Conversation has a place, but I think we've explored that pretty well, and now I want to create better publishing and reading systems, that are as fast as social web systems, but place less emphasis on replies that can be seen by everyone, because that often is not really conversation, it's spam. #
I think ultimately we'll be disappointed with federation for all the reasons we're frustrated with earlier social web systems. People trying to get attention for their ideas, which often are spam or trolling. I also think this means RSS will be more valuable going forward because it's great at publishing, checking all the textcasting boxes. #
I plan to build with and around WordPress. I think of WordPress as a basic platform the way I saw Twitter between 2006 and 2022. Now the question is what are the steps to use WordPress as the back-end of a social communication system. Behind the scenes, its database has all the capabilities we need to provide the tools writers need. And it has excellent RSS support. It all runs at scale and has a mature yet simple API. That is all we need to form a hub.#
Last update: Friday December 29, 2023; 11:38 AM EST.
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! :-)