Scripting News

Fri, 20 May 2005 22:13:24 GMT

There was a honkin thunderstorm brewing off the coast, and even though I was late for dinner, you know I had to do a podcast. ";->"

Fri, 20 May 2005 21:14:28 GMT

Joseph Pulitzer: "Newspapers should have no friends."

Fri, 20 May 2005 20:55:16 GMT

Jeff Jarvis: "I just quit my job at Advance.net." Congrats!!

Fri, 20 May 2005 14:34:21 GMT

Discuss: Is Microsoft of two minds on RSS?

Fri, 20 May 2005 15:07:21 GMT

Dan Conover: "Romance novel covers are pretty silly."

Fri, 20 May 2005 14:30:00 GMT

Gary Turner: Long Time Lapse Folkography. Neat-o!

Fri, 20 May 2005 13:13:21 GMT

Here's a nice movie taken during this morning's sunrise.

Fri, 20 May 2005 15:48:05 GMT

Yeah, what Ed Cone said.

Fri, 20 May 2005 11:04:09 GMT

Hal O'Brien, on the new NY Times web pricing model: "Fewer readers, less revenues, less prestige. Not often one sees a trifecta like that."

Fri, 20 May 2005 10:50:48 GMT

Podbat Man: "This year's Gnomedex promises to be the one they'll talk about for years to come I think."

Fri, 20 May 2005 10:44:28 GMT

Steffanie Muller reports that Swedish Public Radio is podcasting.

Fri, 20 May 2005 10:47:51 GMT

OTN TechCasts are online audio interviews with Oracle technology experts, delivered via podcasting.

Fri, 20 May 2005 10:56:49 GMT

Wow, I love what the Berkman Thursday group has done. They've got mini-BloggerCon type meetups planned through mid-June every Thursday. Very nice work. Now I know why I want to stop in Cambridge sometime this summer. This could get huuuuuge. What an excellent group of people. I knew they'd figure it out (even though I didn't forsee what "it" is).

The debacle that was Apple

Fri, 20 May 2005 11:27:23 GMT

7/8/97: "The key mistake Apple made was betting exclusively on its own people for new technology directions. Huge money was spent on researchers who were so inwardly directed they couldn't even see the worldwide web when it happened."

I had a longer piece here about Microsoft of 2005, but then I re-read this piece about Apple in 1997 and realized it was a much better description of this year's Microsoft. So inwardly focused that they missed RSS, for six years, they denied it existed. And now that it's grown so large that even they can't miss it, they reject it. Similarly, Apple management tried to reject the web. A total act of hubris and one that cost the people who made that call their jobs. (But don't worry they got new ones.)

History repeats itself in the software business. Watch it happen as Microsoft apparently tries to re-invent RSS.

And you can watch Google do it too. I suppose this has something to do with the fact that they hired so many people from Apple and Microsoft? Who knows. It's a losing strategy, for sure, for both of them. RSS is too strong, as HTML was too strong in 1997 for Apple to overcome it.