Pretty graphs at Simply Hired:
* Interesting how Ruby, Python and PHP so closely track each other
* I would have never guessed how close JS and C# are, especially given that one has basically no vender and really spotty implementations while the other has a massive vendor and two pretty good implementations
Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share:
REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 1 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion.
So everyone’s probably gonna spazz out on this one. Understandably so — in Flickr, Upcoming and del.icio.us you’ve got three of the most trusted and loved sites out in the nerdwebsphere. In addition, there’s a lot of respected people, both in web development and open source, at Yahoo. Joining Microsoft, an organization that has minimal respect in the web development and open source communities, would reduce those people’s cred right out of the gate.
But, were this bid successful, here’s what I hope would happen. Microsoft uses it as an opportunity to rebuild themselves organizationally. They bury the hatchet with open source and open up the development of IE. Yahoo continues building apps like Flickr and del.icio.us like they always have. A rewrite on .NET technologies isn’t imposed like it was on Hotmail. In the end, Microsoft becomes an organization where closed source, proprietary development can flourish with open source, standards-based processes.
This is just wild guessing on my part. That said, if you look at Microsoft, its clear they are having major execution problems. Xbox is the only group that is widely successful and even they have hardware problems. All the other groups are missing timelines and customer/developer expectations. Just like Yahoo was before they picked up Flickr, del.icio.us, Upcoming, etc.
If Yahoo can make acquisitions to rebuild their culture, perhaps Microsoft can too.
A few weeks ago, Dan Cederholm, of Simple Bits fame, launched Foamee. Foamee lets you track who you owe beers to. The twist? You manage your beer debt via Twitter. Its a small little app. It only does one thing. Its got a fantastic entry-point. In other words, its really cool.
Erik Kastner reminded me of his app Band Named this week. It finally clicked why its cool this time. Games like Guitar Hero III and Rock Band want you to name your ethereal band. Band Named is a great place to post ideas for said names. The neat thing about Erik’s app is that you can sign in via OpenID (+1) and then fetch your avatar from Flickr or Twitter (FTW). The entry of new band names is easy. And its fun!
I hope this turns into a trend-buzz-meme thing. The world needs more apps that aim to just help you out now and then, not ones that want to become your task management, knowledge capture workflow mega-gizmo-jobby. Better yet, apps that are loosely coupled via infrastructure you’re already using (Flickr, Twitter, OpenID, etc.) taste great.
Plus, these little efforts needn’t result in all-pain, no gain. Dan probably can’t support himself on it, but I bet any money made from Foamee merch will come in handy. Likewise, there are lots of things you could do with something like Band Named, though I don’t know if Erik’s going to take it that direction.
So, call to action: hatch up some idea. Make sure its a little crazy. If pitching it to a VC would get you laughed out of the room, you’re on the right track. If you think the commenters on TechCrunch would skewer you, you’re getting even warmer. Think Uncov would just laugh and point? You’ve probably hit the jackpot. Now: go out, build the sucker and figure out how to have fun with it.
I’ll leave you with this: its all about getting to the point where you’re making dough and having fun.
Adam Keys is typing 