Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

scriptingNews outline for 8/20/2000

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:8/20/2000; 6:41:07 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 8/20/2000
Msg #:19848
Prev/Next:19847 / 19849

Today's Song: The Sound of Music.

Eric Kidd posted a history of "Open Source" yesterday.

Josh Allen posted an eloquent response to Eric saying that histories of the Internet are just stories.

There are far too many lawyers involved in what people can and can't say on their own websites.

NY Times: "Software programs like Napster and Gnutella have achieved a reputation for fostering a communal spirit of sharing among millions of music-loving computer users. The reality may be more selfish."

Jakob Nielsen: Mailing List Usability.

Is XML forever doomed? 

My pov: Only programmers comment on XML formats. Designers and writers almost never comment. Therefore all XML formats tend to evolve to please dedicated gutsy XML programmers, and freak out other folk, which imho defeats the purpose of XML, as a low-tech interchange format between applications written by programmers on all platforms, at all skill levels.

One more thing, as a busy programmer, I also appreciate simple formats with simple docs. I read so many specs that I don't have time to understand. Unfortunately for most of the specs, the subtleties come right at the beginning, before I have a chance to get hooked.

A little bird 

A little bird whispered in my ear that Disney and Yahoo are working on a merger. At the same time CNET and Yahoo are pretty close to merger agreement.

Cluetrain and (we)blogs merge too? 

Evan Williams pointed to Doc Searls, a Cluetrain author who uses "Manila". Now I'd like to point to Chris Locke, a Cluetrain author who uses Blogger.

I think weblogs are the flipside of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Same philosophy. Empowering everyday people to say what they see. Let the cream rise to the top based on the quality of thinking, not based on whether or not, for some stupid reason, their opinions are "important". (How many idiotic Forrester quotes do you want to read?)

I read Blogger sites and I read Manila sites. (I'd like to think) I read a site independent of what software they use, but I don't always live up to that. That's where I turn to the Cluetrain philosophy. Why should I hold myself back? Why shouldn't I learn from all people who have good ideas?

I got a wonderful email from Chris yesterday. He found Weblogs.Com and discovered that he can ask which weblogs are pointing to him. I hadn't used that feature in a while.

Since he's sure to read this, Chris, also check out the "Hotlist", the most pointed-to pages in the Weblogs.Com database.

(Ooops, I notice that it hasn't updated since 8/14.)

To people who criticize weblogs, yeah it's a great big circle jerk, and it feels great!

Way down south 

Chris tuned into the tagline on Weblogs.Com, "Way down south in the land of cotton."

If you search for that phrase in Google, a page on Weblogs.Com comes up number two. Not much help.

I was looking for the lyrics to the song.

My bandwidth story 

Yesterday I almost got thrown off the stage at the Bandwidth conference in San Francisco. I could hardly finish a sentence.

Now I can..

DaveNet: My bandwidth story.

It was a total Cluetrain experience.



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