Kip at liveside saw an opportunity and took it :)
How did this start? John Richards and I delivered a strategy session at our internal conference, TechReady7. Below is a screen shot of the evaluation system – the numbers on the left are the scores for questions out of 5 and the center bit is the comment.
In my follow up email to the Microsoft international field who attended the session I had to address the comments in the eval. system (sidenote: if you present and you can get the list of people who attended, its a great way to land the message again) so I created the group and put the link in there.
Nice one liveside!
I took Jeremiah’s advice and ran an a search for me on Cuil (the latest and apparently hottest search engine)
What’s wrong with this picture? :)
Check out the announcement at dev.live.com : The Windows Live Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio (CTP) allows you to easy drag and drop online services into your web site without worrying about any of the underlying goo.
In this refresh we’ve fixed lots of bugs and added the Virtual Earth Map Control – you can now get the great interactivity of VE, with the power, and ease of use of ASP.NET with no JavaScript.
Download here and we’d love your feedback
In the toolbox you get a lot of new controls and extenders
When you drag this onto the canvas there is a rich design surface, you can manipulate the control via properties pane or add extenders etc.
The map server control is added to the page
You can manipulate the control in the code behind
We can import KML
The controls also support client extenders, from the smart tag you can add an extender
Watch the screencast here which I recorded with Mark Brown
Virtual Earth ASP.NET Control - CTP Release
I was reading Passport vs Open ID vs Facebook Connect over at Dick Hardt’s blog – interesting post! It was a follow on to his Facebook Connect post where he talks about FB becoming an identity provider.
A few points were raised (mostly historical) re. Microsoft Passport (the predecessor to Live ID) such as Cost, installation, functionality and centralization being limiting factors for developers. We’ve come a long way from the Passport days (Dick mentioned 165M users), today over 430M+ people/mth authenticate > 1bn times per day to both Microsoft and non Microsoft online services, Passport-to-LiveID is more than just a rebrand, it’s a different philosophy.
Dick’s post isn’t factually incorrect, he just omitted lots of the great work we’ve been doing over the past few years which I think is important.
Cost: Dick mentions Passport had a $10,000 cost associated with it, this was used for compliance/certification. Live ID Web Authentication there isn’t a cost associated with it now. Functionality: We hope that web sites using Windows Live ID as an authentication source are using this to provide single-sign-on to Microsoft online services embedded within their site. This makes the overall user experience smoother. Beyond SSO, we also have Delegated Authentication, Client Authentication, admin center and federation. Our federation work is all standards based (WS-Federation) so any identity platform can be used to federate with us. Using Windows Live Admin Center user experience (or the API) you can create your own managed namespace, programmatically create accounts, reset passwords and may other things. We are a lot more than just SSO. Installation: you don’t need to install anything to use Windows Live ID Web Authentication, the SDKs we provide (which you can easily redevelop) come in many flavors for many platforms: PHP, Ruby, Python, Perl, Java, .NET – the site only needs to be able to consume the POST verb and do some crypto. Previously you would need to install an application which would allow authentication and also run management tasks in the background.. Centralization: Live ID is still centralized in Microsoft’s data centers so we can provide the best level of service.
Cost: Dick mentions Passport had a $10,000 cost associated with it, this was used for compliance/certification. Live ID Web Authentication there isn’t a cost associated with it now.
Functionality: We hope that web sites using Windows Live ID as an authentication source are using this to provide single-sign-on to Microsoft online services embedded within their site. This makes the overall user experience smoother. Beyond SSO, we also have Delegated Authentication, Client Authentication, admin center and federation. Our federation work is all standards based (WS-Federation) so any identity platform can be used to federate with us. Using Windows Live Admin Center user experience (or the API) you can create your own managed namespace, programmatically create accounts, reset passwords and may other things. We are a lot more than just SSO.
Installation: you don’t need to install anything to use Windows Live ID Web Authentication, the SDKs we provide (which you can easily redevelop) come in many flavors for many platforms: PHP, Ruby, Python, Perl, Java, .NET – the site only needs to be able to consume the POST verb and do some crypto. Previously you would need to install an application which would allow authentication and also run management tasks in the background..
Centralization: Live ID is still centralized in Microsoft’s data centers so we can provide the best level of service.
For some additional info on Live ID check out dev.live.com and read our post on Live ID and phishing.
The team behind the creation of our demo applications, Windows Live Platform Quick Applications has been going super hard to get some more apps out the door.
What are the Quick Apps? They are end to end demo applications which can be used a demos, technical reference, starting points or for community development (open source license)
We've added more applications: Retail, Contoso Riders, Team Builder and Field Manager and made lots of enhancements to the others.
Retail is one of the slickest user experiences we’ve created, it uses Silverlight 2 to deliver a wall of videos, check out the demo.
These apps are typically developed by Microsoft Partners or customers (and occasionally inhouse). Below is a video the guys from the Habanero Consulting Group in Canada - they are all crazy mountain biking enthusiasts and built Contoso Riders.
Open video in new window
The Quick Apps have 3 purposes
Developers - All of these applications are available for community development, you can sign into Codeplex, become a developer on the project and hack away!
If you have ideas or find bugs, please log them and we’ll triage and hopefully implement.
Success Story - I got an email from the people at http://www.myconditioningcoach.com/ who took one of the apps, customized it and implemented it, now they have a rocking site!
I’m at f8 and i’ll be updating this post with info as I write more throughout the day.
1. Zuck
1.1 Zuck's opening was amusing, I think he may be running for president.
1.2 he talked about the movement
1.3 Facebook's mission
1.3.1 give people the power to share and make the worl more open and connected.
1.4 giving people the power to share - making the world more transparent.
1.5 we want the community and the ecosystem to be aligned with us.
1.6 Metrics
1.6.1 f8 07 had 24m
half in Us and half outside US
1.6.2 f8 08 had 90m
68% international
now over 400k developers building on top of the platform
more than half the developers are outside the US
helping developers put on garage events
1.7 talked about localization
1.7.1 open for translation in 60 languages
1.7.2 already avail in 15 languages
1.7.3 spanish took 2weeks (I THINK)
1.7.4 french took 24h
1.7.5 community based translation
1.7.6 Platform applications can use the translation foundation to allow their applications to be available in many different languages.
1.8 Awesome thing at the show.
1.8.1 running 4 concurrent events
1.8.2 if you go to the hackathon you can communicate with these people from the venue
1.9 funding for developers
1.9.1 there are 30 developers who have received funding to build on top of Facebook
1.9.2 Zynga raised $29M
1.9.3 over $200M invested in the ecosystem
1.10 expalined the social graph
1.10.1 where social graph came from
1.10.2 expained the virtuous cycle of sharing
1.10.3 sharing drives views drives sharing
1.10.4 most powerful feed is the newsfeed
1.10.5 The day they launched newsfeed, shortly after traffic went up 50%, after that the amount of content produced went up too.
1.10.6 ilike example
within 4 days of launching ilike had 1M people using the application.
1.11 Learned a lot of lessons
1.11.1 need to work more closely with developers
1.12 Announcing a new feed
1.12.1 The Wall feed
1.12.2 You can create full stories in the wall – things you have built, or pictures etc. can be easily visible.
1.12.3 A publisher, iwrite notes, add photos, video, share links.
1.12.4 Remove the concept of adding an application, free to browse around and use anything and you opt in if information or publishing is required.
1.13 Funny video “we’ll do it live”
2 Flipped over to a demo
2.1 The product placement payment from Apple Inc. musn’t have happened, because the mac they were demo’ing on had the apple logo covered with an F8 logo…
2.2 Demo’d the new application model
2.2.1 Wen t to a friend’s profile
2.2.2 Commented on an application without needing to add it
2.2.3 Prompted how to publish it and couldchoose the level of detail.
2.2.4 Whe nyou intereact with anapplication, it gets added to your publisher (if done recently) you can easily add items using the publisher.
3 Outside of facebook
3.1 Expect that less of this movement will be about facebook.com but more about what other people are building and FB is the platform.
3.2 The slide listed:
3.2.1 Twitter
3.2.2 Citysearch
3.2.3 Sixapart
3.2.4 Digg
3.2.5 CBS
3.3 Will push for parity in what applications can do in facebook or outside facebook.
3.4 Facebook connect
3.4.1 Build same kinds of apps across the web
3.4.2 Share information across the web
3.4.3 Control your information
3.4.4 Bringing out the demo partners
(1) Digg
(a) When you digg something on digg it automatically goes into your newsfeed;
(b) You don’t need to worry about the authentication
(c) You can see what your friends do
(d) Thanks everybody “Digg On”
(2) SixApart – David Recordon – I love this guy.
(a) Commenting on blogs hasn’t evolved at the same rate as blogging has
(b) With FB connect they hope to change it;
(c) Created a publin for moveable type which allows you to integrate FB connect auth into your blog
(d) Yo ucan post and leave a comment and your photo/name pulled from your FB profile
(e) Takes advantage of Dynamic privacy – if oyu don’t want to share your picture, whatever your settings on FB are the yare reflected elsewhere.
(f) You can sign in to moveable type using FB authentication
(g) It knows who your friends are on the third party;
(h) The hidden elements like your friends photos appear
(i) Took 1.5 days to implement – Recordon can live demo.
(3) Citysearch
(a) Will be launching a new site w/ some consumer improvements (sharing info is a big piece)
(b) They are very excited to participate J
(c) What could be more trusted/useful than recommendations from your firneds/network.
(d) Lower the barrier to registration
(i) Allow you to take your facbeook identity and port it over to your citysearch account.
(ii) Added a facebook my friends tab.
(iii) You can see the things your friends have recommended
1 Ben Ling (Director Product Management)
1.1 Talked about platform ecosystem
1.1.1 Venture capital = 30 different companies
1.1.2 Adnetworks = 13 different adnetworks
1.1.3 Application dev
1.1.4 Academics = studying and teaching about fb.
1.2 Principals
1.2.1 Meaningful
(1) Social – social apps make use of the osicla graph.
(2) Useful – carpool application, 1/5th of cornell’s students use the carpool application.
(3) Expressive – sharing and expressing yourself, e.g. sports teams or a sketch.
(a) In 1 week alone the graffiti app go 10k submissions
(4) Engage
(a) In the last month alone FB users using playfish applications have played over 900M minutes of games.
(b) A huge amount of engagement
(c) Every day 1M users spend 30mins a day on playfish apps
1.2.2 Trustworthy
(1) As more users join the ecosystem, users and developers get value
(2) “safe and trusted ecosystem”
(3) Secure -
(4) Respectful – respectful of the data and time.
(5) Transparent – clearly explain features –
1.2.3 Well designed
(1) Cleanly designed – new users can quickly and easily pick them up
(a) Usability testing is as simple as grabbing a few friends and getting feedback
(2) Fast
(a) Users want everything now.
(3) Robust
(a) The application should be available when and where;
(b) Scaling from 5 users to 5M users
1.3 We’re listening
1.3.1 Parner more closely with developers
(1) Had ~ 70 developer garages
(2) Haven’t done as gooder job on the online forums – expect more
(3) Incorporating feedback from developers so all stakeholders are represented
(4) Staffing up a fulltime partner and community management organization, and will communicate roadmap.
1.3.2 Keep the ecosystem safe for user sand fair for developers
(1) Last year took a handsoff approach distribution becaome overwhelming.
1.3.3 Help you create more, better apps
1.4 Building platform together
1.4.1 Getting Started
(1) ANNOUNCING: getting you started quickly
(a) Tools and partnerships.
(b) Launchign a new and improved developer website, will provide all getting started information;
(c) Will give you the events happening re. platform
(d) Recent news.
(2) Facebook fund – have given out 10M funding
(3) Kicking off a new competition
(a) 2M over 2mths
(b) New companies, new ideas, FB will select 25 finalists, each will get 25K, users can vote, 5 finalists will receive 250k and mentorship.
1.4.2 Advancing common interests
(1) Facebook verification program
(a) Applications can apply for certification – will be displayed in the application directory and the about page
(b) For users they’ll trust apps more
(c) For developers - get more trust, more visibility, resulting in more users
(2) Facebook great apps program
(a) For high end applications
(b) Embody the principals
(c) Advance the FB mission “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected”
(d) Will have a minimum userbase and a strong history.
(e) Users
(i) More integrated experience, more content from apps
(ii) Increased vibility, early features, facebook feedback.
(f) OPINION: There is a bit of a disconnect here; they talked about previously the mission was to make Platform apps as powerful as the native apps; now they are saying there is still a gap….
(g) Launch partners – iLike & Causes
1.4.3 Making the web more social
(1) Fb connect
(a) Authentication
(b) Identity
(c) Friends access
(d) Dynamic privacy
(e) Social distribution
(2) Desktop
(3) Mobile
(a) Announcing FB connect for the iPhone – announcing this call
1.4.4 Announcincing the open web founcation
(1) Talked about dataportability
(2) And open web founcation “supporting and will make contributions
I really need to stop learning about things from Livemeshside. Picturepan2 from Livesino hit me on IM this afternoon to ask about the new feature our Messenger server engineers mentioned on their blog.
Some feedback we got from customers was I’d love to know which site the IM Control conversations are coming from. We aren’t passing through the site URI to the client but we do allow you to set the default visitor name (appears in the conversation with you).
Just tweak the inviterDisplayName parameter.
All you need to do is:
<iframe src="http://settings.messenger.live.com/Conversation/IMMe.aspx?invitee=dcc7f76fcd6c161a@apps.messenger.live.com&mkt=en-US" width="300" height="300" style="border: solid 1px black; width: 300px; height: 300px;" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<iframe src=”http://settings.messenger.live.com/Conversation/IMMe.aspx?invitee=dcc7f76fcd6c161a@apps.messenger.live.com&mkt=en-US&inviterDisplayName=Reading%20Your%20Blog” width="300" height="300" style="border: solid 1px black; width: 300px; height: 300px;" frameborder="0"></iframe>
[read this post on the Live Mesh blog (feed)]
We mentioned in the Mesh forum that the Live Mesh technology preview is being opened up for US Live IDs to join up – many bloggers quickly picked up on this thanks to Liveside (go Sunshine!).
One clarification is we aren’t quite opening up to the 303 million people on the internet in the US YET… but we have doubled the number of participants who can sign up for the technology preview and are going to open more slots in the next couple of months.
To make signup for the preview easier, we cut the requirement of going to connect.microsoft.com.
Get your Mesh on
Firstly – I’ve gone on record saying “Maps are sooo 2001” – because they are. This is just something I found interesting - I was riding the subway in New York today. When I looked up I saw an ad for the new www.mta.info site which gives better directions on how to use the subway and busses.
They actually printed a powered by Microsoft Virtual Earth on the in-train ad!
The site itself is somewhat slick, I’d love for all of that data to get exposed so developers could easily pull into your own apps.
The Live Mesh crew have announced a few updates to their CTP – the features I really are about are:
Check it out (or check out the Liveside post)