Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Portals Mail List
Author: Dave Winer Posted: 5/14/1999; 7:09:53 AM Topic: Portals Mail List Msg #: 6207 Prev/Next: 6206 / 6208
Buried at the end of the docs for myUserLand.root are subscription instructions for the new Portals mail list. The list is just getting started, yesterday I wrote the welcome message for the mail list, and am cc'ing it here so a discussion can go on in both places. The main purpose of the mail list is to coordinate work in this area around the myUserLand.root source code release, and to foster a cooperative development environment.Welcome!
First, I'd like to officially welcome everyone to this new mail list.
I chose the name "portals" to be the list for myUserLand.root because that's what I think it is. The idea is to have a distributed portal. Not just one central node that everyone hits, but to have servers that add value and services that in some way process, display, or possibly limit access to content that flows thru the network.
Some ideas
One node could index all that content that flows thru it. It would subscribe to a set of channels that define an interest area and index all the articles in the selected channels. We've already done something like this for format, and have it running at NewsSearch.UserLand.Com.
Another node could offer display services, as Josh Lucas is doing. Another could provide special display services for people who use MSIE5 or Mozilla 6.0, or Flash, or whatever. Or people with visual impairment.
Another node could offer more customization, or could host agent scripts that watch for articles in a certain area and send the users email or a fax. Or have escalation routines, if you can't find me on email, then try calling me. Another one could be the beeper port.
A node on an internal network could mix public channels with channels that are private to people within the organization, and have some of its internally generated channels available to the public, and others that are only available to their suppliers. This has applications in publishing, where the suppliers are writers and columnists. Study the competition
There's lots of prior art to study. Become a member of yahoo.com, xoom.com, hotmail.com, my.netscape.com, homestead.com, learn about the field and look for ways that a decentralized network of content aggregators can do things that the single-server based ones can't. That's our opportunity space.
Other directions
RSS is a limited format.
is richer. Somehow we have to integrate format into myUserLand.root. Where are we going?
UserLand's current direction is to build content tools for writing and managing sites that flow out thru these channels. We're going to put some great editorial tools around this concept, and servers that generate RSS files to flow thru this network that we hope develops.
Who are you?
I'd like to find out who's here, what your interests are and where you'd like to see this go. And if you want to contribute programming work to the project, even better!
My invite to open source this is real. I wrote about it on discuss.userland.com. I would really like to see an independent community-based development effort gather around this. We could really go places.
There are responses to this message:
- Re: Portals Mail List, Keola Donaghy, 5/14/1999; 12:50:43 PM
- Re: Portals Mail List, Andrew Wooldridge, 5/15/1999; 8:05:22 AM
This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:50:08 PM.
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