Keep the byte.

Shared Library with iPhoto and Lightroom

2009-08-08T18:01:00.006+02:00

I recently started using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 for advanced RAW photo editing while using Apple iPhoto 09 for quick edits and as main library to keep everything organized.

By default, Lightroom can't access to original photos managed by iPhoto, because they are within a bundle. I found a nice way to workaround this limitation and allow iPhoto and Lightroom work of the same library.

Short Description: Create a symbolic link (symlink) in Pictures to the iPhoto Library "Originals" folder.

Step-by-step:

1. Install SymbolicLinker from Nick Zitzmann
2. Use the Finder and go to /Pictures/iPhoto Library
3. on the file - use context menu action "Show Package Contents"
4. Go to "Originals" folder and use the "Make Symbolic Link" action in More
5. Move the Symbolic Link into /Pictures (and rename if you like)
6. Start Lightroom and use the "Import Photos from Disk..."
7. Navigate to the Symbolic Link
8. Use "Add photos to catalog without moving" for file handling drop-down (should be default)

Credits: Moving Your Images From iPhoto to Lightroom from Gene McCullagh. He is using an "Alias" and recommends to copy the files - but that duplicates all photos.

On creating space to innovate

2008-10-05T01:43:00.003+02:00

People close to me know - one topic I like to contemplate about is: how to create space for people to be efficient and innovative (personally and in a team setup). I shared some stuff about local.ch here and here.

The big part of the "create space" task in a corporate environment is in the responsibility of the management. It struck me reading the comments on the majority take over of search.ch by the publisher tamedia.

Myself being involved in a few mergers and ownership take-overs - had to learn how not to do it. One the buyer was clueless and did not know what to do with the acquired technology. Another was "collateral damage" - being part of a bigger deal - and ending up with an internal competition the management did not wanted to "solve" (with the end-effect that both were put to rest). Again another was to deliberately create an internal competition to solve the innovators dilema (sort of) and thereby crunched the potential.

Back to search.ch

It looks like the task to create space for the acquired team - to serve the new owner in its intrest - went wrong. At least one side did not felt comfortable with the setup. Actually funny - the new owner is a media company and publisher - they should know better how to do audience targeted communication?

Arguably, there are various management styles that lead to successful fulfillment of a goal. Each style requires the appropriate workforce (choosing the right people for the setup). In time of a merger - a clash of different styles - most probably end up in a reduction of value of the assets acquired. (I'm sure there are also styles that enrich each other - example?).

What are the options? Don't do the acquisition if it doesn't match? Keep the acquired team independent?

Well.. if there is no straight way from A to B - add as many "via points" as necessary so the involved parties feel comfortable executing in their full potential along the way. Sounds easy right? It's not - I know.

I wish more people would invest more energy in "creating spaces" for people/teams with high potential. I'm not talking about letting them do "what" they want - but let them do it "the way" they want.

Mobile Public Transport Routing - GottaGo for iPhone

2008-09-24T08:36:00.007+02:00

In March 2008 I spend some time talking about the opportunities of open transit data - making public transport better discoverable. By that time - one of the ideas I was throwing around was the "urban nomad compass". A mobile phone based tool that can instantly show me the public transport connections from my current location (via GPS) and my next destination.

A lot has happend since then - the tools are now available:

First was SBB to release it's own NaviGo. I only did a short test - but I was disappointed as they tried to solve too many use cases. And the feature I use most is hidden behind a lot of clicks.

Then Google added the public transport routing into the Google Maps for Mobile. It's the coolest implementation - as it is map-based - but lacks public transport data coverage throughout whole Switzerland. Note that the built-in version in the Apple iPhone can't do it - yet.

The most useful implementation (for me) - is GottaGo. An Apple iPhone exclusive application that does exactly this. Get my location - enter destination - hit GottaGo - and run.

Today a new release of GottaGo has been made available in the App Store. To install search for "GottaGo" on the iPhone App Store and pick the one with the ! at the end - or via iTunes follow this link: http://liip.to/gottago. I had the opportunity to put the new release into real-life test in the last few weeks. I'm pleased with the result.

Last Saturday I discovered new ways navigating inside Basel. Although I'm familiar with the trams and buses - finding the fastest public transport connection between me and my destination - using multi-hop connection with tram and bus - is not something ordinary people can do without help of such a tool. (I know there are people knowing the whole schedule in their brain - but I have other hobbies).

But what is the difference between the mobile timetable and GottaGo? 2 things:

you don't have to provide your departure station. Sometimes it's faster to walk 5min to another bus stop - instead of taking the tram just near-by! The "normal" timetable don't tell you that.
it's instant - having my favorites/history present - some tabs with your finger - and run

Credits fly out to Marc - the team at Liip for supporting the efforts.

Usability: hear people swearing in front of your web site

2008-09-16T23:15:00.004+02:00

I made a bold statement - that not being able to listen to your visitors cursing in front of your web site - would be an innovation killer.

In my top list I wrote:

Wisdom of the crowds applied to your web site usability. You would be surprised how much insights you would win when you could listen to them. Simple trick: add a shout box into the footer. Keep track of page, browser, screen resolution, shout and start learning! Much more could be done here..

Yoan added as comment:

About the “wisdom of crowd” applied to your website, the first rule of usability is: “Don't Listen to Users”

Fair enough. Let me share my experiment with doing exactly this.

There is a fundamental difference between asking somebody "what do you like?" vs. catching somebody in affect ranting / or asking themselves questions while using a web site for real (not testing!). The expression of joy or frustration while doing real use cases - or trying to accomplish a goal - is imho the most valuable feedback.

How to get it? At local.ch we added a shout box into the footer of the page:

We keep track of every shout including the context (page, browser, screen-size). And use this information for various purposes. But - what kind of "cursing" do we get? How useful is it?

First of all - is a "reality check" - they tell you what sucks. Be careful with these - only make judgments if you have enough data and context to back-up your decision to change something.

Grouping comments by page type allows you to spot patterns in the questions/comments. You can try different implementations (things as little as naming of a button) to see how the feedback/comments are changing over time.

People will tell you what they expect to see (they try to achieve) - without you asking them! This is a great source of inspiration to innovate on. Be it incremental improvements - or crazy ideas (there are geniuses out there - believe me).

Do people except answers? Am I going to be busy answering questions instead of coding? My original ideal of the "shout box" do not encourage people to enter their e-mail. At local.ch we tried various versions of the box - the current implementation is bigger (more text and comment about e-mail). In this case you get more people requesting information via this form - what kind of defeats the purpose.

And yes.. it can be fun too. It's interesting to see how off-topic or just plain clueless people can be.. sometimes I'm asking myself if they do that deliberately.

Disclaimer: Creating a web site that is good usable requires more than "listing to swearing". Consult your favorite usability agency to implement an user-centric interaction design.

Top innovation killers (for web developers)

2008-09-14T19:30:00.013+02:00

Time for some ranting and finger-pointing. But are these problems not opportunities?

make sure your fancy webapp keeps working on IE6

Not sure how much of an innovation killer - but for sure the top cost causer in web development. Add up all hours you need to fiddle around with CSS and JS hacking - and send the bill to Microsoft. I'm certain it would be cheaper for Microsoft to pay the necessary work to remove the hurdles inside enterprises, so they can update to a recent browser - vs. paying all your IE6 hacking bills? Anybody did the math?

Yes - Internet Explorer 6 has still around 25% market share (that is as much as Firefox and Safari together!)

send SMS worldwide (to a decent price)

Beyond simplicity - the success of Twitter is thanks to the clever use of SMS to keep users involved. There is one problem with SMS - the cost for sending them to your international users. Twitter had to shut-down the service for Europe - in process to negotiate prices with the telcos. Aren't there businesses specialized in SMS gateways with wholesale prices for worldwide usage?

We would see a lot more websites using SMS as "remote command line" to keep users updated and involved.

building Webapps like we did Microsoft Access projects in 1997

Imagine you have a meeting with your client/product manager - while talking about the wireframes, functional design and change requests - you can just roughly do them and instantly see the result to iterate with feedback. Yes - I did that back in 1997 (with MS Access). It's hard to find people today that can do that using the web technology stack. Am I missing something? (True - I'm impressed by the Django admin-forms)

location awareness in mobile browsers

We will remember 2008 as the year where location awareness came to mobile phones (Assisted GPS, Loki and other techniques made it possible). But wait! I'm a web developer and I can't get the users location from the handset. Why is it again Google that gets the stuff done? Hello Nokia? Sony Ericsson? Apple?

Why would I want location? Because websites should be able to adapt to my current location. You don't get it? Buy yourself an iPhone and get a treat with location-based apps.

hear when people are swearing in front of your site

Wisdom of the crowds applied to your web site usability. You would be surprised how much insights you would win when you could listen to them. Simple trick: add a shout box into the footer. Keep track of page, browser, screen resolution, shout and start learning! Much more could be done here.. (Read more on how to catch in-front-of-website-swearing)

micro-billing never took off

Paypal helped a lot. But it's not efficient to transfer small amounts of money. I find it interesting to see how Amazon is handling it's Webservices pricing - a model for the future? But then again - it kind of works with "free".

The HTTP spec has a return code 402 - Payment Required. -> "This code is reserved for future use."

Update September 16th:

Comment on reddit: "Pretty shitty list."

Fair enough. Come up with your own list of guesses why for example:

your company has (still) not made its processes transparent to customers over the web (what has that to do with me as web developer? - go figure!)
although you are a talented developer - creating a good web GUI has turned into specialist job (and generally takes too long to get done)
you spend more time with software infrastructure than solving your real challenge

It's easier to come up with innovation "enablers" - than with "killers" (aka known unknowns)

on the Architectural Missmatch of Polling Feeds

2008-08-31T11:20:00.003+02:00

Imagine you blog & everybody is reading!

I was - like many - starting to ask questions if the polling feeds concept will scale - the more services and people are starting to use personal aggregators services like Tumblr and FriendFeed. I guess this presentation was a tipping point and call for action - that caused a wide-spread discussion and solution proposals interesting to follow.

I used the opportunity of the BlogCamp Zürich to create a presentation providing an overview of the challenge and explaining some of the possible solutions.

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: rss feeds)

The links/sites mentioned during the presentation

My BlogCamp topic - Breathless polling vs. push updates

2008-08-17T18:08:00.004+02:00

End of August - a Barcamp-style unconference focused on blogging related topics will be held in Zürichs Technopark. More information and sign-up at blogcamp.ch. Although the conference agenda is only made on the day of the event - some people choose to pre-announce the topic they want to talk about. Check the (Un)agenda.

Last year I talked about the Geoweb.

This time I going to contemplate about the push vs. poll concept. The meltdown of Twitter, the aggregation galore of Friendfeed et al and the iPhone "push" features revived discussion if the breathless polling for updates is the right way forward.

Todays web architecture (HTTP, HTML) already offers simple techniques to reduce polling and provide near-realtime updates. Newer concepts have emerged - one example being Comet. I plan to provide some insight on todays issue - an overview of techniques (simplified - no coding skills required ;-) and show examples in the (micro-)blogging world.

Feel free to join the discussion - see you there.

Lightning talk about Perceived Performance

2008-07-13T23:35:00.002+02:00

Real user performance - when does the user think a website is slow?

My 7min speech at webtuesday explains what perceived performance is - with the progress bar example. Then talks about the social web - how fast writes should be visible to the various users (me vs. friends vs. strangers). At last show some stuff we at local.ch do to measure perceived render time.

Slide showing the social web metric

Movie from the speech

Thanks to Hugo and Corsin for recording the session.

Links mentioned and sources of the information can be found on del.icio.us/keepthebyte/perceivedperformance

From ego searching back in 199x

2008-06-14T18:01:00.003+02:00

Was just going through some old paper stuff.. when I found this on a print out. It must be from my first ego searching activities back in 1997 - searching for sources with my name in the by-that-time small internet. Unfortunately I don't have the URL on the print out.. and Google doesn't have it in the index today.

As I found it well-fitting back then - and sort of still is - here for your amusement:

From an unknown author - a characteristics of the name Cédric:

The name of Cédric creates a stable, responsible nature. It makes you very quick and active but far too intense, and one of your problem is the inability to relax. You are inclined to drive yourself too hard, thus creating tension in the region of the solar plexus, which could cause you to suffer from nervous indigestion or stomach ulcers.

Anyone working under you finds you very demanding but has to admit that you work just as hard as you expect him to. Under this name you would be very independent and work best when you are given free reign to come and go as you please, and when you please, without interference.

This name gives you vision and foresight, which help to make you original and creative in your thinking, and you could do very well in the creative arts or as a cartoonist. By nature you are sceptical and outspoken, especially when pressed or crossed in any way; and if you are not careful to guard your tongue, uncontrolled or caustic speech could be your downfall. You have a restless, seeking nature and a thirst for knowledge that is never satisfied.

To the lazy web: Is there a full text search on archive.org et al?

0 Results - What more do I have to provide? (Part 2)

2008-05-22T23:06:00.002+02:00

Posted part 1 yesterday - talking about people adding more words if a search engine finds 0 results.

Great comment from Adrian:

German guy (0), Crazy T-Shirt (0), Piano Player (1)

0 Result matching all your terms.

Hint: Some of your terms did match entries in our database. Please click on the term to display them.

Showing the result count for each single "term" to visualize that the sum of the terms have no match.

In fact - at local.ch we have a feature we call "guidance" that tries to find possible valid result sets when 0 results are found with the original query - or when bad quality results are found.

try tel.local.ch/q/claudia+meier/ (searching in the wrong field)
try tel.local.ch/q/Giebenach/Hochbauzeichner.html (search in nearby towns)
try tel.local.ch/q/Basel/Rinigungsdienst.html (typo correction)
try tel.local.ch/q/coifeur.html (shows results - and guidance for better results)

but the case in question - an over-specified query - is not handled yet.

A good example - thx Angie for the hint - is how eBay.com is doing it. Try to find tickets for the Counting Crows concert next week in Zürich:

Instead of showing results of the single terms - they try to find successful combinations and presenting the most promising to the user. Looks good - like it.

0 Results - What more do I have to provide?

2008-05-21T22:37:00.002+02:00

We have to admit - there is a difference between people using computers - and those actually understand how computers work. Me - in the later - can't go back and think like somebody from the 1st category. Although I think I can - in fact - I can't.

One thing I had to learn while closely looking at people using local.ch is - if the search engine doesn't find an answer (0 Results), people add more words into the search field. With the "obvious" result - still 0 results. We do provide a hint to the user in this case "Remove search terms. The engine does a AND query with all your terms." but a majority of users don't read advices.

It was until today, that this behaviour was a mystery to me.

It's from conversations between people - when trying to build a context. An example is asking:

A: "Do you remember the German from the party last night?"
B: "Who?"
A: "You know.. they guy with the crazy T-shirt?"
B: "What?"
A: "The one giving the spontaneous piano jam session."
B: "Ahh.. yes - sure - was cool!"

The first two questions provided 0 results.. adding more information to the query end up with the result in the brain of person B.

Make sense right?

The question is .. how to code a search engine that can do that? Or detect this behaviour and change search strategy...

(I'm working on it)

A special thanks to Angie for providing me this insight during her speech at Orbit-iEX this morning. Small wonders...

Barcamp Bodensee - Zwischen Luftschiff und APIs

2008-05-18T20:31:00.002+02:00

Statt in Zürich - dieses Jahr direkt am Bodensee in Friedrichshafen an der Zeppelin University. Über 200 Interessierte werden eine 2-Tages Un-konferenz run um die Themen Web, Software Engineering und Social Informatics gestalten.

Samstag 31. Mai bis 1. Juni 2008 - mehr Infos auf barcampbodensee.mixxt.eu - ja - und nur 2h Zugfahrt von Basel!

Ich werde mich eines meiner Lieblingsthemen widmen - dem Datenaustausch zwischen Websites und dem benutzerfreundlichen Weiterverwenden von Daten im Web/Mobile Browser. Mehr Details dann Vorort. Nachdem ich diesmal fast niemand kenne - wird es speziell interessant werden wie der Barcamp verlaufen wird - und was für Diskussionen und Bekanntschaften sich ergeben.

Doch bei dieser Aussicht kann nix schief gehen :-)

Foto von In dire need of Coffee

Befreit die OeV-Daten - Interne Sicht..

2008-05-12T11:15:00.005+02:00

Als Erstes - vielen Dank für die Kommentare, Posts und Diskussionen auf meine bisherigen Beiträge.

Den SBB-Fahrplan auf anderen Seiten integrieren (von Andreas Hobi)
Befreit die OeV-Daten (von Peter Schär)

Und zum gleichen Thema in Deutschland:

Ein 2.0-Interface für den ÖPNV und die 1.0-Denke der KVB (von Tobias Jordans)

Ich durfte mich vor ein paar Wochen mit Verantwortlichen bei der SBB treffen. Dies im Rahmen eines Meetings zur Zusammenarbeit zwischen local.ch (meinem Arbeitgeber) und der SBB. Bestandteil des Meetings war, welche SBB Daten zu wessen Verwendung zur Verfügung gestellt werden können.

Folgend ein paar Themen und Bemerkungen dazu:

Der Wunsch den Öffentlichen Verkehr besser "entdeckbar" zu machen ist auch bei SBB vorhanden. Im speziellen in Konkurrenz zum Individualverkehr (welcher heute dank erschwinglichen Navigaitonsystemen sehr viel "umgänglicher" geworden ist). Vorbereitungen um besser auf Wünsche von Partnerunternehmen einzugehen, sind am laufen. Ebenfalls die Idee eine Platform/Community zu schaffen, auf welcher Innovation im Bereich ÖV Informationsvernetzung gebündelt und gefördert werden kann.

Datenweitergabe: Die Daten welche im SBB Fahrplan abrufbar sind - werden von den zahlreichen ÖV Unternehmen (KTU = Konzessionierte Transportunternehmen genannt) zur Verfügung stellt. Diese Weitergabe beinhaltet gewisse Rechte was SBB mit den Daten (ungefragt) tun darf (Online Fahrplan, Kursbuch drucken, ...). Einen erweiterten Spielraum - z.B. um diese Daten über XML/APIs weiterzugeben sind abzuklären. Ideal wäre wenn dies generell geregelt wäre - z.B. per Gesetz - so das SBB nicht mit jedem KTU ein Separat-Abkommen verhandeln muss.

"Top-down" Bekenntnis: In Grossfirmen - wie SBB eine ist - sind Entscheide dessen Resultat nicht klar bezifferbar sind, nur schwer durchzusetzen. Zusätzlich schwierig wenn mehrere Abteilungen involviert und der Vorschlag nicht von Oben kommt. Durch den "geschützten" Marktplatz sind ÖV Unternehmen auch nicht im Zugzwang sich in dieser Hinsicht effizienter aufzustellen.

Qualitätsanspruch und Zuverlässigkeit: Werden Daten in andere Websites bzw. Dienste integriert - kann SBB dafür keine "Verantwortung" übernehmen. Doch so auch schon passiert - melden sich die unglücklichen Kunden direkt bei der SBB - obwohl sie die Informationen von einer anderen Website haben. Dies lässt sich reduzieren wenn bei der Gestaltung der Daten APIs/freigaben darauf geachtet wird, dass die eigentlich Logik - um z.B. eine Verbindung zu berechnen - bei der SBB bleibt. Doch mit den heutigen Mitteln (Spider) ist die Fehleranfälligkeit hoch, da der Aufwand diese re-strukturierten Daten aktuelle zu halten ebenfalls hoch ist.

Bis auf Weiteres heisst es "Kursbuch" kopieren, mit Gutem Beispiel vorausgehen und die Konversation weiterführen.

On Horoscope and understanding your DNA

2008-04-20T22:23:00.010+02:00

Where to turn to for personal answers? How predictable is my next move?

It happens on and off that friends are asking for my zodiac to read me the horoscope out of a magazine or newspapers. The fun part of it - in most cases you can twist your thoughts to adapt it to your situation - to make (kind of) sense. That gift of ours - to adapt answers - can be of use, but also fool us into none existing limits.

A lot of (more or less scientific) methodes have been developed to read sources and interpret - to find personal answers. How good do they work? As good as you believe in them?

Reminds me of the "Cause and Effect" scene in Matrix Reloaded:

Now while the controversial methodes found their fans and believers - there is a new way that caught my attention: interpreting your DNA (aka genes).

A scientific and statistical approach - apply generic research on your personal genes - and calculate the odds. Your genes don't change - but research results do over time (they should get more accurate). How good are the answers today? My eye color: "56% chance of brown eyes; 37% chance of green eyes; 7% chance of blue eyes." - green tells me the mirror. Am I lactose intolerance? No, according to my SNP rs4988235. What does rs363050 with genotype AA do for me? "Subjects averaged about three IQ points higher." (compared to Baseline AG)

That reminds me of another movie - Gattaca. While it was futuristic in 1997 - it seems strangely realistic today.

It's going to be interesting to see, what we are going to make out of these answers.. - I'm sure the human thrive to understand will change perception of a lot that is uncertain today.. (for good and bad)

I end with the tagline of Gattaca: There is no gene for the human spirit.

Open Transit Data Movement - Reading up...

2008-03-26T00:29:00.004+01:00

While the discussion about usage of Swiss transit data is mostly happening behind closed doors - other countries started a public conversion. With the goal to make the data openly available - for the "greater good".

A few links worthwhile following up:

Jaap Weel writes: Open transit data is good for transit agencies
Portland TriMed presents learnings with opening up transit data - check out the slide-deck
In Toronto - subject matter experts meet for TransitCamps to share public transport experiences and work on improvement proposals. I like the mantra: “this is not a complaints department, it is a solutions playground” - that is exactly what I have in mind!
Role model: BART is providing open up-to-date GTFS files
Started gathering a screenshot gallery with innovative transit data use in Switzerland - check gallery on Flickr

Fahrplan öffnen - Techniken zur Integration

2008-03-24T12:18:00.007+01:00

Der Offene Brief an die öffentlichen Verkehrsbetriebe erwähnt ein paar Beispiele, wie mit offenen Daten bzw. einfachen Schnittstellen die Entdeckbarkeit von ÖV verbessert werden könnte. Das Ziel ist es, die Verwendung von ÖV zu fördern, indem diese auf Websites im Kontext von Reisetätigkeit präsentiert wird. Weiter sollten Fahrplanauskünfte von Website Betreiber und Website Benutzer einfach weiterverwendet werden können.

Folgend ein paar Techniken welche die Nutzung von öffentlichen Verkehrsdaten verbessern:

Einfach und stabile Links

URLs von Websites findet man in Suchmaschinen, werden in E-Mails verschickt, im Instant Messenger kommuniziert - und oft auch in anderen Websites hinterlegt z.B. in Blog Beiträgen. Gute Links sind kurz, aussagekräftig, jederzeit wiederholbar und stabil (ändern sich auch bei einem Website redesign nicht).

Nicht gut:

fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/dn?seqnr=1&ident=lg.022862216.1206301890&REQ0HafasScrollDir=1

Besser wären (ein paar Beispiele):

von Basel nach Zürich: fahrplan.sbb.ch/q/Basel/Zuerich
von Zuhause ins Geschäft: fahrplan.sbb.ch/q/4057+Basel,Leuengasse+20/8050+Zuerich,Thurgauerstrasse+40
von hier (Handy mit GPS) ins Geschäft: fahrplan.sbb.ch/q/47.566,7.588/8050+Zuerich,Thurgauerstrasse+40

Eine Hilfeseite auf sbb.ch solle den Syntax aufzeigen welcher garantiert wird - so dass Website Betreiber die Links direkt in Ihrer Webapplikation generieren können.

Heute: Gefunden habe ich die Verlinkungsbedingungen sbb.ch Fahrplan. Der Google Back-links Zähler zeigt folgendes zum SBB Fahrplan: Deutsch (814), Französisch (159), Italienisch (133) und Englisch (882).

In-kontext Fahrplan Anfrage

Viele Websites erwähnen Orte z.B. Website von einem Hotel, Restaurant oder Event Veranstalter. Genau dort sollte ein Besucher direkt eine Fahrplananfrage starten können. Der Zielort ist schon bekannt - und durch den Website Betreiber hinterlegt - der Abfahrtsort und Zeitpunkt (der ist bei Veranstaltungen schon bekannt) durch den Benutzer zu wählen. Beim ausführen wird der Benutzer zu sbb.ch geführt und direkt die Resultate dargestellt.

Oder das Umkehrte - der Abfahrtsort ist definiert und den Zielort offen lassen

Heute: Es gibt ein SBB Partnerprogramm - Eingabemasken & Buttons

Nimm doch ÖV

Sind Abfahrtsort und Ziel bekannt z.B. bei Community Veranstalter Website tilllate.com oder auf Tourismus Sites - können direkt 4 aktuelle Verbindungen angezeigt werden - mit der Möglichkeit den Zeitpunkt für Abfahrt oder Ankunft anzugeben. Darstellung mit einer "kleinen" Tabelle mit An/Ab/Dauer/Umst und Links zu den Details auf sbb.ch

Zeig mir den Weg mit ÖV

Immer mehr Websites und Applikationen brauchen Karten um Inhalte im geographischen Kontext zu präsentieren oder Leute von A nach B zu bringen (Navigationssysteme). Um ÖV zu integrieren - müsste die Antwort des Fahrplananfrage in Echtzeit als XML zur Verfügung stehen. Somit können die Daten in anderen Websites (z.B. map.search.ch) bzw. Applikationen (Handy Mobile Applikation) präsentiert werden.

Innovation freien lauf lassen

Funktionen wie das im Offenen Brief erwähnte Beispiel "Sie suchen eine Wohnung die im Schnitt nicht mehr als 40min von der Arbeitsstelle entfernt ist - der Weg wird mit ÖV zurückgelegt." braucht es vollen Zugriff auf die Fahrplandaten. Andere Beispiele findet man hier: www.mysociety.org/2007/more-travel-maps (Englisch).

Die Daten könnten im Google Transit Feed Format (Englisch) für die Weiterverarbeitung zur Verfügung gestellt werden.

Die Liste ist nicht abschliessend. Ich hoffe es gibt ein paar Ideen, was mit relativ wenig Aufwand erreicht werden könnte.

Rechtliches: Diesen Blog-beitrag stelle ich unter http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Der Rest des Blog ist unter einer restriktiven Lizenz. Fühle dich frei über das Thema zu schreiben - weitere Ideen zu entwickeln welche die Entdeckbarkeit von ÖV im Internet verbessern.

Fwd: Ohne Tram nichts los!

2008-03-22T02:07:00.006+01:00

Das ist eine Weiterleitung der Anfrage auf leumund.ch:

Liebe öffentliche Verkehrsbetriebe,
Liebe SBB,

Die Schweiz ist ein Volk von Bahnfahrern. Ich verbringe wöchentlich im Schnitt 15.6 Stunden in öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln. Qualifiziert das als guter Kunde? Auf jeden Fall bin ich ein zufriedener Kunde. Doch darum geht es hier nicht.

Meine Frage ist - wie können wir die öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel noch besser zugänglich machen? Mit "zugänglich" meine ich eine erhöhte Entdeckbarkeit von möglichen Verbindungen von A nach B. Meine Vermutung ist, dass viele Leute heute immer noch das Auto nehmen, weil sie gar nicht wissen, dass man mit den öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln entspannt (und gar schneller) zum Ziel kommen könnte.

Das hört da nicht auf - es geht weiter mit der Umkehrung der Fragestellung: Die Erhöhung der Entdeckbarkeit der Umgebung mit öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel durch nicht bekannte Verbindung. Ein Beispiel: Sie suchen eine Wohnung die im Schnitt nicht mehr als 40min von der Arbeitsstelle entfernt ist - der Weg wird mit ÖV zurückgelegt. Wäre doch cool, wenn das Homegate könnte?

Ich bin mir sicher, dass die Erhöhung von Entdeckbarkeit von öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel im Kontext vom alltäglichen Fragestellungen eine uns noch nicht bekannte Anzahl innovative Ideen und schlussendlich mehr ÖV Nutzer bringt.

Doch nun konkret. Reicht es, für mehrere Millionen Franken Plakate in der Schweiz aufzuhängen? Ich hoffe, die Marketingstrategen haben die Rechnung richtig gemacht und es lohnt sich. Doch wie wäre es, wenn wir die potenziellen Nutzer direkt dort abholen wo sie die Frage stellen - z.B. auf tilllate.com - direkt auf der Veranstalterseite die möglichen Verbindungen zwischen Zuhause und dem Veranstaltungsort zeigen - oder auf Homegate wie oben erwähnt?

Was müssen die öffentlichen Verkehrsbetriebe tun, um dies möglich zu machen?

Kurz: Öffnet eure Daten.
Lang: Website Betreiber wie tillate.com, homegate.ch, search.ch, local.ch (und viele mehr) brauchen programmatischen Zugriff (fachsprachlich: API) auf Stationslisten und Fahrplanauskünfte. Eigentlich alles was ihr heute schon auf euren Websites (z.B. sbb.ch) anbietet - doch in einem Format, das sich in Echtzeit in andere Webseiten integrieren lässt - z.B. eine Liste mit den nächsten 4 Verbindungen zwischen A und B, so dass diese direkt angepriesen werden können. Mit dem ultimativen Ziel, die Benutzer am Schluss auf eure Website zu bringen z.B. um das Ticket zu kaufen.

Diese Schnittstellen sollen für jeden Website Betreiber offen sein. Für die Bestimmung der technischen Details dieser Schnittstellen helfe ich gerne mit, wenn das gewünscht ist. Zum lieben Geld: meine Idee wäre es, dass kein Geld fliesst. Was andenkbar wäre - ist dass der Website Betreiber eine Provision beim erfolgreichen Ticketverkauf kriegt.

Wetten, dass dies mehr neue ÖV Nutzer bringt als eine millionenschwere Werbekampagne? (nicht falsch verstehen, die Kampagnen sind OK - die braucht es - es geht um die "neue Nutzer pro Fr." Effizienz!)

Ich freue mich auf einen offenen Dialog - mit dem gemeinsamen Ziel, unsere Umwelt für nächste Generationen zu erhalten und die Tür für neue innovative Lösungen im Bereich ÖV zu öffnen.

Cédric

PS: Interessiert Dich das Thema auch - oder kennst du Leute die in den Schaltzentralen der öffentlichen Verkehrsbetriebe helfen könnten dies zu realisieren? Schreib darüber und mach dich bemerkbar.

Data Portability Speech for /ch/open

2008-03-21T13:04:00.002+01:00

The fine folks from /ch/open - a Swiss association to promote the use of open systems - invited me to talk about data portability and digital identity - with focus on existing and emerging open web standards.

To explain use cases and the need of open data on the web I used the public transport sector. It is well known that Switzerland is one of the best equipped country concerning public transport. However talking about integration of the timetable and services data into the web landscape we are average at best.

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The speech was done in German - the slides notes (text below the slide) are in English.

To learn more about the data portability movement - visit: dataportability.org

Natural Language Search - Playground...

2008-02-10T20:55:00.000+01:00

The concept of keyword search - like we all do using Google today - is serving good results to find information that are containing facts we are looking for. Personally I got better over the many years I use Google e.g. in what keywords to use to even find things you don't know a name for. The idea of getting facts as results vs. getting possible documents (=web pages) that might contain the fact is winning new ground. A breed of new start-ups are trying to extract facts out of the web and provide the user the ability to pose queries as natural language questions (like asking a friend for something).

I'm talking about two things here:

1st: facts extraction in information (semantic analyses)
2nd: ability to understand a natural language question

I'm playing around with some of the new search services - these includes true knowledge and Powerset (both in privat beta) and some tests with hakia, Google and ask.com. Some of the services are in experimental state - so no judging if they have the stuff for the next Google.

Questions are written in English - supporting multiple languages is probably the hardest part of natural language search (at least if the engine should really understand it vs. using a statistical approach). And none of the tested understand anything else than English.

The response is a straight fact or links to documents that contains the fact. The guys at true knowledge are building an engine that analyses the question and provide a straight answer - or partial answer with the option to teach the site the missing facts. The response contains the detailed reasoning in order to verify that the question was correctly understood by the engine.

My question: Who is president of Switzerland?
Computed question by true knowledge: Who is the president (head of a nation state) of switzerland, the country in Western Europe at the current time?
Answer by true knowledge: Pascal Couchepin (born 1942), the Swiss Federal Councilor

The answer is correct - see screenshot:

Asking the same question to Google does also provide a straight answer (I was surprised) including links to the sources to backup the fact.

Answer by Google: Switzerland — President: Micheline CALMY-REY

That is not true (anymore) - Google is using "old" sources. Background: In Switzerland we have a new president every year - Micheline Calmy-Rey was president in 2007.

The team in the labs at Powerset are using the wikipedia content as primary source for facts. Results are wiki articles that contain the fact (with clever hit-highlight).

Answer by Powerset: 1st result is link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_Swiss_Confederation

Good - but the hit-summary does not show the name - I have to follow up with the source.

Hakia - serving semantically analysed results from the ask.com index. Same question:

Answer by Hakia: Possible answer: Jean-Marie Musy was a lawyer, Swiss Federal Councilor and was twice elected president of Switzerland.

Not true anymore (was president in 1925 and 1930) - though the 1st search result (below the answer) presents a recent news article talking about the current president (topic: joke about a certain Dr.).

Funny detail - asking ask.com provides:

Answer from ask.com: The Chief of State of Switzerland is President Samuel Schmid, who is also Head of State

Old fact too (was president in 2005)

That overview shows the 2nd hardest problem (on my list) in semantic extraction - facts changing over time. How to figure out if a fact is still true - or how long has a fact been true - what is the date of the source. The web has a very weak infrastructure to provide these information.

Google and ask.com had the correct sources linked - and most of them are up-to-date - it looks like they are not indexing and analysing that often. The true knowledge guys are taking extra care on that topic - facts are always put in time context (including dependency to inherited facts). So they are able to distinguish between the 1st question and this one:

My question: Who was president of Switzerland in 2006?
Answer by true knowledge: If there are any answers, I couldn't find any.

No answer - but a link with a wizard to add/reference the fact. I did add it - so if you run the same question now:

Answer by true knowledge: Micheline Calmy-Rey (born 1945), the Swiss politician

So much for now.. a lot more exiting findings to tell.. in another post someday.

On my mind lately..

2008-02-10T12:54:00.001+01:00

Had the pleasure to help out in the Best of Swiss Web jury. You might remember from last year - local.ch won the Master award. Was an interesting learning to take apart some of the submitted websites. This years award night is March 11th - see you there.

Gave a few speeches on emerging open web standards and mapping last year at webtuesday, blogcamp and tech talk. Although it needs a lot of time to prepare (including time to research on facts..) it's fun and rewarding to do it.
Next upcoming speech is for the fine folks of /ch/open - focusing on data portability with open web standards.

Update 18/02: More information about the speech

Good to see some more weby start-ups in Switzerland:

wua.la - user-centric distributed storage (looks like the promotion tour was a success - great job Dominik & team)
amazee.com (blog) - one yet to reveal social collaboration thingy (best wishes to Markus for joining the crew)
exsila.ch - entertaining goods sharing community

And yes.. Matchbox 20 are on tour playing in UK - for fans - book your fight to London for the May 1st - I'm in :-)

2008 Web Predictions

2007-12-30T14:33:00.000+01:00

No bold predictions from my side - I leave that to others.

1. Get people to web sites vs. get web sites to the people

I'm talking about a fundamental change here. You know the story - some cool start-up releases a great new web site/application - users create new accounts and start using it - start participating and sharing stuff with friends. The success of most sites like this depends on how many users it can attract. From the development point of view - all these sites share common fundamentals (identity profile, friends list, activity stream...) that are coded over-and-over again. As developer you want to focus on your app - and not waste time on the basis.

Another way of saying it: What is the fastest way to get a social context for your site/app?

A few solutions were presented during 2007 - Facebook apps and OpenSocial to name two. They - and others still to come - will shift how developers will create web sites/applications. Plug your app directly into a social environment - forget cool domain names, footer design and e-mail verification! We will see this metaphor going open and beyond the web - why should your favorite desktop app not be social?

2. Stucked with Web Forms 1.0

It's still going to be a pain in the neck to create great accessible websites/applications. No matter how great the JS frameworks are going get - the fundamental form controls shipped with next years major browsers suck (the common denominator of them!). More developers are going to switch to the Flash/Flex platform.

3. Think with semantics

No big surprise here - thanks to tools slowly adapting conventions from Microformats and RDFa we will see an accelerate use. I'm especially eager to see what evolves from the Microformats API in Firefox 3. Ok - wishful thinking here - wikipedia makes publishing semantics easy enough that people are actually using it.

Semantics - what? Watch this.

4. Inroad of location-based services

A lot has happend on the technology side in 2007 (Assisted GPS in hands of people, cell-based hacks like Google MyLocation, powerful mobile phones, affordable nation-wide data services). This whole LBS thingy could be much further advanced today - full blame to the network operators (and to some degree device producers) that don't know the words "open", "API" and "there is a world beyond SMS". That is not going to change - but we will see operator independent solutions for developers to create mobile web apps with location awareness.

5. Google rocks the house

The dominance will cause more stories like this

Hard-time selling flowers in Denver (local search ranking vs ads)
Google Reader ruins Christmas (automatic sharing of content with "friends" vs. privacy)

with that much power it's very hard to not be evil (to somebody).

Link-love to friends & family also reflecting on the year-change:

Seven things you didn’t know about me

2007-12-24T17:23:00.000+01:00

You asked for it - here 7 things you (and probably a lot more) didn’t know about me:

Some people have more influence over me than I would admit. A great deal of inspiration and ideas are drawn from direct discussions - or simply closely watching others. If you try to convince me of something or ask for a solution, I might act reserved. That's because I already try to find the best way to achieve it.. - and might end up silent when I don't find a short-term way to contribute/adapt. Make no mistake - it matters to me.
Little wonders. I enjoy myself on little/simple changes/things - especially when they unleash opportunities (make sense in a bigger context). Some already had the "pleasure" to listen to me having lengthy talks about a small thing that I think is going to change the way I/we experience my/the world.
Best results under pressure. I hate me for that. But the past has shown that on occasions of great pressure I came up great ideas/solutions. Like the German saying: "Not macht erfinderisch!". I use that "joker" sometimes - that tend to drive people in my surrounding nuts - sorry.
I don't read books nor watch TV. OK - I might read 2-3 books during a year. I do read a lot in the internet - my search stats on Google shows an average of 400 queries per months.
Stats junky. Love to understand facts by studying figures - used to read the Lexicon as a kid. Some call it infoporn. I admit it - I like it - check out this one.
I love fruit tarts. Including the whole range from fruit cakes to panettone. My mother used to (and still is when I pop in) bake them in all kind of fruit flavors.
At last - I need hours to write posts like this. Got bad grades for my essays at school and still suck..

Merry Christmas

Corporate Productivity Tool-chain

2007-10-21T18:11:00.000+02:00

Or what is the name for corporate "life hack"?

Discussions about an enterprise blogging project and it's culture change at the recent BlogCamp showed that channel-based semantic publishing found it's way into corporate headquarters. I guess that's because the first digital natives generation reached the corporate ladder and are about to transform their workplace.

Working for a small tech-savvy outfit (read: 80% software engineers) with a friendly corporate productive playground - we are right now at following picture (slide from an internal presentation I gave in June 2007):

Best to read from bottom to top.

Wrote about this in "Proven Setup: A People + Skype + Wiki + Task Tracking + Whiteboard" (May 2007).

Beyond the general agreement that the setup produces the wished results (increased team productivity) there are challenges in partner integration. The bridge to partners with "less web-based tool-chain" causes disruption of continuity. Further - the fallback to e-mail - instead of feed reading - causes over-head. It's surprising that "feed readers" are still not part of the default "desktop setup" - are they still too hard to use?

Tags: blogcampswitzerland enterprise20 corporatelifehack

BlogCamp Speech about the Geoweb

2007-10-20T20:51:00.000+02:00

Zurich was scene of the 2nd BlogCamp - a BarCamp style unconference on the bogging topic. Me spending quite some time with geospatial information management and search lately - decided to share a few tricks how bloggers can take part in the emerging Geoweb.

Here my slides presented:

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And yes Reto - I did gave my speech in English (I did asked the audience and they voted in favour as we had none German speaking guests). And no - I did not talked about local.ch ;-)

Links shown during the presentation can be found at: http://del.icio.us/keepthebyte/geoweb

I really enjoyed listening and meeting some old and interesting new friends.

Tags: blogcampswitzerland geoweb speech

BarCamp is back in Zurich

2007-08-26T23:18:00.000+02:00

BarCamp - or better called BlogCamp - as it focuses on topics around blogging - is back in town.

Head over to barcamp.ch for detailed information about the ad-hoc conference.

I'm going to talk about the Geoweb and the importance of location awareness.

Do you remember the days where "presence-awareness" was the hype word? Today we have agile corporate organization models in place that take presence for granted (yes the Skype blackout gave us a hard time). The ability to put/find information in context of space (=location) and time is critical for some of us today (emergency workers, logistics and law enforcement to name a few). Applying/extracting the location awareness "properties" on every information we create/manage/consume will open up new ways for us mear mortal to experiencing information.

I'm looking forward to see you at Blogcamp Zürich (October 20, 2007)

Tags: blogcampswitzerland barcamp zurich