pelago

We are utilizing S3 for a few of our customers here at Pelago and we are contemplating switching over to it for Intervals document support.

This mashable.com post covers a variety of uses and applications for S3. You really can do a lot of different things with it and more applications roll out every day. Utilizing 3rd party file storage helps level performance spikes and potential scaling problems if you happen to have a popular web application.

Here in Santa Barbara, a company named Right Scale is building a dashboard and tools to help manage the variety of Amazon Web Services that exist. This is definitely needed. When we used S3 for the first time the first question that our client asked was “where is the GUI so I can see my files”.

I’ve always considered Google Maps the best online mapping software. Irrespective of how you feel about Google jumping onto the AJAX/Web 2.0 bandwagon, it’s hard to argue that the application’s ease of use isn’t unparalleled. Expedia Maps, Map Quest, and Yahoo Maps are all cumbersome. I can’t remember the last time any of those companies released a killer feature… and for at least one of them, mapping is its bread and butter.

It’s no surprise, then, that as those three aforementioned dinosaurs lumber into obscurity, Google keeps releasing features that are not only cutting-edge, but that are also, first and foremost, easy to use.

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Strolled through the exhibition floor of the Web 2.0 Expo in San Franciso this week. The general buzz was a lot different than what I am used to seeing through our mostly online experience. The business world is grappling with what to make of this trend, as was evidenced by some slick and impressive branding and marketing, and the often heard words ‘private beta’. The buzziest themes were Collaboration, Frameworks, Mashups, and Social Networking.

Collaboration
Companies are finding different ways to sell collaborative tools to niche markets. The emphasis is on tweaking online applications to match the subtle differences in company workflows. For example, Octopz provides online image markup tools for creative shops. ThinkFree is offering a complete online office suite coupled with collaboration features, such as Flickr, del.icio.us, and its own DocExchange community space. A third player in the collaboration race , clearspace offers a suite of features for businesses, ranging from forums and blogs to content syndication, and certainly understands the problems businesses are having with services that provide too much or too little. The word ‘collaboration’ is quickly becoming overplayed, which is why we’ve intentionally niched Intervals to small businesses in need of accountability through time and task tracking.

Frameworks
The most impressive aspect of the framework evolution is that businesses are providing applications that don’t require any knowledge of code. The applications build applications, kind of like robots that self produce. Bungee labs had the most impressive product, and may spawn a new practice of social engineered web services. The openfire platform looks like a great starting point for developing on an open-sourced java framework. The trend is removing barriers to application development, including source code. It’s all about churning out record numbers of applications in record time.

Mashups
The number of web applications and blogs is overwhelming. The mashup companies promise to aggregate all of this content, regardles of its format, into one service. Then that aggregated data is again syndicated into RSS feeds and APIs. A potentially endless cycle of content aggregation and regurgitation. Kapow technologies offers a server solution aimed at businesses. Topix is another impressive mashup focused on aggregating news.

Social Networking
The prize for the coolest and most popular booth goes to Cambrian House, which is fitting for a social networking company. Like the collaborative tools, companies are trying to find niche angles on the social networking front. Wether it’s tracking your stuff or meeting your neighbors, someone is building a social network to accomodate it.

I left the expo feeling better than when i’d arrived. There are a lot of ideas out there. And the ideas that are popular among the web development community are different than those that will succeed in the business world. This is what businesses are grappling with, including Pelago; how do we create a product that will be than just the latest-and-greatest and be useful to small business?

Six years is far too old for any excuse, especially the one we were using for not redesigning our web site: “We’re too busy with client work to redesign our own site, that’s a good thing, right?”

That is not a good thing. We finally decided to take ourselves more seriously and solved the problem by making ourselves a client. We had a rushed timeline and no budget, but we had to get it done. And we did. In a record four weeks.

The driving philosophy behind the new design is that Pelago is a place where lifestyle and hard work are equally important. We live in a city bordered by mountains and ocean but we often forget they are there. We want this new site to convey some of the playfulness that is Pelago.

It was important that our new design not get caught in the crossfire of photoshop filters that have exemplified most of the web 2.0 movement. Gradients, drop shadows, glows, reflections, and their ilk, have their small and overcrowded place. The Pelago site goes beyond the current fads prevalent in web design, because Pelago was churning out good design well before web 2.0 got started, and we’ll still be doing so when the trend dies out.