I hate that. I really do. I used to love blogging, and the main reason for it was that anytime I wrote down some of my thoughts on where the web was going, people would respond with thoughtful responses, their own ideas, and bring this blog to a semi-live conversation on what we see and think about new technology.

I never really had a lot of commenting trolls and always loved the interaction that happened here. Lately I see a trend on the web, especially in tech blogs, but certainly not limited to them, where commenters are increasingly using their commenting capabilities to tear down a story, an author, or simply press their own points at the cost of the person that did his or her best to share.

As examples, TechCrunch and Hackernews are full of it. Every story published seems to contain a large amount of negative comments that really do not address the story at all (Unless the writer happens to be Paul Graham of course ).

Take a look at this story at HN  that is at the top of the list now. Gruber is definitely an Apple fan, but his story is simple, contains a widespread observation and talks about following passion to become successful. Now look at the comments at Hacker News. It is a long list of people ranting about Gruber, his bias, the story, their own “better observations”, Android versus iOS, and you name it. I had to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the comment list to find rglover say something that was  a positive contribution to the actual topic. That’s 1 in 74 comments.

Another example is Google releasing the full source code for Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). A project that has probably cost them millions, uncountable hours, effort and expertise spend on crafting something for the community (and yes, they do want to make tons of money out of it, which is fine).  You may not like Google, or every motive that they might have, but they have added more free value to the tech community and the world than ANY other company in the world. Now take another look at the comment over at HN. It isn’t about the possibly great things developers can do with that code base (I only wish iOS would be released this way). No, people are tearing down the effort and only talk about things that aren’t right.

Well, I have news for you. A perfect world doesn’t exist and until you yourself can release a mobile platform, open source, and on millions of devices, I suggest you show a little respect for the effort Google is putting into the mobile space. We are all educated people here, and a lot of the HN community is super smart and has outstanding coding abilities. But that doesn’t provide an excuse for some of the abuse I see.

It is so easy to write a disrespectful comment. Its done in a split second, and you can even do it anonymously. Compare that to the person writing out the blog post, taking the time, sometimes hours to carefully write down his story to share with the community. Think about the hours, or years he put into his project, learning, making mistake, prevailing and then sharing that awesome experience with all of us. And we tear down his story, mock his efforts, show we are better, in a split second, simply because we can?

Dear HN community. I love the stories published, I love to read about the unbelievable cool stuff so many smart people are working on, and I love the fact that you put in the extra mile to teach all of us something by sharing all of our experiences, despite all of the abuse that same community can provide. I have a lot of respect and understand the effort it takes. I am a developer/founder myself and I know that I can share a lot of valuable experiences and simply haven’t found enough time to do this all the time.

Let’s all pay back with a little respect to the author and focus on the story itself. Lets try to make sure that comments are actually contributing to a discussion. I honestly don’t care about your f*cking opinion. I am not asking you to agree or disagree with anything published. I just ask all of us to show a little respect to those that are taking the time to educate us through their learnings. Let’s contribute something meaningful instead.

Feel free to discuss this opinion here and at the HN comments

Appsterdam

Yesterday I was invited on stage with Mike Lee where he officially kickstarted the Appsterdam movement. Instead of a product pitch I decided to talk about the things I can do to help the Appsterdam community grow and become successful. To explain, a tiny product explanation first.

Zwapp is a new social app discovery platform, now available on iOS, and with help from the Appsterdam community soon on Android as well. The idea behind Zwapp is that you can find better apps via friends. The App Store is filled with 500K apps and growing. It becomes increasingly hard to find the best apps for you.  When you install Zwapp (try it here) it will attempt to detect the apps you already have on your device (don’t worry, you remain in control of privacy) and it provides you with super-easy functionality to connect to your friends. You can then share the best apps together, follow live app action in our live feed and search for more cool people with great apps. Zwapp in its bare essence is an alternative for categories on iTunes.

Zwapp is all about finding great apps through great people. And to that extend I’m announcing the Appsterdam Zwapp channel. What is that you ask? It’s actually 3 things:

1. I’m calling all Appsterdam developers to register on Zwapp (cc me or put Appsterdam in your profile) and we will group you all together in a new channel on Zwapp. Every user on Zwapp will be able to follow the Appsterdam channel and instantly see all the cool stuff you are using yourself. You will not only be able to share apps, but also content related to these apps. It is a unique way for app developers to be in contact with each other and with people who actually user your apps! Do you want to know who uses Zwapp right now? Here are (just) a few of them. Wanna know who are playing AngryBirds HD? That is what Zwapp is about, its people who love apps.
2. If you are looking for Beta testers of a new app, then look no further. Zwapp has thousands of passionate app lovers and we can organise Beta testers for you.
3. If you want to promote your app and increase downloads, then Zwapp will help you do that. We are working on a promotion and distribution layer on top of this passionate community and to kickstart that new platform we will help promote and distribute your app. We will offer a simple SDK to integrate cool Zwapp stuff into your app and will help push your app through the community. The first 100 Appsterdam developers that get into contact with me will get a free campaign! And if you are not yet part of the Appsterdam movement, you can still become part of it, so what are you waiting for

The Appsterdam Zwapp Channel is the thing I can contribute to Appsterdam. It will be a live channel of great app developers meeting passionate app users. It can be a Beta channel for your new apps, or a place where you can kickstart your viral promotion of the cool stuff you are working on now. Help us build out this community and it will serve us all as a great place to promote your apps!

ps. While you are at it, consider visiting www.onemillionappschemes.com,  an initiative to build the largest free and open source of Custom URL Schemes for iOS developers.

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Mike Lee kicks off Appsterdam

Yesterday Mike Lee (@bmf) kicked off the Appsterdam movement in a big room full of passionate developers in Amsterdam. He spoke of his dream, to make Amsterdam the central innovation hub for App Developers. Unlike in Silicon Valley, Amsterdam and its surrounding countries in Europe has a unique pool of design and developer talent that is still waiting to be explored.

Silicon Valley has the name, a great infrastructure, enough cash to fund anything that needs funding, talented people. In many ways however, it is becoming a closed system. It’s hard for outsiders to move over there and work, get healthcare, be part of the startup scene, get funded.

With Appsterdam Mike is starting a movement that will attract many talented developers to the city to work on cool stuff. Not only does Appsterdam offer you help with getting to Amsterdam, but it will suggestions to stay, lists of companies looking for devs, places to hang out and work together and get inspired. It will also, as Mike announced yesterday with Floris van Alkemade from Solid Ventures,  have its own investment fund called the Appsterfund. The Appsterfund isn’t just a fund with money to invest. It is a group of investors that help developers with business plans, coaching, and with a huge network to investment companies in the Netherlands, Europe, and Silicon Valley of course.

Appsterdam isn’t a company, it isn’t a group of people getting paid to do their jobs. It’s a movement. We all are Appsterdam, and that begs the question, what can you do to help Appsterdam?

Well, for one, you can get over here for summer and become part of the Appsterdam summer program (see the site or twitter for more details). Hang out with devs, work on cool ideas, get to know Amsterdam, and decide if you want to work here for a while. Given that each of us has it’s own talents, there are certainly other things you can do. Become a member today, contact the Appsterdam movement and start helping out. That’s all there is to it.

What am I going to do you ask? A good question! Yesterday I got to be on stage as well and I announced the launch of the Appsterdam Zwapp channel. I call upon all developers to get into contact with me to become part of that channel. I have written a separate blog post about the Appsterdam Zwapp channel here, which explains in more detail how this can help developers to promote their apps and get into contact with the Zwapp passionate app lover community.

Lets make Amsterdam the best App Developing capital in the world together. Go Appsterdam!!

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Zwapp uses Custom URL schemes (amongst other things) to help a user detect apps on his device and fill his app profile as soon as he joins Zwapp. The more Custom URL Schemes we have, the better our app detection works. And here lies a weakness of such a process.

There are an unknown number of apps that use Custom URL Schemes for inter-app communication purposes. As a user we benefit from that ability. At the same time there isn’t a single online source available that lists every custom URL scheme that exists.

We know that a lot of iOS developers utilize Custom URL schemes to innovate on inter-app communication, to detect apps, or whatever purpose. We want to help the hacker community, and our users, by creating the largest public inline resource for Custom URL schemes.

As of today we are launching a new website called OneMillionAppSchemes. We are calling all developers and in general Mac users to visit that site and run a scanner that will scan your iTunes library for Custom URL Schemes. The scan result is uploaded to the site and then freely accesible for the developer community.

To ensure that it is clear that we do not touch nor use private data we are also open-sourcing the code for the scanner. You can check out and download the source code, and use it for your own development purposes.

We hope you will help us build this incredible useful online resource and visit www.onemillionappschemes.com . The developer community and the Zwapp team thank you for your contribution and we will repay you with better apps!

Please note that the great folks at GigaOM have written an excellent post about Zwapp here!

I followed the Apple WWDC 2011 conference yesterday via the live blogging service of Engadget and Twitter (wasn’t in SF at the time). You can find an overview of all things announced here. The expectations were high upfront. Everyone seems to expect no less than a new miracle from Steve Jobs and his company. I thought it was pretty amazing that he took the stand, that’s a miracle in itself and it never ceases to amaze me that he is still going strong despite the disease he is fighting.

Wrt the message, I don’t think anyone heard real miracles. The tech blogs predicted most of the stuff announced and Apple didn’t announce any new hardware. Because of this it seems the Tech press is less impressed. I guess it takes an announcement of the size of the iPhone or iPad to get the crowd excited. I am betting that Apple will not be able to reach that excitement in the coming years as the iPhone was such a radical shift in  mobile thinking. You don’t shake up markets like that every year. Everything done after that is logical evolution, and certainly not the revolution the iPhone and iOS brought.

Still, Apple is a company that continuously impresses everyone and I believe it has to do with a uniqueness that separates Apple from everyone else. It isn’t just their exceptional design, creativity or feel for simplicity. It seems to me that Apple is one of a very few companies that successfully integrated development of beautiful and unique hardware with powerful and well designed software. The WWDC  2011 keynote seems like a software catch up to me. After delivering the iPhone and the iPad to the world it was now time to upgrade iOS and Lion and show the world how to integrate all that slick hardware with a unique software platform and the iCloud.

While the tech press may not be super-duper impressed, pampered with cool technology as they are, I feel Apple delivered a platform that integrates hardware, software and services (apps) exceptionally well. It is an amazing accomplishment that will trigger developers to go the extra mile and come up with new innovations no one had thought of before.

There was also some sentiment about Apple taking developers out of business by integrating core functionality from their apps directly into iOS. I doubt any of them were really surprised by the move. Apple has made iOS more complete by this integration and it makes sense to do so. It sucks if it means your app may go out of business, but from Apple’s point of view it is a logical step.

There was the inevitable comparison with Google’s Android (Apple’s new notification center is just like Android’s), although Gruber notes that the biggest difference between Apple and Google is that Apple has chosen the path fo native apps while Google has chosen the browser to be the center of the earth. It sounds like Gruber feels Apple has made the right choice (he definitely likes Apple over Google). I feel that the choice between native and browser will diminish over time. iOS 5 is not the competitive advantage that Apple hold over Google.

The real competitive advantage  is that Apple has a complete, deeply integrated ecology that encompasses both hardware, software, services (apps)  and a huge, profitable market that currently puts them on top of everyone else.

I would still not rule out Google, nor Android, simply because at some point Android will overtake iOS in numbers, not by a small bit, but by a huge factor. Scale always has a way to attract innovation, despite the fact that Android is not half as complete as iOS. It lacks great hardware, super software and a (for developers) profitable market. But scale makes up for a lot of these things, and Android is bound to win the scale game. And that is great news. Apple might not have gone this far, if it didn’t feel the heat of Android.

Funny enough, Microsoft may have understood this even a little better than Google and devised a strategy that involves both hardware (Nokia) and software (WP7). I somehow don’t believe they will pull it off though. It’s too late. Nokia doesn’t have the sexiest hardware anymore, and I doubt that they will catch up anymore. They will build a cool platform together but they might just lose the scale game.

Jobs, indirectly, tells the world that his platform is so much better than Google’s, and because he does that, consumers will profit. Let Apple and Google fight each other in Mobile, and we will all benefit.

For me and my company Zwapp the keynote yesterday was good news. A new platform with new opportunities arises. I’ve already claimed a few domain names because yesterday’s keynote immediately triggered a creative process with me, showing us new opportunities to make a difference. We’ll be building cool stuff on iOS 5 but I can already say that Android will not be forgotten.

Way to go Apple!

Yesterday we finally saw the efforts of my team come alive when first TechCrunch, and then Hacker News picked up the story about Zwapp. We went from zero traffic on our site to a huge spike with thousands of people reading the post and looking at/trying Zwapp. The nr of retweets about Zwapp is nearly impossible to follow for us   . It still amazes me that TC and Hacker News have such a deep impact on visibility!

http://www.zwapp.com

Zwapp is born out of a (personal) frustration that the current app stores (both Apple’s and Google’s) are becoming so big that it is nearly impossible to find apps that are relevant to me. It seems to be a common issue, as every time when I meet friends we put our phones on the table and we start comparing apps together. Zwapp is just that. Instead of providing you access to a list of hundreds of thousands of apps via a market, Zwapp lets you create your own little App Market and share that with your friends.

Zwapp tries to detect your apps on your device, and builds up a profile for you. With Instagrammish simplicity (we love that app) you can connect with friends on Facebook and Twitter and share your apps with them.  You can discover new apps via your friends and via our live (Facebook-like) feed that shows you all the apps your friends are working with now.

I met Robert Scoble yesterday at TNW 2011 conference and he immediately gave our servers a hard time when he started connecting with his thousands of followers. As we are still small, he didn’t find a lot of friends to connect with yet, but that will improve over time. BTW, Zwapp extends to the web, so you can see and share apps there too. Check out @scobleizer’s profile here, and here is mine too.

We’re really happy with the coverage and the fun people seem to have looking around each others apps and sharing cool ones. If you want to give it a try then visit our web site here, or pick up the app from iTunes.

Let me know what you think!

They are both right and wrong of course. Google is open, but not half as open as it should be. Its fragmented, but not as fragmented as it could have been. Apple is integrated, but not nearly as integrated as you would expect.

But all of this is just tech talk. I could spend hours analyzing these statements and proving them right or wrong with technical details. My company builds a mobile platform for app developers and we develop for both Android and iOS. Both platforms have their charms as well as things that drive you nuts.

Some people actually take the time to do the analysis anyways (See this post on Joe Hewitt’s analysis of ‘open’). The debate is interesting, I’ve written a lot about the open versus closed platforms myself in the past, but I think it is really a theoretical exercise for the tech community at this time.

To me only 2 things matter at this point:

1. Are developers willing to develop on the platform?

2. Do users buy the platform?

The answer to these questions will define the outcome of the battle between these two formidable companies.

My take on this is that Apple will continue to do what it does best, build beautiful top quality products. They will continue to dominate a certain market share, but they will move towards the high-end of the market soon. This is their natural position imo. Apple was never a low-cost, low-end consumer company. Apple products breathe quality and finish, and you need to pay top dollar for it.

Google on the other hand will continue to work on a low-cost, free, reasonably open OS that will lack a bit of the polish of iOS. The lack of polish however will matter less and less as their OS is rolled out on a huge nr of handsets and Google services are deeply integrated into it. Android will continue its strong growth and will dominate the mobile OS market. There isn’t anything Apple can do about that.

To be honest, I doubt in the end Jobs is after the entire market. People want diversity. If everyone owns an iPhone 4 or iPad then the experience becomes mediocre. Apple should and will not let that happen . There are huge revenues profits to be made in the top end of the market.

My advice to Jobs (if he needs any) would be to continue to set the tone in the innovation of handsets and beautiful products. Forget trying to be the biggest. It doesn’t suit you and in the end will be the downfall of the top quality you produce now. Quality will give you the market share that belongs to you.

My advice to Google would be to stop comparing yourself to iOS and Apple all the time. Forget about it, your market is and should be a different one. Instead, solve the operator issues and get everyone to adopt to the latest versions of Android. Focus on the user experience and the app market. Make things easy for developers and users. That strategy will bring you mass market domination which is what Google should be all about.

For me the iPad has a couple of huge advantages and several important drawbacks.

The good
1. It’s easy to carry around due to its light weight and incredible long battery use
2. The screen is great, no retina, but still great
3. Any task that requires little input is perfect for the iPad. Playing a game, reading browsing, searching, watching a video, browsing through photos, it works great on the iPad
4. It is a social computer, unlike any other. By social I don’t mean the ‘hey I can connect to my friends online’ kind of social. I mean it is nearly impossible to use your iPad without anyone sitting next to you to see and interact with what you are doing. It replaces the TV for my kids most of the time now.

The bad
1. Entering stuff is a pain in the ass for me. Sure I can type in landscape mode. But it isn’t as good as having a physical keyboard with tactile feedback. The keyboard is a bit too small, but the lack of tactile kills it for me.
2. Selections, replacements, copying, pasting, etc. are usable, but thats about it. Not having a cursor or an alternative can make life hard. I am writing this post using the iPad and I’ve added only one link. It is just too much of a pain to accomplish the task.
3. Touch simply isn’t very accurate. There are times when I need to be accurate (click in something small) and it irritates having to zoom and then select all the time

The ugly
1. Only one word: KeyNote. My initial enthusiasm “wow, this looks cool” was instantly blown to pieces when I actually tried to create a presentation with it. It blows, completely! And I mean everything. Selection is undoable, selecting multiple items impossible. Manipulation looks cool using your fingers, but it just isn’t accurate enough. Apple went a long way to hide menu options available on MacOS on the iPad, and they have done such a poor job at it with KeyNote that I find it hard to believe it got approved in the app store. So much for the “Apple approval process leading to high quality apps”. I could go on for ever here, just take my word for it. Don’t waste your money on the iPad version of KeyNote.

The iPad isn’t revolutionary in every way. It is by all means one of the best social computing devices I’ve owned in a while, apart from the Wii
But for the rest, it’s just not ready to be used professionally yet. Removing complexity, the touch interface, the lack of accuracy and the infancy the UI is in.

Don’t get me wrong. I think Apple went further than we could have imagined or asked for. But it isn’t there yet. And until we find a way to deal with the issues, the iPad will be nothing more (or less) than the perfect social computing device it is now.

It’s a crap title for a pretty lame article. Lamenting something is dead is very typical for tech media blogs and companies. A post either starts to claim something is dead or hot, in or out, right or wrong, black or white. It has the scent of  trying to maximize traffic to the article on the Wired website, which is pretty ironic given the bold statement in it claiming that the web is dead.

I’m not going to bother analyzing and responding to everything in the post. Dave Winer has a nice list describing why the web is still very important (I love his point about Steve Jobs not having to approve anything we say on the web ). Gruber has an even shorter post about the quality of the Wired article and immediately nominates it for one of the worst Wired stories. And at Boing Boing it is noted that the presented data set doesn’t take into account that overall traffic has exploded.

One thing I did notice. The article on the Wired website is extremely hard to read for me. Try reading the article and not get lost somewhere. It’s probably “optimized” for apps. The web isn’t dead, but the Wired website will soon be “no longer needed”.

I’ve noticed that VC’s all seem to take a different stance on the process. There are those that make it difficult for you to get into a real meeting with them. Asking tough questions up front, not providing much information themselves. Those are the easy ones. If investing a tiny bit of time to talk is too much, then you’re not the investor I’m looking for. This is completely opposite from practice a few years ago. There is definitely more awareness with founders and investors that the power in their relationship needs balance for it to work.

There are those that gladly invite you to a first meeting simply because you ask them. In most cases I suspect it’s because they know me and have seen the things I’ve done in the past. A natural curiosity ‘what’s he up too this time’.  Such meetings are always great. You are bound to receive honest feedback and possibly more if needed.

And today I received a message from a high-profile investor I contacted earlier this week and highly respect (Not gonna tell you who, figure that one out for yourself). He turned down my request to meet up because he’s invested in a possible competitor that is trying to accomplish something similar to our strategy. His words, ‘Probably too close for your comfort or mine’. I thought about that for a while and felt that was a pretty amazing response.

He could have done at least one of 3 things.

a. Ignore my request

b. Set up a meeting without explaining that he’d already invested in a possible competitor and then learn more about our strategy

c. Do the decent thing and decline with an explanation why

By choosing option c) he accomplished several things with me. First of all, he gained a huge amount of respect (which he already had) for being direct and open about his choice not to meet up. He chose not to discuss our strategy with me, I assume because he doesn’t want to get into a position where he could learn things from us that could benefit his investment (or vice versa). That’s an interesting choice for someone making his living with investments in companies like ours. I find that very honest and to me that proves that this investor is a decent person.

As a result of this I already know that I could easily trust such an investor. I will continue and try to build a great company, and I’m sure we will encounter this investor and the possible competitor again. I’m sure that as of today they will be watching us too, which is a good thing imo. Who knows, at some point there could be valid reasons to see if we could strengthen each other.

Today I’ve seen something that is important to me in the startup world.  Not all investors are in it for the short-term win. If you ever get into a position that you can pick an investor to work with, then look for those qualities. There are lots of things you might be looking for in an investor, besides money. And being honest, straightforward and decent are definitely trustworthy characteristics.