Weblog Archive >  2007 >  March >  20 Previous/Next


Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.
 

CNN Permanent link to this item in the archive.

I've been watching CNN this morning as I drink coffee and catch up on news on the web.

A picture named cnn.gifThey've covered two stories in 1/2 hour: 1. There's a 12-year-old boy lost in the woods in North Carolina (I think, based on the accents, they haven't said). 2. They broke away from that story for about a minute to tell us about VP Cheney's doctor's appointment, checking up on a leg condition. Then back to the 12-year-old's father, who talks about how happy he is to hear that his boy is safe. They're now repeating it. Is anything else going on? Not on CNN.

So I switch to MSNBC, and damn if they aren't covering exactly the same story. Same on Fox.

In six years he may well be a soldier, in Iraq, fighting for his life, and they'll be obsessing about another 12-year-old.

PS: I turned off the TV and tuned in the WNYC webcast. At least public radio hasn't sold out yet. Three American soldiers died in Iraq today. Roadside bombs. President Bush is standing by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. The President is going to Kansas City today. 3000 more emails were disclosed today in the scandal brewing around the fired US Attorneys.

A picture named bush.jpgPPS: At 7:30PM, I thought I'd catch up on the news on TV, after seeing Bush's press conference this afternoon, I thought there would be an interesting discussion. Is this Watergate all over again (seems that way to me, as the President gets into coverup mode, but he's bluffing, he can't hold the line, I'm sure of it). Nope, Anderson Cooper is covering the lost Carolina kid. His chubby dad is on screen, finally even he looks tired. Glad the kid is okay. Sorry our country is so fucked.

Bush's destiny? Permanent link to this item in the archive.

A picture named ohHappyDay.jpg

The blog bootstrap Permanent link to this item in the archive.

CNet searches for the creator of the first blog. That would be Tim Berners-Lee, whose first website was, in every way, a blog. A couple of comments. 1. Not sure how he tried to get in touch but I never got a call or an email. 2. I don't want to take anything away from anyone else. Lots of people made weblogs what they are today. Why not be inclusive. 3. They call me "irascible." Not sure if I've met either of the authors in person, I wonder how they formed that opinion and why they feel the need to label people like that.

In another, related article they interview the creator of Finger, who says the ideas of blogging originated in bulletin boards.

In any case, with all due respect, I think the CNet article misses something important as they make light of my claim to having bootstrapped blogging. The first blogs were inspired by this blog, in fact many of them, including Barger's Robot Wisdom, used my software. If you go to BlogTree, a site that asks bloggers to say which sites inspired them, you'll see how many self-declare as originating from the Scripting News community. How you summarize that effect is up to you, I call it a bootstrap.

I was trying to disperse the community that developed around this blog, from the beginnig. The goal being to inspire other people to do the same as I was doing. Jason Kottke once called me the Johnny Appleseed of blogging, and that's something I'm happy with. That was my intention.

To people who say the ideas were obvious, I don't think they were. I tried to convince many, including leading VCs and tech companies, to help bootstrap blogging, but I was left to do it myself.

Stuck tech Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Peter Rip, a man I've never met, but would like to, wrote an amazingly insightful article about where we're at in web applications these days.

"The Web today still resembles MS-DOS more than MS-Windows. Every website is an island, an island that knows nothing about any other website. This is no different than the world before the Windows Clipboard. All 640KB of memory was available to whatever application was running. The point of integration was the User. As it is today."

I have lots of ideas I'd like to share about where we can go with the formats we already have, but I can't get past the gatekeepers at the conferences Mr Rip mentions in his piece.

Today's links Permanent link to this item in the archive.

OpenCongress: Iraq bill tests the Democratic leadership's skills.

     

Last update: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 at 8:12 PM Pacific.

Dave Winer, 51, 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.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Dave Winer Mailto icon

Comment on today's
Scripting News

On This Day In: 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998.

March 2007
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
Feb   Apr


Things to revisit:

1.Microsoft patent acid test.
2.What is a weblog?
3.Advertising R.I.P.
4.How to embrace & extend.
5.Bubble Burst 2.0.
6.This I Believe.
7.Most RSS readers are wrong.
8.Who is Phil Jones?
9.Send them away.
10.Negotiate with users.
11.Preserving ideas.
12.Empire of the Air.
13.NPR speech.

Teller: "To discover is not merely to encounter, but to comprehend and reveal, to apprehend something new and true and deliver it to the world."

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

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

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

KitchenCam 1.0



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

Click here to view the OPML version of Scripting News.



© Copyright 1997-2007 Dave Winer.


Previous/Next