Tag: digg

Technology

Do startups use Open Source?

I was very much of the impression that startups these days, because they want to keep spending to a minimum, would be more likely to use Open Source tools to develop their applications. The likes of MySQL instead of Microsoft SQL Server, for instance.

This view was re-inforced by an interview I did with Salim Ismail for the it@cork pre-conference podcast series where he said all his startups used open source software.

However, after a chat with Microsoft’s Rob Burke on his blog, now I’m not so sure!

In my comment, I said Microsoft’s SQL Server should support other platforms and in this way, startups would be more likely to use it (i.e. if they didn’t have to splash out for a Windows license). Rob’s answer surprised me though, he said:

Our group at Microsoft Ireland can, quite literally, not adequately keep up with the demand we get from local startups (and larger ISVs) who see the value of the platform for the data tier and want to find the best on-ramp. You may have noticed – we’re hiring two more evangelists! 🙂

So startups in Ireland are choosing Microsoft SQL Server in droves? Why? The latest version of MySQL has stored procedures, triggers and views. It is platform independent, has a very strong support community and runs some of the better known sites on the web like Craigs List, Del.icio.us, Digg, Flickr, and Wikipedia, to name but a few.

If you chose SQL Server, you are locked into the Windows platform and although there are free versions of SQL Server to start out with, a fully licenced version to run a web site will cost you tens of thousands of Euros/dollars.

Why would any startup choose SQL Server? What am I missing?

Podcasting, PodLeaders

Hold music interviewed and podcast!

I had a podcast interview lined up for today with David Hayden of Jeteye. He didn’t show, so I spent 17 minutes listening to the hold music on the conference call.

I had taken time to prepare for the interview and made room in my schedule today when he postponed last week hours before the interview was due to go ahead.

I tried to setup a Jeteye account so I could ask knowledgeable questions about the site but failed miserably to do so. I had some problems with the logon process.

In any case, getting bored listening to the hold music and having done all the preparation, I decided to go ahead and interview the hold music!

The result is here.

Digg’d (Dugg?) here.

Web 2.0

Digg must be feeling very flattered!

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – if that is true then Digg must be feeling very flattered right about now!

AOL’s Netscape site is being converted from a portal into a Digg clone! You can see it for yourself at beta.netscape.com for now. It will convert to the main Netscape site soon.

The new Netscape site

The site features the ability to ‘vote’ for stories and a constantly updating, dynamic topbar featuring the most popular stories.

This site already has far more traffic than Digg ever had. As Mike Arrington said:

The fact that AOL is launching the new service under the Netscape brand instead of building out a new property says how serious they are about the space. According to statistics provided by AOL, Netscape serves a whopping 811 million monthly page views – far more than Digg today.

This will now introduce all those users to Digg-like technologies which can only be good for educating users on the possibilities of the live web.