Jeremy Zawodny sees a tipping point for feeds coming soon:
Real-time pings mean that we don’t have to wait for a full polling or crawling cycle before getting the latest content… Once this feed stuff hits the tipping point (I think we’re close), things will get really, really interesting. Suddenly these feed sources will be the thing people care about. The model of “search and find” or “browse and read” will turn into “search, find, and subscribe” for a growing segment of Internet users and it will really change how they deal with information on the web. What’s that gonna be like? Will the “web search” folks be ready? What about the browser folks?
The ability for a person or program to subscribe (and then get told when things happen, and take action as needed) is the foundation of The Now Economy. RSS and Atom can provide semi-structured data on which to take action — for example, for use in catablog-style commerce interactions.
Through John Battelle we discovered Rick Skrenta’s post on the subject of information feeds. Says Skrenta, “The proliferation of incremental content sources, all pumping out new material on a regular basis, is what the mainstream Internet user will consume.”
This in turn reminds us of Phil Windley’s recent observation that subscription-based information routing (such as that of mod-pubsub and KnowNow) allows applications to receive such streams of semi-structured information and then do something with them (such as filtering, aggregating, displaying, further routing, or taking action based on rules).
Such programming models will be ripe for exploration in the coming years as the applications of The Now Economy are discovered, developed, and deployed.
https://commerce.net/mindystaging/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/commercenet-logo-1.png00amshttps://commerce.net/mindystaging/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/commercenet-logo-1.pngams2004-08-28 12:07:562004-08-28 12:07:56Subscribe Is The Foundation Of The Now Economy
Internet News talks about Amazon’s forthcoming release of Amazon Web Services 4, pointing out the utility of shopping cart web services:
The Amazon shopping cart in AWS 4.0 now permits application users to add items to the Amazon Save for Later cart. Shopping cart abandonment continues to be a major problem for the e-commerce industry. A recent DoubleClick study showed that 57 percent of all carts are abandoned by shoppers and only 26.5 percent of them will come back to actually make a purchase.
What might come in Amazon Web Services 5? Mod-pubsub speculates “PubSub Amazon Web Services”, citing ZapThink senior analyst Jason Bloomberg:
Amazon Web Services 4 is still entirely request-reply in structure, which is adequate for supporting Web interfaces, but would not be sufficient or incorporating into more general business processes, or more broadly, into Service-Oriented Architectures, which require asynchronous Services.
Last night we stumbled on the Internet UPC Database, a hack that offers a public database of products and their Universal Product Codes. Anyone can submit new codes or search the database of codes. For example, here’s Diet Cherry Coke. Even more interesting is that a Google search for Diet Cherry Coke’s UPC number points you to the upcdatabase.com item. Which is even more astounding when you realize that the guy launched the service just seven months ago, and already has some extraordinary statistics:
Known Manufacturer Entries: 1058
UPC Entries: 805229
Distributable UPC Entries: 486416 (60.4%)
Unique Mfr ID’s Represented: 44333
Average Items per Mfr ID: 18.2
Total size of database (approx.): 53.5 MB
Update Requests Pending: 139
Too bad there’s no web service interface so we could start doing some interesting hacks…
The introduction to the paper below has a lengthy and illuminating rant about the pre-HIPAA patchwork of laws and regulations around medical records privacy. I’d definitely want to read the original NRC report…
The state of security in healthcare is no less diverse. In 1997, the National Research Council released a landmark work: For the Record: Protecting Electronic Health Information. This report of a field study revealed that healthcare organizations did very little to counter security threats. Although it could not document the actual volume of threats, it did identify mistakes, improper use of access privileges, unauthorized use for spite or profit, unauthorized physical intrusion, and technical break-in as not uncommon occurrences. Likewise, organizational and even simple technical mechanisms such as authentication, auditing, access controls, and cryptography were rarely in place. Most healthcare organizations relied on corporate culture and closed networks to protect the private information of their patients and providers.
https://commerce.net/mindystaging/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/commercenet-logo-1.png00amshttps://commerce.net/mindystaging/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/commercenet-logo-1.pngams2004-08-24 01:45:402004-08-24 01:45:40The patchwork of medical privacy laws
The Now Economy is a meme of many trends, not least of which is the import of mass customization and rapid prototyping’s role in the manufacturing cycle. In the middle of this Slate article is an excellent example of this vision:
Do-it-yourself design will get really interesting when inventors are able to sketch something out and then hold the thing in their hands within a matter of minutes. Today, rapid-prototyping technology—that is, 3-D printers that can instantly crank out a physical copy of anything you design on a computer—is available only to elite design firms. It’ll get cheaper within years. Meanwhile, “original design manufacturing” companies overseas are becoming expert at quickly and cheaply cranking out MP3 players and laptops to specs set by brand-name firms like Virgin or Sony. Put those trends together, and it’s easy to envision an offshore service that will take my personal design for a music player and crank out 10 copies. Presto: the Clive brand MP3 player! Think of it as vanity electronics—casemodding on a superfast, global scale.
Subscribe Is The Foundation Of The Now Economy
Event Driven ArchitecturesJeremy Zawodny sees a tipping point for feeds coming soon:
The ability for a person or program to subscribe (and then get told when things happen, and take action as needed) is the foundation of The Now Economy. RSS and Atom can provide semi-structured data on which to take action — for example, for use in catablog-style commerce interactions.
Through John Battelle we discovered Rick Skrenta’s post on the subject of information feeds. Says Skrenta, “The proliferation of incremental content sources, all pumping out new material on a regular basis, is what the mainstream Internet user will consume.”
This in turn reminds us of Phil Windley’s recent observation that subscription-based information routing (such as that of mod-pubsub and KnowNow) allows applications to receive such streams of semi-structured information and then do something with them (such as filtering, aggregating, displaying, further routing, or taking action based on rules).
Such programming models will be ripe for exploration in the coming years as the applications of The Now Economy are discovered, developed, and deployed.
Shopping Cart Services + PubSub Services
CommerceInternet News talks about Amazon’s forthcoming release of Amazon Web Services 4, pointing out the utility of shopping cart web services:
What might come in Amazon Web Services 5? Mod-pubsub speculates “PubSub Amazon Web Services”, citing ZapThink senior analyst Jason Bloomberg:
Shopping Cart Services + PubSub Services = ?
UPC Database
Commerce, RFID and EPCLast night we stumbled on the Internet UPC Database, a hack that offers a public database of products and their Universal Product Codes. Anyone can submit new codes or search the database of codes. For example, here’s Diet Cherry Coke. Even more interesting is that a Google search for Diet Cherry Coke’s UPC number points you to the upcdatabase.com item. Which is even more astounding when you realize that the guy launched the service just seven months ago, and already has some extraordinary statistics:
Too bad there’s no web service interface so we could start doing some interesting hacks…
The patchwork of medical privacy laws
Health CareThe introduction to the paper below has a lengthy and illuminating rant about the pre-HIPAA patchwork of laws and regulations around medical records privacy. I’d definitely want to read the original NRC report…
HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society): JHIM: Journal of Healthcare Information Management
Security Measures Required for HIPAA Privacy
DIY Industrial Design: “MyPod”
CommerceThe Now Economy is a meme of many trends, not least of which is the import of mass customization and rapid prototyping’s role in the manufacturing cycle. In the middle of this Slate article is an excellent example of this vision:
Made to Order – How industrial design became a weekend hobby. By Clive Thompson
Do-it-yourself design will get really interesting when inventors are able to sketch something out and then hold the thing in their hands within a matter of minutes. Today, rapid-prototyping technology—that is, 3-D printers that can instantly crank out a physical copy of anything you design on a computer—is available only to elite design firms. It’ll get cheaper within years. Meanwhile, “original design manufacturing” companies overseas are becoming expert at quickly and cheaply cranking out MP3 players and laptops to specs set by brand-name firms like Virgin or Sony. Put those trends together, and it’s easy to envision an offshore service that will take my personal design for a music player and crank out 10 copies. Presto: the Clive brand MP3 player! Think of it as vanity electronics—casemodding on a superfast, global scale.