Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Back in Boston. Let's have fun!  

Larry Lessig will speak at Radcliffe tomorrow afternoon. 

Ross Mayfield explains how Disney is using RSS enclosures.  

LA Times article about Dean quoting Berkmanites and others. 

At dinner last night I gave my usual schpiel about how DaveNet started, and since I was dining with Microsoft people I emphasized the early piece I wrote about Bill Gates, and his response. I quoted Bill saying that the Internet wouldn't mean less sales for Flight Simulator or Encarta, and I said he was right but that wasn't the point. One of my companions stopped me there and said wait a minute, the Internet did mean less sales for Encarta. I was shocked. That's correct, and Gates got it wrong, and I wasn't enough of a visionary to see it. I got it wrong too. Who needs an encyclopedia on a CD-ROM when you have the Web at your fingertips? Someday some kid is going to ask you What is Encarta? That might be where you end up going today. 

1/25/04: "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant." 

Rogers Cadenhead is digging into the changes in formats over at Google. He's right to be concerned, I am too. They're breaking users, including people who aren't using their software. There is a lot of implicit trust in the RSS network, an assumption that vendors will behave rationally and will care for users. Any participant can break us, as Google is proving. But I believe in the fabric of the community. Either Google will fail, or Atom will be the new syndication standard. But Rogers, don't look to the past for their motivation, that's not what it's about. I am absolutely sure Google has an aggregator in the works. And by taking control of the syndication format, and trying to eliminate RSS, they will control the whole blogging-syndication-search space.  

One of the things I told the Microsoft people this week is that if they screw with RSS the way Google is, I will quit, permanently, and never look back. If the result of all this hard work is just another venue for the ongoing pissing match between Microsoft and Silicon Valley, I'm out. It occurred to me that I should say this publicly too. I mean it. The users now have enough data, and the tools to speak for themselves. That was the point of doing blogging software, so that we would never be held hostage to people who sit at the top of a pyramid and look down at us, their minions, and sigh when they have to kill our dreams. It doesn't have to happen. The political bloggers have been able to out Trent Lott, and now are working on Dubya. We've launched a Presidential campaign. We are powerful. Use your minds, and gather all the bits of data you can, and form an opinion. As Howard Dean says, and he's right, you have the power, not me. Tell Google to get with the program and work with the developers who brought you aggregators, publications, blogging tools, and other RSS apps. Tell Schmidt and Ballmer to view this space as not-theirs, not to be fought over. Make products for us, compete to serve us better, but if you try to break us, we'll break you. 

In a comment on the Cadenhead site, a guy named Pete says: "Just a reminder, you don't have to use Google." Perfect. A good way to provide feedback to the Google people is to switch away from them. Let them make the connection that the day they started playing unfair is the day the users started moving away. Companies always respond to this kind of input. It's where users have the most power. 

Andrew Grumet: RSSTV, Syndication for your PVR. 

CNN: Kerry wins in Tennesse and Virginia. Clark quits. 

A review of the new headphones. I'm going to try them out tomorrow on the flight from Seattle to Boston.  

Most of the meetings at Microsoft yesterday and today were non-disclosed. Interesting stuff. Wish I could talk about what I saw and heard. However I can say this, as promised, I went to bat, repeatedly, for the open formats and protocols of the blogging world.