AGI Applications & NPD Team Blog

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Flickr Mashups

Current Apps & NPD Open Positions

Applications Developer

DESCRIPTION
American Greetings Interactive is looking for an application developer to join our team. The successful candidate will design and develop applications for our AG Interactive sites (AmericanGreetings.com, BlueMountain.com, egreetings.com, Webshots.com, Kiwee.com, PhotoWorks.com, etc) using the latest programming technologies, working with other engineers through the entire product development cycle.

The ideal candidate is fluent in standard data structures and algorithms and can apply these to a distributed application environment. Experience with MFC, Win32, COM objects and multi-process/multi-threaded systems is a must. Experience with developing cross platform desktop applications (Windows, MAC, Linux) is highly desirable. A good understanding of databases, web application topology, and application performance is highly desirable. The ability to work independently and excellent verbal and written communication is a must.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Design, develop & maintain desktop widgets and cross platform desktop applications
Design, develop & maintain photo upload and manipulation utilities
Design, develop & maintain web toolbars (IE6, IE7, Firefox)
Participate in New Product Development efforts

REQUIRED SKILLS
BS or higher degree in Computer Science or Engineering
5 or more years of experience developing client / server applications with C, C++, C#
Experience with MFC, Win32, COM objects, and multi-process/multi-threaded systems
SQL
Familiar with Linux or other Unix flavors is a plus
Ability to work in a fast-paced dynamic team-oriented environment
Strong attention to detail
Highly motivated and willing to do what is required to get things done
Strong oral and written communications skills and strong interpersonal skills, including the ability to write items such as design documents and reports and to effectively present information and respond to questions from peers or management

MAC Application Developer

DESCRIPTION
American Greetings Interactive is looking for a MAC application developer to join our team. The successful candidate will design and develop applications for our AG Interactive sites (AmericanGreetings.com, BlueMountain.com, egreetings.com, Webshots.com, Kiwee.com, PhotoWorks.com, etc) using the latest programming technologies, working with other engineers through the entire product development cycle.

The ideal candidate is fluent in standard data structures and algorithms and can apply these to a distributed application environment. Experience with Cocoa API/Objective C is a must. Experience with developing cross platform desktop applications (Windows, MAC, Linux) is highly desirable. A good understanding of databases, web application topology, and application performance is highly desirable. The ability to work independently and excellent verbal and written communication is a must.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Design, develop & maintain MAC desktop widgets
Design, develop & maintain iphoto plug-ins
Design, develop & maintain ichat applications
Design, develop & maintain MAC toolbars (Firefox, Safari)
Design, develop & maintain cross platform desktop applications
Participate in New Product Development efforts

REQUIRED SKILLS
BS or higher degree in Computer Science or Engineering
3 or more years of experience developing MAC applications with Carbon, Cocoa, Objective C
5 or more years of experience developing client / server applications with Java, C, C++, C#
SQL
Linux or other Unix flavors
Ability to work in a fast-paced dynamic team-oriented environment
Strong attention to detail
Highly motivated and willing to do what is required to get things done
Strong oral and written communications skills and strong interpersonal skills, including the ability to write items such as design documents and reports and to effectively present information and respond to questions from peers or management

Get'Er Done Developer

DESCRIPTION
American Greetings Interactive is looking for a Get 'Er Done developer to join our team. The successful candidate will design and develop applications for our AG Interactive sites (AmericanGreetings.com, BlueMountain.com, egreetings.com, Webshots.com, Kiwee.com, PhotoWorks.com, etc) using the latest programming technologies, working with other engineers through the entire product development cycle. The ideal candidate is fluent in standard data structures and algorithms and can apply these to a distributed application environment. Interest and experience in multiple technologies / languages and a high level of adaptability is a must. A good understanding of databases, web application topology, and application performance is highly desirable. The ability to work independently and excellent verbal and written communication is a must.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Primary responsibility will be to support the development team on variety of technology projects using various laungages such as C++, C#, Python, AIR, FLEX, Action Script for creating desktop software and websites
Participate in New Product Development efforts

REQUIRED SKILLS
BS or higher degree in Computer Science or Engineering
3 or more years of experience in software development in an OO language (Action Script, C++ or Python is a plus)
Ability to work in a fast-paced dynamic team-oriented environment
Strong attention to detail
Highly motivated and willing to do what is required to get things done
Strong oral and written communications skills and strong interpersonal skills, including the ability to write items such as design documents and reports and to effectively present information and respond to questions from peers or management

Gtalk is getting extended and embedded in more locations

http://mashable.com/2008/06/26/igoogle-chat-test/

Kathy

-V 1.1.4

Nokia acquires Symbian Ltd.; partnering with companies on open mobile software platform

The article is a little dated (~June); however, still a potentially relavant read regarding open mobile... and hopeful photo opportunities with our biz.

Nokia, Espoo, Finland, has launched a cash offer to acquire all of the shares of Symbian Ltd. that it does not already own, at a price of euro 3.647 per share. The net cash outlay from Nokia to purchase the approximately 52 percent of Symbian Ltd. shares it does not already own will be approximately euro 264 million, says the company.

Nokia has received undertakings from Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ), Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd., and Siemens International Holding BV to accept the offer, representing approximately 91 percent of the Symbian shares subject to the offer. Nokia also expects Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to accept the offer.

Symbian Ltd. is a software company that develops and licenses Symbian OS open operating system for mobile devices. Mobile devices based on Symbian OS account for 60 percent of the converged mobile device segment. A privately-owned company established in 1998, Symbian is based in London, U.K., and also has other offices in the United Kingdom, United States, and Asia. Nokia expects the acquisition to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2008 and is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. After the closing, all Symbian employees will become Nokia employees.

The acquisition is a step in the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, announced today by Nokia, together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola Inc., NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, and Vodafone. The companies intend to unite Symbian OS, S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform, and plan to establish the foundation to extend the appeal of this unified software platform. Membership of this non-profit foundation will be open to all organizations. This initiative is supported by current shareholders and management of Symbian Ltd., who have been actively involved in its development.

Sony Ericsson and Motorola announced their intention to contribute technology from UIQ and DOCOMO has also indicated its willingness to contribute its MOAP(S) assets. From these contributions, the foundation will provide a unified platform with common UI framework. A full platform will be available for all foundation members under a royalty-free license, from the foundation's first day of operations.

Contributions from foundation members through open collaboration will be integrated to further enhance the platform. The foundation will make selected components available as open source at launch. It will then work to establish a complete mobile software offering available in open source. This will be made available over the next 2 years and is intended to be released under Eclipse Public License. The foundation's platform will build on the leading open mobile software platform, with more than 200 million phones, across 235 models, already shipped by multiple vendors and tens of thousands of third-party applications already available for Symbian OS-based devices. The foundation is expected to start operating during the first half of 2009, subject to the closing of the acquisition of Symbian Ltd by Nokia.

In separate news, Nokia agreed to buy social networking start-up Plazes as part of its major push into offering Internet services, reports Reuters. Plazes provides location-aware services that people can use to plan, record, and share their social activities.

Kathy

- V 1.1.3

Mobile Usage & Social Expression

Just thought I'd share some interesting information from David in Seattle regarding Mobile usage as it pertains to our photo biz....

Mobile Data Usage Hitting Critical Mass

Using the Internet from mobile devices is a lot more popular than some of us realize, and even more surprising is the fact that the US leads the pack when it comes to mobile Internet usage.

Article - Mobile Data Usage Hitting Critical Mass

Mobile Social Growth Rate Substantial

Ontela (mobile service provider) is seeing 5% attach rate of their addressable market for image send from cameraphone to internet social network

Kathy

-V 1.1.2

American Greetings iPhone App

There's been a lot of buzz around the iPhone today. I don't know how many people have asked me why AG hasn't already launched an iPhone app!

I know, I know... it would have been great to be in the game at launch time; however, we are in good company. There are still some big name applications missing / currently in development.
Here is a quick review of some of the iPhone apps currently available.

According to Nielsen Media's Q1, 2008 data on iPhone users, they represent the creme de la creme of advertising targets: they fall into the two most attractive age groups, 25-34 years old and 55-64 years old; they spend more: 36% have a monthly phone bill of more than $100, a full sixteen percentage points higher than the average American mobile user; and, they love their music, 75% use the iPod function on their iPhone, second only to email at 76%. Morgan Stanley's Rubicon March, 2008 report also found that 10% of iPhone users buy something from iTunes daily and that their ownership of more than one mobile phone places them at the leading edge of consumers driving the wireless industry.

Sounds like a pretty good fit to our demographic!

NPD devs… put on your thinking caps on how we could help users connect and express on their iPhones!

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Kathy

-V 1.1.1

Labels: iPhone

Bring Your Dog to Work Day Slideshow

We had a great time at the Bring Your Dog to Work Day! I've uploaded some photos of the team at work and at play with their pups :-)

Every Dog has Its Day

Kathy

Tango with D

Every now and then when I'm bored, I run across something truly amazing. I was really intrigued when I stumbled across a language called D. From what I have read so far, it seems incredibly promising. The most interesting piece I have read is the following from their site:

“D is a general purpose systems and applications programming language. It is a higher level language than C++, but retains the ability to write high performance code and interface directly with the operating system API's and with hardware.”

The great part about this language is that it is neither a scripting nor interpreted language. However, it provides the programmer with all the high-level abstractions that one would expect from an interpreted language such as Python.

Another component of this language that I haven't seen anywhere else is the built-in support for unit tests, code coverage, and conditional compilation.

A book was written recently that covers D. I'm thinking of adding it to our library:

I'm lucky to be on a team dedicated to new product development, so I'd love to get a chance to create an application using D. Keep a look out for something crazy!

Labels: c++, code coverage, d, debug, gui, interpreted, language, python, tango, unit test