August 2007 Archives

Vint Cerf, co-creator of the TCP/IP protocols that just happen to be part of the core internet and SpaceRef adviser recently spoke about the future of the internet.

Here's the video on YouTube.

Working the weekend turned out to be quite productive with Keith and I coming up with new ideas for On Orbit as well me solving the programming puzzle of getting our content management system (CMS) Intercat working our new social news service Mercury. Now whenever one of our editors adds a story using our CMS it automatically gets categorized and added to Mercury. Along with our news stories being added to Mercury any member will be able to add stories and have users comment and vote on them.

One of the smaller services I'm trying to get ready for the launch is what I've called dTwitter. Basically this is Drupal module that allows users to view their Tweets on On Orbit as well as updating their Tweets.

Keith and I made the decision to move back the launch of On Orbit to September 12th. Since I'm on travel between the 5th and 11th it made no sense to launch on the 4th when I won't be around to closely monitor things.

Of note to those of you interested in NASA, the young crowd at Ames has started a new blog called Open NASA. It's an offsite blog geared towards "open content transparency and participatory engagement at NASA". It's worth keeping track of. They get it.

The countdown clock is reset, we are now at T-minus 16 days before On Orbit launch to our alpha users.

After a couple of frustrating days of programming I'm finally making some headway with the integration of the various platforms that make up On Orbit. Our own content management system will shortly be able to post stories to our new social news service Mercury. What's cool about Mercury is that anyone who has an account can upload a story. As well anyone can upload to our new video service. The news and video will be brought to you courtesy our staff and you the public.

I don't know how realistic it is that we'll launch on September 4th. I think we could do it, but it really will be "Alpha". As I have to travel on the 5th to Montreal for a meeting with the Canadian Space Agency for a couple of days I'm nervous about the timing. I'm inclined to wait until the 12th when I get back from my trip. That way I can focus on the meetings and not deal with the inevitable "Alpha" bugs.

More to come...

Lior Ron, Product Manager for Google Earth announced today on the Google LatLong blog the new release today of the Sky in Google Earth. In a break from programming I gave it a try. At first glance it works well.

"Today, I'm excited to announce we are launching Sky in Google Earth. You can now explore the universe from the comfort of your chair. Zoom in to distant galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away, explore the constellations, see the planets in motion, witness a supernova explosion; it's like having a giant, virtual telescope at your command -- your own personal planetarium!"

On Orbit video section coming along nicely and will be ready for the launch. Started integration on home page of social news service called 'Mercury'. There's still some integration issues with Intercat to overcome. Style sheet for the site is also taking shape. It's very different than what we have with SpaceRef now and has a bit of an Apple look to it. The site is designed so that we can have optional layouts in the future that can be changed at a moments notice. Of course they have to be programmed ahead of time.

On Orbit a new service currently being built by SpaceRef Interactive Inc. needs a graphic designer for some part time work. This position is suitable for someone who works at home. You should be proficient with Adobe Photoshop and associated tools. Please contact me at < alpha AT onorbit.com >.

I'm working weekends now to get On Orbit ready. This weekend I created the new Video area and made some breakthrough's with the Drupal code. I'm debating whether there's time to create some new modules. I'd post them as open source on the Drupal site if I do.

The biggest obstacle to launching the site, other than the time constraints, is that I want to launch with the new collaborative area ready. I'm still deciding on what tools to make available to participating organizations.

Unfortunately I can't spend as much time as I would like working On Orbit. Other responsibilities abound including the post HMP field season review with the Mars Institute team and then a meeting on September 6th in Montreal with the Canadian Space Agency.

When Twitter first came across my radar screen many months ago I admit I just didn't get it. And it took me awhile to get it. But it was not just Twitter I was struggling with it was this whole Web 2.0 thing. But then the light bulb went off and I realized what I wanted to do with SpaceRef and Project Phoenix and how they would fit into what is called Web 2.0. I just didn't know at the time the why, how and when it might all come together.

My exploration into what is being called Web 2.0 started last summer. Since then I've been to
the Web 2.0 Expo, ApacheCon Eruope, and the Participatory Exploration Summit hosted by NASA Ames. While I was going to the conferences I was also doing research on social networking. I joined Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Jaiku, Meebo, StumbleUpon and others. Some I got right away, some I didn't. My favorites now for business are LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and Twitter. I like YouTube as well but have not used it for business purposes yet.

So where does this all lead. Well SpaceRef has been around since 1999 and the basic format hasn't changed in all that time. It's expanded and added another 19 sites to the network but evolved into Web 2.0 it has not. So Keith (my business partner for SpaceRef) and I, decided nearly a year ago it was time to change SpaceRef. How we would change it has taken many months of thinking and it's an evolutionary process. The first step was to create a new site, a whole new service that would be Web 2.0.

The new site as it turned out would be On Orbit. On Orbit is to become a social networking site, wiki, news and much more. But the main point is to make it participatory. Thankfully we have a large audience at SpaceRef/NASA Watch to draw upon. And we've had nearly 2,000 people sign up to be alpha testers for service we practically told them nothing about.

Search Engine Land recently launched Sphinn a social site for search & internet marketing professionals. From their description;

"It's designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others."

The interface might look familiar to those who use Digg. Stories are posted by the Search Engine Land staff as well users and anyone can Digg It or in this case Sphinn it! The site has all the usual social networking tools. If you're in this field it's worth a look

Recently Read/WriteWeb started a new feature on alternative search engines. The editor is Charles Knight and his latest Top 100 list for August is out.

"Some of them did not even exist a year ago. One of my goals is to show my readers the “latest and the greatest” search engine innovations. The motto for the blog [ASE], after all, is “the most wonderful search engines you’ve never seen,” and my favorite comment of all is, “Wow! I didn’t even know that most of these existed!”

Once I have our first vertical search engine in production it will be fun to watch how it fares on the top 100 list.