Web Development Live

Google has been courting software developers to entice them into a money-making relationship built on turning its array of online widgets into a global infrastructure.

At a conference in San Francisco, said to be the biggest yet for net developers, the search giant made clear that the Web is the future for application development.

It wants its own bit of web infrastructure the Google Cloud to be more accessible to developers and spent two days wooing them to build and run applications on it.

To encourage them aboard, Google invited the 3,000 developers to mash-up Google’s online services, like Gmail, Docs, Maps and Search, with their own applications.

To show client-cloud connectivity, it showed off Google Gears, a browser add-on in the Adobe Flash mould that allows for richer browser experiences, to improve search in MySpace email.

It then showcased the new Google Web Toolkit, so rich net applications can be Java-built, and the hosting of new Ajax libraries, which enhances applications via JavaScript tagging.

Top of its agenda, Google wants the web browser the enabler of its cloud to have more functionality, interaction and to evolve so it becomes as powerful as its desktop counterpart.

“These diverse tools and technologies might seem loosely unintegrated and targeted at different areas,” said Ovum analyst Madan Sheina.

“In fact they’re all cogs and wheels of a more meaningfully connected web that hosts Google web services powered by the Google App Engine. Importantly some of these web services and applications aren’t written just by Google, but by an entire market of independent developers.”

The analyst believes most of these third-party developers no longer build ‘cool’ web applications just for the sake of it; rather they want a slice of Google as a lucrative advertising business.

“Google likes to separate its web development technologies from its advertising. But the two are inextricably linked,” Ms Sheina said.

“Google’s monetisation strategy is simple. Invest in advancement of the web by allowing users to do more on the internet. That makes the Web a much bigger market for Google to monetise services like search.”

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Rosemary Lawlor, originally from Leighlinbridge, has been appointed as a Sales Executive by local web development and IT solutions company, t2.

A past pupil of Presentation Secondary School in Askea and graduate of DIT Aungier Street, Rosemary will head up the company’s regional and national sales effort, supporting its development of new markets.

Previous to joining t2, Rosemary travelled extensively and worked in recruitment sales with a Naas based company so her appointment is a welcome return to working in her home county.

Rosemary is the third person to join the t2 team this year, following the company’s recruitment of a web master to service a large national contract and a website developer earlier this year.

To encourage the creation of more Web-based applications during the next several years, Google Inc. will invest in three key areas for developers, including opening up its servers to host their applications, encouraging pervasive connectivity to the Web, and making the browser more powerful, said Vic Gundotra, Google’s vice president of engineering, who gave the opening keynote speech at this year’s Google Developer Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

“Google was born in the era of the Web,” Gundotra said. “It’s the only platform we’ve known. It was a platform that was formed by consensus. It was all of us collectively that agreed to a few standards. We feel a debt of gratitude toward that community.”

Gundotra conceded that Web developers working atop Google-provided development tools and servers would lead to remunerative opportunities for the Mountain View, Calif.-based company. “As the Web gets bigger and enables better Web apps, it attracts more users. For us, more users means more Google searches, which leads to more revenue. But the money we make will get dumped back into the platform.

Developers praised the programming experience and the potential of Google’s Android mobile platform at the Google I/O conference as the company emphasized its flexibility and showed cool new features.

There was a lot of buzz around Android at the conference, which covers all areas of Google development, and an “Introduction to Android” session was full. Google wants the technology to open up the mobile industry, where developers have faced hurdles getting applications ported to many different operating systems and approved by carriers. But Android will enter the fray as just one mobile platform among many, including the Apple iPhone SDK.

The latest prototype version of Android drew comparisons to the iPhone after it was demonstrated during a keynote session Wednesday morning. Google showed a home screen with colorful widgets similar to the Apple iPhone’s, plus a compass and a status bar that can be pulled down in any application to view messages. The compass, which could be built into a handset along with an accelerometer, would be able to orient maps according to which way the user was facing. As demonstrated with Google Maps Street View, it could show the exact view that a user was looking at, with street-name and address information built in to the map. Videos of the demonstrations were posted by the Android Community blog.

Aside from features on high-end phones, Android will reach far more people than the iPhone platform, if it meets its potential, said Atif Iqbal Chaudhry, a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who attended the conference. The platform could be extended to inexpensive phones with a smaller set of capabilities for average consumers, he said.

Android is an easy way to begin developing a mobile application, because Google provides all the pieces required, unlike some other platforms, such as PalmOS, Chaudhry said. He has been developing location-based applications through the PC-based emulator software for Android and said he is looking forward to trying out the software in the field on a real handset.

Google and its partners in the Open Handset Alliance are pushing Android as more open than other mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Developers won’t need to get Android applications certified by anyone, Google Developer Advocate Jason Chen told the Android breakout session. In addition, there won’t be any hidden APIs accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators, he said.

Developers will also be able to modify core elements of the interface and come out with replacements for the basic building blocks that come with Android, such as the address book, Chen said. Even the look of the home-screen widgets will be customizable. For users, that will mean being able to control their own experience by downloading their favorite third-party versions, Chen said.

Google expects the first Android-based devices to hit the market in the second half of this year and will make the finished software platform available to developers after that, so anyone can create their own phone platform, Chen said. The core elements of it will be released under the Apache open-source license.

Until all parts of Android are complete, Google won’t start translating the platform and documentation into languages other than English, Chen said in response to a question. The team doesn’t want translations to lag behind the current information, he said. But he welcomed an attendee to help Spanish-speaking developers by translating materials or participating in message boards.

Developers praised the platform, in which applications are written in the Java programming language and then compiled for the Dalvik virtual machine.

“It’s sweet,” said Free Beachler, owner of Longevity Software, in Boulder, Colorado. Beachler wrote an entry for the Android Developer Challenge, a competition to find the 50 best Android applications. His software, designed to store itineraries, contacts, destinations and other travel information for users on their phones, didn’t make the top 50. But he’s working on two projects for Android Developer Challenge 2, which will take place after handsets are out and the platform are complete.

Beachler, a Web developer, said it took time to learn to use Android but once he did it was logically organized and easy to use. He compared it to languages such as PHP for Web development.

Enterprises are asking R Systems International, a software services company in El Dorado, California, to write applications that work on any mobile platform, said Harsh Verma, vice president for global innovative research at R Systems. One way to do this is on browsers, but there are problems with that, including differences among mobile browsers and the need for a network connection, he said. Verma hasn’t yet started working with Android but believes it could reach a broad range of devices.

Scales, 52, has served as iCrossing’s president and chief operating for two years. He joined the company in 2006 as COO, adding title of president two months later. Herzog, who founded iCrossing 10 years ago, will remain on the company’s board of directors, serving as vice chairman.

The move marks a changing of the guard at iCrossing, which in a decade has grown from a small Scottsdale, Ariz., search shop to a 620-person digital agency. The company has fueled much of its growth through an aggressive acquisition strategy over the past two years. It has bought five companies, expanding its services from its search optimization roots into search advertising, analytics and Web development.

Scales has led the company’s efforts to integrate the acquired companies into a cohesive organization since. After acquiring Web development shop Proxicom in July 2007, iCrossing adopted that firm’s national service model, replacing a regional delivery model. It has also rebranded the shops it acquired under the iCrossing name and is working to bundle services to clients. ICrossing boasts 40 clients in the Fortune 500.

Richard Rosenblatt, chairman of iCrossing, said the move represents a natural progression for Scales since he has proven his merit in the past two years, during which he assumed day-to-day management of the firm. The next step for the agency: a public offering.

“This is a company that goes public in a couple of years,” Rosenblatt said, noting market conditions and the company’s evolution and growth would determine the exact timing.

Prior to joining iCrossing, Scales held executive roles at Omnicom Group’s Agency.com for three years, including two as CEO. He resigned in 2006 following a dispute with Omnicom management over aligning Agency.com with TBWA Worldwide. He has since brought over several Agency.com executives, including chief strategy officer Adam Lavelle, chief financial officer Mike Jackson and evp of operations Dave Johnson.

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The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) has released a report about the increase of online video (11.5 billion videos viewed in March, according Comscore). Its title is “Zooming In on Online Video: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspaper Web Sites.” Here is the download link.

Main conclusion: everyone needs to jump on online video. “While still a small percentage of total and local online advertising, online video represents an enormous opportunity for newspapers to grow revenue and audience,” says the report.

“As competition heats up for online video mindshare, newspapers have an excellent opportunity to leverage their skills and content and capture an even larger share of online advertising spending.”

Local online video advertising was a $400 million business in 2007, according to Borrell Associates.

The survey shows that online video is not solely the domain of the Web department. Although online editors and producers are involved in shooting, editing and publishing video for the newspaper’s Web site, reporters and photographers are also heavily involved.

NY Web Standards May 2008 will focus on Microformats with attendees from the web design and development fields, expected to attend an evening of comprehensive discussions and networking.

Microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and adopted standards. They are intended to solve simple problems and were developed by examining current behaviors and usage patterns demonstrated by web content creators.

NY Web Standards group will introduce microformats and discuss their usage. “During this event, the audience will learn what microformats are, why they were created, and how to use this simple technology to make data on webpages more easily indexed, searched, and cross-referenced,” said Jeffrey Barke, senior developer at theMechanism – New York.

In addition to attendee introductions, web-standards discussions and optional ‘show and tell’ sessions, the event will also highlight keynote speaker, Jeffrey Barke, senior developer at theMechanism.

As a monthly event, the NY Web Standards Meetup is focused on bringing valuable information, trends, insights and best practice development techniques to the web development community.

“theMechanism strives to be a leader in the practice of web standards and accessibility,” said Dave Fletcher, Founding Partner & Creative Director of theMechanism. “Facilitating the New York Web Standards Meetup Group at our Manhattan office is one way for us to lead by example while encouraging an personal and professional sodality among like-minded designers and agencies in the greater New York area.”

The survey, conducted by US market research firm Evans Data Corp, ranked Microsoft’s MSN/Live developer package above other offerings from Google, Yahoo, Facebook and eBay according to user satisfaction.

However, Australian web developer and co-founder of the Web Directions conference John Allsopp told ZDNet.com.au on Wednesday that the survey “doesn’t say anything meaningful at all”.

Allsopp added that the nature of Web 2.0 development and its accompanying technologies isn’t suited to this type of assessment, as developers don’t tend to compartmentalise which programs they use to Web Development build applications.

“It’s a misleading thing,” he said. “Web 2.0 is all about mashing and mixing things up to create something new, and using a whole lot of different programs to do it.”

“One of the criticisms of a lot of these technologies is that they’re tied to a certain property, such as Facebook, meaning you have to use their platform to build applications for their site,” he said.

Stewart Smith, president of the Australian Linux Foundation, echoed Allsopp’s sentiments, saying many of the Web Development programs “really aren’t as open as they’d have you believe”.

“People who really care about writing their own applications won’t be doing it for someone else’s platform, they’ll be writing them for their own sites, using a variety of things,” he said.

Allsopp said technologies are “still in their infancy”, and for many large companies, such as Google and Microsoft, “it’s still a pretty novel way of doing things… to open up and let other people start building things for you”.

“A lot of companies are still coming to grips with that, but I think that, over the next year or two, all of these programs are going to Web Development become more sophisticated and usable,” he said.