JamieJamison: Is Bill French the myst technology guy? Can't find the link to Bill's slides. Anyone? TrevorFSmith: "a newsreader is a device"? bfrench: Absolutely ... it is a "device" acting on behalf of the content consumer. Saying that it's not is like saying televisions, radios, cell phones, or GPS systems are not devices. The only difference between these "consumer" products and a comupter with an installed RSS reader is the devices include the mechanisms that support the publish/subscribe process. TrevorFSmith: Security creates a more agile framework? bfrench: It most certainly does - imagine a single feed that needs to present items that are different depending on the security context. In a system where a permissions model is non-existent, there is no agility in terms deciding who sees what. RolandTanglao: i like bill and all but i find his talk too general and apple pie about XML and RSS, how about making $s, concrete examples. bfrench: Good point Roland. We were advised (as speakers) to keep the presentation on the educational side instead of rambling on about any specific commercial uses. Also, as I mentioned in the session we don't disclose our customer names in public forums unless they've specifically asked us to. bfrench: I mentioned the Addison-Wesley project in the presentation. We anticipate a significant deployment for their book publishing divisions, but again, these are applications that will never be seen on the Internet. Furthermore, our interest in these enterprise or corporate-class application is not to become a that publishes these as deployments. MyST's business model is focused on OEM licenses for companies that want to use our platform for building things like this. As such, we are reluctant to advertise or promote any single application that we've built to make a point. alevin: the Smart Tags+Weblogs sounds pretty cool - automatically link a word in your word doc to other weblogs. bfrench: And not only Weblogs, but to any XML content space or application items. Imagine a Smart Tag subscription for part numbers - each part number typed in an Office document is automatically linked to a master-list of the parts. bfrench: MyST is not about Weblogs and it's not about RSS. However it is about information agility and that includes many systems and many workflows that business want to develop. rasterboy: except for all those meta tags people use to prevent smart tag parsing ;) bfrench: I'm sorry, but you are misinformed. Blocking Smart Tags on public Web pages is not related to the use of our technology. You need to drill a bit deeper and understand the benefits of Smart Tags to businesses, workflow processes, and km solutions. RolandTanglao: myst is cool ; i just wish they had some other name; the pronounciation is similar to a 'bad' word in German :-) bfrench: We agree - MyST was never intended to be a widely visible name, but it sort of just happened. MarkFletcher: So is the Aggregation Portal an example of Myst? bfrench: Yes - it's an example of using our aggregation engine along with our presentation layer to create what appears to be a unified information space. MarkFletcher: Is Myst basically an enterprise Google? bfrench: No, but MyST can be used with Google Appliance and other enterprise search tools to build dynamically changing information channels that may also be subscribed to through RSS, OPML, Smart Tags, etc. Most enterprises don't have the machinery to integrate search engines with Microsoft Office Research Tasks, but by allowing our platform to integrate with their search systems, we can provide Office integrations seamlessly and without any significant coding. alevin: portal and search of microcontent bfrench: That is certainly one use case, but there are hundreds of others. JamieJamison: I think it is more of an enterprise web services application that can serve a number of purposes. bfrench: Exactly. Think of it as a big bag of Legos(tm) that can be assembled to provide spoecific applications and solutions. And we're looking for developers that have technical requirements that they cannot possibly develop quick enough to meet constantly shifting enterprise requirements. RolandTanglao: myst is a web services, XML and RSS platform; aggregation portal is a Myst app; it's confusing I agree. bfrench: Yes - it is confusing. When we created the MyST platform, we did so to meet technical requirements that had not fully matured or had not been encountered. To build a platform that must integrate with applications and standards that have not yet been invented is very confusing to grasp. JamieJamison: I think that is true for any technology, though. bfrench: We agree. ;-) Imagine trying to describe a telephone to someone that had never seen or used one before. JamieJamison: That sort of issue is one of the arguments for some sort of authenticated subscription-based RSS. bfrench: Authenticated RSS is one of the many things that we didn't anticipate when we designed MyST two years ago. However, it supports this concept and we did no further programming to achieve that. MarkFletcher: I think it's a case of 'technology platforms' in general being difficult to explain, whereas an application is something that you can show people. It's 'definite'. bfrench: Absolutely. This is a huge challenge for us because most people expect to see a product. What we have is a federation of Web services components that can quite literally be anything and participate in helping developers of content-related applications, solve anything. alevin: are these real applications? have they been deployed? bfrench: Yes - but they are applications that you would probably not recognize. For Ipswitch we manage a wealth of channel data and provide a collection of integrated processes that help their marketing staff deal with problems in the reseller channel. The business intelligence gathering process is done with Channel Gears; the same technology that drives the RSS Radar channels on the RSS WinterFest site. The 'application' was designed specifically to inform the marketing group how well the reseller channel was representating the Ipswitch brand, their products, and availability on each of their web sites. This is a very difficult task without workflow and process automation. JamieJamison: I think klog news is publicly accessible at myst's site. bfrench: Yes - you'll find it at klognews.com. RolandTanglao: klogsnews is defintely public; and it has an RSS feed which i've subscribed to for months. bfrench: And the nice thing about it - it's all automated. We write very little on that site - the rest is automated. JamieJamison: Adina, can you ask him if the integration connector is custom coded, or part of their platform? bfrench: Most integration connectors are custom because almost every integration requirement is unique in some way. However, we have defined declarative scripts that ease the pain of connector development. For example we have a 'gear' scripting language with just a few commends, but it allows you to create integrations with the Google API and the MyST API without actually understanding either of these technologies. alevin: interesting as a comment aggregation mechanism bfrench: Yes, and the idea that comments are first-class objects is important too. It means that they are suitable as commonly subscribeable items like any other items. alevin: seems like a complicated and special-purpose way of doing something that everyone needs bfrench: Complicated until you realize how it's done and what the benefits are. ;-) RolandTanglao: ross: i agree about wiki being better for book review but the RSS feed for chapters and being able to comment on paragraphs and have RSS feeds for comments sounds cool, don't think wikis do this? bfrench: Wiki's are very good at a number of things. In the case of book authoring - there is one, maybe two authors. The Manuscript Review system engages at a point where the manuscript already exists and needs to be reviewed for technical and perhaps legal purposes. The MyST application satisfies the need to create an operationally efficient process. There are many processes like this through businesses. JamieJamison: I agree. This might be something that could be done in a wiki, but the process-oriented nature addresses the overwrite and certain other problems. bfrench: Indeed, but it all depends on the requirements. There are certain situations where not all reviewers should see all paragraphs or chapters. For that to be possible the application must present content (regardless of type - RSS or comments, or paragraphs) in a security context. Wiki's are not well suited for meeting rigid permissions or security contexts. wkearney99: there's also annotea bfrench: Yes - another good spin on a similar objective. JamieJamison: I think wiki might be better for more collaborative writing than review and comment with the author maintaining some control over the text, no? alevin: you can use wiki with various social conventions. bfrench: Absolutely - very possible in many cases, but social conventions don't always meet the requirements set forth by IT. ;-) MichaelP: wikis are user-hostile to most people. bfrench: Today perhaps. But that will change as they mature. bfrench: MySmartChannels (a simple demo application on the MyST platform) is also user-hostile IMHO. This is why we call MyST a Weblog Application Server - applications must be built for these new loosely-coupled technologies to find traction (no punn intended) in enterprises. wkearney99: the good point here is using tech to aid flow in a programmatic way. that there's more than one way to do it. bfrench: Agree - find the business requirements, then select the implementation approach. stevenzenith: I think the speaker is overstating the immediacy of rss - the immediacy depends on the publisher and subscriber independent of rss. bfrench: Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been. Indeed there are dependencies. However the MyST platform serves up RSS dynamically making it possible for immediate awareness if clients so choose to accelerate the polling processes. Since we typically sell servers for specific purposes and business processes, bandwidth requirements have already been factored in. JamieJamison: His ability to post from word, adina.
alevin: I think he just said standard but costs extra bfrench: Sorry for the confusion. The process uses open standards (XML and SOAP), but we normally provide specific Word template integrations under consulting services. In the future this may not be an issue (advent of InfoPath). MichaelP: weblogs are a form of content managment, but they are not workflow engines bfrench: Absolutely true, and workflow states are critical ingredients in enterprise applications. Thi is why the MyST platform includes association objects. MyST is actually a state-machine that provides elemental objects that can move content resources from state to state. bobwyman: Isn't he basically saying that since Office has COM and VBA, and the office applications expose their object models for automation, you can write whatever you want... bfrench: In terms of integration with MyST or any Web services platform, yes. MarkFletcher: Does Myst have any actual deployments of their tech that they can point to to illustrate how it's being used in companies today? bfrench: Yes - please contact us at your convenience and we'll set up some demos of real deployments. The difficulty in doing so is related to the confidential nature of the content that our clients have in thier MyST servers. But we have some that are willing to let us take people on tours. JamieJamison: But is Office Research Services an RSS-based technology? bfrench: No - Office Research Services is a specific Microsoft Web Services API that supports XSLT for presentation panes and SOAP for communication. It does require a fair bit of knowledge about the integration API and how the Office platform works. bfrench: What we've done is eliminate the need for developers to learn all of that - instead focusing on the content integration. If you have RSS or other XML-based content sources, we have the tools to integrate the content to the MyST platform and almost instantly make that content available in Microsoft Office through Office Research Tasks and Smart Tags. bobwyman: So, since we've already got the object models for word, excel, email, etc. The really interesting question would be: What interfaces should we be exposing for the RSS stuff and services that office things might want to be integrated with? bfrench: TrevorFSmith: Does Myst believe that google intranet boxes will soon ship with Blogger? If so, how do they plan to differentiate their product from that offering? JamieJamison: So myst can make the ability to search RSS syndicated information from within office using hooks into the Research side. I think I have it now. bfrench: Yes - you get it - but again; that's one of many things we do well. ;-) MichaelP: you need authentication & authorization, status, unified nomenclature, etc... bfrench: Yep. RolandTanglao: Jamie: I think it's two ways, search RSS and search office docs without having to modify RSS feeds or office docs. bfrench: Indeed, and not having to modify anything is a big requirement. It must seamlessly work without user intervention. bfrench: Thanks everyone for taking the time to listen. Feel free to ping me anytime. | 
