very important.  Notifications are what will influence user attention to your application in the future.  Creating an app is a great start.  Getting noticed in the app store is an even bigger win.  The end game though will be to capture the repeat user attention by keeping them glued to your notifications.

This of course can’t be done with a web application.  Think of what notifications will do to user habits.  How much time will a user have left after they check all of these notification?  Would a user switch to a browser to check for updates for certain services if an alternative delivered it directly?  It’s hard for me to believe.  Technology is becoming increasingly on demand, and fast fast fast.  Any barriers will quickly sink an application.

It’ll be interesting what comes out of notifications.  We talked a lot about the “stream” of information, but that was usually thought of as Twitter or Facebook.  Notifications, I’d argue, are even more powerful.  This isn’t a stream of just your social circle or news, this stream is (potentially) much more dynamic and functional.  Edit: Just thinking back to history, Facebook wasn’t really Facebook until it adopted a “news feed” approach.  Lots of people hated it, but it then started to take off to the point where it became addictive.  Could push notification have the same effect or personal devices?

Side Note: I’ve written about this before, but what I really want is an intelligent assistant.  An intelligent assistant understands me, knows what I want, knows my habits, knows my friends, but also knows what I don’t know but would to know.  This is the holy grail for a personal device.  Notifications are a digital assistant to a certain degree: different applications know certain things about me, and what I want to know about their specific service, and it would deliver it directly to me.  I just don’t know how if a ordered list of unconnected notifications would qualify as an “intelligent” assistant.. but we’ll have to see.

I just wanted to write quickly in response to a post I just read about the comparison of the 4 main cloud storage systems: iCloud, Google, Microsoft SkyDrive, Dropbox, and Amazon.

While the post was good (and thorough) there are really only two important items to consider when you are trying to determine the success of the file sharing in the consumer world: transparency, and availability. When say ‘transparency’, I mean a functionally transparent, or “it just works, I don’t care how”. And by ‘availability’, I mean how many places that I care about allow me to access my files.

Who wins here? Easy, Apple.  (Notice I did say “consumer” market. )

People have been frustrated for years, and they just want something to work.  This will be the single biggest concept that will drive computing for the next x years, and very few companies are really understanding it.

I’d like to go on a tangent for a second to address something I’ve been thinking about for a few years, but only recently can I see it becoming possible.  When are we going to replace file uploading in the browser?  It’s surprising to me this hasn’t already started to happen.  By many reports iCloud will give developers access from a website, so when can I start applying to jobs using the CV I created on my iPad?  I’m guessing, since more and more people are browsing with mobile/tablets, this will happen soon.

I am so startled

I finally did it.  I bought an iPad.  It’s a white 16gig iPad2, and it instantly changed my day-to-day life.  I expected it would, but I didn’t except it to scare me in almost an equally pervasive way.

I am a web developer, and I’ve always stood up for web applications.  I love the openness and the freedom programming on the web offers.  It’s almost a religion, really.

If web ideology can be considered a religion, then the iPad is certainly the first (second?) crusade against it.  What I noticed, as I was flipping pages in Flipboard, scanning my Twitter feed in the Twitter app, and decapitating zombies in Plants vs Zombies, was that I was using the web less and less.

What’s worse, was that I was annoyed when I had to open a website.  When using Twitter or Flipboard, ultimately you need to open the website to read the entire article, and… the experience is AWEFUL.  Websites are consistently inconsistent in terms of fonts and layouts, and 90% of the content other than the article are completely useless (more so than in the browser).  The relaxing, zen-like experience of Flipboard is suddenly interrupted.

This scared the begeeses out of me.  The diversity and openness was something I was dreading and not celebrating.

The second thing that scared me was the realization Twitter social sharing and Flipboard’s curating was replacing the link.  That is something I didn’t think possible.  Now I know what you’re thinking, the link is still there!  That’s how you got there in the first place!  True, but did I even know where the link was pointing to?  Did I following any links from the main article??  No and no.  Didn’t care.  But there must have been someone who originally shared the link tho, right?  Yes, true.  But I can see links being shared in the future primarily from a small group of content creators, or a small group of fanatical curators (hardcore users).

What scares me equally is the response from Google in all of this.  What is the Web’s champion company doing for the web?  Well they gave us Android, which… uses native apps as well.  It floors me to understand why they haven’t supported webapps along side of their native apps.  Would any know the difference if Google included webapps in the Android marketplace?  An end user wouldn’t.  One article seems to suggest that this could happen “soon”, but as this post was written over a year ago, I won’t hold me breath.

Now what scares me the most, above all, by far, is the web has an unexpected ally: Windows 8.  Yes, that’s right, Microsoft, who has hated everything about the web since the beginning, risked much, including alienating their loyal developers, to put HTML5 and Javascript (aka webapps) as the language running Windows 8 applications.   I tell my friends who buy a Windows PC that they “are betting on the wrong horse”; how can I not be scared that they seem to be the web’s only ally?

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the web is going anywhere.  This isn’t a “the web is dead” article.  I think there are some major holes in my line of thinking here.. but I think it highlights some issues we as web developers are going to have in the future, and maybe how the web will change.   It also makes me a little bit more hesitant in trumpeting webapps in replacements of software.  Not specifically because of technical limitations, but because Apple hates them, and Google won’t support them.

I think when most people look at their e-commerce website users, they generally put them in the same category as those casual shoppers who walk by and admire the window displays.   The retailer really wants to make a good impression, but you’d never drag a window shopper into your store and start suggesting options (well most don’t).

I watched a video on internet sales that could change all that.   If you have a chance watch the video, it is truly an innovative idea.  It is a one-on-one video salesman who can help you with 3’s product and services.  Ding!  The light bulb goes off; how can this be applied to other situations?

I’ve been working a lot lately with Node.js and Websockets, but I’ve been a little stumped as to how to actually use this in a practical situation.   And you guessed it… although the previous example mentioned used flash, the HTML5 salesman could be born.  3LiveShop used an expensive looking system however, but I bet you could similar results with traditional, ready to use products.  Could the same be done by giving tablets to salesmen already working at retail shops?

I started thinking beyond company salesmen working one-on-one, and started to think of a website as a store instead of a website.  If I was a shopper and saw someone looking at the same product as me, I might strike up a conversation and ask what they thought, if they knew of something better, etc.  While products have had comments on them for years, it is really a whole other experience to chat with someone in realtime.  If I saw something them might like, could I share that product with them?  What if I wanted to shop collaboratively, not by accident, but with a friend online?  I could share a link in an email or chat, but that is a very awkward experience (I know).

What would you think of seeing more engagement on websites?  Would it freak you out?   Would it be helpful?  I’d love to see some experimentation.

When you think of the internet, you generally think of it as anonymous.   As liberating (and scary) as that is, it is also severely restrictive to what companies and other groups can create.   I know I am personally challenged with this everyday; I’d love to create certain features for clients, but am ultimately restricted by the trolls, spammers, and pranksters.

Unfortunately for the web, and everyone on it, there is only one solution: use your Facebook account.   While it is good to have the option, there are many situations where people don’t want to use my Facebook account.  I have a lot of experience in online recruiting, and I’ll tell you people do not want their personal and work lives mixing.

Could Google add a “Authenticated Account” layer to their authentication system?  They definitely could.   I read an article a few weeks back that they will add security by marrying phone numbers to Google accounts.  What about Twitter?  I know they already have authenticated accounts, but that’s only for VIPs.  Why not allow us simple folk to be authenticated?

An open system would be great, but I can’t see that being likely in the near future.  So I make a general plea: Please, please, please, give me authentic account options.

While considering my next phone purchase, I thought deeply on what I really wanted in a phone.  One of my asks: after my morning alarm wakes me in the morning I want it to start dictating relevant information.  I’d like to know what the weather is going to be like today, and any appointments I have, and if it’s garbage day, and if a movie I want to see is coming out.   I’ve seen this in movies… why don’t we have something like this available now?  The smart phone is the most personal tech gadget ever created, yet there is still plenty of room left making it personal.  Where is our friendly (sometimes sassy) smart digital assistant (SDA) we were promised?

To me, this is the holy grail of tech.   It is the digital compliment to our own brains.  Whichever tech company who executes this best will be crowned King.

I saw this article about an IBM team creating a digital Jeopardy opponent and I’d love to think artificial intelligence is a big part of the puzzle.  IBM doesn’t seem a likely candidate to bring this to consumers, so who will?

Google of course is the most likely company.  People who say Google should just stick to search and pass out dividends clearly do not think long term.  I think Eric Schmidt is the only CEO is the race that is indeed already thinking about this problem.  Microsoft is so far behind it would be hard to see them come back, but if they developed something wonderful like this, they could.  Balmer would have to go though.  Facebook is too busy trying to dominate social, which is a vital component, but only a piece of the pie.

So the questions is, which phone do I get?  I think the choice is obvious: my next phone will be an Android.  I hope I won’t have to wait too long though to have Kit read me my morning headlines though.

An asside: will the system running the SDA be owned by a single company, or can it be built openly?

Despite my history with the internet, and my love of Google products, Chrome is a tough sale for me.   The idea of a internet-based operating system is exciting, but the benefits of Chrome OS over using Chrome on a Win7 laptop seem sketchy.

So, what are the benefits over a Win7 laptop?  From what I can read, SPEED, SIMPLICITY, CONNECTIVITY, and SYNCING are Chrome’s main advantage (and maybe battery life).  Do these advantages tip the scale over what I’d miss from a Win7 laptop?  Hard to say.

Google hasn’t really defined Chrome OS’s positioning in the marketplace.  Despite advertisements suggesting it is a disposable machine, the costs of laptops are still expensive.  We won’t really know how much these devices will sell for until it is released, but will the really be under the $300 price tag?  I don’t think so, and to me that isn’t disposable.   Most likely, considering they’re hard-wired to carriers, they will be heavily subsidized ($0 price tag?), but I am not willing to add another monthly bill, and I don’t think many other consumers will either.

Where I think Chrome might work: educational and business environments (Update: that’s their strategy?).  If Google can convince enough organizations to switch to the Google way, these small machines will be a great and inexpensives productivity tool. $300-$500 may be “disposable” to an organization, certainly when you consider the cost saved by avoiding expensive IT setup costs of regular work PCs.  Chrome OS machines are not only disposable, but sharable.  Pass a netbook off to a coworker and they instantly have their own work session.  I don’t think Schmit has said so, but I believe that is their plan with these devices.

Verdict: As a consumer, I just don’t see enough benefit right now.  If I wanted a 2nd computer, I’d get a fancy new Android tablet.  For work and educational use I can see a real benefit in using a Chrome OS netbook, and I think they could really take off here.  We won’t be seeing banks switching over any time soon (ever), but small and medium businesses could really benefits from this solution.

Looking in the crystal ball… will Chrome OS be successful?  The greatest battle Google has is convincing people they can do everything they’ve traditionally done in Window on the internet.  In the coming years I don’t think people will need much convincing.. that concept is an unstoppable train at this point.  In the short term, however, Google will have to fight for every contract they can.  Also, Balmer and Microsoft won’t go down easy.  I would be very surprised if Windows 8 wasn’t much more internet friendly (but maybe too late to the party).  I’ll be bullish and say, despite the challenges, I think Google will have success with Chrome OS.

As an aside.. I have a hard time understand are Chrome Apps.   I’ve tried a few on my desktop Chrome (HuffPo, NYTimes, Flixster), and for each one I realize they looked like they were designed for the iPad.  The problem with this?  iPad apps were designed for a touch interface.  Why do these app developers think that these interfaces will work as a Chrome “App” when they really don’t work as a website?   Maybe this will be fixed when the OS matures.

I’ve been searching to try out a developer version of Google’s Living Stories for a while, and thanks to Google they just created a Wordpress plugin.  Thankfully, this blog is built on Wordpress so I had an available site already to try it out on.  The documentation is pretty good and I was able to get it going in about 20 minutes. (If you don’t know what Living Stories is, see health care example.)

It was neat to try, though it really complicated the Wordpress admin screen.  But, it did was it said it would, so I can’t complain.   I am not convinced of the UI, but I haven’t really seen a real commercial implementation.

I am guessing you are all expecting a link now to my example?  Sorry, I had to turn it off.  The theme required to use Living Stories is the Wordpress default, and although it looked easy to add it to my theme I didn’t want to be troubled.  Living Stories is meant for news agencies with lots of content, so it was kind of wasted on my small site.

Cool stuff though if you think it might enhance your site.

I read some where that there was a problem with using Facebook friends as actual friends.  Many people have well over 200 “friends” on Facebook, and in some cases they may not have even have met the person.  Definitely a problem when determining social relevance.

I was looking through the JSON API results from the photos feed and I realized something.  Now please excuse me if this is a pretty common technique (I haven’t read this before), but I realized you can use the photo tagged results to match “real” friends.  If you and a friend are tagged in the same photo, it’s a pretty good guess you two actually know each other.   You could probably even find likely “best” friends by using the frequency of tagged photos in the result sets.

I’m guessing Facebook has already taken advantage of this obvious technique, but it’s neat to know these new APIs make that possible for us.

Sample of JSON tags ouput:

         "tags": {
            "data": [
               {
                  "id": "820125496",
                  "name": "Kurt Jarchow",
                  "x": 24.4444,
                  "y": 31.9328,
                  "created_time": "2010-02-14T16:09:27+0000"
               },
               {
                  "id": "539581074",
                  "name": "Craig Jarchow",
                  "x": 61.1111,
                  "y": 32.7731,
                  "created_time": "2010-02-14T16:09:27+0000"
               }
            ]
         },