Thumbnails, rev #2
Friday, January 09, 2009 by Dave Winer.
12/28/05: "One way to do something, no matter how flawed that way is, is better than two, no matter how much better the second way is." 
Earlier today I revised a proposal from December for including thumbnail images in HTML. I am now revising that proposal again to be compatible with Digg's (undated) proposal, which I just found out about.
I'm not going to add another format when one exists that differs from mine only by the choice of a name (they call it an image_src, I called it a thumbnail).
Their format doesn't call for a type, or height and width -- I'm going to include that info and hope that Digg ignores it.
You can see an example by viewing source on this page.
To test, I've submitted the example to Digg. They ask if it's an news article, video or image, I chose image. A few steps later and it's submitted, and apparently they picked up the thumbnail. Looks good!
Update: FriendFeed does support this format in their bookmarklet. I tested it, and it works. Happy! That's already a lot of compatibility for less than an hour's worth of work. My photo site plugs into Digg and FriendFeed.
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Dave Winer, 53, pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in Berkeley, California.
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