Technically Speaking

Amazon launches Askville into the public this morning. It has been in beta according since December 2006 according to this article on Reuters. Now it appears that Mahalo has some competition, and it also appears that search is headed this way? I ask that not as tongue in cheek, but seriously. Is this the future of search?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc, the world’s largest Web retailer, launched Askville.com, an information-sharing Web site where users can ask questions and answer queries from others, on Thursday.

The site, open to all of its customers, has been in beta testing since December 2006 and has already been open to a few users, Amazon said.

Technically Speaking, I’m sure their will be great reviews of this site later on this morning. For now, here is a screen shot of the public site for everyone to try. One thing I notice is how similar the color scheme is to Mahalo.

Dynamo, or Amazon’s attempt at group computing sounds very interesting. You can read the actual post here. The first question is haven’t groups like Seti and others been doing this for some time? Grant it, Seti’s mission is to mobilize the computers for interplanetary exploration and computing power, but the jist is still the same.

Dynamo is not an alternative to S3, Amazon’s publicly-available data storage service,

I never would have made that assumption. Even though I don’t agree with it being labeled as a WebOS, I would rather term it as taking the power we have and taking it up a notch.

The race to create a Web operating system is heating up. It is such a huge undertaking that there are only a few companies—Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM— that can tackle it.

That race may be on, but I don’t think Amazon is about to try to re-invent the OS. I think this is more as stated in the first paragraph:

Dynamo is internal technology developed at Amazon to address the need for an incrementally scalable, highly-available key-value storage system. The technology is designed to give its users the ability to trade-off cost, consistency, durability and performance, while maintaining high-availability.

Technically Speaking, still doesn’t sound anything like WebOS to me.

Flexiscale, looks to be another on demand hosting service that will challenge Amazon EC2/EC3 head to head.

fact a new product from XCalibre Communications, a Scotland-based hosting company which has been around for 10 years. The move shows that there is demand for this kind of service from new UK and European startups, desperate for a solution closer to home than typically US-based firms, which can suffer from latency issues and legal constraints over the protection of data (the US does not have a data “safe harbour” agreement with all European countries).

Launched at the Future of Web Apps event, it appears that competition will be good for an area that has been dominated by one main player. Why would you need such on demand hosting services? Well if you are running a high traffic site, you really need the flexibility of being able to scale.

One of the many things I do like is that they seem to realize that people (admins) want a real IP address (static), as well as if your server crashes, they want a server back online asap. These are some of the things that this new company is reported to offer.

Technically Speaking, this area does have competitors beyond Amazon EC2/EC3, such as Gogrid (US) MediaTemple (US) and Q-Layer (Belgium). Competition is what makes a service or product one step better for us - the consumer/user.

* In the right hand corner after you hit start - you will see “1/18″ - click the right arrow to get to Episode 18!

Episode 18 notes:

Flock

Alright, last week we were the first to get you a review of the Flock 0.9 browser and tonight we have the first screenshot of the new Flock.com launching on Tuesday to support the new browser.

Trion $30 million ????

I’ve read this press release three times, and I still don’t know what it means, exactly, except that several traditional media corporations have jumped into online games in a huge way. Thanks to a joint investment by three VC firms, TimeWarner, NBC, and Bertelsmann (along with HP) have just made Redwood City-based Trion World Networks $30 million richer.

TiVo and Amazon

ALVISO, Calif. (AP) — Users of TiVo Inc.’s digital video recorders will be able to order movies from Amazon.com Inc. directly from their TVs starting Tuesday.

The two companies partnered in March to deliver Amazon’s Unbox download service to TiVo machines, but the feature required customers to place their orders on a computer through Amazon’s Web site.

Now, PC intervention won’t be needed. The new ”Buy on TV” feature allows TiVo users to search Amazon’s video catalog and rent or purchase titles using their TiVo’s remote control.

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It is a beautiful day here in the STL. The BBQ grills will be going, and that includes mine. With that being said, here is what I have found that deems a good read today:

Boston Censorship - Boing Boing is being blocked on public WiFI networks in Boston. By order of the Mayor’s office. Wow! Censorship in Boston.

Statsaholic-Alexa - A widget to track the ongoing support or the slamming of.

Vertagio - Now this one is sort of cool. CenterNetworks reposted my post from the other day. Thanks Allen! This validates what I write to be reposted in such a high profile blog. Much appreciated, as when you blog daily, sometimes you start to wonder if it is worth it.

Not Always - About the money. Sometimes the location does matter. Seattle or Silicon Valley. Which would you choose are your companies new home?

Techinline - A company that one of my favorite bloggers, Ali of everybodygoto, supports. He explains the service well in this article.

Eight New Google Apps - Coming to a browser near you soon!

twitter gets real - This gets human. Sad to see someone with so much promise die suddenly. Even sadder if you had this person as a twitter friend.

Technically Speaking, as I sit here and blog daily living outside of the SV or the tech triangle I also wonder to myself quietly, “Is This Really Worth It?” I think there are many benefits, and even though the money isn’t coming in boat loads, as we see above, it is not always about the money.

Never thought I would say that, did you? One last thing on this Sunday until later on, as I have a BBQ to get ready to produce today - if you have not done so - please give your 10 answers and let my sponsor know if it is really worth it - ANSWER THE SURVEY!

Lastly — Please visit all of my sponsors today; you know them - and I’m not talking just the affiliate ads (do appreciate the outbound links I am seeing) or the Google AdSense (ditto!) stuff - but the for real people -

such as - Collarity, Planypus, HTPBG, DigitalRon, yourminis, and askitonline. These are the real deal sponsors of this blog! Please visit them at least once a week if you get a minute. They appreciate it, and you can never tell when something new is going on there. Oh.. feel free to buy a t-shirt, do a video or take a picture wearing it - I’ll promo it!