Arthur Chang

Collaboration, is it trendy yet?

I've posted previously about real-time, and all the hype and trends behind it.  Anything that became "real-time" was instantly cool.  Back in the day it was streaming music, then video like on YouTube.  In the present time it's Friendfeed going real time, Twitter going real time, and possibly google too?  Now that it's been done, there's no more real innovation behind it.  I feel like that trend is dying down, and the buzz word is, well, less buzzy.

Now how about Collaboration?  It's not currently a buzzword, it's not real trendy.  The fact that I'm saying "collaboration" here won't get me any Google search result hits.  Is this because the trend has already past?  What has been collaborative so far? 

Gaming for one has been hugely collaborative in the sense of multiplayer online play.  These days it's just a standard for games: In order for a game to be interactive past it's 50 levels, saved princesses, and artificial intellegence driven bad guys, you need to be able to play other real people.  So it is no longer a trend, it's a standard.

Enterprise tools has also become very collaborative.  It started with video conferencing, presentations with things like WebEx, remote desktop type solutions like VNC and Citrix / GoToMeeting.  Now you will see office products, like word processing, presentation slides (like powerpoint style stuff), spreadsheets, and more.  These, unlike the screen sharing tools, were easy enough to use with existing tools everyone has, a browser and internet.

It seems like most of collaboration is exhausted, and there will never be another trend in that direction.  What possibilities can be tapped into that can bring it back?  It seems like this post title is backwards, and should read, "Collaboration was trendy, will someone ever bring it back?"  With collaboration becoming a standard, it is no longer seen as an exciting innovation, but just a must have.

There are, however, niche markets out there that have been in all of history, incapable of collaboration.  Small nuisance at first, but so it was with a world that wanted to communicate without cell phones.  There is hope.

Revisiting old hobbies

I've devised a plan to go back to my childhood hobbies.  I have so many new ones, but none of them have been as "good" since I'm all old and busted now a days, like michael says about things sometimes.  So what's the first one I'm going to do now?  I'm bringing back my good 'ol violin days.  I played for 12 years or so vigorously, it'd be a shame and a waste to not play it now.  I'm going to restore my crappy Jay Haide I got from Ifshin Violin back in 1995 by basically giving it some new strings, probably a new bridge, and I'll need a new bow.  I'll try to get my muscles back in shape (I've been playing the ukulele and guitar, so they should be strong and callasted enough, just need my muscle memory back for notes), and then look for a new violin.

I'm thinking of going for some Cremora maker replica, hopefully some replica of a Strad!  I'll probably go for something in the range of $3K to $6K for now.  Getting a nice violin will definitely keep my motivation up.

I played around with the idea of getting a Viola instead, since my arms are kind of long =P but alas, let's go for the violin.

The Wedding of Michael and Pamela

The wedding was absolutely perfect!  better than perfect.  The Swiss Alps wasn't a perfect backdrop, the Swiss Alps was where we WERE.  We were in it!  The chapel was beautiful, the location was gorgeous, the weather could not have been better.  Mike and Pam are the most amazing couple, just seeing them together brings tears to your eyes.  It's impossible for me to take a bad picture of them!  The pictures do no justice to the sencerity of their love.  Thank you both for inviting me to the wedding, it was an honor to be part of such a special occasion!  I processed a few photos, more to come soon.  http://flickr.com/photos/kinetic

Teasers:

Wedding preparation

At the Wedding

Michael and Pamela Smochko

The official civil ceremony for Mike and Pam's wedding happened today in Brig, Switzerland!  This isn't the actual ceremony that happens tomorrow at the chapel in Bettmeralp, but just the official part where you are legally married in Switzerland.  Despite the casual legal paperwork and ceremony, it was quite beautiful and emotional.

The Swiss Alps - Lauterbrunnen and Jungfrau, Switzerland

I'm in the Swiss Alps!  No Heidi's or Yodeling yet, but we're staying in Lauterbrunnen, and it's absolutely beautiful here.  There are about four waterfalls right next to our hotel that we can see from our balcony.  The one pictured above is walkable in 5 - 10 minutes, depending on how many pictures you take along the way there.  There are all these trams and stuff that take you to all these small towns scattered through the mountains.  The air is so clear, and the mountains are spectacular.  I've yet to see so many high waterfalls in one place, even more than I've seen in hawaii.  I was too young to remember Yosemite, but I've heard this area around Lauterbrunnen is comparable.

There's a bunch of stores that sells stuff like North Face clothing and gear, mountain biking, and other extreme / outdoor sports.  This is very outdoorsy.  We arrived yesterday from Luzern, and the entire train ride we were pointing, wowing, and just sat back and enjoyed the views.  The Swiss country side is so unique and beautiful.

Our hotel is really cool, it looks right out to the waterfalls (as do most hotels here).  The town is so small that it is just big enough to have all the services you need, but nothing more.  I think it's only about a mile long along one street, and that's it.  Lots of tourists, but not the site seeing kind that just want to take pictures while staying warm, but the ones out to look for adventure who aren't afraid to do a little work.

We walked around Lauterbrunnen and I snapped some shots around the area.  Then today we woke up at 5am and went up to the highest point in Europe: Jungfraujoch.  This spot is about 3700 meters high, and you can see most of the neighboring countries on the clearest of days.  Yesterday was super rainy and cloudy, so we were kind of bummed, but this morning, the clouds parted and it could NOT have been better weather conditions for us.  We layered up and made it up there just after the sun was rising above the alps.  It was about -4 degrees Celcius, hehe, i was cold, but wearing 4 layers, including a northface ski jacket, a switzerland beanie, and double socks, I was basically sweating after 5 minutes.  So at the end of this post you'll see our shots from the top of Europe =)

We also visited Interlaken in the afternoon, but I was too pooped to take any pictures.  Tomorrow we head to our last destination in Switzerland: Brig!  A tiny bit of prep for Mike and Pamela I think, but otherwise just hanging out and relaxing.

Anywhere, here are the pictures from Lauterbrunnen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kinetic/tags/lauterbrunnen/

Here are the pictures from Jungfrau: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kinetic/tags/jungfrau/

Teasers:

We climbed up the Staubbach waterfall that you see in the first picture of this post.  This is us underneath the water.  You can see the water spray on the side of the cliff as a white glow.  It was super wet, my camera was drenched but thank goodness for the weathersealing, it made it =)  You can see Melissa there behind the railing in front of me.  I had to setup my tripod in the rain while standing on slippery stone, but it turned out nicely.

Baby bulls hanging out by their barn I think.  The bells on their necks were so loud, I'd go crazy if I were a cow.

Here are a few from Jungfrau:

This is the sun rising above the alps.  The sun is right behind the cluster of clouds on the left.

This is Europe's longest glacier.  I don't know what the name of it is, but it's supposidly really long.  It extends all the way to Bettmeralp where Mike and Pam are having their wedding.  We also went down into the glacier to walk around some ice sculptures they made in there.

Jungfrau

Mike looking over at the Glacier

Luzern, Switzerland

It's been a couple days since I've posted pictures, but internet has been spotty and I've been too busy outside to actually post any of my pictures.  Lucerne (Luzern) Switzerland is a scenic place, but way too touristy.  We didn't get the feel the culture of Switzerland as much as we did in Zurich, mostly because everything is catered to tourists.  It's nice though, because everything was easy to see and find.  I didn't really like the pictures I took, they were all too postcard like and nothing special.  I did get a few fun pictures at the Transportation Museum there though!  The picture above is Lucerne from one of the surrounding mideval towers that are connected by huge stone walls around the old town of Lucerne.

Luzern is a cool place to stop by and see, but like Mike was saying, I think I would just make a day trip out of it if I were to do it all over again.

Here are all the pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kinetic/tags/luzern/

Teasers:

Transportation Museum in Luzern, some signs:

Mike and Pamela!  Excuse the vignetting, I'll fix that later

Pamela looking up directions

Cool wall somewhere in Luzern

At the transportation museum, a bunch of chrome rims, and then a propeller

Melissa and Pamela looking at the underside of a train at the Transportation Museum

Mike and Pam's hotel room:

Guten Tag (hello)! Switzerland

I arrived in Zurich, Switzerland after quite a journey from San Francisco, CA.  Flight cancelled from Chicago to Zurich, so had to stay a night near the airport in a hotel, then the next day flew through Frankfurt to Zurich.  Along the way, our luggage completely disappeared.  Finally three days after we leave, we have clean clothes to wear again!  It's beautiful here, the sights, the culture, the people.  Tomorrow we go on to Luzern, Switzerland.

Here are my Zurich photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kinetic/tags/zurich/

A few teasers:

See ya in 2 weeks

I'm leaving on Sunday for Switzerland for two weeks.  I've written about a million lines of code in the past couple weeks (no joke!) and got a lot done, but now it's time to step back for a few weeks to checkout another part of the world. 

Before I get into some plans, I really have to give a big shoutout to the Yardbarker.com team.  We've come a long way and are wrapping up a sweet new redevelopment of the site.  On top of that, we've scored a sweet strategic partnership with VERSUS (the cable channel that covers indy car, nhl, and some other great things) recently that's going to keep us alive and kicking for some time yet ;)  I'd recommend every sports fan out there to keep an eye out for some awesome Yardbarker stuff coming out soon.  Everyone on the team has worked ridiculously hard, and it's such an honor to be part of it all.

Another big shout goes to Joe and the work he's done with Browseology.  He's done some ridiculous amounts of code, and has motivation and passion for the product that is awe inspiring.  It's always fun and exciting to work on something with someone as dedicated and excited as you are.

We've been pushing hard for feedback recently, and everyone we know has been really tolerant of our constant talk and pitching so far.  We couldn't have done it without everyone's great suggestions and comments.  We've come a long way from developing that small proof of concept of being able to collaborate with zero installation and setup that we pitched to Paul Graham and the rest of the YCombinator team at the summer 2009 interviews, and now to a budding shopping destination that brings together shopping research and social networks together.  Shopping with someone across the world can now be possible =)  We're still cranking away and have no fewer than a hundred new ideas and features coming out soon.  If you guys are interested, we have a blog: http://browseology.posterous.com, and more importantly visit the actual site (comon now): http://browseology.com.

I'm addicted to coding, so there's no doubt that on the plane and on train rides I'll be coding away for Yardbarker and Browseology.  I'll be posting photos as often as I can here!  So be ready for geeky blog posts, photo posts, and randomness.

Switzerland Plans:

• June 1 - June 4: Zurich, Switzerland
• June 4 - June 6: Luzern, Switzerland
• June 6 - June 8: Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
• June 8 - June 11: Brig / Bettmeralp, Switzerland
• June 10th: Michael and Pamela's Wedding in Bettmeralp Switzerland!
• June 11 - June 13: Milano/Lake Como/Bellagio, Italy

And I'll be back.  Quick trip, but it'll be fun.

ps. photos at the top of the post were taken when I went up to the Marin Headlands and to the palace of fine arts with my buddy Jeston.

How do you define real-time?

How exactly do you define "real-time"?

Currently a lot of companies are coming out with a real-time label on some aspect of their service. The trend seems to be:

1. Content they serve is now automatically updated without needing viewers to manually reload.
2. Content is updated sooner and faster
3. Slap a chat on it, call it real time. 
4. Put some twitter, facebook, openid, what have you and call it social real-time.

I see real-time as things happening at the exact moment, which is updated a bit faster than 10 seconds. But you are real-time with what? The server? Everyone you follow on Twitter? The key is to have someone on the other side to be real time with you. That is what is interesting.

To be Real-time there are some particularly important points:

1. Content you're interested in that people provide. (twitter.com updates, friendfeed, digg stories)
2. Action sharing, such as screen sharing or browse sharing. (webex solutions, browseology.com)
3. Information generated from a source that is time sensitive, not necessarily from the mass of people, but from a single entity. (big events like sporting events)
   

What's your definition?

Relay for Life - Willow Glen, CA

The best way to spend your birthday is to volunteer for a good cause.  I made the decision to go down to Willow Glen, CA to help out and photograph the Relay for Life.  Relay for Life is a 24 hour event, organized and run by volunteers and staff of American Cancer Society, to honor and remember cancer survivors, patients, and those who have passed.  The event is the largest fundraising event the American Cancer Society puts on every year, and this year especially needs every bit of help possible.  It is touching to attend and be part of these events, and I encourage everyone to take some time out of their busy lives to volunteer some time and effort to help good causes such as the Relay for Life.  Find more information here.

I took some photos at the event, I hope these inspire and motivate everyone to be more involved and seek to be more aware of cancer: