Ten23 - Development of Connection

Save PhotoKast!

[PHOTOKAST USERS: INFO ON HOW YOU CAN HELP AT THE END]

Nothing like an App Store rejection to get one blogging again.

When Apple released their 3.0 OS, it was not entirely backwards-compatible, and users of our photo-sharing social network - PhotoKast - started to experience crashes when submitting photos or sending private messages. We fixed the problems and submitted the application update to Apple. They responded with a rejection.

And this is where it gets interesting.

Those of you who have read our paper Building PhotoKast (and here on Mashable), know we're fairly conservative, and have spent a good deal of time implementing a moderation system to ensure extreme content is removed before going public. Photos sent through PhotoKast are moderated and anything containing nudity, hate speech, et al, are removed before they are released into public circulation.

Trust me when I say this: some of the removed photos would scar you for life. Even veteran porn stars, upon seeing the images, would curl up in a ball in a vacant corner of the room, mumbling to themselves that they couldn't have possibly seen what they just saw.

Back to the point: nude photos are removed by the moderators before going public. Even so, we gave PhotoKast a rating of 17+ for intense and frequent nudity, sexuality, alcohol/drug use, profanity and crude humor just to be on the safe side. So imagine our surprise when we were rejected for...

Nudity.

The reviewer sent us back a collection of photos taken from PhotoKast as an example of the "offensive content." None of the images contained nudity. So our update, which was rated 17+ for frequent/intense nudity, was rejected based on photos that did not contain nudity. Yes, you read that right. Despite the fact that users can bring up any porn site in Safari or purchase Basic Instinct through iTunes, we were getting rejected for something that did not exist. Clearly there other channels readily available on the iPhone to see far worse than what you can view in PhotoKast. We need a little consistency here.

I sent off an email to Apple. No response. Resend. No response. Resend. No response. Resend. No response. Then finally....a phone call. [cue choir of angelic voices singing Hallelujah in perfect harmony]

First, let me say this...it's cool that Apple took the time to call. And the rep who called seemed like a pretty cool guy. But there really was little clarification to the situation. I explained to him that moderators filter out the nude photos, and should they make a mistake, the user community can flag them, which takes them offline and puts them back up for review. Furthermore, the photos that were sent to us as examples did not contain nudity.

Now, I can't be sure, and I certainly am not in a position to speak on behalf of the Apple rep, but I sensed that he understood how fubar the situation is, yet there was nothing he could do. He was just a messenger of an inconsistent and mysterious policy, and it wouldn't help us to shoot the messenger. But I had to press on and at least find out what, then, were the standards we need to filter the photos by. I had to chuckle at the response:

Apple considers any photo that has a person who is presumably naked in it to be nudity.One of the "offensive" photos Apple returned to us was a girl who was covering her breasts. You couldn't see her breasts, but because you may have if you were in the same room when she took the picture, the photo itself must be considered to contain nudity. I explained that magazines filling the check-out aisles of grocery stores across this country violate this policy. I jokingly asked if a picture of a nude person behind a brick wall would still be considered offensive. These calls are typically confidential, but I told the rep that our users would need an explanation on why they couldn't get their app fixed. He seemed cool with it.

But wait, there's more...

A few days after the call, I ran across a review of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit iPhone app. Lo and behold, the very first screenshot SI used in promoting the app is a picture of a topless woman covering her breasts. The fourth, too. The fifth is even more revealing. Let me put it another way: we were rejected on the presumption of nudity, while SI can use the same type of photos as screenshots (which are visible to any user at any age).

So basically, our users are suffering through crashes on their phone while the fix sits in limbo, unable to be approved due to standards that are in direct contrast to their ratings system and, apparently, applied unequally.

How You Can Help

We've tried to reason our way through this but to no avail. I called Apple back about the SI double standard, and they told me they would get back to me with more info the next day. It's been over a week and a half with no callback. If you're a user of PhotoKast, or an iPhone user that believes this process should be more consistent/transparent/dependable/developer-friendly/consumer-friendly, then please voice your concerns to Apple, blogs that cover these types of issues, and sites that promote worthy news stories and causes. SEE LINKS BELOW.

We are grateful for how Apple has revolutionized the mobile industry. As long time mobile developers, we can testify that what they have done is nothing short of impressive. But, while they have done so much to move things so far ahead, their black box approach is an artifact from the past. Here's to hoping that they ultimately revolutionize their own application review process, and soon.

 

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Clutch Concrete Receives MIP Award

It's been a while since my last post, we've been busy finalizing the SpotKast consumer alpha and deploying our vehicle tracking and mobile BI solutions. I'm hoping to write about CTIA, the NAVTEQ Challenge, etc, in the near future. For now, just wanted to quickly mention that Jonel Engineering has received an MIP 2007 award (Most Innovative Product) from World of Concrete for their mobile tools. Congrats! Jonel uses the SpotKast platform to mobilize their software, giving their customers cell phone-based vehicle tracking and BI functionality.

Making Your Blog Location-Aware

SpotKast now enables bloggers to geo-tag their posts simply by embedding a latitude/longitude tag. Let's use this blog as an example. Next week, we will be in Orlando for CTIA, which is being held at the Orange County Convention Center. If I want this post to appear to any SpotKast user as they walk by the Convention Center, all I need to do is place the following anywhere within the body of the post:

spotkast [ latlon = 28.4264 -81.4696 ]

The latlon is the latitude/longitude location of the OCCC building. Within 15 minutes, it will be viewable at that location. If you don't like the aesthetics of the spotkast tags, you can place them at the end of your post in small letters, or with no color. Pretty simple, eh?  Sure beats having to mess with the XML. Do you happen to be near the OCCC? Check out your SpotKast Local Web section....

SpotKast a NAVTEQ LBS Challenge Semifinalist

We are pleased to announce that SpotKast is a semifinalist in the NAVTEQ 2007 LBS Challenge! There are 16 semifinalists competing in 3 categories. A winner will be chosen from each category, then a grand prize winner will be selected. Naturally, we looked up our competition :) They consist of new startups as well as sizable companies already well established in the space, all with creative mobile solutions. Not surprisingly, we are hoping for a David v. Goliath result :) Our team will be heading out to CTIA in Orlando for the final round of judging...if you're going to be there too, be sure to stop by and say hello!

Jim Gray Missing At Sea

Renowned computer scientist Jim Gray was reported missing at sea on January 28th, 2007. Though the Coast Guard has called off the search, you can help by going here. You'll be asked to look through satellite imagery in hopes of finding the location of his sailboat. Please do what you can.

"Gray's research over the past 30 years allowed databases to sort quantities of information once considered too vast to manage, leading to the creation of both online shopping and Web-based mapping programs."

Despite his busy schedule as a manager at Microsoft Research, Mr. Gray took some time out to field some of our questions and help us with our spatial database implementation.

We will be praying for Jim and his family.

Identity-Theft Guarantee

Greg is not a manager here. In fact, I've never met him. So this is what they mean by identity-theft guarantee...

NTP Strikes Again

Wow...if only I would have waited a little bit longer, I could have included the following in my recent post about patents:

NTP sues Palm

NTP is the company that gave RIM (BlackBerry) the legal hassles over the alleged infringement of their email patents. Despite the patent office rejecting the NTP patents against RIM, the makers of the BlackBerry decided to settle rather than face a possible interruption of service. What the settlement also provided RIM was a barrier from the competition. While the BlackBerry can now safely use the "NTP technology" (sarcasm), BlackBerry wannabees still must contend with the NTP hurdle. Enter Palm.

Remember, NTP never developed the technology they claimed to own. They filed broad, conceptual patents and sat on them until it was time to sue. Yet, Research In Motion, who actually did develop the technology without reliance on the NTP patents, found themselves in a bitter fight that should have never had happened. This is what I meant when I said that even weak patents were strong.

IBM and toilets that reward you (aka The Patent Circus)

How do you spell relief? Well, in 2001, it was 6-3-2-9-9-1-9, the number of the patent awarded to IBM for a "System and method for providing reservations for restroom use".

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. IBM devised a system that tells you when to crap. Unsurprisingly, this patent was challenged. And IBM – said to be somewhat embarrassed – did renounced it. Luckily, if the negative fallout from that fiasco made them want to kick themselves, they could have licensed Patent 6293874 to do it. But imagine, through some crafty acquisitions, they could have kept it and combined it with Patent 6401263 (Portable Urinal Apparatus) and Patent 6385796 (Self Flushing Urinal with Integrated Gaming and Reward System) for the ultimate bathroom trilogy, placing Big Blue’s spirit right there in the room with you.

Picking on IBM, but don't feel bad

I’m picking on IBM for two main reasons; (1) they are constantly one of the top recipients of patents (in 2001, they were awarded 3,411 patents and made $1.5 billion in revenue off of their patent portfolio – the world’s largest), and (2) have been known to leverage weak patents in order to force payment (ex., Sun in the past, Amazon recently).

Now, I am a fan of intellectual property, and some patents deserve to be so. But the system is broken, and what was devised to help foster innovation stifles it. Since patent litigation costs a great deal of money, it hardly helps the little guy – who is often the one who needs a working system of IP protection the most (well, it did help NTP, who didn't even bother to build the technology they claimed to own). Now big companies can amass thousands of patents a year, and because even weak patents are strong, can use them to squeeze money from big and small companies alike. Consider the well-known story of a meeting between IBM and Sun:

"After IBM's presentation, our turn came. As the Big Blue crew looked on (without a flicker of emotion), my colleagues--all of whom had both engineering and law degrees--took to the whiteboard with markers, methodically illustrating, dissecting, and demolishing IBM's claims. We used phrases like: "You must be kidding," and "You ought to be ashamed." But the IBM team showed no emotion, save outright indifference. Confidently, we proclaimed our conclusion: Only one of the seven IBM patents would be deemed valid by a court, and no rational court would find that Sun's technology infringed even that one."

"An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits went to the next company on their hit list." (source: Forbes)

IBM v. Amazon.com

So IBM’s most recent move is to go after Amazon for violation 5 of their patents:

5796967 - Presenting Applications in an Interactive Service.

5442771 - Storing Data in an Interactive Network.

7072849 - Presenting Advertising in an Interactive Service.

5446891 - Adjusting Hypertext Links with Weighted User Goals and Activities.

5319542 - Ordering Items Using an Electronic Catalogue.

The most alarming thing about them is that they describe basic online technologies for e-commerce. And if you’re unsympathetic to Amazon’s plight because of their own absurd patent litigation involving the 1-Click technology, remember that a win here by IBM could spell a lot of trouble for all of the other e-commerce sites that use “their” “unique” technology. I wonder if the attempted negotiations with Amazon were as amicable as with Sun?

Patents, the new Microsoft

Ah, and we now come to what many people dub the “evil empire”. True, Microsoft has also led their own patent filing frenzy. Consider the patent on “music analysis training” or this one on using the tab key to skip to the next browser link. And many are suspicious of their latest dealings with Novell. But before we blast them, let us not forget that the companies that consumers and techies tend to love – Apple and Google, for example – also do their fair share of patent filings. I like Microsoft and Apple and Google, all for different reasons - none of them have to do with patents.

The real enemy to innovation and open source is not one company – the real enemy is a broken patent system that awards absurd patents. A scruple-less business that has no problem extorting money via weak patents will act the same way tomorrow as they have in the past, unless the system is changed. IBM, attempting to show a better side, released 500 patents into the open source community, but their latest play against Amazon demonstrates a schizophrenic personality.

So we shouldn’t file patents?

So, do I encourage software companies to not file patents? Heck no! Since we have to operate in reality, and not with a better process we wish were in place, companies should file patents on the inventions important to their business. Why? Because a defensive patent is better than no patent. Companies who have invented products have been squeezed out by other businesses that have copied the invention but been the first to patent it. Small companies especially need to protect their investments, lest the big guys profit off of their hard work. What I am not endorsing is the filing of absurd claims with the expectations of easy riches. What I am saying is, you can operate in this current system in such a way as to protect yourself without trying to (undeservedly) profit off of others. Our company, like most, has benefited from the benevolence of developers who love to share knowledge – let’s attempt to find that happy medium where balance rules and everybody can benefit from the technology they create.

The Solution

Many have posited various solutions to the patent fiasco. My suggestion when a suitable alternative is created: patent it as “A System and a Method for an Accurate and Efficient Patent Approval Process”. Then, freely license it to the USPTO and never consider selling it to the likes of IBM. Otherwise, they just might use the threat of a huge lawsuit to ensure that things stay exactly the way they are.

Suggested reading: Math You Can't Use does a good job talking about current patent problems. Pick it up to read more about bad patents, such as Patent 6389458, which claims "popup browser windows" as a unique invention.

Recommended Business Books

We have a policy at Ten23 - if an employee finds a useful book, the company will buy it for them...we love avid readers and their passion to learn. We have bookshelves with several hundred books that have helped us over the years. And while there are too many good ones to list, I'd like to share some that we feel go above and beyond. This first batch will focus on books that we feel are particularly relevant to business leaders and decision makers:

In Search of Stupidity.

Documents the rise and fall of several high-tech companies we used to love – or love to hate. Remember Ashton-Tate, Borland and MicroPro? This book goes over the blunders that helped jettison them from the top to the bottom. While the book is billed as documenting “Over 20 Years of high-Tech Marketing Disasters”, some of the mistakes found their genesis in the development group. Joel Spolsky, in the preface to the first edition, remarked that he believes that “no software company can succeed without a programmer at the helm”. I don’t believe that is always true, but it is often true. As Joel would go on to say, it takes a rare person with the capacity for both business and technology to be successful.

E-Myth.

So, if you are programmer who thinks that you can do software better than the company you are currently working for, the next book to read is E-Myth. Yes, it’s a bit old. But it is a great book for getting people who are not businessmen into the mindset of being businessmen. Short book, but well worth the read – highly recommended.

A Whole New Mind.

Technical proficiency is not the sole prerequisite for good software – companies should spend a lot of their focus also on design. For a long time, consumers have had to tolerate bad software design. Companies who want happy users will have to design their software with the customer in mind; strangely, this is a concept that really has only begun to take flight with many companies. Kevin Rose could develop Digg in little time for little money because technology is no longer the stumbling block it used to be. What Rose did well is identify a need, and present a well designed site that addresses that need. A Whole New Mind emphasizes how the creative process, when harvested, gives people and businesses a significant advantage.

The Power of Unfair Advantage

Speaking of advantage, there is the Power of Unfair Advantage. Written by the same author as “High Tech Startup”, this book documents how to create and use unfair advantage to its ultimate effect. Very good book, although I believe it somewhat underrates “first mover advantage”. If anything, I think investors are seeing the power of “first mover advantage” in many Web 2.0 sites – they are forced to either invest earlier than they would like, or miss the boat entirely. When there is the possibility of massive adoption in these cases, first mover advantage clearly helps. But make no mistake – crap released early is still crap. A company willing to use feedback to refine their product will benefit from first mover; a company that doesn’t has no advantage whatsoever.

The Long Tail

Okay, so this is a buzzword you’ll probably start getting sick of – much like “Web 2.0”. But the concept of the book is good, and it’s an easy read. “The Long Tail” is about abundance, and how today’s technology essentially makes everything available to everyone. Before, you’d go into your favorite store and be limited in your selection by the amount of shelf space committed to product. Contrast that with today, where you can find the most obscure product on the Internet and shipped overnight to your front door.

Math You Can’t Use

So this book basically shows what I think about patents. In a word: absurd. This book is a great analysis of the current patent process in the United States, with a few words on how it can be improved. There are two things I believe software companies should know about this form of intellectual property protection: (a) the process is fundamentally broken and (b) they are a necessary evil. What I mean by the latter point is that a responsible company should still file patents on their inventions as a tool in protecting themselves. The allotted time windows and errors from inundated patent reviewers give enough wiggle room for other companies to develop a similar product after you, file for a patent, and squeeze you out. This is not an endorsement of the misuse of patents which is stifling innovation, it’s a suggestion to use patents defensively until the powers-that-be decide to fix a broken system. I’ll be writing more on this shortly.

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World

I think I speak for many when I say that it is important to contribute to the well being of others. Sometimes, our jobs directly address that issue, and allow us to work on things like cancer research, AIDS research, the economics of poverty, etc. Sometimes, our jobs allow us to produce the technology that can help with those. Other times, we need to find a non-job related outlet. For those interested in this type of thing, I’d recommend “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World”, because it is a reminder that – despite how busy our jobs may keep us – there is still a whole world outside.

VIDEO: Vertes at TED

What a great presentation. For those of you downtrodden and somewhat defeated because you feel that your small company cannot compete with the resources of much larger organizations, take a look at Eva Vertes at TED (in fact, a little warning; there are so many good presentations there, be prepared to spend some considerable time at the site). She has come up with a theory that many trained doctors haven’t considered – and she was only 19 years old. Also pay attention to how well she speaks – without looking at notes – and how passionate she is about the subject.

The Art of the Start

Guy Kawasaki’s books is a good primer from someone who knows business. I’d recommend reading this book in tandem with E-Myth.

Never Eat Alone

There are many technologists who will tell you that it’s not about the technology, it’s about who you know. And for the most part, they are right. How many inferior technologies trump better technologies when it comes to recognition and adoption? Take a look at VC investments; they don’t just give money to anyone. They operate in large part upon referrals from trusted sources. Reid Hoffman says that he never entertains investing in a company that has not been referred by someone he trusts. What I like about “Never Eat Alone” is its emphasis on the benefits of networking, yet he doesn’t endorse it to fulfill selfish gains but rather to use the power of relationships “so that everyone wins”.

The list goes on….Soon, I’ll post some recommended books on development.

GigaGood

Pay a visit to GigaOM and check out some of the latest posts; very relevant to those in the social networking and mobile space. That blog should definitely be amongst your subscribed feeds.

The first I would check out is a great post on partnering with Sprint. When I spoke at the Web 2.0 conference, I noted that mobile development was a risky venture when a company has not partnered with a carrier. Can it be done? Sure. There are many off-deck apps out there. But because many carriers are still very much a walled garden, there is the risk of them wanting a piece of the pie later on...or else. Remember Cingular v. PayPal? At CTIA, I talked with some Sprint Nextel biz dev folks, and they are making a push to open up and be very accommodating to developers (the opposite of Verizon, who expects to add another layer to the wall). Are they serious about it? I believe so, and Sprint Nextel has already been very active in the location-based services space. Check out what Katie Fehrenbacher has to say about partnering with Sprint over at GigaOM. When you're done reading that, check out her post on mobile user generated content.

Next, Six Apart launches Vox, a blogging platform with a lot of social networking goodies. This was a natural move to bring blogging to the masses, and a great way for people to get involved with online journaling. They held their launch party at Bimbo's in San Francisco, which some of you may have seen featured in Chris Isaak's past Showtime series. I saw Coldplay there a day before their "Rush" launch....great place.

Another post looks at the landscape of social networking sites, and how many fail to focus their product, resulting in missed success. It's clear that Web 2.0 / social networking / participatory media / user generated content is all the rage (as Tina Exarhos of MTV emphasizes in the latest edition of Red Herring, which features Kevin Rose on the cover with the caption: Almost Famous, Why Hollywood is Hot for New Internet Stars), but that means much more competition....much of it looking the same.

Lastly, take a peak at the post about YouTube. Good information in there about the changes it incorporated to become viral.