Firefox Plans Built-In Usability Platform

Though still in the concept stage, Mozilla is planning an interesting new platform called Test Pilot that will allow every Mozilla Labs project to push out usability tests directly to participating users. The platform will begin life as a Firefox extension with the goal of gathering a 1% representative sample of Firefox users — which is a tall order given the Firefox has many millions of them.

Mozilla Labs’ Head of User Experience Aza Raskin talked about Test Pilot this week in a blog post. “Its not just Firefox that needs a usability lab. Thunderbird needs one. Seamonkey needs one. Every Mozilla Labs project needs one. Test Pilot is a platform — starting as a Firefox extension — on top of which anything can be put through usability-testing boot-camp,” he wrote. That’s necessary, says Raskin, because currently Mozilla only has access to scattershot usability research collected via surveys, anecdotes, user feedback, etc.

Test Pilot would allow Mozilla to collect feedback from real users, in actual use scenarios and Raskin sees it as part of a massively scalable, open usability lab being built at Mozilla Labs. Test Pilot won’t constantly record data, says Raskin, but only just enough information to answer the question posed by the researcher. Raskin outlined how the software will work from the user end:

The first time the Test Pilot add-on is run, it will ask a few simple non-personally-identifiable questions to put you into a demographic bucket, e.g. technical level, locale, etc., and to let you opt in to additional anonymous instrumentation.

We’ll only collect aggregate anonymized data, publish all results under open-content licenses, and review every test to make sure your privacy is held sacred. Once in a while you may be asked to participate in a short survey based on your demographic. If you’ve opted into allowing additional anonymous instrumentation, an experiment may request some of that information for aggregated study.

Though it will begin with Firefox, eventually the plan is to have Test Pilot baked into every Mozilla Labs project. Mozilla plans to offer open access to test results, and will allow anyone to create research tests and run them once they pass review.

Open source blogger Matt Asay thins that Test Pilot will offer a major competitive advantage to Mozilla. “If Mozilla can successfully gather input from nontechnical, average users, it will have secured the holy grail of computing: deep customer feedback,” he writes. “What will Mozilla do with that feedback? Why, conquer the world, of course.”

But we have a few of important questions about Test Pilot that Raskin’s blog post didn’t answer. First: when is it coming? Test pilot was actually announced back in March 2008, and at the time the first version was promised to ship within a “few weeks.” Clearly, that didn’t happen if it is still in the concept stage 10 months later. But the fact that Raskin is talking about it again seems to indicate that a release of Test Pilot is either near, or it is at the very least still under active development.

Second: How many people will actually use it? That’s a big if in terms of the usefulness of Test Pilot. Even if the platform is well built and succeeds at capturing meaningful feedback data, it won’t be worth anything if no one uses it. Can Mozilla really convince 1% of its massive install base to join their user feedback panel?

Third: Will Test Pilot be made available to non-Mozilla developers? Because of the open source nature of Mozilla’s software, it seems like a safe bet that the Test Pilot platform will be open to other open source developers. But nothing specifically was mentioned about that in Raskin’s post.

Article source: Sitepoint

Windows Live Messenger IM Control New Features Coming Soon

The popularity of Microsoft's instant messaging client is indisputable, with the Redmond company enjoying the world's largest IM community, but at the same time it's not all about the Windows Live Messenger client. According to the software giant, the Windows Live Messenger IM Control, as well as the Presence API (application programming interface) have broken the 1 billion-served request per month mark since September 2008. The milestone is a clear indication that Microsoft did the right thing when it allowed for the instant messaging client to be included into websites, enabling users to connect and communicate via the browser. At the same time, the company is promising that it will take the Control to the next level, by introducing new features.

“It has been just over a year since we announced the release of the IM Control and Presence API. I wanted to take a moment to reflect over the past year and the growth we have seen. We service over a billion requests per month via the IM Control and Presence API from hundreds of websites for millions of users. Thank you to all the sites who have supported us and sent feedback,” Casey Jones, program manager, Windows Live Contacts and Messenger Platform, stated.

Microsoft introduced Windows Live Messenger IM Control in November 2007, on the heels of version 8.5 of its IM client. At that time, the company offered support for a total of 32 languages, while the Control could play nice only with Internet Explorer 6, IE7 and Firefox 2.0 (on both Windows and Mac OS X). Jones indicated that new features for the Windows Live Messenger IM Control and Presence API would be unveiled soon, but failed to deliver additional details. However, the Control and Presence API did evolve since their introduction.

“We launched a Messenger application for Facebook using the IM Control and Presence API. Then we upgraded it; we reduced the number of clicks required to start a conversation to one, we use your Facebook name as the default display name, and users now have the option to update their Facebook status automatically, whenever they change their personal message in Messenger. We added support for right-to-left languages. The IM Control is now supported in 57 markets. We added support for custom display names in the IM Control. Now you don’t have to use the default 'Visitor' display name. We added colorization capability to the IM Control, which is now available in 7 themes. The color is also completely customizable by editing the HTML tags. We fixed a bug in the IM Control and Presence API so that Online presence is displayed correctly,” Jones explained.

Technology salaries rise by 4.6 percent

Salaries of tech professionals managed to spike up an average of 4.6 percent last year to $78,035, according to survey results released Thursday by tech career site Dice.com.

The survey results, ironically, come at a time when companies across corporate America are announcing layoffs, freezing wages, and even going so far as to temporarily institute wage cuts, like Advanced Micro Devices.

Dice, based on a survey of more than 19,000 respondents taken between August and November, found that certain sectors and job titles posted even higher percentage gains over the previous year.

The average annual salary for security analysts jumped 8.4 percent, compared with last year, while software engineers followed closely with a 7 percent gain, and applications developers rose 6.6 percent.

"The skills that are needed in technology change quickly, and employers realize they need workers with the most up-to-date skills," said Tom Silver, Dice.com's chief marketing officer.

He added that employers, as a result, are willing to pay a higher salary for such employees, especially if those skills aid the company in controlling costs.

Technology salaries in the computer hardware sector posted the largest growth last year, which climbed an average of 9.4 percent over the previous year. That was followed by the Internet services sector with an 8.8 percent increase, and the medical/pharmaceutical industry with a 7 percent gain.

But while the growth rate for technology salaries rose, on average, 4.6 percent last year, job seekers may not be as lucky in the new year.

"In another survey, we asked employers what they think will happen to salaries in 2009. About 25 percent said they will reduce salaries for new hires they bring in," Silver said.

As a result, he expects the overall growth rate for tech salaries to shrink in 2009, though he declined to estimate how much the percentage will retract.

Back in 2006, the growth rate in tech salaries was a mere 1.9 percent increase over the previous year. And in 2004, it actually declined 2.6 percent over the previous year.

Article source: Information Week

95 Percent of Online Music Downloads Are Illegal

According to new statistics from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), approximately 95 percent of all music downloads on the Internet are currently illegal, in that they infringe on copyright and cut the flow of cash to companies and artists. As a result, revenues have dropped globally by some 7 percent last year alone. Peer-to-peer (P2P) site representatives say that trying to hold on to obsolete copyright laws in the modern setup of the Internet proves that the companies have no real understanding of how the system works.

"There is a momentous debate going on about the environment on which our business, and all the people working in it, depends. Governments are beginning to accept that, in the debate over 'free content' and engaging ISPs [Internet Service Providers] in protecting intellectual property rights, doing nothing is not an option if there is to be a future for commercial digital content," says IFPI chairman and chief executive, John Kennedy.

According to the estimates of the organization, some 40 billion music files were illegally shared in 2008, while only 1.4 billion were downloaded legally. They say that the digital music business has expanded last year by more than 25 percent, reaching an estimated value of around $3.7 billion. Because people share music illegally and don't pay for the albums and tracks they own, they cause massive dents in profits for companies, labels, and music artists, the IFPI, which represents 1,400 companies in 72 countries, says.

However, those who operate large P2P sites say that placing something online makes it free for all, and that, in digital times, posted materials are shared. They say that the copyright laws are obsolete, and that trying to stop downloads online is impossible, even if the ISPs were to collaborate with companies in pursuing those guilty of copyright infringements. The debate is similar to that between people advocating open-source software, and those claiming patents for their creations.

"This is an age of rampant sharing and remixing, and if you can make the connection between sharing and culture as Doctorow has, you will see this war between rightsholders and consumers will never end and the rightsholders will never win. The band Girl Talk and Lessig and James Boyle and Terry McBride of Nettwerk and isoHunt all echo a common point: Remixing and sharing is good for culture, suing consumers and technologists who enable sharing is destructive for everyone," says the administrator for IH, a major P2P tracker site.

"The Internet is a more efficient information machine than the printing press or VCR ever was, and also a whole different animal. It's time the content industries learn to put it to better use as well, by discarding past notions of how business is done based on an economy of scarcity," he concludes.

Facts behind Microsoft's anti-Linux campaign

Back in 2002, Jim Allchin was co-president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division and was, in his own words, "scared" of the momentum behind Linux, as noted in an email [PDF] sent to several of his direct reports.

Why scared? Because Windows was starting to lose to Linux:

My conclusion: We are not on a path to win against Linux. We must change some things and we must do it immediately. The current white papers, etc. are too high level and they are not going to cut it.

So what did Allchin do? As court documents in the Comes vs. Microsoft antitrust suit demonstrate, and as Roy Schestowitz pointed out on his blog Sunday, Allchin started to buy facts. Lots of facts.

What facts? "Facts" about Windows alleged superiority as a preemptive kernel and asychronous I/O, facts that demonstrate that "Linux is old unix." Facts about Windows alleged security superiority over Linux. Facts that go to the heart of Red Hat and IBM's patent indemnification offerings and, frighteningly, Allchin seems to be foretelling Microsoft's later patent FUD against Linux:

We need to understand exactly the risk a customer is under if a patent lawsuit happens and Linux is challenged....There MUST be risks to customers that are being passed on. I want this understood precisely. We need to get the license from IBM given to customers and investigate.

To his credit, Allchin's e-mail constantly re-emphasizes that he's looking for facts, not tabloid marketing against Linux:

Bill [Veghte]/Brian [Valentine]: I need to ask you to take ownership of driving this ahead What I want to see is a package including ALL of these items that we can provide to the field within 2 months (MAX). I am scared....Please remember NO marketing. Facts. No anger toward Linux. Just facts.

But I have to wonder if in amid so much "fact" creation, the truth sometimes got lost.

As reported in 2003 by The Register, among others, Microsoft's incessant drumbeat on "the facts" against Linux displayed a curious infatuation with Linux. If Microsoft truly were better, why spend so much ink (and cash) on building a case against it, at least, one based on "facts"? It seemed a perfect Hamlet moment, wherein Queen Gertrude pithily dismisses a character's comments with "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

The Register wrote in 2003 of Microsoft's fact-buying campaign:

The study is apparently to be used by Microsoft's new kinder, gentler and more fact-based GM for platform strategy Martin Taylor in his campaign to convince customers that nine out of ten cats who expressed a preference reckoned that Linux is pooh. And in this campaign, he has the best facts money can buy.

Did Microsoft cross the line with its "Get the Facts" campaign? Almost certainly. Even so, I'm impressed by Allchin's desire to avoid marketing and stick to facts. The problem is that it's hard to hold to facts when only one side is presenting (and buying) them.

Microsoft eventually disbanded its much-maligned Get the Facts campaign. The former "Get the Facts" Web site is now a much happier place that invites customers to "compare" Linux and Windows, but is much softer in doing so.

Have the facts changed? No. But Microsoft finally came to the realization that its customers weren't stupid and could separate fact from fiction. Sometimes Windows is cheaper. Sometimes it's more secure, is a better technical fit for an organization, etc. But those aren't The Facts. They're site-by-site facts for specific customers, and arguably don't reflect the broader reality, one that has seen rampant, massive uptake of Linux over the past six years since Allchin ordered a directive to find and market "the facts."

Article source: CNet