Yesterday a user asked why WordPress signon and not Google, Facebook or Apple. I know there are services that take care of all the logins. But I don't know who they are, the people, investors, and what they do with the data that flows through their systems. But there's another reason, I've known Automattic since it was founded, I knew Matt when he arrived in San Francisco in the early 00s, and have worked on a few projects with him and people at the company, and I respect him and the company he's built. I've written a lot about the kind of identity systems we need to foster development. Right now the economics are such that in order to ship a simple product you have to raise VC money. But technologically, if users could buy storage, instead having individual developers buy it and resell it to them, we could get back to a time when an individual could make a hit product. You don't know how important that is. Products made by companies never take the creative risks that individuals can. That's why innovation in social media was stuck for 17 years with Twitter's idea of a post. Anyway -- I know that Google, Facebook and Apple would never listen to me, but Automattic does. So I'm willing to meet them in the middle. Okay let's see what we can do with this login thing. It's in FeedLand now. 😄#- Last Tuesday I did a podcast specifically for Tim Carmody. But you can listen to, and I hope you do. #
- I do this from time to time, when I want to work with someone, I often will speak directly to them in public. Because working together is the only way to bootstrap open systems. I did it because I saw Tim, who I know as a smart tech writer, a creative person and thinker, as someone who could appreciate how little it takes to start a bootstrap. #
- It worked. Yesterday he wrote a piece on kottke.org that got a lot of coverage. It got a lot of people thinking about textcasting and RSS. #
- The coolest thing he said are the first four words in the headline. The Future of RSS -- you know I've never seen anyone write those four words because RSS got so thoroughly maligned by the bigco's of tech, they really did a number on RSS, probably because it was so freaking good and so freaking simple. Who needs big tech companies to make it usable for you if it's basically usable all on its own. 💥#
- Tim made the point I couldn't make on my own. People must think I have a conflict with RSS, but I've never made any money from RSS, I advocate on its behalf because I think it's the right thing to do. And I wanted to show Tim that if he did it, people would listen. And they did! Oh my. I heard about it from so many people. Did you see this piece on Kottke!? I was told/asked yesterday over and over. #
- And maybe people are now beginning to see that RSS would make the perfect connective protocol in addition to the more complex ActivityPub for the next generation of social networks. He also got me excited, now knowing that I am not the only person trying to push this boulder up a hill. #
- Feeds are still there to help tie everything together. RSS only exists because people want it to exist. The more you want it to exist, the more it will. #
- So Tim, let's keep beating the drum. The goal as far as I'm concerned is to craft the perfect environment for writers on the web. We still have not tried to do that, because the BigCo's have convinced us that we need to be locked-in to get anything out of the tech. Well I'm here to tell you that's not true. And in the coming weeks and months I hope to prove it to you. #
- It's time to do stuff. Let's all work together on this. You'd be amazed how few people it takes to get something like textcasting going. #
- PS: I don't agree with everything Tim said in his list of four needs. I don't need metrics or moderation. Believe me, I know about abuse, I knew about it before all of you did, because in the beginning I was the target of most of the abuse in the blogosphere. I learned some fundamental things about abuse, don't offer people a way to abuse you and you won't be abused. It means don't think of this as a conversational medium, and don't count on everyone hearing you. Use it for thinking out loud, and be happy when people hear you, but don't expect it.#
- PPS: At the end Tim asks what his role is. He's a writer and damned good one and one who thinks about how his writing gets to readers. I haven't found many writers who are thinking about that, but imho they all should be, esp right now when the dominance of tech companies is so iffy, when the possibilities are so open. I write software for writers, so I exist to make Tim happy. I want to be sure he can use the writing tools he loves (btw, maybe more than one, for different kinds of writing). #