Interview: Heath Row and Gil Hildebrand of Squidoo
Published on the 7th of January 2006
Skip to the Table of ContentsBelow is our interview with Gil Hildebrand.
Lowter: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Squidoo?
I'm the Chief Engineer at Squidoo. My job is to guide our team through the technical details of everything we do. We're a small team, which means that we rely on outside developers to help us grow (our primary partner is Viget Labs (external link)). By managing development, not being caught up in it, we're able to focus on the big picture and make decisions quickly.
Prior to joining Squidoo, I was an independent computer consultant in New Orleans. To learn more about my story (and to see what I look like), visit my hurricane blog (external link).
Lowter: What is the server setup used at Squidoo? What software does it run on?
As the only techie on staff, I'm also responsible for keeping our site up and running, 24 hours a day. To accomplish this, we use the battle-tested LAMP architecture - Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. We have redundant servers to protect against hardware failure, and we're fanatical about backups. Making sure we don't lose data is what keeps me up at night.
During our private beta we had a few server issues, and yes, even some lost data, but the good news is that those problems are now resolved and the response to our public beta has been fantastic. We now have over 10,000 lenses, and with that volume it's becoming easier and easier to identify and stamp out the remaining bugs.
This truly is a beta period for us, as we're still very much involved in working out the kinks. Our lensmasters have done an amazing job in helping us identify problems.
Lowter: Squidoo uses a lot of AJAX to power the easy-to-use system. Does this have any down sides? What are your opinions on the usage of AJAX?
AJAX has several disadvantages (such as unique browser and usability issues), but Squidoo would not be possible without it. People were building web pages with Geocities in 1993, but until AJAX came along, building one of these pages was very time-consuming and required a certain level of technical expertise. Our goal is to create a platform that makes it easy for people to share information, without having to worry about how to make it work.
With AJAX, we're able to give our lensmasters a live preview of their lens, without having to reload the entire thing every time a change is made. This makes building a lens quicker and more productive.
With AJAX and Web Services, we're able to build modules that help you share all sorts of other online content - books from Amazon, photos from Flickr, jobs from Indeed (external link), and blog posts from Technorati (external link), to name a few. Never before have people been able to integrate so many sources in so many ways.
Lowter: What are some of the new modules that are in the works?
We're cooking up several new modules at the moment. While I can't say exactly what they are yet, I do have an exciting bit of news. In the next few weeks we'll be releasing a module development kit, which will make it easy for any developer to build their own module that can be easily integrated into Squidoo. Here's how the process will work:
- The developer will download our module development kit. This kit provides all the tools necessary to build a module quickly (most are ready for production within a few hours). In addition, we'll pack the kit with samples and documentation.
- After the developer finishes their new module, they submit it to us for approval.
- We review the module and if necessary make minor changes to keep our UI consistent.
- After approving the module, we begin offering it right away.
If you know of anyone who may be interested in our development kit, please ask them to stay tuned to the SquidBlog (external link) for more details.
