Friday, June 24, 2005

Business Week: Microsoft Crashes the RSS Party. 

eWeek: "Microsoft has decided that subscribing, via RSS, will join browsing and searching as the third leg of its information-access triangle." 

BBC: "Microsoft's next version of its browser, Internet Explorer 7, will make it easier for people to keep automatically aware of website updates." 

The wifi at Gnomedex is practically non-existent for me, I had to sneak across the street to a hotel to get online. Checking my mail and doing an aggregator run at 3:45PM Pacific. 

The Microsoft announcement went over pretty well, based on the reaction in the room. I have no idea what the bloggers are saying about it.  

A perspective on MS's announcements coming later today, triggered by a phone conversation with Vic Gundotra and a re-listen to the Pisa talk.  

A snapshot of traffic on weblogs.com. Yesterday it served 34.65 gigabytes of data, took 1.1 million pings and 11000 downloads of changes.xml. 

Wikipedia article on conveyer-belt sushi. 

Netflix users talk openly about "throttling," a practice I hadn't thought of until now (I am a long-term Netflix user). And yesterday I got yelled at in public by the CEO of Audible, Don Katz. One of the things he was angry about was that, when I decided to unsub, instead of trying to work things out with them, I wrote about it on my weblog. I was incredulous. I tried to ask if he was saying that his customers shouldn't have blogs, but he had a smart answer for everything. "You're not a customer," he said. Damn straight. And I never will as long as he's the CEO. And the funny thing is, until this conversation, I had a warm feeling about Audible, even though I had stopped using their service (the DRM was too much). You can see it in the bit I wrote about Microsoft a couple of days ago, where I gave Audible's RSS a plug. The warm feeling is gone. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And if any other CEOs of companies who make products I use have a problem with me having a blog, let me know, and I'll switch to your competitor right away. No product is more important to me than my power to speak.  

From Matt Haughey comes news that American Express is doing RSS.  

Notes from the May 12 Pisa talk, which I'm listening to as prep for today's session. Unconferences, blogging, RSS, an end to monoculture. 

Morning coffee notes 

Good morning ever buddy!

You'll be pleased to know that I saw Adam Curry last night, and rushed over and shook his hand and let's not fight. He said "I'm a lover not a fighter." Sounds good to me. Later in the evening I gave him two OPML buttons, one for him to wear, and one to give to a friend. Basically I got what I wanted, it was harder than it had to be, but that's life. Nothing's ever handed to you on a platter. Onward!

I met Dr Jo last night. My life is changed! In so many ways.

There seems to be a consensus that the song should be the Beatles classic, Yellow Submarine. According to Wikipedia, it was released at the height of the "bigger than Jesus" controversy, "cited as part of the reason that it failed to reach #1 on all US charts." In case you weren't paying attention earlier this month, we're bigger than Jesus too. Okay here's your smiley. Happy?

On the plane cross-country I watched Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I had never seen it. 70s kitsch. What was unexpectedly funny was the main character's last name. You have to hear it pronounced to realize how close it is to the British epithet, wanka. I laughed out loud every time they said his name. Willie Wanka, Willile Wanka. Heh.