JavaRebel
This is pretty bitchin’:
JavaRebel is a JVM plugin (-javaagent) that enables to reload changes made to Java class files on-the-fly, saving developers the time that it takes to redeploy an application or perform a container restart. It is a generic solution that works for Java EE and Java standalone applications.
In addition to that we have released a JavaRebel plugin for Spring that allows reloading/reinjecting Spring dependencies on-the-fly without reloading the bean factory or application context. We have prepared a screencast that demonstrates the Spring plugin features. See the plugin installation manual for more details or just download it.
Then again I did that in C++ years ago.
Yay! Get here.
Another one on Adversing Age
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Almost six months after the companies started talking, WPP and Microsoft have reopened talks that could have the software company unloading Avenue A/Razorfish. But the question is whether Microsoft could ever get anyone to buy the digital ad agency for the price at which it needs to sell it.
Help, my company is up for grabs — Update
Microsoft’s (NSDQ: MSFT) talks with WPP Group seem to be taking a more serious turn on the subject of the software giant selling off digital ad shop, Avenue A/Razorfish, AdAge reports. Microsoft acquired Avenue A/Razorfish when it bought parent aQuantive last August for about $6 billion. That purchase also included other aQuantive properties, among them ad network Atlas and digital marketing solutions provider DrivePM.
Read more on paidcontent.com, AdAge, and now also Washington Post.
Why do CMS projects fail?
A (prospect) client asked me this morning why 85% of enterprise content management implementations fail. Well, here is the long answer:
There are numerous reasons for this high rate. For one, web architectures are complex implementation projects. Requirements are often not well understood, leading to bad software purchase decisions (“putting the cart before the horse”) and architectural choices. The largest group of in-house stakeholders, the content editing community, is often ignored and set to deal with unusable user front-ends and complex publishing workflows, preventing necessary user adoption. Content is often stored in presentation-heavy formats, content re-use across channels and applications is time-consuming or even impossible, the resulting duplication of content leads to inconsistent web experiences.
The remedy for these problems on the one hand lies in the definition sound processes and establishing clear channels of communication between stakeholders. On the other hand, building a solid technology foundation is another vital aspect. Not only must this foundation be flexible, stable, and easy to use, but the defining principles must be upheld while the system is in operation and undergoing maintenance and feature release cycles. I have seen large-scale implementations that had to be replaced after only 2 years of being in operation because the software got unmaintainable, slow, and the site feature-set was locked in by technology reasons only (“maintained to hell”). On the other hand, I have built sites that serve over a billion page impressions a month, that have gone through multiple visual redesigns, all on a technology platform that has been in place for 5+ years now.
So, in summary
- Heavily involve the business stakeholders throughout the project
- Build the system to enable the content editors to efficiently maintain the site content and structure themselves. Any reliance on IT to maintain the content is technically a failure of the project.
- Separate content and presentation
- Build it to be flexible and customizable, embrace open formats
- Establish a clear governance process for content and software release cycles
- Establish (and document) clear architectural guidelines and patterns which need to be upheld for maintenance and enhancement after go-live
Making Money With Social Media
It’s long been my theory that social media are a great fun tool, can even be used for marketing and promotion, but it still hasn’t figured out how to reliably make money. Actually, only eCommerce and porn are the two reliable moneymakers on the web ;-) That inspite of the fact that social web sites have actually accounted for more traffic than porn on the internet this year so far — first time ever.
Business Week writes a rather interesting article about The Trouble With Twitter:
Twitter’s business model is starting to show. An early sign came in April, when the popular microblogging service launched in Japan and the home page for every Japanese user included a big banner ad in the top right corner.
Then, on Aug. 7, Twitter made another change, this time in the U.S., by limiting the number of people a single user could connect with, or “follow,” to about 2,000. Most recently, on Aug. 14, Twitter made the biggest move yet to slash costs. It killed outbound message delivery to mobile phones via short message, or SMS, in all countries except the U.S., Canada, and India.
Taken together, these moves point to the trouble with Twitter. Investors and marketers have been agog over the potential for Twitter—unlike other social media properties, such as Facebook and MySpace (NWS)—to crack the code, finally, on wringing revenue from millions of users. But the optimists better brace for disappointment.
>> See the Busineess Week site for the full article.
Why the Olympics didn’t ‘Melt’ the Internet
This is a very interesting article about why the video traffic from the Olympics didn’t “melt” the internet. LimeLight (unlike Akamai) actually runs their own backbone which keeps a lot of traffic off the internet:
Crap, my company might be for up grabs (updated)
According to the Media Bistro:
Avenue A|Razorfish could be up for sale by Microsoft, a spy tells us, possibly to WPP. From the beginning of the relationship, AA|RF has been an odd fit for Microsoft, and based on a few strong indicators, we surmise a sell off before too long.
When you’re spending $6 billion to pick up a company like Redmond, it makes sense to get as much for your money as possible. That seems to be what Microsoft was thinking when they kept AA|RF — but a year later the agency is broadening its horizons, expanding services to “a media and entertainment consulting practice with 200 staffers in New York, L.A. and San Francisco,” according to Silicon Alley Insider.
More after the jump.
Internally, many believe that Microsoft never planned to keep the agency within its roster. For starters, we’ve learned that AA|RF employees haven’t been switched to Microsoft benefits.
Also, the new SF offices are “oddly configured to fit WPP standards, a radical change from the fun, bigger spaces of the old AA/RF office.” I guess you’d have to work at WPP to know exactly what that means — but it sounds as though AA|RF has been told to keep it in its pants if it wants to marry a nice girl one day.
One final oddity, SF based employees were told not to order “new business cards printed with the new office address until future notice.”
Update: I think this is a total joke. They’re enabling the Microsoft key card access in our building next Tuesday :) And, of course, Microsoft has actually upheld their promise to keep us at “arms-length”, i.e. still use whatever technology we see fit for exceeding the client’s needs.
Interacting with Holograms
We’ve had a multi-touch Surface device at work for a while now and built a few neat prototypes with it. But this multi-touch emm multi-grab hologram looks way cooler. The demonstration shows a man interacting with holographic images projected before him, moving them around and resizing them. It’s only sort of like the Minority Report display, which used hand movements to control elements on a screen.
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