Over the past few days I have been tinkering with Google App Engine. Google App Engine lets you harness Google’s massive server infrastructure to write web based applications. In other words, Google App Engine is like sex, but for geeks.
It has some really crazy awesome features that help us get our geek-glands salivating, but I’d like to focus more on why this is so revolutionary instead of how. To do this I’ll talk about a product that was designed, developed, and released in 1 day. Yes. One Day. Did you hear that? One Day.
Retweet Radar: One Goal. One Day. Holy $#!7
So what is Retweet Radar? Retweet Radar shows what terms people are retweeting in real time. That’s a pretty insane goal. Just thinking about the technology needed to develop such a thing makes my head spin. Huge racks, baby, that’s all I can say.
Ben Hedrington (@benhedrington) didn’t let that daunt him. Instead, he looked at the open tools he had available to make things happen and just freaking did it. Then he wrote an amazing blog post telling how he did it. Did I mention it was written in one in one day? Yeah, I’m still a little impressed.
So, Why Is This Important?
Ben touches on this topic near the bottom of his post, but here’s the gist of it: People being able to make things without spending tons of resources on it is what revolutionizes the world. We had books before Gutenberg, but it wasn’t until he developed the printing press that learning and science took hold in the renaissance.
Since it’s beginning, the web was about collaborating between individuals. Scientists sending data back and forth between each other in a reliable fashion so they could do science-y things better.
LiveJournal, YouTube, MySpace and Twitter all broke major ground in the content creation space. Content is being created by normal people at a breathtaking pace. Do you know how many lifetimes it would take to watch all the YouTube videos uploaded in a day? Neither do I. The fact that it’s more than 1 is scary.
Imagine, if you will, that someone could create an insanely useful piece of software in one day. Imagine if solving complex problems was no longer dependent on how much money and hardware you could throw at it. There are thousands of Ben Hedrington’s. Complex problems can be solved literally overnight by one talented developer. Hold onto your hats.