It's even worse than it appears..
My notes from a talk I gave at a CUNY journalism class led by Jeff Jarvis and Douglas Rushkoff.#
Matt Mullenweg's comments on the open source model for WordPress, as part of an open discussion with Jack Dorsey who is (I assume) talking about an open source Twitter with BlueSky. He isn't very clear on what he's talking about when he says they're working on something related to the open web. If you read the BlueSky website, it's also pretty vague except that it'll be using XMPP and ActiveSomethingOrOther which is yet another (sigh) RSS not-invented-here project inspired by Google as far as I can tell. I was not invited to their meetings. People have to stop doing that btw, defining projects about who and what they will not work with. I don't care if you're Jesus Christ, you still have to deal with the momentum of the installed base. People who thought they could make a feed reader and ignore RSS soon found out that people basically ignored them until they got on board. You don't get to fight over petty bullshit like the wire format. If you do, that says you're doing something other than building products for the open web. I think Jack is creative, and has courage, but that's a mistake he shouldn't be making at this stage of his career. I honestly and humbly think Jack could benefit from reading my rules for standards-makers. It's based on a lot of real-world experience, both successes and failures at establishing new standards for the open web.#
Elon Musk bought 9.2% of Twitter's stock. Very interesting move. It appears he's now the largest shareholder. I like the idea of Twitter being managed like SpaceX or Tesla, speaking as a user of their products. I bought some Twitter stock a few years ago, and have held it. I think the smart move for Twitter is to remove limits, allow editing of tweets, support basic HTML features link linking, titles, style and some features from RSS such as enclosures (ie podcasting). And then federate, so they can peer with other instances, much as WordPress offers their product as open source. I already have built a lot of functionality for peering with Twitter in Drummer. It could be moved into any product. Then we could have a twitterverse with lots of experimentation. Hopefully a Musk-led Twitter wouldn't be closed off to competition. #
If Twitter and Facebook had been federated from the start, like the web or email, or the internet itself, the companies wouldn't be in any way responsible for what's posted on the network. They would just be one node and would be unable to cut anyone off.#
  • I'm wondering if another blogging system could develop in competition with WordPress, using the same model they use. An open source base, with a commercial service.#
  • Or will evolution allow only one huge open source blogging system.#
  • Another related thought.#
  • Did you know Twitter is a feed reader?#
  • It is except it's private, doesn't use RSS.#
  • You could build a feed reader, based on RSS that had Twitter's user experience. It can be done. #
  • But why haven't RSS-based feed readers evolved to work like Twitter?#

Last update: Monday April 4, 2022; 9:47 PM EDT.

You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)