I’ve read online recently the following statement: “The last thing the online world needs is yet another social network service, but they keep right on coming”. This is such a true statement, and eventually it will be saturated and all will be just another social network service on the internet. However, I ran across something today that has peaked my interest: Natuba.

Natuba was created by Hushlabs, founded by the ever so popular Richard Yoo. This nifty little project of theirs lets you combine blogs, photo-sharing sites, YouTube, and content from social networks. If it has an RSS feed, then Natuba can include it on your personal page. The best thing that I’ve noticed thus far is that Natuba is very user friendly, which is important. If anything seems even remotely complicated, most users will move along and completely forget that they’ve even visited your site. I’m one of these people.

While the layout is quite loud, it’s catchy. That’s the idea right?

Currently, it seems that Natuba is still in it’s beta stage and by invite only. If you can manage to grab an invite, it’s definitely work checking out.

MySQL has quietly announced that it will no longer be distributing the MySQL Enterprise Server source as a tarball (see: www.linux.com/feature/118489).

After talking with Donnie (a good friend of mine) about this, his take on it was:

“HELLO! Does anyone remember SSH vs OpenSSH? First BitTorrent, and now MySQL? Maybe failure to learn from past software packages mishaps also dooms it to repeat it.”

Mistake? Seems to me like it could get them in trouble (Red Hat anyone?).

“Kaj Arnö, the company’s vice president of community relations, wrote that the Enterprise tarballs “will be removed from ftp.mysql.com. These will move to enterprise.mysql.com, and will be available for our paying subscribers only.” Customers will also be able to get the source out of the MySQL BitKeeper repository, but it will no longer be available as a source tarball.

According to Arnö, the move was made to “underline the positioning goal of ‘Community Server for community users, Enterprise Server for paying users’. And the GPL requires us (like anybody else) to hand out the code to those whom we give the binaries, which in the case of MySQL Enterprise Server is just the customers.” This does conform with the letter of the GPL, as Arnö points out on his blog, but how will it fly with the community? Some in the MySQL community aren’t too pleased. Mike Kruckenberg, whose blog is carried on Planet MySQL, called this a move away from open source for MySQL.”

I’m not so sure this is going to work very well for them….

I’ve been an employee of ServerBeach (a Peer 1 company) for several years now and I’ve watch this company grow tremendously. In the beginning, ServerBeach began with a total of 5 employees with the idea of WYSIWYG. It amazes me each time I remember way back when, seeing how the company began and looking at the company now. The employees of ServerBeach, they have they’re own culture, they’re full of ideas and enthusiasm, always looking towards the future. We have so many talented people…visionaries, full of creativity (some would say full of BS, but hey…who isn’t? Hah!), energy and strength to keep moving forward towards success. We’re definitely a family here as most of us spend more time with each other than anyone else, heh.

The ServerBeach customers. So talented and eager to learn and grow. All very unique. ServerBeach is a stepping stone for the beginners and a great place for developers to come play. The customers are what really keep me going and I have a wonderful relationship with many of them.

ServerBeach has had it’s share of growing pains, but I feel that as a company it’s found it’s place and things are being said and done to get the (beach)ball rolling. We’re headed in the right direction and have a great team to help get us there.

I can definitely say, life is good at “The Beach” and there’s really no place else I’d rather be.