"Russell" found this amazing chart showing the changes in the Sillicon Valley job market for Java and C++ programmers: from 55,000 job opennings in May 2000 to under 2000 in July 2002.  Ouch.

"Dave" has finally picked up the mop to clean up RSS fork mess, starting with a roadmap to RSS 2.0.  For a brief history of that mess in the making, see Mark Pilgrim's story.  My opinion is that if you change RSS into something entirely different from what it used to be, you shouldn't call it RSS.

I have been using .NET for about a year now, playing and exploring mostly.  Its good stuff except for some minor showstoppers like memory footprint.  For example, I wrote a XUL engine for .NET.  Binary itself is less than 100K, but its memory footprint is 10 meg.  Its not my code either because a HelloWorld application requires similar memory footprint.  Either there is a trick I am missing or .NET is just for large applications and servers.  If anyone has a diet pill for .NET, let me know.

One-to-many IM application like Instant News is vulnerable to spamming and other abuses.  An obvious article titled "Consumers to Marketers: Don't IM Me" discusses public opinions on IM spamming.

When it comes to delivering advertising via instant messaging (IM), marketers and broadband-service providers should take a hard look at what they're doing, according to a study from broadband-software developer BroadJump Inc. Spam is a no-no, and banner ads largely go unnoticed as consumers see the IM space as very personal.

This is a hard problem to get around without digital identify.  For example, spam filters are not accurate with only individual sentences as context.

Here is a source of information for IM market news.

Software adoption is a key component of success, most often a stumbling block.  Reality of software adoption often leads to inferior architectures such as server-based solutions that uses browsers like dumb terminals.  Most of web applications are based on such inferior architectures.  Lack of rich clients leads to complex and akward solutions for common problems like identity, discovery, session management, scalability, workflow, interactivity, and bandwidth.  Deeper understanding the dynamics of software adoption is essential for success.  Some observations on software adoption:

People dislike installing plugins.  With the exception of well known plugins such as Acrobat and Flash, plugin software adoption is a discouraging proposition.  I think this is because, for most plugins, the perception of security risk is higher than apparent benefits offered by those plugins.  Acrobat and Flash plugins both offer visible and significant benefits as well as being well known: a well travelled road to a place where people wants to go.  Another contributing factor is that plugin installation is encountered in route, that is while you are surfing, and people don't like being interrupted.

People don't mind installing programs.  It is strange that, while people don't usually install plugins which are usually small in size, they are perfectly willing to download and install programs which are much larger.  I think one of the reasons for this disparity has to do with visibility.  Programs are clear visible, their locations are known, and they sit until you invoke it.  On the other hand, plugins are often not visible, location is unknown, and they are invoked by artifacts from outside (aka web pages).

Above two observations leads me to think that a set of plugins packaged as a program has a better chance of adoption than a lone plugin.  An alternative is to package a set of plugins as a service that manages and updates plugins automatically.  I think Business Browser can benefit from such a service.

Still not settled down yet with blogging.  I think I'll limit myself to one paragraph posts mostly and occasionally write stories. "bullet" Playing with some Radio Shorts to symbols like the "bullet" and "delta". "bullet" Business Browser should have builtin support for blogging, inline IM, instant outline, drawarea (graphical version of textarea). "bullet" Blogging styles I have noticed are: IdeaLog (me), RootLog (places where everyone goes), NewsLog (links to stories), DiaryLog, and LinkLog (surfers posting links to interesting links), and SubjectLog (flash blog). "bullet" Are there PornLogs?  I haven't noticed any so far. "bullet" SpamLog could be useful source amusement. "bullet" WebCam, a idea I worked on 9 (?) years ago could be used for blogging.  This idea is not the 'big brother' WebCam product. "bullet" Well, end of five minute. "delta"

"Dave" apparently enjoyed my comment on RSS although he is not sure what I meant.  Thanks Dave for assuming the best intentions.  Let me try to explain before I get entraced by some new ideas.  RSS 1.0 was a mistake in my view because it took too big a leap of change and it anticipated too much.  Ignore RSS 1.0 and evolve RSS like the way you have with RSS 0.94.

"Dave" also disagreed with my comment that a weblog system can be written over a weekend.  He is right in a way.  First, there is no clear set of minimum functionalities for a weblog system.  I can graft simple CMS features into my Docuverse server over a weekend and call it finished, but a system like that is never finished.  It keeps evolving and new features are added at every turn.  For example, I could get a way with using textarea for post with customer markup hints, but an in-place WYSIWYG XML editor like Xopus is great for posting.  Radio is a great example.  New features are added constantly and no end in sight.

Rephrasing my previous comment: a programmer can get into years of trouble over a weekend.  There and Back Again in Blogspace.

I remembered what I missed in my last post on Instant News: Instant Outliner.  "Dave"'s Instant Outline idea is ideal for many-to-many persistent instant messaging needed for Instant News.  Some new features needs to be added (i.e. mouse click notifications) for voting-with-your-click approach to polling and ranking.

At this point, I am thinking about what topic expert specific features are needed.  For example, there is the problem of noise for lurkers who just wants the news details and insightful discussion on the news.  Experts could filter the noise by starting their own subchat with approved co-experts and forward selected popular statements using mouse clicks.

Instant Newsie

I have a name fetish because packaging is important and names are packaging for ideas.  Instant Newsie seems like a good name for people who participate in Instant News events…