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Bubble 2.0

December 7, 2007
Are we headed towards another tech bubble or are social media sites really worth north of 15 billion dollars? I don’t have the answer to this question but if you are pondering it like I am, you may want to watch this hilarious video about how bubbles are formed through massive VC and blogger hype and then they burst.
 
If you are a techie or even peripherally related to technology you will find this video very funny.
 
Tom Keating’s blog has more about Here Comes Another Bubble from The Richter Scales.

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Skype Developer Program Change

December 7, 2007
Paul AmeryAndy Abramson reports that Paul Amery (interview) is no longer the Director of Developer Programming at Skype. I liked Paul a great deal and he had tremendous passion and enthusiasm for his work at Skype.
 
You may remember Amery was a keynoter at a past TMC event so I subsequently had the opportunity to spend a good deal of time with him.
 
I am not sure what the reason for this departure is but perhaps it was just time. Here is the statement the company put out:
 
Change has always been a constant at Skype and will continue to be. We will keep re-shaping our business to take advantage of the immediate and short-term opportunities in front of us. In this context, Paul Amery & Lester Madden have moved on from their current positions and we’re working closely with them to support them through this process.
 
For more on the departure I would direct you to a guest blog post by Amery where he spells out some of the successes which have taken place under his tenure. Specifically:
 
 
If you want to contact Paul, his e-mail is p_amery@hotmail.com and you can Skype him at: paul.amery.
 
See also:
 
Skype Journal: Skype Developer Partner Program in Flux
Tom Raftery: Is Skype bucking the Open trend? 

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Google Chart API: 2008 Mashup Fuel

December 7, 2007
With all the talk of web mashups I find it amazing that the most interesting ones still seem to be map-based and especially revolve around the Google Map API. Although Google doesn’t monetize this API, the free publicity the company has received because of this application programming interface is immense.
 
So if mapping APIs was the first phase of mashups, will the second phase be charts? It would seem we may find out soon as according to Google Blogoscoped the new Google Chart API allows you to display charts and graphs by sending parameters to the API and receiving a PNG graphic in return.
 
For example the following URL:
 
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?
cht=p3&chd=t:40,49,20,2,2,2&chs=450x225
&chl=Avaya|Cisco|Nortel|Toshiba|NEC|Aastra
 
will yield the following chart:

 
 
This is what the parameters mean:
 
cht=p3
chart type: in this case, a pie chart. p would specify a flat pie chart
 
chd=t: 40,49,20,2,2,2
chart values: text-encoded, and separated by a comma
 
chs=450x225
custom chart size: 350x150 pixels
 
chl=Avaya|Cisco|Nortel

|Toshiba|NEC|Aastra
Labels: separated by the pipe character
 
What I like about this service is how easy it is to generate the charts. Moreover there are lots of parameters you can choose that I didn’t mention such as colors for the segments and background as well as resulting graphic label format.

Update: This is just a demo chart and is not meant to represent anything at all except a test of how the charting service works.

Update 12/08/07:

This code yileds the following chart (note there are colors specified in this case):

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&
&chco=ff0000,00ff00,0000ff
&chd=t:40,49,20,2,2,2,50,45&chs=450x225
&chl=Avaya|Cisco|Nortel|Toshiba|
NEC|Aastra|Scream|Tin%20Can



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