A very cryptic link just appeared on Hacker News.

http://twitter.com/#!/places/247f43d441defc03

Here's a screen shot with an arrow pointing at the interesting bit.

Looks like the Places feature is here now, turned on and ready to go.

All we need are some docs?

 11/7/2010; 6:52:15 PM.   .

I've been wanting a feed that listed all the new items posted on Hacker News as they came online.

I asked if such a feed exists, and was told that it didn't but there is an API provided by Ronnie Roller that would return the data.

I checked it out and it appears to work as advertised.

I wrote a little app that creates a feed from the API.

 11/7/2010; 5:21:09 PM.   .

A new browser, Rockmelt, launched in the last hour, and you can tell right off the bat if the software is anywhere near competent, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be (that's not the same thing as "is") that it's a winner.

Even though there are other ways to slice it, and maybe there isn't even that much demand for what it does.

No matter. It's going to get an installed base (with the caveat above about competence) and with an installed base comes momentum and value, and there won't be any shortage of money. They're rich overnight.

There should have been more high-level browsers.

And there should have been a browser with identity built in.

This browser is both high-level and understands identity.

But it's not a river! It's a hunt and peck style aggregator.

Okay, let's do the river.

 11/7/2010; 5:03:06 PM.   .

This is a followup to yesterday's piece about Obama and his shellacking.

I linked back to my first impressions of Obama's version of whitehouse.gov, back in January 2009.

"I want the White House to be a public space, where new thinking from all over the world meets other new thinking. A flow distributor. A two-way briefing book for the people and the government."

In other words: "People return to places that send them away."

Fast-forward two years, to late 2010. Now the hyperlocal web is booting up in amazing ways. I get inspiration from a dozen local blogs that are reaching into their communities and reporting on what people want to know. There are probably a hundred more. In two more years, there will be a million hyperlocals.

Applying a simple rule: "If you hear fire trucks in the night, in the morning you should be able to find out where the fire was."

In 2008 it was social networks. In 2012 it'll be the rebooted news system. And the new system of news will look a lot like today's hyperlocals.

Obama doesn't trust the press any more than he should, any more than Bush did. But that doesn't mean giving up on communication. The sitting President can't run campaign ads as an aspiring President does. But he has the ability to communicate more effectively than anyone else on the planet, if that power is developed. If you send people away to places that involve them.

The White House blog should be a daily link list of ideas and perspectives on what's happening in the world.

The White House blogger should be as independent as the Federal Reserve chairman or the head of the FDA. His or her job is to start small and build a network of information on how Americans can help America. Not fluff, not fear, but what's really going on. And to be controversial. Newt and Karl will say it's run by left-wing biased limp-wrist sissies. Let em say it. Link to them saying it.

Someone who is irreverent, idealistic and intelligent. Not a suit and someone who has never served in government.

 11/7/2010; 9:40:05 AM.   .