Anyone who is eager to share their knowledge about Ruby, Rails or any of the technologies from the web app world OR would like to learn about these, is very welcome to join us for RailsTalk.
Feel free to visit our offices every Thursday at 8.30 am CET for OpenRailsTalk. Important – as the dates sometimes change and we have limited space, make sure to send us an email at railstalk@applicake.com and wait for our confirmation 
See you soon!
No offense, but there are obviously many smart people out there Google. Picture source: Ben Ward’s Flickr stream.
Matt, our developer, has recently written an article about building the application for eBay- from the developer’s perspective. Below is a little extract from the article:
What Have We Done & Why Are We So Proud?
In a nutshell my task was to integrate the vzaar application with the eBay API directly into the eBay Selling Manager platform. The end goal was to ensure that eBay sellers could then add video to their eBay listings, by using vzaar, directly at an eBay level. A Selling Manager user simply subscribes to the vzaar application and it will show up in their Applications tab in My eBay.
It’s a real distinction for us. Only a few applications have taken part in the initial launch (…).
If you want to read the whole article , click here…
Even though the position of women in IT is strengthening every day, the industry still remains dominated by men. Luckily for us – women, there are some strong ladies climbing up the career ladder and setting up new standards.
The story of Marissa Mayer in latest Vogue, is a good example of an extraordinary woman in an environment actually dominated by men. As described in the magazine “the 34-year-old megamillionaire, Oscar de la Renta– obsessed, computer-programming Google executive who lives in a penthouse atop the Four Seasons, San Francisco (…) demolishes old-fashioned oppositions of beauty and brains, or women and science, or chic and geek”.
Marissa – an internet guru and Google executive, is the Vice President of Search Product and User Experience at Google. She is responsible for the creation of such product as: Gmail, Google Maps, iGoogle, Google Chrome, Google Health, and Google News. She graduated with honors from Stanford University and was the first woman to be hired in, a company with silly name, Google. Additionaly, Fortune magazine lists her as one of the 50 most powerful women in the world.
Marissa is not yet in her mid thirties but what she accomplished is extremely impressive and inspiring to women all over the world.
Among her, other ladies conquered the industry – Carleton Fiorin- served as chief executive officer at H&P, Esther Dyson- was the first interim chairperson of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Grace Hopper-pioneer in the IT field , Margaret “Meg” Whitman- former President and Chief Executive Officer of Ebay. Research has proved women are statistically less susceptible to stress, more efficient and rather stay calm in difficult situations.
I guess those abilities help us in coping with everyday’s work activities, especially on executive positions.
Power belongs (also) to us – ladies – just be strong and brave enough to reach for it!
Read the entire article about Marissa here…
Few months ago eBay announced their new strategy called Project Echo, or what is currently referred to as Selling Manager Applications.
As you might know already, Applicakers works closely with vzaar - the best online video hosting service out there. Now comes the exciting part..
Selling Manager Applications just went live!
Vzaar (read their press release here) was chosen as one of the first 10 apps to launch this week… making Applicake one of the first development teams to work with the eBay Selling Manager Applications (SM Apps) API. In fact, for the last couple of months our developer Matt has been working closely with eBay tech support in the US to improve the SM Apps API.
You will find vzaar among “Marketing and merchandising applications” (see below).
And another insight (vzaar screenshot):
How to increase your sales on eBay?
As eBay has announced some time ago: “Sellers of all sizes can deliver great buyer experiences. That’s why we’re taking new steps to reward great service on eBay, bring you more sales, increase your profitability, and help you succeed”. One of the means to achieve that is the introduction of Selling Manager Applications - which only launched today… and you can try all apps for free!
As Mike Arrington from TechCrunch put it here: “This is analogous to Facebook Platform (…). When the platform launches there will be a defined markup language for developers to use (Ebay’s Max Mancini
says they will look to Facebook and Open Social for guidance, and won’t reinvent the wheel), and other tools.”
What’s new about *this* eBay API?
Yes, that’s right - eBay has had a rich set of developer APIs for some time now that let third party developers bring eBay functions and features into *their* applications. So what’s so special about the new API? It enables developers to build apps *within* the eBay Selling Manager - a tool where ca. 700,000 large eBay sellers use to manage their sales and customer information.
Bonus - Vzaar team:
And a more casual shot of Applicake – vzaar team: Agata, Basia, Matt, Pawel and Mariusz:
Here it goes, thanks for this picture dav!
Whoaaah!!!!!!! Yesterday our new product: Pipejump – a web application which in an effective way organizes and manages your sales – was mentioned on TechCrunch.com
As they put it – Basecamp meets Salesforce
Pipejump was described as “deceptively simple to use (anyone could pick it up) but actually pretty powerful in its simplicity“. The application was referred to as a “serious competitor in the sales software market.”
Some recent tweets include: “Salesforce.com for dummies? Great idea!”, “Interesting way to change state (or, move to the next step) in a web interface- just drag it to the bar“, “Great illustrations“ and ”New sales app that seems simple, easy to use, and works with teams.“
Thank you! All those warm words and constructive remarks are very flattering and make the whole team proud – our hard work in the past couple of moths has been appreciated. We have already received a lot of positive feedback from our active users and we are working hard to make the application even better.
You can read the entire article here.
To learn more about Pipejump see the tour.
Small update - The Washington Post wrote about PipeJump, too!
Over a month ago Applicake has entered into co-operation with a London-based startup 1Click2Fame! While the website itself has been up for a while now, we’re working on, hmm, let’s call it 1Click2Fame “extension” Details to come!
What is 1Click2Fame?
“1Click2Fame is Britain’s best online talent competition. Whatever the talent, from singing and dancing, to comedy and magic, we need your help in finding the next big thing. If you are a performer you can upload your video for the world to see and maybe it could be you at the top of the chart.”
Watch the 1Click2Fame YouTube promo video.
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