Ok, so it’s not real, but what you can do with SalesForce.com is pretty close to that. What do I mean by push button development? SalesForce.com is a CRM application that runs as a service (Software as a Service or SaaS). There is no softwware installation. The software lives on SalesForce.com.

Now, I was lucky enough to participate in an implementation of SalesForce.com for a major company where I integrated multiple major websites with SalesForce.com using their API. That part was not PBD. However, what is PBD is the creation of all the screens, fields, tabs, et.c within SalesForce.com.

Seriously, one of the guys I work with is a great project manager, but his no developer. He was able to create multiple customized screens that allows sales agents to track customer requests without a single line of code. Just pushing buttons, clicking on checkboxes and moving tabs around.

What typically would take 6 months to implement, this project was implemented in 6 weeks, from start to finish.

Now, I don’t want to simplify it to the point where you think anyone can create a CRM application that easily, but it’s pretty close to that. And this is the future of development. Hello PBD!

You still, however, do need developers (thank goodness) to do the more complex tasks of integration (e.g. XML, webservices, SOAP calls, etc.), however, for the majority of the implementation, it can be done with just project managers, who understand the business, it’s rules and workflows, and can easily and quickly implement a full CRM system with minimal IT help.

I’m only talking about SalesForce.com in this blog entry because this is my first SaaS integration I was involved in, however, it’s not the only SaaS application available out there that offers “Push Button Development”.

So check out SalesForce.com when you have a moment and look at their Development and Platform environments (all web driven). It’s a new way of thinking and I think it’s the future of web development.

Then when you a have a moment, if you want, you can listen to an interview I conducted with Peter Coffee, the Director of Platform Research at SalesForce.com for the Meet The Experts Show!

The computing future looks very bright (I gotta wear my SaaS shades)

Cheers!

Let me simplify it. Basically, you as a company or regular person, when you want electricity what do you do today? Do you go out and purchase a generator large enough to make enough power for your home and all your electronic toys? I think not! Does your company have a huge electric generator to create electricity for their needs with a huge staff maintaining those generators? I don’t think so. Companies and people alike, just plug into the electrical outlet and let the electric company figure out how to bring electricity to us and how to keep the electricity flowing. We just use it.

Now take that same concept to software and hardware. You have lots of files. You purchase a server to store those files in. You purchase Windows XP or 2003 or Mac OS or whatever. Now you paid for hardware, operating system licenses, etc.

Now you need to maintain that machine with memory upgrades, hard drive upgrades, etc. You also need to patch up the O.S. with software updates, security releases, etc. You have no clue how to do all that, so you hire an expert (expert = lots of $$$)

Now take a company, that has to do what I just described above, but perhaps times ten, or times 100 or even times 1000 machines! Can you imagine the cost? And I have not even touched on bandwidth costs and issues of maintenance.

Now comes cloud computing to the rescue!

Basically, you can now rent computing cycles (e.g. from Amazon EC2), bring up and down as many computers as you want, without the hassle of installing hardware, software, etc. It’s all done dynamically and on-demand as you need more computing power at the fraction of the cost of you buying the actual hardware.

Now, let’s say, such as in our case here at Pixel Heads Network, you have tons of media files, accessed by thousands of people. You could go and purchase a virtual hosting solution to support all that media and hope that you have enough bandwidth to support all the hits to that media. But what if you purchased too little? Then your server will crash. What if you purchased too much? You are now paying for bandwidth and hardware power you are not using. Waste of money.

That’s where Amazon S3 comes in. It stands for Simple Storage Solution. Basically, think of it as an FTP site on steroids. You upload your media up to S3 and you have a direct link to that media. You get charged for the media you upload, the media that is downloaded and the number of requests to that media. However, we are talking pennies, literally, for these charges.

Here is the best part. If you get a sudden spike on your hits, say 1000 people come to view one media file in a 10 minute period, Amazon’s bandwidth on your files expands to allow for all those people and you pay for that time period of bandwidth use. Now, an hour later, you go down to 10 people watching your media file. Well, now you are only paying for the bandwidth of those 10 people only. It’s a fantastic system! It expands and contracts on demand and dynamically! How cool is that?

We don’t need to worry about hosting our files, installing hardware as our need increases, adding more bandwidth to support our growing audience, no software patches to install. Nothing. It’s as simple as FTPing the files to our location, but as powerful as having hundreds of servers with unlimited bandwidth to support our growth.

They also offer an API, which allows you, if you are a developer, to easily create applications that integrate with S3 (and their other services).

Recently Amazon introduced CloudFront, which basically caches your files throughout the world so that people in Japan will pull your files from a server in Japan, while people in New York, will pull your files from a server in New York. CloudFront works along with S3. You host your files on S3 and use Cloudfront as a way to cache those files around the world! And the cost for Cloudfront, again, pennies, literally!

Now take this same concept of Cloud Computing to software, that’s where Software As A Service comes in. Many of you are using SaaS today and don’t know it; Yes you, reading this article. Do you use Google Apps? Then you are using SaaS. Do you use SalesForce.com to track your customers? Then you are using SaaS.

Think of a world where you don’t need to install applications on our machine. They just run, hosted by a company, maintained by a company, updated by a company. You, just use them. That’s what SaaS is all about and it’s becoming more popular each day that passes.

So to end this article, you can now see why I’m such a big fan of Cloud Computing and SaaS applications. Cost is minimal, maintenance is gone, updates are automatic and did I mention cost is minimal?

It’s a new era that we are embarking on and I highly recommend that, if you are a head of an IT organization, look into Cloud Computing and SaaS as a way to lower your overall IT costs. If you are a small business or even a one person business, look at Amazon Web Services. It’s Cloud Computing for pennies!

How cool is the future no?

Drop me a line or comment!

The guy (or rather his team) did an amazing job of communicating a cohesive, focused message to people online using a variety of new media channels (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, email, videos on YouTube, Blackberry Messages, etc.)

David Meerman Scott, a fantastic new media marketing genius (that’s the title I call him, I don’t think that’s his official title….but it should be) wrote a great article on why he thinks Obama is “the most new marketer in history”.

I highly recommend you read the article!

Also, if you want to learn more about David Meerman Scott, check out his cool site or listen to an interview I conducted with him for Meet The Experts Show.

1. Tell us what Wix.com is.
2. Who’s Wix.com’s target market?
3. How do you guys compare yourself to SproutBuilder.com?
4. Can you create widgets in your site to use in our site?
5. What are your thoughts on Cloud Computing and SaaS?
6. What are your thoughts on standards for Cloud Computing and SaaS?
7. How are you monetizing Wix.com?
8. Do you offer analytics?
9. Does Wix offer an API to pull data from social networks?
10. Tell us about the Wix Designer.
11. Do you feel people need to get over a psychological bump for SaaS computing?

1. Why did you switch from an engineering degree to filmmaking?
2. How has using your left and right brain help you making films?
3. Is balance between art and science important for indie filmmakers?
4. What is Cinnafilm?
5. Where does Cinnafilm fit in the filmmaking workflow?
6. Is this a stand alone hardware and software solution?
7. How much does CinnaFilm cost?
8. Who’s Cinnafilm’s core market?
9. What tips can you offer to make video feel more like film?
10. What’s your favorite camera under $10K?
11. Would you shoot in film or HD?
12. Is film dead?
13. Will digital video ever end up looking like film?

1. Tell us about Pond5
2. Is the video royalty free?
3. What kind of cut do you guys take from the licensing fee?
4. Explain what you mean that the site is like eBay?
5. What kind of media files do you accept?
6. Are you looking for a minimum resolution in the stock footage?
7. Do you offer a dashboard to track sales?
8. Do you offer DRM for any of the clips?
9. Is your site integrated with any applications like Adobe Stock Photo with Adobe Bridge?
10. It’s not an exclusive deal correct?

1. How can Youreeka help video producers monetize their content?.
2. Do you support streaming and DRM?
3. What kind of media do you support?
4. How do people provide to you the media?
5. You guys do all the transcoding and digitizing of the media?
6. Can our media reside on Amazon S3 and you guys stream off of that?
7. What’s the cost of Youreeeka?
8. How do people integrate the checkout process?
9. Can the checkout be customized to our look and feel?
10. Do you provide analytics?
11. Do you take a cut out of the embedded sponsors in the video?

1. Tell us about Prompter People
2. What kind of teleprompter models do you offer for corporate videographers and indie filmmakers?
3. What other hardware or software do they need to run a teleprompter?
4. Does the teleprompter come with the software?
5. What kind of controls and/or features are included in the lower end models?
6. What’s your target market for the lower end models?

1. Tell us about the DVPA
2. Does the DVPA have physical meetings or is it mainly a virtual organization?
3. What kind of benefits do members get?
4. Is the DVPA only for video professionals? What about digital media creators like Flash developers?
5. What kind of networking opportunities do you provide to digital media creators?
6. How much does it cost to join the DVPA?

• Tell us about the American Society of Cinematographers.
• Tell us about your experience working on webisodes as a cinematographer.
• Do you think there will be a time when people will be creating shows specifically for the web and not “hope to be picked up by a network”?
• How can a small group bring the energy and collaboration that is experience in a larger crew on a TV series or movie?
• What’s your take on user generated content? Is that the future of entertainment?
• What’s your take on film versus digital? Is film dead?
• How can people learn more about you?