Starting the community river on Scripting News was one of the best things we've ever done. Some of the people who read this site are also great bloggers. I didn't know! Now I do. (Makes sense.)

In the process I noticed something that was glaring, but somehow I didn't see.

People don't put much effort into titling their feeds. Or they use the wrong perspective. They title it as they see it, calling it "The Blog" or something like that. Yes, to you it is the blog, to the rest of us, it is just another blog. Better to tell us whose blog it is.

News orgs title their topical feeds by the topic and leave out the name of the organization. The Podunk Sun's local news feed, might be titled "Local News" but that doesn't help much unless you know it's from Podunk (just an example, for all I know the Podunk paper does this right).

The title on my feed used to be "Scripting News" but now it's Dave Winer's "Scripting News" weblog. To many people the name Scripting News doesn't mean very much. I think it should, but the fact is that for a lot of people my name is a lot more meaningful than the name of the blog. I wanted to set a good example.

The title of one of my favorite feeds is Untitled. I don't think they did it deliberately, I think it was never set.

Anyway, this is something that won't take much time that we can all do to improve communication. Include your name, or the name of the organization it represents in the title. Look at it from the point of view of the reader. That's who you have to communicate to. You already know who you are, but the reader might not.

 12/8/2011; 11:05:03 AM.   .

Let's try some open development here on Scripting News.

Yesterday's post on the new outline nodetype represented a topping-off in the functionality of the world outline software. No doubt there are more big features to add, over time, but first -- it's time to do a mix. The analogy is the job of a film editor. It's now time to take all the raw footage, scenes and dialog, music and special effects, and turn it into something with a beginning, a middle and an end and a plot that carries you through.

Basically -- I'm going to start with a fresh install of the OPML Editor on my Macbook Air, and ask myself "What would you like to publish in outline form now and how would you like to do it?"

Then I'm going to do it "by hand" and take notes. And see how I can make a super-simple power-limited user interface on the world outline. Adam and I will continue to use the full power version we have now, and it will be available to anyone who wants it. I'm thinking of journalism students and journalists, bloggers, moms, researchers, lawyers, thinkers, doctors, smart folk who want to publish their ideas. The kind of people I made software for in the 80s, who were wonderful users and appreciative and actually didn't mind spending a little money for something that made them happy.

Also thinking about how it will function as a platform for designers.

I did a lot of work here, earlier this year, to create the best templating system ever (I hope). At least it's the best templating system for any publishing tool I've done. For prior art I looked at how Tumblr does it, because the designers love it so much, and the results they achieve with it are so stunning.

But on the authoring side, the key thing is "power-limited." I know what the full-power tool looks like. I use it every day. Now the challenge is to create from all that power, a simple tool that's easy to get quick results from.

 12/8/2011; 10:34:41 AM.   .