BizThoughts

Yahoo! (YHOO) and Sillicon Valley Web Builder hosted a really cool event tonight: Browser Wars: Episode II The Attack of the DOMs. The speakers were:

• Chris Wilson from Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSFT)
• Mike Shaver from Mozilla Firefox
• Håkon Wium Lie from Opera
• Douglas Crockford from Yahoo!, as the moderator

After an awkward introduction, Douglas set the stage by explaining how complex the web development industry was: software bugs that live in one version of a browser don't get erased by the next version. People may use those older versions for months or years to come. Newer versions also surface new bugs. What we get are essentially compound bugs. Know how compound interest is a great & powerful thing? Well, compound bugs are equally powerful, but very, very bad.

Then Chris and Mike spoke. (Håkon, who was flying in all the way from Oslo, Norway, was running late due to a flight delay.) They were surprisingly cordial and professional. Some members of the audience seemed disappointed by this; they expected blood. Instead, what they got was a lot of mutual respect & admiration between the two. I found this very positive, especially if it's an indication of a stronger collaboration between IE and Firefox in the future.

When Håkon arrived, that's when the jabs began. He discussed the Acid2 test and how poorly IE7 supports it. Again, they were professional, yet playful. All three are hillarious speakers. It was like three college buddies vying for the same girl - none wanted to totally trash his friends, but still wanted to make himself look better.

Håkon also added this piece of news: future versions of Opera will include a native <video> element and support the Ogg video file format because it's a patent-free open standard. This means there will be no need for plugins to view video on Opera in the future. There may be a similar element for audio files as well.

Noticeably absent was a representative from Apple's (AAPL) Safari team, even though they were invited. When asked about this, the official excuse given was that the Safari team was too busy to attend. "Two busy to take two hours out of your day?" asked Douglas. "Håkon flew twenty hours from Oslo to be here. They're less than an hour away from our office."

"I drove by them on my way here," added Chris. See what I mean by hillarious speakers? Still, the absense of Apple was disappointing.

After their brief presentations, the speakers took questions from the audience, some of which included (all paraphrased):

Q: What are they doing to improve JavaScript performance?
A: All have made improvements to JavaScript's garbage collection mechanisms, but admit there's still much to be done.

Q: Will they support more interactivity with the operating system?
A: Not necessarily, since there are security issues to worry about. But there's already some level of support, like Firefox's extensions and Microsoft's ActiveX.

Q: In light of new technologies like Adobe's Apollo and Microsoft's Windows Presentation Platform (WPF), should we abandon Ajax?
A: Heck no!

Q: Will they support SVG?
A: No, because it's not that easy to support; an SVG browser would mean a whole new kind of web browser.

Q: What are their strategies with mobile devices?
A: Opera leads in this area; Microsoft is continuing to improve their mobile IE browser; Mozilla admits it's an important space but didn't say anything concrete about entering it or not.

Q: What are their personal opinions on how they should innovate?
A: All agree that they'll continue to strengthen their support for web standards, browser security, and other improvements for developers and end users. Mike added that standards organizations (like the W3C) are great for deciding how to propose flexible, interoperable solutions to common problems, but not for innovations.

There were other great insights & one-liners from the speakers. I hope someone else was able to capture them (anyone liveblog the event?). I'll include them in this entry as I find them.

Fantastic event! Props to Chris, Mike, Håkon, Douglas, and all the organizers for putting this together!

UPDATED 3/5/2007: Here's more coverage of this event.

• Yahoo! User Interface Blog
• Ajaxian
• Douglas Crockford
• geekwhat
• From the Eyes of an Entrepreneur

Emily Chang will be speaking on a panel entitled, "Using RSS for Marketing" at this upcoming SXSW Interactive Conference. On her blog, she asks for feedback on insights & topics related to RSS.

This got me thinking (which, I know, is dangerous). Fundamentally, what is RSS?

Fundamentally, RSS is an XML-based stream of data. Or, as Wikipedia defines it:

A family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts.

Okay, that's not helpful at all.

Conceptually, RSS is a free way to share real-time information with the world. Cool, okay, now it sounds more like radio waves or television broadcasts. Analogies are good.

How can RSS be used?

Currently, RSS is most commonly used to distribute updates from websites like blogs, vlogs, and podcasts. This information is time-sensitive and archives can be just as important as updates. Other real-time information that can be distributed are weather, traffic, and stock prices reports. These are also time-sensitive, though archives are not very important.

Conceivably, RSS could also share non real-time information, like dictionaries and encyclopedias. Or non-textual information like maps and technical diagrams.

RSS readers are currently built to display chronological information, so this would not be a standard way to use RSS. Arguably, it's not an effective way either. There are other ways to retrieve static information, such as using web services. But possibly, the RSS format could also be used as a web service?

So what is RSS and how can it be used?

RSS is a way to share information, with some kinds of information being better than others:

• Real-time information = blogs, vlogs, podcasts, news, weather, traffic & stock prices
• Static information = dictionary info, encyclopedia info, maps & technical diagrams (maybe?)
• Archivable information = blogs, vlogs, podcasts & news
• Non-archivable information = weather, traffic & stock prices
• Textual information = blogs, news, weather, traffic & stock prices
• Graphical/video/audio information = photos, video, audio, maps & technical diagrams

As a marketer, are any of these information formats useful to your business? Or rather, would your customers find any of these information formats useful?

Perhaps. In my opinion, RSS isn't just for blogs, vlogs, and podcasts though. With some thinking, perhaps you'll find more uses for it too.

You too can think like a genius. So says Michael Michalko, a "creative thinking expert" and author.

The non-profit educational public service Study Guides and Strategies has done a fantastic adaptation of Michalko's article, "Thinking like a genius: eight strategies used by the supercreative, from Aristotle and Leonardo to Einstein and Edison" (the full version is also available in electronic format for download from Amazon.com). It quickly summarizes how anyone can use the same thinking styles & techniques as Aristotle & Einstein to be more effective in everyday life. (Thank goodness for study guides!)

To whet your appetite, the eight strategies are:

1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!)
2. Visualize!
3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity.
4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.
5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects.
6. Think in opposites.
7. Think metaphorically.
8. Prepare yourself for chance.

Free coffee! Free coffee! But only if you don't mind the guilt of not giving a donation, you cheapskate.

Steven Levitt, one of the authors of Freakonomics, posted an article last week about an interesting new coffee shop in Seattle, WA: The Terra Byte Lounge — "an upscale voluntary payment cafe/deli."

The Seattle Times calls the founder, Ervin Peretz, the "Robin Hood of the Starbucks set."

Terra Bite Lounge looks like any other coffee shop - until you get to the menu. There are no prices listed. Terra Bite doesn't have them.

You read that right: No prices. Customers pay what and when they like, or not at all - it makes no difference to the cafe employees, who are instructed not to peek when people put money in the metal lock box.

And there's the rub. The coffee is essentially free and customers have the option of contributing however much they want - a "voluntary-payment" system, as the Kirkland Weblog calls it.

Quite an interesting social experiment in trust and honesty, eh? Are customers really paying? Yes, at an average of $3 per transaction. Some even pay more than they would at Starbucks (SBUX).

It's because the social pressures of contributing are strong. One commenter on the Freakonomics Blog added that, "peer pressure & guilt is only part of it. There's also an element of the reciprocity impulse, and darn it, just plain old decency." Another commenter offered a counter argument, however:

I live right around the corner from Terra Bite in Kirkland. This business model makes me feel uncomfortable when I'm there - did I put enough in the box? Did I put too much? I really like having a fixed price to pay.

I'm uncomfortable with tipping too, for the same reason.

Will this business model work? We'll see. Another Starbucks cafe just opened in the same neighborhood. The competition will be fierce. But if it does work out, Peretz has hinted that he'd be interested in expansion.

Hmmm. Think free coffee will work in San Francisco?

Want an Apple iPhone (AAPL), but can't because of stinkin' cellphone carrier contracts? This new service seems to have the answer: Cellswapper.com!

I'm not affiliated with them in any way, nor have I used their service yet. I heard about them on TechCrunch and thought their service sounded pretty damn cool.

When the Motorola Q (MOT) first came out, I got it right away, first-generation bugs and all. And oh boy are there bugs. The OS occasionally locks up on me. There's dust inside the screen. And the original battery dies inside of a day, requiring the bulkier extended battery. Sigh…

I don't think I'm going to be an early adopter of the iPhone. I'll probably consider the second generation of it though. So the excitement of Cellswapper.com isn't so much that I can get out of my Verizon (VZ) contract to get an iPhone. It's mostly that I can lose the Motorola Q.

This just in from the Creative Review: Your Mother is a Whore. But that's only if you're a subscriber to that UK magazine. The subscribers received this February 2007 issue in a brown envelope with those words crudely written on it.

What's up with that? Why so mean? Adrian Shaughnessy from the Design Observer tells us that this issue featured guest editors from the UK advertising agency Mother. And they are here to make a statement:

Does the presence of money diminish our creativity? The Sistine Chapel was a commissioned work. Was Michelangelo less of an artist for taking the Vatican's money? Some would argue painting the Pope into a fresco is more noble then putting a Ford in your Bond movie. Some wouldn't. We're not here to decide. After all, 'We sold our soul and it feels great.'

Once upon a time, I contemplated a career in graphic design and illustration. I was one of those kids who'd doodle in class all day long. Fate took me on a different path, but I still like to keep in touch with the design community.

The question of whether or not money stifles creativity is as old as, well, it's pretty old. So I'd like to posit a theory:

Money can increase creativity.

How? Money puts boundaries on art. Creating art within boundaries can lead to innovation & creativity. Therefore, money can increase creativity.

An article from The Madison Avenue Journal, entitled "A New Lens To View Limits Through: Constraints & Creativity by Christina Kerley, quotes Marissa Ann Mayer of Google (GOOG) on this topic.

Marissa believes that constraints empower creativity, and remarks, "creativity thrives best when constrained". Rather than constraints and creativity living at odds, she posits a complementary, almost symbiotic, relationship between the two polarities, writing, "innovation is born from the interaction between constraint and vision".

"Constraints can actually speed development. For instance, we [at Google] often can get a sense of just how good a new concept is if we only prototype for a single day or week."

Kerley (or simply CK, as she's more commonly known) adds an example from her own experience.

Here's a creative constraint that I constantly grapple with: length. I have to keep my columns to a certain word count to be sensitive to readers' busy schedules. Get too wordy, go off on too many tangents, and I lose my audience.

37signals, the web design & development agency known for innovation, also uses constraints to foster creativity. "Constraints are a unique advantage that small teams have over the big guys," they write. There's only six people in 37signals, and they've been able to build five products, write one book, and create an open-source framework. They even claim that the lack of constraints is what killed the quality of the most recent Star Wars films. From a comment on Slashdot:

No the problem is money. Lucas has way too much of it. Especially for the first film [New Hope] there was a severe budget crunch. They were limited in both money and time. I think this forces a film team to make decisions that in the long run are good for the film. If you have no boundaries, you are more likely to throw in little bits that really have no business being in the movie. If you are limited, you are forced to trim the fat and leave the good bits. With the prequels, Lucas had no limits. He effectively had infinite money and time in which to make these films. As a result he wasn't forced to REALLY think about which parts worked to help the film and which didn't.

Constraints seems very counter-intuitive to creativity. Shouldn't giving yourself total blue-sky freedom make you more creative? How else would you come up with that next great big idea, if you're forced to hold yourself back?

To that, I ask: have you ever been in a productive brainstorming session? If so, think back to their use of constraints. They could be as innocent as, "brainstorm solutions to solve this specific problem" or "using the resources we currently have, what can we do next?"

One popular brainstorming method, known as lateral thinking, has participants refocusing their minds to different frames of reference. For instance, if I ask you: "It took two hours for two men to dig a hole five feet deep. How deep would it have been if ten men had dug the hole for two hours?"

You might answer logically and say, "twenty-five feet deep." But in lateral thinking, you could also answer:

• There are more men but are there more shovels?
• Would we rather have 5 holes each 5 feet deep?
• The two men may be an engineering crew with digging machinery.
• What if one man in each group is a manager who will not actually dig?
• Etc.

Lateral thinking isn't the removal of constraints. It merely shifts the constraints over. Psychologist Edward de Bono created the Six Hats method as an application of lateral thinking. In it, participants approach the problem by putting on six different "hats" (effectively, constraints).

• Red hat - think emotionally
• White hat - think logically & realistically
• Green hat - think about creative solutions
• Yellow hat - categorize and combine solutions
• Black hat - think skeptically of those solutions

All of these organizations and individuals - Google, 37signals, and Edward de Bono - have all realized the need for constraints in being creative and innovative. Money for art is just another constraint, isn't it? So it shouldn't stifle creativity; if anything, it should strengthen it.

You know what's insane? De Beers' stranglehold on the diamond industry and their deliberate pricing strategies.

What's the rule for an engagement ring? That it should cost about two months' salary? I see peers in Sillicon Valley spending more like three to six months' salary sometimes. Insane!

So it fills me with joy when I hear that manufactured diamonds are becoming as good as mined diamonds. The benefits are endless:

…environmentally friendly (no open-pit mines), sociopolitically neutral (no blood diamonds), and monopoly-free (not controlled by De Beers).

Not to mention, hopefully, much more affordable too. Unfortunately, due to technical constraints, they haven't been able to manufacture clear diamonds yet - only yellow diamonds (which happen to be very rare in the wild).

But before you run out and buy one, you've got to ask yourself: "Will your sweetie mind a manufactured diamond?" Has De Beers' apparent monopoly also brainwashed her into believing that only mined diamonds = true love? (And if so, do you really want to go through with this? Just sayin'.)

P.S. Here's a handy guide of manufactured diamond producers.

This is huge. In a few months, China is going to to build the world's largest investment company: The State Foreign Exchange Investment Company.

It will be funded about 210 billion dollars. Reportedly, that's only one-fifth of China's foreign exchange reserves (China has one trillion dollars for foreign exchange?? Holy moly!).

In contrast, the world's largest mutual fund, the Growth Fund of America (AGTHX), has 160 billion dollars. Bill Gates, the wealthiest individual in the world, has 53 billion dollars.

This is huge because an investment company this size will have an impact on global economies. George Soros, an individual investor with only 8.5 billion dollars (I said "only," geez, wish I had "only" 8.5 bill), infamously pressured the British pound from joining the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and thus, adopting the euro. If one guy with a few billion dollars can do this, imagine what 210 billion dollars could do.

Fortunately, China realizes this. Zhou Jiangong, a Shanghai-based economic analyst, comments:

The outflow will be carefully managed since a stable asset market is in the interest of China.

This also means a potential profit for those who follow the company. Zhang Ming, a Beijing-based economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, offers:

Other investors will be following it closely and try and guess its next move. They'll buy assets that the company is likely to buy, and withdraw from markets if that's what they believe the company will do.

This is one company I'm going to definitely keep an eye on.