Read/Write WebRichard MacManus' weblog about the Two-Way Web.Web of Ideas II- July 31, 2003 Lawrence Lessig on US Presidential candidate Howard Dean's blogging efforts: "Neutrality aside, though, Governor Dean has earned a special respect. Of course there are issues on which I would disagree with anyone. But I have been struck in reading these posts, and the passion they inspired. They revive a feeling I had as a kid &151; that ideas could matter, and that there could be people who would make them matter."(emphasis and font colour mine) I'm from New Zealand, so I haven't been...http://radio.weblogs.com/0105304/2003/07/31.html#a87 Shipbuilding- July 28, 2003 The problem with blogging is it's easy to get distracted by ideas you can't do anything about. My previous post illustrates this. In it I railed against Microsoft for wanting to build its own proprietory platform for Web applications. I wrote about it because I'm concerned about the future of the World Wide Web, in particular the Web browser. But I've come to this conclusion: there's nothing I can do to influence Microsoft's ideas, or Google's ideas, or...http://radio.weblogs.com/0105304/2003/07/28.html#a86 The Web is no Model T- July 26, 2003 Robert Scoble has written a couple of posts recently about Microsoft products being a platform: 1. Robert quoting Kevin Warbach: "The Internet companies that have thrived while AOL faltered -- Microsoft, Amazon.com, eBay, Google -- have two things in commons. They are deeply technology-driven, but they see technology not as an end in itself but as a platform." And a day later... 2. "Well, the Web is what the Web is. I can see tons of places that Amazon could be tons better, if the platform...http://radio.weblogs.com/0105304/2003/07/27.html#a85 Web of Ideas- July 24, 2003 A lot of people are getting pretty excited about "social software". Bloggers like Joi Ito and Marc Canter are writing with gusto about social software. I'm hearing lots of trendy new acronyms and phrases - FOAF, MetaBlogs, Reputation systems, "web of trust", "moblogging", "micro-content", etc etc. It's all getting to be a blur. But these are heady times and everyone is out there hunting that White Whale, the Semantic Web. I'm going to add my own trendy phrase..http://radio.weblogs.com/0105304/2003/07/24.html#a84 Simplicity and extensibility- July 21, 2003 Tim O'Reilly writes in Dan Gillmor's comments: "Simplicity and extensibility should not be orthogonal. And any technology that sets them up as opposed, instead of complements, has clearly done something wrong." Note: orthogonal means "independent or well separated". Tim O'Reilly is talking about RSS2.0 (simple) and RSS1.0 (extensible). Lately I've been thinking and reading about weblog topics. There seems to be the same issues of simplicity vs extensibility in this space too,...http://radio.weblogs.com/0105304/2003/07/21.html#a83 The Ants and the Bees- July 17, 2003 I'm not usually one to quote long passages of other people's writing, but I can't resist quoting Scoble's post today about ants. In Robert's vision, the ants represent Microsoft employees and the bees are third-party developers like Marc Canter. I love it when people use literary devices, such as metaphor, in a technical or business context. It encourages new ideas and makes us see things in a new light. It also reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously :-) Now, take it away.http://radio.weblogs.com/0105304/2003/07/17.html#a81 Reputation systems- July 15, 2003 The subject of topics for weblogs is getting some traction in the blogosphere. There are some promising apps for topics, including k-collector and Topic Exchange. Recently I wrote a post, in response to one by Clay Shirky, to say that weblog posts should be organized by topics in the blogosphere rather than organized by author. Clay Shirky pointed back to me and some interesting discussion came out of that. One thing I'm not convinced there is a need...http://radio.weblogs.com/0105304/2003/07/15.html#a80 Daydreaming of browsereditors- July 13, 2003 Don Park reckons that weblogs and websites will converge within the next 2 years time: "People will take it for granted that webpages can be edited using their browser. People will also take it for granted that any webpages can be subscribed to with a single-click. Web browsers will be changed to support all this and more like highlighting of changes." Don is basically talking about browsereditors, which Tim Berners-Lee has always promoted and which is one of my pet topics. The..http://radio.weblogs.com/0105304/2003/07/13.html#a79 Smart Clients vs Browsers- July 12, 2003 Robert Scoble: "...at Microsoft we call Internet apps that aren't in the browser 'Smart Clients'". The web browser is at a crossroads. Microsoft announced in 2003 that it would not release any further "standalone" versions of Internet Explorer - instead it will be embedded in the Operating System (codenamed Longhorn). But along with obsoleting the web browser as a standalone product, Microsoft is also transforming its definition of a web browser. IE will no...http://radio.weblogs.com/0105304/2003/07/12.html#a78 John Robb leaves Userland- July 8, 2003 News today that Userland CEO John Robb has left the company. Dave Winer says about Userland's future direction: "We're going to try to do something fun, unique, and powerful with UserLand's position in the weblog and content tools market, and we're going to try to include the community in the business, i.e. people will make money." Sounds fascinating. Best of luck to the staff at Userland. I like the Radio Userland product and its community of users - lots of forward motion! I'm.http://radio.weblogs.com/0105304/2003/07/08.html#a77 |