I’m typically a big fan of Google - the company does and enables amazing things, but I’ve always been a bit hesitant to fully trust all of my infrastructure to them because centralizing my entire life around a single platform or company always feels a bit dangerous to me.

I’ve recently had this fear confirmed by a recent experience of one of my ventures. Said venture uses Google Analytics(great product) and Google AdSense. Google Analytics is used to provide some very nice business metrics and Google AdSense has always been a side thing, not critical to the company, but we’ve got it on a few pages, and it generates coffee money. We’ve had it on various pages for around two years with no problems.

One day recently, the company receives an email from Google stating that our AdSense use has been turned off because it has been determined to “pose a significant risk” to Google advertisers - which by the way, the venture is one of. The email was very mysterious and pointed the company to form where it could file an appeal. A legitimate appeal was filed and quickly turned down without any further information. The venture continues to pursue recourse to clear it’s good name with Google.

I understand that Google has to protect it’s business aggressively, and luckily, the venture doesn’t depend on the revenue for it’s cashflow, but I did learn a few things from this experience:

1. Don’t use Google AdSense and Google Analytics at the same time. Not only did Google turn off AdSense completely(no access to previous revenue info, etc.), they also disabled our data collection/visibility for Google Analytics, so we have no way easy to get our business metrics for the four days they blanked out.
2. Using Google AdSense can lead to a big conflict of interest with Google that can cause them to shut off other services they provide. I understand why, Google must protect its revenue stream, but innocents get caught in the crossfire.
3. Know where conflicts of interest can arise. The venture had never even considered that using AdSense could eliminate access to key business data on Analytics.

Although I’m using a true story about Google as an example, this could happen with any large platform. The essence of this story is that centralizing one’s life around a powerful platform that is controlled by a single entity puts one’s life in the hands of that entity. Not a new revelation, but perhaps something people are forgetting as they upload their personalities and life onto Facebook. How many twentysomethings would find themselves cut off from their reality if Facebook suddenly cut off access to their account because of a mysterious conflict of interest?

After attempting to recruit a great “web developer” someone who can take a design, cut-and-code it pixel perfect, and spit out superb HTML/CSS, and maybe even dabble in a bit of Javascript/AJAX, I’ve decided that there are very few, if any, people that have superb skills and are looking for this type of job - essentially filling the gap between UX/Visual Design and back-end programming.

I have a theory about why folks don’t like to live only in this middle world: it’s tedious and not very creative, and requires a high degree of skill - two sets of things that don’t match well. If someone is skilled enough to do it well, they are likely creative and move on to more challenging jobs(like UX design or back-end server systems). People that move on quickly lose the entire spectrum of skills and are left with a good knowledge of part of the center stage. Those who are more naturally designers move towards UX/Visual design and end up knowing HTML/CSS, but not Javascript, and people who are more naturally inclined to code move toward back-end programming and may or may not stick with their Javascript knowledge, but most certainly abandon their HTML/CSS skillset.

So, web developers are by their very nature meta-stable. Once they are good enough to be really useful, they roll towards one end of the spectrum.

If you disagree with me, prove me wrong - show me a great web developer, and if I hire them, I’ll admit defeat and buy you a beer.

Martin Glenn recently pointed me to a site called BrainPOP, which contains some pretty nifty educational flash animations on topics ranging from the electromagnetic spectrum to Louis Armstrong. They are a subscription service and have a number of free animations, a few of which I checked out. My son isn’t quite old enough yet, but once he is, this site is definitely a resource I plan to use.

I’m happy to report that my company’s websites iiProperty and Rentometer, have both won Interactive Media Awards. (iiProperty award Rentometer award). Earlier this year, iiProperty also won a Web 2.0 Award.

Time has been at a premium lately, and I’m unable to devote the time necessary to post consistently. I’m keeping this site up, but will not be posting in any consistent fashion for the foreseeable future.