Ideas Overflow: Google App Engine to the Rescue

Image by jakubik peter via Flickr

Did you have some of those moments?
Ideas just keep popping up and you try keep up the pace. And you know that you can't execute on everything! You should execute some, but try to be able to execute as fast as it gets.
Last 3 weeks I'm in productive state of mind. And I need solution with fastest possible development cycle. There are many cloud solutions from AWS/EC2 to IBM Cloud Computing, but fastest developing/deploying concept is GAE - Google Application Engine.
Why is it so good? You can build apps in language of choice. You can develop in Java - which is my primary programming language, or choose to faster iterate using python. I've chosen python, since tend to avoid saturation in learning S-curve which happens using same technology for very long time. Other advantages of GAE are no database setup (it uses Google datastore) and you can survive success quite easy.

After initial introduction to GAE and python - I started to develop first app. Idea came from mere need for better analytics for this blog. Can I get current SERP for my domain and keywords I bid? Some may say that one shoul use Google REST API. What if current SERP is higher then max results you can get using Google REST API? I've dug into python and soon had scripts that can be used internally from shell. But, wanted to make these scripts publicly available and developed:
serposition.appspot.com
It simply returns current position for searched keywords within 50 Google search results. This is not rocket science, but is quite handy and its good practice for newbie.

Soon, after releasing SERPosition, I've received nice feedback from Firefox add-ons community. Got two 5 star reviews for Instaright! and pending feature requests. And I did not even try to promote it. Instaright! came out of need for 1 click less during saving link to Instapaper. Previous experience with SERPosition made me reconsider existing backend and switch to GAE and python. It was true fun. Next version will be public candidate.

While all this happening, I've been testing Bing.Zing! Pow! Conclusions? Whole concept was not game changing. Service that they have been presenting, we use for a some time and its called Google. Microsoft is only 10 years late. But, lets not underestimate Qu Lui. Visual Search had stunning presentations at TC50 and ... there are Bing home page images. Home page images are so refreshing compared to static white background that Google has and I consider them Bing's best feature. They are just adorable. High definition, refreshing, artistic in every way.. Background images. And I'd like if there is some service that will provide those pictures. Wait a minute, GAE and python could do it! It took me some time to hack a Bing and to retrieve all images till today for all countries that is Bing currently present. New Zealand, Australia, UK, US, Germany,China and Japan. Now its all up to GAE as backend. Special post will announce this service.

I had really rough, but rewarding 3 weeks. Most important point of this post is that I've found framework on which I can develop/deploy and iterate app in shortest time possible. I made small steps , but they felt so right.

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Hype on Web 2.0 Summit: Marissa, can tell us about SLA?

Marissa "Keep on searching" Mayer is legendary Google totem - uber inteligent, hard working and good looking.
Yesterday, she was speaker on Web 2.0 Summit where she announced Google Social Search. Based on your emails history, feeds and friends activity search results will incorporate social activity of friends in your network. Feature is still in Google Labs and its expected to be standard part of Google search results in two weeks. Not very impressive. But, there could be catch. In order to use Social Search capabilities user will need also Gmail account and Google Profile. Google profile is one of Google's forgotten/unused projects which should incorporate social layer of Google. It was epic FAIL. Google have not done anything to promote profiles and it could be second biggest social network with round 200m active users! This shows that Google have became big slow moving company that have lost its startup spirit sitting behind advertiser's money. Recently, I have been investigating possibilities of Google Profile. Have done some statistics, demographic of profiles, per country stats, growth space compared to total number of Gmail users. Can you imagine Google Profile page with integrated Chat app , iGoogle and Google Reader? Thats social, viral and sticky. Second largest Social network available. Ouch!

On Web 2.0 Summit Marissa also announced real time search financial deal with Twitter compared to Qi Lu's announce of both Twitter and Facebook contracts. Once more, ouch! This time ouch! is pointed to Twitter who has been struggling with constant outages. Since Marisa did not revealed financial side of deal, as developer I wonder technical part of deal. What is SLA of deal? Will Twitter server their API 99.9% of time with no outages? It could be done only within Google infrastructure. Will Google provide API availability and get still pay for service? Oh, I'm so eager to take a peak at contract.

Overall, this speech was nothing special - these are only some first hand thoughts. Make your conclusions watching video belove:

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EPIC CLASH : Recap Dave McClure vs Jason Fried

Image by Adrian Whelan via Flickr

Story that spans for last couple of weeks have turned out to be EPIC CLASH! I have great respect for both sides and can understand both views and try to find my own path by learning from their experience.

Jason's movement got me with speech at Startup School 2008, where it was stated that one should enjoy present life and not wait for future moment that will come to enjoy.Plus, don't take money from Venture Capitalists - bootstrap it! So epic!

Dave McClure doesn't need special introduction. Shortly. Has been one of most influential VC in Valley. Transparent on every issue. Developer from 80s that made right investments in Web2.0 and always opened for any investment opportunity. 13th most followed VC blogger, but deserves much better spot.

It all begun with Mint acquisition 3 weeks ago and Jason's reaction on 37signals blog stating that Mint acquisition was purely VC driven. This triggered ton of reactions, reblogging and deeper analysis.

Person that was upset the most with Jason's reaction was McClure - person that invested in Mint one month before acquisition. Meaning, that he and Funders Fund were not satisfied with M&A return. It perfectly makes sense that Mint acquisition was not driven by Series C players.

Story was shortly interrupted by Twitter $1 billion valuation. But, only to cause another sarcastic blog post by Fried, where he stated that his company is valuated $100 billion using this formula:


[(Twitter followers x Facebook fans) + (# of employees x 1000)] x (RSS subscribers + daily page views) + (monthly burn rate x Google’s stock price)2


Awesome!

Finally McClure replied with huge post where he put everything he felt at moment. McClure might be using inappropriate ton and he is a little harsh, but he's transparent as ever.

Final thought would be that McClure was one that was against Mint M&A, Jason Fried certainly hit the right buttons and upset VC world ... for a moment.

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More thoughts on Twitter

Image via CrunchBase

Last week I reported on Twitter valuation of $1 billion and stated conclusions from first few moments after news.
Days have passed but my interest in this topic did not decline. I was interested in others opinions, true or false and made some adjustments on conclusions.
First, this is not sign of new Dot Com Boom - since level of VC investition level is on 1996. At least we ALL have 3 or more years to figure out correct model before new BOOM( mental note, start freaking project!!! )... if it ever repeats :)

Second. One thing we all should know is that Silicon Valley consists of finest minds in world. Meaning, that every move is carefully planned from a lot of angles.

Final conclusions? Lets start. One of mayor investors in Twitter - Betaworks has been building Twitter ecosystem. They have invested in round 20 diverse companies forming ecosystem skeleton. "Its a feature, not a bug" - John Borthwick. Top companies that distinguish are bit.ly, stocktwits, tweetdeck, TipJoy.
What might happen is M&A of some Betaworks founded company from ecosystem by Tweeter. Betawork will receive early ROI of their investment and found even more companies that supports ecosystem. This scenario happen before with Google and Youtube M&A having same investors. And, Twitter pulled its micro-blogging service into real-time web search by Summize acquisition. Above all, it was mainly talent acquisition that lifted quality bar of whole service. One, note on TipJoy that supports previous story. It almost got acquired by FB, but they bailed-out at last moment. But, they hired TipJoy CEO - Ivan Kirigins!
Founder will get early ROI, Twitter might get another great acquisition. But, they still don't have clear business plan nor revenue follow. Also, part of this $100 million investment is buying time. Any offer round $5-$10 billion will be easily rejected. With recent hire of Dick Costolo and future acquisition of great talent - right people will get into buss. Right people will sit in right seats and then will have time to decide where will this buss head. Simple as that. With current money burn and possible M&A, they will have about 2 year to figure out revenue stream and I'm sure that its not gonna be simple ad-based-web2.0 business plan.

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