612 karma · joined May 12, 2008
I.e., "the deviser, maker, or creator of anything: the architects of the Constitution of the United States" (definition #3 on dictionary.com)
My guess is that the word architect in the author's job title refers to something closer to that defintion than to the literal "designer of buildings" definition.
From observing the workplace of my girlfriend, who has recently worked in retail for a large, national corporation, I can tell that the particular company she works for definitely doesn't. Very often they get instructions about how to rearrange the sales floor that anyone actually working there with the customers would never in a million years think was a good idea -- usually, a few weeks later, they're told to change back to what they were doing. My guess is that's how it goes in most big companies. Eventually, the suits don't touch the nitty gritty parts of the business, and they end up getting way out of touch.
That said, I doubt if Bezos, by virtue of the fact that everyone will know who he is, will run into the rumored "sweatshop" conditions at some Amazon distro centers (if those rumors are at all true, which is impossible for anyone who hasn't worked in one to say): http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10123835-93.html
EDIT: Also, does Jeff Bezos have a blog? His is one I would really love to read.
We're working on addressing that by actively pitching to potential integrating partners. But essentially, DandyID is a platform for data portability for social sites. Using our API sites can let users sync their profile and identity graph information across multiple web sites.
We're also working on our user messaging. The "learn more" page on dandyid.org will be replaced soon with something more detailed explaining the benefits to users. :)
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EDIT: Looks like you added to your post while I was replying. :) To address your other points: Those are really good points, thanks for the feedback. I think the original ideas was not to allow non-users to utilize the API (guess on my part as I wasn't with the company when that decision was made), but perhaps that's a non-issue. Most developers will need to sign up to test what they're making anyway.
As for the other, it's a semantics issue. I guess "Get an API key" (which is what the API application form page actually says), would be better? APIs are granted automatically and instantly (a change we recently implemented)... except for cases when people want to push data back to us, then they need to be white listed on our end, so need to contact us.
Anyway, seems like a nice, simple to-do list app. The shifts are a neat idea, but I'd be concerned that once they're hidden from view, I'd forget about them. Might be cool to have a ticker on the bottom that randomly displays something from the shifts page every time I load up the to-do list. That way I might be "accidentally" reminded of something I shifted a month ago and then forgot about.
The most relevant tips were:
-Clearly define your work space. Making sure your work and personal life stay separate and don't start to blur is a good way to avoid burn out. If your work life spills over into your non-work life too much you'll start to feel like you're at work 24/7 ... that's a one way ticket to burn out city.
-Have lunch with a friend / join a local user group. Or, in short: have a personal life. All work and no play, yadda yadda yadda. You need to make sure you aren't _just_ working.
-Take regular breaks / schedule time off. Again, take some time to actively NOT work and you'll be less likely to burn out on whatever work you're doing.
-Get a cat (or a dog). Seriously, my cat provides hours of entertainment and (surprisingly for a cat) plenty of affection. That's very helpful for keeping me sane and ultimately keeping me happy and focused on my work.
Full article for anyone interested is here: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/12/19/12-ways-to-keep-sa...
(That's advice given to me by a sleep expert at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, RI many years ago, when I was afflicted with a rare sleeping disorder.)
She also told me never to do anything but sleep in my bed (don't read there, don't eat there, don't work, don't watch TV, etc.). Beds are for sleeping and training your brain to recognize that will help you keep to your regular sleep cycle.
If you're having trouble falling asleep, get up, go sit in a chair and read for 15 or 20 minutes, then try going to sleep again.
Edit: Looks like Arrington updated the headline after someone pointed that out... still not a very clear headline since it misleadingly labels this a "Facebook Poll," when it is in fact a Facebook app that is polling users.
Perhaps semantics, but an important distinction given that actual Facebook polls are only available to Facebook.
At face value, that's great advice. But I don't think it is that black and white for everyone. I don't know if DHH or Garyvee have kids, but for many people, if you really do need to support a family, then working 9am-3am every day is a pretty bad way to do it. Yeah, you might come out the other end running a business you love that's making you rich, but you'll probably be divorced and have kids that resent you. Or be sick and run down from all that lack of sleep.
If you have diapers to buy, ramen profitability might take longer to achieve. Or might not be an option at all. If you have personal relationships you value, working 18 hours per day might not be the best idea (if you can avoid it).
It really depends on your priorities. If supporting your family and spending time with them is important to you, then yeah, lack of time might really be a problem on the road to starting up. DHH is right that complaining about it isn't productive, but he comes across sounding arrogant when he writes it off as a non-issue.
As high on citizen journalism as I have been in the past, without the filter of trained journalists, it's essentially just noise. And blogs don't have the capital to put the resources on the ground that traditional media organizations are able to ... I fear that the whole system breaks down if newspapers and television media go under.
A million people with cell phone cameras is great, but not much of a fourth estate without trained, muckraking reporters. New media and old media feed off each other. I just hope one can adapt before the other sucks it dry.
But if Verizon gets the iPhone next year, or the Palm Pre and the Pre offers a comparable user experience, I'll break my contract with AT&T in a heartbeat. I am really not nearly as satisfied with AT&T's network in my area and their customer support is terrible (Verizon's on the otherhand has always been good). Plus, 97% of the people I call on a daily basis are on Verizon, and thus free in network if I were to switch back.
I would guess that a lot (most?) people who switch from Verizon to AT&T do so for the iPhone. I can't really think of any other reason to switch to a company with an inferior network and icy customer service reps.
1. You can (I have).
2. It's not easy. I took the cheaters route by working for already well established blogs, but plenty of bloggers who have started in the past few years are doing well (people like Allen Stern or Louis Gray, who were late to the game, come to mind) -- they just work their asses off to get there.
3. It's true that most bloggers won't make money off a personal blog directly (i.e., via advertising). But many will make money _indirectly_ via consulting gigs, other work offers, speaking engagements, book deals. Blogging is one of the absolute best ways to raise your profile in your field and create demand for yourself.
3a. Even Dan Lyons made very good money from Fake Steve -- not from ads, but how about that book deal? All those speaking engagements? Even his switch from Forbes to Newsweek was likely influenced by his blog's success. He conveniently leaves all that out of his article, though.
Google Maps embeds are fine as a way to put things on a map for searches inside a specific, narrowly defined location. But they're not so good as the first thing you'd see.
I'd ditch the giant US map and redesign to put more emphasis on the zip/city search box -- maybe get a fix on the user's location by IP and automatically pop up popular pizza places nearby.
Also, a bug: I was able to share my favorite pizza place over and over again ... so really easy to game the system.
To answer your questions:
* Ruby on Rails, Apache with Phusion Passenger for deployment. We've been using SQLite for development, but probably MySQL for deployment, and are not picky on the flavor of Linux, but like Debian.
* Tough to predict at this point. The software is fairly niche, but it's a large niche (freelance graphic and web designers).
* The plan right now is to start with one server (likely at Linode) and use S3 for file storage (perhaps also backing up to Mosso). But this is something we'd definitely be open to changing based on the recommendation of an expert.
* We're bootstrapping the app and have the biggest chunk of money set aside for legal fees (incorporation and making sure our TOS passes muster). In my head I was hoping this wouldn't cost more than $1000 as a one-off job, but, this is definitely not a place I want to be cheap. I'd rather spend more now than wake up one morning to a disaster because I tried to cut costs at the get go.
* We don't think it should be too heavy.
Planning to run a small closed beta in the next couple of weeks to get a better idea of things like that, though.
My former colleague Marshall Kirkpatrick put up a post last April about the wrong ways to pitch ReadWriteWeb: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/pitching_rww.php -- #2 is via phone (though Marshall didn't mind it as much, Sarah, Richard, and I all preferred pitches by email).
In July I wrote a post the original poster (or anyone else) might find helpful about how to pitch a blogger: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/07/12/how-to-pitch-a-blo...
I was mostly writing about how to pitch me, but I think the advice might be helpful when figuring out the best way to pitch any blogger.
The short version: 1. Don’t Cold Call — Email First 2. Engage Us In Our Natural Habitat 3. Personalize Your Communications 4. Offer An Exclusive 5. Pitch An Angle 6. Be Flexible 7. Give Adequate Lead Time
1. may want to some day communicate officially with users, or,
2. wouldn't want someone else impersonating you
Check out the list at http://www.usernamecheck.com/ (also handy for checking them) and then start registering. :)
I wrote about social media cybersquatting in a blog post in October. Might be interesting to read about the experience the company I work for had: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/10/31/do-you-own-your-so...
(Short story: someone else has their natural Twitter account -- @companyname -- and they were forced to use the somewhat clumsier @companynamedotcom instead)
I guess the point still stands if they're essentially even in traffic, though.
The analogy isn't, "web business are just like pizza shops!" Rather, the sentiment that I think Allen was communicating is, "in _any_ business, there is always room for competitors and new ways of doing things."
I wish I could remember the link to the podcast so you could hear it in the exact context.