Oracle AppsLab

Recently, even though we’ve been focusing on Connect and OpenSocial, but Mix hasn’t been standing still.

ENTP has been working to fix bugs and build features for Marketing that will be showcased heading into OpenWorld.

Last night, a slew of bug fixes and a new feature or two were deployed to Mix. If you’re a regular Mix user, you might want to bounce over and check out the new stuff, or if you’ve hit any of the bugs listed in the past, rejoice!

New Features
The shiny new feature released last night is group chat. Each group now has a persistent chat room that you can join for ad hoc conversations with anyone who happens to be there.

Also, group administrators can schedule group chats, designate panel members for the chat and invite people to attend.

To check out the chat feature, go to one of your groups and click the Upcoming Chats tab.

A less shiny, but useful new feature is the streamlining of notifications. All notifications (group invitations, network invitations, comments received, requests to join a private group, etc.) now go into your direct message inbox. You can control how often you receive an email reminder of these notifications using the new digest option on your profile.

Bug Fixes
The deploy also fixed a few nagging bugs:

• Joining a group took a long time and if you clicked multiple times, you joined multiple times.
• Search results included private group posts in the count, but no private items were displayed. This was a bit confusing if you didn’t have access to the private results.
• Some questions were redirecting to the Q&A page when you clicked the link.
• Failing to close an HTML tag inside the comment field caused some interesting behavior.
• HTML entered into a comment was stripped out when the item showed up in the Activity Log.
• The Activity Log wasn’t showing group information like other information, e.g. links to profiles and timestamps were missing.
• People were able to accept invitations to private groups more than once.
• The Activity Log on a group page wasn’t showing very interesting information.

Expect more frequent changes to Mix over the next few months. We had a long gap between deployments, but I think Marketing’s plan it to deploy Tuesdays and Thursdays, which should keep the new features and bug fixes flowing.

Thanks to Marketing and ENTP for working on Mix while we focus on Connect.

So, Noel Portugal is at it again.

He has expanded his pet project, OraTweet, to include OraTweetBot, which he says is:

. . . an XMPP/Jabber bot built with Java that will listen for tweets and post them to Twitter or to a database.

I never use the XMPP/IM Twitter integration, but I know it’s more popular than any client out there. And I know it’s been super flakey for months, even by Twitter standards. Well, apparently, Noel’s OraTweetBot can take its place.

But wait, there’s more. You can hook OraTweetBot to your database, and have it post to Twitter, basically your automating tweets. Noel goes on to say:

The big advantage of this is that you can actually map twitter users to a users table on the db and send on their behalf.

Hmm. I guess if you’re using the bot as a buffer for Twitter, i.e. posting in batch in case Twitter has taken a nap. Posting tweets on people’s behalf seems a bit odd, but I assume he means proxying people’s tweets and not impersonating them

Anyway, very cool stuff. This is another APEX community contribution, at least OraTweet is, and Noel is an APEX guy. Those APEX people are having a big week.

So, nobody said boo when I talked about OpenSocial earlier this week, but here’s another reason OpenSocial is going to kick ass when we get it deployed. Noel originally approached me to find a home for OraTweet, ideally on Connect, but it’s written in APEX. Connect is JRuby, so we couldn’t really make it work.

Plus, not that many people have Twitter accounts; have a seat, it’s true. So, adding a Twitter client to the platform wouldn’t appeal to that many of our users.

With OpenSocial, Noel can create OraTweet as an app. OpenSocial is language agnostic, so OraTweet doesn’t need to be rewritten. People add apps they want to use, so there’s no impact to the platform. And bonus, all the data for OraTweet stay on Noel’s servers.

This is why OpenSocial makes sense for us. It allows developers to leverage our network and the social effects of it to spread their apps, and it allows them to develop in their language of choice on their own hardware.

Everybody wins.

I noticed David and Frank chimed in on Noel’s OraTweet post asking him for the URL to test it out; as an OpenSocial app, if I installed OraTweet, my Activity Log would show this. David and Frank and all my other contacts would see this. The Twitter users in my contacts would probably be interested to test out OraTweet.

This is the network effect, much more efficient than asynchronous commenting/replying or using email to spread your app.

OpenSocial is the future for our platform. We can’t possibly build all the enhancements people want into the platform, and frankly, this doesn’t make sense. OpenSocial lets other teams add the enhancements they want, leveraging their development skills.

We’re hoping to get all the container, architecture and UI work done sometime in late Fall. We plan to deploy to Connect first, work out the kinks, then move it to Mix.

What do you think? Are you totally geeked out of your mind? Doubtful. Leave a comment anyway. Everyone has an opinion.

Now that the suggest a session for OpenWorld campaign has ended, it’s time to reflect on what we learned.

First off, thanks to everyone who submitted a session idea. There were 281 submitted before the deadline, and someone even figured out how to create a session after we closed the nomination form. Bonus points for ingenuity.

Now that it’s over, what worked?

Promote Early and Often
As I noted a week after we opened nominations, the UI wasn’t supporting a very fair distribution of ideas, since the only two views we offered were Latest and Greatest, leaving a gap of underserved ideas.

This is something we planned to address (seriously), but we got pulled off Mix onto Connect. So, the time ticked away, and we never got a good filtering UI deployed. This will be a must for next year, if the Events team decides to renew the program.

People adjusted though. Rather than relying on the flawed UI, many session owners promoted early and often through blogs, Twitter, the Oracle Community, and through the Mix social network (w00t! for network effects).

I watched all this promotion through Mix, Google Alerts and Summize, and I have to say I’m impressed. The Events team offered up something valuable, and people went after it with vigor.

I think one person deserves special recognition for his promotional efforts: Steve Stein from Perot Systems Consulting. Steve’s session idea made the top five even though he submitted it less than a month before the voting deadline.

Only one other idea submitted with less than a month lead time made the top 25. Steve waged a short, but effective, promotional war, leveraging his network of 531 people and even creating a blog specifically for his presentation topic.

Anyway, Steve’s example shows that promotion was key to making the top 25. All it took was 58 votes to get selected so every single vote counted.

Stay on the First Page, Above the Fold
I’ve heard a few comments that submitting too early was a bad idea (and yes, the UI is partially responsible), but I disagree. My session idea was one of the first because we needed to seed a few ideas before going live. I did no promotion, other than in the first blog post announcing the program.

And I still got within 7 votes of making the cut.

Being first in allowed my idea to get votes longer, but this wasn’t enough on its own. For quite some time, my session idea was at the top. What really hurt it overall was when it fell below the fold and off the first page of Greatest ideas, and this isn’t an issue that better filtering can completely solve.

I think most people either: a) voted specifically for an idea they saw promoted somewhere and/or b) voted for a few interesting ones on the first page, mainly above the fold. This is a variaton of the Google effect, i.e. if you’re not on the first page of Google results, you don’t exist. We tried to mitigate this by expanding the pages to 50 ideas, but that doesn’t help the below the fold problem.

Food for thought next year. Use promotion to keep these pole positions and you’re in good shape.

Be Controversial (Ahem) Interesting
I’m convinced another reason my session floated toward the top for as long as it did was because it had “porn” in the title.

But if that’s not enough to convince you that controversy works, what about “BEA Aqualogic versus Oracle Fusion Middleware shoot out“? This idea finished second, although I’m not exactly sure how it didn’t finish first by a landslide.

The timing was perfect for it too, since the BEA acquisition closed in late April, and all those newly-minted Oracle employees discovered Mix and the suggest a session program.

Don’t try to tell me this session didn’t garner 50% or more of its votes due to its potentially controversial content, using the term “shoot out” certainly helped.

I’ll be surprised if this isn’t one of the top sessions attended at OpenWorld. Kudos to Lonneke Dikmans who may be the star of OOW 2008.

Anyway, refer back to the drive by voters who casually voted for sessions on the first page, above the fold. Guess which sessions drew their attention?

Use Your Star Power
This goes hand-in-hand with promotion, and I don’t think it’s accidental that well-known, Oracle experts like Eddie Awad, Richard Foote, Chris Muir and Dan Norris made the list.

Disclaimer: I’m not that knowledgeable about all the Oracle experts out there, so please don’t flame me for not mentioning someone as an expert.

Moving on, these experts are popular for a reason, which I’m sure helped their sessions garner votes. If you read Eddie’s blog or you’ve seen Dan speak at a conference, you’re likely to vote up their sessions because they are known quantities.

Of course, on the flip-side, the open nature of the program allows people to see fresh faces present too, which is also a good thing.

Go with APEX
This logic may not work every year, but wow, did it ever work this year. Seven of the top 25 session ideas were APEX-related. I’m sure Carl is glowing right now.

What is it about APEX? Maybe Carl or someone else can clue me in by commenting. I wonder if this will be a trend going forward, i.e. product-based communities storming the voting to push their sessions to the top.

Nothing wrong with that, just interesting, and it says a lot about the APEX community and how involved they are. Kudos.

So, these are the nuggets I’ve seen. Overall, I’m pleased with the experiment.

It’s worth noting that OpenWorld 2008 will be the first (AFAIK) vendor-sponsored conference to include community-voted sessions. and by community, I mean anyone, not just attendees or special-interest groups, since Mix is an open community that anyone can join.

Let’s pause to thank Marketing for making this happen, and bonus points for not censoring the controversial topics.

This is also your chance to sound off about anything you liked, disliked thought was unfair, etc.

Find the comments.

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I spent the day today with my AppsLab brethren sequestered like a jury in the Thunderball conference room in sunny Pleasanton, CA. Or maybe it’s Dublin.

Anyway, Paul called us all together to hunker down on some design work. Well, some new design and some redesign.

If you’re interested in the future of the Connect and eventually Mix versions of our as yet unamed platform read on, and by all means, add your two cents.

We have two big projects right now.

1. Finishing OpenSocial
2. Redesigning groups

Doesn’t seem like a lot, but there are a lot of moving parts. Anthony has had the OpenSocial 0.8 Shindig container implemented for a while, but we’ve been lagging on packaging up the UI pieces. Here are some of the pieces we need to design and build specifically for OpenSocial:

• A repository or gallery of OpenSocial apps
• A preview page for each app in the repository
• A page to submit an app for inclusion in the repository

We also need to package up a sandbox environment and populate it with developer toys for enterprising new OpenSocial developers. That’s not a must have right now, but it should come soon after we deploy the new stuff.

So, not that you can browse and view apps, now what? We also need to jazz up the profile and home pages, which are in dire need of some TLC. Plus, we know groups needs a makeover, too; Paul has been wanting to do that since we launched Mix. So, add to the list:

• Redesigned profile page to support OpenSocial apps
• Redesigned home page to support OpenSocial apps
• Redesigned groups page to showcase activity in your groups
• Redesigned group home page, with a dash of obvious

On top of all that, we’ll be thinking about how to do a Files app. We’re hoping to support both Beehive and Stellent, if I could get Billy’s attention, maybe that would go faster.

Lots of changes. Curious, well check out the rough thoughts Rich put down today. Poor guy is the mockup machine and the UI guy, although I suspect he’ll want my help, such as it is.

Here’s a shot of the changes to the profile page:

Like that? How about these changes to the groups page?

For the OpenSocial stuff, we have some examples to borrow from, e.g. iGoogle, MySpace, orkut, Facebook, so I think we’ll come up with something that works well. The individual group pages will be more focused, no more “Post a topic” and pick from idea, question and blog post. That’s always been a bit confusing to everyone.

We’re going to emphasize the collaborative aspects, and in that spirit, sound off with your thoughts on the Mix/Connect UI pieces we’re redesigning. What do you think of the plans? Do you like where we’re going? Would you add/remove something or change the focus?

Find the comments.

It’s finally official.

The winning sessions have been announced over at the OpenWorld blog. Congrats to the winners. The

Events team selected the top 25 vote-getters, and Lisa Stuart has already begun notifying the submitters via Mix.

Here are the winners ordered by number of votes. I’ve included links to the bloggers I know.

1. Security: Writing Custom Authentication Schemes for Oracle Application Express (Oracle APEX) by Raj Mattamal
2. BEA Aqualogic Versus Oracle Fusion Middleware Shootout by Lonneke Dikmans
3. Implement Pro Card Functionality for Immediate ROI by Don Wynn
4. Visual Dashboard Design by Steve Stein
5. How to Hack an Oracle Application Express Application by Anton Nielsen
6. Successfully Developing and Integrating Applications in Oracle APEX Within Oracle E-Business Suite Haseeb M
7. Indexing Secrets with Richard Foote by (surprise!) Richard Foote (blog)
8. How to Look Like a Star DBA: Shell Scripting Tips and Techniques for Junior DBAs by Sreekanth Chintala
9. The Next Generation of Business Integration: Making the Right Choice! by Nathalie Roman
10. Do You Have the S.W.A.T. to Get Your Highest ROI (On Your Next Upgrade)? by Christina Caporale
11. Use These Simple Tips to Quickly Find Answers to Your Oracle-Related Questions and Keep Your Oracle Skills Up-to-Date by Eddie Awad (blog)
12. (Re)Developing a Logistic Application in Oracle APEX in the Real World by Roel Hartman
13. Oracle’s PeopleSoft Time And Labor—Getting it Right the Second Time at a School District by Andrew Beck
14. Real-World Best Practices for DBAs by Arup Nanda
15. Oracle’s PeopleSoft Treasury—ROI Through Automation and Improved Cash Management by Jeannine Berman
16. Oracle APEX Team Development: Best Practices, Collaboration, and Application Deployment by Priya Lapham
17. How to Effectively Use Web 2.0 Technologies Within a Portal by Howard Block
18. Rapid Development and Validation of Oracle APEX Applications at an FDA-Regulated Medical Device Company by Deb Groskreutz
19. So, You Want to Be an Oracle ACE? by Dan Norris (blog)
20. Back to Basics: Simple Database Web Services Without an Application Server by Chris Muir (blog)
21. Using Oracle APEX to Analyze Your PL/SQL Source Code by Flavio Casetta
22. Oracle Portal, Oracle WebCenter, and Stellent —Which One Should You Use? by Eric Marcoux (blog)
23. Undocumented Oracle DBA Utilities: Black Magic for the Oracle Expert! by Ben Prusinski
24. Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE)—Custom Versus Prepackaged by Adam Getz
25. Oracle Database 11g: New Features for DBAs by Arup Nanda

Head over to Mix and comment on these sessions, connect to the submitters, tell them you’re attending and maybe you can help shape the content before OpenWorld.

If you are one of the lucky winners, feel free to sound off in comments if you want to encourage us to attend.

I learned a new word today, nerdcore. Here’s how the Urban Dictionary defines it:

Any form of music that is made by nerds, for nerds, or about nerdly things. Nerdcore can be made in any style of music, but most people identify it in either its pop-punk or hip-hop forms.

With the important caveat:

Nerdcore should not be confused with bands that are simply stereotypically popular with nerds such as They Might Be Giants, DEVO, Ween, etc.

I came about this word in an interesting manner. I heard Optimus Rhyme on the radio (regular, boring radio, not awesome Pandora intertubes radio). This was on the local music segment, and I guess they qualify, being somewhat local, out of Seattle.

I liked their sound (and name, being a huge Transformers geek too) and found them on MySpace (natch), and my new favorite song is “Obey the Moderator“. Even if you don’t like their sound, the words are hilarious, if you’re of a certain geeky persuasion, which I am.

My wife did not find them as funny, not being of the geeky persuasion, not even when I explained why their name was cool. Actually, that made it worse because of course, she already knew and isn’t a fan of Transformers either. Not like I am anyway. She made the “Batman or Superman?” face.

So, digging a bit more, apparently there’s a whole musical genre here called nerdcore, which incidentally is killer clever IMHO. How awesome is that?

Growing up, I suffered through the rise of pop like New Edition, Debbie Gibson and Tiffany before settling into “alternative”. It would have ruled to have nerdcore music back then; I especially like the “by nerds, for nerds” mantra. Good stuff.

All this reminds me of the great Weird Al Yankovic, especially his homages to nerd-dom “White & Nerdy” and “It’s All about the Pentiums“. Watching the latter for the first time in a while is interesting; a lot has changed since 1999, so it’s a funny history lesson too.

It’s Friday. Enjoy your weekend.

Oh, almost forgot, another geeky highlight this week came when Carl tweeted the link for the “Watchmen” movie trailer. Can. Not. Wait.

Disclaimer: Honestly, I love my iPhone. It still rules, and I wouldn’t own another smartphone. However, the cynical misanthrope in me loves to deconstruct the hype that surrounds the “God phone”.

On today’s agenda, two items: 1) the “Best phone for business. Ever.” claim and 2) more 3G nonsense.

For Business? Not yet. Maybe, Updates Follow
Beyond the brazen, marketing claims of “twice the speed” and “half the price”, you have the hyperbolic claim that the iPhone is the best phone for business, ever!

I knew a guy in college who would attach an empathic “Ever!” to any best _____ claim, e.g. “That was the best movie. Ever!”. Anyway, moving on, this is laughable claim right now.

The internal mailing list and the group I created on Connect are choked with frenzied requests for help with:

1. Synchronizing calendar with the iPhone.
2. Getting VPN working.

Leave the first one for now because that’s a technology discussion more than anything at this point. The second one is nutty. Here’s a scenario someone called me about today.

Someone in Sales wants to demo the Oracle Business Indicators app for the iPhone, the eye candy app Oracle released when the App Store debuted last week. Very cool looking, and I’m sure customers are drooling to get a look at it.

Problem is that there’s no way to connect the app to any demo environment inside the Oracle firewall. We could use the Cisco VPN option, if there were any way to put the appropriate certificate on the iPhone, but remember, there’s no way to put anything on a locked iPhone without iTunes.

Update: Thanks to Bob for the protip. Apparently, it is possible to put files on a locked iPhone (and iPod Touch). Apple has a full-on manual here called “iPhone and iPod Touch Enterprise Deployment Guide”. I’ll have to browse this page-turner to get the 411 and adjust my thinking.

We still can’t use the Cisco VPN client without some help for Security, so stay tuned.

It’s likely that Apple will eventually go to a striped-by-enterprise iTunes model to accommodate these enterprise demands, but who knows how long that will take. Until then, how can we demo these whizzy apps to customers?

Sounds like the only choice is an unlock (2G 2.0 or 3G), but that obviously wouldn’t go over well with Mr. Jobs and company. So what do we do?

The answer is wait. And hope it comes soon. It’s a walled garden, and we’re all happily smelling the flowers. It’s a strange dichotomy that exists with some Mac enthusiasts. Techcrunch IT points it out, i.e. the Open Source stickers on the Macbook. I’m guilty too. I have Ubuntu and PostgreSQL stickers on my Macbook. I really don’t have an explanation for my behavior

Ironic, no?

Anyway, iPhone apps for business are hot like Las Vegas right now. Case in point, Tim blogged about an upcoming (?) BI Publisher iPhone app today. Check it out here. The screencast shows (I think) the SDK development environment. Cool stuff. I hope we can demo it by the time it’s released.

FYI, Rich is getting hooked up with iPhone development stuff. Stay tuned for awesomesauce and thanks to friends of the ‘Lab. You know who you are.

2G Accessories Fail
The second point for today concerns the 3G iPhone and its fails.

Retrevo blogged “Seven Reasons Why the New iPhone Sucks” today. I agree with all seven, and today, I found an eighth to add to the list.

Accessories purchased for an OI (original iPhone) don’t necessarily work with a 3G iPhone. Nice.

Here’s the story. The person in question had upgraded from a OI to a 3G iPhone, but s/he was “having issues with the phone freezing and going blank while on calls”. Bummer.

Worried that s/he might have a defective 3G phone, s/he went to the Genius Bar for help.

“The Guy at the Expert Bar asked what was going on then asked to see my phone.  He took the phone removed my jam jacket handed the phone back to me and said ok it’s fixed.

So now you can imagine, I think he is being a wise guy.. But no he went on to explain. They moved the proximity sensor to a different place on the 3G phone. It used to be located on the speaker on the 2G phone, so the sensor was not blocked when using a jacket/cover.  On the 3G phone the sensor is to the left of the speaker so if you use any covers for a 2G phone the sensor is blocked and gets confused, this in turn will blank the screen and lock it thinking its up against your face…… LOL . . . .

Why did I upgrade the phone or go for the 3G hype?”

This really struck a chord with me. So, not only are we 2G users left with some 3G envy, despite the investment we already made, the accessories we purchased probably won’t work with the 3G version.

So, pretty much all the investment you made in the 2G version is a sunk cost.

Thoughts? Find the comments. They’re directly below, where it says “Add a Comment” or maybe “X Comments” where X is ideally greater than 0. Easy to find.

Maybe you missed it, but Apple released a bunch of new iPhone stuff last week. Who knew?

The 7.7 release of iTunes added the App Store, and the 2.0 firmware now allows me to run the first apps on my iPhone, w00t!

Reviews have begun to arrive, and apparently, the most popular price point has risen from free to $0.99. Not a big surprise there, since that’s what songs cost on iTunes. I agree with the sentiment that some app developers have way overpriced their offerings.

Personally, I’m sticking to free (as in freedom, at least from my perspective) until something really kickass comes along.

I’ve tested out quite a few apps, and now, gentle reader, I’ll share some thoughts. First off, the top of the heap so far has to be Pandora. I’m not alone in this opinion, although crowing it the killer app is a bit odd to me this early in the game.

I’ve been roadtesting Last.fm and Pandora this week because I’m getting a little tired of my library of songs, and one of the cool things about these apps is they recommend new music based on your listing. This is a plus for me, i.e. back to boredom aspect.

I started with Last.fm, but it’s bit clunky and slow. Plus, it took me a long time to “scrobble” my main playlist. Its client is pretty, but its iPhone app is full of fail. I couldn’t get it to load on the Edge network. I’m hoping this was a launch glitch and not a 3G or no-G issue.

Paul recommended Pandora as a better alternative and so did Rich. So I tried it out and so far, I agree.  It’s easier to get started and their iPhone app is great. It works well over Edge, and the more you listen, the better it gets at recommending music. As with the web version, it has an instant gratification button, i.e. “Buy this Song on iTunes”. Very cool stuff.

I downloaded and played my first game tonight, Tap Tap Revenge, a Guitar Hero style app for three fingers. Lots of fun, but there aren’t many songs. And they’re all techo beats.

I’ve tried Twitterific and Twittelator as clients for Twitter. Neither is very compelling. Frankly, I prefer Hahlo, which has been the top Twitter iPhone app for me for ages.

I do still enjoy the Remote app. It works over wi-fi, so I’m planning to upgrade my wife’s iTunes, add her library and freak her out from downstairs, playing random songs. That should be a laugh.

Jott and Evernote have nice apps, but I still haven’t been able to commit to using either service. However, I think if I ever get there, their iPhone apps will be very useful.

The Google and Facebook apps seem redundant to me, since they are very similar to the iPhone web apps these companies already released.

Finally, I have WeatherBug and Where. I haven’t really used either very much yet, but both are very slow over the Edge network.

Most of the apps ask if they can use your location data, even if there’s no obvious reason why, e.g. why does the Camera app care about my location? TechCrunch suggests that MySpace and Facebook have missed the boat so far because their apps do not use location.

Location and cell phones was one of the promises of Bluetooth back in the day; remember the killer app of broadcast ads to Bluetooth compatible cell phones nearby? I can’t imagine the outcry if that had gone into production. So, while I agree it has potential, I think people may have a paranoid barrier that prevents mass adoption.

Overall, apps seem pretty average, but the one big complaint I have is they can’t run in the background, which we’ve known since the SDK and license terms were announced. This is critical, and it may drive me to an unlock eventually.

Take Pandora for example. While writing this post, I took some screen captures (still a kickass new feature) and wanted to bounce over to mail them to myself from the Photos app. Pandora has to exit, which means no music. Of course, not so with the iPod app, which happily plays in the background while you move around the iPhone O/S.

This is a huge loss for users and app developers alike. Without background processing, computing fails.

Aside from apps and the screen capture nugget, I have noticed some cool stuff in the 2.0 update compared to 1.1.4. First of all, it doesn’t crash as much. 1.1.4 had become seriously unstable for me, crashing frequently in a lot of useful apps.

Mail also has multiple deletes, which saves time and iterations.

Still no copy/paste, another major gap.

What do you think of apps? The 2.0 firmware? Are you a newly-minted iPhone geek? Do you love it? Tell us all in comments.

Since we started down this road last year launching Connect to go with the IdeaFactory, one common ask has been blogs.

Blogs are a cornerstone of Web 2.0, allowing anyone to publish content and anyone to participate. We discussed very early on whether we should provide a blogging platform, like multi-user WordPress or MoveableType, for internal people to use.

Ultimately, we decided against this because: 1) there were already a few instances of blogging software hosted inside the firewall and 2) our efforts were focused on people as the platform, making the social network more applicable.

But we did get lots of requests to add blogs, and we even added a Blogs tab to original Connect as a teaser.

Last week, Rich deployed a WYSIWYG editor to Connect, very similar to the one Wordpress offers. We had one before on the original Connect, but the Mix code line has never had one. I’ve wanted this for a while for Mix; since we don’t do file management (yet), a stopgap way to support video and other media is through embeds.

It occurred to me today that Connect is now a viable alternative as a blogging platform, with each group being a separate blog, capable of supporting multiple authors.

This isn’t new. It’s been that way since we launched Mix, but adding the editor really emphasizes the power of using a group to blog. We all know blogs are a great way to have a conversation and collaborate around a topic. One tough aspect of blogging is building an audience.

Groups makes this easier by allowing invites, or if you have a group already, you could just start publishing posts.

One thing Sagar did before he left was push the use of blogs for communication. Everyone complains about too much email, zombie replies to all, and spam. Blogs make the information consumable in a more asynchronous way, through the blog itself or through RSS.

There are lots of good use cases for blogs inside the firewall:

• Sharing interesting information among your team.
• Project managing a distributed team.
• Broadcasting content to a group and requesting feedback.
• Compiling status reports.

And of course, sharing non-work related, fun stuff with colleagues who have the same interests.

So, even though it wasn’t our intention to build a blogging platform, Connect has evolved into one by accident.

Here comes a teaser. We’ve been working with the team that host the MoveableType instance that hosts the Oracle blogs, a very talented bunch in APAC, on OpenSocial apps for quite some time. Connect is currently enabled as an OpenSocial container, and once we work out the UI pieces, we’ll be launching an OpenSocial apps repository.

Jesse Hu, whom we’re very lucky to have working with us, has built several OpenSocial apps for this repository, including a blogging app that integrates with the MoveableType instance. I think this app will allow people with MT blogs to post and manage posts from within Connect.

More on this to come.

Here comes another installment in my FAQ series. This one isn’t a question I get asked, but rather one I ask.

Inevitably, when you start a community or release an application to customers, you’ll need to make sure you’ve got the blessing of three groups within your company.

• Human Resources
• Legal
• Security

In any size company, you’ll need to do this, and failure to do so always ends in tears or worse for you. My advice is to engage these groups as soon as possible and plan for a very long approval process.

I don’t mention IT in this list because IT isn’t always in charge of security. When they are, then Security means IT, and by security, I mean network, not physical security. But you knew that already.

The first meeting of our (now dormant) Working Group covered how to approach Legal and Security with advice from members of our Legal and Security teams. We’ve been very fortunate to have allies in Legal and Security that have helped us understand what needed to be done to complete our projects and helped us get there as quickly as possible.

However, a lot of teams I speak to have only a vague sense that they need to work with these teams (and sometimes HR) before they can launch, and often, they haven’t allocated enough time in their plans. And they don’t know where to begin. Luckily for them, our work with Connect and Mix has acquainted us with the right people in these groups, so I can recommend a starting point.

This isn’t a revelation. Most people know you need to get these groups to approval, but they assume the approvals will go quickly. They don’t usually, and not because HR, Legal and Security want you to suffer, but because they are tasked with responsibilities for the company and its employees. So, they have to ensure these responsibilities are executed properly and according to guidelines. They’re not working against you.

Sure, one of the tenants of Web 2.0 is empowering the community, but in order to to do that at a company, you have to jump through the hoops. Welcome to Enterprise 2.0, where your privacy and identity aren’t the only things at risk.

Case in point, the iPhone 2.0 firmware include support for Cisco VPN, which we use. However, there are a few things missing to get it working. The iPhone inspires hacking like no other gadget I’ve seen recently, witness how quickly it was unlocked and jailbroken.

That spirit drove some industrious gadget hounds to suggest ways to decrypt certain passwords in order to use them for iPhone setup. Needless to say, this was met with a stern warning from Security. After all, decrypting a corporate password managed by Security should sound like a bad idea.

This wasn’t an E 2.0 project, but the same care is required when you put up an application in or outside the firewall. There are security measures in place you’ll need to follow in order to comply with Security.

You’ll want to make sure the t’s are crossed and the i’s dotted by providing links to all the appropriate corporate policies, including but not limited to the privacy policy, the terms of use, the blogging guidelines, revenue recognition policies et al. This will keep Legal satisfied.

If you’re using employee data, say for an internal social network, you’ll want to chat with HR, both in the US and abroad. You’ll find that other countries have different, sometime more strict policies protecting employee data and its use. Planning ahead could save you costly lawsuits.

The problem is that these aren’t very sexy parts of your overall project. They don’t involve cool new features or showing off your ninja coding skills. Mostly, they involve scary meetings where you’ll feel like your project and possibly your job are in jeopardy. Not to worry though, if you’re armed with a solid business case and are willing to do whatever it takes to comply, you’ll be just fine.

Take it from me. I’m glad to have friends in HR, Legal and Security.

Share your experiences and advice in comments.

The OpenWorld content catalog has been released, and even though the session schedule hasn’t been finalized yet, you can search and browse for sessions to begin planning your time.

Even though it looks like none of our suggested sessions will make the cut, you can still find AppsLab at OpenWorld. Just to clarify, this session is one that was allocated to us by the Applications track and not a suggested session.

Session Details Session ID: S299162 Session Title: Web 2.0 Technologies In the Enterprise: Lessons Learned, Tips, and Tricks from Oracle AppsLab Session Abstract: Web 2.0 has matured, and enterprises are coming to the realization that the new Web can help their employees be more productive and happier at work. So now what? Where do you begin? What’s your Web 2.0 strategy? What about external communications? Do you need a blog? Come get answers to these and other questions from Oracle AppsLab. Hear about firsthand experience with what works, what doesn’t, and how you can get started with Web 2.0 technologies. Track: APPLICATIONS, All Applications Focus Areas: Not Applicable Session Type: Conference Session Product Area: Applications Strategy Duration: 60 minutes

Room: Rm 2020 Speaker(s)/Company: Paul Pedrazzi, Oracle

Also, if you’re anxiously awaiting the results of the session voting and want details on what happens next, you’re not alone. I am too.

Rest assured, I will blog the details when I know them. Until them, sit tight.

About a year ago, I bought my wife an iPhone and then soon broke down and bought myself one. Since then, I’ve blogged several times about the little gadget, including a few posts on how it works for me as a work tool.

A large percentage of the traffic on this blog is due to iPhone content. Several of my posts on the iPhone are in the top ten posts, ranked by traffic. Many of the referrals from search engines include “iphone” as a keyword.

In fact searching for oracle iphone returns two of my posts above the fold in Google, which is humorous to me, since just last week, Oracle released the iPhone Business Indicators app. I guess Wordpress has pretty good SEO-fu.

I routinely get inquiries from employees about the link to the iPhone wiki I started last August, and that post now has a hefty 61 comments on it.

So, when we launched the upgraded version of Connect, it made sense to create an iPhone group. The timing couldn’t have been better, just a few weeks before the 3G iPhone, the iPhone App Store and the 2.0 firmware all hit.

Anyway, if you’re an employee and you want find or share information about your iPhone (brand new or otherwise), hit me up, and I’ll point you to the group. The wiki page is linked there too, which is great because I never could find the URL fast enough.

The “Have an iPhone?” group is also a great place to sound off about what you like or don’t like about the gadget, e.g. maybe you were one of the many affected by iPocalypse Friday.

Want the 411? Drop a comment.

Voting for suggested sessions for OpenWorld in September ends today over on Mix.

I can’t tell you exactly what time it will end. Being Sunday and all, Rich is probably busy having a weekend, but it will end today.

If you haven’t voted yet, head over and browse the list of sessions. Participation has been outstanding; we’ve had nearly 300 session ideas proposed and several thousand votes cast.

If you proposed a session, this is your final chance to promote before the voting ends. Several people were doing that last week, and their efforts have paid off, moving some sessions up the list, e.g. there’s a new number one.

I still don’t have an official word on the number of sessions that will make the cut, but I’ve heard the number will be somewhere between 25-35. The numbers are fuzzy because the Events team is expecting that not all the top vote getters will respond and be able to present.

So, if you have an idea in or near the top 20, get your agenda and content ready for the big dog and pony show because you’ll want to be prepared and polished when you get the call, figuratively speaking. In reality, it’ll probably be an email.

Anyway, brush off your A game. Everyone else, head over to Mix and join this unique opportunity. Have a voice in what sessions make the cut for OpenWorld.

If you wondering, OpenWorld is September 21-25 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Register here, early bird rates end on July 18, or if you’re a blogger and you want to attend cover this huge conference, follow the process listed here.

Update: Voting has ended. Head over to Mix to view the greatest session ideas.

Update 7/14/08: The official word is here.

Sessions are now being carefully evaluated and winners will be announced on July 21.

Update: This post could easily have been all about the failday (or iPocalypse as Gizmodo is calling it) Apple and AT&T had. Not since Firefox 3 download day have we seen a fail of these proportions.

No one was exempt: those waiting in line, those updating a 2G iPhone, those trying to activate iPhones for hours. Except for those of us who installed the leaked update yesterday (thanks Eddie!). I think that is still working, if you have a 2G and can’t get the firmware to update through iTunes.

This has been bothering me all week, and I can’t believe I forgot to include it my last post about the iPhone 2.0 firmware.

It’s the corporate discount. You know, the iPhone is for business now, so corporate discounts are supposed to apply.

This is confusing, and I don’t claim to have all the information. Here’s what I know:

• Oracle employees qualify for a discount with AT&T.
• As of July 2007, when I bought my iPhones, that discount did not apply to iPhones. Bummer.
• Recently, AT&T changed this policy, ostensibly for 3G iPhones.
• I called AT&T last week and was told that the corporate discount did in fact apply to “iPhones” no delineation on which versions, but only if the iPhone was not the primary phone on the account. Major bummer.

So, this means that either 3G iPhones are treated differently that 2G ones are or we’re all in the same boat. Either way, I’m screwed. Honestly, I really hope I’m not paying the early adopter tax again for buying a 2G iPhone too soon.

I also really hope that this is the correct interpretation of “supporting” the corporate discount. If so, it’s a laughably narrow interpretation.

So, help me out here? Anyone have information about this pickle, Oracle employee or not?

I guess can wait. Apple and AT&T have their hands full today. Techmeme is dominated by stories about the activation servers failing. A friend of mine waited three hours in line to get a 16GB iPhone and got nothing; there’s speculation that Apple and AT&T are manufacturing demand for the devices by refusing to sell more than an allotted quota each day.

Apparently, the 2.0 firmware push is borked too. Not to worry, you can do it yourself if you’re brave. I did.

But hey, at least Twitter is up so everyone can vent.

Update 7/14/08: I called AT&T again today and was told flat out that 2G iPhones weren’t eligible at all for the corporate discount. Thanks Apple and AT&T! So far, no word from anyone yet about the 3G iPhone. Stay tuned for more.

Earlier today, Gizmodo leaked the iPhone 2.0 firmware. This update, in conjunction with the iTunes 7.7 release that revealed the long anticipated App Store have allowed me to install apps on my lowly, outmoded iPhone 2G.

I’m now reveling in the geeky pleasure of controlling my iTunes library from my iPhone, using the free Remote app. Look kids, a $500 remote control.

Anyway, I saw the leak earlier today, but I’m both really sick and hesitant to mess with stuff that’s working, especially critical stuff like my cell phone. So, I rested instead.

After rest and medication, I crawled over to Twitter and saw that Eddie had successfully installed the 2.0 firmware. Sweet, a success story. This was all the motivation I needed. Eddie showed off a few screen captures, a new feature in 2.0, to prove it.

Armed with Eddie’s success and newfound, medicated confidence, I downloaded and installed the update. It took about half an hour all together, including several reboots. Caution: sync first because it wipes your phone. Eddie said he had to run the update twice, but mine worked on the first try.

Your results may vary.

I installed a few apps, after first changing my iTunes preferences to list Applications. The process is pretty easy. Twitterific looks good on the iPhone, just like it does on the Mac. I still miss the features of Twhirl though. Several of the apps asked to use my location, which is awesome because it unlocks the potential of geolocation and Interwebs. Exciting stuff, even if it’s not GPS.

I haven’t installed the Oracle Business Indicators app, but if someone points me to a working instance of BI, I’m happy to take it for a drive.

I haven’t been able to get the VPN working, but I guess that’s a problem with early adoption. All in all, the apps are pretty average so far, nothing really outstanding. I’m thinking a jailbreak still brings better apps, since they can operate at the system level and stay running when not in focus. Case in point, I have to keep going back to Remote to skip around iTunes, and each time, it has to find my wi-fi again.

It’s worth noting that the 2.0 firmware was unlocked hours after Gizmodo leaked it, and probably a day before the official 2.0 update is pushed from Apple.

If you’re wondering, I have no interest in a 3G iPhone, even if you gave me one.

So, what are your iPhone thoughts? Are you waiting in line? Did you install the leaked update? Are you steering clear still? Sound off in comments.

One of my favorite memes is LOLcats. I never get tired of them. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.

I had hoped to find a hilarious “ur doin it rong” to go with blogging, but alas, you’ll have to be amused by these representative samples.

Anyway, I have a few pet (pun intended) peeves related to blogging, or rather to commenting on blogs. The assumption here is that the blog has comments turned on; if not, it’s not really a blog, is it?

Peeve 1: Moderated Comments
This gets to why someone starts a blog in the first place. If the goal was to open topics up to discussion, moderated comments throw a wet blanket over that. I’m by no means a serial commenter, but when I’m motivated enough by a post to comment, I like to see my comment immediately.

It’s the instant gratification, not dissimilar to what Twitter provides. Moderating comments also lengthens the feedback loop. So not only do I wait for my comment to appear, I also wait for the blogger to respond.

People don’t comment without expecting or at least hoping for a response (more on that later).

Most arguments I’ve heard for moderation are pretty thin, IMHO.

1. All kinds of spam will get through.
2. I want to censor people.
3. I can’t keep up with comments.

None of these are compelling to me. First, let’s address spam.

Any blogging software worth its salt will have pretty decent comment spam blocking. However, even a good spam blocker, like Askimet for WP will fail to catch everything. Just like with email, spammers find a way.

Some posts attract more spam that slips through than others, but if you keep a watchful eye on your comments, which you should anyway, you’ll be able to spot these and remove them with ease.

Spam tends to flock to popular blogs too, so if you have a small audience and low traffic, you’re probably not going to have major problems.

Now for censorship.

Censorship has a negative connotation, but what else would you call when you moderate what people can say on your blog? I believe most moderating bloggers have good intentions. They don’t want cussing or flaming on their blogs. However, the odds of that happening are like spam. They go up as you get more readers. The problem for me is that if a blog moderates comments, and I have a negative or dissenting viewpoint to express, what’s the likelihood that my comment ever makes it out of moderation?

Finally, time constraints.

This one is counter-intuitive to me, since it’s less effort to let all the comments through without moderating them. Like I said, most of the comments you get will be from interested readers who want to have a conversation. This is why people start blogging, right?

Peeve 2: Black Hole Comments
While we’re talking conversation, I just don’t get why people blog and don’t reply to comments. One major tenant of Web 2.0 is the evolution of publishing into participation.

So, if you blog and don’t reply to comments, aren’t you just publishing? Even bloggers for a highly trafficked blog like TechCrunch or ReadWriteWeb reply to comment, which often number in the hundreds. Maybe they don’t reply to each and every one, but when you get 400 comments, that model doesn’t scale.

When you only have a handful, what’s the problem?

Yeah, I know people are busy, but I’ll ask again, why did you start the blog?

Peeve 3: Anonymous Commenting
This starts out as a peeve and gets into anger territory when you see people attacked behind the anonymity and impersonal nature of the Intertubes.

IMHO if you have something to say and feel passionate enough about it to comment, why not put your stamp on it? I’m not defending marketing walls here either. I think they tend to encourage anonymity in the form of psuedonyms.

A blog should have a commenting system (like Disqus), ideally that supports OpenID (and by the way, I would like to know why the Disqus blog widget doesn’t allow OpenID authentication), or a form that allows a quick way for commenters to identify themselves and give their comment.

Anonymous commenting makes people suspicious, and it’s not that anonymous, as Vinnie pointed out last year. People may not know you’re a dog on the Intertubes, but they do know a lot more about you than you think.

Not all anonymous commenting ends up as hate, but when it does, it’s yet another reminder of how easy it is to say hurtful things when you don’t have to confront someone. It happened to Kathy Sierra, and it just happened to a friend of mine, Corvida Raven. It’s despicable, and it’s happened to countless others and will continue to happen.

Not all anonymous commenters mean harm, but if you make the leap to comment, why not tell the bloger who you are?

So, these are my peeves with commenting. What do you think? Am I full of it? You know what to do.

And you’ll find your thoughts unmoderated and definitely answered.

Connect has been live for several weeks now. We spent only a few days running it concurrently with original Connect, and then Rich slapped redirects in place for the old URLs. It didn’t make much sense to maintain two instances

Traffic, which had dwindled significantly has ramped back up to between 13-15,000 pageviews each week. This isn’t super heavy volume for Connect, which is a good thing as we work out the kinks.

The early analytics show that groups are a big hit. From our experience with Connect a year ago, we’ve always know that groups is the killer feature. That’s why we added them to Mix. People have been asking for Groups since we launched Mix, and now, they’re joining Groups like crazy.

One interesting effect I’ve noticed with groups is that the early ones have been based on affinity, e.g. Apple technology or iPhone or Linux. I noticed a couple of these pop up, so I added a few myself. It’s always interesting to see what your colleagues are interested in, whether technology or hobby or both.

One note that amused me was the formation of an Enterprise 2.0 group. Its membership quickly grew to 60 plus people, but there is very little activity within the group. Ironically, one quarter of the activity was Billy’s snarky comment about my joining the group. After all, I’m not a fan of the term.

My guess is this will be pretty common, i.e. people will join groups and wonder what happens next. We’ve seen this on Mix, and frankly, we have some work to do with the groups UI to make it more useful. RSS helps, and when we roll out email subscriptions and digest emails, that will help too. Still, we need to focus on making the UI better.

Right now, participation isn’t necessary, but once teams try to use Connect for real collaboration and productive work, we’ll want this to be intuitive and easy. I mean more intuitive and more easy.

It will probably be a while before we get a lot of work-related groups started, so we’re huddling in a conference room next week in Pleasanton to brainstorm the design.

If you read here with any regularity, you’ve probably used Mix and are familiar with Groups. What do you think would help the UI design? Stuff to add, ways to make it more engaging for collaboration.

Any other suggestions? Sound off in comments.

As Justin blogged yesterday, Oracle is hosting an Enterprise 2.0 Bootcamp on July 28 at the big blue disk drives in Redwood Shores.

I won’t be able to make it, but Paul will be in attendance, along with Justin and the usual suspects. This should be an interesting event where attendees get a chance to interact with Oracle folks and other interested parties in a predominantly unconference format.

Oh, and it’s free as in beer.

Here’s the agenda:

8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Breakfast
8:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Opening Remarks
9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Lightning Talks
9:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Format Overview and Session Signups
10:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. Unconference Session 1
11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Unconference Session 2
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. Unconference Session 3
2:15 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Unconference Session 4
3:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m. Unconference Session 5
4:45 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Closing Remarks
5:00 p.m. Networking

If you’re going to be in the Bay Area on July 28 and want to talk Enterprise 2.0 and such, come out to Oracle.

You can register here and RSVP on Upcoming.