obligatory
archives
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
- September 2004
- August 2004
- July 2004
- June 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- January 2004
- December 2003
- November 2003
- October 2003
- September 2003
- August 2003
- July 2003
- June 2003
- May 2003
- April 2003
- March 2003
- February 2003
- January 2003
- December 2002
- November 2002
- October 2002
- September 2002
- August 2002
- July 2002
- June 2002
- May 2002
- April 2002
- February 2000
recent
I'm getting nervous now. A week before the First Annual Moblog Conference, and I get an email saying that they need a two line summary of my presentation. I'll be real happy if I can get two lines to BE the presentation! I thought I was going to be on a "panel" about moblogging applications. But I am actually slated for a 30 minute presentation together with Hirata-san who made another service like Mfop. I hope he has something to say that will take a lot of time.
Between sneaking peeks at the poetry book I illegally posted from yesterday, and scratching Klee's head, I am working on getting Mfop2 set up in time for the conference. Maybe Mfop2 will be enough to hide the fact that I don't have anything intelligent to say.
What can I really say anyway? I'm just someone who gets his thrills making other people happy... I don't even Moblog. The people using Mfop know more and have more ideas about what Moblogging should be than I do. I was hoping to go there to get some good ideas of things to add to the program. I often find that users think "I'd like XYZ, but it's probably impossible..." as the developer, I often don't think of XYZ, but when I hear it, it sounds so obvious and simple that I am ashamed it wasn't built in the beginning (unless I did think of it and left it out because there was no budget.) I am constantly telling the salesman at work "If you can imagine it I can make it...", because he often comes to me asking "Can you do this?" rather than the right question, "How much would it cost for you to do this?".
Anyway, I have to get back to work on Mfop2, or my presentation, or reading more poetry, or whatever... no time to waste blogging.
You are a wonderful person, a hero of modern times. You made your knowledge available to everybody for free. This is what the Internet should be: a lot of knowledge to share with others.
Why did you make your moblog software? What were the difficulties? What were the reactions of those who use your software? How do the mfop-users use your software: what do you see on their websites? What is the popularity of Mfop, etc... I think that your presentation should only focus on the things you really experience. You should not trouble yourself with new ideas about moblogging, the future of moblogging, the commercial potentials, etc... In my view, you are the perfect example that the internet is not a tool to earn money, but a tool to share. It's a tool for people, not for money.
Good Luck!
Actually my presentation will basically be just that... telling why I made it (To become filthy rich!), what probelms I encountered (lots of buggy code and poor instructions), what I see on other peoples sites, and most of all, it will be introducing the new features of Mfop2 that may or may not be needed, and I can judge from people's reaction if it is or not.
But mostely, I want to hear what other people are thinking, because their ideas can spark a lot of "I can do that!" ideas in me.
As for the free stuff... I never really felt that I was doing it for free out of principle. it was probablty more because if I charge people I can't say "Well, what do you want for free?" if it breaks. Also, at first I didn't plan to spend much time on it anyway, just a little "I wonder if people will use this" project. I have wound up spending much more time than I anticipated on it, and that's fine because I enjoy it. I do wonder though if I had even more time if this is something that could grow bigger, or is there a limit of usefull add-ons that would soon be reached.
If the "betterness" of spending more time on it would warrent spending less time on other things, getting some cash wouldn't be so bad... but we'll see what some of these moblog as a business experts say about it. :-)
galleries
