What Will Google Kill Next?

So Google killed Google Reader. That's been pretty well covered at this point.

I've used Google Reader since pretty early on -- not because it was the best feed reader, but because it was the glue between apps. Originally, I used it as the backend to keep the feed reader I used at work with the feed reader I used at home (for a while that was RSS Bandit, then maybe NetNewsWire.)

Once the iPhone came out, it was core to keeping feeds on your phone in sync with feeds on your desktop. And while I know developers had issues with its idiosyncrasies, it worked for me. Eventually, I moved to using Google Reader itself (and it's magic j-k keys) when I was on a computer, and a variety of apps on the iPhone/iPad.

Google Reader had this nice trends feature where it would tell you how much you read, and when, and which feeds were inactive (super handy for pruning dead feeds or finding those that had moved). It claims I've read 300k+ entries since October of 2010, almost 11k in the last 30 days.

I'm probably not a top 1% Google Reader user, but I bet I'm a top 10% Google Reader user.

And even still, I don't begrudge them their right to kill the product. All they get out of it (at least with me) is me using their ecosystem. I use Gmail (well, sort of -- my mail is there, I read it in other apps), I use search, I use Google Reader. Gmail and search are far more monetizable than Google Reader (i.e. it's much easier to put ad inventory next to what I'm looking at). Reader doesn't easily fit into the Google+ social play (though, really, does anything really fit into Google+).

So it's dead, and I'll move onto other options like Feedly. Or eventually to a paid service where someone will give me a nice tool for a couple of bucks a month. No big deal.

The real interesting question is "what will Google kill next?"

The most obvious answer to me would be Blogger/Blogspot. They don't monetize it (to my knowledge); it reproduces technology that is now in Google+; and it has to require a lot of care and feeding to keep it up and running happily. It's a mini-social network with webhosting. They likely have support folk hanging around to answer questions and make sure stuff is working.

Don't get comfy, Blogger users. You might want to see about importing your site into wordpress.com (or moving to your own hosted site!) in the short-term, just in case.

Actually, the thing Google is most likely to kill next is the goodwill of their brand. But hopefully it'll take them a few years to do that, as I've got a bet going about the size of Google ten years from now.

Alfred 2 Programs Your Desktop

Alfred 1 was pretty awesome. Even just as an app launcher, it was handy. You hit your hotkey, type a couple of characters, and that was all you needed. No mousing around, no trying to find the app in your crowded Applications folder. Just a couple of keystrokes.

Alfred got even better when you'd use other features like custom searches. We have some internal systems that can be driven by search; pretty soon, rather than having to open up a browser window, navigate to the right place, and search, I just type a few characters and search. Alfred takes care of the rest. You could easily extend it to search any search engine, the App Store, almost anything.

This was just scratching the surface of Alfred. I didn't really use features like the Clipboard/Snippet manager (which I'm trying to use more of) -- have stuff you always type or cut and paste? Add a snippet and you can quickly paste it into any app. There's a really nice file navigator, quick file mover, all sorts of powerful features.

But, again, even if you just used it as a quick app launcher, it was pretty handy.

Alfred 2 just came out.

It added a few features, but none more powerful than Workflows.

Workflows are sort of a "change the way you use your computer" feature.

Basically, you can wire up a keyword or key command, to applications, or scripts, or almost anything you can automate on your computer. And, these bits can pass data back and forth. It sounds mundane. Then you download a workflow from the Alfred Forum that sounds interesting, and your eyes get big and you think "huh, I bet there's lots of things I can do with this."

A great example is the Weather workflow. You type "forecast", and right inline, you see what the weather forecast is. No web browser, no need to open anything else, you just get what you want. I've got workflows to manage Spotify (start/stop/find an artist), show my current IP address, add stuff into OmniFocus, turn on a secure proxy (can't be too safe when you're web browsing out in public), automatically upload files to common place.

Anything you can think of, someone can probably put together a workflow to automate it.

It's a fantastic, game changing feature.

Alfred 2, the free version, is worth downloading. But do yourself a favor and buy the PowerPack. It's something like $25 and is completely worth it.

SXSW Discoveries

I got the opportunity this year to go to SXSW for the first time. Through my company, I got access to an Interactive badge (meaning I get to go to the technology sessions, the tradeshow part, and many other cool things). Here are a few of the things I've stumbled upon:

1. Don't wait in line
   Never wait in line for anything, ever. There are lines all over the place. Sessions, parties, food. You know what? There's literally hundreds of other things to go to. Go find one without a line. You'll have a better time, and you won't waste half your day waiting around. Some of the best stuff I've done over the past few days was serendipitously walking into a place because it wasn't busy (best example: catching The Tontons at Stubbs).
2. Evernote can be your best friend
   The newer versions of Evernote for the iPhone and Mac have been really nice, and fixed a handful of things that have always added a bit of friction to me using Evernote full time. As the app has gotten nicer, I've been determined to use it as my (organized) digital junk drawer. The best discovery though was Evernote's "document scan" mode, for lack of a better term. I have these receipts for expensing that I don't want to have to carry. I have a phone with a camera. And I have Evernote. Evernote has a mode where you tell it you're scanning a document, and it automatically adjusts the contrast and crops the document and dumps it in your Evernote. I've used it on every receipt I've gotten here and it's worked perfectly. Now I'm not worried about hanging on to random scraps of paper.
3. Even if it sounds too good to be true, give it a shot
   One of our friends mentioned Ra Ra Riot was playing a concert on the other side of the conference. We finished dinner and headed over there, fully expecting to find a huge crowd. We walked in as the band was finishing up their first song and ended up about 20 feet from the stage on a cool Texas night. No huge crowds pushed together, no bros at the show just trying to pick up chicks. Just a few hundred people hanging out checking out a band.
   
   
   
   

   Just remember #1 above. If something sounds fun, go try it. Just don't wait in line for it.

Boston Calling …. I live by the river

So, this is going to be pretty fun, eh?

It'll fill the void left by the dear departed FNX Best Music Poll, the usual summer festival that (when at its peak) would grab a few headliners to play 45 minute sets on Landsdowne St., and then fill up the clubs on Landsdowne with smaller bands playing 30-45 minutes.

Those were always really, really great shows.

Boston Calling sounds like it's going to be bigger than FNX's shows, but smaller than Lollapalooza or Bonnaroo. Which is cool with me. I don't have it in me to go camp out for a weekend or deal with billions of people. This will be crowded, but hopefully (given its location in City Hall Plaza), somewhat smaller.

None of the sets will be conflicting, which is great for Sunday's lineup, where almost every band is one I'd like to see.

Saturday's lineup is weaker. I'd really like to see Cults and The Shins. I've got some interest in Portugal. The Man, Bad Rabbits (who in my limited exposure sound a bit like The Campaign for Real Time), St. Lucia are all interesting.

(Let's set aside the fact that Fun. is the headliner on Saturday. I may be leaving early.)

Sunday's lineup, though. Whoa. Straight through, every band is one I'd like to see. Dirty Projectors? Andrew Bird? Check and check. Ra Ra Riot? Only downside is that there might be even more sensitive bros than usual.

Come on down to Harmontown →

A few weeks back, I started listening to the Harmontown podcast. Now I'm somewhat obssessed. I don't know how to describe it. An often-hilarious, ridiculously filthy, sometimes brilliantly insightful podcast from Dan Harmon (of Community fame) and friends.

You need to go in with no expectations. No matter what you're expecting, it's not that.

The most recent episode has a shower/bath debate that is hilariously insane.

An episode from Salt Lake City has a long discussion on religion.

Listen to it by yourself. You need to figure out whether or not you're ok with other people hearing the show without context.

But, I promise, if you're anything like me, you'll find yourself cracking up (and freaking out the people around you on the train) on a regular basis.

Challenging

A couple of months ago, I changed roles (part time) in the company. I moved to a team with the premise that a small team of developers, unencumbered by the process and inertia of a large company, could develop and iterate on products and find things that were good fits for our customers. In a big company (which my little company now is), it was a great—maybe ideal— opportunity. A small, (little a) agile team cranking out product.

As of two weeks ago, I'm back in the main office, managing the entire team of developers, while in the midst of the business adopting the (big a) Agile methodology. It's probably been two of the most challenging weeks of my career.

Our development process was never "waterfall", but it wasn't "agile". It was some in between mish-mash of working on what was important and reprioritizing weekly without the understanding that not everything deserved to be worked on. Not everything was important to the business. Loads of horse trading so that everyone got their slice of resources, without regard to how much value those resources might generate for the company.

In that regard, agile (or maybe that's Agile) has definitely helped. We're slowly helping people realize that we don't have infinite resources, and therefore, we can only work on the really important stuff (and maybe some slightly less than really important stuff). But no "because I want it" stuff.

It's not been easy. It's been a slog. As a company, other parts of the business (not the development team) are still getting on board, which is a challenge. There's the culture clash: do you bridge the gap between the old process and new, or push everyone in the deep end. The former means slower adoption, the latter can lead to some interesting conflict.

All this is going on while still needing to ship code and re-learn how to manage a team of people. With some people pushing to move faster than the organization (and team and individuals and processes and technology) might be ready to.

It's going to be an interesting challenge.

Losing Nemo

The blizzard/huge winter storm/whatever Nemo, or "the storm that would be named Nemo, but we don't name winter storms" came and went and dumped somewhere between 20 and 30 inches on us here in Somerville.

After spending most of Friday and Saturday snowed in, it dawned on me how poorly we are equipped to handle large snowstorms. I don't mean equipped as humans—it seems like folks mostly heeded the warnings and hunkered down. Or as a society—it seems like a storm like this brings out the best in (most) people, as folks helped each other shovel out, while kids walked between piles of snow taller than they are.

I mean technologically, it is baffling to me that we haven't come up with a better way to deal with snow. For the next few months, we'll be stuck with 4 and 5 foot high snow piles blocking half of the streets, making it impossible to find parking, to pull out around corners, and generally making walking and driving a massive pain in the ass.

How have we not developed better technologies to deal with this? There are big trucks that melt snow and trains with jet engine-like devices that melt and evaporate snow on train tracks. Obviously, the big issue is the energy and fuel required to generate enough heat to melt and/or evaporate the snow. There's the environmental effect of melting the snow and where all that water will end up.

It seems to me, though, that in the last fifty-odd years, these problems should have been solved. Or that they're solvable. Why can't we harness solar energy (expensive, most likely) or wire sidewalks and streets with heating elements (or elements that retain heat in some meaningful way) to melt snow away as it falls.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, storms like that…I get why we don't have better ways to deal with them.

But snowstorms? They feel like a solvable problem.

Or maybe I just hate winter.

(That's probably it.)

Can. Not. Wait. →

Image borrowed from The Omni Group

OmniFocus 2. Sometime this year (probably)?

Signed up for the beta. iPad-like interface moved to the Mac.

I'm excited about an application that makes me do more work. It's a sickness.

The Post-Rondo Celtics

So, within 24 hours of posting this, we found out that the Celtics would see what a world without Rondo would look like—but not due to a trade. Instead, Rondo tore his ACL and is 99.9% likely to miss the rest of the season.

And, almost universally (mostly due to the eternal optimism of the Kevin Garnett era), Celtics fans thought they'd be better off.

Pundits, analysts, and critics all circled in on some of the same things I had pointed out:

• the Celtics' offense wasn't elite with Rondo; it was downright bad. How much worse could it get?
• Rondo's style of offense might not be conducive to the types of players the Celtics have now
• Maybe this team needs some new blood on offense

And now we'll find out. In the first game of the post-Rondo era (admittedly, against the lowly Kings), the Celtics did what everyone wanted to see: push the ball, move the ball on offense (no hero ball) and get open shots, and play hounding defense. Six players in double figures, with two more players within a bucket of double figures. Seven players with 2 or more assists.

Yes, they struggled sometimes to get the ball up the court, but Lee and Bradley should get better with experience. Yes, they struggled to get good shots when the Kings went to a zone, but that'll get easier as Doc and the coaching staff get more comfortable with the new setup.

The team looked like … a team. Something that hasn't really happened this year.

I'm not saying losing Rondo cures all the Celtics ills. They aren't likely to get out of the first round of the playoffs this year. Unless Pierce and Garnett retire, they're not likely to be in a great cap position next year to make changes to the team.

But we're going to learn what a Celtics team without the 2013 incarnation of Rajon Rondo looks like, and I think it's going to be a prettier sight than you might thing.

Trading Rondo

I've been to, live, I'd guess nearly 80% of Rajon Rondo's home games. Not this season. In his career. I've watched probably another 25-30% of his games on television.

As you can ask any of my friends who deal with my Celtics mania, I've always had a love/hate relationship with Rondo. Early on (including the year where the Celtics won #17), my issues with Rondo stemmed from his inability to shoot, his needless defensive freelancing, and his desire to make the flashy play over the simple one.

But you couldn't argue with success, right? A Championship, another Eastern Conference title, and a few games from a 3rd. He was the starting point guard on a very successful team, and arguably, the most important player on that team.

As the core around him has aged, the media story, the story from the team, the story from everyone has been that this is the year that it becomes Rondo's team. I bought in. Over the last year and a half, the improved shooting, the occasional glimpses of greatness (national TV triple doubles), and all of the talk coming from the team: I believed. I thought Rondo was ready to become "the man."

I was wrong. I'm out. I want off the roller coaster.

Even knowing that the team expected him to be a leader, knowing that the team needed him to step up and carry more of the load, Rondo hasn't changed. He still walks away from team huddles. He agitates officials such that he rarely gets calls (and the league has a hair trigger with regards to his behavior, making matters worse). He padded his stats by giving up easy hoops in favor of assists during his double-digit assist streak. His defense has gotten progressively worse, to the point his on ball defense has to be below average for a point guard.

The thing about it is, I know that Rondo could be better. When he wants to play defense, he can be stellar. His shooting has become an asset. He can finish around the rim and score, seemingly at will, but simply refuses(?) to do so. I don't know what it is, but it seems like Rondo coasts through games at 60%, turning it on when he thinks he really has to. Is it a coping mechanism, to help him last through a full season? Is it a coaching strategy? I don't know.

But it's hurting the team, and destroying my will to watch Rondo run the point for the Celtics.

Thursday's game against New York was the final straw. Rondo has a triple double, an amazing 4th quarter (almost single handedly getting the Celtics back into the game), and I'm stuck on the thought that Rondo's first three quarters were the reason the Celtics were down.

The final straw(s) were two plays. A 3-on-1 break in a tight game where Rondo tried to throw a backwards alley-oop rather than take a wide open layup, and a diagonal cross court pass thrown off Tyson Chandler's head in the final minutes of a game where the Celtics had made a furious comeback. I half think he did it on purpose.

I don't think Rondo is a bad player. I don't think we could even get full value for him in a trade. I just don't think that he can run a team, that he's mature enough to ever be the guy. I'm probably wrong, but I don't care any more.

My epiphany is that Rondo is now like Manny Ramirez, circa 2008ish. When he's on, he's breathtaking to watch. When he's off, you wonder how a player could have that little regard for his teammates (let alone the team or the fans).

Sometimes you have to break ties. I think it's time.

I got into a somewhat interesting Twitter conversation during that Knicks game. As both an opportunity to try Storify and to show some of the feelings/emotions surrounding the issue. I'm sure I'll go back and forth on this, but I think the Celtics have reached the point where trading Rondo for a less flashy, straight ahead point guard might be a better option for the team.
Like this or this or this (probably unrealistic, but I can dream).

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