Posted on June 20, 2009 by Richard Ziade

Readability – Now Available In Three Delicious Flavors

Our popular Arc90 lab experiment, Readability, original built in plain ol' Javascript (open source and available here) has been ported to other programming languages as well.

Nirmal Patel ported Readability to Python (source here). It powers his ridiculously sweet Hack et al, a full-content RSS view of articles pointed to by Hacker News. Yesterday, we got word from Keyvan Minoukadeh that he's ported Readability to PHP.

If anyone else has built their own flavor of Readability, be sure to let us know by emailing us or pinging us on Twitter at @arc90.

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Posted on June 18, 2009 by Kamni Khan

Wi-Fi In the Sky

As a frequent traveler, I often use flight time to catch up on everyday things. I tend to stuff my carry-on bag with magazines, a book, my journal and, if I'm bringing my laptop, the most recent DVDs from my Netflix queue. If I don't open any of the listed items, it's probably because I turned up the music on my iPod to take a nap.

I've become accustomed to sitting down, buckling up and disconnecting from the world. When the airplane doors close, electronic devices are turned off so you can't check the weather at your destination, log onto Facebook or respond to E-mails.

Continue reading Wi-Fi In the Sky »

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Posted on June 17, 2009 by Kamni Khan

Meet Michael Rehse

Title: Developer

Joined Arc90 in: August 2008

My most prized possession: My bag. I've had it since high school.

While growing up in Redmond, WA-the home of Microsoft Corp-it was almost impossible for Michael Rehse to avoid pursuing a career in technology. Many of the people around him, including family members and even the next door neighbor, were immersed in different programming languages. His dad, a consultant for technology companies, even studied Fortran as a foreign language at Ohio University. Michael doubts that this classification would hold water in today's world.

"You can't really call it a 'conversation' since computers are deterministic automatons," Michael said. "Programming languages have many of the same characteristics as regular spoken languages, but they are fundamentally different because they are used only as commands; they are not used to speak to a sentient being."

Continue reading Meet Michael Rehse »

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Posted on June 3, 2009 by Josh Diehl

The Secret Ingredient Behind TBUZZ

Arc90 has recently had a run of success with our lab projects.  First, Readability hit the net and went absolutely berserk.  Seemingly overnight there were dozens of tweets and links to it.  Most recently we released TBUZZ and once again Arc90 enjoyed a big jump in attention.  You may already know that both projects were the brainchildren of Arc90 founder Rich Ziade.  He has an uncanny knack for seeing unfilled needs in online life and dreaming up the right solution.  As Readability and TBUZZ were released and started to "blow up" (as the kids say), it's been fun to tease him at lunch about his new rock star status.  "Mobbed by Readability fans for autograph requests yet?"  He's usually a good sport about it.

What you probably don't know is how Rich's ideas went from a flash of inspiration to full-featured, robust software.  A lot of was due to the development team; they certainly deserve mounds of credit for producing apps that work great and also fit into a bookmarklet.  In the case of TBUZZ we had another contributing factor.  The "secret" ingredient was a bit of eating-your-own-dog-food goodness: we used our own product, Kindling. 

For those who don't know, Kindling is an idea collaboration web application that helps organizations gather and refine ideas from its members.  Submitting, voting, commenting, and moderating ideas are are all key aspects of Kindling.  One of the features of the upcoming release is the ability to create a Room, basically a separate space in Kindling for discussing ideas focused on a particular theme.  As soon as the alpha version of TBUZZ was released internally to Arc employees the feedback began, mostly through emails to Rich and the dev team.  It quickly became apparent that there was a lot of duplication of effort going on, so we created a TBUZZ room in Kindling and directed everyone to submit their feedback there. 



This move proved key.  By the end of the day several important changes to TBUZZ had been submitted, refined, and approved.  As a result of using Kindling, we were able to harness the creativity and expertise of the entire Arc team to turn TBUZZ from a good implementation into a great one, all in the course of an afternoon.

If you'd like to learn more about Kindling check out www.kindlingapp.com.

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Posted on May 28, 2009 by Kamni Khan

Meet Chris LoSacco

Title: Partner

Joined Arc90 in: May 2006

Most people don't know that: I'm colorblind.

If some of Chris LoSacco's co-workers are still trying to figure out why he only keeps a stack of Starbucks napkins on his desk, he has a valid explanation.

"I like things to be minimal," he said. "In college, my desk was very organized; I only had a Post-it dispenser. My roommate would throw a single Post-it into the garbage just to get to me."

Continue reading Meet Chris LoSacco »

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Posted on May 22, 2009 by Kamni Khan

What are you doing this summer?

Are you a kick-ass web designer with exemplary visual and interaction design skills? Are you passionate about technology? Do you want to spend your summer working with the great minds behind Kindling and Readability?

Arc90 is looking for you!

We're looking to hire a summer intern who goes beyond possessing the technical skills. At Arc90, we have a design-driven approach to development and a focus on prototyping first; we believe that software is always better when you can interact with it.

We also like to brainstorm. You should be prepared for meetings where you put on your thinking cap, imagine the user experience and then defend your viewpoint to others.

Your work load might include client or internal product work. We will always encourage your contributions to the Arc90 Lab.

The basics:

• The internship runs from the beginning of June until the end of August. We are also looking to fill this role for a long term.

• It's a paid internship-you can either save money for books for the Fall semester or contribute to your beer fund.

• You will have access to the fully-stocked kitchen where you can make as many peanut butter and banana sandwiches as your heart desires.

• We don't have a dress code. If you wear a suit, we will probably make fun of you.

• There is an eclectic mixture of people at Arc90. Some of your future co-workers are motorcycle enthusiasts, foodies, musicians, and video game developers. You can root for the Mets or the Yankees-somebody will be there to defend you.

If you're not won over yet, you can read about the experiences of a former Arc90 intern.

Now does this sound like the kind of place where you would want to work?

Send your resume and portfolio to contact@arc90.com.

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Posted on May 13, 2009 by Kamni Khan

Meet Sima Shimansky

Title: RIA Developer

Joined Arc90 in: July 2006

My most prized possession: Lila. If babies could be considered possessions . . .

Like others in her generation, Sima Shimansky grew up imagining a range of career possibilities. The Brooklyn, NY, native thought about pursuing jobs in industrial psychology, chemistry and law. Before she ventured into a career in technology, there was even a time when Arc90's RIA Developer considered joining the FBI.

"I went to the FBI offices downtown," she recalled. "I was on a mission but I didn't qualify to be an agent. I wasn't old enough and I needed an advanced degree."

Continue reading Meet Sima Shimansky »

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Posted on May 11, 2009 by Richard Ziade

Introducing: TBUZZ!

We're big fans of Twitter here at Arc90. We use it to share choice quotes or just talk about whatever. Hell, there are even people out there wiring Twitter up to their ovens.

Of course, one of the most popular uses of Twitter is to share a link to a Web page. To that end, we wanted a tool that provided a dead simple way to share a link out via Twitter while surfing the Web.

So we got to thinking: "Wouldn't it be cool to tweet a page in just a few clicks? Also, wouldn't it be cool to see what others are saying about the page on Twitter?" After the success of Readability, we figured we'd dust off our mad bookmarklet skillz (Firefox extensions are nice, but we wanted everybody to join the fun) and take a crack at coming up with something cool.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and you've got TBUZZ:

We've been using TBUZZ within Arc90 for a few days now and it's a lot of fun. We've found it's the easiest way to tweet about a link you've come across. It's also a really cool way to chat with others about the page you're staring at - through Twitter. It's sort of like dropping a comment thread onto every Web page in existence.

You can install TBUZZ in just a few seconds by visiting:

http://tbuzz.arc90.com

If you've got any feedback, thoughts (or glowing reviews) of TBUZZ, be sure to include them in the comments below.

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Posted on May 7, 2009 by Tim Meaney

My Type of E-Book

I'm a voracious reader, of analog books, magazines and hypermedia. When I want to focus on a particular topic and shut out the world, there's nothing like a long form paper book: no links, no ads, no comments, no feeling that I'm missing better content somewhere else, no quick check of Twitter or to see what the weather will be tomorrow. I have exactly no desire to get an e-book reader and mess with this balance - the gravitational pull of hypermedia is too strong for me.

My aversion to e-books aside, I've recently added a digital element to my reading. I'm nearly through Gettysburg - A Testing of Courage, and during the course of reading it have constructed a full mental image of the battle. The landscape and geography in and around Gettysburg, of course, is a major character in the narrative. After reading about Culp's and Cemetery Hills, Big and Little Round Top, I just had to see them. Some searching, viewing of maps and in particular a browsing around of the flickr tag "gettysburg" and I had some amazing 'real' images to supplement those of my mind's eye.

Have you been supplementing your reading, particularly of non-fiction, with the web? I'm not sure why it took me so long to bring these two [favorite] activities together, perhaps it's been my strong separation of analog and digital reading. I think I'll soften that stance a bit.

Note: the above image is of Little Round Top, one of the most important places in America's history. Thanks to Candice for giving me permission to use this image.

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Posted on May 6, 2009 by Tim Meaney

History Lesson

It took me almost a year, and a week off of work, to catch up on reading and finally get to Vanity Fair's piece: How the Web Was Won: An Oral History of the Internet. And while I'm sure your reading list is as backed-up as mine is (well, was!), if you're in this industry you really should read it. It's a first-person account by many of the major players of the invention of the Internet and the World Wide Web.

But in case you don't, here's a few choice quotes:

Paul Baran - inventor of packet switching (breaking up data into packets to reassemble on the other side):

I get credit for a lot of things I didn't do. I just did a little piece on packet switching and I get blamed for the whole goddamned Internet, you know? Technology reaches a certain ripeness and the pieces are available and the need is there and the economics look good - it's going to get invented by somebody.

On the decision by the Government to give the building of the hardware Interface Message Processors to Bolt, Beranek & Newman:

In a congratulatory telegram to the company, Senator Edward M. Kennedy referred to I.M.P.'s as "interfaith" message processors.

Leonard Kleinrock - member of the ARPANET Team, on the Internet coming on-line:

September 2, 1969, is when the first I.M.P. was connected to the first host, and that happened at U.C.L.A. We didn't even have a camera or a tape recorder or a written record of that event. I mean, who noticed? Nobody did. Nineteen sixty-nine was quite a year. Man on the moon. Woodstock. Mets won the World Series. Charles Manson starts killing these people here in Los Angeles. And the Internet was born. Well, the first four everybody knew about. Nobody knew about the Internet.

Vint Cerf - co-designers of the TCP protocol on the invention of @ to identify people on a network:

A guy named Ray Tomlinson, at Bolt, Beranek & Newman, figured out a way to cause a file to be transferred from one machine through the Net to another machine and left in a particular location for someone to pick up. He said, I need some symbol that separates the name of the recipient from the machine that the guy's files are on. And so he looked around for what symbols on the keyboard were not already in use, and found the "@" sign. It was a tremendous invention.

Marc Andreessen on creating the first browser:

It sounds obvious in retrospect, but at the time, that was an original idea. When we were working on Mosaic during Christmas break between 1992 and 1993, I went out at like four in the morning to a 7-Eleven to get something to eat, and there was the first issue of Wired on the shelf. I bought it. In it there's all this science-fiction stuff. The Internet's not mentioned. Even in Wired.

Jeff Bezos on early Amazon:

When we launched, we launched with over a million titles. There were countless snags. One of my friends figured out that you could order a negative quantity of books. And we would credit your credit card and then, I guess, wait for you to deliver the books to us. We fixed that one very quickly.

...and so on - the Morris Worm, The Browser Wars, the first e-mail used in a legal case (Jon Poindexter in Iran Contra) - read it. This history is compelling and important.

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