Google Severely Underestimated the Reader Audience

Posted on 06-15-2013

I really think Google underestimated the Google Reader audience when they decided to shut down the popular RSS feed reader.Sure, Google Reader didn't have a growing audience. Sure, RSS is never going to be something the masses adopt. But Google Reader was the favorite tool of the very vocal, alpha geeks.Us power geeks used Google Reader to manage our feeds, curate information and data and used its index as a valuable story archive. We wrte stories from this process and built massive mainstream audiences over the last 6 years. We are the curators, bloggers and geeks that deliver messages to......read more.

I Am Speaking At The Dallas-Forth Worth API Professionals Meetup May 14th

Posted on 05-02-2013

REXML could not parse this XML/HTML: <p><p><a title="DFW API Professional Meetup Group" href="http://www.meetup.com/DFW-API-Professionals/events/115600132/"><img style="padding: 15px;" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/kinlane-productions/events/dfw-api-meetup-group/dfw-api-meetup-group.jpeg" alt="" width="200" align="right" /></a></p> <p>Hey everyone. I'm heading out to the Dallas-Fort Worth area the week after next, Tuesday, May 14, to kick off the <a title="DFW API Professional Meetup Group" href="http://www.meetup.com/DFW-API-Professionals/events/115600132/">DFW API Professionals Meetup</a>.</p> <p><a title="TheRightAPI" href="http://therightapi.com">TheRightAPI</a>&nbsp;team were so kind to invite me out to speak, hang out and talk APIs, to help kick-off the area API group. Both&nbsp;<a title="TheRightAPI" href="http://therightapi.com">TheRightAPI</a>&nbsp;and backend as a service (BaaS) provider <a href="http://www.proxomo.com/">Proxomo</a> are sponsoring the shindig.</p> <p>The group will be meeting at the <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=7000+Texas+161%2C+Irving%2C+TX">Microsoft Campus,......read more.

Reminder Of Why Data Portability Should Be Default Bye Bye Posterous

Posted on 05-01-2013

I was a Posterous user. I didn't rely on the platform for anything.  It was just, yet another endpoint in my world of content production. So I was not that upset when they announced they were shutting down(I would link to post, but its gone).  But I was just checking the blog feed of an API that I monitor.  It came up in my alert dashboard as a feed that wasn't pulling.  I clicked on the link to test, and: Just a reminder that in ALL platforms, data portability needs to be default.  Either an API or at least an......read more.

Hacking Your Automobile Dashboard

Posted on 05-01-2013

In the tech space we use the term dashboard a lot. Think about how overused that term is when delivering web applications, portals, home page, start page and any other bullshit incarnation on the Internet where you heard the term dashboard applied to! We place a lot of demands on these digital dashboards. They should only display exactly the information we need. We need to be able to hide, show and reorder all the elements of the dashboard as we see fit. We need skins and other ways to customize the way our dashboard looks. Our dashboards should be personalized......read more.

A Lifetime of Experience with 'Government Workers'

Posted on 05-01-2013

I grew up in rural Oregon. One concept I was raised on and given healthy portions of, was a distrust of "government workers". Government workers were lazy, predatory, beauracratic and definitely not working for the interests of anyone I encountered in the small town I grew up in. In contrast, during the last year of monitoring the White House Digital Strategy I've learned a lot about how government operates, the mission of a handful of the 200+ federal agencies, and opened up conversations with multiple "government workers", from a wide variety of government agencies. One thing that stands out, is......read more.

A Civic Hacker Corp

Posted on 05-01-2013

I've always been told, "If You Don't Vote, You Can't Bitch". This is a statement I've heard from hundreds of American citizens that I've encountered throughout my life, across every region of this great country. While I agree with the intent of this statement, I have to declare that it isn't enough! Its obvious that being a couch political pundit and voting for your favorite, corporate owned politician isn't enough anymore. In the age of the Internet, open data and open APIs we need politicking to be a group sport.  Something everyone lends a hand in. So how do we......read more.

An Author Walk-Through of a Story in Audio

Posted on 04-30-2013

I was finally catching up on all my podcasts this week, which includes Traffic and Weather, which is an always informative source of news and commentary podcast about APIs and the cloud hosted by @smarx and @johnsheehan  While listening to Episode 8: I’m going to withdraw my objection, John Sheehan discusses his March story in NextWeb called APIs are Dead, Long Live APIs.  It was very interesting to hear him describe his intent behind the post and walk us through his points.   I read the original article back in March, jotted down some notes, but really didn't trigger much beyond that.  After listening to......read more.

Who Are The Customers For Your Startup?

Posted on 04-26-2013

Silicon Valley builds amazing apps! We need customers to use our apps Hopefully we get lots of customers who use our apps! We can also launch an API, and become a platform Now we have developers as customers Now we have our developers customers as customers We need $$ to operate and scale our platform, APIs and apps Now we add investors as our customers Our investors want us to give them ROI with a good exit Now we have other larger companies as potential customers Who is the customer of your startup? ...read more.

Your Glasses Are Prime Real Estate for a Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

Posted on 04-17-2013

I’m closely following the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) world lately, in an attempt to understand the role APIs will play in this expanding tech sector. One product that is of particular interest is Google Glasses, which I think is one of the most exciting and scariest technologies to emerge in recent times. As I look across the landscape of emerging HCI technology and other more known and adopted technologies such as smart phones, GPS, etc, I can’t help but think about how Google is genius for targeting the most ideal real estate in our physical world. Think about the other......read more.

Personal Legal Storage Locker for TOS and NDA

Posted on 04-10-2013

I’m unpacking all my notes from my time spent at the MIT Media Lab this last weekend.  One of the byproducts of hanging out with so many smart people is I end up with all kind of great ideas, and I know better than to think I can do them all myself, so I put my ideas out on the web for anyone to run with. My project from theHackathon this weekend was #ReclaimYourDomain, which I’ll write about in detail separately, but the overall project objective was to educate people about: Owning Their Own Domain Taking Control Of Their Cotent......read more.

Add Or Update Your

Posted on 04-10-2013

You have the power to update your own profile on the #ReclaimOpen Github repository, by editing and submitting a pull request. Here are some steps you will need to consider to accomplish this. Github Repository - https://github.com/1l2p/reclaimopen Github Account (Skip If You Have One) https://github.com/ Github Client Mac - http://mac.github.com/ Windows - http://windows.github.com/ Fork Repository to Your Github Clone #ReclaimOpen Repository Clone to local folder on your machine Edit the people.html page locally Submit Pull Request Github Help - https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests Here is a video walkthrough of the process as I update my own profile on the people.html page. UPDATE: Edit the hackathon.html......read more.

Usually When Developers Are Mean, It Is About Power

Posted on 03-30-2013

I’ve been programming professionally since 1988, so I’ve been around quite a few developers in my career. There seems to be a lot of moments lately that cause me to look back at this career, reassess what I've learned, and adjust the direction I'm going with this mined wisdom.  This week I’m reflecting on the recent insanity around Adria Richards, my role as the API Evangelist, and spending time thinking about the tech space's inclusiveness as I’m hanging out with my 12 year old daughter for spring break. Throughout my career, in just about every position I’ve taken, whether as......read more.

Migrating My Automation Services Beyond Free

Posted on 03-28-2013

I depend on If This Then That (IFTTT) to move data around the cloud.  I syndicate blog posts from API Evangelist to Blogger and Tumblr.  This isn't just blind syndication, it is SEO and also plan B scenarios to make sure my content exists in multiple areas. When it comes to the IT decisions for API Evangelist, I carefully evaluate what services I use.  If I begin to depend on an account, after 6 months I need to start paying a fee to secure some sort of quality of service (QOS).  This is how I roll. Not all platorms allow......read more.

Embeddable OpenSpending Visualizations

Posted on 03-21-2013

There are some really great examples of embeddable, open data goodness over at the OpenSpending project, which is operated by the Open Knowledge Foundation, a non-profit with a missions to promote open knowledge and data. The OpenSpending platform has a wealth of data regarding spending budgets from all over the world, providing key data that allows anyone track government and corporate financial transactions globally. The OpenSpending platform has plenty of data visualizations avialable for use, but until recently these tools were only fixed and available on the OpenSpending site. Now they have begun developing and publishing a handful of cool,......read more.

Continuing the Migration of Projects Over To Github

Posted on 03-21-2013

I’m continuing the migration of all my projects to run on Github. Eventually all public areas of my site will run as static, published Github pages and supporting back-end repositories. Last night I migrated API aggregation, Backend as a Service, Reciprocity and Real-Time providers using a version of my Hacker Storytelling format. While apievangelist.com will still remain the master doorway to all my work, each project will live under its own subdomain and Github repository. As I make this switch I’m having to adjust my Google Analytics strategy as well as potentially my Google Feedburner strategy. In the shadow of......read more.

I Have An Idea, Lets Launch an Analytics Platform

Posted on 03-19-2013

During my monitoring for the API stack this last week, I noticed that both Parse and New Relic had launched mobile analytics platforms. I’ve been tracking on various API driven analytics platforms, and after seeing both Parse and New Relic launch their offerings, I thought, who else is doing this? Here are a few of the analytics platforms that launched in the last 30 days: 02/21/2013 - TEOCO Launches INrange™ Location-Based Predictive Analytics Solution 02/26/2013 - IBM Launches Cloud-Based Analytics and Mobile Initiatives for Global Ecosystem to Capture New Markets 02/26/2013 - Trinity Pharma Solutions Launches Mobile Analytics Platform 02/26/2013......read more.

The API Pipes, From Resource to Last Mile

Posted on 03-17-2013

This post is more rant, and about me working through my thoughts on this subject, which is why its on kinlane.com and not apievangelist.com or apivoice.com.  This post is an aggregation of ongoing thoughts I'm having around my role in the API space, a diagram I drew the other day while enjoying an IPA, and inescapable thoughts fueled up by a post by Patrick Meir over at iRevolution, called Crisis Mapping, Neogeography and the Delusion of Democratization.   Meir kicks up a bunch of thoughts related to how I perceive my role in the API space, which I believe is to......read more.

Who Runs The Internet?

Posted on 03-13-2013

I came across the great infographic from ICANN titled, Who Runs the Internet?  i want to brush up on my own knowledge about all the key stakeholders in the Internet, so I typed up some of the text from the infographic, for my own benefit, as well as to make it a little more interactive. Who Runs The Internet? No One Person, Company, Organization or Government Runs the Internet The Internet itself is a globally distributed computer network comprised of many voluntarily interconnected autonomous networks. Similarly, its governance is conducted by a decentralized and international multi-stakeholder network of interconnected autonomous......read more.

Chicago Using Github Has Potential For More Citizen Participation in Government

Posted on 03-04-2013

Github is not just a site for managing code, for use by programmers. The platform can host code, data, markup, markdown and files like images, pdf, etc. Basically anything you can store in a file, and apply versioning to, you can put Github to work, helping you manage collaboration and the assets evolution. The City of Chicago just published five datasets including street locations, building footprints, bike routes, pedway routes and bike rack locations on Github--released under the MIT license, giving anyone the right to download, modify and reuse, even for commercial purposes. The move to Github goes beyond just......read more.

Evernote, OAuth and Zapier

Posted on 03-02-2013

One of the platforms I depend upon for my memory was hacked today. This afternoon, Evernote let everyone know that the platform was compromised and forced a reset of all passwords. While I’d prefer all platforms I depend on could thwart any hacks, it seems like security breaches are becoming par for the course. I appreciate that Evernote immediately forced a password reset and because I use the desktop app, I immediately was prompted to update my password.   I also enjoy seeing the OAuth flow in action, where reciprocity providers like Zapier immediately take action.  By 2:57 PM I......read more.

Method to the Madness

Posted on 02-02-2013

I'm always working to find a way to organize my world, to help me better keep track of my wealth of content and information, while also assisting people in navigating my sometimes chaotic world of sites, blogs and projects. To help organize this, I'm breaking my navigation on KinLane.com into two main groups.  The first area is overview information about my world in the following sections: Blog - My personal thoughts and random observations in blog form About - My official bio that I use across most of my profile, which changes each year Research - Any areas I'm currently researching or looking......read more.

The Guardian Is Brilliant in Supporting Relevant Events with Open Data

Posted on 01-17-2013

I’m a big fan of what The Guardian is doing with their data and API strategy. I think they are a model for what old media should be doing around the globe. When they post stories, I tend to take a look, not because of the story, but their data driven approach to reporting.   A great example of this, is yesterday's helicopter crash on top of a residential building construction project in London, killing two people and injuring 13 others. The Guardian provides not just the overview of the story with data visualizations and summary, but of course you......read more.

2013 Is Year The Infographic Comes Out of Closet

Posted on 01-17-2013

Could have asked for better timing between a link from Audrey and email from Visually.  Such an important message I want to share in 2013.  I will be making this a theme. Please be responsible with your Infographic creation in 2013, and make sure and check your sources and provide the data behind. I predict in 2013 we will see more infographics with actual data behind them, but like with data journalism at The Guardian. Thanks to Visual.ly and Alaska Robotics for use of their images! :)...read more.

Connecting My Platforms Into One Stack Overflow Resume

Posted on 01-16-2013

I received an email from Stack Overflow today asking me to fill out a new Careers 2.0 profile today.  After finishing I have to say, they provide a very slick process for populating my profile, in a meaningful way, that was very easy, and is an approach other networks need to adopt. Like any other profile I was able to add my name, link, description and tags. But then I notice that I’m able to connect using Github and LinkedIn. Both networks I use daily. Using Github I’m able to import repositories that I’m currently maintaining via the social coding......read more.

Evolution of My Technology Platform Over Last 24 Years

Posted on 01-13-2013

Every couple of years I migrate my platform a little bit forward (hopefully) and begin weaving in new tools into my personal and business world. I recently spent some time looking back, and trying to map out the last 24 years of my professional technology career--in hopes of helping me understand how far I've come. 1988 - When I first started programming, I was still in high school. I was recommended for a job by my high school computer science teacher Mr. Smith and went to work for Mt Rose Software where I spent my time assisting the owner in......read more.