Google Developer Day Bound

It's Autumn in Europe, and for me that means two things:

• The view from my apartment goes from an ocean of green to a riot of reds, oranges, and yellows.

• It's time to head to the continent for the annual Google Developer Days!

This year we're holding events in Munich, Moscow, and Prague. I'm writing this from London Heathrow while waiting for my flight to the first event in Munich, but it's actually the second leg of my November journey.

Last week I was in Berlin and Florence taking part in Android Developer Labs. This week, I'll be attending hackathons organized on the day before each of the GDD events. The highlight of these GTUG led events is the high quality developers we get to meet (the local specialities like the visit to C-Base in Berlin and the 5 course meal arranged for us in Florence are a close second.)

It's amazing to have such wonderful organizers and committed communities that let us do events like these around the world. Without them it would be impossible to organize the logistics around the 9 event marathon I'm currently a third of the way through.

You can keep track of where I'll be and what events I'll be participating in using the awesome new Google Developer Relations event tracker. If I'm going to be in a town near you, stop by and say hi!

G-Kenya

There's something familiar about the drive from Jomo Kenyatta International in to Nairobi. The landscape of scrubland and bougainvillea reminds me of driving down Horrie Miller Drive on the way to my hometown of Perth, in Western Australia.

 

As we head down Mombasa Road and into the city the similarities to fade. Most striking are the birds -  gliding on the thermals, the size of small donkeys. Butterflies the size of birds complete the impression of Gulliver visiting Brobdingnag.

I didn't have the opportunity to venture outside of Nairobi, so I'm in no position to describe what it's like outside the capital - but Nairobi struck me as a city of contrasts. It was certainly chaotic, unlike many Australian and American cities that have transformed into hubs for well ordered suburbia. If you pan out from where I used to live, you'll quickly notice the grids and arterials that make up a planned, ordered city.

Nairobi isn't like that. In many ways it reminded me of organic cities like Rome and Paris - cities where you can get most of what you need by foot (and traffic bad enough to force you to do so). Along every road there's people going about their business. Walking to work, coming back from the shops, heading to see a movie. Similar to the crepes in Paris and pizza in Rome, ambulatory commuters are tempted with roasted corn-on-the-cob as well as with streetside markets overflowing with fresh fruit that tastes like fruit (note: In London fruit does not taste like fruit, it is merely fruit flavoured).

While the city's infrastructure is still some way behind that of most European capitals, there are signs of modernization. The country has a new constitution to go along with the air-conditioned malls and shiny high-rises that have started to appear. The 3G data plans are cheap and plentiful and smartphones, while still scarce, are starting to make an appearance. There's also a fat cable pipe now to provides the bandwidth vital for local technologists to participate in the Internet economy.

I was in town for G-Kenya, a 3 day Google conference aimed at sharing Google developer technologies with the student, developer, and entraupeneurial communities. If you're interested, I'll detail more about my experiences on the Android Developer Blog later this week.

Google I/O Session Videos Available Now!

I had the honour of presenting the first Android session of Google I/O 2010, and it was clear very early on that Android was going to be a popular topic.

The room started filling about half-way through the day one keynote. By the time David Glazer was wrapping up, there were no empty seats. By the time I got started there were around 1,000 people packed into the 700 seat session room and the fire marshal had shut (and guarded!) the doors to stop anyone else from joining us.

A Beginner's Guide to Android

I was supposed to present "A Beginner's Guide to Android". I chose to interpret this title liberally, and quickly segued into "Android Best Practices for Beginners".



If you want to play along at home, you can download the slides.

Regular readers should recognize many of these tips as being remarkably similar to the suggestions I make during my Android App Surgeries.

Standing Room Only SOLD OUT!

The door guards never left. With people setting up camp once they found a seat, there were times when speakers found it difficult to gain entrance. With people locked out of each session, it's great that the video and slides for all the Android I/O sessions are now available.

  

There were some really great Android presentations this year. During my session I called out Justin's "Casting a wide net: how to target all Android devices", and "Android UI Design Patterns". Personally, I'm keen to find out more about the Android Cloud to Device Messaging Service and pick up some tips on building faster Android apps.

The Other, Other Sessions

All the I/O session videos will be made available over the next week or two.

As well as Android, you can already see the sessions for App Engine, GWT, and Enterprise. Chrome, Social, Geo, and Wave will all be available by next Monday.

What's in a Word?

There's some interesting discussion on Moderator, Buzz, Twitter, and in the comments of my last post asking you guys to tell me what you mean when you say "fragmentation".

My theory (stolen shamelessly from Dan Morrill) is that the term has been overloaded to the point of uselessness. The aim of my previous post is to unwrap the (genuine) concerns hidden within this term to allow us to discuss them without dissolving into an argument over the semantic meaning of one word.

I'm going to let the discussion continue for a while but I'll definitely respond to some of the most prominent / popular(?) issues soon. In the meantime I wanted to highlight some tweets I got from NinjaCyborg on Twitter.

He raises some interesting points, which I'll respond to, but I wouldn't have considered any of them to be good examples of fragmentation. For the most part you could happily substitute "openness" or "annoying" depending on your point of view:

• Fragmentation is launching apps that only run on the new OS release when the previous one barely had a 6 month lifecycle.
• Fragmentation is allowing licensees to ship hardware that isn't powerful enough to run your OS and makes web apps crawl
• Fragmentation is changing the browser location API in between 1.6 and 2.0
• Fragmentation is not including basic APIs for things like Bluetooth OBEX so we have to hit the hardware. OBEX is a basic, fundamental part of Bluetooth. Not complying with the standards == fragmentation
• Fragmentation is pretending most Android users are on 2.1+ when there are still phones being sold on 1.5 and 1.6 with no upgrade
• Fragmentation is letting your licensees choose whether to have browser chrome or fullscreen browsing

That doesn't make his questions any less valid, but it does demonstrate just how overloaded the term "fragmentation" is.

[To make keeping track easier, comments for this post are closed. Please use Moderator or the comments from the previous blog post to continue the discussion]

What Do YOU Think Fragmentation is?

Dan Morrill, Google open source & compatibility program manager extraordinaire, wrote a great post on compatibility on the Android Developer Blog yesterday. It explains - in some detail - why device and platform variety is a good thing for developers, and what the Android team are doing to make sure it stays that way.

Within the post, Dan makes what some might consider a bold claim:

Because [fragmentation] means everything, it actually means nothing, so the term is useless. Stories on “fragmentation” are dramatic and they drive traffic to pundits’ blogs, but they have little to do with reality. “Fragmentation” is a bogeyman, a red herring, a story you tell to frighten junior developers. Yawn.

If that pull quote makes you angry, I strongly suggest you go ahead and read the full article. Seriously. I'll wait.

By reading it you'll learn all about the Compatibility Definition Document [PDF] and how the Android Market and Compatibility Test Suite are used to ensure that the apps you write will work consistently across all compatible devices.

As an apps developer, Dan addresses my concerns completely. As long as there's a process in place to ensure I only need to write one app, launch it in one place, and know that it will behave as expected on any device for which it's available, I'm happy.

Judging from some of the abuse I get when I link to the updated platform distribution graph, or urge developers to start using new APIs when we release a new SDK, it seems some people have Strong Opinions on the matter. So, if having read Dan's explanation, you're still angry (or angrier still), I'd be interested in finding out why.

As Dan says, fragmentation has been used as a catch-all for "things that are different", making it impossible to have a meaningful conversation around any of the individual topics. I've created this Moderator page to find out what YOU think is a "fragmentation" problem on Android -- and more importantly why you think this does / could cause issues for developers -- hopefully while avoiding an argument over what "fragmentation" is or isn't.

Why GoogleTV Should Send Android Developers to Their Happy Place

In another life, a touch over 4 years ago, a job opening on the Google jobs site caused me to speculate on the imminent arrival of GoogleTV - a cooperation between Google and hardware manufacturers that would bring the power of Google search to your TV viewing experience.

I was a little ahead of myself, but it turns out I had the right idea!

A regular TV that I can write code for? That sends me to my happy place.

Let me start of by saying that I'm not a part of the GoogleTV team. I don't have any insights into their plans beyond what they talked about during the day 2 I/O keynote.

The focus of that keynote was GoogleTV as a platform for the web - letting you consume web video, use apps, and surf websites on your TV. Obviously that will be cool, but web on TV isn't what excites me.

What is? Android. Being able to write apps is what got me interested in computers to begin with. I didn't own a smartphone until Android provided a free / open opportunity to write apps for mobiles. Now GoogleTV promises to deliver a platform me to to code for my TV.

GoogleTV is an opportunity to develop apps on one of the most widely used content consumption platforms on the planet.

Over the last few years we've seen apps transform mobile phones into platforms for innovation - dramatically changing the way people use their phones. GoogleTV could do the same thing for the television.

During the keynote we saw an app that added real-time translated subtitles. Seriously. How cool is that?

Imagine the opportunities that gives you as a developer, particularly when combined with Cloud to Device Messaging? Shazam listening to your movie (in the background) to compile a soundtrack. A click of the remote can add the ingredients from a cooking show straight to your Ocado basket. Pandora (or Spotify) can let your TV play a collaborative playlist.

That's not to mention the immersive experience for apps that already exist for Android. News, shopping, music, picture galleries, restaurant guides - and perhaps most importantly - games.

I particularly like the idea of using my GoogleTV in combination with my Android handset. 

In my experience, watching TV is communal. Rest assured, the first time someone interrupts my movie by loading Shazam or switches the playoffs into picture-in-picture to check the box score on the browser they will experience my displeasure by way of a shoe to the side of the head.

That's where C2DM and background services come in. Apps can run silently in the background, waiting for me to "pull" (or push) information from / to the TV to / from my Android device.


It's up to us to create innovative experiences that make people change the way they experience TV.

Just as great apps and mobile websites have driven a transition towards internet connected smartphones – a different brand of apps and TV websites can drive users towards internet connected smart TVs.

So I have two questions:

1. What's more exciting for you: Web on TV or Android apps for TV?
2. What apps (web or Android) are you going to create?

Tracking the London Marathon

One of the fun things about being a Googler are the opportunities that come along to work on unofficial ad-hoc projects using a bunch of different Google technologies. It’s even better when you get to do it while helping charity. I got the chance to do just that in the lead-up to the 2010 London Marathon.

About a month ago Phong Luu, Jean-Laurent Wotton and I offered to help Stephen Woodford raise some money for NABS. Stephen volunteered to run the marathon, we pitched in by building an application to let people follow his progress.

Why Build New?

Existing tools such as Latitude and MyTracks didn't offer the real-time, high frequency live updates needed to allow anonymous visitors to track a marathon in real time. The goal was to create a simple web app using Street View and Maps that didn't require a login that got updated as Stephen was running.

What We Used

1. AppEngine was used to create a server to receive position updates during the race.
2. A purpose-built Android app transmitted updates to the server at a regular interval during the race.
3. Google Maps and Street View displayed each updated position along the route.

Practical Considerations

Before Stephen took off there were a few practical considerations. In particular I needed to be wary of two things: battery life and data signal availability.

To maintain battery life we made the frequency and minimum distance of our location update requests user configurable. During testing we found that 5 minute intervals over 1km was a good compromise between real-time updates and battery life.

As any Londoner knows, a 3G data signal isn’t something you can take for granted while running (literally) around the city. To account for this I created an upload Service. Each new location was recorded into a Content Provider along with a timestamp. Using a combination of Alarms and Broadcast Receivers, I could then start the update Service at semi-regular intervals - or when a data connection was available - and upload all the pending updates to the server.

The Future

With the 2010 race now over, the team is looking for ways to improve our custom solution to offer a generic tool for future marathons. To do that we'll need to:

• Update the Android app and AppEngine server to support tracking multiple runners simultaneously and in different races.
• Add compass direction so that Street View shows the direction the runner is facing.

Android on the Farm

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have noticed an unusual drop in my posting frequency over the last few weeks. I can't divulge details, but my inactivity is a result of having been head-down finishing an exciting new Android project that I've been lucky enough to be involved in with the mobile engineering team here in London.

Between the developer lab world tour and finishing Professional Android 2, I haven't had the chance to focus solely on building an Android app for far too long. It's been great to work as part of the Google team to put together something which (I think) is pretty incredible.

We've spent the last couple of days doing final testing in the English countryside. With that now completed, and the launch imminent, I'm going to stay a few days longer and take a well earned break. All will soon be revealed, but while you wait for the app to be available in the Market I thought you might enjoy some video clips I took during the development and testing process.

(Feel free to guess what you think is going on, but please don't ask me to comment on or confirm speculation. Posting these clips is as far as I'm willing to go!)

The phone I have been waiting 2.5 years for, has arrived

It's here

The Nexus One, the phone I have been waiting 2.5 years for, has arrived at last.

Yesterday Google, working with its partners, made the Nexus One 'super phone' available directly from the Google web site. It comes SIM and ROM unlocked, available either stand-alone or with a contract from an expanding list of carriers (currently T Mobile US). It's a platform for mobile innovation with an emphasis on simplicity -- for consumers and developers alike.

I first ranted about the phone I really wanted in June 2007

In June of 2007, shortly after the iPhone release, I first ranted about the phone I really wanted. At the time I (like many others) termed it the gPhone - a device sold by Google, tightly integrated with the Google services that were a vital part of my life, and with a slick form factor and powerful development platform beneath it.

By October of that year Google moved most of the services that were missing into the mobile cloud before the November release of the first preview Android SDK changed the mobile world (and mine).

Full Webkit-based browsers on smartphones brought all the websites I needed direct to my phone, and Android provided an incredible platform on which to explore the development possibilities of a mobile extra-sensory device.

In September of 2008 the G1 launched in the US for $180 with contract on T-Mobile, and we finally had hardware on which to run our Android applications. By December of 2009 nearly 20 different devices were available, in 48 countries and on 59 different carriers.

Now, the Nexus One joins the Android menagerie, and a welcome addition it is.

I can tell you it's easily the nicest phone I've had the pleasure of using

Having played with this device for a while, I can tell you it's easily the nicest phone I've had the pleasure of using. The screen is ridiculously clear and bright, the form factor has just the right balance between "sleek" and "robust", and Android 2.1 includes most of the stuff I've been hoping for since 1.0.

I particularly like:

• The new Picasaweb integrated Gallery which is simply too cool to describe with mere words
• Multiple email providers (one device for work and home!)
• Multiple contact providers (work contacts, meet home contacts. And Facebook contacts)
• Live Wallpaper (because they are TOO AWESOME)

Today we have our first Google Super Phone

This direct to consumer model is going to further increase the rate of mobile innovation -- for hardware, the Android platform, and apps.

A year ago there was one Android phone and a handful of apps. Today there are 20 phones and 18,000 apps. Today we have our first Google Super Phone, tomorrow looks... exciting.

Android, European Developers and ADC 2

My new role at Google hasn't left me with much time for bogging lately, which is a shame because there's a lot going on that's worthy of note.

The good news is that blogging is now a bigger part of my job role -- albeit not on this blog.

As part of Google's developer relations team I'll be writing regularly for the EMEA Developer Blog (like last week's post calling for European entries for the second Android Developer Challenge). We aim to include plenty of content with a local flavour for developers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Rather than do all the work ourselves, we're also hoping to reach out to the community and get regular guest posts from EMEAs developer community. Comments are open, so let us know what you think and what you want to hear about.

While I'm here, some Android updates:

• Andy Rubin has announced around 18-20 new Android powered handsets before the end of the year.
• The HTC Hero is available for order at Orange UK.
• The Samsung Galaxy is available from Bouygues Telecom in France and O2 in Germany (as the i7500).

Android News

So it seems today is a day for Android announcements.

HTC has made the Android 1.5 (cupcake) system image available for the downloading and device flashing pleasure of ADP1 (developer phone) owners everywhere. This is an excellent opportunity to test your SDK 1.5 targeted applications on real hardware before it hits consumers, so get to it.

Speaking of consumers, O2 Germany just announced the June release of the first non-HTC device to hit the market, the Samsung I7500.

With more SDK features, more countries, more carriers, and more devices coming thick and fast, the potential audience for your kick-ass Android app is getting bigger by the second. Download the 1.5 preview SDK now and get started.

The Calls are Coming from Inside the House

By now it should be pretty clear that I'm a fan of Android. It's a platform exciting enough to have driven me from my comfortable niche writing Windows desktop software into the world of mobile application development.

Now, I'm (extremely) happy to say that Google have let me turn my part-time amateur Android developer support and evangelism into a full time role as an Android Developer Advocate. I'll be based in Google's London office helping developers in EMEA produce the sort of awesome mobile applications I've always known are possible. It's a particularly exciting time in Android with version 1.5 of the SDK (now available in preview) featuring home-screen widgets, live folders, and video recording.

So what exactly is a developer advocate?

It's an opportunity to work on the inside, helping the developer community on two fronts: first by working with development teams to improve and perfect their apps, and secondly as a conduit back to the Android development team - helping to guide future Android development in a way that makes it even easier for developers to create great apps.

What does that mean for this blog?

I'll continue to blog about my own projects, as well as taking some close looks at the Android SDK as it grows and evolves. I'll also continue to feature new Google developer products as they're released, as well as my own projects and 'how-to guides'. What you won't see here, for obvious reasons, is speculation on future Google products, Google secrets, or new product announcements. As a member of the Developer Relations team in EMEA, I'll also take on some of the responsibility for Google's UK Developers Blog, so expect to see some more Android content from me there soon.

Over the past year I've found myself using Twitter (@retomeier) when I spot cool new products, and will probably continue to do that rather than dedicate whole blog posts to track every new product announcement.

Google I/O - Should I Come?

Yes! I'm really excited about Google I/O this year. There's going to be a ridiculous amount of useful information for people doing development with Google's developer offerings. Android developers in particular won't go away disappointed. I really hope to see some of you there - particularly if your based in any of the EMEA countries - so if you come along, be sure to come over and say 'Hi!'.

Professional Android Application Development: Out Now!

Professional Android Application Development ships tomorrow (Tuesday) from Amazon US, so those of you who pre-ordered should be seeing your copies in a couple of days. I'm really excited and can’t wait to find out what people think.

Where to buy

If you're interested in a copy the best place for me, for you to buy the book is Amazon following one of these links:

• Amazon.com
  
• Amazon.co.uk 

Free stuff and resources

If you'd prefer not to fork out without knowing a little more about what you're paying for (or just don't want to fork out at all), here's some useful resources that come free of charge:

Chapter 1 is available as a free PDF download [pdf] from the Wrox site if you want to learn more about Android before you commit to a 400 page tome. The TOC and index are there too. Chapter 7 [pdf ] -- which focusses on maps, location-based services, and the geocoder -- is available too.

Every concept in the book is supported with code snippets and a bunch of detailed step-by-step examples -- all of which you can download from the Wrox Open Source site.

If you're looking for details on something specific, Amazon's "Search Inside" is a surprisingly useful resource.

Android development conversation

I'll be looking to answer Android questions at the Wrox P2P forums, StackOverflow, and the Android Google Groups.

You can follow me on Twitter or FriendFeed, or just get book related news from the books Twitter feed and Friend Feed Room. I'll tweet any 'bugs' and changes to the text or code samples, as well as updates on any SDK releases that cause book code samples to break.

Still to come

To celebrate the book release I'll be posting a bunch of stuff about Android, including tutorials, walk throughs, and open source projects -- both here and other places online.

As luck would have it I got my G1 last week, so I can finally test and tweek my Android applications, so expect to see announcements about them in the coming days and weeks.

The Android Powered T-Mobile G1 Launched

Google, HTC, and T-Mobile announced the G1 Android  handset today. Here's what we learned:

Availability

• US. The G1 will be available in the US from October 22. Existing US T-Mobile subscribers can register to upgrade their phone via the T-Mobile website as of now.
• UK. "Early November" is the date to watch if you're in the UK, you can register your interest with T-Mobile to be alerted with updates as we get closer to that date.
• Europe. European users will need to wait until "early in Q1 2009"

Pricing and Locking

US price is $179, with the choice of $25 or $35 per month plans for 2 years. The $35 plan includes some text messenging allowance. Both include unlimited data.

No pricing was given for the UK or European launches,though TechCrunch is reporting it will be free with a £40 / month plan.

Word from T-Mobile is that the phone won't be available un-locked, but that's likely to become a moot point pretty shortly after launch.

Device and Application Details

Between the leaks and the SDK emulator there weren't a lot of surprises on the day. It wasn't a total recap though, with a couple of tidbits announced:

• Presence. Instant messaging presence is fully integrated directly into the contact manager and Gmail.
• Backlit Keys. The keys on the handset are all backlit so you can use it in the dark.
• Gmail. You need to have a GMail account to use the phone. Once you're signed in, this will be used to authenticate with all Google services you use.

We also got some direct questions answered for once:

• Can it be Used as a Modem?. No. Well not out of the box anyway. Look out for a 3rd party app to do the job.
• MS Exchange?. Not native. The official response is that this is an "opportunity for a 3rd party developer".
• Office Support?. Yes. The phone will read Word, Excel, and PDF files natively.
• Push Email? Yes for Gmail, standard POP/IMAP for everything else.
• Desktop Sync. No. The idea is to sync everything with the cloud rather than a desktop application. Contacts sync with GMail, calendar entries with Google calendar, etc.
• Bluetooth. Profiles for Bluetooth headset are currently supported. Everything else if v2.
• International support. Dual band 3G and quad band GPRS makes it compatible with most countries.

Included Applications

Exactly which applications will ship with the first handset is still something of a mystery, but we were given a peak at some of the likely inclusions. The native Google apps are listed at the Android mobile site.

• GMail. Strangely wasn't demo'ed, but will be partially web-based as it's build using Android's WebView classes.
• Amazon MP3 Store. Amazon have provided a native iTunes rival that lets you purchase DRM free music from the Amazon MP3 store direct from your mobile. You need to be connected to WiFi to download tunes.
• Music Player. Looks like the player used in the emulator. Not demoed in detail but looks solid (if no iPod killer).
• Android Marketplace. You can download and install new Android applications using the native marketplace app. You can also install apps from other web sites, using the SD card, or the USB sync cable.
• Maps. Google Maps is a killer mobile application. As well as the features already available on iPhone, WinMo, and Blackberry, the Android version supports Streetview that uses the phone's compass to automatically rotate your orientation.
• YouTube. Wasn't demo'd, but as you'd expect.
• Search. Context sensitive search will search depending on what you're doing (contacts, map, web, etc.). The device has a dedicated 'search' button.
• Calendar. Wasn't demo'd. Tightly coupled with Google's calendar application, all appointments are automatically synced between the phone and Google Calander
• Talk. GoogleTalk instant messaging and presence is available. Looks pretty basic, but that's what you want from a mobile IM client.
• Contacts. The contact manager as shown in the SDK emulator. Features presence and auto-sync with Gmail contacts.

Professional Android Application Development

If you're interested in developing your own Android applications, my new book -- Professional Android Application Development -- will be available on Amazon from November 17.

London Google Developer Day Android Wrapup

Tomorrow promises to be a big day for Android with most media outlets promising an announcement on the first Android handset.




Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to attend the Google Developer Day in London. As you might imagine, most of my interest this year was on the keynote and morning sessions on Android.






Mike Jennings, London's own Android Developer Advocate was on hand to give the first live European demo of the forthcoming Android-powered handset. From what we could see, the back handset looked pretty similar to the pictures posted around the internet and featured in earlier demos.

Mike's 'Blue Ball' demo indicates accellerometers will be included, and we were shown once again that GPS will be featured.

The user interface looks just like the one featured in the latest 0.9 Beta SDK, so no surprises there. As Mike ran through some of the demos the device seemed 'snappier' than the software emulators I've been using to test my sample applications, so that's a good sign.

Tech Talks

The Android tech talks on the day were introductory sessions targetted at people who new little or nothing about Android as a development platform. Both sessions were packed and through up some interesting questions -- not all of which had easy answers.

With the veil of secrecy still very much in place over all things Android a lot of questions went un-answered, but the following tidbits were covered

• Application Installation. Users can install Android applications using any of the Micro SD card, USB cable, or Android Marketplace
• Revenue Share. Google will pass on all revenue for applications directly to developers without taking a cut.
• Carriers. When signing on, OHA member carriers agree to openness standards that prevent them artificially blocking the installation of any applications on user devices. The agreements let carriers modify the handset 'chrome' with their own branding, and select which applications to preinstall, but won't modify the software stack to restrict user choice after-market.
• Push Email. Push email from a number of providers (not just GMail) will be supported.

More news tomorrow!

Street View Australia is Live

Google Maps StreetView is now available for Most of Australia and Japan!

The quality of the images is impressive and the coverage for Australia is stupidly comprehensive with all major cities are most populated rural areas covered, as indicated by the blue patches in the image below.



Because I can, here's the view from my old commute in to work:

View Larger Map

...and here's one of my favourite places in WA:


View Larger Map

The Real Problems With Knol

I'm a big fan of Knol, and I seem to have been spending an undue amount of time defending it from critics who, I believe, have the wrong end of the stick.

But. Just because most people are judging Knol using an inappropriate comparison, doesn't mean it's perfect.

So what could Knol be doing better?

Simple Internal Article Linking
It's pretty common for the specialist topics featured in Knol to reference terms that are unfamiliar to readers, but out of scope for the current article. Everything2 and Wikipedia have shown that jumping from topic to topic is compelling. Knol needs a simple mechanism that lets you create internal links automagically using topic text.

Related Knols
Everything2 does this really well though the use of soft links. E2 builds a related articles list by tracking transitions between articles. Given Google's prowess when it comes to finding related advertisingcontent it should be cinch to dynamically find Knols related to the current one. Internal linking would make this even easier, as would article tags. Which brings me to:

Article Tagging
The idea of a formalized taxonomy is clearly a non-starter. Fair enough, but that still leaves a healthy requirement for non-hierarchical cataloguing. Tags are a well established metaphor for cataloging to identify similar or related content. The 'alternative titles' field will makes it easier to search for a topic that's referred to by different names, but doesn't do much to help group or explore similar topics.

Topic Shells
E2 uses Node Shells to act like a shelf for a given topic. It contains all the articles with the same name written by various authors displayed as a kind of summary, indicating the reputation details for each of the contained Knols.

KnolShells would answer one of the criticisms related to ranking and linking to a topic covered in Knol. Currently you need to link to a specific author's Knol, or a search for the topic. KnolShells would let you link to the topic and offer all the available articles. This is particularly handy combined with internal links to streamline internal navigation, letting authors link to a topic rather than a particular article as it eliminates the 'first-in-most-linked' effect.

Improved Ratings and Reputation
Reputation systems are always problematic, but it would be nice to offer more statistical information on the popularity of each article beyond the a ambiguous 5 star rating mechanism. The E2 model uses the thumbs up / thumbs down model with the added ability for experienced users to flag particular articles as 'Cool'. Popular articles can then be used to populate the 'featured Knols' on the front page.

Analytics
I like to know how popular my articles are and get an idea of who's reading them. Seems like a no-brainer to include Google Analytics the way they did Adsense.

Outbound Links
I fully understand the spammy reasons outbound links are no-followed, but it would be nice if this rule was applied more discriminantly. It would be very nice to see outbound links become 'followed' based on rating, author reputation, or/or time since posting. No one wants Knol filled with V1agr4 links, but there's no reason people shouldn't be able to link back to their own sites, and no reason those sites shouldn't get the associated link juice.

RSS Feeds and Feedback
Knol doesn't yet have a very robust feedback system. I'd want to subscribe to someone's New Knol Feed, and I'd like to subscribe to comments and reviews on Knols as well. As a Knol author email notifications when someone comments on, or reviews, my articles would be good too.

A private message mechanism for people to send messages to Knol authors within the Knol ecosystem would be a handy way to let people comment or suggest changes without publicly posting a comment or going through the 'edit' process.

In Closing...

These ideas certainly aren't comprehensive, but I think seeing some of these changes would really improve Knol. What do you think?

Google Knol Released. It’s Not Wikipedia.

Google Knol, announced last December, is now open to the public.

Google describes Knol as:

A platform for sharing information, with multiple cues that help you evaluate the quality and veracity of information.

The mainstream media and blogosphere have both labelled it a Wikipedia killer, but the comparison to Wikipedia is lazy and superficial.

As I supposed when it was initially announced, the purpose of Knol is fundamentally different to Wikipedia's mission. Where Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Knol is a library.

Wikipedia delivers a single, collaborative, and verifiable article on every topic worthy of inclusion (and the editors aggressively kill new articles that aren’t). That fine. That's great even, it's like a living version of Britannica that tends towards consensus over time.

A Library of Knol(edge)

But that’s not what Knol is about. Knols aren’t about consensus, they're about authority. Lots of authors willing to stand by their claims. You judge the veracity of a Knol the same way you do a book, newpaper article, or tech paper – by looking at the comments and reviews of other readers, looking for citations, and reading up on the author (their background, affiliations, and other articles).

Just like your local library, Knol will contain a collection of opinions, knowledge, and experiences backed by the author’s name and reputation . Just like a library, many topics will have several 'books' written by different authors–often contradictory.

Rather than consensus articles with a neutral voice, for contentious or subjective subjects you can browse a number of personal opinions and experiences and form your own consensus. It’s noisier but it provides a personal perspective that’s inherently missing from an encyclopedic approach.

Check Out My Knowledge

Anyway, Knol looks pretty cool, I’ve set up my Knol Biography and I’ve started creating Knols based on some of my more popular E2 write-ups. You can check out Flooded Member Detection to find out if that’s as dirty as it sounds.

It’s worth sending a shout-out to the people over at Everything2 who have been doing the Knol thing for years and who still have a few tricks (particularly in the reputation system) that Google would do well to copy consider.

Authors, Start Authoring!

If you're an author or a subject matter expert, you can and should be using Knol to demonstrate that to the world. If you've written a book or authored a paper Knol is a way for you to demonstrate to potential readers that it's worth paying for more of your stuff.

I can see this being a great resource for professionals and academics who want to share their latest insight or discovery outside the four people that will read their journal article or internal white paper.

A New Tool for Research

For readers I think Knol provides an excellent addition to existing web-sites, including Wikipedia, as an additional source of information to browse when investigating a particular topic. Chances are most people won't be going to Knol directly for answers, but they're bound to end up there through Google searches before long.

Android for Professionals

It's been quiet around here for the last few months, and I can't blame a lack of exciting developments at Google.

As Tony over at Blogoscoped mentioned, the reason for my infrequent postings is now listed and available for pre-order over at Amazon:


It's still a few months away from release, but Professional Android Application Development has taken up every spare moment of time (and plenty that weren't spare) but I think the effort will be worth it.

In other Android news, the top 50 place getters in the first Adroid Developer Challenge were announced a couple of weeks back. According to an anonymous comment on this site, at least one of the semi-finalists hails from my home-town of Perth(!). Nice.

The good folk at Android Community also put up some footage of the Android presentation at Google I/O last week. It's an impressive demo that features a look at what's becoming an increasingly polished UI, shown off particularly well with the street view featuring accelerometer control.

There's also been some discussion on a likely Android Marketplace--a Google hosted catalog of 'trusted' Android applications. The concept seems like a win / win, giving developers' applications visibility while guaranteeing a level of safety for end-users. It would be particularly nice if Google Checkout was integrated for developers that choose to monetize their mobile apps.

"Explore This Area" with Google Maps

Google Maps Australia are slowly rolling out a feature that let's you "Explore This Area", essentially a 'universal search' implementation for Google Maps.

When you search from the Australian implementation of Google Maps (http://maps.google.com.au/) the message in the screen shot below appears in the search results panel to the left of the map and displays pictures, videos, and community maps based on the current map location.

Clicking 'explore this area' overlays tiny geocoded image thumbnails onto the map as well as displaying arrays of photos, videos, and community maps that are found within the currently visible map boundary.



While this additional information is currently available only using the Australian map search, you can do a search anywhere in the world and see the same extended results.

A nice touch is that as you pan and zoom your map everything updates dynamically, adding, removing, and reordering the videos, pictures, and maps available based on the new map location. Very slick.

There's also a new 'drop down' array to the right of the search box which displays your 'saved locations' for easy access.