Friday saw Japan's annual PostgreSQL conference held at the Izumi Garden Conference Centre in Roppongi Itchome.  Billed as "Learn everything there is to know about PostgreSQL in one day" - the conference is the main event in the local PostgreSQL community. 

With major organisational backing and sponsorship from SRA OSS Inc., Sun Microsystems, EnterpriseDB, NEC Software and others, the event had a distinctly corporate flavour to it.  Along with the plush Roppongi location, I suppose this matches the image of PostgreSQL as the Oracle of Open Source Databases.

I have recently started as CTO of a company that uses an OSS stack, and PostgreSQL as the DB platform.  With my DB background being MSSQL, Oracle and Sybase, I have some catch up to do, so this was a great opportunity to get some concentrated exposure. 

Morning saw the keynotes, the afternoon was sessions ....

First Keynote was Bruce Momjian from EnterpriseDB. Bruce is a long-time player in PostgreSQL, and previously worked for SRA. He talked about the past, present and future of PostgreSQL, and how it was now close to parity with the major commercial vendors.

Next up was Ito-san from Sun Microsystems. I was hoping to hear a little about the MySQL vs. PostgreSQL situation, given that Sun is a contributor to PostgreSQL, but has just purchased MySQL lock, stock, and barrel. Unfortunately it was more on Sun's business model, which seems to be to encourage any software - especially open source - to use multiprocessor systems, which of course Sun will most happily sell you :)

I started off in the Community track, but that the session there was related to developing PostgreSQL - rather that developing on PostgreSQL.  None-the-less, it was interesting to see how the community worked, and to realise how few people are actually at the core of development.  Compare this to the teams that drive MS SQL Server or Oracle, and it is truly enlightening to see that focus and collaboration can do as much with a little, as money and marketing can do with much.

The second session was Fukushima-san from Seino Information Systems - the IT arm of transport firm Seino.  He outlined how they use PostgreSQL as the basis for their system tracking GPS location signals that every vehicle in their fleet transmits every three seconds.  They use this information of course to optimise their vehicle network, but also for governance, such as ensuring drivers do not exceed more that 4 hours at the wheel at a stretch, don't leave the engine idling, etc.  The main topic of his session was how they are using Heartbeat + DRBD to provide redundancy for their DB system, and he gave a live demo of failover, by pulling the LAN cable out of a server.  We watched as the sample app immediately began to draw data from the second server.

Next was another good session, this time with Watabe-san from NTT Data, who reflected on the trials and tribulations of providing commercial systems based on PostgreSQL.  In the end, he said, the number of problems over the many projects undertaken over that period that were directly attributable to PostgreSQL was "Zero" - very reassuring to a novice user like myself.  There was also some good advice from the field about PostgreSQL's unique VACUUM system for compacting databases, and how and when to apply it.

A contractor working closely with NTT, Yasaku-san gave the speech that NTT - or most Japanese firms - probably couldn't.  His very entertaining talk about all the experiments he'd tried - and generally failed - to get PostgreSQL to do various things such as table partitioning, and in-memory databases.  Another nice failure story was about replacing a disk in a very old RAID array. Apparently the disk and controller had - unbeknownst to NTT Data - used a firmware upgrade that was supplied by the disk vendor, who was no longer around.  They were able to source the exact model disk from the manufacturer, but the moment they plugged it in, the whole system stopped - quite the opposite effect from what you'd hope from redundant technology.  (Note to self - check RAID config for dodgy firmware before replacing hard disk!

The final session was on PGCluster, a truly Japanese open source initiative for clustering PostgreSQL, which - unfortunately - doesn't work very well.  It was an entertaining story none-the-less, with lead (sole?) developer Mitani-san, telling the tale of how he stared the project, continued it after moving to the Netherlands, and of the different feedback and cooperation he had from various PostgreSQl communities around the world.

It was a highly educational day for me.  There were a couple of criticisms - I'm not sure if this is supposed to relate to the Corporate image they were trying to present, but they really they could have used a cheaper location, with a little more space.  Many of the sessions were packed out, the air quality stuffy, and the ceiling so low that only those sitting at the front of the rooms could see the lower half of the projection screens. 

Still, after the event a good number of us moved to Roppongi for the excellent after party, and free beer, lightning talks and jan-ken-pon giveaways washed such thoughts away :)

I am at Tokyo BigSight right now for Business Blog and SNS World 2008.   The midday session that Andrew and I led went very well.  Despite the terrible weather and a smaller than expected turnout for the event, we had about 120 to 150 people come along to the session.

After the MC's introduction, first up I introduced the session survey.  I put together a simple mobile based survey system for the event, and projected a QRCode onto the screen.  This went pretty well, and about 30 people responded in the first few minutes.  Then I talked about the network event we are running this evening, and launched into the panel discussion.

Andrew was moderator, and the panelists did most of the talking.  45 minutes was soon up, and I presented the real-time survey results.   Although there was Q&A time at the end, no-one had questions.

Last month, eSynapse was approached to put together a session for Business Blog and SNS World 08 at BigSight from May 28th to 30th.

With only a few days to settle on the session content, we quickly decided to do a panel discussion on Open Data and Mashups, and how they relate to the event main topic.  The session is on the 29th (Thu) from 12:00 to 12:45.

I pulled together a collection of industry colleagues to participate, and Andrew Shuttleworth from Tokyo2Point0 volunteered to moderate the session.  

The Panelists are:

Nob Seki, President of Six Apart Japan
Yukihisa Yonemochi, Enterprise Evangelist from IBM
Yusuke Kawasaki, Chief Architect at Recruit Media Labs
Yuki Naotori, Industry Consultant with 7ns.jp, Creator of OnGMap

I am truly grateful that they will help out in our little session.

On Thursday we all got together at Fujimamas in Harajuku to discuss the session and have dinner.

It was great to get to know the guys a little better, and to hear their thoughts and angles on all things web.  I have no worries that we won't have enough to talk about, I just hope we can keep the talk on topic for everyone listening. :)

Andrew will be there cracking the whip, as we only have a short 45 minutes.  We are accepting questions online before the event, and may also try out a QRCode based survey on the audience in real-time, if I can get the reporting screen working right by the day!

If you are thinking of coming out to the event, please check out our session.

Network Event

On a side note, we are co-hosting a network event on site at BigSight with Tokyo2Point0 that evening from 6:15pm ... please come along if you are out there.  There will be free drinks and nibbles after a long day's expo - many thanks to sponsors Paypal and Optia Partners.

I went along to the "Facebook Developer Garage" at an event space in Harajuku.  There was a fairly basic introduction to Facebook Applications given solely in English :( , followed by free wine and snacks, and then a series of talks from local developers of Facebook apps.  I hung around to see Junya Ishihara present his "Kanji-Fandom" application, and Yuki from OnGMap informs me that there were three more demos after that, followed by a bit of networking time.

On Tuesday night (2008-04-08), I took a couple of colleagues along to Tokyo2Point0 to present eSynapse to the community.  We just got the call at the end of last week, so we did a short introduction and a demonstration of the Blogging Platform.

Andrew Shuttleworth broadcast the event on UStream, and recorded the session.  The videos are below... We start at about 12:00 into the first clip.

Part 1. Intro - Site Setup Demo

Part 2. Site Setup Demo - Mobile eCommerce Admin Demo

Part 3. Mobile eCommerce Admin Demo - Closing - Q&A

On Tuesday I started working in Kojimachi, near the offices of Mozilla Corporation.  Gen Kanai, a friend from Tech Talk Japan chat and Tokyo2Point0, works at Mozilla and we got together for lunch yesterday chatted about various stuff including Mozilla Messaging, portable social networks and upcoming events.  He turned me on to the Tokyo Bloggers Dinner, a monthly get together of some of the local blog scene, where everyone has curry and perhaps a few beers, then gives a quick presentation about what they are doing, or some interesting sites they are using.  He introduced me to the organiser, Kohichi Aoki, and I was on the list.

It was a really fun evening with a great mix of people, and some cool, concise talks.  It's kinda late now, so I won't blog about the event in detail right now, but here is the slideshow.  You can click through to Picasa if you want to download larger resolution shots.  You can catch site of the about to be released Logicool Media Centre Remote, a Microsoftie caught operating a Macbook Air, Nagasawa-san from BlogPeople looking very surprised, and more!  (Turn on the captions and you'll see what's happening)

People and their URLs:

Masaki Ishitani from Mitaimon! and News2u Corporation

Matthew Skyrm, Brandon Wu and Takeshi Homna from Evevio showed off their video service

Hina Nakashima with HINALOG came up from Nagoya for the evening.

Takuya Terasawa and Takayuki Sato from Logicool showed off their new Media Centre Remote Control

Akky from Cybozu Labs

Hiroaki Totsuka from iPod Style

Pina Hirano from infoteria

Tomoo Mizukami from Uniden's Car Navigation Division

Ichiro Kiyota from Six Apart talked about their new content initiative and the first project, Blu-ray apart

Kazuyoshi Nagasawa from AIVY Communications and BlogPeople

Taizo Koide from ShoPro talked about the Shogakukan joint venture site for amateur cartoonists

Risa Nakanishi - PR Diva from Yahoo's new Search Ranking service - showed off all manner of rankings mined from various on and offline sources

Nobi Hayashi of Nobi.com 

... and many more!

Please send me a comment or skype me for any corrections or deletions.

Today was my first day as CTO for eSynapse, a start up based in Kojimachi, Tokyo, and creator of all manner of data driven web sites.  Our flagship product - LIMS - is an multi-level ecommerce and blogging platform that combines blog-marketing with online inventory control and sales.  Other services provided are integration and server monitoring.

My role here will cover several functions, for example -

Turn our current technologies into a fully automated, modular and customisable platform

Add geolocation. multilingual and semantic web features to make the shopping experience more "social"

Round out the ecommerce functionality by developing and partnering with other business services that can be delivered to retailers and small businesses over broadband

Localise overseas Web properties for the Japanese market.

After what was an interesting yet ultimately unrewarding two years contracting at Microsoft, it is great to be back in the thick of it.

Nifty Labs, the marketing research group within Nifty Corporation, has developed filtering technology to automate the detection of so-called "Spam Blogs"  - blogs whose sole purpose is to artificially inflate traffic and affiliate commissions.  Japan has been renowned for the number such sites, and it is certainly an issue when trying to gauge the true blogging population and activity level here. 

The survey combined several filtering techniques, and data came from a 100,000 article sample from 5 months of Nifty's Buzz Pulse Blog analysis service.  Nifty says Buzz Pulse indexes 90% of Japan's blogs, including over 450 million articles as of March 2008.  The average level of Spam Blogging was about 40% ...

Nifty plans to make this information available
on their BuzzSeeQer site - the online servce for BuzzPulse.

Press Release: http://www.nifty.co.jp/cs/07shimo/detail/080326003337/1.htm (Japanese)

Original Blog: http://bb.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/news/21375.html (Japanese)

It was my last day on vacation in Auckland today, and I took the opportunity to do the rounds a little this morning.  First up I went into town to meet Malcolm Stenersen, ex-colleague of mine from Clearfield days, to discuss his new e-commerce venture.  I can't yet divulge the details, but the concept is great, and am looking forward to seeing it take shape.

Next stop was to see brother-in-law Carl and some of the crew at Shift's Auckland office where old partner in crime Richard Ram is at the helm.  After being shouted the finest chicken sandwich within a 35 metre radius of the building, I arrived back to see the whole Shift crew ensconced in a pep talk from Adobe about flash lite and other related stuff. 

When that drew to a close, we sat down with Ross Howard to chat about the mobile scene in Japan, and their efforts in sites for Tourism New Zealand.  I couldn't provide much more than a dumb user point of view of some of the issues, but it seemed to be a useful exchange, and to validate some of their ideas.

Based on discussions I had today and recently, there certainly seems to be a latent need for local basic intelligence, localisation and support for a lot of web businesses, who might just hit it if they move into Japan intelligently.

Dr. John Breslin is a senior semantic web researcher working at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute in Galway, Ireland.  We met at the BlogNation Japan launch party at Web2.0 Expo Japan, and then again at BlogTalk2008 - a conference he was organising in Cork.  I was interested to learn a little more about DERI, and how it engages with business, so fired him some questions by email, for which he has kindly found time in his mad schedule to respond to.

How did DERI come about, and why the focus on semantic technologies?

DERI was established at the National University of Ireland, Galway in late 2003 as part of an initiative by Science Foundation Ireland, an Irish government-funded agency, to establish what are called Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology (CSETs) in the areas of ICT and biotech at various third-level institutions around Ireland.  The chosen focus for DERI was the Semantic Web, as there was and is a recognised need for research into how to manage the information explosion on the Web using semantic technologies.

How did the Seoul and Stanford branches get started?

The senior researchers and directors at DERI had long-established ties with Stanford University; DERI director Professor Decker previously worked there for some time.  In conjunction with Mike Genesereth and Charles Petrie from the Stanford Logic Group, NUI Galway agreed with Stanford University to establish "DERI Stanford" under whose umbrella formal research collaborations between DERI Galway and Stanford could progress.

As regards Korea, DERI researchers had been working with staff from Seoul National University for a number of years, in particular the Biomedical Knowledge Engineering Laboratory (BiKE) led by Professor Hong-Gee Kim.  There has also been a series of researcher exchanges between our two institutions (and DERI Galway also has a PhD student who originated in SNU), so a formal arrangement was confirmed in late 2007 leading to the creation of DERI Seoul.

Any specific reason for Korea in the Asia region?

With rapidly growing communications and scientific infrastructures in Korea, it was recognised that there are a large number of Korean institutions (academic and commercial) who are focusing on the application of semantic technologies to the ICT and biotech domains.  As such, it made sense to establish DERI Seoul to liaise with these organisations and to identify common challenges that could be tackled through various research projects (some of these in conjunction with DERI Galway).

I see on your website that your mission includes assisting the commercialisation of semantic technologies through "Business Development Outreach".  Can you tell me how you engage with businesses, perhaps with some examples?

As part of DERI's remit from Science Foundation Ireland, we have two "outreach" branches, the first being community and education outreach (working with local groups and schools) and the second is business outreach.  Business outreach means that we have staff at DERI who work with various local SMEs and multinationals, describing the research areas that DERI is involved in and investigating if there is a potential need for the application of semantic technologies to solve research challenges in these organisations.

Business outreach also includes efforts to bring together related companies to solve common research requirements (e.g., the Elite initiative brings together seven or eight companies in the domain of semantics applied to e-learning).  DERI has also attracted a number of companies to Galway based on our reputation and our expertise base; some of these have relocated staff and others are establishing new bases near NUI Galway.

What areas do you see semantic technologies being use commercially, and perhaps for online consumer applications in particular?

I think that we are now beginning to see the real commercial applications of what can be done when all kinds of things on the Web are connected together using semantics.  This is obvious in the attention being given to startup companies in this space like Powerlabs (Powerset), Metaweb (Freebase) and Radar Networks (Twine), and also since many big companies including Reuters (Calais API), Yahoo! (semantically-enhanced search) and Google (Social Graph API) have recently announced what they are doing with semantic data.  There has been a lot of talk recently about the social graph (notably from Google's Brad Fitzpatrick), which looks at how people are connected together (friends, colleagues, neighbours, etc.), and how such connections can be leveraged across websites.  In the Semantic Web, it is not just people who are connected together in some meaningful way, but documents, events, places, hobbies, pictures, you name it!  And it is the commercial applications that exploit these connections that are now becoming interesting.

Radar Networks' Nova Spivack recently gave a keynote talk at BlogTalk 2008 as CEO of one of the companies that is practically applying Semantic Web technologies to social software applications.  Radar have a product called Twine, which is a "knowledge networking" application that allows users to share, organise, and find information with people they trust.  I find Twine very interesting, and as well as using it to gather information about SIOC (more below), I intend to use it to gather and publish personal interests that I think will be of interest to the public.

Part of your work is with SIOC - a web standards submission for connecting online communities.  How is that process going?

SIOC is an initiative that I've been working on for the past four years at DERI (with Uldis Bojars, Stefan Decker, and others) that aims to make semantic data available from online communities and Web 2.0 spaces, and to use and leverage that data in interesting and useful ways.  As well as being the Irish word for frost, SIOC stands for "Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities" and the schema or vocabulary of terms that serves as its basis was recently submitted as a Member Submission to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).  We have about 30 or 40 SIOC applications and modules that use and consume SIOC data already.

The process to achieve traction with SIOC was as follows.  Firstly, we created the schema of terms (Site, User, Forum, Post, Container, Item, etc.).  Then, we made some SIOC metadata exporters for various open-source discussion systems and popular community sites, in the hope that we could "infect" the Web infrastructure with semantics - during the next upgrade cycle, gigabytes of community data can become available (a case in point will be the forthcoming SIOC producer for Irish message board site boards.ie).  To produce this mass of linked data from various online communities, we wanted to allow people to easily integrate SIOC with their open-source applications and services, such that there are now SIOC data producers and wrappers available for a range of systems including b2evolution, Dotclear, Drupal, phpBB, WordPress, mailing lists, IRC, Twitter, Jaiku, and others.  The next step was to produce easy-to-use APIs for writing your own SIOC applications.  We have APIs already for PHP, Ruby on Rails and Java.  As well as academic papers about SIOC, we then provided some easy-to-read documentation and usage examples at our SIOC website (http://sioc-project.org/).

Are there some interesting implementations of SIOC?  How is uptake of the blog service plugins?

I think that the interesting applications that are appearing now are those Web 2.0 or Semantic Web applications that realise the advantages of producing SIOC data (and other semantic formats, especially FOAF).  Companies like Seesmic, Talis, OpenLink Software and Radar Networks have either implemented SIOC support in their commercial applications or will do so shortly.

The WordPress plugin is probably the most popular SIOC data producer, but Giovanni Tummarello and his team will shortly release a very interesting plugin that shows one advantage of producing SIOC data from various sites.  This new plugin will allow you to click on an icon beside a blog poster or commenter and view a synopsis of their content and topics created across a range of semantically-enabled websites (as gathered by the semantic indexer Sindice).

Thanks again to John for sharing this with us.  For more information, check out John's Blog: http://johnbreslin.com/