Comments on: The Glue That Binds Things

By: John Pritchard

John Pritchard — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Brad,

How does this Glue compare to Yahoo Pipes? (Thinking classic glue as scripting over components like shell or tcl).

John

By: bfeld

bfeld — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Yahoo Pipes would address some of this – probably best classified in the "Enterprise Glue" category although a lot of the mashup stuff might be "consumer glue" which is less interesting to me right now (but probably equally relevant.)

By: Chris Ceppi

Chris Ceppi — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

The issues around who controls where "Glue" can stick things together and where it can't will be important. Beacon being an example of a potentially valuable piece of glue that became a gluey mess.

By: john_pritch3900

john_pritch3900 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

you're looking at API schema convergence//?

By: bfeld

bfeld — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Yup.

By: david_duey

david_duey — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

One of the things I really liked about Defrag was that, for the most part, it was free of implementation details. I’m a techie, but I enjoy thinking about the implicit web at a higher level than the implementation layer. I like the idea of the Glue theme, but I’m afraid if Defrag were extended to include Glue, that it might risk becoming a technical conference and thus diluting the deep thinking abstraction layer with the practical details of implementation.

By: Paul Edmondson

Paul Edmondson — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Yep. Whether it's called glue or aggregation, this makes sense. One more is navigation. Search, hierarchical browsing, discovery, rss readers – navigating the web is getting more complex because of the continued explosion of content. What we need here is really good spam retardant glue.

By: esteban3905

esteban3905 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

where can I find the API?
http://www.spymac.com/details/?2315603

By: NasserO

NasserO — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Great thoughts! Amongst the list of “Glues”, the “Identity Glue” is the most intriguing as it has vast implications and applications. Whether you are driving, watching TV or walking your dog, you are almost always connected via your cell phone, your car’s GPS, your laptop, your TV set and even your early morning radio-clock. All these devices (if modified) can use a unified and globally identical individual ID and sense your presence almost anywhere on the globe. There are surely a bunch of privacy issues to handle but as a small implication think of this; while you are watching your favorite baseball match on the TV in Denver, a small subtitle message at the foot of the TV screen asks you to approve a credit card transaction request from a BestBuy outlet in Philadelphia. Oh My!

By: sean_tierne2149

sean_tierne2149 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Brad, how about one more:

Deployment Glue: an OS-agnostic runtime that allows software of any composition (Ruby, Java, PHP, .NET, Python, C++) to deploy immediately and portably across any environment whether hosted locally or remotely? A living container delivers updates to the application stack and developers stop worrying about installation and maintenance concerns and are instead free to concentrate on the features that make the app uniquely valuable. Customers appreciate an identical deployment experience across every app regardless of the developer's choice of technology toolset.

sean

By: eric norlin

eric norlin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Sean- a truly interesting idea! I'm adding it to the "list of glue" topics that we're currently exploring.

btw: this sounds like s startup idea

By: Maggie

Maggie — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Great to see that you guys are thinking about this "glue" layer. My work focuses on supporting and building APIs for the marketing glue and it surprises me how often we need to educate people on why this is important and necessary for innovation.