Don't wait for people to see things from your point of view, it'll never happen.#
Bernie Sanders on MSNBC last night talked about new Repub voter suppression. He never said the thing I hoped he would. Repubs know they can't win a fair election, so they cheat.#
I was asked if I know that tech companies hate the web, and asking them to help the web is stupid. I can't defend that, it might be stupid, who knows. But it isn't taking a lot of time, and in talking about wanting to rekindle the writing tools category, I'm not just talking to the platform devs, I'm also talking to users, who may not have realized that they don't have to become copypaste machines just to have a newsletter, or cross-post to Facebook. There's no technical barrier. And if they wanted to use their favorite editor to write blog posts or newsletters, because they now understand that it's possible, that would create pressure for tech companies to do it. Now the big ones wouldn't, at first, but one of the also-rans might, as a way to get users to use their service. And if the feature is as sexy as I believe it is, they will get more users, and in doing so might attract the other, bigger companies, to do it too. Also there are some idealists around, believe it or not, some tech founders who believe in the web, and even read this blog, and might respond to a friendly nudge. Anyway, what's the difference. It gives me pleasure to stand up for the web, and hope. I think the world can work better, and if I can help, you bet I'm going to say something. #This story isn't really about George O'Connor (a made-up name), it's about something else. Here's the story. Many years ago I was at a party at CES, only people with connections were invited. So you could walk around this big ballroom and every few minutes you'd run into someone you know from a long time ago. In this case I ran into George, a person I knew from the early Mac days because he worked at Anderson (also a made-up name), one of the networking hardware companies of the Mac. A respected company, and George was well-thought-of. But I had another connection to him, his sister had worked for my company, a few years before, and I wanted to ask how she was doing and to say hi for me. George started talking after I said hello, and he said he couldn't help get me into TED. He was a producer there, and presumably everyone in the room was hitting him up for tickets, I guess he was tired of it. I didn't want to go to TED, and I also didn't hold this against George. I think I see this all the time, but rarely is it so open as it was at that party. People assume you want something from them, when you just wanted to say hi because you have good memories of them. It's the flipside of a story I wrote in 2013 about a clerk at a gas station having a bad day. #
With the Repubs openly threatening corporations, the question is who do they think they rep?#
- I started writing this email to John Naughton re his recent Memex daily posts, but I thought both of us being public writers, I should just post it here and send a pointer. So here goes. #
- John, I've been following the story of the strange URLs from your Substack newsletter. I also appreciated your telling how you produce your newsletter by copy/pasting from WordPress into Substack. I bet 90 percent of Substack's text comes in this way. And that's what this letter is about. #
- I've been asking them to automate that part for you via an API or RSS, or whatever they specify, to remove the copy/paste step from your publication workflow. I am deliberately being a squeaky wheel, hoping that writers who use Substack will join in.#
- Basically, it should be possible to hook your writing tool directly to both WordPress and Substack.#
- I would have used Substack myself if it weren't for this limit. As a writer, I want to eliminate steps, to make my writing more effortless. Publishing an idea takes too many steps, as a result, a lot of ideas don't get out. #
- I want to have a better flow on the web as a writer, and I think if other writers knew what was possible they'd want it too, and hopefully they would write about it. You wrote about it yesterday! ;-)#
- JN, writers have a lot more power imho than they think. Esp in the early days of a service like Substack. They are listening to you. They know they depend on you. If enough writers wanted a feature, they would implement it. That's how development works. #
- Please consider writing something yourself about eliminating copy/paste-to-publish step. There's a lot of power trapped in that limit. #
- Dave#
- PS: A feature request for permalinks in Substack.#
- PS: A Randy Rainbow song about Andrew Cuomo from a year ago. #
