Tag Archives: apis

Google Hangouts Extensions point to a richer Google+ Platform future

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Yesterday I read about a delightful project involving LEDs, Arduino, Processing, Node.js, Google+ and Google Hangouts.

I was originally interested due to the Arduino angle but then I realised there was something extremely powerful going on with Google+ Hangouts and had to dig in more.

Have a look at the video first, it’s an extremely cool mashing together of a bunch of things.

I’m not sure how the Hangouts Extensions and API announcements passed me by, but they are a really fantastic idea. To quote Google:

The Google+ Hangouts API allows you to develop collaborative apps that run inside of a Google+ Hangout. Hangout apps behave much like normal web apps, but with the addition of the rich, real-time functionality provided by the Hangouts APIs. Apps have the ability to control aspects of the user interface, synchronize data between hangout participants, and respond to various events in the hangout.

So in the video above, it’s a simple LED toggle that anyone on the Hangout can flick. The Google example mentions games but really anything involving user interaction is possible. I think I now understand how Red Bull managed to integrate a Twitter stream with the Live Hangout of Felix Baumgartner!

What else? Live Polls obviously. Did anyone use it to do realtime voting during last night’s presidential debate? The showcase also highlights Slideshare and Pulse News.

Whilst I am extremely impressed by the Hangouts API, it reminded me yet again of the giant hole at the heart of Google+. I’ve said it many times before but Facebook’s approach is still 100% correct. Provide a Platform and APIs and let developers/businesses provide the ideas and innovation. Facebook is a flavour factory, Google+ is currently vanilla only.

But the Hangout API and Extensions give me hope. If that type of wide-open functionality is made available in every part of Google+ (particularly Business and Local Pages), then Facebook has some real competition on its hands. That’s good for both Google and Facebook. And of course, us.

 

From tiny CSV acorns, many #OpenData oaks can grow. Now where is Ireland’s CIO/CTO?

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This has been a superb week in Ireland for showing what motivated geeks can do with even the most clunky of Government data. After the Oireachtas XML debacle, it was a joy to see the new Residential Property Price Register site make its data available. Sure, it was poxy old CSV files per year and it was riddled with errors but I really am pleased with what it triggered.

Within hours of the data going up, we had:

  1. Properties by Price Range
  2. A merged Excel spreadsheet
  3. YellowSchedule with a great search interface
  4. A Heroku-based App with Search
  5. My import into Google Fusion Tables and the (patchy) Geo-Coding of the data

And by the end of the week we also had:

  1. Another searchable site with maps
  2. Mapquest-based Geo-Coding
  3. Others?

In fact the only thing we seem to be missing is someone sticking a JSON API in the front of the data. UPDATE: See comment below from Brendan. Nice one!

I hope those working on data in the Public Sector take encouragement and ideas from this. Most of what was done took very little work. I’m sure many of the people involved would be only too happy to share their technical approaches.

If we all keep leading by example, I expect the quality and quantity of Public Sector Web Services and Data to improve in leaps and bounds over the next 12 months.

Three years ago next week, I suggested a regular BarCamp called  IRLCamp where public sector and private sector get together and present interesting projects, ideas and technologies and learn from each other. I still think we should do this.

Three years later we still need a CIO/CTO for Ireland too.

APIs, Web Services, Cloud, AWS – Slides from my talk yesterday at #OFFSITE2012

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The first ever OFFSITE event in West Cork yesterday was a big success. I learned a lot from all the other speakers both about technology and business. The real stand-out for me was Ger Keohane‘s talk on eCommerce conversions. It was pretty stunning how you can seriously improve conversions to actual purchase with some very non-obvious changes.

I’m really pleased to see the West Cork Development Partnership get into the area of supporting local tech enterprises in addition to all the other areas they have supported over the years. If you are in West Cork and you are thinking about doing anything on the web or mobile, make sure to get in contact with David Tuohy there.

My talk on Web Services and moving to the cloud was a bit of a mish-mash. I was trying to cram a lot of info into 20 minutes. Unfortunately there is no video or audio so you’ll have to try and guess what some of my analogies mean e.g. Pig vs Waifos, FlyLo vs Butlins. Leave a comment if you get stuck :-)

Original on Google Docs:

Also on Slideshare:
Coming whenever conversion is complete. Now waiting 2 hours!

How the hell did I miss the upcoming shutdown of FeedBurner? Another lesson in lock-in.

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How the hell did I miss the fact that Google is shutting down FeedBurner in October?

I always remember Dave Winer warning all us bloggers back in 2007 that we were nuts to insert a single company between us and our readers. Most of us thought he was being a crank. It turns out he was right.

My big worry is that we will all lose all of our Blog Subscribers. In my case, built up over 11 years. I’ll be optimistic and assume some sort of skeleton FeedBurner service will exist which will 301 re-direct all the feeds to the original sources.

Great round-up piece on the problem by Neville Hobson. Two solutions offered by Dave.

How many times are we going to fall for this before we learn? We see a service that offers us some really nice benefits for free (FeedBurner, Facebook , Twitter, etc etc). Then we choose to ignore what will happen if they go away or change the rules or just break. We decide lock-in is a fair swap for free. Then they go away or change the rules or just break. And we’re left high and dry, swearing never again. Until the next time.

Luckily I’ve only got two blogs left using FeedBurner. Unluckily they are the two most trafficked. I’ll see if I can do the CNAME transition before D-Day and report back.

UPDATE: Someone left a comment on Google+ saying that it is just specific APIs that are getting shutdown, not the overall service. If I can confirm that, I’ll report back. Meanwhile, I’m still going to make the CNAME move.