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About the author

A picture named daveTiny.jpgDave Winer, 56, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and editor of the Scripting News weblog. He 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 New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

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

"Dave was in a hurry. He had big ideas." -- Harvard.

"Dave Winer is one of the most important figures in the evolution of online media." -- Nieman Journalism Lab.

10 inventors of Internet technologies you may not have heard of. -- Royal Pingdom.

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.

8/2/11: Who I Am.

Contact me

scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

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My bike

People are always asking about my bike.

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Here's a picture.

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Jul   Sep

Warning!

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FYI: You're soaking in it. :-)


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Dave Winer's weblog, started in April 1997, bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

Proposal: Fat Tweets Week on Twitter!? Permalink.

A picture named fattweet.gifIf you weren't around last night on Twitter, you missed the brief renaissance of "fat" tweets.

To recap, because of a loophole in Twitter's url-shortener, it was possible to create messages of indeterminate length. There were a number of people, myself included, who tried a few brief experiments to see if it was possible. Mostly just Hello World stuff. Nothing very interesting.

But it was tantalizing. For the first time we got to see what a longer tweet would look like.

StefanW echoes my sentiment when he says yes they were sweet, but asks "How to fight dogmatism?"

This got me thinking. I know how to fight dogma. With compromise.

I'd like to propose an experiment to the owners of Twitter. For a brief period, say 7 days, let a few of us create special accounts that don't have a 140-character limit. We know there's no technical limit in the software. After all you had to disable the feature. It's already in there.

A picture named srirachaChiliSauce.jpgAfter a week of experimentation, we agree that you get to turn it off if you want, or you can leave it there. Or do something else. Maybe we'll learn why, after all, easing the limit is not a good idea.

As with everything on Twitter, it will be strictly opt-in and anyone who opts-in can opt-out at any time.

Let us have a week to experiment, to see what's possible, and to make recommendations.

If you agree or disagree, write a blog post. And be sure to use more than 140 characters to say what you think! :-)

PS: I've been down this road myself. In the early days of outlining, ThinkTank had a 40-character limit on headlines. One of our earliest most vocal users, and a good friend, Dick Applebaum, was relentless in promoting what he called fat headlines. When I wrote the post yesterday I was reminded of Dick. What was the outcome? I relented. The result was MORE, which won product of the year in 1986 on the Mac, and made our users very happy and our investors rich. :-)

PPS: mbjorn calls this Fat Tweets Week. I like. Changed the title of the post.

Sunday bike cruise with Cyclemeter Permalink.

I am still wiped out from yesterday's 2-hour ride that involved some real hills for the first time in 15 years.

But I wanted to try out an iPhone app for biking called Cyclemeter.

It took a bit of futzing around but I figured out how to get it to export the map to Google.

Today's ride was short. 38 minutes, 5.66 miles. Went down to the Battery and back. Enough to work up a sweat and to feel it in my legs and butt.

I think I'm getting to the point where it's hard not to ride at least a little every day.

Wondering what happens when it gets cold?



© Copyright 1997-2011 Dave Winer. Last build: 12/12/2011; 1:40:46 PM. "It's even worse than it appears."

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