One of the more interesting panels that I saw was on federated social networks. The contrast was made between centralized social networks (mostly Facebook) and the prospects for federated networks - decentralized approaches that would ultimately result in everyone having their own website where they could curate and control their own content while allowing it to be shared as they saw fit. The idea is to start using federated approaches to sharing information. Among the tools and projects mentioned were:

http://ostatus.org/

http://status.net/

http://diasporaproject.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webfinger

Each of these seems worth investigating for numerous reasons. Some of them provide alternative ways of sharing information via the large social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) while retaining more control of your own information. One of the particular issues that we might consider is how we would use these kinds of federated tools and protocols to allow data from EdNode to interact with data from other social networks.

A second session on agile development for mobile highlighted the need to develop techniques to keep the process agile. These included low-effort prototyping and a commitment to get something out as opposed to getting something perfect. The consensus seemed to be that the designers and developers could waste a lot of time getting something to where they thought it was great, but that users are the ultimate test and ultimate judges --- so -- get something in front of users and let them use it. Then collect feedback and iterate. Stop arguing amongst the team on small issues that might end up being meaningless to users. The one area that was particularly challenging for agile was game development. The lead developer on Farmville explained that it was difficult to get anything but the complete game in front of users in order to get useful feedback. Even in this case, however, it doesn't make sense to sweat the small things like the colors of buttons, etc. Everyone on the panel acknowledged the importance of testing, but just about everyone had been in situations where the testing was not thorough enough.

Quick take-aways from the session on agile development for mobile: 1) build tools to push new versions easily - reduce friction, 2) it is harder to push new versions with native apps since they go through the app store review process, 3) be sure to build in analytics that allow you to learn if you are a) getting new users, or b) getting additional use from current users. In terms of development teams several approaches were discussed 1) a single mobile team to work across platforms, 2) a team decided to each platform, c) a sequential approach where you launch for one platform and gauge response before making the same mistakes on a second platform. There was also some interesting discussion of the difference between developing native apps for iOS and android, with the latter having many more devices and forms to consider.

Just finished the session on native apps vs mobile web. It was an interesting panel discussion. Major benefits of native mentioned included things we have considered like access to the device controls and certain efficiencies resulting in things running fast. The major benefit problem was the app store with easy ability to sell things, but, of course, the problem is the Apple fees. Much of the conversation focused on the current benefits of web apps with even more focus on coming benefits as the web improves further. Currently, the web is a much better option for presentation with greater flexibility in presenting fonts so publications are better in a web app. Seems to be general agreement that moving forward the web will only get better. Another option discussed was a hybrid approach using part native part web. The major publishing web app that was cited was the Financial Times which we looked at earlier. A concluding note that led the session to run over was a discussion of how awful the app store is for discovering/finding things unless you happen to be a featured app.

Two sessions on education completed the day on Monday. In one a panel discussed the climate for investing in education start-ups. A few takeaways: 1) we are at the very beginning of the innovation cycle in education, 2) investor interest in the sector is building, 3) the really big education innovations have yet to be developed, 4) nothing has been brought to scale with most innovations affecting a few districts at most, 5) no one has solved the school procurement bottleneck, 6) new initiatives like www.junyo.com are taking a stab at the analytics problem to allow comparisons across apps and implementations. The panel was somewhat divided on how optimistic to be about the sector overall with some cheerleaders and some skeptics.

The second session was offered by a professor from Syracuse. The most interesting dimension of this session was the relationship he had established between himself and his students and the start-up community. One of firms partnering with him noted that startups will pay attention to people and institutions that become power users of their applications.

Three more sessions since my last post. One focused on privacy with reps from Google and Microsoft. The session was a bit flat (perhaps by design) and focused on how to maintain trust with customers regarding privacy. It avoided all the big issues regarding security and government intrusion. Another focused on the next generation of innovators with a panel one the First after school program that gets kids into STEM via project-based learning. This one was lively with good presentations, particularly the one by a high school senior who demonstrated a robot project. The third was a session with Ray Kurzweil that was overflowing so I got to watch it on a screen in a remote room. As always, he was interesting.

Reporting out from my first attended session as SXSW. The session was on HTLM5 for film, and there was a nice discussion of the advantages for interactive experiences that can be developed using HTML5 and a number of contrasts with traditional film making and with using flash. One thing to follow-up on is the open source documentary platform at www.zeega.com More to come.

Is this just in the nick of time or too good to be true? According to this piece in Businessweek, Stripe has solved the online payment problem for developers. Check it out and let me know. Their site provides all the details.

According to this piece in Forbes, a new company and a new product, Skytree server will make machine learning less of a handcrafted solution and more of an automated process. The downloadable free version can be used on datasets of up to 100,000 records. Seems worth a look and perhaps a try.

Mozilla is building a push notification system that will allow websites to alert users about new content on their desktops or mobile devices. The list of reasons to build native apps for publishing continues to shrink.