ETech Day 2: High Order Bits: Remixing applications

Today ETech kicks into high gear with the start of the keynotes, sessions and high order bits talks. As I mentioned yesterday, the high order bits talks are short 15 minute presentations that everyone attends, and after the first round of these I'm quite pleased with this new format for ETech. This mornings's high order bits sessions introduced the conference, the O'Reilly Radar where Tim and Rael covered the current topics on the radar for the O'Reilly team and a number of talks that focused what Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and AT&T have kicking around in their labs.

At first, I didn't really understand the Remix theme for the conference, but after listening to Stewart Butterfield talk about Flickr and Brendan Eich talk about Firefox things started to click. The key to remixing these two different applications comes from the customizability and openness. In Flickr's case, Stewart attributed the success of capturing the imagination of it's users to Flickr's web service. The 62 functions that make up Flickr's web service allow thrid party developers to create custom applications that extend the functionality of Flickr, which in turns build a community around the company.

Flickr fans have written tools to upload pictures from Linux and a cool color viewer that shows Flickr images that have the similar overall color. There are two applications that map where pictures have been taken to a map of the world. All of these applications were created by third parties and didn't involve Flickr other than using the service. These third party developers are in essence remixing Flickr from the outside. This is cool stuff that is part of an enlightened business model -- Flickr has more buzz and mindshare than their competitors because of their open strategy.

While Flickr shows off a web service model, the suddenly popular web browser Firefox shows how end users can remix a desktop application. Brendan Eich presented a quick overview of Firefox's component architecture and techniques for extending and customizing the browser. Firefox was designed to be flexible and extensible by using the XUL XML/JavaScript framework that allows the user to create customized applications with Firefox -- not only extensions for the web browser, but whole new applications. XUL hacking is limited to techies that like hacking/programming and not the actual end user -- but it is clear that starting with a flexible base allows you create a flexible application.

Firefox by itself is a fairly bare-bones browser and when the user installs extensions, the user remixes the browser by plugging in the various add-ons that they would like to use. Instead of shipping a huge browser that does everything, the Firefox team chose to keep things simple by shipping a stripped down browser that is expected to be remixed by the user. This final result is drastically different from other browsers that aim to be everything for everyone. Developers have flocked to Firefox because of this openness, and IT professionals are embracing Firefox because they can tweak the browser to their organization's needs. All this is good for end users, because Firefox has plenty of mindshare and plenty of people hacking on extensions to make it even more customizable and flexible.

So, after two high order bits sessions I understand the remix theme. I also keenly understand the relationship between open and flexible systems and building a community around your product. If you wish for people to embrace your product, ensure that it is open and that people have the tools to extend your product. Locking down your product and securing it with NDAs and other legalese will only turn off third party developers and thus your end users.

Really, I knew this before I walked into these sessions. But somehow this knowledge seems a little more visceral than it did before -- then again, I expect that from ETech.

What's your take on the Remix theme?