We Were Shocked

Tuesday, March 20, 2001 by Dave Winer.

It was shocking 

The last week has been Learn About Microsoft Week for me and a lot of other people. The HailStorm announcement is a shocker, no matter how much MS had prepped us for it, and MS did do a lot of prepping, the moment it all came together, and the position it put MS in, was shocking. I think that's all the take-away one can get from the posts on the mail lists, the articles and editorials in various pubs.

On Thursday, when I got my briefing, I knew it would be heavy. It made me laugh to think of all the brains that would be activated. Yesterday was one of the most whirling days we've had in a long time. We use to whirl regularly. Remember when Netscape went open source? When we first learned about SlashDot? Go all the way back to the beginning of the story, there was a shock-a-day in 1994 and 1995. We liked it then, but we've gotten sleepy. Now something is coming awake?

I see this happen in our own world when we release something we've been planning for months, sometimes years, and thinking we were carefully telegraphing our intentions, for naught (it seems), the people who follow what we do have a Learn About UserLand Week or two (sometimes more) and they're shocked, just like we were last week. That's about all the take-away you can do. They want to know how they fit in now that they understand where we're going. From our pov it's where we've been going, their shock happens when we're exhausted from shipping, there's an impedence mismatch, high current flowing on one side, almost none on the other.

After almost thirteen years working on Frontier, I have no advice to offer Microsoft, other than it will pass, and we'll get together and see where the chips are now that the game has been re-arranged. It'll all be for the best, and I hope I've been consistent in thanking Microsoft for stirring the pot. It's time for some more shocks. Let's keep em comin.

Dave Winer