Tag Archives: w2e

Live blogging web 2.0 expo – web performance anti patterns and listening to your customers

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See table of contents for full list of web 2.0 expo posts

I think the performance anti patterns one will be more interesting, but Microsoft does have good points about your customers being important and basics for most websites. And Hotnail has changed a lot over time.

Microsoft and Hotmail

  • Hotmail was one of the first webmails but is now largely popular only outside the US.
  • Gmail did well – big inbox, text ads, smooth interface,short release cycles
  • Recognized Microsoft asked users to pay for new features
  • If people don’t use something, it is an invention, not an innovation
  • I like that he identifies “real spam” vs newsletters that you subscribed to (and can presumably unsubscribe from)
  • The things Hotmail recognized must change are now things that one must have to do email – virtually unlimited storage, must filter spam out of inbox, performance, pre-cache content, mobile
  • ok. I know i said i wasn’t going to advertise hotmail, but the “sweep” feature makes setting up a filter less steps. Gmail: please copy. Except just the part about less steps to create a filter, not the part about having to schedule.
  • Encouraging ignoring all messages from a user vs unsubscribe. One day people are going to forget what unsubscribing means while all this bandwidth gets wasted and newsletter providers get labeled spammers
  • can create email alias for temporary person. Unlike gmail, can’t derive real email from alias.
  • “it might be cool, but i am fine where i am”. Lesson: once your customers leave, it is hard to get them bacK

How to make your website slow by Yottaa

  • Lots of requests to dowhload assets – really granular css, javascript, images. Can get yottaa score at yottaa.com to see how bad your site is in this space (coderanch did well with 95/100)
  • Fat resources – comments and whitespace in html, css, javascript (should use gzip compression), use larger images than needed (shouldn’t compress image in browser)
  • Bad server side -poor code, bad database design, inusufficient memory or slow hard drive, sharing server with others (gives unpredictable cpu use)
  • Randomness – things are fine for everyone except a few people. It only takes one resource to slow things down. This is why twitter widgets can be the bottleneck on page speed.
  • Do not use caching – set cache control properly. Both for repeat visitors and so subsequent pages in site share assets already downloaded
  • 3rd party plugins – not loading twitter, facebook, etc asynronously slows things down. A little for most users. 30-120 seconds in China because must wait for request to time out.
  • Redirect from www to other domain on the client side (use 302 not 301)
  • Add requests to resources that do not exist (404) – takes longer to return resource that does not exist than resource that does exist because looks in multiple places
  • Run javascript code while page loading

live blogging web 2.0 expo – tuesday keynotes

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See table of contents for full list of web 2.0 expo posts

I got a seat in the front row. No tall person in front of me like at ignite!

Opening Remarks Sarah Milstein (TechWeb)
  • @sarahm – spelling @brady say to send speaker feedback
  • Live stream w2tv.co
  • I had heard Rachel speak earlier in the year – when she was brand new on the job. A lot more confident now.
  • “city streets are the original social network” – DOT.

4 keys

  • Access to technology. Library cruical to providing access [therefore keep talking about cut ting weekend hour s]. Also more wifi in parks
  • Open government – want city to be a platform like twitter where city opens data and others do things with it. NYC holds contests to make that happen. Hurricane Irene was example of nyc.gov going down due to too much traffic. Since data was available before, other sites could make/host own copy. #reinventnycgov first ever NYC hackathon
  • Engagement – reach people through social media. More conversation with public. Twitter promoted @nycmayorsoffice to twitter users identifying NYC as location during irene. Got 30K new followers that weekend. @311nyc quietly launched to ask/answer questions so can see what others ask. NYC has more mobile apps than any other US city
  • Industry – encouraging startups in city, competitions

What Does It Mean to Be a Media Company Today? Alexa von Tobel (LearnVest.com)

told the story of starting her company. Emphasis on how progressed from email to web to tools to ask an expert. Main point: listen to users vs try to identify bucket company falls in.
I did notice the speaker holding notes. Partially because I am in Toastmasters where we practice noticing. And partially because notes at a keynote are rare unless they are for stats.

David, Meet Goliath: Infusing Major Players with Startup Culture Anil Dash (Activate), Brad Garlinghouse (AOL, Inc.), Tony Conrad (about.me, True Ventures & Sphere), Jason Shellen (AOL)

  • big companoes already have scale, can get startup idea bigger faster. Aol can advertise about.me on billboards and in cabs
  • “big companies think ahout compensation the way communists think about compensation”
  • Aol working on no install needed video chat (but said part of aim so do you need aim software or fully on web?)
  • Must give team enough rope to not be dragged into parent. Reddit did it well
  • About.me trying to distance self from main aol
  • Doesn’t always work. Depends on whether parent company will allow autonomy
  • Book: the lean startup
  • Middle part is boring- prioritzation, choosing customers – so nobody talks about it

5 principles

  • Entrepreneurs are everywhere- startup about creating something new under extreme uncertainty. Size doesn’t matter
  • Entrepreneurship is managenent – Fredrick Taylor invented concept of management. Primary tools are planning and forecasting. Which requires long/stable history to forecast. But this century is too uncertain. The pivot – evolved into what needed. Speed wins – first to each pivot wins
  • Validated Learning – a startup is an experiment, how do you know if making progress or wasting people’s time
  • Build measure learn feedback loop – want to minimize ime thru loop
  • innovation accounting – build minimum viable product so customers can try then can experiment more

How Consumers Will Pay in the Future Carleligh Jaques (Visa)

  • Your bank issues the plastic credit card. Visa is the engine behind it.
  • 6 seconds on a full page disclaimer of text
  • Purchasing 2.0 must span onkine, mobile and physical stores
  • Entering credit card online could be more seamless. Especially on mobile
  • Digital wallet has multiple choices for form of payments. Just like we have multiple credit cards and coupons in a physical wallet. Called Visa V but not just for visa cards.
  • Want to enroll indigital wallwt thru where do online banking now and enter card info once. Merchant must have Visa V as option. Then choose which card want to use. [i wonder what happens is you have multiple home addresses because one card doesn’t believe there is a dash in your address]

A Conversation with Fred Wilson and Carlota Perez Carlota Perez (Cambridge and Sussex Universities, UK, and TUT, Estonia), Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures )

  • Book: Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages
  • Crash always comes after mania. The meaning of the collapse is what is important. It means the technology is fully in place. Such as railroada. Right now we are in turning point – the recession after collapse. Governments find it out hard to change without tremendous pressure. Unemployment came out of last huge crash so people could buy house/car and keeo paying if lost jobs for a few months. Now it is about social over consumption. Need to revamp infrastucture and products to be sustainable so last longer. Protests natural now because people are angry. Youth unemployment is much higher than regular. People scared that no future. When universityless important, it was free now it is debt for life [consider cuny less than 10k per year]
  • Can’t go back to past, it is gone. Fianance must be incentivied to support reeal economy.

Innovation in Open Networks and the Media Lab Joichi Ito (MIT Media Lab)

  • Large companies think more about possible downside whe reventure capitalists have minimal downside so can dfocus on upside.
  • Pull what need when needed. Startups don’t stick to original idea. Move towards what need.
  • MIT Media lab is 25 years old. Focus on building things but soans disciplines.
  • Cool slideshow showing variety of domains for what build.

Using Data to Live in a Chaotic World DJ Patil (Greylock Partners)

  • Pendulum (spelling?) game. Guess when last time double pendulum circles. Chaotic patten. Can’t tell when stops and only 4 variables. Only way to predict is to take lots of data, make small predictions and correct.
  • Then tried to balance broomstick on hand. Nice props for last talk.

Live blogging web 2. 0 expo – ibm and performance

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See table of contents for full list of web 2.0 expo posts

Unlike Blackberry, IBM’s looks more advertising thsn Blackberry so they can share a blog post with others. I’m not writing a commerical. The performance part later in this blog post was great. Also blogged about payments in here (didn’t make title because I didn’t think i would be back in time for this session). I will write more about the keynotes in the afternoon.

IBMs application transformation, modernization and revitalization to a web 2.0 experience

  • Problem: what to do about the mainframe
  • Solution: pay IBM. Sounds somewhat magical.
  • I was expecting more because the last time I saw an IBM session at this event, it was about social networking and showed how Connections was used at IBM. It was a commercial, but didn’t feel like one.
  • Did demo of turning a green screen app into a web and mobile version. Cool that the screen was originally copyright before i was born. Also thinking back to when the public library card catalog was a green screen; didn’t know what a terminal was then.
  • Concept interesting – using rules and transformations to call mulitple mainframe screens. Of course, the mainframe still exists this lets use it thru web.
  • However, not clear on what this has todo with web 2.0. An IBMer said javascript sorting is a web 2.0 feature. Not by my definition.

Why you have less than a second to deliver exceptional performance – dynatrace/compuware

  • Book: “Designing and Engineering Time” – how people perceive time
  • Book: high performance web sites
  • Book: high performance javascript
  • Instantaneous less than .2 second – like clicking button/pull down
  • Immediate less thsn 1 second – like scrolling or paging. Because think info is already there
  • Continuous less than 4 seconds – like when asking a person a question because think time. We expect request to system to take time as well. 2 seconds for something simple like home page. 4 seconds for query

Interesting

  • Can stay focused on a task 7-10 seconds. By then our attention moves to something else like e-mail. Shouldn’t take 7 seconds but an upper bound. 7 seconds was early recommendation as upper bound and we got used to it training or patience to that time.
  • In last three years, people got 50% less happy woth 4 second response time
  • We cannot perceive a 20% time difference so need oess than 1.6 seconds to be perceived as being exceptionally fast. And that time inckudes network, dns lookup, rendering, etc
  • Even if bandwidth high, high latency (travel time) still affects perceived performance. Broadband is 300ms latency. A lot when shooting for 1600 ms end to end.
  • 200 kb at 1.5 Mb/s takes a second
  • Client rendering typically takes .3 seconds.
  • Firefox and chrome render much faster than ie or safari 4 (safari 5 only slighly higher)
  • Speedoftheweb.org – compare your site to ohers

From Intent to expression @bsaren from Litle on payments

  • He had a slide on Occupy Wall Street. Nice to see the slides are current. The point being things are changing in finance.
  • Lines bluring between consumer and professional services like vimeo.
  • Bitcoin is virtual currency. People are hording it like it is gold. [sounds familiar; I think I read about this in the paper]
  • Privacy discussion needs to happen. Thinks will be differentiator going forward. [profiling by my type of credit card feels weird]
  • payments intelligence – recurring payments vs person with prepaid card with money for one month
  • it was interesting but more business side than tech side so didn’t capture much content

Secret Sauce from Yottaa

  • Now that everyone has a website, user experience becomes the differentiator including performance
  • SEO – skow sights rank lower on google=
  • Impressive stats on financial impact of just one second slower load time
  • Facebook and twitter widgets make site slower
  • Client/browser side often adds more time than content delivery

And now on to the day 1 keynotes