As I May Think...

Will Scoble's book be out of date before it is read?

At "The Red Couch", Israel and Scoble announce that they are making good progress on their business blogging book. However, I can't help wondering if it won't be horribly out-of-date when published in early 2006.

Blogging for the hurried executive

The guys on the Cutting Through blog have documented a wonderful case of adapting blogs, syndication and podcasting to the "real world" of business requirements. In their case the problem was providing competitive intelligence to a "classic Type-A personality, time-poor, stressed executive with too much to do and too little time to do it - he spends most of his life on planes in transit between meetings."

What they've done is set up a bunch of PubSub subscriptions, Google Alerts, etc. which they review manually and then convert to .mp3 "podcast" files which are inserted into RSS files. The exec's news aggregator loads the podcasts into iTunes for review -- on the road, on the plane, etc. Read the full story on the Cutting Through blog.

PubSub Job Opening/ PHP/Javascript Position

PubSub Concepts, Inc. (pubsub.com) needs a strong PHP/Javascript developer to maintain and expand our website. This is a technical position rather than a design position.

The PubSub website acts as an interface between users and our software back-end. The website does not perform the actual matching service, but does provide a means of interacting with it as far as creating and manging subscriptions. Much of this work is XML based, so you’ll need to do more than just interact with a database (although there’s plenty of that as well). Since PubSub is a service, there are also many opportunities to build applications that comminucate with the website.

This is where Javascript comes into the picture. You should be familiar with making HTTP requests through Javascript, and with creating a rich user experience around them.

In other words, client-side programming skills are just as important as server-side programming skills. Please only send us a resume if you know and understand both and can provide samples of past work.

We’re looking for the following skills and abilities:

• Strong knowledge of HTML, including the ability to hand-code pages
• Strong knowledge of design and layout, both using advanced and traditional techniques
• Extensive PHP knowledge. You should be at a level where you can install and update PHP from sources
• Extensive Javascript knowledge.
• String general coding skills, including any non-php languages
• The ability to separate content from functionality and business logic
• Some database management ability - at least familiarity with creating and modifying tables

The following would also be helpful:

• Familiarity with or knowledge of Linux Knowledge of other scripting languages like perl, bash or python
• Knowledge of Flash

PubSub is located in lower Manhattan. This is a full time position. We cannot sponsor visas or relocation.

Please send your resume as text to jobs@pubsub.com.

AskJeeves + BlogLines? and Cat Pictures...

Ever since Mary Hodder's blog posting, it seems like the whole Blogosphere has been buzzing about the rumor that AskJeeves will announce on Tuesday that it is buying Bloglines. Given that there is no official word yet, I checked Mark Fletcher's blog (CEO of Bloglines) to see if there were any hints buried there... What did I find? Cat Pictures! Personally, I find that to be massively funny... Maybe it really is true that cat pictures are the primary subject of blogs.

It is interesting to think for a minute what it will mean if a solid second-tier retrospective search company like AskJeeves follows the path taken by Microsoft/Moreover and starts competing with Feedster, Technorati, WayPath, IceRocket, MSN, etc. It is possible that what we're going to see is a wave of second tier search vendors all trying to capture the blog search space before someone else does. (These guys can't hope to win in the main "web search" business... They must find a niche.) Then, it is inevitable that the first tier folk (i.e. Google, Yahoo, etc.) would be forced to follow suit. But by the time the first tier folk respond, one of the second tier players may have been able to create a sustainable and loyal user base. The play-out of this game might lead to rapid consolidation through buyouts of the existing blog search engines... or the big guys might just decide to use their own existing search engines (Their search engines are already much more reliable and much more powerful then the home-grown search engines that currently serve the retrospective blog search space... and, their crawlers could be driven by FeedMesh!...)

Of course, once all the search engines are finally providing retrospective blog search, the interesting question will be: "Who will be first to work with folk like us at Pubsub.com to incorporate prospective search into their offerings?"...

Whatever the case, I'm sure that the real story is going to be much more interesting  and exciting than Mark's cat pictures -- even though they are really nice looking cats.

    bob wyman