The Return of Scrabulous? Introducing Wordscraper
When one of Facebook’s most popular applications is mysteriously taken down, the crowds react. And they react fast.
Tuesday, the Calcutta-based brothers who started the instantly popular Facebook application, Scrabulous, finally removed the application from the site because of increasing legal pressure and threats from Hasbro, the creators of the original Scrabble game.
The bitter feud dates back to January 2008, when Hasbro and Mattel, joint owners of the board game, asked Facebook to remove the application citing copyright infringement. 400,000+ Scrabulous addicts instantly rushed to the defense of the game in the form of status updates and supportive Facebook fan groups, and over the coming months the application managed to stick around.
This week, however, Scrabulous finally bowed out as Hasbro introduced its own official Scrabble game to Facebook, which despite a rough (and very buggy) start has already drawn 50,000 users.
The makers of Scrabulous, however, not to be defeated, this morning announced Wordscraper, a very similar game to the original with a completely different look and feel. Whether or not these changes will satisfy the gaming giants remains to be seen, as does whether original Scrabulous users will migrate over to the official Hasbro application or try their hand at the knock-off.
What is clear is that the game’s popularity (and the controversy that surrounds it) has certainly drummed up interest in a board game that many argue had faded into obscurity amongst the Facebook generation. I understand Hasbro’s frustration with not creating the application first, but I can only imagine that Scrabulous has done great things for sales of the original game.
Meanwhile, the saga continues. Certainly, Wordscraper still treads somewhat on Scrabble’s toes…but the question is how hard, and whether Hasbro will continue to fight two guys whose efforts seem only to have benefited the gaming giant — finally lifting the almost 100-year-old game into the Internet age.
The Theory of Everything Online
In last week’s New Yorker, there was a great story about a reclusive physicist named Garret Lisi who is currently being heralded for creating one of the decade’s most compelling unification theories.
Needless to say, Lisi’s ability to publish a coherent mathematical framework to unite all the universe’s forces is stirring up a good deal of conversation among physicists, but what I found most compelling is that Lisi came to publish the work at all.
See, prior to receiving International praise for “An Incredibly Simple Theory of Everything”, Lisi had abdicated his profession in exchange for a life spent surfing in Hawaii and skiing in Tahoe. After almost ten years completely removed from academia, Lisi came from out of nowhere when he published his paper on an online forum.
What interests me about this story (because trust me, physics is not my forte) is the power of the Internet to expose and reward what I am dubbing Outsider Brilliance. Like Outsider Art, reclusive intellects have also historically stayed off of the mainstream path. Now, thanks to the immediacy of the Internet, we do not have to wait to recognize their achievements.
Beyond Lisi, there are other examples of websites gearing up to harness the brain-power of the masses. The New York Times yesterday profiled Innocentive, a website where large organizations post problems that cannot be solved internally, giving people around the world the opportunity to find solutions in exchange for cash prizes. To date, solvers are registered in more than 175 countries, and more than 250 solutions have been found.
Working in technology, it is easy to forget the historical significance of the innovation that surrounds us, but the social web is undoubtedly changing the way we interact and ultimately exist as a species.
Telecommuting: More Attractive Than Ever
I am writing this post from the sun-kissed porch of my parent’s house in beautiful Bellingham, Washington.
Jealous? You should be.
LaunchSquad has been immensely kind to let me work remotely this week so that I can spend some time with my family.
I have been collaborating with my coworkers via email, instant messenger, webcam and the phone. With online document repositories, I have access to the exact same data as I do at work. There are essentially no elements of my job that I cannot perform remotely.
Let me be honest up front: I confess that the implications of telecommuting that I discuss below were not factors in my desire to work from home. They are, however, great reasons for more businesses to allow their employees to work remotely.
1: Environmental Implications
More people working from home means less people driving to and from work every day. Sun Microsystems estimates that its more than 18,000 employees who can choose to work at home or the nearest office avoid buying 135 gallons of gas a year. This prevents more than 2,600 lbs of greenhouse gases - more than one ton - from being emitted PER EMPLOYEE.
Furthermore, by decreasing traffic congestion, commuting times are also reduced for workers that are unable to telecommute. This enables people in the retail and service industries, among others, to burn less gas.
2: Economic Implications
Let’s go back to the example of Sun. With with gas prices fast approaching $5 a gallon, the economic impact of avoiding buying 135 gallons of gas per year is far from inconsequential. For Sun, each worker’s annual savings from telecommuting is nearly $600.
Costs of gasoline and car-maintenance aside, the economic incentives for telecommuting as a result of time saved are enormous.
The US Census Bureau found that the American workers spend between 100 and 200 hours a year commuting to and from work - excluding errands along the way. That’s 12 to 25 entire work days during the year that are spent doing nothing but transporting a worker’s body from home to work and back. These hours/days could certainly be spent more effectively.
In spite of these figures in support of working remotely, a recent study by the Telework Coalition estimates that only about 26 million workers telecommute even occasionally - or less than 20% of the workforce. Another study found that only 5% of the UW workforce telecommute on any regular basis while nearly 40% have jobs that would allow them to.
If they did, the study indicates that these new teleworkers could annually save 625 million barrels of oil (roughly equivalent to 80% of our Gulf Oil Imports), reduce greenhouse gases by 107 million metric tons of CO2 each year, and save almost $50 billion.
They would also save themselves - and the economy/environment - 1.3 BILLION work days that would otherwise have been spent commuting. That’s the equivalent to nearly 10 billion hours each year. To give you an idea, if each one of those hours were spent working a job that paid the federal minimum wage of $5.85, the earnings would total nearly $61 billion. That’s enough money to pay off the national debt in 156.5 years or to pay the entire New York Yankee’s salary until the year 2252.
Obviously, given advances in collaborative technology and the increasing need to improve our environmental practices, telecommuting will become more and more popular with employers and employees alike. Factor in the less quantifiable sorts of benefits that telecommuting provides such as being able to work with this “office” view, the prospect of working remotely has never been more beautiful.
View from my "office" - LaunchSquad Bellingham
Are You In The Cloud, Or Using SaaS?
A byproduct of the tech industry is buzzwords. We all know them: Web 2.0, semantic Web, social media and, of late, Software-as-a-Service and cloud computing. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, we all use them … but how well?
A post from The Fortiva Blog fell into my RSS reader this morning and the title – “What is the Difference Between Cloud Computing and SaaS?” – immediately caught my eye.
“You know what?” I thought. “I have no idea.”
I had always assumed that they were one in the same, cloud computing being a new buzzword that seemed more airy and ethereal than SaaS, which admittedly sounds a bit rigid and techie. Not so, said the post’s author, who referenced a new Gartner study, which outlines the parameters of cloud computing. Basically, the study defines cloud computing as anything that uses the Internet to allow people to connect to technological services. Widgets, for example, are an example of cloud computing, as are – as the blog post points out – Facebook and eBay.
SaaS, on the other hand, is when a user pulls a hosted tool from the Internet to use. Gartner also said it “allows a sharing of application processing and storage resources in a one-to-many environment…on a pay-for-use basis, or as a subscription.” For example, our clients SuccessFactors, Daptiv and Awareness are all have hosted software that users access through the cloud. The difference being that in SaaS, you use the Web to pull a service down on to your computer, cloud computing uses the Web to connect you to services.
It’s a bit of an obscure difference, but important in that these services require different architecture, functionality and serve different purposes. And you’ll sound smarter too.
For iPhone, Software Defines Hardware
David Pogue wrote yesterday about the iPhone and points out that the hardware has not changed that much since the first go-round. The actual form of the phone is now a little more manageable, and the voice quality has increased dramatically, but other than that and a very simple GPS feature, the hardware is pretty much the same iPhone as before.
But it’s the software and the iPhone App Store that’s now really making the iPhone special. Any developer can now offer applications, after an approval process, for iPhone users to add to their phones. The actual iPhone itself and its large, beautiful touchscreen serve as the vehicle to deliver the app functionality to the user.
While making the internet connection speed faster with 3G helps, the software is what’s really empowering the iPhone now. Most handset makers are creating new ways to hide keyboards and slide different parts of the phone various ways to make them more usable and fun, but it’s software that can have the most impact on usability.
Think of something you wish your phone did that it currently doesn’t. Hardware issue or software? Software right? If the answer is hardware for some reason, I’d like to hear what the issue is in the comments.
With software essentially defining the functionality of the iPhone, and all phones for that matter, I guess you could say that developers are the artists, with the iPhone as their canvas. Umm, a really really nice canvas… With a monthly fee……
On the Road to Electric Vehicles
A teacher in high school once told me that often times I’ll see things come in threes. I’m not sure how much I’ve noticed this phenomenon since then, but last week it was in full effect.
The topic that came up each time was a green startup called Project Better Place. First I had dinner with a friend who was interning there this summer and told me all about it. The next day a ringer on LaunchSquad’s softball team brought up the company over dinner at the lovely Frankie’s Bohemian Cafe. Third, the next day I stumbled upon and article about Project Better Place on Earth2Tech.
Project Better Place has a very grand vision: “We see an oil-free future and a healthier, safer planet.” They want to accomplish this by bringing electric vehicles to the public and building the infrastructure to make it easy and sustainable. While the vision is a big one, it also seems to have a good chance for success.
The CEO, Shai Agassi, was once up for CEO of SAP, the fifth largest software company in the world. He left to start Project Better Place. The company has also gotten some serious funding ($200 million to start, for their work in Israel) and buy-in from auto manufacturers including Nissan, Renault and potentially Daimler.
This is definitely one of the most intriguing green companies to watch. It will be a long road, but so far the company seems to be well on the right track. Gavin Newsom wants the San Francisco Bay Area to be the first U.S. region to participate in Project Better Place, which seems appropriate.
The prospect of electric cars has always seemed ideal, but ultimately, not realistic. But technology and companies like Project Better Place and Tesla Motors are finally working to making widespread electric car use possible. Definitely rooting for these guys, and looking forward to following how things progress. Sounds like Denmark is next…