Weblog Archive >  2006 >  August >  22 Previous/Next


Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.
 
Permanent link to archive for Tuesday, August 22, 2006. Tuesday, August 22, 2006

What's new for your Blackberry Permanent link to this item in the archive.

A picture named blackBlackBlackBerry.jpgWhen I got my Blackberry, at first it was culture shock, I wanted my Plain Jane Nokia back, but after a while I got used to using it as a phone, then fell in love with it because it did email so well, but I wanted more, I wanted news.

This was followed by a few weeks of experimentation, until I reached nirvana, on Saturday, on a trip on BART, where cell coverage is pretty good, I was able to read a few stories from the Sunday New York Times, and I knew this was it, this is going to be huge, these devices work for reading news. Now the question is how to promote it so that all the people who can benefit from it hear about it.

http://nytimesriver.com/

I've not been so excited or so sure about a new direction for mobile technology since podcasting in June 2004. I'm sure we'll look back on this as a turning point for mobile news.

Where does it make sense? Certainly for urban bus and rail commuters where there's good cell coverage. And for people who travel by air, many of whom have devices that are capable of reading news, but they may not know it yet.

Scoble: "When I was in the hospital room with Maryam's mom I could just go to the New York Times and it came down fast and in a readable form."

A movie shows how to read the river on the Blackberry.

Coming next, same treatment for the BBC, and then who knows...?

Doc Searls shows how the NYTimesRiver looks on his Treo. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Ewan MacLeod explains why River of News is the way to go, especially on mobile devices. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

An interesting discussion has developed on Phil Torrone's Flickr post. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Jeff Jarvis: "Just the news, sir. And keep it flowing." Permanent link to this item in the archive.

There's a teeny little leak in Dan Farber's write-up.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

BetterBadNews on social networks of investors.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

NYTimesriver on TechMeme.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Frank Barnako: "Dave Winer is a bit like Jack Webb." Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Predictable backlash from people who say that reading news on a Blackberry is nothing new, they've been doing it for years. I'm sure they have, and people were listening to MP3s on Macs and PCs before podcasting, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a turning point for audio on the Internet.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Henri Asseily: "The Blackberry works for reading news." Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Phil Torrone: "Nice work, I usually have a load of RSS readers on my phone, but the NYTimesRiver is something I'll bookmark on all of them." Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Zero setup is the key feature Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Predictable backlash from people who say that reading news on a Blackberry is nothing new, they've been doing it for years. I'm sure they have, and people were listening to MP3s on Macs and PCs before podcasting, but that doesn't mean podcasting wasn't a turning point for audio on the Internet.

The fact is that today most people with web-capable mobile devices aren't reading news on them. I'd wager it isn't because they don't want to, I think many of them do. If it were easy enough. The problem with most of the methods people talk about is that they require a lot of effort to set up, or only work in certain contexts, or are a lot of work to use.

NYTimesRiver is good because it requires no setup, one size fits all, and it delivers consistent value, and coverage. It would even be innovative for the desktop, because of the zero setup.

People get confused with difficulty to program and utility. It wasn't an act of great programming prowess to get this software running. But try it out on someone on an airplane or bus with a Blackberry or Treo, and watch their eyes light up, their chin drop. That's hard to do too.

Someday people will understand why simplicity in this stuff is essential, that's when it takes off, when it's reduced to its most basic value, and delivered in a package that can quickly gain buzz and critical mass.

Last year's revenue: $2.3 million Permanent link to this item in the archive.

A picture named cabinetBowler.jpgOver in another part of the tech blogosphere they're having a discussion about blogs that make big money. I still think Scripting News has the record there, by a wide margin.

Last year we did $2.3 million in revenue. Expenses? One salary (mine) and about $1000 per month in server costs. A few thousand for contract programming. Pre-tax profit? Millions.

People think blogs are about advertising, and I would agree, but they're thinking in terms of clicks and eyeballs, and I'm thinking of technology that's created using the intelligence of community participation.

Want to see how it's done? It's here in the archive of this blog. Don't have the time to read the archive? Read today's blog. We will get a whole new flow built here, through persistent experimentation, refinement, listening, promoting, thinking, and looping.

Is there money in this? A lot more than most people think, because they're still thinking in 20th century terms.

I don't share this space with hitch-hikers. I use my blog for my own ideas. They make good money. No point diluting what I have to say.

Want to know more? I wrote about it on August 3.

Spike Lee's New Orleans Permanent link to this item in the archive.

I watched the first installment of Spike Lee's story of New Orleans and Katrina. It's been a long time since TV gripped me so emotionally and not let go.

I went back to New Orleans in December to see what had happened, but I didn't understand what had been there during the flood, what had already been cleaned up. Where I drove there had been bodies floating. The water was so deep, I never had a sense of how impossible it was for humans to cope with that. How many people died, and here a year later, how can we put that in perspective. We weren't attacked, the deaths were largely preventable.

It is important to look back, to remember that last year we lost of one our cities, and many thousands of our people lost their homes. A culture died, and our political life is a void until we really feel that. It has never happened in the United States before. We've never lost a whole city like that.

The tragedy is still here, today, in our hearts. Perhaps we think we've moved on, but I don't think we have. New Orleans was part of America. It was part of us.

     

Last update: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 at 11:15 PM Pacific.

Dave Winer Mailto icon

Comment on today's
Scripting News

Community Directory
A picture named folder.gif On this day in
A picture named folder.gif Podcasting directory
A picture named folder.gif Mobile apps
A picture named folder.gif BloggerCon
A picture named folder.gif Feed Blogs
A picture named folder.gif Share Your OPML Top 100
A picture named folder.gif OPML Editor Docs
A picture named folder.gif Scripting News Archive
A picture named folder.gif Open Irish Directory
A picture named folder.gif TechCrunch reviews
A picture named folder.gif MAKE Mag Feeds
A picture named folder.gif Amyloo's community car roll
A picture named folder.gif XML-RPC Directory
A picture named folder.gif Tim Post's Tomorrow
A picture named folder.gif LibriVox
A picture named folder.gif News.Com Top 100
A picture named folder.gif BloggerCon III Blogroll
A picture named folder.gif iPodder.org directory
A picture named folder.gif Memeorandum
A picture named folder.gif DaveNet archive
A picture named folder.gif Blackberry stuff
A picture named folder.gif Scripting News sites
Click here to view the OPML source for this directory.

Click here to see a list of recently updated OPML weblogs.

Click here to read blogs commenting on today's Scripting News.

Click here to view the community podcast directory.

A picture named shareMyOpml_trsp.gif

Morning Coffee Notes, an occasional podcast by Scripting News Editor, Dave Winer.

August 2006
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
 
Jul   Sep



Click here to see an XML representation of the content of this weblog.

Click here to view the OPML version of Scripting News.


          


© Copyright 1997-2006 Dave Winer.


Previous/Next