Scripting News

NakedJen says goodbye to Santa Cruz

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 05:07:49 GMT

This is what blogging is all about.

A platform for a person to tell their story.

NJ (NakedJen) is a NBB (Natural Born Blogger).

Why most conferences suck

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:54:47 GMT

I had lunch yesterday with Steve Gillmor. It had been too long. We talked about many things, including the fact that neither of us were going to many conferences this year. I think I've only been to three so far, maybe four. I've had the opportunity to go to dozens. But they're all the same, you spend the first half-day saying hello, then have a couple of good conversations, then you run out of things to do.

This morning after a bit of processing, it struck me -- don't know why I didn't see this before, but the problem with most conferences is that except for the people putting it on, we don't have enough to do.

So once the first hellos are over we settle in with our laptops and do what we do when we have nothing to do at home or the office -- we browse around the web, answer emails and IMs, and otherwise look for something interesting or new.

Therefore the challenge, if you want to have a truly useful conference that everyone gets something out of, structure it so that everyone has something to do at all times. Hopefully things that involve other people or the venue, if not, what's the point of going somewhere to do this stuff?

PS: Paolo describes an alternative to conferences.

What to do at LeWeb3?

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:24:52 GMT

Another thing that led me to the conclusion about conferences is that I'm going to do something interesting at LeWeb3 in Paris, with the permission and support of Loic, who runs the conference (and who is interviewing me on stage).

In the past Loic has projected an IRC backchannel, and from time to time pictures taken at the show (most famously a picture of Marc Canter sleeping), but this time Loic has given me something to do that I find truly inspiring. My job is to help get a flow of interesting pictures from the community to appear on the big screen on stage, and (if I can convince him to do this) a few screens scattered around the venue.

The first thought is to include pictures that were taken at the event itself, and of course we should use many of those, but I'd like to make it broader, to include people and places that are on the network defined by the conference. If it's like last year, there will be people tuned in from all around the world, and wouldn't it be great if we had a way to not only pull in their ideas (and we could do this better, btw) but also their imagery? It would give it a much richer world-wide feel.

One of the exciting opportunities for tech industry conferences is to find new ways to use networking on a world-wide level.

If you want, you can start uploading to Flickr pictures you think belong on stage.

Please use this tag: PreLeWeb3.

We might as well start talking about it now!

How to subscribe to Scripting News comments

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 21:13:04 GMT

Point your RSS app to this feed.

http://www.scripting.com/commentsRss.xml

To subscribe to comments posted here.

When the time is right...

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:05:49 GMT

I've been saying the same thing about advertising for nearly a decade, but this time it really resonated.

"Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information."

There's little point in saying something until the time is right, then you just have to say it once, and the idea takes over and does all the work.

Movies I'd like?

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 01:29:48 GMT

Sad to say, my queue at Netflix is empty.

Okay, so you've been reading this blog for years, you know what movies I liked, probably don't have much insight into movies I don't (hint: I like most movies).

And now that we have easy comments (thanks to Disqus), it's easy for you all to tell me what your favorite movies are.

The Clinton Years

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:45:18 GMT

I just watched The Clinton Years, a Frontline documentary produced in conjunction with ABC News Nightline in 2001. It's good time to review the eight years of Clinton's presidency, because the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, was very much a part of that bit of history.

If find after having watched it that my impression of Mrs Clinton is quite different. How so? Hasn't really settled in yet.

The show is very well produced, with interviews of many Clinton staffers, and it shows the repeating cycle of Clinton's political and personal life. How would it be different with Hillary as President? That's a question we're clearly going to be deciding, very soon.

The PBS website for the program.

Twitter's business model

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:11:11 GMT

Dan Farber: "It's not hard to imagine a contextual ad showing up every time you Twitter something. Twitter 'I am drinking beer with friends' and a Budweiser ad shows up. Now imagine the Twitter revolt."

Oh yes there would be quite a revolt, a powerless one, unless there was an alternate service we could all switch to and then assuming we could get off our asses and actually switch. Yeah, we're good at screaming, but not too great at acting, here.

I'm a bit of a Twit, myself, and I'd find it revolt-worthy if they tried to interrupt or punctuate discourse with product placements, but then Twitter's destiny is, imho, to be acquired by a phone company and sold as a feature that gives users a reason to use one brand of phone over another. Not as a way for advertisers to hitch their "messages" on our discourse. We've seen how well that has (not) worked with advertising on email. Not likely to work much better on Twits.

Imagine if Nokia offered a cell phone with Twitter built-in, a checkbox for SMS users (default on?) -- "Do you want to send SMS messages to your buddy list?"

Don't you think the kids would go for that? (Maybe they can already do it, it's likely that I'm that cluelss.)

Good advice?

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:03:16 GMT

Paul Boutin: "Never try to win a fight with Dave Winer."

Heh. I wonder why?

Kaliya Hamlin, listening

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:15:36 GMT

Why Google launched OpenSocial

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:26:25 GMT

Today's announcement from Facebook is the reason why Google announced OpenSocial last week. They must have gotten a leak from one of the companies that stood with Facebook, so they knew what was coming. They weren't scared of Facebook's technology, because they didn't respond with technology. They were scared because Facebook has a better advertising story than Google does. They are getting ready to offer some very premium web real estate that (pay attention now) Google can't compete with. And advertising is Google's bread and butter, advertising is to Google as operating systems are to Microsoft. They can't let somebody appear to be better than they are in advertising. Yet that's what Facebook is, better than Google in advertising.

Here's what Facebook can do.

Let's say I bought a Wii and I like it. They can tell all my friends "Dave bought a Wii and he likes it." That's a lot more likely to result in a sale than an intrusive ad like this one, that was displayed next to an email I sent to some friends about their New Networked Living Room. Google thinks I might want to buy Moroccan Lamps, or something called a Unique Shabby Chic (huh?) or Crate & Barrell bedroom furniture. Of course I tune that shit out, I don't even see it. It has zero impact.

Anyway, I was talking with Doc Searls a few minutes ago and he mentioned OpenSocial and I told him it was just a lot of noise meant to distract people from what Facebook was doing in advertising. He hadn't heard anything about it even though he was at a tech conference in Denver today and yesterday. I said there you go, Google's strategy worked. But to no effect, longterm, because Facebook has the momentum and Google, try as hard as they want to stop it, will not be able to, any more than Alta Vista or Infoseek were able to stop Google once they figured out that their lunch was eaten. Google will be around for a long time, I'm not saying they will go away, but Facebook will be around too. And Google will have a hard time catching up to them.

Long-term, however they both have problems because advertising is on its way to being obsolete. Facebook is just another step along the path. Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information. And that's good!

8/3/06: "Information is welcome, advertising is offensive."

Venus and the Moon over Denver

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 04:43:14 GMT

By Doc Searls.

Why I delete comments

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:43:10 GMT

First a caveat. You don't have to agree with me, this is my opinion, and my blog, and that's what blogs are for, they're places where, if you happen to have an opinion, you can put it.

This is the mode of a blogger with comments. Defensive. Yuck!!

If you say in your comment that I'm dishonest, I will delete your comment. That's the only tool I have to work with until my new friends at Disqus give me the feature Wordpress has that allows you to queue up every post in moderation when blog comments get flamey. This technique tells the honesty-attackers in no uncertain terms that they should take their attacks somewhere else.

So if your comment got deleted it's because something in your comment required a response from me (or someone else) that says basically "I am honest." I just save us all the trouble. No need to defend myself if the attack is gone.

You may think I am dishonest, you can even say so (but be careful to be sure you're right, and have the courage to put your name on it, only cowards make personal attacks anonymously) and do it in your space not mine. Here, I want comments with ideas and information. It's okay to disagree with me, the people who say that all they did was disagree are wrong. I never delete a comment just for being disagreeable. I delete them if they challenge my honesty. I really don't like that, I think the people who do it are creepy.

Okay, good. Glad to get that out of the way.

Margareta

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:59:04 GMT

Let's not go overboard

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:27:08 GMT

Some Windows advocates are using my post about Leopard as "proof" that Vista is really what you need.

When I said Leopard feels like Windows, I meant that it locks up, disappears, freezes and crashes. That I have to trick it into doing the right thing. I wasn't paying Windows a compliment, geez, you guys need to learn how to read.

And by the way so do some of the Mac advocates. I didn't say you're having no fun with Leopard. Glad you're pleased. I wish I could gloat at how great an upgrade it was, nothing would make me happier. And btw, since writing the piece yesterday, it's been performing pretty well on all four systems I have it installed on. Maybe getting all that out in the open is just what was needed.

For the record, I've never used Vista, I don't want to, honestly I'd rather live in Bucharest than use Vista. Not today's Bucharest, which I hear is actually pretty nice, I'm talking about the Bucharest of Ceausescu. The one who taught Cheney and Bush all they know about torture.

Loic Le Diplomat

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:17:57 GMT

Update: Loic wonders what you would ask or tell President Bush if you had 3 minutes with him.

I recorded a Twittergram with what I'd say.

I'm not happy with Leopard

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:05:00 GMT

I've given Leopard a chance, but it's pretty clear, this is not a good operating system release.

I've been out of the Mac loop for most of the last decade, just got back in a bit over 2 years ago. I don't know if early OS releases are generally as crappy as this one, but I wasn't prepared for where we're at now. If I had known, I would have waited, instead of upgrading most of my Macs to the new system.

Talking with a friend a few days ago, he asked what I thought of Leopard. He had installed the new version, like me, the first day it came out. "I'm not liking it," I said. He said something that was simple, profound and revealing: "It's like Windows." It is. It's that unpleasant to use. It disappears for long periods of time. Systems that didn't used to crash now crash regularly. On one system three hard disks were rendered unusable, and I lost a couple of full days restoring them (luckily I had good backups). The user interface is quirky. The new networking interface is a big step backward. The firewall moved and lost features! That's simply never done, you don't charge customers to remove features, esp security features. I think Apple doesn't understand how many people depend seriously on their Macs.

To Apple, I left Windows because it held my time and work in low regard. I was happy with the Mac because it seemed reliable. Now it seems my friend was right, I'm using Windows again, and I'm not happy about it.

Tree scene

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 05:35:44 GMT

RSS 2.0 comments element

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:24:20 GMT

RayS on Twitter asked why it is that more feed readers don't support the <comments> element in RSS 2.0. Interestingly, less than two hours before, I had added the element to the Scripting News feed. It's appropriate because there are now per-element comments here, people who subscribe should have the benefit in addition to people who read this blog in a web browser.

Truth is that some feed readers do support the comments element. All of mine do, dating back to Radio 8.0 shipped in January 2002, which is still my daily reader. It's really a simple feature, not very hard to implement. If an item has a comments element, it's represented as a little pencil in the right margin. Click on it and you go directly to the comments.

Maybe by writing about it here we'll find out that others already support it, and maybe encourage others to add support.

Disqus progress

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:45:26 GMT

We seem to have adopted the Disqus guys, helping them evolve their product to better suit our needs.

It's a win-win because I'm getting a better comment system, and so are they.

Yesterday I asked for an XMLization of my site's comments, and this morning I have them, and can provide more feedback.

Here's where you go to see the feedback and any ensuing discussion.