Krupmaniac: January 2008

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

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Sprout: The Online WYSIWYG Editor for Flash

Posted: 29 Jan 2008 05:29 PM CST

A new application called Sprout, launching in private beta at DEMO today, promises to make the creation of Flash applets a whole lot easier.

Sprout is a browser-based, WYSIWYG editor for Flash with an interface reminiscent of Photoshop or Dreamweaver. Designers can use it to create, publish and track Flash widgets, websites and mashups, thereby obviating the need for them to work with programmers who would cost time and money, and who might not execute designs satisfactorily.

The application itself is entirely Flash/Flex-based and won't require account registration for first-time users (that is, once the private beta period is over). As can be seen in the screenshot to the left, the interface consists of a staging area for construction of a so-called "sprout" (don't call it a widget!), as well as several panels for tools, components, pages, properties, and more. I found that my experience with Photoshop served me well for creating a sprout (embedded below) that displays TechCrunch feeds, since the same editing concepts are applied by both programs. That said, it would be nice if Sprout had undo capabilities and proper layering, as found in Photoshop.

While all WYSIWYG editors lack at least some of the functionality achievable through direct programming, Sprout overcomes this limitation in part by providing a library of "components" that can be integrated into a given creation. The company has lined up general components such as video, slideshows and RSS feeds in addition to components from 3rd party web services such as Meebo, Yahoo Maps, PollDaddy and Ribbit.

Sprout is marketing its release as a better way for designers to create distributable widgets. The company has partnered up with Clearspring, Gigya, and SpringWidgets to provide both easy distribution and tracking/analytics. Sprout creators can track the usage of not only entire sprouts but the elements, such as buttons, within those sprouts. They can also use the application to make changes to sprouts that have already been distributed across the web.

While Sprout's current focus is on the widget use case, its capabilities don't end there. Since you can create sprouts of any dimensions, there's nothing stopping you from creating entire websites using Sprout. Its pages and linking functionality certainly lend themselves to this type of creation. And since Sprout has incorporated 3rd party services, it can also be used to create mashup pages/portals. The range of possibilities will increase when Sprout releases an SDK in the following month, allowing outside developers to add to the components library.

Sprout should be publicly available in the next few weeks. Until then, the first 200 TechCrunch readers to sign up here will gain access to its private beta. A video demonstration of Sprout is provided below, alongside the RSS feed sprout I created for TechCrunch (hosted on their demo server so it may go down).

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Ron Paul Softens Stance On Net Neutrality; Talks On Other Tech Issues

Posted: 29 Jan 2008 01:09 PM CST

We've spoken with most of the top presidential candidates over the last few months to get their on record position on ten key technology issues (Barack Obama, John McCain, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich). But we were never able to nail down time with Ron Paul, despite his strong support from the Internet in general.

Well, it's never too late. Just two hours after we made our Tech President endorsements live on Fox News this morning, we were able to get some phone time with Dr. Paul as well. The podcast is up at TalkCrunch and embedded below, and we will have a transcript up shortly as well.

Dr. Paul said some very interesting things in the podcast. Among other things, he is softening his anti-net neutrality viewpoint (see here as an example). He's now readily admiting that he's willing to listen to both sides of the argument before making a final decision. Ditto on the 700MHz discussion.

More analysis after the transcript is finalized. We'll post it here.

Listen Now:

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Update: Here is the transcript from the call:

(more…)

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Friday, January 18, 2008

krup's shared items in Google Reader

Surprise, Justin.TV Builds Own CDN To Cut Costs, Improve Performance

Posted: 16 Jan 2008 06:50 PM CST

While Justin.TV's live video site first broke on the scene with its fair share of scandal and gimmicks, not too many people realized they were doing anything more than programming a website to broadcast video from off the shelf web cams. However, Justin.TV has actually been developing some actual technology, too. Since the start they've been building their own content distribution network (CDN) to stream video to all the site's viewers. And according to them, it just happens to be saving them a bundle of cash.

When they first launched, they considered existing using existing CDNs to run their network. Rates from one large CDN cost as much as $0.36 for every hour of video run. Justin.TV developed a system that does it for 3/4 of a penny. Their most recent iteration of the network does it for 1/4 of a penny. All those pennies add up, especially for a startup that broadcasts 24 hours a day.

But saving money by building your own network is not for everyone. Their current system has been over a year in the making and fairly elaborate. It consists of a load balancing system that can start streaming content over their own network of servers and push peak traffic to Amazon's S3 and EC2 services. It's taken so long because they've essentially had to pick apart and rebuild a flash server from the ground up to make this possible without using Adobe's software.

And they expect all this hard work to pay off. Having control over the entire pipeline means they can add on new features, such as more easily archiving recorded videos or trans-coding them into other formats. No word on whether they'll be lending the CND out to third parties any time soon, though.

JustinTV