18December2008
Posted by Dan under: General.
One of my (many) pet peeves about social networking is the way that relationships are modelled. I actually went into this on my first presentation I’ve done, down at BarCampBrighton3: The Evolution of the Social Web. We humans are complex entities; in many ways our relationships are so elastic and contextual that we can’t realistically model these in a simple social network.
In my eyes, social networking began when the communication between user’s profiles became the primary function of a site; obviously user profiles had existed for a long while before social networking became a used term. Because of this evolution, most sites still use what I call the ‘flat-friends’ model, i.e. every connection is of the same type and depth.
My guess is that it wasn’t until MySpace became so huge and it began attracting the music/artist crowd that this became particularly noticeable. On MySpace (and many others), your connections could be offline-friends, those you only know online, bands, companies, charities, etc with no sense of differentiation other than artist profiles have an embedded music player.
Facebook caught on because it circumvented the issues with the explosion in popularity of MySpace and the like by looking more at your actual identity. You sign up as yourself, with no alias or screen name and are encouraged to find people you know. For the most part, this has been my experience. Later on, Facebook Pages were added to bring in some of the content MySpace had in terms of bands and brands but many of these already had an independent or sponsored Facebook Group, which I think clouded the issue and on the whole my guess is that Facebook Pages are perhaps less popular than MySpace profiles for non-personal content.
So back to ‘friends’… My feeling has always been in my pop-social-psychology frame of mind is that this model isn’t sustainable. Firstly separating the people from the other kinds of content and recognising the specific needs of a sector (such as the music industry) rather than generic profiles and secondly to look at our relationships with other people.
Facebook has great granular privacy settings and it also has lists but I’d say that for less technical users these aren’t used to their fullest and you still see loads of open profiles with no restrictions. Part of this is education and the fact that repercussions of exposing your media output through your teenage years might not have materialised for many yet. An issue aside from privacy is how you present yourself to different audiences.
What I’ve found is that however subtly, we most/all have a different was of acting and reacting as part of a different group of people, from extremes like friends you go out for a beer with to contacts or acquaintances through work. Perhaps this is less true of more techie people, that often use their blog and everything else a cohesive online identity but I believe that even then we have our lives split into personas.
Each persona could have connections (rather than the term ‘friends’) shared, like a colleague at work you also go out for a beer with but this enables us to use a single profile/social network to present these faces to the world and arrange our relationships across them. Plaxo have started this off by allowing a work/friends/family set of data to your profile, which isn’t a bad start but I’d like to see this idea through the social web.
I’m kind of scratching the surface of some thoughts here so I’ll try and follow this up with more concise observations!
8December2008
Posted by Dan under: events.
A week after the one in Sheffield, I’m at Liverpool’s first BarCamp, this one sold out/released all 200 tickets they had available, held at the Novas Contemporary Urban Centre. It’s a great venue, which is a quite recent addition although I’d lived in Liverpool for years had never really noticed the building - a massive old warehouse.
I think one of the things I love about these events is that you never know exactly what you’ll get. There’s a loose structure and formula to them but because of the different set of people involved, each on has it’s own character. I caught Andy Brown’s session about starting up a business, which kind of solidified a few thoughts I already had and showed ways on really breaking your idea down and facing the realities of getting something off the ground. Phil’s session on how to do presentations was great BarCamp fodder; many people either won’t've done a presentation before or not since school/university so getting the benefit of his experience and training is really useful.
As I’ve found recently, that the discussion sessions can be so much more interesting (to me), I thought I’d go that route this time with one called ‘The Good, The Band and The Fugly‘; going over why so many band’s websites are bad, what they get right/wrong, people’s experiences with their favourite band’s online, etc. It’s kind of research and because music and the web are areas I love being in and around. There was a lot of great feedback, which I’ll try and remember and maybe blog in more detail about later.
There were a couple of iPhone development talks, which actually complemented each other from Dave Verwer and Phil Stringer. Dave’s walked us through the process he went through designing/creating an app and actually getting it available in the App Store. What he showed is that the process can be broken down into simple bits and that Apple give a lot of guidelines to follow to assist that, mostly due to the fact that they want to ensure consistent user experience. It sounds like a pain to get your app accepted in the store but then also to realise that once you’re there, it isn’t a marketing tool, it’s just a delivery platform so you still need to do everything you would normally do to promote a product.
Phil’s session walked through his app Coffee Buzz, which isn’t yet in the App Store but explained about the development of the idea, what seems to work on these devices and pricing it. We got a glimpse into using the iPhone SDK, which actually didn’t seem that bad and has a decent iPhone emulator, so I’ll be checking out doing some of that in the future.
I was pleased to hang around till the end of the sessions to catch Cristiano’s session on Facebook App development. I’ve been starting to get my head around this and start the basic old ‘Hello World’ app but hearing someone explain the process they go through, the elements you need to consider in terms of when and where your app appears and the interaction with your server was invaluable. It’s this kind of exchange of ideas and knowledge which I love about BarCamps; hearing his presentation and asking a few (sometimes stupid) questions just speeds up the process of getting into FB dev.
The evening party was sponsored by Microsoft, which is actually quite unusual as the guy representing them confessed. There is a little, not exactly animosity, towards MS in the wider geek/web development community, which he recognised and it was a good move to get down to grass roots and get involved in a community event like this. Hopefully we’ll see them do this more. Although everyone has a preference for OS, coding languages or development platfoms/tools, we need to recognise MS’s involvement and give them the time we would to any other company in this field. There were DVDs and marketing materials about Silverlight and the like available but that’s not what it was about and it was discrete. Good on you Microsoft - from a new Mac user too ;)
I missed the party catching up with old friends but there were still a decent number of people around for the Sunday programme, which was great to see. I unfortunately missed Rich Quick’s session about how to present yourself/get more work as an agency/freelancer, which sounded cool but I floated between sessions and had a natter with some people while making myself ill on too many sweets and fizzy drinks the sponsors had provided - mission accomplished there! I had to opt out of playing Werewolf, which apparently raged on for hours. It was good to see a few familiar faces and meet a few new ones, as always!
Liverpool has changed so much in the year or so since I left it and I admit that I miss it. What had started to feel small and village like has become so much more, not only physically with Liverpool One but in the fact that with the Biennial and Capital of Culture, there’s some energy in the place. I’ll be dropping back over more frequently ;)
29November2008
Posted by Dan under: events.
- BarCampSheffield logo
Now I’m armed with my MacBook, I’m having a go at logging during the weekend so I can try and capture more of the thoughts that go off from various sessions. Might be interesting for me to look back over and see a difference in writing style too.
2pm Saturday
So after a cold, frosty, foggy morning getting the train over from Stockport, there was a pretty warm welcome for people registering and straightaway you get a sense that it’s pretty well organised. By the time I go there the chart was fairly full already for the sessions over the weekend and a really varied lot - possibly more out-and-out techie than the two BarCamp style events I’ve been to before.
First off I caught Caz’s talk about Geocaching. I had a fair idea what was involved in it but it’s always good to feed off someone’s enthusiasm; something you get a lot of at BarCamps. It might be a little geeky to wonder around with a GPS unit of some kind trying to find caches but it can a real team thing and actually quite social. You can see how people can really get into it and interact in a practical way too, setting caches of their own and exchanging stories, etc.
Alastair held an open discussion, in part attempting to find a definition everyone could agree on for what community actually is or what it means. Going round the table there were some interesting ideas and arguments, most of which accepting that many of our interpretations may be based on the bastardisation of the word community. It’s interesting stuff considering my talk I’ll be trying again tomorrow (trying to improve from SocialMediaCamp). Are communities implied? Do you have to actually decide to become a part of a community? More musing to be done on this, I think…
10pm Saturday
Hmm…my ‘live blogging’ slipped through lack of power outlets or maybe absorbed in conversation then darting out early for the train?
The afternoon was really pretty good. Got talking to a few people, notably Neil Crosby (a Yahoo! fella) and Pippa Buchanan and it was Pippa’s talk around Friendship & Jedi Mind-tricks, which kind of took over the afternoon. There was good reason - the Jedi bit was to pull a crowd and I think a few left after realising it was a ruse but that left a core that really got a lot out of the discussion about friendship in the Internet age; whether it’s something quantifiable in the real world as more formal relationships or whether the online world has had an impact. We all ended up gassing in though provoking ways for a good 2 hours so I missed a session or two I had my eye on, but it’s this I love about BarCamps; a lot of intelligent people from different backgrounds enthusiastic and yet they listen. Discussions are the best part and with there being so many elements related to social psychology, anthropology, social networks, etc it was right up my street. I never tire of hearing other people talk about their experiences and perceptions around human interactions, especially in such a forum.
The downside is that I had to leave early so I donated my beer tokens and caught most of Paul Stanton’s ‘Self Defense for Geeks’. You can’t always tell if the title is literal for BarCamp sessions, but this one was and shows the diversity of what you can get; actual basics of how to respond to confrontations without any practical demos, even though Stanton is a black belt karate type.
More tomorrow…
4pm Sunday
Tedious journey in ment that I missed the first couple of sessions but ended up catching Emma Persky’s around women on the Internet. Loads of interesting sub-issues and discussions over how to gauge amount of usage by women of services on the web with as many questions raised as were answered. A real strength of BarCamps is the range of discussions and debates.
Tim Nash showed us all the evils of SEO techniques and busted open a few myths, which was unexpectedly interesting. I heard a little idea about some of the ways that search engines found their results but seeing a few diagrams and learning about some more nefarious techniques opens your mind a little.
I caught Jon’s talk around 10 ways to f**k up your website, which was actually really true and simple thing that can be forgotten about a web project, from DNS settings, getting content from clients, etc. Always worth being reminded about this stuff and not be too complacent that maybe you already know it all. I have admit the one about colour profiles is one I hadn’t heard before.
So as the day peters out, it’s more of a hang out and I’m quite in the mood for a pint so time to work on a new presentation for BarCampLiverpool next week?
13November2008
Posted by Dan under: events.
Yesterday I went down to Bristol to sit on a panel at the Web Developers Conference, which is mainly aimed at university students that have an interest in getting into the web industry. It was a really good idea that Alex (and Dan) started last year - to bring the industry to the students so that they can figure out what the reality is and ask questions.
I’d had a late one coding the night before and got an early train down just in time to catch James Box’s talk, which was very cool and exactly the kind of thing that would work at most conferences, very thoughtful and a great introduciton for the amassed (mainly) student audience. The panel I was on, along with Dan W, John Gibbins, Elliot Jay Stocks & Elliott Kember went pretty well. There were some good questions asked and I think we all had different experiences to draw from to paint a broad picture. It was my first time in this kind of set-up and I really liked it, despite a yearning for my missed breakfast.
Alex had done a great job of organising the event and getting some really interesting people involved, in addition to those I’ve already mentioned: Rick Hurst, Jon Tan, Mel Kirk, Peter Coles, Joe Leach, Patrick Lauke and Chris Garrett were all great and it was a great oppotunity to have a chat with most of the them before dashing off for a train.
Seeing what was done with this, it could and should be duplicated in any major university where there is a decent amount of interest in web development. I know when I first started out I had no idea what to learn, what it was like to be a pro and so had many misconceptions. It was actually really nice to chat with some of the first years who were really keen to get into it and be reminded of what it was like for me starting out and hopefully offer a few constructive words of encouragement.
7October2008
Posted by Dan under: events; social web.
I finally managed to get everything organised to get myself on an early train from Manchester down to SocialMediaCamp London on the 4th October. It’s my second venture into the community; my second BarCamp style event too.
First thing I noticed was that the facilities were great at Wallacespace in St Pancras. It’s a pretty well done out building; modern and friendly. Everyone I met, straight out of my zombied train mode, were really welcoming, especially Vero who organised the event.
The site of the board waiting to be filled up with sessions got my nerves going. I think I had a bit more preparation than with my first BarCamp at Brighton a month ago but sometimes you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone…
I can’t remember everything I saw or heard but the day started for me with Carl of Fellow Creative’s talk about Hedgehogs. I know - what has hedgehogs got to do with social media? That was the beauty of what Carl does - there were loads of meandering ideas, which in turn encouraged ideas from the people in the session, but it did have a point! He is after all a ‘creative midwife’ ;) Good to bump into him again after Brighton.
Damien’s ‘Scrumping 2.0′ was actually was about scrumping but more in relation to community projects and somehow using more contemporary web technologies to help sections of a community garner support to achieve their goals. It started the old cogs turning, thinking about engaging with technical and non-technical people within the community and what kind of structure any web platform would need. Should there be personal achievements or should together achieving a goal be enough? Could you use RFID or would it work to use that and offer other formats through a single tiki-tag like QR codes or SMS short codes?
I caught most of Peter O’Neill’s talk on metrics and how we can measure the impact of social media, which was pretty informative especially as there is only so we can go. We can tracks visits to our websites but keeping tabs on the ‘buzz’ we’re trying to create especially through newer social channels is difficult. Food for thought and one to keep looking into.
From what I can remember, I think I sauntered into LLoyd Davis’ session about being a one man/woman social media empire. Illustrating the great contrast you can get in talks, Lloyd’s was interestingly practical. He once had a canvas bar in which he carried everything he’d need for work, blogging, podcasts, interviews, etc but his latest experiment is to try to downsize that and see how little kit you can get away with. His Nokia N95 was hooked up to the huge plasma screen and the little bluetooth keyboard showed that with the right apps, it was possibly although clunky and for the more technical proficient. He demoed how using a Python app, he could take a photo (upload to Flickr through ShoZu) and write a blog post and submit to WordPress all relatively pain free - the results of which are on his blog. It shows we’re getting closer to the mobile dream but there’s still a way to go till it’s convenient for most people.
I managed to make it up to one of the ‘nest’ rooms to catch Alison’s session about her creative/web project. I’d spoken with her throughout the day and it was clear that there is real mileage in her ideas to help creatives embrace collaboration but that aside from technical solutions there would need to be a shift in the community to actively encourage sharing of skills and ideas - to maybe use her solution as a means to land bigger project through collaborating with similarly minded creatives.
It was my turn to take to the stage. I’d done a bit more preparation for my presentation this time although suffering from major dry-mouth and nerves, I got through it and actually enjoyed it! I didn’t really know who I was pitching to so in retrospect I might’ve thrown too many concepts at the audience. Although it wasn’t completely technical, that side of it underpins the more philosophical ideas I was trying to get across. Maybe it’ll need more work and try version 2 out next time…
Ben’s talk about FOAF/XFN & Dunbar’s number was exactly the kind of thing I’m into but it immediately raised my pet subject of context of social relationships to my mind as FOAF, which it is practical for basic mapping of relationships, leaves no room for negative relationships, saying how we know each contact, etc. XFN was briefly touched upon (or was that just in my mind?), which I like and try to use on my own code but is another static technology whereas the web needs live social data or we’re not much farther forward than we currently are. Great talk though and it was interesting hear more about Dunbar and the kind of research that has been done on a more anthropological and psychological wavelength about human social interaction.
There was a real mix of people from developers like me to PR and journalistic types to marketers and entrepreneurs to creatives and freelancers. Judging by the success of this one, I’m sure Vero would be looking to do another sometime next year and I’ll be there! The food and drink supplied by the sponsors was welcomed after a day filled with so many ideas and so much conversation. Good to meet so many people, such as Peter from viewmy.tv/brandstation.tv, Matt from localmouth.com, Mary from JuiceCaster and Goldmund from The Sun. I’m sure I’ve not name-checked everyone , but it was a pleasure to meet you and I’ll hopefully bump into you sometime in the future.
7October2008
Posted by Dan under: General.
So, I recently moved HereintheHive over to my new hosting at Media Temple and upgraded WordPress at the same time. Save for a missing post or too, all went according to plan. Now for some blogs I’ve not had the chance to write over the last week or so…
14September2008
Posted by Dan under: General.
Well it’s a week after and I’m mulling over the experience of my first BarCamp. After dConstruct I was still in a developer mindset, even clouded with beers from the after-party, so I was ready for more. I had the feeling that it was going to be more geeky and again I’d no nobody. As it turns out, it’s is geeky but in a really good way.The premise, for those that either haven’t heard of or have never been to a BarCamp before is that it’s free to attend but every attendee is also a contributor, whether that’s doing a talk yourself or mucking in with something else. Everyone was really welcoming and at this one around half were first timers, so I felt at ease right away.
The gist of the days is that first thing, everyone registers then there’s a whip around the room for a quick introduction before making a card up for your talk and finding a timeslot in one of the rooms; at this camp, there were 7 rooms! I wanted to get it out of the way and found a slot around 2pm on the first day and only near the time noticed I’d put myself up against sessions from The Guardian and the BBC! This was also the great thing about this one: after dConstruct there were still a lot of people around from these companies and so at somethign as informal as a BarCamp there was a great chance to hear about what these people/companies are up to.
First talk I caught was from the MySpace developer network. While the videos said nothing, the fact they’re trying to be really grassroots with promoting their platform is a good call, especially as you tend to get wind of this stuff from evangelising in the States. I caught The Guardian’s 2nd talk about innovation and some of the things they’re doing internally to push things forward and encourage new ideas from all departments within the organisation. It was really intersting stuff!The fire alarm sounded, we all stood outside. Then it was my turn.
I borrowed a laptop and an adapterand awkwardly ran through my loose talk around The Evolution of Social Networks, which effectively breezed by how the web moved from disparate accounts into forming some semblence of an identity and looking at the model many sites use for social networks/graphs, implying that perhaps a model based around personas (such as family, friends, work, etc) may be a way forwards. I was nervous as hell for the first half but then got into it and found a decent debate at the end, which is what I was after. It was fantastic to have some discussion about this stuff with likeminded people. Talk done!
I was lucky enough to meet a lot of people, hear a lot of talks on all kinds of subjects and witness people playing Werewolf till the early hours. Fortunately for me, I was offered a sofa for the night, which seemed a more inviting prospect over trying to find a patch at the BarCamp for my sleeping bag! The second day was brief for me, after getting in late and leaving early but again caught more talks and met more people. Jeremy Keith was there as was Joshua Porter (one of the speakers from dConstruct), Cennydd Bowles (another Clear:Left guy), Tantek and many others. The sponsors did a great job of feeding us and providing coffee and fruit, and plying us with booze ;) If other BarCamps are half as a good as this one, put me down for any I can get to.
8September2008
Posted by Dan under: General; social web.
As the dust has settled on my first dConstruct, it’s time for reflection (although the combination of that and BarCamp have left me tired, hungover and with a brain pulsating with ideas). It was my first conference in years and I’m hooked.
I admit, I had preconceptions; maybe I didn’t realise how many. I think it’s all too easy as a developer to get your head down and do what you do but it’s worth coming up for air. The first thing that struck me was that I’m a fairly recent user of Twitter (@hereinthehive) and yet through this I found a few people to hook up with for a pint, which is a pretty decent start. It also solved problem #1; I don’t know anyone.
There were all kinds of people there, not just developers. The talks communicated ideas, not examples of code (Tantek’s needed it though). The pre-pre-party burgers at GBK gave acquaintances a chance to hook up and new faces (like my own) a chance to test the waters and make ourselves known. What are the chances of standing in the cue next to a guy you talk with on Twitter? Kind of a strange feeling knowing that by exchanging Twitter handles. It’s times like these I revert back to thoughts about identity on the social web…more another time, I think ;)
I’ll skim specific reviews because other people were far more comprehensive though I might be tempted when there’s more time. Essentially we had a varied representation of what the socialisation of the web represents, from UI and copy concerns to mark-up, location and real-world implications as well as social psychology and the link between games and the web.
I think not knowing much about Aleks Krotoski made her talk all the more enthralling. I liked the different, more enthusiastic presentation style and the angle she has on social psychology, games and virtual worlds, so hers was an unexpected highlight. I read bokardo.com and ‘Designing for the social web‘ so I knew Josh Porter would be worth a listen and it’s good that he expanded upon the themes I was used to and still had more to say, which most importantly was relevant. Steven Johnson I think caught everyone off guard at first by starting in a historical context through using outbreaks of cholera and how they were subsequently stopped through hyper-local social network, which led to the product he’s working on called Outside.In; which I’ll reserve judgement on until I get to try it out for myself. Certainly the premise is pretty amazing.
Daniel Burka was someone I had heard of for a while through his involvement in Digg and Pownce so it was cool to get a sense of what his involvement was and through using examples from those bring a UX/UI view on social development. Tantek banged the microformats drum, which was great; I’ve used these before in minor ways but I think it takes someone with such innate understanding of the bigger picture of their purpose to really crystallise it and maybe encourage you to look a little deeper.
Matt & Matt were great, their double at worked a treat with the audience and served to not only engulf you with their enthusiasm but the design and technological strands of Dopplr’s development. The sofa on stage and great slides which were funny, informative and engaging worked well and you got a sense of watching some mates gush about something they’ve done their really proud of ;) More than that, they showed how start-ups can embrace a fragmented web full of data and make a cohesive, enjoyable service.
Last up Jeremy Keith gave an odd one. When there’s someone you’ve read (through books and blogs) and have a sense of where they’re at, it’s great to have that challenged. Beginning with a more wide-scale, science-fiction laced scene and drawing together themes, which serve to illustrate what is meant by ’social’ within the ’social web’, it was certainly a journey. I also felt like this was a more personal and crafted idea of what a talk/presentation/session could be, which was a grea ingredient, although I’m sure the audience will be divided in whether they took much away from it.
The pre and post conference parties were great, mostly because of the ability to have a few (free) beers and to mix and have access to the speakers and organisers from clear:left. So maybe my preconception that because these guys (and others) were well known and well read within the industry that there would be some kind of rock-star style ego or likewise some awed silence around them was proven to be completely false. I hoped it would be! Having conversations with Richard Rutter about wireframing/prototyping and developing social systems with reputation systems or Tantek (briefly) about microformat thoughts, or even just thanking Jeremy Keith for giving you food for thought by the bar is one side to the value of events like this. The life and culture surrounding dConstruct (certainly on this, my first) has shown me what I’ve been missing out on. It’s not just hearing people talk about subjects related to your job; it’s embracing the wider community and taking part.
Sign me up for next year.
3September2008
Posted by Dan under: General.
So last night (UK time), Google held a press event to formally launch their browser ‘Chrome‘ to the masses. It’s still in beta (v0.2 it seems) and on Windows only (at ;east for the moment) but this is going to be the topic of conversation for a while, but is it any good? The interface leaves a lot bigger area for the viewport; the tabs at the top seem natural very quickly.
There’s no title bar, status bar or other options you’d expect to see; it’s about the browsing. It has a few good touches, such as highlighting in black, the domain your currently viewing, the ‘quick dial’ style feature similar to Opera but showing the last few sites you’ve visited. The V8 Javascript engine appears to really make some noticeable difference, certainly on AJAX heavy sites like iGoogle or GMail, which I use fairly often. A part of me wonders how much of this has to do with V8 or the fact that I haven’t piled Chrome full of add-ons like my version of Firefox.
While it doesn’t have a permanent status bar, it does have subtle messages that appear in the footer when you hover over links, wait for a page to load, etc, which is good. It’s built on WebKit so in many ways it parrallels Safari and so has the expanding text areas and the like. This is good news as a developer - so far I see no negative rendering of sites that work well in other browsers and Safari is normally decent at rendering standards based sites. As has been reported, the other handy thing is the fact each tab is a browser instance, which is one of the real innovations; if you check your Windows Task Manager you’ll see what I mean. By going to the ‘page icon’ and down to ‘Developer’ and Task Manager, you can see all the use of resources of the browser, each tab and any plug-ins in terms of memory, CPU and network. Great for finding any issues with a site in development and getting rid of a site with a leaky script on it. But as it’s still in beta - should we officially support it?
The main thing is that it’s simple to use. There’s no faff of adding a million features that most non-techie users won’t need. It just focusses on surfing the web in a secure and convenient way. Being built like Safari is no bad thing and in many ways will dent any chances of the Windows version of that browser gaining any real traction. It’s still very early days and it will take a while to filter through to the mainstream in numbers that’ll worry any other browser makers (I’m looking at you Microsoft) but by leveraging their brand Google stands a real chance of gaining a large chunk of market share faster than Firefox did.
There are hints that Google has more in mind with this, such as saving desktop shortcuts to apps such as GMail and the integrated use of Gears, which then begins to blur the perception of these apps into being something that can be used offline which you can sync up seamlessly. With no plug-ins or developer tools (aside from the firebug-like Inspector) as yet, I think most people will stick with their preferred choice for now but it’s worth keeping an eye on how this one plays out. I think when less technical users get a hold of this they may find the user experience compelling enough to make the switch.
See also:
2September2008
Posted by Dan under: General.
The Twitterverse first started the word going round about this yesterday after Philipp Lenssen scanned in a comic he’d been sent from Google (which they’ve now posted up), telling the story of why and how they’ve finally made their own browser: Chrome.
There’s long been rumours of a ‘GBrowser’ coming and it seems that Chrome will be built on WebKit (which powers Safari), so hopefully we as developers won’t have to bust a nut fixing every site we’ve done to render well in it!Ã? TechCrunch has some of the first screenshots and demos up, showing the newer interface and integration with Gears.Ã? But although it follows the Google minimal aesthetic, it seems that most of the work is under the bonnet as John Resig points out in his blog relating to how the new javascript rendering engine will be a killer feature.Ã? Each tab will in effect be an instance of the browser with independent memory allocated; so if one tab crashes, it won’t effect any others.
For far more detail and more in-depth analysis, I recommend you read Chris Messina’s post (Factory Joe), Mashable and of course Google’s own blog!
This could well be a game changer.Ã? Although Google are still helping to fund Mozilla, this could well be to hedge their bets and between Chrome and Firefox, try usurp Microsoft’s dominant position, which could in turn force MS to step-up their game yet again.Ã? It’s a shame if because of Mozilla’s apparent lack of direction or cohesive plan for the future, that it might end up getting left behind; for all it’s memory leaks and little glitches I do enjoy using and developing on it.Ã? Still Opera 9 is a sweet bit of kit.
Like John Hicks, I too am a browser polygamist!
Update: Firefox chief quoted by the Guardian.
