Tons of news sites and portals were put to the test yesterday as a result of Michael Jackson’s death. People rushed to sites to get the latest news. At our office we started seeing tweets about the TMZ.com report and immediately rushed there.
As always the usual suspects had to cut down on features just to stay alive, but overall Gigom is reporting that most web services went without a glitch.
This is a huge win for cloud computing and infrastructure as a service(IAAS) offerings. This will elevate awareness to site owners on the need to be on highly scalable systems. The only cheap way to do this is through IAAS providers like Amazon, MediaTemple, or GoGrid among other.
TechCrunch has an interesting chart showing searches for Michael Jackson. I find it interesting to see that people go to Google for their real time news.
(Link TechCrunch.)
Michael Jackson is one of three inventors for the anti-gravity dance style. Link Mediabistro.
(Via DaringFireball)
Developers are too harsh on the App Store Reviewers. Look at the kind of stuff they have to deal with(Don’t know if you can detect my sarcasm tone):
Wednesday May 20
Began examining new Flickr client app. Ends up it is surprisingly difficult to find pornographic content on Flickr. Entire day wasted.
Apple really need to fix this whole review process. It should be changed from pre-approving apps to customer/moderator flagging and removing after launch. There is a huge rush coming up with iPhone 3.0 versions. Developers should expect huge delays.
As always John Gruber posted a great article on the diary of an App Store reviewer.
I stopped linking to Apple rumors a long time ago, but this one takes the price from AppleInsider:
There’s nothing that ties the entries to Apple or an iPhone, though some speculate that the references may align with some form of code-naming convention by which the third-generation iPhone would be given the “Charlie” nickname using the phonetic alphabet.
So this pretty much translates to: We have 0 evidence, but since 3 and C are in the same order, it has to be related.
In their defense, WWDC timing does give them benefit of the doubt.
(Link AppleInsider.)
Om Malik on newspaper execs:
Just to be very, very clear, I am not talking about the working stiffs — the journalists who pound the pavement, every day, looking for news and their editors. I am talking about the members of the executive suite, which who with every passing day prove themselves to be as calcified as the remains of a T. rex.
(Link GigaOM.)
Facebook’s full adoption of OpenID gives the protocol a much needed grasp of air:
[Facebook] they’ll become what’s called a relying party, meaning anyone with an OpenID (Yahoo, Google, AOL, MySpace are all issuers, and Microsoft is in beta) can create and log into a Facebook account using those credentials.
(Link TechCrunch.)
Flash makes Firefox and Safari crash on my brand new computer. Wonder what they have under their sleeves to prevent this from happening on a tiny device. Thanks Apple for being smart about this till Adobe gets their game on.
(Link MobileCrunch .)
Luke Crawford on Muxtape’s move from PHP to Rails:
PHP as a language is a clusterfuck of bad design decisions because it lacks a clear vision.
(Link tlvx.net)
Terrific article from the guys at 37Signals about their design decisions for the Highrise signup chart. They also shed some light on how signup increased in a particular plan as a result of suggesting it via design detail. Dell has been doing this for a long time. They always have the “Dell recommended” option. It probably sees the most clicks from average users.
One particular thing they don’t mention, but I have noticed repeatedly in different subscription based apps is that they put the most expensive plan on the left side. It seems to be a “Shock and Awe” experience: First surprise the potential customer with the highest possible price, then let them discover a much reasonably priced plan on the right and make them feel like they’ve found a great deal!
(Link 37Signals)