(2006-11-02) Ross Parakey

Blake Ross is working on Para Key, which sounds like it tries to provide a central service/API for File Sharing, or rather publishing to various services. Actually, it sounds like he wants to be the Portal. You run a local app on your Home Server, and it synchs to a Hosted Server which is what other people see. And it runs the code to give various interfaces for various media types: recipies, photos, etc.: do you really expect a single app, or even narrow Platform, to deliver all that? On the other hand, if they support Open Format-s, then Para Key would make a nice hub for web sites like FlickR to suck data from. Most or all of Parakey will be Open Source, under a license similar to Firefox's.... "If it were up to us, we'd Open Source all of it," he says, "but it depends on how the investors want to do this."... Parakey, on the other hand, is launching with profit in mind. While many of the details remain under wraps, the idea is to roll out initially with a single application, such as the photo system, which will demonstrate how the Platform can be exploited. Once all the infrastructure is in place and scalable, they'll make a more concerted play to involve outside developers, probably around January. Ross says that Advertising revenues will come in differently from the way they do in Google or other ad-dependent businesses. He can't say more about it for now.