It's even worse than it appears..
Monday October 13, 2025; 11:35 AM EDT
The web crashes#
  • More slides done since yesterday, having a great time.#
  • We all went through the same thing. #
  • Twitter comes online, we try to work with it. Unless your ideas fit in 140 chars, don't use links, or style, and you never make mistakes that need correction, it just doesn't work.#
  • The ideal is to write in our blog space, and publish everywhere.#
  • But the two principle ways of reading blog stuff, Twitter and Google Reader, didn't agree what a post is. So writing became Twitter's idea of writing, esp after Google Reader shut down. #
  • I tried to make this work from 2006 to May 5, 2017, when I gave up. People are still trying to make this idea work, but it can't until we get an agreement of what text is, and it can't be as limited as Twitter's. This will be much-discussed at WordCamp Canada this week, based on what WordPress is doing and what Evan Prodromou will speak about and of course what I am speaking about.#
  • Getting back on track is as simple as agreeing what text is on the web. For that we have two very good guides: HTML and Markdown. #
  • And WordPress of course, which never strayed from the ideal. Thank goodness.#
  • Here's my slide.#

© copyright 1994-2025 Dave Winer.

Last update: Monday October 13, 2025; 11:45 AM 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! :-)