Biznik Blog

A couple of days ago I built a tool that allows Biznik members to mirror their blog headlines onto their profile page, and part of what inspired me to do that was a day-long email correspondence with Seattle web developer Daniel Talsky, who recently joined Biznik. It turns out he has a lot more to say about emerging web technologies, social networking sites, and his business, Roboticat Communications, so without further introduction, let’s hear from Daniel…

Q: What got you started in this business, how long have you been at it, and how’d you come up with the name “Robotic Cat”?

Blogging got me started in the web business. Or should I say, working a graveyard shift job with endless hours to entertain myself on the web got me into this business. I started the tinyblog, my personal weblog, and that just brought up so much curiosity about how I could customize it and make it do what I wanted. I took a bunch of programming classes at North Seattle Community College, and that was all I needed to be an above-average web programmer. Then I just sought out contract work.

Three years ago I met Ben Sodenkamp, who encouraged me not to try to land a tech job, but instead go into business with him. He was eventually successful at convincing me, but we lacked a credible business name. We thought about it for days but just couldn’t come up with the right thing. We had the state business paperwork and nothing to put on it.

Then, one day, Ben’s daughter and another friend’s young son were about to go to bed. We asked them to clean up after their mess and they started to cry and complain. So, knowing they liked both cats and robots, I told them they were Robotic Cats, and I was the Robot Master. Soon they were cleaning up and giggling about the whole thing. So, I looked up at Ben and said, “Hey, we can come up with a product name later, but how about Robotic Cat Communications for the name.” Later, our branding expert recommend we make it into the snappier and shorter Roboticat Communications.

Q: What sort of interesting projects have you been working on lately? Anything you guys particularly specialize in?

We…uhh…specialize in the web. Anything web. We specialize in information design. We specialize in leveraging open source tools. We specialize in functional, workhorse web applications, AKA “The Back End.”

Right now we’re working on a new Online Shopping Cart for Utilikilt, the people who make those funky kilts with snaps you see weirdos wearing on the streets in Seattle. We’re also working on extending the registration tool we wrote for the Stroum Jewish Community Center so that people can use it to sign up for sports teams.

Q: What’s your take on the whole social networking phenomenon (sites like Friendster, Tribe, MySpace)?

Well…it’s a good idea of course. I belong to several of them, and sign up for a lot of web services just to see how web services are evolving. It’s basically just a way for people to have a personal web page, a blog, messaging and a photo gallery in it’s basic form, but without knowing anything about hosting or file transfer. The power of this as a new way to approach the web is stunning, and I’m happy to see it taking hold. Power to the people!

I don’t know about Tribe, but I am active on Friendster and MySpace. I think Friendster’s ship has passed, honestly. They’ve made a heck of a lot of improvements lately, but I don’t think they’re going to catch up with the leader in “pure” social networking, MySpace. Plus, I’m sure Yahoo and Google are going to become reasonably serious players in this field, as well as the other value adds that their account services offer.

MySpace really caught the public imagination and has an unbelievably expansive user base. It is teaching people, bands and businesses how to do on line networking, and it is a pretty powerful tool. It is also popular because of how deeply you can customize it, but it’s customization is basically a hard-to-figure hack. When there is a service that allows this power of customization in an easier to understand way, I think it will really be powerful.

Not to be underestimated is LiveJournal, which is actually a powerful social networking tool of it’s own and has a huge community and a lot of customization options. If SixApart is really smart they’ll make TypePad into their “premium” blogging brand, and make LiveJournal into their social networking brand.

However, as far as how I view them as a developer? They’re just web applications, and if we had a client who wanted us to build them a social networking tool, we could do it. We’re always looking for clients with great ideas who just need the web development muscle to bring it to reality.

Q: One of the things that really excites me about the current “Web 2.0″ technologies is the potential for the radical democratization of information that Tim Berners Lee imagined when he created html back in the late 80s. Do you share the feeling that, this time around, it just might happen?

Hmm. I hate to disappoint you but I think the pinnacle of democratization was already reached. However, it blew the doors off any other equality-creating communication medium the world has ever known, and it’s very powerful.

I think Web 2.0 has higher production values, and a higher barrier to entry. So I do not think the technologies people call Web 2.0 are really going to help at all.

In addition, I predict lawmakers and global commercial entities will find ways to restrict and control the web to their own ends more and more as the technologies are understood. Already China is able to show it’s citizens a limited slice of the web, and even companies like Google and Yahoo are toeing the line for China, a tremendous financial powerhous. It’s like the wild west right now, and I predict it will certainly be tamed more than it is now.

However, the door will not be closed, and it takes a very small investment of money and expertise to publish your ideas on the web and have them indexed on google prominently for people looking for what you’re publishing. I really believe in this power of self- publishing and I put my money where my mouth is. I volunteer to teach web publishing classes in Seattle to absolute beginners, as a method of empowering people to use this amazing communication medium to their maximum benefit while it is still so potent. The fact is: the white house has a web site, Coca-Cola has a website, so does Biznik, and so do I. Type “miserable failure” into Google and you get the home page of George W. Bush. There’s still an amazing amount of freedom of expression. It’s a brave new world. Don’t underestimate what’s already happened.

Q: What’s a web technology that’s worth watching in the coming year?

I’m not sure how far it will go this year, but I’ve always been interested in SVG, or Scalable Vector Graphics. It’s an XML format for describing vector graphics. In the past, if you wanted vector graphics and animation you had to use Flash. Flash is cool, but in most cases it’s a little box in a web page and not really a part of the web page. Google can’t index the text in it and you can’t search for it on the page. Adobe has always been an advocate of this technology, but Macromedia, owner of Flash, was always hesitant to incorporate it. Well, Adobe just bought Macromedia this last year, and it will be exciting to see if they continue to push the technology. In addition, the new Firefox 1.5 actually supports some SVG by default. Before that you had to install a browser plug-in made by Adobe. So, we could start to see some very cool applications built with SVG in the coming year. Also, it’s getting some serious attention as a way to build rich applications on mobile devices, which is a fantastic idea. Here’s some resources if people are interested in learning more about it.

Adobe’s SVG Zone:
http://www.adobe.com/svg/main.html

Mozilla SVG Information:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/

Q: What’s the most common mistake that you see small businesses make most frequently when they tackle a web project?

Waiting until the last minute, and not setting aside a reasonable budget. We often have to be the bearer of bad news for people. Businesses so often give the important medium of the web their lowest priority slice of budget and attention until it’s a serious problem. That’s why we end up building bare-bones web applications a lot of times. With a little more planning and budgeting, they could have had what they wanted and built it feature by feature. Web development requires a lot of information, time and attention, and just like anything else worth doing, there’s really no shortcuts for doing it right. People underestimate the complexity of something that looks simple on the surface.

Here’s how to avoid the mistake: Get all your stakeholders together and think about your big web dreams. Make a written list. Well before you actually need any of these features, work with more than one web developer (one big flashy agency, one homespun smaller group like us, and one starving student) to get a quote and see how they come up with a proposal. Look at the price tags while you still have time to budget for it. Then, decide what features you can and can’t afford, and what you really want to invest in while it’s not an emergency.

Q: How do you help clients decide what they need (and what they can afford) when they get ready to build a website?

Well, this really hearkens back to the last questions. For me personally the interview process is all-important. First I talk to my initial contact and ask, “What do you need?” They tell me and I take notes. Then I go down the line and ask them about each thing, asking clarifying questions as I begin to mentally construct what they’re talking about. People want a lot of the same functionality so I’ve usually built something like what they’re talking about. If we get into serious sales-land, and we’re building a proper proposal, then I try to talk to everyone who’s going to be using the tool. I work to discover features so that I can build something people could really use. Finally we write a modular proposal, with estimates or prices for every component. We make it clear what’s a core component and what’s a bell or whistle. Most of the time when it enters the dollars and cents world, people tend to drop everything but the core components. We don’t mind, we’re happy to build just that. That way we never say: “You can’t afford all the things you want.” We let them make the decision.

Q: How are you progressive?

The question I’m asking myself is: How am I NOT progressive? I’m always researching how people are building the web today and what they’re doing with it. When new things are hot (like Ruby on Rails right now) we want to investigate it and see if it lets us do our job quicker and slicker.

We also believe strongly in right livelihood, and are really about ethical business to the core. That means sustainability and truthfulness in all we do and sell.

Lastly, I believe in the web, and I believe in doing my best to make it accessible to people. I teach web development for people who barely know how to write a text file. I want everyone who has something to say to be able to publish it.

Company website: Roboticat Communications
Company blog: Robokitties
Daniel’s personal blog: Tinyblog

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2006 at 10:55 am and is filed under Interviews. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.