This month’s issue of Spectrum carries an introduction to Parakey, the new product Joe and I have been working on.
Thanks to the many people in the blog world who covered the story and offered input (positive and negative) about what we’re doing. I believe Matt Mullenweg was the first to break the story on the Web, and it was then graciously picked up by Matt Marshall, Dave Winer, Niall Kennedy, Om Malik, Aidan Henry, Ajaxian, Susan Mernit, Lloyd Budd, Alex Moskalyuk, Richard MacManus, Robert Accettura and others. Thanks as well to journalist David Kushner and Spectrum editor Steven Cherry for their tireless efforts to get the story right.
One quick note: there are two people pouring heart and soul into this project. The other is Joe. While Joe didn’t ask me to make this point, far too many people have been shafted by the media’s disproportionate focus on me with Firefox, and I don’t intend to let that happen again with Parakey.
Given how many startups these days “launch” online, many people seemed to assume this was the first public disclosure of the product. We’ve actually been demoing to users groups and adult introductory computer classes around the country for months to collect feedback directly from potential users. We then decided to move forward with a piece in Spectrum to attract engineering talent (we’re hiring) without prematurely setting expectations among a wider audience.
Let me take this opportunity to address some of the FAQs I saw this past week:
What is Parakey?
We think it’s the kind of product that takes hours to explain and seconds to “get” once you use it. The elevator pitch will be one of our greatest challenges, and while it will eventually be necessary, we would rather keep working now to get the product in your hands. As a result, the only description we are currently offering is the vague one in the article. The Parakey website will have more information in the coming weeks.
I will say that Parakey is not any of the three concepts that tend to fall under the loose banner of “Web OS” these days, which are (1) portals that aggregate information from multiple sources into a grid of draggable boxes; (2) faithful replicas of the desktop metaphor, windowing model and all; or (3) Web-based versions of Windows Explorer.
Isn’t it a kind of butter?
No, that’s Parkay, which I’d never even heard of when I came up with the name (seems to be before my time). See, I assumed that people would immediately think “parakeet” and made sure to secure the domain. I completely forgot to check the butter industry. Worse, this is apparently talking butter. How are we supposed to top that? Oh well, at least this name should stick.
When will Parakey be released?
When it’s ready. We have never promised a launch date and don’t expect to, but you can sign up on the website to receive notification if you’re interested. (If you already signed up here on this site, there’s no need to sign up again.)
It’s a safe bet that we will continue to work on improving Parakey so long as we can afford to eat. This means launch day will be somewhat bittersweet, since I’ll be hungry and emaciated.
Will Parakey be open source?
Yes. Keep an eye on the website for details (and source).
The article says Parakey can do everything a traditional operating system can. How preposterous! In my day, we…
The article says that Parakey does everything a traditional operating system can from the perspective of an average user. That is very different from matching an operating system on a technical level. There’s plenty of technology behind Parakey, but I assure you a memory manager isn’t part of it.
Can’t I already do this just by setting up a web server, a mail server with imaps for cell access, nfs and smb shares encrypted, VPN access from the outside and a firewall which does behavioral analysis of network traffic?
I don’t think so, Ronald, but even if you could, my family can’t. I mean, the web and mail servers and encrypted nfs and smb shares with VPN access and a firewall, sure. But the behavioral analysis gets them every time.
What a remarkably diverse lineage you have! What box did you check on your college application?
Okay okay, that’s not my family, and that’s not my living room. But if you look real closely, you’ll see an awfully out of place picture of a kid at a Marlins game. That’s me, from last year I think.
November 11th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
That’s an ambitious and exciting project.
Good luck with it.
November 11th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Can’t wait to read more about this - it sounds very exciting!
November 11th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Awesome, Blake. I’d love to connect next you’re in NYC.
More of my take on my blog.
November 12th, 2006 at 10:18 am
It’s really commendable how your goal is to make things possible for people like mom and dad. All the best to you.
P.S. You take Robert’s name, but link to ronald’s comment. I don’t suppose that was intentional?
November 12th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Blake, You could’ve at least told me I was close (when I emailed you a long time ago ;)
November 12th, 2006 at 11:21 am
I actually just got finished reading the Spectrum article and decided to land here to see if I could read more about it. What struck me actually was that it was only last week I was sitting around organizing some of my photos online thinking to myself, “self, you know what kinda sucks? while many a mom excelled at organizing their family snapshots into many an album that I’ve flipped through at friend’s homes, its quite likely nobody is every going to nicely flip through these thousands of digital photos I’m taking since even I’m too lazy to go through the motions of “publishing” them in some easily sharable way.”
It was really cool to see that people with some clearly evident technical talent are working on that problem.
November 14th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Sounds like a great idea. I could see a version X.whatever adding functionality along the lines of Croquet.
IMO, you’re right on target as to where future OSes need to go. (I’m sure that will be of vast comfort to your investors)
November 14th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
I’ve been wondering why the project’s been taking so long, but this sounds worth the wait. I Look forward to more info.
November 14th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
I was thinking the same thing about the family lineage. I don’t remember any blonde’s in the Ross family.
November 14th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
blondes. the Firefox spell check messed me up
November 14th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
Finally, official word on what you have been doing behind the scenes. Now, for those of us who guessed (and hoped for) that your project was ‘Fire OS’ or something similar…were we close? In the article, it says Parakey can do everything a traditional operating system can.
The possibilities are endless but what I’m really curious about, and i am still trying to figure out what exactly you are creating, but will we need our traditional OS (Win XP, OS X, Linux, etc) or will we be able to install Parakey initially and then run everything we need from that and the online component?
November 16th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Oh BTW, I was the guy that used the Flock analogy and said how your future project might bridge that gap.
November 28th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
Remember the old guy on TV about 10 years back flogging “how-to” CDs for the computer illiterate, offering to help make Word or related Office softwareEasier To Understand. He’s back — with a whole new bunch of CDs explaining the basics of Excel and Access. There is a huge, hungry for knowledge mass of humanity out there who must learn “computer” as much as we all must learn and understand maths, languages, composition, science, geography, history. For far too long the assumption that those who couldn’t get fluent with computers were somewhow more lazy than untaught has encouraged the rest of us to swagger a little much –despite the fact that even the better third of us coax less than 20 per cent out of our machines machines and software. The whole world needs to go on an offsite.
Good luck to Joe and yourself, squire. I’m eager to see Parakey. Who’s a pretty boy, then?
AlanDM
December 11th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
It’s not just grandmas who might make use of your product. So many corporate executives not only still have trouble with the keyboard but are clueless how to make anything happen with a computer. Fortunately they have secretaries at work and children at home.
December 12th, 2006 at 8:40 am
It was usability that made Firefox successful. Very few people are gifted to have a good sense for usability, even fewer also have the technical background to realize these ideas. If I look at Firebug, I think you are one of these very few. Good luck!
January 4th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Back in the 80’s when I was selling Macs we had a saying for the teachers in the Primary Schools. “These computers are ‘Can-Do’ machines, because kids can-do almost anything they can think up.” Best sales line I ever heard or used, particularly when the competition was seen as “Geek Only” and pretty much still is.
Looks like you clearly understand the problem end users have with so much of todays computer hardware and software. This “Geek Only” attitude is why Linux will only have slow acceptance in the rest of the computing community and why your Parakey project will have rapid acceptance, if you get it right and I suspect you will.
Remember that a computer is just a tool, like a pencil, if you need extensive instructions to make it work then the programmers have failed.
Good Luck, I watch with great interest.
February 2nd, 2007 at 2:32 am
Have you seen a movie calls some like.. The first million dollar is the hardest of obtain? Some like that, the people in the movie make a mini computer that doesnt use monitor, hard disk,keyboard, mouse, the keyboard is virtual and the screen image is on the air and all the information is on internet. Good luck… i cant wait for the yours.. of course, the movie is only a movie.. you r real.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Hi,
I am a Unix and Linux Professional, doing UOH Job, I would like to join as a volunteer in you project. How to do the further so.
reg
mak
July 23rd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I am very interested in this project. Keep me posted.
Douglas