I'm ready to zoooom out of here, driving from Calif to NYC. But rain in the Bay Area means snow in the Sierra, even in April. Hoping it slows down before sunrise, then I hit the road. 

The NY Times has a piece about Twitter's acquisition of Tweetie. For once, an article about Twitter that isn't all gee-whiz. There's a lot of reality in this space that has yet to appear in the news.  

I have two pieces on this topic, one written from Twitter's point of view, and the other from a developer's. Twitter has to compete with Google and Facebook, that explains why they're moving the way they are. But the app developers are doing the best they can with the APIs that Twitter has given them. The criticism they've received is undue. If Twitter were more aggressive with the APIs, there would be more interesting apps. Really. (There's a reason I stopped developing on their platform a year or so ago. I couldn't do anything more interesting within its limits.) 

Once more it's clear that we need an ecosystem built on a platform that no one owns. Corporate ownership of platforms is a slippery slope that leads to a swamp. If the client developers were courageous we could have it right now. So far they have not been, and there's little reason to believe they will grow new courage in the future. 

I think scripting.com is finally put back together. Knock wood. The benefit of the rain is that I've had a bit of time to move stuff to an older, more reliable server. I'm using new tools, including Dropbox, to make things work better. 

Also have an idea how service providers can hook into Dropbox. I'd love to designate a folder in my dropbox that's meant to be served over HTTP. Not the limited version that the Dropbox company provides. 

I love the product. I hope the company stays independent. I don't think I'd be as enthusiastic if it was tied to the strategies of a big tech company. I like it just the way it is.  

BTW, I like it so much I paid them the $99 for a year of service, even though I don't need more space (and it's not clear how I could use it since I want my netbook to participate, and it's often connected over a relatively low speed line). 

Anyway with any luck the next post should be from the road. ">