Jim Moore: “The Dean campaign is no longer a momentum play. Momentum investors are going to go toward Kerry, or stay with the ultimate momentum stock, George W Bush.” [Scripting News]
Category Archives: BloggerCon
Sen. Edwards in Springfield, MO
Thanks to a little help from Ed Cone, I'll be at the Sen. Edwards campaign event here in Springfield. I'll do a write up similar to my summary of Wesley Clark's appearance here. Expect audio, too.
Mark needs help–can Berkman step in?
Transitions. I would like to reiterate how detailed and well-thought-out a plan it was, in a feeble attempt to excuse how magnificently I bungled it. (271 words) [dive into mark]
In his post, he mentions that he's looking for someone to maintain the feed parser and feed finder. “Dave”, is this something that would go with Harvard's Berkman Center? Keeping these two things under the care of the university would ensure that they will live on as long as can be relevant.
Dave's Social Experiment
“Dave” has been running a social experiment to evangelize the uses of OPML and to lead aggregator developers to standardization. As a side effect, the OPML contributors have been asking for more data about their ad-hoc social groups. I'm one of those clammoring for more.
I made an observation that I want to share with everyone. Of those on my list of subscriptions, the people that I read/comment/converse with most often are those that have the some of the lowest readership. Dann Sheridan is a great example. Of those that have contributed to the site, six subscribe to his feed, self included.
Maybe subscription rank is not an indication of importance.
Just “thinking out loud”…
Who Subscribes? (updated)
update: Found out that Rogers Cadenhead subscribes, but prefixes the domain with 'www'. Thanks, Rogers! Also, some have not shared who subscribes to what sites, so there are others not counted here. To all, again, thank you.
I'd like to thank six very nice people for reading my RSS feed. Dann's was one of my first; Sean's old “dot.communist” I was attracted to by the title. I read both still for the same reason: recurring and compelling content.
Thanks, RSS feed readers. If you haven't contributed over there yet, please do so. Sign up and submit your feed
Where's Steve?
It's been a few days without a post. Sorry about that. I've been rabid following a new mailing list that “Dave” set up for RSS users. In turn, I have spent some time viewing the Top 100 feeds on Dave's side project. Neat stuff. Makes my brain think and that's good.
A new post for the new year
Hello and thank you to all of my readers, large and small. 2003 was the year that I got on the blogging bandwaggon–what a wild ride it's been.
At first I struggeled with blogging. While written in the English language (for me anyway), blogging is a different medium for communication. That means different rules and different things to say. It means that you make mistakes and say you're sorry and it also means cheering when others applaud your words. With that said, thanks to all in the blogsphere for linking to me at one time or another. That form of praise, however faint, kept me going. No one likes to shout in a vacuum with no hope of being heard. To that end, I'm resolving to double my subscription list with people I've never heard of that say things I don't understand. Listening to other voices will make think.
People
I would like to thank “Dave Winer”, first and foremost. His continuing efforts to support simple, easy, user-friendly methods of personal public communication is inspiring. Dave, your unabashed love for users is a model we can all aspire to follow.
Tammy Kirks, my wife, gets the next slot on the list. Tammy's always been pro-blogging, even though she didn't understand it at first. She was completely behind my “mini-pilgrimage” to Boston for BloggerCon–a life changing event for me.
Tim Smith is next. Tim works tirelessly on a variety of technology projects outside of his normal “9-5” job so that others can enjoy something they never though possible. Tim made the first version of HTV Magazine, a website run by broadcast journalist students in Springfield, MO. “HTV” has become a model in student journalism, winning awards for the past 9 years straight.
Finally, the blogosphere, wrapped into one, gets my gratitude. If you read or have read the site or RSS feed, posted a comment or linked to an item of mine, you have made my life richer. Thank you.
Tomorrow? A summary of 2004 goals
Mark Pilgrim's Christmas gift
update: Mark's RSS feed no longer has the notice and still appears to be working.
I received this “gift” from Mark Pilgrim today:
Gift.
The best things in life are not things. (11 words)
Note: The “dive into mark” feed you are currently subscribed to is deprecated. If your aggregator supports it, you should upgrade to my Atom feed, which includes both summaries and full content.
This is the first experience I've seen of what I'll call “feed discrimination”. This is similar to the browser wars of the late 90s. During that time, you could frequently see phrases at the bottom of a webpage “insulting” your choice of browser. Cute phrases like “Site best viewed using Internet Explorer” or worse would let you know that it's time to “upgrade”.
There are good and bad reasons to change feed formats. As a user, I don't care to debate them while receiving content. It's no extra effort for Mark to offer feeds in multiple formats, is it?
Mark, as a user, I would have responded better to something like this:
Note: The “dive into mark” feed you are currently subscribed contains basic information only. If your aggregator supports it, you should upgrade to my Atom feed, which includes both summaries and full content. Here's a list of aggregators that currently support Atom feeds. Here's a link showing you the differences and why it's important. Finally, go to this page and post a note letting your favorite aggregator's producer know that you want Atom support.
Mark, it's all in how you say it.
With all of the above said, I'm excited about live Atom feeds. I want to see what they are like and see if they are better or enable a better user experience. But, at version 0.3, is it really time to scare a user with a word like “deprecated”. I found this definition:
A deprecated element or attribute is one that has been outdated by newer constructs. Deprecated elements are defined in the reference manual in appropriate locations, but are clearly marked as deprecated. Deprecated elements may become obsolete in future versions of HTML.
Ugh.
Mark, if you read this, please understand I admire your work and the effort it takes daily to pioneer in a field that changes so often. I want success for the best of any breed of product. Just don't make users losers in the game.
Userland and multiAuthorWeblog tool
I put up a new category yesterday called Userland. I downloaded and installed the “multiAuthorWeblog” tool a couple of months ago but didn't find an immediate use. Now I have. With Userland's management change, I wanted follow all of their postings to see how much was Userland content, how much was personal and whatever else is leftover.
Surf on over and take a look. I'll be disassembling the multiAuthorWeblog tool over the next month, mainly to tweak it and also to see if it's the core of Channel Z.
Ross posts this note about RSS Winterfest. Dave is leading off-good news. Notice the name: RSS Winterfest, not Internet Content Syndication Winterfest. Includes Atom, too.
RSS Winterfest 2004. RSS Winterfest is a free two-day Webcast augmented by Socialtext Eventspace on, you guessed it, Internet Syndication and standards like RSS and Atom. We're also presenting alongside some good folks…. [Ross Mayfield's Weblog]
Steve Kirks 