Friday, November 25, 2005

EirePreneur: Why OPML is winning. 

It appears Kosso is using OPML to program a multimedia app. Totally practical approach. 

I'm looking for videoblogs or podcasts in MP4 format.  

Thanks for all the recommendations. I'm downloading stuff and trying it out. First observation is that Rocketboom has it made. AmandaCo should get $28.5 million from Kleiner Perkins. NerdTV may be the IT Conversations of video. And don't forget Better Bad News!  

Interesting --> Rocketboom videos play on the video iPod but BBN's don't? 

Wired: "Whereas Microsoft infamously smothered new and open standards, Google is famous for supporting them." I don't know why people say that about Google. (I do know why they say it about Microsoft, but they've turned 180 degrees.) Google is the lone standout, still fighting against RSS. Why they're concerned is obvious, RSS helps users get information without an intermediary. In a world with fully-efficient RSS flows, the need for a search engine at the center of all Internet traffic is lessened. 

Jeremy Zawodny had a bad experience with iTunes yesterday too. You know, reading his story actually makes me feel better. The bad part about it is that I was looking forward to watching a movie on this little hand-held marvel. Watching a movie on the subway in NY and seeing what people think. Apple is very seductive. But also flaky. The joy of it will wear off, for sure. And when the initial experience is so disappointing, you gotta wonder if the whole thing is worth the trouble. The same thing happened with the Apple laptop and the desktop I bought. But then it also happened with the Sony Vaio. But it didn't happen with my new Toyota earlier this year, or my Lexus, which I bought in 1999. Both worked flawlessly. It seems the computer industry hasn't gotten to the stage yet where it can really deliver delight to users. Maybe we spend too much time trying to fuck up the user experience. I think of that when I see pages with fifteen different formats that all do the same thing. Why? There's no need for it. How many of those types of battles were fought inside Apple that resulted in the super-shitty experience I had and Jeremy had. Maybe we need to take a step back and start thinking a bit about how this kind of bullshit keeps us from growing. 

The BlogHerald begins a series on how to start a weblog. I wrote a piece in May 2002, that quickly explained the process for professional journalists.