This is an idea I had mind in since last year, and finally was convinced to put online these days. Hoping you'll like it, Hannes

If anything about current web development can be called «glamorous»[1], it’s creating applications for en vogue platforms such as the iPad or the latest line of Android phones. After all, they're not only super sexy, but the rate of progress we see is staggering as well - a pretty tempting combination.

At the same time, web technology is constantly taking up more and more speed, progressing on many levels at an exceptional pace. Standards such as HTML5 and CSS3 as well as their support in transformative tools such as Webkit have been helping web user experience improve dramatically and at a much greater rate than the progress we have seen on any "desktop" environment - which almost stagnated for a decade.[2] And let's not forget: seeing the speed of JavaScript engines improving by orders of magnitudes clearly means: something important is happening here.

This blog entry is trying to deal with the great deal of stuff that's happening when these two ongoing developments -amazing devices and accelerating web tech- come together. That «stuff» we see out there has such as breadth, depth and scale that we shall be trying to get from stuff to patterns, and then give them names. Names that help us actually have clearer conversations about those things as they develop, like folks did with «AJAX», «RIA» or «Web 2.0». The name we're suggesting is NIWEA - Native Interoperable Web Apps. Let's see what this means:

«Native», the N in NIWEA, is a word that has been bended and stretched for years. We'll use it in just two simple ways:

• «Made for this thing» - native apps just do feel right - on your desktop, your mobile, your tablet, your TV.
• «No crutches» - web native apps use use the tech and specs of the web - bred through open standards, no plugins, no add-ons.

 «Native» also means access to the capabilities of the underlying platform: sensors, geolocation, graphics, storage, background computations, audio, video - you name it.

In the example sections there's an whole array of examples illustrating this point, runtime environments such as PhoneGap, systems like Jolicloud, native user experience enablers like jQTouch, Google's Store for Installable Web Apps are certainly amongst those that must be mentioned.

«Interoperable» can mean a lot as well, but it's a strong notion, and one that keeps getting more and more important. The «I» in NIWEA means two things:

• «Works with my sites» - NIWEA can be standalone, but mostly they'll be talking, synchronously or asynchronously, to web APIs. APIs based on web standards that have interoperability built in, enabling mashups
• «Works with my gadgets» - another kind of interop, the "write once, run anywhere" idea. Indeed, web technology is the only platform I see that has the potential to overcome the terrible fragmentation we see in mobile platforms these days. Being the only platform without an owner certainly helps.

Interoperability between devices and consistent communications between applications - browser engines, REST & Co. can do it.

NIWEAs are built using web technology, and nothing else - but «web» doesn't mean exclusively «browser» any more. And «web» doesn't mean «online only» any more either. In fact we're going more and more towards what you might want to call an «ubiquitous web», with the browser engine becoming the universal runtime.

The are many ways NIWEA bring application functionality to you, be it packaged Web OS, Chrome Store or HTML-based Adobe AIR apps, desktop «gadgets» or dashboard «widgets» - it's all native-feeling, interoperable web tech.

Why care?

So why is this relevant at all? Aren't those iPhone and iPad apps out there just so superior that there's no need to even bother about that old-school web stuff? Well, I think this is about the long term, about what we can do to foster "sustainable" development practices that are truly open and e.g sufficiently safe against lock-in. In the short term, proprietary platforms might be lucrative and spectacular, but the benefits of having web tech "everywhere" might very well be far greater: the web is where the developers are, and enabling them to do NIWEAs could very well be pretty disruptive in many areas. And: we should never ever underestimate the web.

And now?

Having a word for all that stuff happening these days could help a lot, I think. So please do let me know: what do you think about it? Do you like it? Is it stupid enough? Or way too stupid?

Would you tag your bookmarks with "NIWEA"? Could we have a "NIWEA Conference"? Would you sign an "I support NIWEA" list? Have any links that just have to be on the list below?

Already thinking about funny logos? :)

Examples & Links

• Mobile Examples
  
  • Phonegap
  • jQTouch
  • Palm webOS
  • Nokia Web Runtime
  • JIL & BONDI
• Desktop Examples
  • Jolicloud
  • Chrome OS & Chrome Web Store
  • brevity
  • Apple Widgets & Windows Gadgets
  • Adobe AIR with Webkit
  • Mozilla Prism
  • iTunes Extras
• Miscellaneous Links
  • http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2010/03/html5_apps.html
  • http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2010/04/mobile_web_or_o.html
  • http://www.zeldman.com/2010/02/01/flash-ipad-standards/
  • http://www.toolness.com/wp/?p=821
  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/google-bets-big-on-html-5.html
  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/02/a-prism-for-jolicloud-web-cent.html
  • http://ajaxian.com/?s=native
  • http://humanapi.org

Footnotes

[1] For a note on glamor also see the original Ajax article
[2] See also Google I/O 2009 keynote for web vs. desktop UX - (not overly scientific) slide, video

Great to see that there are more and more web-related events in the cozy town of Fribourg. There's not only commnunity-organized events like Webmardi, but also "official" events by the many schools we have in Fribourg.

The Certified Secure Web Developer (CSWD, see also certifiedsecureweb.ch) course at the EIA-FR is one of these events, and one that we're recommending warmly.

The course program covers a lot of material from OSSTMM and OWASP and involves lots of hands-on hacking, hardening as well as an introduction to systematic risk assessment and the relevant metrics. There sure will be Liipers participating, so it would be great to see you there, too. Note: if interested you should probably hurry, enrollment will be closing soon.

Dates:

• 4/5 May
• 18/19 May
• 1 June (Exams)

For more information, registration etc. see itsecurity-academy.ch

Hannes here, with an announcement. I'll be switching to the role of a non-executive board member at Liip (see also http://liip.to/hgvr). While I keep a large stake in the company, I won't be working at Liip from May onwards. So while I'll still be jointly responsible for the strategic direction of the company. My co-founders, the executive partners Nadja Perroulaz, Gerhard Andrey and Christian Stocker, the business development I worked with over the last months - Fabienne Steiner, Tonio Zemp for Corporate Clients, Matthias Stürmer for Public Sector Clients and Jonas Vonlanthen for Strategic Projects Romandie - and of course the Liip teams in Zürich, Fribourg and Bern will continue to implement Liip's mission in delivering high-quality Agile Web Development services, creating sustainable value for our clients' strategic innovation projects using open source and open standards. And Liip will no doubt continue to *rock and roll*.

Professionally, the last couple of years have been enormously successful. I've seen this company grow from the start to soon sixty people. In the beginning there was an idea of a company that is not your ordinary web agency and not your boring software systems house either, but a web tech team that goes where other don't. And while we certainly improvised quite a bit along the way, we built it all around a core notion of sustainability, leading to an agile, human-centered, family-friendly, zero-emission company that continues not only to work for some of Switzerland most prestigious clients, but also has so much fun in the process that it continues to win awards over awards.

Personally.. it has been an amazing journey. I'm very thankful for all I learned here - the years of hard-core coding as well as from staying somewhat authentic in the sales and business development work. For the leadership experience. For everything I learned from our amazing clients, from powerful partners and from our usually much bigger competitors. And certainly from the community efforts with Webtuesday, with Netzzunft, /ch/open and many others. And I'm certainly most grateful for the experience of having been able to work with the Liipers - some of the best minds in the business, and many of them very good friends indeed. You guys are seriously awesome.

Next, I'll be traveling. And writing. I have a book contract with O'Reilly, and I might do some smaller projects here and there before .. the next big thing. If you'd like to keep in touch just drop me a line at hannes@gassert.ch or subscribe to the (currently empty) RSS feed at http://gassert.ch/feed/.

And as I know for sure that some of the next announcements here on this blog will be great fun, and that Liip's currently working one some Switzerland's most exciting web projects: stay tuned, and be assured: the work on the web has only just begun - and so has Liip :)

Liip's Zürich offices recently got featured in TEC21, a renowned Swiss architecture journal, under the title of "Atmosphäre des Digitalen". Apart from discussing some special features of our operating base, the article critically ponders the notion of "intellectual sensualism" as well as aspects of the relations between architecture and the kind of stuff we do - we use architectural design patterns, they give us software-generated tapestry (picture above). If you're interested: here's the PDF of the entire article - enjoy.

Credits: OOS (architecture), Dominique Wehrli (photography).

Anybody who is anybody in the world of Drupal is in Paris this week. With over 900 participants, DrupalCon 2009 is the largest Drupal Conference in Europe to date. Besides the opportunity to network and to exchange best practices, it's the approaching code freeze for the release of Drupal 7 that is drawing developers. As Dries Buytaert mentioned in his opening keynote address, the conference marks the kick off the first phase of the code freeze. So until Monday, it's code code code!

Liip is present with two members (Philipp Schroeder and Adrian Schwaller, make sure to meet them if you're there and read this blog!), who've come to Paris to deepen their knowledge of Drupal and make contact with friends and potential partners. And of course they will try to kindly entice the one or the other Drupal king or queen to take a closer look at our little company and its open positions.

We should use this blog more often to showcase the crazy nerdy fun stuff Liipers are building every day. Like Penny with Mahara, Silvan with etoy, Lukas with PHP, and so on - with now over 40 guys and girls there's quite some stories to tell.

In this spirit, today we have Sandro, Sandro and his Tweetr: the Open Source ActionScript 3 twitter API library. Sandro initially built it to work with his phidgets, a hardware collection of USB sensors and actuators (see twitter LED above). From his desk Tweetr found its way around the world, it's now being used for example in:

• The Good Conspiracy (presented at the the 6th edition of La Biennale de Montréal) is "a co-creative event that will transfuse the city with positive energy. Citizens are invited to discover elements of the conspiracy on public grounds and become conspirators themselves by sending positive messages by means of contemporary communication networks, electronic and otherwise."
• Tweepjob (by Douglas Reynolds), bringing job seekers, organizations and recruiters together using "tweets".

Sandro is going to present the whole phidget/Flash story (can he bring Flash's rapid prototyping capabilities to the hardware world? What would you build?) at Flash at the Lake (FATL), the fine Flash conference Zürich will see in June. FATL is yet another example of awesome crazy stuff done by a Liiper - will blog about that soon.

As you might have heard, Liip won quite a bunch of awards at this year's Best of Swiss Web contest, including the night's awesome-sounding overall prize "Master of Swiss Web".

Concerning the aftermath of that evening (which involved a healthy dose of beer, see images 1, 2) there's the following things to say:

• WE DID NOT FORGET ABOUT THE PROMISED PARTY - we'll keep you posted on that one.
• Marc and I did a rather long interview with Netzwoche, which was quite funny.
• The special women-only prize spurred quite some discussion, see for example Penny's blog entry. Difficult topic.
• Gottago and Picok, the two apps winning in the categories "Technology Innovation" and "Technology Quality" both are Free Software projects. Open Source wins.
• As a little bonus for all the passion put into Gottago, we'll send Marc on the Silicon Valley Tour organized by fellow Liiper Philipp. He will definitely have to blog here.
• Yes, sure, the Swiss web small and that award thing might be a bit provincial - but as a winner you just do not care :)

So many thanks to everybody that supported us, remember we're hiring .. and see you at that party.

2009 promises to be a fun year again in terms of Best of Swiss Web awards: both Gottago and RAIweb 2.0 are nominated for the jackpot, the most awesome title of "Master of Swiss Web".

What you can (and should) do now is going to vote.liip.ch and vote for us, preferrably for Gottago (your favourite 'public transport 2.0' iPhone app). The voting process is rather cumbersome, so here's a short how-to.

So the plan is this: you vote, we win, and then we throw a decent party, with you - and this is a most official promise. Ok? Thanks, and we'll sure keep you posted through this blog and through twitter.com/liip.

Hi. I'm currently at LIFT09 in Geneva, and after the workshop I moderated yesterday, I could start enjoying - if only the whole thing wouldn't be slightly disappointing overall.

Well, the workshop was about asking the conference's motto questions "Where did the future go?" with regard to that meta-utopia we call the Semantic Web. Slightly too technical at times, the discussion went pretty well indeed, the Café Method proved to be helpful once again. The participants, among them folks from Mozilla, DFKI, Swisscom, UBS etc. etc (and of course the Dreamlab guys), were pretty hard to stop discussing - a good sign. In the discussion, the actual usefulness of many of the standards and ideas around in the Semantic Web space were heavily challenged, I'll have to reflect a bit for giving you a good summary.

The disappointment comes mainly from the impression of declining density, compared to the three LIFT conferences I attended before. More repetitions of topics previously covered, again a seemingly lower number of presentations, and an overall level that does not seem to rise. Maybe the future just went away, on holiday. Or maybe it's just me.

Instead of liveblogging or such, I'll just be mentioning a couple of pointers here over the next couple of days, all the content of LIFT is going to be online very soon indeed. A very nice presentation this morning was the one by David Rose of Ambient Devices showing us .. ambient devices (or rather "enchanted objects"), actually working ones, like the 1-Pixel-Browser and so on.

After that Lee Bryant had 5 minutes, and he was good. Explained how the 20th century was basically and generally wrong, told us that trust is cheaper than control, told us to stick with a traditional mode of organizations: social networks. Network-based models are proven an aggregation and links beats coercion. Yes indeed.

Spent the last couple of days in the US, in New York, Palo Alto and San Francisco and had a blast indeed. Over the next days I'll be summarizing the most important events of that journey to all those places I knew but from the movies and those voices and faces I knew but from the web. This risks becoming rather verbose, so I don't expect you guys to read all of it - but I can't help sharing this :)

So.. the first 4 days were the holiday part of the trip, doing what you do on your first NYC visit, exploring Manhattan and Brooklyn with big eyes, enjoying the view from the Empire State at 2am, and so forth. Apart from the usual tourist stuff I met formidable geow***kers Bernhard and Gregor (he, talked him back into blogging ;)), both at Google New York and working on Google Maps. Great guys, like them a lot. The free food at their in-house restaurant was remarkable, their infrastructure is pretty nice, notoriously. The playground area the company's offices are known for seemed definitely underutilized, but as Berni remarked: just having those rooms makes a real difference. Google and their maps actually stayed with me all along the trip: this visit in the Meat Packing District, then in the Valley helping to find my way around, and finally to my last scheduled appointment, WhereCamp2008 at Googleplex, their mighty mothership. But more on that later.

The schedule was too tight for my preferred liveblogging mode, and with Geneva's Linuxdays today, the local Atlassian User Conference on Monday and the Internet Briefing Conference on Wednesday and Thursday the pace will stay rather high - so thanks for hanging on.

Next in this series: The first day in Stanford, at the Center for Internet & Society of Stanford Law School, meeting amazing folks like Bruce Cahan, legendary Bill Moggridge and Bill Cockayne, all in one day.