Deryck Hodge's Bookmarks Tagged With "web"

Alternate Reality Games: A Mini-Guide

I'm doing some reading and thinking on ARGs (though I still hate the name, sorry). This is a nice overview of several recent games (or should we call them stories?). It's not an exhaustive list, but it does include some interesting notes. There are also some links at the bottom of the article to some really nice related articles.

Deryck Hodge
Jul 25, 2008 at 01:37 PM
Jul 25, 2008 at 01:37 PM

The Facebooker Who Friended Obama - NYTimes.com

A really nice article on how Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook, left Facebook at the peak of its popularity to work for the Obama campaign. Most interesting to me is the point that at that time, Chris was finding his away around and the Obama campaign was not the force it is today. After winning Iowa, of course, that all changed. It's a nice point, too, about how social networks on the web serve a use to connect real people in their everyday lives. The point is made in the article that the Obama site drives local connections, rather than just connections for the sake of the site itself.

Deryck Hodge
Jul 07, 2008 at 12:09 PM
Jul 07, 2008 at 12:09 PM

doctype - Google Code

Google Doctype is, in Mark Pilgrim's own words, "an encyclopedia for web developers by web developers." Looks very cool. There are several parts to this. The first is using the wiki component of Google code hosting to document the Web (document from the developer's perspective). It's like Wikipedia just for web development. The second part is a library of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML reference code, largely a set of tests. It does include "goog" which looks to be a JavaScript library akin to YUI or mootools. Also, I was struck by Mark Pilgrim calling himself a "technical writer" in the Doctype video I just watched. There's a lot to use and understand here, and I'm only just beginning to read through all this. (Via Simon Willison.)

Deryck Hodge
May 15, 2008 at 08:11 AM
May 15, 2008 at 08:11 AM

What I've Learned: Vint Cerf

Incredible. Absolutely amazing quotes from Vint Cerf in this piece from Esquire. He plays WoW with his son, gives Al Gore props for the Internet, offers his thoughts on Second Life, and then offers up my favorite quote from the last several months of online reading: "At the roots, people are still people." In the context of a discussion about the Internet, this is a powerful statement, and one anyone who spends much time online can readily agree with. The Internet, in the end, is just a reflection of the people it connects.

Deryck Hodge
Apr 26, 2008 at 08:59 PM
Apr 26, 2008 at 08:59 PM

Web space lounge -- ESC Portfolio

This screenshot of Electric Sheep's work on a virtual world in the browser is nice looking. They're using Ogoglio for the sever component and Papervision3D for the client. The look is nice certainly. When I was in Arlington this past week, Jesse demoed some Papervision stuff to me, and I was certainly impressed. This from ESC continues to impress. Of course, this is no where near what Second Life is -- a single night club in no way compares to an expansive and varied virtual world -- but it is impressive for a low barrier to entry alternative that runs in the browser.

Deryck Hodge
Apr 23, 2008 at 11:17 AM
Apr 23, 2008 at 11:17 AM

Out to Pasture -- White Paper on VW Platform Evaluations

I find myself agreeing with Giff, even though I've had some criticisms of the virtual-world-in-a-browser posts earlier. I do think the space between the Web and the virtual world is an interesting area in which to work, and I love to see someone develop in this area. Right now, it's an all or none proposition -- you either work on the Web or in a virtual worlds. I think sites could build in some of the social aspects of an immersive 3D experience and see positive results in the blend.

Deryck Hodge
Apr 21, 2008 at 01:55 PM
Apr 21, 2008 at 01:55 PM

Metaplace - Debunking the 3D Web

A developer at Metaplace goes over the reasons he disagrees with the idea that 3D virtual places will replace 2D Web pages. While I agree with the general (and excellent point) that each format lends itself well to certain activities, I think the lead point that the future of "integration between virtual worlds with the web" will not "involve browsing aisles in a virtual bookstore" is missing the mark a bit. Mainly, his point is based on how 3D spaces and 2D pages work today. I think it's quite possible that 3D spaces could consume the 2D Web so that you can do either or both from your avatar. So you could *just* browse the web in a virtual world, or also connect with users over something you found online. Will the 2D web be replaced? Not as some predict, but it will be transformed and maybe even incorporated into 3D spaces. Maybe your browser becomes the 3D client -- which I think is partially his point -- or maybe we end up with some mixture of the two in the end. But I think it's naive to say the web won't go anywhere just because it works so well today.

Deryck Hodge
Feb 18, 2008 at 12:37 PM
Feb 18, 2008 at 12:37 PM

Spies' Battleground Turns Virtual

If there was ever a sign that virtual worlds are the emerging next version of the Web, this article confirms it: "U.S. intelligence officials are cautioning that popular Internet services that enable computer users to adopt cartoon-like personas in three-dimensional online spaces also are creating security vulnerabilities by opening novel ways for terrorists and criminals to move money, organize and conduct ..." Paranoia that the internets are enabling and promoting criminal activities is nothing new. People eat this stuff up, too, as if technology makes people bad, as if we were all farming in 16th century western Europe the world would be a better and safer place.

Deryck Hodge
Feb 07, 2008 at 10:08 AM
Feb 07, 2008 at 10:08 AM

New World Notes: The Metaverse in 2006 versus the Web in 1996

An excellent, and IMHO appropriate, illustration of how virtual worlds, Second Life in particular, compare to the early days of the web. As someone who works for a "big media" company, trust me when I say, you should never trust big media companies when they pontificate about statistics, the future, or anything technology related.

Deryck Hodge
Jan 28, 2008 at 10:16 AM
Jan 28, 2008 at 10:16 AM

What PHP Deployment Gets Right

It's popular among Python and Ruby web developers to slam on PHP these days, which I've never really been into. It's nice to see Ian Bicking give PHP credit for something it does do well. Personally, I think the points about the shared C library and no global state are the real wins of PHP deployment. As an aside, I've always thought PHP was like C for the web.... it's hard to do good C code for the average developer, but that doesn't mean C isn't a powerful or "good" language. The same could be said for PHP. Sure Python is a better general purpose language, and I certainly love using it for web development. But I see the value and usefulness of PHP at the same time.

Deryck Hodge
Jan 22, 2008 at 05:55 AM
Jan 22, 2008 at 05:55 AM

Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services

Okay, first, web sites already are web services. I don't think we're waiting on this to happen. It's already happened. And second, can we *please* stop with the version numbers for the web. I kind of get the reason why "Web 2.0" took off, but enough already. Trying to partition web trends in versions misses the mark entirely. Rob Curley is fond of saying "the ink is never dry on these babies" to explain the continually updated nature of the web to journalists. To you web 2/3.0 junkies I say, "the web is never tarballed, tagged, and released." It's not as cute as Rob's, but for real, the numbers need to stop. It makes no sense. Please. Just stop.

Deryck Hodge
Mar 21, 2007 at 07:53 AM
Mar 21, 2007 at 07:53 AM

OpenID: an actually distributed identity system

Simon Willison calls this decentralized single sign-on. Interesting idea and worth looking into more.

Deryck Hodge
Sep 22, 2006 at 01:51 PM
Sep 22, 2006 at 01:51 PM