Chuck Freedman

It’s been long awaited, doubted, wondered, feared, promised, predicted and hoped for so long. Today, Google Maps announced the release of a Flash API! From one platform leader to another, congratulations to the Google Maps team. This is big for you and the Flash community.
Flash developers are special for maps. Flash apps are always distinct, since they cannot just simply be carbon-copied like most Ajax maps mashups. Flash developers seem to spend way more time building and cultivating their maps-based apps and mashups — and, real statistics show, that users spend more time on Flash born maps-apps than other those built on other technologies.

I applaud the timing of this release — right in the middle of Where 2.0 and days before WhereCamp. It should be the talk of the week, as many eager maps and geo developers will now have a new and optimal solution for building out their apps.

Those who perceive this release as competitive should recognize the positive aspects of what a fresh new Mapping API can bring for Flash. As I used to point out at Yahoo!, the Maps API is like a ‘gateway drug’ to all other APIs. Once a developer starts in on maps, they want more — they want to include photos, weather, news, videos and everything else they can get their hands on. Google should now see prime interest and demand in their other APIs (some of which, like YouTube, are already geared towards Flash development). And all those other popular APIs (many from Yahoo!, like Flickr) should see a burst of interest from Google’s loyal developers — who to this point, may not have yet enjoyed and benefited from the great performance and features they are about to see from Flash!

I received a Skyfire Beta install on Friday. With the Ribbit Voice components for Flash CS3 installed, I was able to drag and drop my way to a visual voicemail app in a few minutes. The app logs me in and pulls down my voicemail data from my Ribbit account, showing the caller’s name, number and photo, length of message and an optional text transcription of the message.

Upon selecting the message, I can actually play it and listen to it. All this is done through Ribbit. The ability to view Flash content and ‘listen to’ audio is made possible with the Skyfire browser, currently out for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. The site says Symbian will be supported next, with Palm and iPhone unscheduled.

Here is a video Randy did of me actually building the app and demo-ing it on my Motorola Q9m Windows Mobile phone:



Get Skyfire browser here: http://www.skyfire.com/

Get the Ribbit Voice components for Flash here: http://developer.ribbit.com/flash

Sprout is a Flex sensation. The web-based drag and drop application lets you add many of your favorite web services into your own, fully customize-able widget. It’s sleek, flashy and full of intuitive controls.

I’ve been testing out Sprout, easily building widgets of all different sizes, including a full array of design effects, and, most enjoyably, bringing in various pre-canned web APIs like Twitter, Yahoo Maps, ChipIn, Google Charts, Google Forms, Poll Daddy and Seesmic Video. And there’s even one more VERY SPECIAL service available called Ribbit!

Yes, you can actually add Ribbit to your Sprout with a single click (or drag and drop, if you want more control). The initial Ribbit implementation features a call button. Once inside your widget, SproutBuilder lets you define a the phone number you want the button to call, as well as what account username and password to use when calling. It has to be the simplest way of including Ribbit into anything on the web - to date.

Sprout recently released an SDK which will no doubt become a gateway for so many more beloved web services to find a home in the SproutBuilder interface. I see great virtues in the platform from both sides. For the user, it will enable a  shopping spree for adding favorite web content in single display that can live in your most personal web presences like a facebook/myspace page, a netvibes page or a blog. For web service providers like Ribbit, it will give us a chance to reach well beyond our developers and let anyone add Ribbit services (phone calling and hopefully soon, messaging and contacts) to their web page - all with a single click.

You can see a Sprout widget at the top of my page, featuring my latest Twitter entries. It took less that 2 minutes to build and ‘publish’ the widget. Visit Sprout and have fun building your own widget and congrats to the Sprout team for delivering such an amazing application.

Apple is building their largest store - evah - in the heart of Boston. Gizmodo reports the new flagship is a giant glass cube, prepared to greet 1,500 to 2,000 fanatics (I mean customers) an hour.

Despite not owning anything Apple (I guess that means my kids will qualify for minority scholarships), I am in awe of the success and style of their retail stores. I’ve visited every Apple store I’ve encountered, most notably San Fran, NYC, Chicago, University Ave (in Palo Alto) and of course, the Cambridge one (currently closest to downtown Boston). I have actually purchased one item at an Apple store — a very cool Oakley laptop bag!

If any of you Bay Area-based Apple nuts are now planning a trip (or even a move to Boston) to bask in the shadow of this 4 story cube, I’ll be happy to familiarize you with the area.

A very clever thing to note — the ‘coming soon’ banner resembles the green monster scoreboard. Love it!

See Gizmodo for more photos and the full story.

Today marks my one year with Ribbit. Those of you who have white-knuckled your way through a first year with a startup probably know what a gratifying milestone it is. It feels pretty good and special.

I’ve enjoyed more support in my current role at Ribbit than any other job I’ve ever had. My ideas are most always met with positive and/or constructive feedback. My manager and much of the executive team are encouraging. The experienced and brilliant operations and marketing teams, especially, seem to always find the best ways to take what I do (or want to do) and deploy it just the right way. As a result, so many of my initiatives have seen such amazing light internally, throughout our developer community and on into the marketplace.

Before I walked in the door, the Ribbit Developer Platform didn’t exist. There was no developer community and the amazing voice platform that is Ribbit was still wrapped in the box, waiting to blow open. Now, we have a strong community, thousands upon thousands of eager developers, actively building on and participating in our developer platform community. The one-of-a-kind Ribbit Voice components for Flash will launch soon, marking what may be the single coolest thing I’ve ever envisioned actually come to life. To see that actually happen and come full circle is a true reward in itself.

It hasn’t been an easy year. The volatility and constant-shifting of a small company is always bumpy. Strong leadership can usually tilt the table in the right direction, so the right talent and resources fall into the right places. What seems like long hours and weeks usually yields pretty impressive results that unite the team and let everyone rally around a common goal (or several different common goals).

Ribbit is off to a strong start. It still seems like we’re still starting up - still in boot up mode. But things are starting to materialize. Killer apps will be launched very soon. More components are coming out. The team is growing. Sure, common startup hopes are high — that the giant corp will walk in with a huge check and we’ll go the way of YouTube and Skype. Or maybe we all stay on and ride this thing to wherever it can take us.

I know that I am grateful for the opportunity, the chance to truly carve out a niche as a premiere Developer Platform leader. There’s a lot of exciting technology out there — here’s hoping Ribbit establishes its place with plenty of success for all of us.

In April 2006, it was my first Flash conference ever, and I flew to FITC Toronto with a Yahoo employee badge in my pocket. I had the joy of presenting maps, and I thought I’d never be more proud to share what, to me then, was the best Flash API at the time.

Two years later, I’m returning to FITC to give a sneak peek at what I think are the coolest Flash components ever. Not only do the Ribbit Voice Components for Flash allow drag and drop voice into Flash, but there are a total of 8 amazing components, featuring custom layout and skinning, that let you bring in the wide range of the Ribbit API features into your app.

Here is a list of features and worthy notes to support my claim:
- 8 Components in the Ribbit Flash set
- You can make money by building an app and selling it in our Ribbit store
- The components were built with Sir Keith Peters (friend and colleague) of Infrared5.
- You can now make and receive phone calls in Flash
- You can now check your voicemail in Flash
- You can now manage your contacts in Flash
- All components feature custom layout with ‘live preview’
- All components are fully skin-able
- You can access all Ribbit API methods, events and objects through the RibbitRequest instance
- The component set will be free to most existing and new members of the Ribbit Developer Community.

Sound good enough? Sign up for the pre-release. If you are at FITC, come visit us at our booth and check out my session at 4EST.

Want to see more? Check out this very cool video of a sneak peek at the Ribbit Voice components for Flash!

Someone from our marketing team went around the office taking pictures of everybody working. Below is a photo of some of the talented Flex developers we have at Ribbit — hard at work. So hard at work, in fact, none of us noticed the photo was taken.

I’m the one in the back left, in the red shirt, with the AS3 Framework poster next to my desk. Look closely and you’ll see an Indiana Jones promotional popcorn bag sitting on the wall above my monitor. These little things remind us that there is joy outside of work and that time can best be measured by when summer blockbuster movies are going to be released.

Whoever said working at an exciting startup would leave little time for anything else wasn’t too off. Between a book, a one-year-old and being part of a very exciting company in Ribbit, I’ve spared virtually no time for anything else. Sure, I’ve enjoyed (mostly work related and at times exhausting) travel over the past year. I’ve been able to play a few rounds of Bay Area municipal golf in what would otherwise be dead-winter for me if I were back east.

In addition to my blog, as well as occasionally helping/advising friends on various things from gadget buying to small projects, I try and maintain two ‘hobby’ projects. I use the word maintain VERY LOOSELY. Maintaining for me lately, as in most of the last year, has been nothing more than making sure the site is up and running.

These ‘hobby’ efforts (a term my manager actually used recently) are worth mentioning. While they certainly don’t come close to my excitement, dedication and passion for my current and near future day/night job, I still am fairly proud of the work I did on them in what seems like the distant past.

GAMETRIPPING.COM

I originally launched this site back in June of 2004, after returning from a trip in which I saw the Red Sox play the San Francisco Giants at (then) Pac Bell Park. The site expresses my enthusiasm for baseball, visiting ballparks, and seeing others share their experience at different ballparks.

I had high hopes for this site, with a simple business model to promote vacations to each ballpark. At one point, back in 2005, I even prepared a business plan aimed at the Red Sox new venture group. The site benefited from a minor face lift and a spankin new logo about a year and a half ago. It also features a way to login, review and track all the ballparks you’ve visited.

As the baseball season ramps up, it usually benefits from a surge in traffic from folks looking to plan a summer’s worth of ballpark travel. I hope, work-willing, I can spruce up the site in the coming year and position it to be more of the site I always wanted it to be — adding football, basketball and hockey stadium reviews as well.

RELAYMONKEY.COM

I actually wrote the architecture for this idea while my wife was in labor over a year ago with our first son. Sounds weird, but she was sleeping most of the day while we were at the hospital. RelayMonkey is a service that lets ANY BLOGGER add a widget to their blog that let’s their readers sign up for instant updates. These updates are sent to the reader’s blog whenever the blog gets a new post.

Since launching it, just over a year ago, I may still be the biggest user and fan of the service. Being so busy (as I mentioned), I don’t have time to browse around and visit all my favorite blogs. So, I rely on RelayMonkey to email me whenever any of the blogs I’ve signed up to (rather, subscribe to) have a new post.

The service requires virtually no maintenance and has been picking up some momentum lately. This is something I would really like to see blossom and I think it’s just a matter of time before it gets a surge in adoption by many bloggers. Note the bright red widget at the top right of my blog — that’s RelayMonkey!

So, one could argue that coding a site and then having to observe a somewhat ’safe’ distance from it is not really a hobby. Thankfully, I take pride in my work, especially when it’s as exciting and revolutionary as what I do everyday at Ribbit. And beyond the keyboard, I am hoping to take on another hobby pretty soon; Something a bit more physical — a martial art perhaps. Coding or karate, it’s all kung fu in the end.

Good friend Rob Abbott is appearing in his first commercial, a San Francisco, activity-themed campaign on the new Nokia N810 WIMAX phone.

Watch the commercial on Youtube.

Congrats, Rob, on your commercial success. It is so cool to see you in this well-done ad for Nokia. Although you’re a known Apple and iPhone nut, I am convinced watching this that you own and are crazy for your Nokia N810.

The baseball season is officially well underway. So, finding myself rightfully at work on a Friday afternoon, I decide to tap into my MLB Gameday Audio subscription for the first time this season. It’s Red Sox vs. Yankees, after all, and I love listening to baseball on the radio — especially when it’s streaming online. I pay $14.95/year for the privilege, through MLB.com, and have enjoyed the service for 3 years now since moving West.

As I loaded up mlb.com and clicked on the “listen” icon next to the game (Boston vs. New York), I was welcomed with a new window, different from the classic red-white-and-blue media player. The window gave me the option: “Download the new SILVERLIGHT player OR use the traditional media player”. Since the game had already started and, even more important, I was too deep into some code to task my laptop with downloading/installing some new/untested technology, I opted for the traditional media player.

The familiar player loaded, and shortly after, the feed from Boston’s WRKO began streaming. I went back to work for a few innings — until I needed to pause the stream and test something. For some reason, I errantly right clicked on pause (very rare for me to do that) and I was shocked. In addition to the familiar “About Adobe Flash Player” option in the context menu, there was also a listing for “About Microsoft Silverlight”.

Does this mean Silverlight was installed without my knowing? Why is there an “About Microsoft Silverlight” listing in the context menu ALONG with Flash Player? Could it mean that Silverlight is running with Flash Player embedded? Or is it MLB’s(or their developers’) attempt to honor some strong partnership with Microsoft by confusing us to think that Microsoft technology is powering our enjoyment of the game? Is this even legal for them to do?