Developing web 2.0, specifically rich internet applications (RIAs), has become the latest craze on the internet. eBuddy is one of the many examples that bring complete applications to the users’ webbrowser. But is it easy to develop such applications?

For years we have developed software, however the biggest change with web 2.0 is the tooling. Software used to be made by writing code, compiling it, running unit tests and debugging it when necessary. Javascript, the language that makes the web applications dynamic, does not have all the normal tooling for development.

Only recently have some projects come into existance to fill that gap, most notable firebug and venkman and only on the Mozilla (and derivatives) browsers. Internet Explorer, which has the largest user population, actually has close to no such tools. So the only way to make your applications work properly (from Javascript point of view) is experimentation.

The oddest possible thing about this situation is that Microsoft has the reputation for building some of the most innovative development environments as well as providing extensive development references for their developer base. So why is it their own browser lacks the most basic tools to do software development?

So, is developing for web 2.0 easy? If you are building RIAs I would, sadly, have to say no. The use of the technology has greatly outpaced the creation of a good development environment and who will rise to fill this gap? The open source community is trying to provide the proper tooling, however on the Internet Explorer platform the creation of such tools is greatly limited by the closed nature of the platform, so how will we, as a developer community, fill this gap?

One of the fun things with working at eBuddy is that we are a global company. Our users are literally in every nook and cranny of this planet.

Take a look at this Technorati feed I’m watching.

Looks like I will need to brush up on my Arabic and Chinese skills! (Or maybe that is Hebrew and Japanese?)

We’re on a roll here at eBuddy, picking up award after award. After recently snapping up the Web 2.0 Award, we are now one of the Red Herring Europe 100 winners. Even though we have been on the cover of Red Herring before, we wouldn’t mind showing up there again. This award is not for techno-cool, but rather for proper business skills.

Red Herring’s editorial staff rigorously evaluated more than 700 private companies by carefully analysing financial data and subjective criteria, including quality of the management team, strategy execution, and dedication to research and development.

Ebuddy is joined on the shortlist by other cool companies such as Joost, Th!nk and CCP Games to name just a few.

Congratulations to all the other companies who made the shortlist, maybe we’ll see you in Cannes!

We have many people working in the eBuddy HQ in Amsterdam. Some are full-time employees while others are interns. As one of the fastest growing startups in this space we have many challenging problems we encounter daily. As you can see on our jobs page; we are constantly looking for talented people to join the team.

While studying Computer Science or Marketing, what would be cooler then doing an internship for one of the hottest companies in the technology space?

So, don’t hesitate and send us your resume for one of our vacancies and become part of our family!

Programmers have a hard job, they need to push out enormous amounts of code under circumstances far from ideal. The ideal situation would be to be totally isolated from any distraction whatsoever after you have a clear goal in mind. Sadly this situation is only available for a lucky few of us with home offices.

So what do you do to create an semi-ideal situation at work? I personally put on my headphones and listen to a variety of music; Iron Maiden (most of the old stuff), Metallica (The old stuff as well, Master of Puppets in particular), The Prodigy (The fat of the land), The Crystal Method (pertty much any album will do) and The Streets (Original pirate material). This is quite a variety of music styles, most of the time it relates to my state of mind. Some other favorites in the office:

• Bennie: Trance music; not too much melody and repetitiveness in a song works best
• JJK: Kruder&Dorfmeister - the K&D sessions, Gotan Project - Lunatico, Chicks on Speed - 99 cents, Air - Talkie Walkie, Chet Baker - anything, The strokes - is this it, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Chemical Brothers - Push the Button and Leftfield - Leftism
• Garbrand: Plaid, or Black Dog. Amazing music with multiple layers, tickles the brain…
• Niels: soma.fm

When you finally enter ‘The Zone’ you actually don’t hear the music anymore and you are as focused as can be and do amazing amounts of work, provided you are not interrupted anywhere during the process.

So what do you do to get into ‘The Zone’?

eBuddy Mobile is exploding. We have welcomed our 5th millionth unique user last month, and are on our way to welcoming the 6th millionth. With over 400.000 logins per day, people are really picking up on mobile chatting.

So where do all these millions of people come from? Here’s the top five:
1. United Kingdom
2. United States
3. Argentina
4. France
5. Romania (Yes, Romania. All chatting on Yahoo)

So far nothing really special except for Romania. But then it becomes interesting. The eBuddy Mobile users in one of the top 10 countries on the list are chatting while they’re kicking back and relaxing in the shade of a palm tree on the Caribbean island Jamaica! Over 25.000 unique users per month! Nowhere near the amount of numbers of the top 5 countries, but for an island with over 2.6 million users, it’s quite impressive.

So what’s going on there? Don’t post your answer as a comment…we REALLY need to find out ourselves and fly over

Also interesting: since Borat is immensely popular in our home country the Netherlands, we also checked out if anyone has heard of eBuddy Mobile in Kazakhstan…and they have: yesterday, the stunning amount of 38 family members of Borat have logged in with a mobile phone…guess we’ve got some work to do there

Now that Arjen mentioned lunch at ebuddy.com office, what’s wrong with the Dutch and those eating habits? Who in his/her total sense eats broodje kaas, broodje this, broodje that and milk or yogurt every single day?

I might even run the risk of being called anti-social but I rather leave the office and eat something outside. Since we have the office right in the center of Amsterdam, the options are infinite. I rather go for a nice warm meal for lunch like is normal in Latin/Southern European countries like Portugal where I was raised.
Usually the Me Gusta tapas restaurant is a good option, people are friendly and some are Portuguese and it’s just in front of the office, but anything else is good. A nice soup, a salad, anything between a pizza and a burger I can eat but not those sandwiches every day!

Another thing I can’t get used to in this country is the weather (sometimes I forget the color of the Sun), the language (and the weird noises people make while they speak it) plus the same old sandwiches it might make you wonder what am I still doing here in Amsterdam, right?
Well, I guess that it’s because all the things that are good about Amsterdam compensate for what I mentioned above and from all those things, ebuddy is one of the the main reason why I’m still stuck here. It would be hard to leave the wonderful (growing) team we have here @ ebuddy.com, a team that I admire so much and am proud of, that helped ebuddy.com achieve a lot and will help to achieve even more in the future!

Go Team!

Every morning we all come to the office, most of us before 9am, some a little later. Caffeine is the weapon of choice to stimulate the central nervous system of many. In Amsterdam there are a few nice coffee places, however waking up to a Grande extra-caramel-extra-whip caramel macchiato is not possible due to the lack of Starbucks, so most of us just utilize the trusted Senseo machine or move to the outside alternatives of Village Bagels or the Coffee Company (being in the center of Amsterdam has its advantages).

Sipping our coffee and reading the news we chatter about what this day brings, we fire up our trusted editors (Eclipse, Netbeans, Emacs or Photoshop) and write code, draw pictures, maintain machines and other interesting stuff. When it is time for lunch we all rush to our lunch table, this is necessary because the table is actually too small to hold all of us and being in the second shift makes you miss all the good stuff. Our lunch is quite typical dutch, we have fresh bread and toppings (a variety of meat, cheese and fruits/veggies) delivered to the office daily and we make our own sandwiches. The lunch favorite of many is the ‘Tosti’. Get in line!

Lunch is generally ended with a nice game of foosball where we have a couple of friendly (or less friendly) matches. When all the dishes are cleared and the goals have been scored, we go back to writing code and talking about our projects.

When we commute home largely depends on deadlines, but most of us finish up some things in the trains or in the evening hours, to start the entire cycle again the next day.

Whoohoo! The blog is live. To celebrate, here is a lovely supersize picture to plunk on your desktop!

To make sure it looks good, select “Centered” as the scaling option.

Today is an exciting day. We are officially launching our own Blog!

eBuddy has been around for several years. Back in 2003, we started out as a three man company in a dusty attic. Now, we have grown into an international instant messaging company, connecting millions of people around the world – each and every day. Nowadays we’re based in a lovely office on the canals of Amsterdam. My, how we have grown!

During these years we never fully shared our activities with you. As of today this will be different. To keep you all updated, we created our own blog. On this blog we’ll talk about our products, our team and our passions. But more importantly, you’ll be able to talk to us. Get involved by providing us with your valuable feedback and help us to keep improving. Leave your comments to share your ideas and opinions. Use the comment button; that’s what it’s for!

To everybody who stood by us in the past: a massive ‘thank you’ for your support and commitment! eBuddy could not have been this successful without you.

Stay tuned & take care,

The eBuddy team