zzap blog - Misc

zzap available for download

nospam@example.com (Dirk Ollmetzer) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:11:49 +0100

Zzap Version 0.4.148 is available for download now. It's licensed under GPL 3. Please feel free to play around. It would be nice to get your feedback.

Download: zzap V0.4.148 (376 KB)

The basic features of the Software are:

Multichannel - Support of web, mobile phones and the iPhone
Multilanguage - English and german are standard. Additional languages can be added easily.
Connectivity - Integration in twitter and your blog are possible.
Enhanced Content - Short messages plus links plus photos.
Easy Setup - An installationscript support to set up the application.
Extendable - Plug-in architecture.
Multitier - Flowcontrol, data access and visualisation are separated.

Why just another microblogging software?

nospam@example.com (Dirk Ollmetzer) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:53:00 +0200

One might ask, if the world needs another microblogging system. My answer is: Yes, definitely.
I have been working on similar ideas for a long time in my own ivory tower, but the success of twitter showed evidence, that there's a demand for microblogging out there in the real world, and not only in the geek-sphere.

If a kind of communication service gets more important, there should be two things to support further growth: Competition and interoperability. We need more than one telephone operator, more than one Internet service provider and we also need more than one microblogging service.

We need more competition. Twitter is a handy service, but even if they are more reliable now, than they were several months ago, it's not a good idea to depend on this single company. I'm not only talking about the fact, that they might run out of money, if they can't develop a solid revenue model. I'm also concerned about to whom I give my data, to whom they might sell it to in the future. I want independency to build my own private service for closed groups, if there's a need. I want the possibility to add some -for me- important features. There's a German expression for that:

„It's good, but not the end of the flagpole yet“

Laconi.ca (the software behind the identi.ca service) is another known microblogging software and it's developing fast. There are two major advantages about twitter:

It's open source
It's using standardized protocols, to enable users on different instances to follow and communicate with each other.

That sounds good. But I missed several features, that I already had in my own software:

Mobile device detection
integrated photo upload
twitter integration

That's the reason, why I decided to continue my work and publish it under GPL. I hope to finish a first package for interested people soon. Maybe there's somebody out there, who is interested in this piece of software to build their own service. Please contact me.

zzap product blog started

nospam@example.com (Dirk Ollmetzer) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:17:04 +0200

As the work on zzap leads to the first useful results, the time is right to present it to a broader audience. That means, I can't continue to write any articles about the work on zzap in my own personal blog in German. It's time to get more international. From now on, I will face a new challenge and post the news related to zzap and microblogging here in English.