iPhones, communities, the Linux cloud, and open scientific research:
- Smart Developers Update Often (Marco Tabini) — I’m really enjoying Marco’s updates on his new life as an iPhone app developer. Unlike many other distribution channels, Apple has chosen the curious path of making the App Store something as close to a true meritocracy as possible—you don’t get exposure to potential customers because of who you are or because of the amounts of money you are willing to pay the distributor for optimal positioning. Your app either sells on its own merits, or it doesn’t. That most people don’t seem to grasp what a tremendous opportunity this is truly baffles me.
- Online Community Management 101 — notes from Derek Powazek and Heather Champ‘s Webstock session on community management. I didn’t get to the session, but the notes are full of concrete suggestions. Scores create games. First post – game in which you win by being a dork and writing ‘first post’ – adds nothing. How do you observe without changing the outcome? Don’t show tally during vote, don’t show outcome of poll until vote is cast. Randomness – instead of a top 10 list, take a top 20 per cent and show nine randomly.
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New Ubuntu to Target EC2 — a leading Linux distro targeting hosted cloud-like environments. “Ubuntu aims to keep free software at the forefront of
cloud computing by embracing the API’s of Amazon EC2, and making it easy
for anybody to setup their own cloud using entirely open tools.” -
Of Mice and Academics (PDF) — academic paper concludes closed research produces far fewer new basic research directions than open, thus greatly retards the progress of science. “openness of upstream research does not simply encourage higher levels of downstream exploitation. It also raises the incentives for additional upstream research by encouraging the establishment of entirely
new research directions.” (via Glynn Moody)