In contrast to a week allegations of “internecine warfare among Microsoft’s established divisions and a dysfunctional corporate culture that squashes innovation” comes yet-another-innovative-Google-product, Google Buzz.  Google Buzz is Mountain View’s first convincing entry into Social Networking, that isn’t limited to merely an API.

Gina Trappani, posting on Smarterware, says it all: “This ain’t no Orkut.”. Google are very serious about taking down Twitter and Facebook.

Jason Calacanis, posting to his email list this morning, made it clear that he sees this as a major challenge to facebook:

1. Google Buzz 1.0 is better than Facebook after six or seven years.

2. Facebook’s history is one filled with stealing other people’s
innovations and doing them better (i.e. Zuckerberg has stolen every
idea Evan Williams and the Twitter team have released). How ironic now
that Google has out “Facebooked” Facebook. Google

3. Google has excellent privacy record and Facebook is a disaster.
Most folks do not trust Zuckerberg and Facebook any more because of
their privacy record (filled with lawsuits) and because they steal
every good idea they see (i.e. Twitter’s innovations and FourSquare’s
checking in).

4. Google Buzz auto generates your network–this is MUCH better
process than Facebook’s.

5. Google Buzz is way faster than the sluggish Facebook–this is a
HUGE advantage.

6. Google Buzz puts relies and updates into your GMAIL as
threads–this is BRILLIANT and a HUGE advantage.

Perhaps Jason is spot on. It certainly does seem that Google has almost everything in place to flip the switch, and take over the Social Networking space.

• Status
  Google: Buzz Status and GTalk Status
  Facebook: Status
• Photos
  Google: Picassa,
  Facebook: Photos
• Videos
  Google: YouTube,
  Facebook: Videos
• Email
  Google: Gmail since 2004
  Facebook: Project Titan (not yet released)
• Instant Messaging
  Google: GTalk with XMPP/Jabber
  Facebook: Facebook Chat (XMPP just released)
• Applications
  Google: Not yet.
  Facebook: Farmville, and a few others.
• Media Sharing
  Google: Google Reader, YouTube
  Facebook: A mix of rss importing tools, and (possibly) the recently purchased FriendFeed.

The only problem, in the words of the imitable Reinhardt Zündorf, is: “This is lame, now I can’t find out which dog I am (via a five bullet questionnaire) and share it with my facebook friends”.

My initial and unexplored thoughts on this:

1. Facebook just became the biggest and most popular aggregator of all Social Media Networks. They now own the social space, even moreso than before.
2. Twitter will be worried. I believe this is the first nail in the coffin.
3. Google will look to acquire Facebook, and Facebook will do everything it can to avoid acquision.
4. FriendFeed’s (geeky) userbase won’t be happy. This will give rise to an OpenSource, federated alternative, not unlike Laconica (and by extension, Identica). In fact, Laconica might be the perfect staging ground for this project.
5. For the most part, Facebook’s userbase either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. They’ll rise up against the inevitable Home Page changes that this will eventually bring, and then quickly learn to deal with them.
6. Facebook care much more about their platform than the current services they offer. That’s why they purchase new talent and ideas in the form of Parakey (2007) and FriendFeed. Expect interesting cross-social-platform integrations over the next 12 months.

Here’s my prediction as we move into the era of the Realtime Web. The next major web war will be waged between Google Wave and FaceFriendBookFeed.

I’d like to formally announce that Amy and I are engaged, and we both couldn’t be happier!

On December 24th, 2008 I picked Amy up after work and took her to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens for a picnic. It was perfect. I had the ring hidden safely away in a bag, a one-of-a-kind 18ct Yellow Gold and 0.56ct Diamond ring which I had only collected from the designer that morning!

We climbed a particularly beautiful rolling hill of lawn and threw a picnic blanket down. She had not idea of what was about to transpire.

Several minutes later, to the surprise of Amy and several picnic’ers who had watched me get down on one knee, I had a fiancé! I called our waiting parents who had been hiding out, awaiting our call. They brought up large amounts of Champagne and we toasted the best day of our lives thus far!

Here’s to an awesome 2009! I’ll be posting here as we plan the wedding!

Merry Christmas

Tim

So here’s something worth admitting: I’ve been running Wordpress 2.0 since 2006 and have never once bothered to upgrade to the latest version – unlike Jonathan who seems to update to the current stable almost daily! So without further ado, let me welcome you to the new Wordpress2.5′d timokeller.net 2.0. I designed this rather simple theme to run on the effortlessly awesome K2 theme for wordpress, and I think its come out okay. Suggestions?

Congrats to the Wordpress guys on a stunning new WP-ADMIN panel and the already huge number of downloads they have received. Its funny how even though its just a blogging script, it gets much more attention than Drupal releasing 6.1!

I’ve spent most of the past four months working on ChirpFX, a simple MVC Framework for developing human-centric web applications in PHP 5. The first application to use the framework is ChirpSchool – a highly extensible webapp for school and student management, assessment, promotion and monitoring. Its been picked up by the likes of Sun Valley Primary School and other local schools, and we’re looking forward to expanding at a rather exciting pace. We’ll have a promo website up soon with more information. More on that in the coming weeks.

If you want to keep an eye on me, follow me on Twitter. If you’re not on Twitter yet I’d highly suggest you join – its a really interesting way to interact with friends and followers!

Schedule for the next few weeks:

• Cognitive Behaviour Analysis Tutorial Assignment and Project
• Computer Science Network Architecture Tutorial 2 and Test
• Professional Communication Unit Paper due
• Deliver SMS and Assessment Modules of ChirpSchool
• See lots of Amy!

Thanks for catching up! See you on Twitter.

Tim

It has – yet again – been ages since I’ve posted. Sorry to keep you *all* waiting!

We here at OneWebStudios have had great fun writing a lot of code over the past year, in various languages, and so today I’m pleased to announce that we’re going to start opensourcing certain projects. This won’t happen overnight, nor will it include our major projects (ChirpSchool, etc) but it will include smaller projects that we’d love some help with. If you’re keen to join the OWS family, drop us a comment on this blog post.

In the meantime, watch www.timokeller.net/opensource for news.

Tim

Western Cape matric students are to rewrite an English paper after it emerged that it was handed out in error in an earlier exam.

The province’s education department said the English first language higher grade paper two would be rewritten on November 23.

It said the paper was mistakenly handed to some candidates at the South African College High School (SACS) on October 10, the day before the exam, and details of it had spread to other schools.

The department had terminated the contract of the chief invigilator at SACS and had issued a verbal warning to the head of the English department at the school. – Sapa

I’d like to state categorically that I think this is a pathetic waste of time. If 5% of the Western Cape students were even aware of the leak it would be a lot, an even smaller percentage of those would be aware of the paper’s content. The “termination” of the chief invigilator’s contract is without a doubt a desperate reaction by the WCED to save face. Surely the invigilator in question made an honest mistake? And a verbal warning to the Head of English at SACS? Hello?! What is this world coming to?

This morning we woke up to a new world. A world strangely similar to late 1995 when the Springboks beat New Zealand to win the William Webb Ellis cup for the first time.

Last night we watched as Thabo Mbeki and captain John Smit held the cup up high in victory against the clearly inferior English side.

Go bokke!

Nice to have you back online Amy!

I listen rather addictively to the TWiT Netcast (read Podcast) Network run by ex-TechTV host Leo Laporte and features regular panelists John C. Dvorak, Roger Chang, Robert Heron, Patrick Norton, David Prager, Kevin Rose, Alex Lindsay, Wil Harris, and Merlin Mann. TWiT (This Week in Technology) was started when the group got together at MacWorld 2005 and recorded a show called Revenge of the Screen Savers (Leo’s TechTV show was called The Screen Savers). This developed into something much bigger and before long TWiT was born.

They now put out a plethora of completely free shows every week. If you haven’t ever listened to these informative, educational, and just plain hysterical podcasts then toddle along to www.TWiT.tv and download the latest show.

I’d suggest you start your TWiT experience with these shows:

• This Week in Technology
• Windows Weekly
• MacBreak Weekly
• FLOSS Weekly

Farewell! I’m off to Malaysia for two weeks. We fly at 11:30am tomorrow (friday) morning and will be back 12 July. Can’t wait… it been two years since my last real holiday, and Amy & My first trip together (albei it with parentals)

I’ll be posting as many photos as the Island Internet will allow.