This movie needs to be put into context. Here it goes:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_IndUbcxc]
I came across an excellent “behind the curtains” series of blog posts, telling the fascinating story of the Page.ly project. Page.ly is a user-friendly WordPress hosting, providing hassle-free setup and configuration of WordPress websites. I haven’t used the service myself – being a fan of WordPress I do enjoy diving into the code and learning the details – but I’ve heard a few good words about it.
For me personally, the interest in this story is not only in technology, but also in the ways of thinking. Running a profit-oriented company (and a small start-up at that) on and around Open Source Software is guaranteed to provide a number of challenges – from competition and marketing to community managing. And even though there are many companies that do business around Open Source Software, an insight into ways of thinking, the system of values, and into specific challenges is rare. Building Page.ly series has plenty.
In 2010 we saw the arrival of a handful of what most would refer to as competitors, it was inevitable. We did the hard part proving the space had legs and there was revenue to be made. And no good idea goes un-copied for long. We were also starting to make a name for ourselves in the WordPress community and that helped quite a bit to get the word out.
A couple interesting points regarding these new arrivals. At SXSW in 2010 I went to the WordPress BBQ at a co-working space in Austin where I handed out a few shirts and were talking to folks about what Page.ly was. One fellow I distinctly remember talking to must have really been listening, a few months later he was a co-founder of a competing company. Around the time this company was launching their other co-founder solicited us about using our technology to power their new offering rather than ‘re-inventing’ the wheel. I was amicable to the idea (fits squarely with our collaboration over competition philosophy) and agreed to a phone conversation which never took place. They decided to roll their own and off they went.
One of the other new players was not happy merely re-factoring our idea, but went so far as to be heavily ‘inspired’ by our marketing to the point I had to have a private conversation with them about the overt similarities between our website copy.
At the end of the day, we did not then and we still do not see any of these chaps as competitors at all. We work from a mindset that with 30+ million WordPress powered sites out there the space is deep enough to support 5-10 page.ly’s and we rather pull clients over from the econo-hosts like bluehost, mt, and godaddy.
Inspirational and insightful, to say the least. Read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.
Cyprus Mail reports:
CONSTRUCTION of a modern €53 million campus has begun in Pyla to accommodate the first British university on the island, University of Central Lancashire Cyprus, (UCLan Cyprus).
UCLan Cyprus will open in October this year and students will have the option of studying their programme entirely in Cyprus or transferring for part of their studies to the UK. They expect to have 5,000 students initially. All courses will be taught in English.
These are some interesting news. Of course, we have quite a few universities here in Cyprus, but most of them, with the exception of maybe University of Cyprus, were speed-track-converted from a bunch of colleges. It’ll be interesting to see how different a “real” university is going to be, and if it will create any worthy competition to push the educational institutions a bit. The level of local schools wasn’t all that high back when I was a student, and judging by the younger candidates that I interviewed for jobs in the last few years, the situation isn’t getting any better. Hopefully, the UCLan Cyprus arrival can change this.
I’m not a big fan of abstract art, not in painting, not in photography, not in sculpture. But once in a while something catches my eye and doesn’t let it go. And that’s exactly what happened in one of the offices I currently work. There is a bunch of paintings (reproductions?) and photographs on the walls. Most of them are just fine, but I particularly liked this one.
Of course, it looks way better in real life than on this tiny JPEG. But technology isn’t all that bad. In fact, while I was looking at this painting, I was trying to figure out how can I find out the name of the artist and see more of his or her works. That’s when Google Goggles for Android came to the rescue. I snapped a quick picture, and a few seconds later my mobile told me that this is a painting by Lyne Perinciolo Duluc. There is not much in terms of biography of her’s on the web, but there is plenty of her other works.
