Answerist » Social Networking

Cloud computing – an idea that’s time has come?

Rory McCafferty — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:19:13 +0000

For some time now the tech world has been abuzz with cloud computing. The concept provides great promise, companies can operate with less hardware and use on a need to basis, every application can be on the web with users accessing remotely. According to IDC the market for cloud computing will be $42 billion in 2012, hardly a number to sneeze at. I have myself been a proponent of cloud computing and looked at ways to cut costs and increase agility for our company through the use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Their marketing pitch is that you can get “compute power, storage, and other services–gaining access to a suite of elastic IT infrastructure services as your business demands them.” They are not the only company that is eager to get part of the business, Google has various offerings such as Google Apps. When I Twittered a link on Microsoft questioning cloud computing I received a reply from someone at Microsoft who worked in this area saying that they were committed and pointing me to their Windows Azure platform.

Recently I have been wondering if cloud computing is really ready for prime time. The news flow suggests that the jury may still be out on that. Twitter’s data in the cloud at Google Apps was hacked and downloaded and emailed to TechCrunch. Then there was high profile hosting company Rackspace who have spent nearly $290 million on equipment to allow hosting on the cloud since last year. The problem is there has been a couple of outages taking sites down such as Justin Timberlake and a couple of people I know who were not best pleased. TMCnet contributor writes

Origin Storage, the storage systems integration provider, reportedly said the company does not find the repeated security breaches in Twitter surprising. The company said that such attacks will be expected as many IT staff and managers are being pushed into adopting cloud computing services on a fast track basis.

There are two forces at work at many companies, they are getting pressure to go to the cloud to cut costs and streamline development but technology heads are not usually keen to leave security in the hands of others and recent cases such as those above are not going to encourage them.

I think in summary that cloud computing will change the way people use computers and companies do business, however it does have some way to go and it could get bumpy.

MTV fights to retain viewers from Facebook & Twitter

Rory McCafferty — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:19:48 +0000

It seems to me that MTV abandoned the music video format a long time ago and embraced ‘reality’ TV. Portfolio has an interesting piece about the success of The Hills and how MTV is going to double-down with more meta-reality.

It’s a risky strategy. With these shows, MTV is betting on a particularly elusive sliver of the youth demographic: 18- to 24-year-olds. Yet Graden argues that the programs tap into today’s youth culture in a way prepackaged sitcoms no longer can. “Once you hit 15, 16, you are onto Facebook, onto Twitter, so this is the first generation that has already published the story of their life in real time,” he says. “These shows are what they wish their story was—with pictures they choose, with songs they choose, with their friends.”

> Read full article

Iran Elections

Rory McCafferty — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:06:52 +0000

I think it has been pretty well documented how social networking has allowed much more freedom in passing of information out of Iran. When we are let down by the networks such as CNN many of us turned to Twitter/Facebook blogs etc. The format of one pundit on one side and one with the opposing view is something that does not work in a subject such as this. This flow of information really inspired me to create this blog.

The photo above is from a great slideshow on Flickr which is better than anything I have seen on the major news outlets. View the full slideshow, warning as many of the images are graphic.