Kyle Brady: A Blog

Here’s a short piece I had to write for a class, answering the question:

What do you believe is important for successfully completing a project, the formal management structure or culture of the parent organization?  Why?

— — —

Completing any non-trivial project is a difficult task, and so-called “experts” are typically divided into two beliefs on the most important aspect of the project:  formal management structure and the culture of the parent organization.  However, I believe that a mix of both a formal management structure and the overall organization’s culture are important, neither one eclipsing the other.

Companies such as Google thrived for years with an loosely formed corporate hierarchy, and a culture of freedom, fun, and brilliance.  Recently, Google has found that such a structure does not facilitate a high level of productivity and innovation, and has begun to formalize itself into a more rigid version of itself.  On the opposite side of the corporate structure rainbow is strictly hierarchical management, found at such companies as Microsoft.  However, Microsoft is no more successful at pinning down innovation and productivity to a corporate structure, as they are well known for lazy employees and product delays of epic length.

Given these two radical examples, I can only conclude that a mix of the two would be the ideal goal:  an organization with a formal hierarchy that also respects the employees’ freedom and individuality, but only until said freedoms encroach on the overall productivity and innovation.  Whether or not this is ultimately achievable is up for debate; however, many modern companies aspire to reach such a “happy medium” and have been at least moderately successful, both financially and culturally.

posted on September 28th, 2008 at 7:38 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Corporate Culture, Corporate Hierarchy, Google, Microsoft, Project Completion, Project Management

I’ve been trying to associate the search terms “kyle brady” with me and this domain for awhile now, which is more difficult than your average person searching for themselves… I have to compete with the football player.

I occasionally search my name just to see where I happen to stand in the results for that moment (since Google’s results list can change drastically, depending on which sort algorithm they’re testing on you, it’s never a “for sure” position)… and I just came across myself in the #4 slot on the first page.  I was pretty excited (how’s that for geekiness?), and took a screenshot so I have proof if other people can’t reproduce the results:

Hopefully this trend continues, and I owe a “thank you” to the feed subscribers, the actual-site-visitors, and the people that link to me (even though it’s sometimes only images that aren’t even mine).

posted on May 18th, 2008 at 10:35 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Google, Me, Self Promotion

After about 6 months of posting on this blog, disregarding whether or not anyone reads or cares about it, and I’ve looked at some statistics recently, noticing a few things:

• I now have a Google PageRank:  3/10.  Better than not existing as a PageRank!
• If you search my name on Google, I’ve finally trudged through all the results for the football player of the same name… and this blog shows up on the top of the second page.
• There is a steady stream of traffic via both RSS and direct access.  Not alot, but some.

So, thanks to you people who read this blog, and/or link to it.  Hopefully this trend continues!

posted on January 12th, 2008 at 9:12 am by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Google, Me, The Internet, Told You So

Have you heard of ‘Mahalo’? No? Well, here’s an excerpt from their FAQs:

Mahalo is a human-powered search engine that creates organized, comprehensive, and spam free search results for the most popular search terms.

Hm. Ironically enough, uncov has written about Mahalo many times, each time speaking to what degree of “fail” it is. That’s really no surprise…

Are You Stupid?

Read this. It’s from Jason Calacanis’ blog. Does it make you laugh so hard you wet yourself? It should. Why? I think it’s pretty obvious… it takes at least 24 hours for a page to be created on a topic, and only if they get enough requests for it. The example shown is “grey wolf”, which you would think is common enough to warrant a page.

Thank you, Stewie. You said it so perfectly.

I’m Sorry…

I’m sorry, but I thought Google already did this. Maybe I’m wrong, but when you search for something in Google, you always get results. And, chances are that you get exactly what you were looking for within the first result or two. It’s like magic, except that it’s created by a computer. Which means that there is no delay time, no time wasted on “people search” or other such craptastic nonsense.

Kompubers R Kool

In this age of “Web 2.0″, you’d think that people would understand how the Internet works. Or at least that you can use a “search engine” to “find” certain “things” on “teh Intorwebz”. Without the “help” of “human beings”.

Were there enough ironic quotes there for you to get my meaning?

Stop It.

Let’s be serious for a second. Google became popular because it returned results on exactly what you were looking for, all the time. And it was simple and uncluttered. So that begs the question: why, in God’s bloody name, do you think you can compete with Google? More importantly, how can a relatively small group of underpaid and probably not-very-educated people do better than a computer?

Keep it up, Mahalo Guides!

Here’s some simple facts (you = Mahalo):

• You will never be able to produce results for every topic people want to know about.
• Your results will never be as relevant or up-to-date as real search engines.
• You are not a search engine. “Engine” implies algorithms. Which are not made of people.
• You are a “glorified” wiki. And I mean that in the sense that you over-value yourself, because you are worthless, and are actually of less value than a wiki devoted entirely to kiwi fruit.

I Think…

I think you should quit. I would say “while you’re ahead”, but you’re clearly not ahead. You’re living somewhere around 1992, dial-up and everything.

Stop wasting VC money. Stop wasting people’s time. And, most importantly, stop making real engineers and programmers look bad by pretending you know what you’re doing.

Jason Calacanis, you are a stupid stupid bastard with a self-inflated ego of worthlessness.

posted on November 12th, 2007 at 8:45 am by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Failure, Google, Programming, Rant, Search

I’ve been purposely avoiding writing anything about Google’s new OpenSocial project. Why? Because it had the potential to go in a few different directions and be used different ways, and I wanted the hype to die down before seeing what it’s actually worth. (If you’re totally in the dark, read this and this, and about how it was hacked.)

The Hype

If you believe all the hype, this new initiative may be the end of “walled” social networks, meaning that users would put their data in a centralized location, and then distribute it as they wish to other networks and services.

Hello, Michael Arrington.

As I’ve mentioned before, this is a good idea in principle. Places like Ning, 37Signals, and LinkedIn (despite the fact that I hate Ning) are among the first major supporters of this, and are lauding it’s praises as if it’s the best thing since sliced bread. And the blog network (aka TechCrunch, Mashable, RW/W, etc.) is falling over themselves with self-promotional joy, except for the always-straight-shooting O’Reilly.

The Problem

Here’s the central problem: the hype is about “open data”, and yet OpenSocial is being used to create “applications” that can exist on any social network platform, not de-privatizing data. Who really cares if you can SuperCrotchPunch all your friends across 131 different social networks? No-one (except preteens and frat boys).

Also, these applications have apparently been hacked. It’s unclear as to whether this was Google’s fault or the individual network’s, but it is a problem nonetheless. I know I don’t want my data screwed with by some guy who figured out how the system works… do you?

How about “I VampireStabbed Your Mom”?

The Future

If you poke around the Google Code pages for OpenSocial, you’ll find something called “Data API”, which is labeled as “not released” and only provides documentation. But it gives insight into the true intentions of Google…

It appears that sometime in the near future, this “set of APIs” will be used for what everyone thinks it will (cross-network data), or at least be available for use. The companies/services that had access to these APIs before the general public may already be integrating the next release, but nothing’s been said.

The Final Countdown

Here’s how it breaks down: as it stands, OpenSocial is pretty worthless. Most of the “applications” on these social networks are stupid, childish, and totally worthless, so there’s no need to port them to other systems. In the event that Google does what it claims to be doing, aka “tear down [these] wall[s]”, then chances are it will be successful…

Um, yes?

But the question is will this be done with the lack of enthusiasm as other Google releases, or with the fervor of a true PR engine? The fate of the Internet’s data and Google’s dominance over search may depend on their next few dance steps.

Oh, and Facebook needs to be involved for this to be 100% successful. Which remains doubtful.

posted on November 7th, 2007 at 12:07 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Code, Future, Google, OpenID, Programming, Social Graph, Technology, The Internet

“Twine” is a service that apparently does what I say over here.  I didn’t know of this company, apparently in secret development since 1998, but it is still the same idea.

However, they will have more ground to cover in an effort to beat the forthcoming Google centralized personal data API…

posted on October 18th, 2007 at 10:53 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Future, Google, Microformats, OpenID, Social Graph, Technology, The Internet

I’m sorry, I was under the impression that programmers had come to a general conclusion in the ’70s that “bad” code was unacceptable, and the sign of either someone of inferior skills, or of low intelligence. Apparently, I was wrong, and “bad” code has now been deemed “bad”…

If you read the article, you’ll find a very thorough discussion of bad code, modern application architecture, and people’s experience levels. Believe it or not, I agree with (and actually liked) the larger part of the work. Here’s a breakdown, from my perspective:

Web 2.0

While “Web 2.0″ is interesting, and useful to a certain extent (and I run a company involved in a “Web 2.0″ project…), the ratio of intelligence and programming skills to lack thereof is astounding. And not in a good way.

Maybe you should hire him, he’s probably awesome.

Personally, I have the programming knowledge and “awareness” of someone many years my senior; however, this is most often not the case. Digg’s faceman, Kevin Rose, is a likable guy (supposedly), and he’s generally given credit for “running” and “creating” Digg. Does no-one else in the world understand that Kevin has little to no programming experience, and he outsources all his ideas? This is a repetition of a theme throughout Silicon Valley.

The flipside of Digg’s situation is when you have a large handful of developers who collectively have the programming IQ of a small child.

“Yeah man, I code!”

Why?

Why am I harping on “Web 2.0″? As was mentioned in the article I linked to, depending on the web application you come across, it can be several layers of abstraction away from actual programming… each of which requires processing power, and by association is slow and waste energy.

Look at another of Rose’s creations, Pownce. Seriously? “Made with Django” screams “we didn’t write most of the code, and instead used a library that sits above another language”. And, if you actually use it, you find that they use AJAX in places that make no sense. For example, if you link to a video or a picture, it embeds it. But only at runtime, and is Javascript based. WHY? I just wrote something about a weekago that is similar, and it was done in PHP… it takes about 98% of the loadtime of using the Javascript version.

And I bet Leah Culver doesn’t even run…

Waste

Ever heard of “Flex“? It’s, in principle, a way for people who are lazy to design fully fledged applications without really designing the whole thing. I don’t know about the rest of the programming community, but this seems to me like using FrontPage to build a website… not only is it stupid but it’s a huge waste of time and ends up with a result that either is supremely terrible or without originality.

Think of the sites you visit. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Gmail, etc… most of the most used and most famous applications / sites are created from scratch, without using any sort of quadruple-bypass layer of abstraction. Google isn’t “Powered by Django” and Yahoo isn’t “Designed in Flex”… and they never will be.

Maybe those people writing “web OSes” should consider this…

If you’re thinking of creating something, stop. Think about it. Do you have the ability? If you do, that’s great. But don’t be a stupid waste of human life and build the web application equivalent of a C#.NET program.

Not only does it waste electricity, slow everything down, and just suck in general… but it makes the rest of us look bad too.

posted on October 16th, 2007 at 12:57 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Code, Energy, Google, Rant, Technology

I think we should all let Microsoft take our data. Really. Everything about us… blood type, injuries, health insurance…

Did you catch the sarcasm? Did you? Because something tells me the creator of the most buggy, flawed, attacked, and hacked software in the world is going to have a hard time convincing people their data is secure. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but I just have this weird feeling that they’re probably running the same software that gets hacked thousands of times a day worldwide…

“W3 R S3kur3″ - Microsoft’s Quote of the Day

Congratulations, Microsoft. You beat Google to a release of a new product for once. That is admirable. But that doesn’t mean it’s a better product, or that people will even care. Being the first to the finish line may win you a race… but we all know that in war there is no ticker tape. There are only mines, rocket launchers, and stealth bombers, but I digress.

Google has been supposedly developing their own product that is intended to revolutionize the medical industry, this is common knowledge in the tech world. Who do you really think is more secure with their data? How many times have you heard of your personal account information being leaked from Google? How often has Microsoft’s systems been hacked? How often has Google’s systems been hacked? Who is generally treated with greater trust?

There are 1.3 million results for curing your STD.

The answer is obvious: Google. The world leader in search and information storage considers your personal health information to just be one more shelf to index: all the better to personalize your services, my dear. From my personal experience, people who use Google’s products love Google, whereas people who use Microsoft’s products typically don’t. What is your most used email account, Gmail or Hotmail/Live Mail/Whatever-they-call-it-today?

“We’re good for your health!” - Google’s Quote of the Day

When the battle is begun, and sides are taken, where will you side? Where will the doctors, and subsequently, the industry side? I’m willing to put the smart money on Google, it’s a pretty simple choice. The two behemoths will face off, and battle for the attention… this much is true. But given the history of each company, and their respective mottos (both official and unofficial), chances are that Microsoft Windows Live Spaces Personal Health Identifier Super Home Edition will fail.

Completely, utterly, disastrously… fail.

posted on October 10th, 2007 at 5:23 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Business, Future, Google, Heatlh, Microsoft, Privacy

Everyone’s complaining about GOOG411 these days. The real question is: why?

Google has a habit of releasing their new products whenever they feel like it, and in what they consider a BETA stage. (In reality, the products are more like a fully developed v1.0, but that’s beside the point.) After a unusually short gestation period, the products are removed from BETA and advertised in some fashion to the general public… and destroy the competition.

Everyone in the tech industry/Silicon Valley knows this. So when GOOG-411 became more than a semi-unknown secret, why did people come out of nowhere with a bunch of complaints? Not only are many of their complaints stupid and pointless, they’re also not even related to how wonderful the service is.

Stop it. Bad evil lizard.

Until now, if you wanted a 411/info service that was free, you had to call a number that was either heavily ad supported, or not of a high caliber. Until now, only people “in the know” were aware of Google’s phone services (GOOG-411, and the text message version… send a message to “GOOGL”).

Here’s how it works:

1. You call GOOG-411
2. You hear a very enthusiastic voice saying the name of the service
3. A soothing voice asks you for a city and state
4. It again asks you for what you’re looking for
5. It tells you the results
6. You can have the number texted to you
7. You can hear more information about the place
8. You can have it auto-dial the number

What, in the name of Odin, is wrong with that? I have never once encountered an advertisement. I have never thought “hmm that was totally annoying and a terrible service, because for 3.5 seconds at the beginning someone said the name of what I just called”. The only thing I’ve ever thought was “Oh, sweet. It gave me the number I wanted as the first result, and I didn’t have to memorize it to call them! Thanks, Google!”

The dog version of Google.

So here’s my general comment to all of you: Stop Complaining. It’s free. It’s Google. It’s much more than adequate… it’s great. Until you build something of significant status, you’re only allowed to complain when the service/product is not as advertised.

And in this case, it is exactly as advertised.

posted on October 2nd, 2007 at 8:36 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Business, Google, Rant, Technology