Saturday, September 06, 1997

I was charmed by the Mac in 1983. If Steve still has the same charm, the same power to draw that kind of creation out of talented engineers, then his next creation will be wonderful.

But, it's not a good force field to be too close to right now. There will be more rips and tears thru the user community before the next big thing ships. It's best to sit on the sidelines for now, both as users and developers. Every investment is likely to be blown up in the massive changes Jobs is implementing at Apple.

It'll be a great show for sure. An ad to rival 1984. A box with the charm of the first Mac. If Jobs still has what it takes.

George F. Will in the Washington Post: A Precarious Princess. "However, she also wanted the sort of privacy often claimed by the privileged, meaning publicity on her terms. She wanted to be listened to concerning various social causes (the latest being a ban on antipersonnel land mines). But she had a claim -- make that a hold -- on public attention only because she was a celebrity, as Daniel Boorstin has defined that term. That is, she was known for her well-knownness."

This happens in the software business too. See "White Boy Welfare", 12/24/95, a piece that rambles thru Java, OpenDoc, the heroes of the Internet revolution, and closes with a remembrance of John Lennon, a well-known man who, like Diana, died too young.

Joey Anuff on Wired News: Problems with Push. "Subscribe once, and the software downloads everything, every day, while you're idling - ready to be accessed rapidly off your hard drive instead of sluggishly from halfway across the world. Ingeniously simple? Sure, if accurate stats on who's reading what and how much no longer matter."

Anuff asks the right question. In the old pre-push model I could monitor usage of the content on my server. If this mindless approach to surfing catches on, what then?