TreeWorks Blog

Forget it all
The TV screen
TV screen makes you feel small
No life at all
Now that you have turned it off
It’s harder than you thought
No one wants to give a damn
Or even hear a thought “
This idea started from Radu and from the ProTv new website which we have launched (I’m not boasting now that our company has created it, but it is really a very complex one and people therefrom have a super-team that will update it with content from the entire trust).

The thing is that the televisions concept has really changed:

1. The TV set is gone to pot for a part of the population (those better off).
2. But television as a media force has remained (in fact, it is actually a paradox – worldwide audience runs low, but the profits rise: for instance HBO that had registered the lowest audience in 2005, but the most significant encasements – it is true that HBO works on subscriptions, but also those who live in advertising are doing as much decently.
Guys from the big league are ready to invest a pretty penny in online because they understand that television is the new radio ( to say it more euphemistic than Radu). The future is highly-personalized content with highly-targeted ads. And where you can make much pretty penny than from the one hundred way of telling „detergent” to the housewifes. Here is a cool post about TV advertising from Eugen. The combination Internet-TV allows you delivering Vacheron watches advertising as well as Swatch. And the tough guys will seize.

3. Television and generally famous media trusts will start also in .ro the competition with the online companies. It remains to be seen how much marketshare they will gain. I think they won’t loose at least on content. And my feeling is that they won’t buy. Because there is no reason for that. Or it’s better to build than to buy in their case. In my opinion, online companies hadn’t attained yet the necessary level to be safe investments (these are still much too much enterprises and can be disjointed relative easily by the media trusts that have great media exposition).
4. The PROTV strategy of introducing videos is a good idea (but it should be also introduced a little more text content for the people who are working and don’t want to play anything – for example CNN). Because the video content is completely copyrightable (namely the aggregations sites couldn’t take it as well as the textual). It differentiates from the newspapers too.

5. Applause for their trust in the developer (namely TreeWorks). I say it was a very great collaboration. For the suggestions opening too.
Well, I wish you success. And we are also waiting for other Romanian initiatives with the same complexity and content back up level.

The title of the article is not mine, nor the idea. An idea that, between you and me, is absolutely brilliant. The initiator of the subject is Ray Ozzie and the original post is available on the current Microsoft Chief Software Architecture’s blog, I mean here.

What is all about… Well, in general it is about “give power to the people”.

Starting from the idea that the future of the Internet consists in the interconnection of the services, of the processes and, in general, of the information between websites and that currently this process is available only to the field specialists (developers, programmers and so on, who succeed this by designing those applications), Ray Ozzie suggests a way through which regular users can easily exchange the information on their own websites, by importing/copying the desired information directly from other websites.

The solution that was found is inspired by the technology that stays at the foundation of the interconnection of desktop applications: the “clipboard”. Ray Ozzie suggests “Live Clipboard“ - a technology based on JavaScript, Ajax and XML structures, which allows the implementing sites to facilitate copying certain informational structures between them. Why informational structures? Because, if it is intended only the copying of a simple text, this is possible by using the well-known low-end (of the desktop) clipboard variant: text selection, then copy (ctrl+c) and then paste (ctrl+v) to the desired destination of the original text. But considering that there are already predefined data structures such as events, contacts, profiles etc. it would be interesting for the user to copy the entire informational structure, not only excerpts that need to be manually integrated at the target location. And how could he obtain that? Well, nice and easy, with the same clipboard model (Select/Cut/Copy/Paste), just that the initial selection isn’t performed by manually selecting text anymore, but through the icon specially created for LiveClipboard (specially meaning for the conception/design, to show to the user that the application is LiveClipboard Enabled and not because it would have had specially attributes toward a normal gif ) where user clicks and selects the intended action (copy, cut or paste).

Behind interface, the programming part makes everything and when clicking the mentioned icon the proper structure it is visually marked, and after that, at the selection of a (let’s say) copying action, the xml structure that defines the informational object in question it is serialized by JavaScript and then it is kept in the personal computer clipboard. At the “paste” action on the icon of a container where we want to save the informational object from the clipboard, the de-serialization and the importing or the saving (if this is the intention) in the database using Ajax, it is made also from JavaScript. I know! at the first sight it doesn’t seems something extraordinary but that’s because you don’t have the entire picture :). But you can have it by following the 100% functional example that it can be found here.

And the most astonishing thing is the fact that the above-mentioned application also works between two different browsers (meaning that I can copy the structure of a contact in Internet Explorer and paste it in Firefox). And this practically means a small opened door through which, in the near future, I will be able to copy the same structure from a desktop application (such as Microsoft Outlook) and paste it in a website (and vice-versa).

Of course, so far, LiveClipboard is still at the concept stage and many things (including the standards of the informational structure types) need to be developed and especially to be accepted so that this new technology could be used on a large scale. But the perspective is extremely encouraging and you can be sure that in the future we’ll hear again about LiveClipboard.

“Give power to the people!”

There is no definition for Web2.0, at least not in the dictionary. Web2.0 usually refers to those services that allow users to co-operate and change online information. Unlike the previous version, Web 2.0 applications are more interactive offering to the users an experience much more similar to the desktop applications.

It was the beginning of 2005 when Google launched his free-email service: Gmail. At that moment the idea of having a 1Gb email account seemed good enough as to accept Google superiority in other field than “searching” and web advertising. However, Yahoo reacted immediately and it increased its free accounts to 250Mb and soon to 1Gb regaining - if necessary - its users.

But we won’t discuss here about Google and Yahoo war. What I intend to emphasis is that at the beginning of 2005, using Ajax in the new Gmail, Google introduced web 2.0 version at a large scale. If you remember, when you were creating your new Gmail account, the confirmation regarding the availability of the desired address was automatic without pressing any additional button. At that moment it was very spectacular… I don’t say that Google invented Ajax. This technology became first possible because of the browsers - in general - and especially the Internet Explorer, implemented XMLHttpRequest that allows asynchronous loading of the page without the complete reloading of the page. But I sustain that Google was the first of the big players that promoted this technology. You can find here or searching Google :), the Ajax history and many more details about its operation.

Ajax is a technology (in fact a conglomerate made by more technologies like JavaScript, xhtml, html, css, xml and many more) that enhances web functioning by admitting a high level of interaction between users and web pages. Ajax means interaction and if it is used correctly, it makes easier the user’s experience. Of course, web 2.0 is not limited to Ajax. Web 2.0 also it means the aggregation of information from different sources (feeds, blogs…). It means the issue of wiki-type collaborative tools, practically the existence off all the technologies that allow an easy collaboration and interaction between users with same interests. But Ajax is the engine that assures the necessary interaction at the page level.

The best example of Ajax use is the one that was first used by Google for Gmail: the using of Ajax in order to verify the choice made by user before he submits a bushy form and have the unpleasant experience to be turned around to the same form and to choose something else because the first choice was already made by another user. In this example, Ajax usage reduces the necessary time for filling in the form and it results in a “filling in” natural flow.

Obviously, in using Ajax there are pro and contra arguments. Pro reasons are rather related to the increasing of usability. And Jakob Nielsen (the usability guru) although it doesn’t seem to be very interested in the subject, admits that Ajax utility is a recommended practice as long as it doesn’t create confusion in users’ rank (when the difference between interactivity and navigation is evident - here are more details about this and here is the general discussion). The contra reasons are rather related to the fact that Ajax depends on JavaScript and thus, an user without an activated JavaScript can’t use that page. And even more! It is necessary to be taken into consideration the user’s Internet connection latency! Why?! Because if this latency is too big and if the user it is not prevented that an action is taking place in the background, he might not understand what it is going on and thus the aimed usability will actually dramatically decline.

As about usages and usage instructions, well… in this moment Gmail uses very much Ajax but it can run without it, also (obviously some functionalities aren’t available any more). However, bear this in mind! Yahoo! Mail Beta is exclusively based on Ajax. That means that without JavaScript activated you couldn’t use this web mail application at all. This e-mail application is by far the most astonishing achievement based on Ajax that is available to the large public (you just have to ask in order to test it). Yahoo! Mail Beta is, actually, an extremely visual application that proves what Web 2.0 is capable to offer us and what interesting things can be achieved in the future.

The fact that Yahoo Mail has a very similar functionality with Outlook Express, proves that the era of distributive applications is soon approaching. We won’t need desktop applications, anymore, because everything will be on the server… All that is missing is just the good Internet connections… and - obviously - the distributive applications. But Yahoo seems to completely trust Ajax and it’s potential.

PS: As a programmer I never trusted JavaScript too much. Besides the fact that it can’t be controlled, there also exists those variations in interpretation between the types of the browsers that make the development process difficult and with the necessary twitches for each version. But it can’t be without it also! And, at this moment, there are enough frameworks of JavaScript that help us very much in the development of applications. But about this subject we’ll discuss some other time…

Today we begin the web technological “discoveries” series. I’m sure that most of the subjects here are facts that you might have thought or discovered by yourselves. We don’t try to present ourselves as “teachers”. But we’ll try - though - to “talk” about interesting things for our industry-fellows as well as for the possible clients that want to know more about web technologies.
The topics won’t be extremely technical (or, I’d better say that the technical language will not be brought to extreme) and (hope so ) they’ll not be extremely boring either. We’ll try to extract from the huge bunch of information achieved throughout the years, and - why not - we hope to become better through the feedback we expect from you.
Therefore we propose you to read and debate opinions, observations, experiences and the utility of different technologies that should be used in order to create a great web presence.