Dudu Mimran Blog

2010 The Decade of Content Discovery

The last decade, 2000-2009, flourished with new content creation tools: blogging, tweets, videos, personal pages/profiles and many others. One thing that did not catch the speed of innovation on the content creation side is content discovery tools.

We are still mainly using Google's interface of search results to find stuff interesting. There were few tryouts for visualizing things differently but none of them prevailed. The feeling of something missing always happens to me when I try to look for some info on the web - If I dive shallow on Google then it seems like it is a topic never being discussed before but once you persist (and waste some good time on the way) things start to pop up.

The problem of content discovery lies on physical limitations of people's perception combined with the set of tools available today. Search results or category based navigation are only effective when they work on small datasets. Once the dataset grows beyond some limit they just don't help. You can see it while looking for an app on iPhone app store or when you try to catch up with tweets or news/feeds.

I propose to focus this new decade on Content Discovery:) Enough with new data, give me something to use what already exist since I do not care for more that is not "accessible" to me.

Gilad Shalit Twitter Website

Hi All,

I am working on a new website that is aimed at increasing the awareness to Gilad Shalit on Twitter. Please check it out and let me know if you see some problems. The url is http://giladshalit.fr

Dudu

My first days on Twitter

I had my twitter account for quite a while but never really twitted. I guess I was part of the million accounts out there, just idle. I did not find a time to blog so automatically I considered tweeting as something I won't have time for it also. Last week I started tweeting and it is very nice. I enjoy it. Same as blogging but faster, shorter and more in sync with the so many things that happen and go through your head during the day.

I was two weeks ago on a #140conf, which is Jeff Pulver's twitter and social media conference which was great (And I think is the reason I got curious enough on twitter to start tweeting). The first topic on the conf was the human needs being satisfied by Tweeting and the main theory was of loneliness and how Tweeter breaks it. I have to admit that as a new twitter with less then a 100 followers I still get lonely:) and I understand why the presenters who have more then a quarter of million followers do not feel this way.

Anyway, for now twitter is for me a way to clear up my mind of thoughts and ideas I would never pursue further and would like to garbage collect (sorry for the geeky term). A way to help someone, especially someone with a technical question on a topic I know something about, everyone are welcome to try, helping quickly with no strings attached. A way to pass time on my laptop when work is done and the only thing left is reading stuff on the web, which can be quite tiring after a while. It is a way to bookmark stuff (I have a private account for it:). A way to not feel out of social networks, since I am not a "good" user most of the time. A way to eavesdrop on others' talks, something considered not polite in the real world but most welcome on twitter. A way to write stuff without proof reading as I do now for this post.

For now I enjoy it.

The Web Crawls Silently into the Desktop

Recently I got deeply interested into rich Internet technologies such as Adobe Air and Microsoft Silverlight and it is hard to not see the trend of returning to good old desktop applications with one big twist - the web included. These rich desktop applications are naturally integrated into the web with its rich services, content while enjoying UI breakthroughs achieved by browsers and site designers. It is great to see unique and smooth UI concepts being delivered across different platforms without being restricted to each platform's local UI structural constraints.

Although it is just the early days of Adobe Air and others still the trend of providing users with new rich and broad user experience is exciting.

More to come... (and who can say it is not exciting time in tech world:)

P.S. I am mainly talking about Adobe Air since it seems the major platform (for now) to catch up upon users and developers. Having said that I have to mention, Silverlight Out of the Browser experience (horrible name as only Microsoft knows to invent), JavaFX (which they promise to have a big comeback this year?), Titanium (I think mostly enterprise) and all SSB (Single Site Browsers) and local browser enhancers (Google Gears).

UPDATE: Just saw this article Adobe AIR Turns Web Developers into Desktop Developers which is an excellent prespective. The mass of professional now can cross the barrier thanks to this web-desktop technologies.

I got myself a new blog:)

Well, after wasting some time with wordpress I decided to become a dumb user and use one of the services available and typepad was selected. So I got me a new blog.

Dudu

The King is Back

Hi All,

I am very happy to announce that King Ping is up and running again. This time under new ownership of Rodney Trotter, the person who acquired King Ping site assets.

Working out the sale of King Ping to Rodney was a great pleasure and I found him an excellent and reliable  business man to work with.

To all of you who have missed King Ping, check it out again on King Ping and for Rodney I wish the best of luck!

Dudu