We still have some work to do to best support the different hardware (better landscape views mostly). Other than that, it was pretty easy to create new assets for the different screen sizes...
What was more difficult was dealing with lower memory devices (like the G1). The app is best when used on a high end device (duh!) but at least it shouldn't crash on the lower end devices. This was not the case until we started getting reports from people with older phones. At some point they'd run out of memory and the app would die or behave very unexpectedly.
As I say in the original post (http://blog.tweetdeck.com/android-ecosystem), it's great that our app can run on so many different devices. It has been a bit more work supporting all the custom ROMs and hardware specs, but there are more difficult platforms to develop for.
One REALLY nice thing about developing for Android was that we could have a beta period that involved 36k users. Being able to distribute the APK outside the Market was a real blessing. It's much harder to test iPhone software before submitting it to Apple.
I find it distracting to hear sounds behind me (any form of surround) when the picture is in a two dimensional field in front of me. Especially when the effects tend to be breaking glass or bullets pinging off things.
You can use Musicmobs if you want that functionality. We offer a complete import of playcounts from iTunes when you first sign up. We also do other non-Last.fm type things like playlist trading and tagging. See my sig for details.
Yep, sounds about right. CNBC is airing The Ebay Effect next week signifying both the complete cluelessness of CNBC and the jumping of the shark of Ebay. Talk about being late to the party! Holy 1997 Batman.
Google is great for finding web pages, but why limit your searches to such a broad domain? Vertical search seems to be where all of the innovation is occurring. My guess is in the future we'll have very specific search engines tightly integrated with their relevant platforms.
For example you could do your music searching on your iPod or stereo, your yellow pages searches on your mobile phone, your video searches on your pvr. Of course it makes sense to expose a web front end to these engines as well, but it seems to me that using the web browser as your information acquisition platform is somewhat limiting.
While this is pretty unfounded, it does open the door to further speculation. My personal choice (if I were CEO of XM or Sirius) would be to acquire Real and merge my subscriber base with the Rhapsody subscribers. One account and you can stream Rhapsody to your computer or sat radio to your reciever. Personally, I'd subscribe to such a service.
Re:Technorati is News for Nerds
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Technorati Does Tags
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I'm suprised that Google isn't taking some of that sweet IPO cash and buying up all of these companies. I know I find more valuable information from del.icio.us than from Google, and that's simply amazing considering the size difference. I know the scope of their operations is different, but if Google's mission is "to help people find things" (not sure if it is or not), they should consider the folksonomy play.
For me, the joy (if you can call it that) of tv has always been that it's a somewhat passive experience. Sometimes you just want to sit back and not "search" for content. Of course, lately tv has been failing to provide this experience. The lack of quality programming means that I spend more time channel surfing than I would like.
Anyway, I think there's a big potential for tcp/ip video to replace the current distribution methods. The only hurdle is replicating that passive viewing experience. I think things like RSS go a long way towards achieving this. Instead of surfing/searching for video, by tying it to RSS you could just subscribe to "channels" and have the content pulled down to your machine (or links to it) almost immediately after it's published. Tie this in with some sort of search engine or recommendation system and you have a pretty powerful product.
Because, either way you're paying for the marketing. The costs to manufacture either product is probably negligible compared to the amount the entertainment industry spends marketing the end result.
Getting on MTV, "music" magazines (think Rolling Stone), the radio etc. isn't cheap.
I was under the impression that other developers could add data to Quicksilver (maybe not utilize it though). I had it set up to search my del.icio.us links, iTunes and the dictionary. It looks like they have a ton of third party plugins.
That being said, it would be sweet to have access to the search API at the OS level. So even though you're rude, I'll agree with you:)
Looks like they are working a lot of features in that are similar to QuickSilver (their web site seems to be down, hence the linking to instructions). I've only used it a bit, but it's great and I can see why Apple would want a lot of the functionality at the OS level.
I always thought meeting people was the easy part, and that maintaining a relationship was the hard part. If you don't have the skills to meet new people continuing social interaction with people you do manage to meet should prove difficult at best.
Awesome. You should also have him check out the new recommendations page (as of about an hour ago). I've found it to be EVEN more useful than the Musicmobs Suggests.
There seem to be a lot of complaints about this so far, but I for one am really looking forward to it. I've been linking to the itms extensively for about a year now (just cause it's very useful for my users). It's going to be great to start getting some revenue!
Personally, I think the iTunes Music Store is a great platform for finding new music. Anyone can make links to it and they've got tons of sample streams. Hopefully this move indicates that Apple wants third parties to provide the navigation innovation while they continue to act as a platform and catalog.
You could listen to some pretty cool music if you were allowed to choose any track from your local radio stations catalog. They probably have more albums than you've even heard of. The change will be in the delivery method.
There is a real opportunity for the phone to become the number one portable music device, but it won't be done with downloads it will be with streaming. Imagine being able to not only listen to all of the music in your "collection" anywhere you are, but new music as well. There's going to be a lot of opportunity for people providing personalized listening experiences on the cell, and I really do think it will be a better way to listen to music than the current "unplugged" model of the ipod.
In fact, since I've started thinking about music like this, I've pretty much taken all of the fun out of listening on my ipod. It seems boring to be stuck with the same music I have at home and not have access to new music suggestions. On my site we've had a lot of success with helping people find new music. Once you start going down that track it's hard to stick to just your home grown library.
It's because Apple is developing for their user base of esthetically correct, ergonomically aware individuals. MS is developing for the AOL/QVC/Clear Channel/Office Depot crowd.
Jeeze, not even on your radar! Oh well, better to stay covert till I have something big.
As far as I can tell Radiohead is like the lowest common denominator for hipsters/mp3-philes. You've got to at least have them in your collection. Personally, I'm not a huge fan but they're still in my collection.
I wouldn't say it's the ONLY chart that represents what users are listening to.;) Seriously though, I do like it a lot how you track artist/song movement over time. Do you guys normalize for a changing number of users in the Audioscrobbler user base?
Slashdot Mirror
We still have some work to do to best support the different hardware (better landscape views mostly). Other than that, it was pretty easy to create new assets for the different screen sizes...
What was more difficult was dealing with lower memory devices (like the G1). The app is best when used on a high end device (duh!) but at least it shouldn't crash on the lower end devices. This was not the case until we started getting reports from people with older phones. At some point they'd run out of memory and the app would die or behave very unexpectedly.
We spent a lot of time on memory optimization.
True for bug testing. It was great to get all the USER testing though. We made some major changes based on user feedback during the beta period.
As I say in the original post (http://blog.tweetdeck.com/android-ecosystem), it's great that our app can run on so many different devices. It has been a bit more work supporting all the custom ROMs and hardware specs, but there are more difficult platforms to develop for.
One REALLY nice thing about developing for Android was that we could have a beta period that involved 36k users. Being able to distribute the APK outside the Market was a real blessing. It's much harder to test iPhone software before submitting it to Apple.
I find it distracting to hear sounds behind me (any form of surround) when the picture is in a two dimensional field in front of me. Especially when the effects tend to be breaking glass or bullets pinging off things.
Ok, blatant pitch mode ON. :)
You can use Musicmobs if you want that functionality. We offer a complete import of playcounts from iTunes when you first sign up. We also do other non-Last.fm type things like playlist trading and tagging. See my sig for details.
Yep, sounds about right. CNBC is airing The Ebay Effect next week signifying both the complete cluelessness of CNBC and the jumping of the shark of Ebay. Talk about being late to the party! Holy 1997 Batman.
Stealth Startups Don't Suck
Google is great for finding web pages, but why limit your searches to such a broad domain? Vertical search seems to be where all of the innovation is occurring. My guess is in the future we'll have very specific search engines tightly integrated with their relevant platforms.
For example you could do your music searching on your iPod or stereo, your yellow pages searches on your mobile phone, your video searches on your pvr. Of course it makes sense to expose a web front end to these engines as well, but it seems to me that using the web browser as your information acquisition platform is somewhat limiting.
While this is pretty unfounded, it does open the door to further speculation. My personal choice (if I were CEO of XM or Sirius) would be to acquire Real and merge my subscriber base with the Rhapsody subscribers. One account and you can stream Rhapsody to your computer or sat radio to your reciever. Personally, I'd subscribe to such a service.
I'm suprised that Google isn't taking some of that sweet IPO cash and buying up all of these companies. I know I find more valuable information from del.icio.us than from Google, and that's simply amazing considering the size difference. I know the scope of their operations is different, but if Google's mission is "to help people find things" (not sure if it is or not), they should consider the folksonomy play.
For me, the joy (if you can call it that) of tv has always been that it's a somewhat passive experience. Sometimes you just want to sit back and not "search" for content. Of course, lately tv has been failing to provide this experience. The lack of quality programming means that I spend more time channel surfing than I would like.
Anyway, I think there's a big potential for tcp/ip video to replace the current distribution methods. The only hurdle is replicating that passive viewing experience. I think things like RSS go a long way towards achieving this. Instead of surfing/searching for video, by tying it to RSS you could just subscribe to "channels" and have the content pulled down to your machine (or links to it) almost immediately after it's published. Tie this in with some sort of search engine or recommendation system and you have a pretty powerful product.
Because, either way you're paying for the marketing. The costs to manufacture either product is probably negligible compared to the amount the entertainment industry spends marketing the end result.
Getting on MTV, "music" magazines (think Rolling Stone), the radio etc. isn't cheap.
I was under the impression that other developers could add data to Quicksilver (maybe not utilize it though). I had it set up to search my del.icio.us links, iTunes and the dictionary. It looks like they have a ton of third party plugins.
:)
That being said, it would be sweet to have access to the search API at the OS level. So even though you're rude, I'll agree with you
Looks like they are working a lot of features in that are similar to QuickSilver (their web site seems to be down, hence the linking to instructions). I've only used it a bit, but it's great and I can see why Apple would want a lot of the functionality at the OS level.
your post gets better every time I read it!
I always thought meeting people was the easy part, and that maintaining a relationship was the hard part. If you don't have the skills to meet new people continuing social interaction with people you do manage to meet should prove difficult at best.
Awesome. You should also have him check out the new recommendations page (as of about an hour ago). I've found it to be EVEN more useful than the Musicmobs Suggests.
I'm already doing pretty much this exact thing on Musicmobs.
There seem to be a lot of complaints about this so far, but I for one am really looking forward to it. I've been linking to the itms extensively for about a year now (just cause it's very useful for my users). It's going to be great to start getting some revenue!
Personally, I think the iTunes Music Store is a great platform for finding new music. Anyone can make links to it and they've got tons of sample streams. Hopefully this move indicates that Apple wants third parties to provide the navigation innovation while they continue to act as a platform and catalog.
You could listen to some pretty cool music if you were allowed to choose any track from your local radio stations catalog. They probably have more albums than you've even heard of. The change will be in the delivery method.
There's a big difference between on-demand music, and personalized streaming vs. "pushed" music. Most radio sucks anyway :)
There is a real opportunity for the phone to become the number one portable music device, but it won't be done with downloads it will be with streaming. Imagine being able to not only listen to all of the music in your "collection" anywhere you are, but new music as well. There's going to be a lot of opportunity for people providing personalized listening experiences on the cell, and I really do think it will be a better way to listen to music than the current "unplugged" model of the ipod.
In fact, since I've started thinking about music like this, I've pretty much taken all of the fun out of listening on my ipod. It seems boring to be stuck with the same music I have at home and not have access to new music suggestions. On my site we've had a lot of success with helping people find new music. Once you start going down that track it's hard to stick to just your home grown library.
It's because Apple is developing for their user base of esthetically correct, ergonomically aware individuals. MS is developing for the AOL/QVC/Clear Channel/Office Depot crowd.
Jeeze, not even on your radar! Oh well, better to stay covert till I have something big.
As far as I can tell Radiohead is like the lowest common denominator for hipsters/mp3-philes. You've got to at least have them in your collection. Personally, I'm not a huge fan but they're still in my collection.
I wouldn't say it's the ONLY chart that represents what users are listening to. ;) Seriously though, I do like it a lot how you track artist/song movement over time. Do you guys normalize for a changing number of users in the Audioscrobbler user base?