Peter’s last blog spelled out some major problems with Apple “stifling innovation”.  With the FCC now involved with the battle between Google and Apple over the rejection of the Google Voice Mobile app, it’s got me thinking…

As developers, we deal with technical limitations and licensing restrictions all the time.  Commercial and open-source licenses clearly spell out what you can and can’t do (legally) within a platform or framework.  This ensures that when we build applications that use an existing framework or integrate a 3rd party application, the copyright holder’s “program” is preserved and no laws are broken.

What if a platform’s restrictions weren’t disclosed entirely to developers?  Or worse, what if the owner of the platform arbitrarily decided which applications were allowed or restricted regardless of whether they followed the guidelines provided?  Wait, isn’t that what Apple’s doing?

Apple may finally be in over their heads after rejecting a perfectly legitimate app, Google Voice, and then lying about it!

There are a number of core iPhone apps that are powered by Google, such as Search, maps, YouTube, etc.  Apparently, Apple feels that Google is taking over too much core functionality of the iPhone.  Since the Google Voice app provides alternative functionality to the iPhone’s core phone application, perhaps Apple feared they would essentially be turned into a hardware manufacturer for a Google-dominated device.

You can read more about the insanity on techcrunch:
The Truth: What’s Really Going On With Apple, Google, AT&T And The FCC

By now, it seems that the web has become the platform to share information across all industries.  In fact, many young professionals these days have no idea how documents and information exchanged hands prior to the web.

The truth of the matter is that, over the years, painstaking efforts have gone into the organization and layout of content in the printed format.  In some cases, a tangible, printed document can’t be converted to live online (as HTML) without major transformation.

This post is actually inspired by a blog titled “Unwebbable” by Joe Clark.

Clark states: “A sheet of paper provides complete authorial freedom, but that freedom can translate poorly to the coarse semantics of HTML”.  It really does seem that we sometimes force information into the constraints of HTML syntax.

Clark uses film screenplays as a working example of this dilemma.  Screenplays are custom-engineered so that one printed page is equivalent to one minute of onscreen time.  And through a refined structure of indents and capitalization, it’s easy to scan the pages of a screenplay and quickly decipher the contents.

The problem is that the term “page”, as used on the web, is strictly metaphorical.  Web pages, in most cases, are not restricted by length or amount of content.  Also, extensible HTML (XHTML) is really not completely extensible. HTML does not have enough tags for the semantics of a screenplay, which would require that nearly everything have its own tag.

Other print formats that don’t translate well to the web: Mastheads, callouts & sidebars, footnotes, math & science notation.

Will we continue to extend digital formats to accommodate every industry-specific document?  Will websites attempt to emulate print formats and scientific notation through HTML, XML, or javascript?

The natural solution that comes to mind is XML.  Through the use of custom XML document-types, we  may be able to accomplish this going forward.

According to StatCounter, Bing has become the number two search service in the U.S. and also the world.  Yahoo Search dropped to number three as Bing has gained over 16% of the market share in just a few days.

There are a couple of theories about this.

1. People are just trying it out.
   With the release of any new service that’s promoted as heavily as Bing, there’s sure to be a surge in use from people who are just curious.  Only time will tell if this is the case or if Bing can retain its new users.
2. Bing was Forced on people still using IE6.
   According to TechCrunch:

   “The Next Web reports that users of Internet Explorer 6 are being forced to use Bing as their default search engine — even if they’ve manually switched their preference to another search provider, like Google. Attempts to switch the browser to something other than Bing result in an error message.”

   Whether or not microsoft receives backlash from this move, it’s an interesting marketing tactic.  It’s a strange coincidence that IE6 users account for roughly the same number of users that Bing has gained…

Obviously, iPhone applications are the new craze.  One billion (1,000,000,000!) apps have been downloaded in a very short period of time, and with the upcoming release of iPhone OS 3.0 this number is sure to skyrocket.

With all this exposure, it makes sense that advertising within this platform would have a higher than normal return on investment.  A recent report from Greystripe reveals that iPhone users average 9.6 minutes per app.  I’m not entirely sure what this translates to in the world of advertising, but let’s look at Volkswagen’s “Polo Challenge 3d“.  I honestly have no idea how much it cost to develop this game, but nearly one million users have downloaded the app.  Exposing their product to that many people for an average of 10 minutes at a time should be very effective in theory.  On top of that, their audience chose to download the interactive advertisement.

Speaking of advertising demographics… according to Mobile Marketer, more than half (54 percent) of application users are in households with incomes greater than $75,000 per year.

How much would you pay for 10 minutes of undivided attention from one million enthusiastic individuals who are fully capable of purchasing your product?

Just a thought…

I’ll come right out and say it…IE6 is a dirty word around the office.  I don’t want to bash Microsoft or any IE6 fans out there, but as web developers, there’s nothing more frustrating than having to comply with a nearly 10 year old browser.  It’s been estimated that a staggering 20% of total web development time is spent catering to Internet Explorer 6.  On top of that, there are a lot of amazing design and functionality ideas that are shot down because the potential for catastrophic failure in IE6 is imminent.

I could go on all day about the limitations of IE6, but the fact that it still holds 15% of the browser market share is interesting.    I’m guessing the majority of this statistic is made up of corporations with legacy intranet applications that they feel will cease to function if they switch to a modern browser.

It seems that the success of IE6 (when it was released) has become the “ball and chain” of  web development evolution.  So many applications and web services have been devoted to standards set by IE6 from 2002 until recently.  This is due to the fact that it had always accounted for 50 -80% of the browser market.

The good news is, I doubt this scenario will be repeated any time soon.  The combination of a variety of available web browsers and new web standards could prevent a phenomenon like this from happening again.

However, who’s to say that another widely accepted application or software solution won’t tie us down for another 10 years due to the sheer volume of applications developed during its prime.  Only time will tell.

Looking at our production schedule for the next few months, it dawned on me that it consisted primarily of web services and online systems.  We’ll always have a soft spot for standard web sites and content managment systems, but it’s exciting to see the innovative ideas flowing through bottlecap these days.

With the economy slumping and consumers hanging on to more of their money, new online markets and opportunities are popping up for entrepreneurs.  Web development seems to be on the rise as an affordable way to take advantage of an amazing idea.

It also seems that existing companies are re-evaluating their business models in order to cut costs and find new revenue streams without restructuring  or sacrificing quality. What better outlet for this than the web.  Automating a portion of a company’s offerings through an online system can provide tremendous value as well as establish new business.

I recently starting using Xobni (pronounced ‘Zob-nee’), and I must say that I was blown away.  Very rarely do I come across a plug-in or application that gets me excited enough to update my facebook status, but Xobni did the trick.

Imagine receiving an email from a new client and instantly being able to see what they look like, where they work, who they’ve worked with in the past, mutual contacts, pictures of their kids…  Xobni is a plug-in for Outlook that integrates social networking and amazing reporting into your daily correspondence.

Once it’s setup, Xobni will use your facebook, linked in, and other services to compile a profile for that contact.  On top of that, it offers email analytics such as response time, average received emails, and when you most frequently receive emails.

Bill Gates called Xobni “the next generation of social networking”, and credited it with leveraging the data in email to help users better manage their relationships.   He may or may not be right, but it has changed the way I use my inbox.

Here at bottlecap, we spend a lot of time building web forms for all kinds of projects. Personally, I don’t have anything against forms. The information architect in me enjoys the challenge of organizing and validating a user’s input in a way that makes sense to them, and ensuring that the information received is accurate. As an avid fan of digital services and generally impatient person, another part of me view forms a bit differently.

I recently read an article by Luke Wroblewski (author of Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks) titled Sign Up Forms Must Die. It really got me thinking about the concept of gradual engagement. Why do websites spend so much time and money marketing their “revolutionary” web services, and then hide the experience behind a ten step signup process. If the service is a good fit for a user, the experience itself should be the strongest selling point.

Gradual Engagement bridges the gap between offering a fully functional service (without hasseling the user at all), and collecting the vital information needed to successfully market and maintain a web service. Basically, information is collected during use of the service, or when the user wishes to complete the process (i.e. publish a video).

It’s kind of like dating, the user gets to know the service without having to make a major commitment. This leads to more exposure for the web service and better first impressions.