Cantina Consulting » chris

Googlebook?

chris — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 20:08:55 +0000

Friendster… MySpace… Facebook?

In what could be one of this summer’s only worthy entertainment highlights (Inception aside), it looks as if Boss Google may be ordering up a hit on the family Zuckerberg. Under the working title “Google Me” (ala “Analyze This”), the story also features Facebook’s agrarian darling Zynga, who has left the family farm for Google’s greener pastures. The search goliath seems to be launching another salvo (Orkut? Wave? Buzz?) on the social space. But will anyone watch?

Wait a minute – what about SNF? Only yesterday the headlines, the talk shows, and the naysayers were all passing the can around to raise awareness for that digital menace, Social Networking Fatigue. Apparently that’s all behind us now: “You can pry my user profile from my cold, dead hands,” says Gen Y. According to young lasses everywhere, “I’ll take mine before coffee thank you.”

The obvious questions beg, are folks willing to set up yet another profile on yet another social networking site? Or do the gazillions of existing Gmail accounts make the medicine go down? Google’s ubiquitous in-roads into all tasks digital certainly may help tip the scales. On the other hand, who doesn’t have a Facebook profile (beyond that “whaskely“ gang of 35,000)? Naturally the open sorcerers and early adopters are sure to line up and spread the Holy Google Invite, and perhaps that’ll be enough to get the momentum going. Then again, Wave anyone?

Interestingly, at the same time the rumors swirl about Googlebook, Microsoft announces Facebook integration into it’s Outlook mothership. But can a plug-in really even those odds? Will Outlookers actively seek out and install an email client plug-in?

And still the plot thickens! We learned today that a New York man has teamed up with Johnny Law to claim his piece of the Zuckerberg empire. Could he be a Google mole?

Stay tuned. In the meantime, grab your popcorn bins and head over to see the only film that promises to be more boring than “The Black Dahlia”, “The Social Network” (perhaps the bigger question is how can this possibly be from the same director as “Fight Club”?)

Calling all Technical Architects and Project/Program Managers!

chris — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:48:30 +0000

Cantina is actively looking for senior level Technical Architects and Project/Program Managers with technical consulting experience. Please have anyone that is interested from your networks send us a resume at jobs@cantinaconsulting.com. Candidates should based in the greater Boston area. Thank you!

while we’ve got your eyes…

chris — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:42:35 +0000

take a look at our potential logos as they unfold. let us know what you think, and feel free to submit comments or rate the submissions.

specious?

chris — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:37:54 +0000

Here comes a cat out of a bag – we’re in the process of building out our brand. Every growing company faces this challenge at some point, and so Cantina finds itself in the thick of it.

As purveyors of tech that, at least in theory, increases social interaction and the power of community, we’ve decided to walk our walk and dip our toes in a bit of the crowd-sourcing pool and see what kind of logo we could fish out. There are a number of these services available, we’ve chosen to give Crowdspring a day in court. The results thus far have been wide-ranging; clearly this crowd is a heterogenous one.

What’s been really interesting, from my POV, is the controversy this approach stirs amongst those in the design community. The rub seems to lay not in crowd-sourcing, but rather in the notion of speculative work, or “exert your effort and maybe I’ll bite”. Imagine using this approach for other day to day transactions? Having someone paint your house *before* paying them? “No, sorry, I don’t like it. Thanks anyway.” After a chef has prepared your dinner? “That looks tempting enough, but I think I’ll pass.” Turns things upside down a bit no?

A designer and colleague of ours, Kurt Zinser of Method Bureau, says, spec work is “harmful to the profession, encourages sub-par work and turns the practice into a commodity,” and pointed me to this statement from AIGA:

“AIGA believes that doing speculative work seriously compromises the quality of work that clients are entitled to and also violates a tacit, long-standing ethical standard in the communication design profession worldwide. AIGA strongly discourages the practice of requesting that design work be produced and submitted on a speculative basis in order to be considered for acceptance on a project.” They even provide a sample response letter that further explains their position.

I’m sure there are those skeptics out there who will naturally counter that of course AIGA would seek to protect itself and the interests of its members; what representative organization wouldn’t? Beyond the obvious then, I think the AIGA argument has merit. Many specialized crafts have and are dealing with these same pressures – the commoditization of one’s long honed skill.

Andrew Hyde has some strong feelings too, particularly regarding Crowdspring itself:

It appears the controversy is tied to the idea of speculative work versus the notion of crowd-sourcing. Is there a better way, a solution with positive impact for both sides of the divide?

Election tech

chris — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:11:06 +0000

Here it is, the spookiest night of the year and the prospect of another election day debacle is about as frightening a prospect as any. And why shouldn’t we be scared? What’s really changed in the past 8 years in regards to the process of voting? In 2000, the death of the chad pappy, the paper ballot, was all but assured. Now we’re 8 years later, the iPod of then is now the doorstop of today, we’ve got touch-based computing in our pockets, we can sign, seal and deliver nearly every bit of life’s required documents digitally and yet… The voting process is still antiquated and unsolved. How is it that we can file our taxes – transmitting uber-sensitive data over the ether, yet can’t send a simple authenticated vote? Where is the open source movement to solve this issue? Clearly we can’t allow one or two vendors (the Republican Voting Company… err Diebold comes to mind). Surely this is a problem that can be solved.

Adobe Releases Flash 10 Player

chris — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:17:47 +0000

Flash 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… MX… MX 2004… 8… 9… … … and now? Just “10″. nice and easy.

The latest and greatest from Adobe includes support for native 3D (bring on more carousel views), “inverse kinematics“, jointed assets that react intelligently to each other when animated (see PrayStation circa ‘99?). Additionally, they promise advanced text rendering and control (again), dynamic sound gen, and an yet another “advanced” drawing API. How about animating rounded corner masks? What will this all bring? The resurgence of the intro skip or further along the never ending path to a “richer experience”. we’ll see…