How Google, A9, and Flickr create those awesome new web interfaces - "Ajax"

I recently wrote a short post about the fast and fabulous new web interfaces we're starting to see, which are changing how web apps work, and making them ever so much more rich and interactive -- for the first time, a real threat and alternative to the desktop.

Now we are getting some great insight and writing about how this is done.

Quoting Jesse James Garrett:

Take a look at Google Suggest. Watch the way the suggested terms update as you type, almost instantly. Now look at Google Maps. Zoom in. Use your cursor to grab the map and scroll around a bit. Again, everything happens almost instantly, with no waiting for pages to reload. Google Suggest and Google Maps are two examples of a new approach to web applications that we at Adaptive Path have been calling Ajax.
The name is shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, and it represents a
fundamental shift in what’s possible on the Web. Ajax isn’t a technology. It’s really several technologies, each flourishing in its own right, coming together in powerful new ways.

Again, all credit to the link which led me there:

Preoccupations: "Ajax, who he?"

Marc Canter is a genius -- the "Digital Lifestyle Aggregator"

This is one of those off-the-top-of-the-head posts that would be oh so much better if I polished it and edited it and moderated the tone a bit. But I am really, really geeked out at finding Marc Canter's 10-month-old post on "Digital Lifestyle Aggregators" which is near enough to a spittin' image of what I have been working on for the last year, knowing nothing of this essay. We call our version the Extended Conversation, and since we're coming in from a telco tack, we are spending a lot of time thinking about voice and phones as a crucial component of this -- something that I think the largely web-based thinking of the U.S. folks may have missed. Or, I could just be a prisoner of the installed base of my client -- as Marc says, "...Based upon what assets, IP, market position, resources and existing technology base – each DLA customer will have their own unique set of requirements and implementation details..."

So true.

Marc says he works for Tribe.net, though he also says he hopes they fire him. Is this what Tribe is doing? Not that I was aware of... will find out.

Updated: Mark runs Broadband Mechanics, which is a technology provider to Tribe.net among [apparently] many other firms.

All credit due to the links that led me there:

"Thoughts on the Digital Lifestyle Aggregator"

"From blog to DLA" (tb)

Three quick links - Web2 calendaring and mapping

Want to capture these though I don't have time to comment right now.

1) JWZ aka Jamie Zawinski of Netscape (past) and DNA Lounge (present) on "Groupware, Bad!" and the perils of not getting your customers laid... I found this via the peripatetic Tim Bray.

2) A guy I never heard of before, JGWebber (Joel), who I found via JWZ's site. He has a very detailed analysis of the nutz n boltz driving Google Maps, which incidentally was created by a friend of a friend. Under the radar, Google is doing a lot of hiring-by-acquiring in the Bay Area. About a year ago, I told this guy that he was totally wrong to be working on this project. So much for my omnipotent authority (re: another forthcoming post on that subject...)

3) A company I never heard of before, SandCodex, which has some interesting interface and mapping technology. Well, the demo is cool, anyway. I got this from JGWebber's site.

That is an example of the extended conversation... Maybe I should revisit del.icio.us for this kind of thing.