Web Services
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Tuesday, December 10, 2002
 

Sergey Brin, Google

Conversation with Kevin:

K: What is google?  Its more than a search engine.
S: Employee driven innovation.  We stay close to search, but not entirely -- distributed computing

K: You are the central default search engine people we use.  What got you here?
S: Its a suprise to me how much we are used and relied on.  Larry and I used search alot and had our own user frustration.  Contrast to other companies that hired managers that didnt use the web.

K: the API
S: thousands use, made it easier to keep track of screen scrapers. 

Audience:
Anne: what's the business model
S: There is no business model to the API yet, restrict scale and later may charge.  Spurring innovation.  For plagerism detection a simple application that checks documents for copies.  Spell checker plug in to a browser for large text fields in forms.

Marc: problem of textual association with images.  for the attachment of meta-data.
S: you can make people write to computers or vice versa, we can do the latter.  Its easier to find meta data within the page than have people author more meta data.

Dave: Google is centralized, so you ever see it being decentralized to the client?
S: Google for the desktop is different than a decentralized google.  May want to search the desktop from anywhere.  Our tech competency is in large farms of servers, not in client servers, it would be easier to do it in a centralized way

Gaps in blogs.  Feel free to send me more questions.  Some think it doesnt do a top layer crawl frequently and some getting into the bottom of the historical file.  Have talked about a push functionality, concern about wide adoption, could be a DoS vulnerability. 

Looks like we just got Sergey to build ping-push from major weblog platforms. A real outcome.

Advanced search isnt used much.  Users want the simplicity.

K: Do you have obligations because of size?
S: Yes, more responsibility, take it serious.  People have heart attacks and search for solutions.  People want to commit suicide search for suicide.  Responsibility to the surfers.  Rankings fluctuate. 

S: Our internal performance metrics arent perfect and are evolving, some times use focus groups, repeat user usage, 4 word queries, etc.

Isen: How is Eric Schmidt doing?  Are you happy with him?
S: Search took a year and...
K: Did you type CEO into Google and see what came up? (laughter)
S: Successful relationship, great cultural fit, all the hard issues we discuss and decide on togther (them and Larry). Cultural fit is the key

Moses: Video?

S: Yes.

S: Link expiration is offset by caching, but thats it.

Cory: is anyone thinking about how the world is adapting to Google and thinking about how to strengthen your iron-like grip around the world

S:  Im suprised by uses, have to be careful and open.

DW: have you replaced the DNS system, will you extend this use
S: There is "I'm feeling lucky"


7:15:35 PM    comment []

Are Weblogs the Next Platform?
  • Nick Denton, Weblog Media
  • Meg Hourihan, Consultant and Writer
  • Dave Winer, Userland
Dave is blogging Kevin's intro, who is what where exactly?
 
  • Dave: Weblogs are like the word procesor and printer for the web.  We did it to open writing for the web.  So you want to use tools like the word processor, hooking it up was next step (XML-RPC, etc.).  Web services is not just for enterprises. 
  • Nick: Im a media guy, this is a way to produce media cheaper than possible 3-4 years ago.  Promise similar to online media in 98, there is unfinished business.
  • Meg: Web service potential is how protocols can be transparent to users (think she meant opaque). Interest is potential ubiquity and how content and people use technologies easily.  Took us to this point in technology to get the writable web.
 
Kevin: Why is it going to go to the next level?
 
  • Meg: People want to talk to their friends.
  • Nick: Snow was the big story for bloggers last week, they wanted pictures of the snow.  Easy distribution of media and a good media experience.
  • Dave: Wasnt just local, the west coast participated, its like
  • Dave: There were tools that let you build web pages, starting a weblog is different, its like a magazine.  There are more readers than writers (I hope so).  Continual process of evolution, in two years radically different, but you wont notice the immeadiate change.
 
Kevin is the is a personal market or potentially mainstream?
  • Nick: you have companies using weblogs for cluetrain style outreach, small businesses (like his Gizmo, they pay the writer $1k/month, $1-2k overhead, scalable small business)
  • Dave: this might be like word processors in the early 80s, may not be a VC investment (bah)
  • Nick: Tina Brown's post mortem of Talk magazine vs. weblog niche media product
 
Kevin is this word processing or hypercard?
  • Dave: Hypercard went away b/c people didnt support it.  Here there is support, hobbists are having fun and there is healthy competition
  • Meg: The buzz is not sustainable.  Needs to be embedded in other media and technology forms so its not a buzz word.
  • Dave: Kevin's weblog is a perfect example of where its appropriate, now I know him
 
Marc Canter: vs. wordprocessing its decentralization and there will be a fragmented market (not likely if the opportunity is large enough).  Untapped markets are there (believe Marc sees the opportunity in micromarkets)
 
Bob Franken: are we talking about Blogging(TM) or the generic idea of easy publishing.
  • DW: there is a third term which is Blog as a tone of voice
  • Nick: this is why the term has got to expire
  • Meg: this is just blocks of hypertext
  • Dave: My first Davenet post was in 94 was a blog post, although it captured some essence of what blogging is about.  Written by an individual, unedited and you just put it out there.  Journalists, not management, fear blogs
 
Rohit: Wiki is part of blogging.  Help me understand your definition of platform.  If a tool allows you to create docs, its just a tool.  If you can use the output to combine with others and make something larger its a platform.
  • Dave: Even the most primitive blogging tool uses Macros.  They also come with programmability to some degree.   
  • Marc: Radio is a platform for us and we are going to do alot with it.
 
Kevin: What's missing?
  • Nick: Weblogs help define the writer.  Could imagine a personalized news service (already there with Radio, IMHO), online dating services.
  • Meg: How do you find all this stuff?   Many dont know it exists? 
 
Glen Flieshman: when do we get around the monolithic blog article problem? And what about women?
  • Dave: NYT has been writing for 3 years about blogging, each time assigning a new reporter.
  • Dan Gilmore: More articles saying blogging good.
  • Dave: But they aren't very convincing because they always present both sides
  • Phil Wolff: The issue with women is that blogging is a social activity and its spreading from an early adopter center.  The average user of Live Journal is a 16 year old girl.  The market is fragmented. 
  • Nick: Elizabeth Spiers is an example of a young female blogger turning pro
  • Doc: different social network show up in different ways.  It shows up in Google.  Dave said: The first blog was Tim Berners Lee.  The importance is living links. 
  • Nick: alot of the activity and growth is in right wing
  • Meg: there is unlimited bandwidth, most people start blogging to connect with a small groups, no reason to fear the right taking it over like talk radio
Kevin: 5-10 years from now what percentage of online will have a weblog?
  • Dave: everyone
  • Nick: Ten times as many people writing in public as you did in print
  • Dave: In ten years all congress reps will have blogs
  • Marc: everyone will have their identity online
Mitch: Arguing about what blogging means is like arguing about how many angels will be dancing on a pin.  More people using their own voice.  In the future will the net be primarily a medium of consumption or interaction?
  • Dave: center is meaningless
  • Nick: you are the sun of your own solar system
Audience: where does it fit in the spectrum of media? is the scalability and maliability of what this is the power?
  • Dave: it has a flame retardant built into it unlike email, which is part of the popularity (vs. Spam).  Weblogs demand respect.  You have to listen to the author and they dont have to respond, if you choose.
  • Meg: its like an IM to the world.  has the off the cuff nature of IM
Phil Wolff:  applicaiton of blogging in collaborative work
  • Meg: thats why blogger got built
  • Dave: we needed content management systems in 99.  Best experience is with the instant outlining stuff, and this is where it will go.  Will it all need the web browser.  Blog browser?  Brent Simmons, net newswire.  Nielson. Everything looks like an outliner to me
  • Meg: Evan and I wanted to share and we were bad with email and knew that it diappears and interrupts.  Stuff creates a space, and a chronology of the startup, which was a must read for new employees, a place for corporate culture.
Cory: thing that makes it most interesting is how a tool can be put in the hands of a domain expert (YES!).  Allows people to write who didnt write before, despite the demographics looking like tech conference demographics, people saying things they wouldnt have said before.  Homeless guy finds an audience in social workers -- the feedback loop. 
Dave: this is a backdoor proposition and enables people to get their jobs done
 
Moses Ma: weblogs which are distributed commentary systems are an ideal platform for pontificators (windlogs).  Mass market doesnt care for this stuff.  Ryze is what appeals (YES?)
 
Kevin:  What are the next features?
  • Meg: Push for weblogs (same as my previous post)
  • Doc: Search
  • DW: Blogfriends
  • Marc: Topic Server, which Im working on
  • Florian: percieved complexity
  • Nick: News front page, within a social network
  • Doc: ideosyncratic google (people I like linked at the top) 
Remaining questions for me: How do we get this platform to the mainstream and how do you deal with MS's Sharepoint & Onenote

7:12:47 PM    comment []

From Web Services to Distributed Infrastructure
  • Brent Sleeper, Stencil Group
  • Anne Thomas Manes, Author
  • Christian Georghe, TIAN
  • Dick Hardt, ActiveState
 
Defining Web Services
  • Anne: Has everything to do with services, little with Web.  Application to application communication technology.  XML only required technology, protocols and transport is up to you. 
  • Chr: Background in applications.  When you start looking at decentralization there is a notion of quality of experience, as opposed to quality of service.  Does the SFM app interface and components actually matching what the sales person is trying to achieve at each touch point to close a sale.  What needs to happen at the context of interaction and how can WS decoupling improve it?
  • Dick: Two things: the dream of WS and the manifestation which is the SOAP and WSDL thats out there.  Similar to the promise of Java.  All the real uses are within the enterprise, similar to what happened with Java.  Interesting things like Amazon or Google, but not critical or driving innovation.  Anne: Its two years old, you just haven't seen it yet.
 
  • Anne: examples of WS you will use in the near future:
    • File, print, Kinkos, and when its done deliver it here -- the ability to do it from Office.  Released as a web service in Spring (exists already, but not as a WS)
    • Siebel rep from PDA gain access to info on a client through Yahoo Enterprise
    • What about one-time query vs. transactions.  Amazon example of not having inventory info and
  • Dave Sirfy: larger social issue is WS as a utility.  Technorati...not that issue of how we interoperate but how we deal with downtime and exceptions
  • Chr: its QoE, need to build in redundancy
  • Brent: is it a lack of standards/another needed layer to filfill the utility model?
    • Anne: there is an effort at WC3 to extend SOAP's reliability as defined as a tier/standard in WSDL, but one of the interesting features of the web is that its not always available
    • Chr: john hagel's services grid paper.  Many of the implementations are not in the core business processes yet.
    • Dick: part of it is in the tools.  dealing with failure requires tool, language and thinking of how to dev distributed programs.  other part is identity, with trading partners you can identify both ends, but on the web there is no unified identity system.
  • Dave Winer: weblogs and web services are the same.  Doc is using an interface that allows another developer to use.  These are only APIs to reduce lock-in.  Its not cool to say that there is nothing because you havent looked
  • Dick: most developers are not programming web services.  Dave: depends on the developer community you work with
  • Anne: 70-85% of companies are experimenting with Web Services. 
  • How do you build systems that are tolerant of failure
    • Anne: similar to old system issues
  • Components vs.
  • Anne: Doing dynamic binding to a service with abstract client proxy, at runtime select service I want to communicate  -- the core proposition -- no other distributed middleware technology gave me this capability.  Integrate that with system management technology that predicts response time for specific services, then flowing to assembly is how you realize reliability to a degree.
  • Rohit, KnowHow: how long until the social change? throwing dynamite in a fishing pond you might find something new come out.  what one way is how this different from CORBRA
    • Anne: Sun, Microsoft and IBM agree
    • Chr: Determine services at runtime based upon user needs. 
    • Dick: part of the dream would be to use it broadly over the net and he is not seeing it happen.  hasnt gone mainstream yet.  needs identity.
  • Alex from FaceTime: struggled with the issues in IM.  Agrees that its happening within the enterprises.  The economic model has not played itself out. (this is similar to the case with Business Collaboration, its just a sign of the times, there is less demand for inter-enterprise integration or collaboration)
  • Anne: A web service is an interface, not something you buy, its something you use.  What is required is a provisioning(/procurement) system to complement the web services.  Need payment systems, and other basic information.
  • Dave Sirfy: what about the business model?  Amazon is making it work to make sales, Google to sell advertising, Radio to make it easier to post.  Technorati had a business model in a subscription model. 
  • Brent: what is the business impact of the implementation? Because the large companies are backing it will ultimately be successful. 
    • Anne: IBM and Microsoft are into it to kill Sun.
    • Me: Changes the financial model of software to reduce risk for customers, commoditizes software to earn margin in services, increases volume sales of underlying datacommodities
    • Dave Winer:  There has never been a basic tech developed by the big players, its all about creating services work for the big 3, core of XML-RPC will be distributed widely to enable competition and will race through organizations
    • Rohit: its a new kind of software vendor (close to right!)
    • Anne: Can run Web Services in a lite servlet, dont need a J2EE web server, so its not just for the big guys
  • Brent: where are the opportunities?
    • Dick: WS for integrating the MS vs. rest of world.  Transactions in a cloud.  Java now for backend, Flash as rich client...a different manifestation of Web Services than WSDL and SOAP may realize the vision of the cloud.
  • Gary Boone:  will non-tech users assemble?  Is there something else needed.
    • Chr: that's the dream
    • Anne: WSRP and WSIA to allow dynamic browser based consumption of web services on multiple devices.  Very cool.

7:11:38 PM    comment []


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