Pascal Van Hecke – Daily Links

Platform-as-a-service, with integrated IDE, object database and javascript as server-side programming language. Founded by 3 ex-Googlers, went live december 2007.
You _can_ host the created applications yourself (java middleware)

(Executive editor of Wired) Kevin Kelly's book in progress.
Unfortunately most of the postings are too long and too philosophical for quick reading snacks. I guess I'll wait for the book then…
(exrss tag indicates rss unsubscription)

"Yahoo! Query Language. YQL treats everything on the Web like a database table; the syntax will be familiar to anyone who's ever used MySQL. [...] all YQL calls need to be signed with oAuth. As long as you are absolutely sure you're not revealing a consumer key that is also used to access user data for some other application, a two-legged oAuth call can be done entirely on the client side with JavaScript."
By Yahoo's Kent Brewster

While Bill Thompson is one of the smartest commentators out there, and I enjoy him on the Digital Planet podcast, his blog with musings and opinions didn't add enough value to the heap of tech opinion blogs I already follow…
(exrss tag indicates rss unsubscription)

"I've taken a crack at creating a typology of what I'll call "network strategies." By that, I mean the various ways a company may seek to benefit from the expanded use of a network, in particular on the Internet:
- Network effect
- Data mines
- Digital sharecropping
- Complements
- Two-sided markets
- Economies of scale, economies of scope, and experience"

Useful classification of Cloud Computing by Tim O'reilly:
# Utility computing (Amazon, Azure)
# Platform as a Service (Force.com, Google App Engine)
# Cloud-based end-user applications

Discrepancy: "Study found Internet users claim to be very conscious about their privacy and guarded about their personal details. Some 84% said they would not give away income details online, however, 89 percent actually willingly did – without any pressure or persuasion."
The actual numbers are at http://www.privacygourmet.com/blog/2008/07/in-june-aol-con.html

Nic Carr points to an interesting analogy to blogging: amateur radio:
"When "the wireless" was introduced to America around 1900, it set off a surge in amateur broadcasting, as hundreds of thousands of people took to the airwaves [...]
But it didn't last. Radio soon came to be dominated by a relatively small number of media companies, with the most popular amateur operators being hired on as radio personalities. Social production was absorbed into corporate production [...] A lot of amateurs continued to pursue their hobby, quite happily, but they found themselves pushed to the periphery. "

"the average "front page" (note, by the way, how the mainstream-media term is pushing aside the more personal "home page") is nearly a megabyte, and three-quarters of the blogs have front pages larger than a half megabyte"
(Nic Carr quote on this study, http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/11/who_killed_the.php)
Images and scripts are the largest contributors to size