Scripting News: 8/13/2008

Archive > 2008 > August > 13

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

A memeplant that worked

A picture named peter.gif Yesterday I pointed to a howto by Jay Ridgeway that showed how to connect two laconi.ca communities together. Today I'm going to try it myself.

I followed the instructions, and it worked. I have a new account on Jay's laconi.ca installation, and I subscribed it to Ars Technica on Evan's installation.

Obviously this is just a first hack at the problem -- there needs to be authorization on the other side, otherwise anyone could subscribe me to their feed and well, that's a pretty powerful tool for spammers. But we're off to a good start!!

Update: There's a piece on Louis Gray's blog that explains why this idea is so powerful.

Update: There's something about the word memeplant that I really like, but I can't put my finger on it.

Update: Phil Windley got the seed.

More random stuff

I admit I'm writing about some of this stuff so it'll get indexed by Google, then I'll be able to find it while I'm working. It's annoying not having Google know about something I wrote two weeks ago!

Daniel Ha confirmed that they have implemented XML export in Disqus. Not sure when this became available, but it's here now. An example of the XML it produces. Not a familiar format, but it looks very easy to work with. I'm going to do OPML Editor based tool that breaks it up into a folder of files, one per comment.

Tools in the Summer 2008 release of the OPML Editor now optionally have a top-level table named #installer which contains instructions to the Tool installer code (new) about services it wants to hook into.

The docs for the OPML Editor-based podcatcher are ready.

Last update: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 11:33 AM Pacific.

Dave Winer, 53, pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in Berkeley, California.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Dave Winer

My most recent trivia on Twitter.

On This Day In: 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997.

Jul Sep

Things to revisit:

1. Microsoft patent acid test.

2. What is a weblog?

3. Advertising R.I.P.

4. How to embrace & extend.

5. Bubble Burst 2.0.

6. This I Believe.

7. Most RSS readers are wrong.

8. Who is Phil Jones?

9. Send them away.

10. Negotiate with users.

11. Preserving ideas.

12. Empire of the Air.

13. NPR speech.

14. Russo & Hale.

15. Trouble at the Chronicle.

15. RSS 2.0.

16. Checkbox News.

17. Spreadsheet calls over the Internet.

18. Twitter as coral reef.

19. Mobs of the blogosphere.

20. Advice for Campaigns.

21. Social Cameras.

22. The Next Big Thing.

23. It's time to open up networking, again.

24. Am I competing?

25. Time to shake up conferences?

26. Bloggers working with journalists.

Teller: "To discover is not merely to encounter, but to comprehend and reveal, to apprehend something new and true and deliver it to the world."