Scripting News

New NewsJunk Junk

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:14:38 GMT

There's a certain symmetry to the headline of this piece.

Anyway... We're working on a bunch of stuff that's almost ready to release. I'm taking notes here and testing stuff as I go. It won't show up in the RSS feed until it's done.

If you look in the right margin on scripting.com you'll see two sets of headlines from NewsJunk.com. The first set are the 5 most recent stories. The second set is the top 5 stories. Both change without the scripting.com home page being updated through the magic of JavaScript includes.

How to include these bits in your blog or website.

Do you want NewsJunk headlines to flow to you through email? We're ready to go with a Google Groups interface, subscribe today!

That brings us to...

7 ways to follow NewsJunk.

Number 8 is coming sooooon.

Remembering Tim Russert

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:06:10 GMT

Tim Russert died on Friday. I never met the guy, but I sure was familiar with his work.

I thought he personified what was wrong with the political process, and I said so. It would be hypocritical now for me to say he was a great man, because I don't think he was. Sometimes I felt the politician he was crossing was well-equipped to speak honestly for himself, and I wanted to hear what he or she had to say, and Russert interfered. It came up in his interview this spring with Ron Paul, who actually had some new ideas that I felt deserved airing, but he couldn't get much of that past Russert, who applied his inside-the-Beltway logic. I noticed he was a lot harder on outsiders. And he was always easy when interviewing members of his profession, who he let speak without interruption, without interrogation. An odd exception, I thought -- it would be nice if they took as much care with their own consistency as they do with the people they interview

Of course his death is a sad thing, for everyone. And I did enjoy Russert enough to listen every Sunday to Meet The Press. Through the magic of podcasting, I never had to miss one. And there's a chance that this ultimate insider would have discovered the power of the rest of us, not only in the aggregate, but as individuals as well. I think they pay lip service to it, and keep it far away and abstract, content to live with their view of the world, as revolving around them, which of course in some ways, it does.

The most poignant eulogy for me came from Bob Schieffer, longtime host of Face the Nation (CBS), who was clear up front, Russert was a competitor, and both of them took the competition seriously. He said that he and Russert were also friends. This is what I want for us in the blogosphere and we don't have it. Competition here is so cutthroat, so personal, that it's impossible to have a relaxed conversation, to learn from people who compete. It would be nice if we could get to that place, if Schieffer wasn't exaggerating for effect, marking the sadness that comes with anyone's passing, even someone whose success you envy.

Update: Arianna apparently sees it the same way.

AP pay-to-quote, day 2

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:50:38 GMT

A commenter named Billenator says it's all about money. It's a good essay, and worth thinking about.

But what's been missing in much of the discussion is an understanding that large entities like AP rarely are of one mind about anything. I first learned this in the 80s trying to make sense of Apple, a company that was, while Steve Jobs was gone, a land of many opinions and much second-guessing. Today's Apple is still a complex animal, for sure, but it presents a simpler interface to the world.

Harvard is an interesting place, all great universities understand that every person has their own opinion, they celebrate that with something called academic freedom. Universities see diversity of opinion as part of their mission. At least good ones do.

AP is a large organization with many opinions, and they're not like Apple nor are they like Harvard. How many people know that AP is a not-for-profit cooperative? Does that change your thinking?

And while it seems that lawyers are running this show, how much do you know about what actually happened here? Are you sure the blogger is telling the whole story? (I have no reason to believe he's not, but bloggers are people too, and sometimes they have motives other than the obvious ones.)

I want to testify on behalf of the AP. I did a deal with them at the end of last year, a quiet one, that the tech community mostly ignored. We didn't run press releases or go on a press tour. I did talk with a few analysts, there were a few articles, but none seemed to catch the trust in the community coming from the AP. It seems that the last 10 years have influenced AP, they are willing to take some risks with their content, but it seems many if not all bloggers are not quite as innovation-aware as they think they are -- how many were willing to give any thought to the unique experiment the AP did with some of their most valuable content? If any were, they never made their presence known to me.

Neither Mike Arrington or Jeff Jarvis, two of the leaders of the AP rebellion, noticed the good work that AP was doing, but they were willing to shut down the relationship between the blogosphere and the AP, over what? All that had happened was a threatening letter was written. Arrington is a lawyer (disclaimer: at one point he was my lawyer) and he knows how insignificant such a letter is. He actually publishes the ones people send him on his site! All of a sudden the earth shakes because AP sent one to another blogger? Come on, the blogger dost protest too much, methinks.

The point is -- as a group -- we haven't grown up yet. We're in the middle of a revolution, and we've attracted some of the energy we're revolting against. Time to stop thinking about centralizing power and punishing those who don't recognize it. That's not going to work for AP anymore if it ever did, and it's not going to work for BuzzMachine or TechCrunch either. I don't respect your brands, I respect ideas and thought, innovation, generosity, even kindness.

AP is a large organization that serves many constituencies, and is dependent on them in ways very few people outside AP understand. I certainly don't. But I do admire the courage of the people I've met there, for good reason. I'm willing to cut them a lot of slack, because whether you like it or not, the relationship between bloggers and the AP continues, and it's nowhere as simple as you think it is.

Where's your data?

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:28:42 GMT

Earlier today I asked for advice -- should I use Yahoo or Google Groups or something else to distribute email to NewsJunk readers? In the discussion that followed, a few people suggested that because Yahoo's future was uncertain, Google would be a better bet. This made sense, like everyone else I've been following the news about Yahoo and Microsoft, noting that key people are leaving, the stock price has fallen, pundits say the company's future isn't bright.

This underscores the need to control our data, we should never think of a company as permanent. If you're new to technology maybe you're learning this for the first time. If you've been around a while, as I have, you've learned this many times. I remember when I thought that CP/M-formatted 8-inch floppies were a perfectly safe way to store data. I figured there would always be a way to read those disks. Only a few years later, that was wrong. Today you'd imagine that you could always view a static HTML file. Seems that way to me too, but I bet someday someone will wonder what you mean by that.

I guess it's like a Zen Haiku or something -- there really is no here or now, you don't really have any data, but for the time-being it's still a good idea to think before you choose a place to put stuff you care about. Today Google seems safe, Yahoo not so safe. Mark that, let's come back in 10 years and see if it's still that way.

Yahoo Groups or Google Groups or ?

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:02:34 GMT

We're adding a 7th way to get your fix of NewsJunk politics -- email. Yeah, it's old and boring, but lots of people still use it!

Of course we'd like to use someone else's service to do the actual distribution, at least at first while we're bootstrapping. In the old days I'd go with Yahoo Groups and not worry about it, but I wonder if there isn't a better Web 2.0 solution out there for email distribution, or if Google Groups is more popular now? Or something else entirely?

Your opinion is sought in the comments...

Update: I created a Google Group as an experiment. You're welcome to subscribe. We won't start promoting it until we're sure it fits the bill.

AP objects to quoting-and-linking

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:24:50 GMT

This morning the top story on both TechMeme and Memeorandum is about the AP and its opinion that quoting and linking is a violation of fair use.

This is something I've been doing on Scripting News going back to the mid-90s.

Examples? According to AP, everything on NewsJunk.com would be a violation.

As many have pointed out, quoting and linking is the norm in the blogosphere.

I have noticed that more bloggers quote the whole piece these days, and put a sentence before and after, saying "This sucks!" or "Dave is an idiot!" I think they could accomplish the same thing by pointing to the article instead of mass-copying it. For the amateur blogger this is an annoyance you have to live with. For an organization like the AP, I guess it's more of a concern.

So why go after a mere link-and-quoter, when if you went after a mass-quoter, you'd have most people on your side? This is a mystery.

Over the years I've worked with the AP on various RSS and blogging projects, and it's always been enjoyable, respectful and professional work. There's a lot of goodwill here. I sent them an email this morning offering help, and it was graciously received. And we're going to continue to use the AP as a source on NewsJunk.com, at least for now.

One word to describe John McCain?

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:50:08 GMT

Pew Research did a survey where they asked people to provide one word to sum up their feelings about John McCain. You can read this Baltimore Sun piece about the survey, but I wanted to invite readers of this weblog to answer the question, and perhaps provide an explanation. My answer follows.

"Disappointment" is my word.

I know it may seem hard to believe, given how much I've campaigned for Barack Obama this year, but there was a time, in 2000, when I almost wanted McCain to be president. I didn't think Gore vs Bush offered meaningful difference (in hindsight I see this was wrong), and I saw McCain and his straight talk as the best hope for a meaningful Presidential election. I saw what happened to him in South Carolina and became more convinced that both parties had nominated the wrong person.

Then, when he supported Bush in 2000 and again in 2004, I stopped believing in his independence. I want to vote for a candidate who, as the CEO of a company is responsible to the shareholders (at least in theory) -- is responsible to American voters and taxpayers. The Republicans didn't have a candidate running this year who fit that bill, although I, and many others, believed the John McCain of Y2K was that candidate.

So, I don't think "old," technically, is the right word -- and if "lost his way" were one word instead of three, I might have said that. My view of McCain is best summed up as "disappointment." At one time he had potential, but he sold it out in favor of cynicism.

I'd also note that my view in 2000 was probably wrong. Now that he's the presumptive Republican nominee, I've learned more about him, and see that his past is checkered with compromise. It seems more likely that in 2000 he had a good sales pitch, and wasn't what he appeared to be.

PS: I wrote a disclaimer on politics in September 2000, which I stand by almost 8 years later.

PPS: The other thing that disappointed me was the end of the last episode of BSG, which aired on Friday. I want more. But this was the last episode before the final run of 10 that might not air until next year. And we still don't know who final Cylon is. Oy.

Who will fill Russert's shoes?

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:01:57 GMT

We're sitting around NewsJunk HQ, talking politics and wondering when the discussion is going to turn to the game of musical chairs that must be playing out at NBC.

Think about it this way -- suppose a Presidential candidate died suddenly, can you imagine that the talking heads at CNN, NBC and Fox wouldn't, between heartfelt sympathy for the family, be speculating at who the party would nominate in place of the fallen leader? Would it be Romney or Huckabee, Clinton or Edwards, or maybe someone else entirely?

More than 24 hours after Russert's sudden passing, we haven't yet heard any speculation, so we thought we might as well raise the question and run down some possibilities.

1. Keith Olbermann. Af first we thought he'd be a shoe-in, he's batting cleanup at MSNBC, he's personally responsible for them passing Fox in ratings, but he's not a terrific inteviewer, and is seen as highly partisan. It's possible that he could lead NBC at some time, a few years after the election, but not now.

2. Chuck Todd is the rising young star at NBC News, and would be my personal choice. He's a no-nonsense political reporter, respects the Internet and bloggers. When he comes on everyone listens. But he's probably too young and too new to network news to fill Russert's shoes.

3. David Gregory seems most likely to get the job, he's covered the White House for six years, famously stood up to Scott McClellan, but frankly -- he's boring. Gregory would be a good choice if you think the Republican will win in the fall, but if it's Obama, you want someone bright and young and a little wet behind the ears, like Todd.

4. Andrea Mitchell is the most senior of the reporter-analysts at NBC News, and if Gregory doesn't get it, she probably will.

5. Chris Matthews probably thinks he should get it, but he won't. Same with Morning Joe.

6. Tom Brokaw will certainly fill in on Sunday, and maybe for a couple of weeks while the dust settles at NBC, but he's the emeritus anchor at NBC, and not likely to want to come back into the fray. They'll save him for big interviews and to deliver the obits on NBC.

We're assuming they would promote from within. If not, consider Wolf Blitzer, David Gergen, George Stephanopoulous, Chris Wallace, Anderson Cooper, Gwen Ifil, Bill Moyers, Charlie Rose and my favorite dark horse, Aaron Brown (whose contract with CNN has just expired).

Update: Cross-posted at Huffington.

Caught in Comcast's gears

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:06:36 GMT

Another Comcast user is nabbed for using too much of their service (top tenth of one percent). He doesn't use Twitter so he doesn't know how to get a human being in the loop. Hopefully this post will do the job.

They still have Nazis running customer service at Comcast. They really need to take a look at how they treat their customers. One of these days the customers are going to start caring and might even have choices.

Picture of the day

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:50:24 GMT

Now remind me, how many trillions have we borrowed to install and prop up the guy on the right?

And what were we told about people who talk to the guy on the left? (And they're doing more than talking, aren't they?)

Ask Bush or Lieberman what they see here.

What's the prize for "winning" in Iraq?

I'd love to hear the story.

It's like a Rorschach test.

Have some fun...

Put a thought balloon over Ahmadinejad's head.

What's he thinking?

MP3 of Olbermann's special comment

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:06:55 GMT

Here's an MP3 of Keith Olbermann's special comment tonight to John McCain, re getting out of Iraq.

Top-5 stories on NewsJunk.com

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:34:58 GMT

A few random thoughts

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:46:10 GMT

1. Wouldn't it be cool if the vetting process for potential VP's were an open process, blogged about by the parties in real-time? Remove indirection from the trial-balloons. And it's not as if the press isn't already doing their own vetting.

2. A user of NewsJunk asked for a mobile version, so we created one. Not much more to say about it other than it works really well on an iPhone, Blackberry, Treo, Nokia, etc. and looks boring on a desktop computer.

3. I have never been so informed about political news as I am now that I am involved in NewsJunk. As with podcasting, which was a success for me because my iPod overflows with interesting podcasts -- Mission Accomplished! It's all gravy from here.

4. NewsJunk seems to fill a void. It's been running for a couple of weeks, and so far no one has sent a pointer that says "Here's a site that does the same thing." Of course now I'll get a dozen, but I doubt if they do.

5. Wonkette wins the prize for most interesting 'lite' story of the day. Turns out that when the First Lady travels, she takes an Airstream trailer with her. And she hangs out in the trailer during flights. They have a picture of the trailer installed in a military transport plane. What's in the trailer? (Update: Interior pictures here.)

6. Before you think ill of her, she did something very gracious yesterday, coming to the defense of Michelle Obama, explaining what she clearly meant, and undermining the meanies who would make an innocent comment into a "cause" for outrage. As I said yesterday, we're onto the M.O. of the crabby right wing bastards. Find a new schtick.

7. An amazing story that almost makes me feel sympathetic for the President, he says to the Times of London that he regrets his legacy as a man who wanted war.

8. Representative Dennis Kucinich proposed 35 articles of impeachment today against President Bush.

9. The Top-25 page continues to do an excellent job of culling interesting stories.

Who owns your comments?

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:25:51 GMT

Last week, in the rush of news and new features in NewsJunk.com, I got an email from Daniel Ha, the guy who develops Disqus, the commenting software we use at Scripting News.

I say "we" because it very literally is a we thing. When you place a comment on my blog, you're adding something to the record here, but you're also adding to the library of your written work.

So the question is: "Who owns the comment?"

I gave it some thought, before reading Daniel's essay -- and I decided that it's a mutual thing. I own the collection of comments on my blog, and you own the comments you've placed on my blog and all others. I should be able to back up a complete set of comments on my blog, and also back up a copy of all comments I've placed on all blogs.

Technically it's not easy or even possible in most contexts, but with Disqus it certainly is.

Then I read Daniel's piece and found that he more or less came to the same conclusion.

Breaking news: There are crazy people on the Internet

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:50:21 GMT

I loved the headline on this Salon piece so much I had to retweet it. And I'd add -- this article explains why the only people who pay attention to right-wing bloggers these days are other right-wing bloggers. In 2004 they beat Kerry by being the crabby bastard idiots of the Internet. Time for a new schtick, we figured that one out.

Not live-blogging the SteveNote

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:33:30 GMT

I'm probably the only one who isn't.

And I'm probably going to have to buy a new iPhone later today, I have no idea.

In the meantime it's really upsetting watching all the geek journos scrambling for scraps.

Which raises a simple question.

1. Why don't they broadcast Apple keynotes on MSNBC or CNN? All this makeshift jury-rigged michegas. It was cute for a while, but this has been going on for 25 years!

Of course someone must be live-screening it via Qik or somesuch. If you know of any please post a comment here.

Yahoo Live has over 2700 viewers. The quality sucks.

I'm watching another one that so far has pretty good quality, so sorry I'm not going to advertise a link. :-(

No I'm not going to pay-per-view for an infomercial! Geez Louise. What is it about Apple that inspires such insipid submission.

Blow up the Beltway

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:24:02 GMT

In US politics they talk about Inside The Beltway the same way the tech industry talks about Silicon Valley.

Now, people may question whether Barack Obama really wants to connect with the power of the whole nation, or if once he gets elected he'll be an Inside The Beltway guy. I don't know if he will or he won't. I'm old enough to know that it's an important question, because I've seen bright young idealistic people get taken over by the systems they proposed to dismantle. But I also believe that it's the nature of the times to decentralize, so if Obama has the guts, and there's every reason to believe he does, it should actually work, imho.

Frank Rich, in his column in today's NY Times, explains that, on Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton and John McCain gave the same speech. Clinton's was better rehearsed, it's the same one she's been giving for months, the "fairy tale" speech that Bill Clinton gave in New Hampshire. The "angels will sing" speech she gave in Ohio and the "shame on you Barack Obama" speech in Pennsylvania. Someone taught McCain how to laugh, but it's falling apart like a Botox injection, turning into something else, something nasty. Both of them were echoing the same sentiment as the president from the previous century when he ached out loud -- "Give me a break."

People who saw the Internet as a fund-raising phenomenon after the Dean campaign were missing the point, as we said over and over, and I think at first Obama missed it too -- but he has a young, flexible and ambitious mind. When Clinton said in one of the debates that he must not only denounce Lewis Farrakhan, he must also reject him, you could see his eyes light up (at 5:52 in the video) -- Okay cooool, he said "I reject him!" So when the Internet proved it could deliver minds and bodies in addition to dollars and cents, who was Young Obama to argue?

This is the kind of flexibility you rarely see in anyone, esp in someone as young as Obama. Always look for ways to submit, to surrender. Decide what's important to you and give up on everything else. Who cares what word you want to use -- you want me to reject, then I reject!

Only Steal From The Best.

(Fired up! Ready to go!)

Obama will go to Iraq as Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman demand, but he will also go to Europe and we'll get to see, on TV, how Obama plays overseas. This will hopefully get him more votes at home, as people here yearn to be part of the rest of the world, not just push it around. There will be Barack portraits hanging in barber shops in Milwaukee, Birmingham and Bozeman, as well as Tokyo and Buenos Aires, perhaps even Cairo and Jakarta.

But back to my point. As much as I believe in the idea of Obama, if he doesn't live up to it, I'll still believe in the idea, because I always have. I don't want to be an insider, I don't want the insiders to rule, I don't want there to be insiders at all. I want to distribute opportunity and acknowledge intelligence and goodness where ever it appears. I fought against the centralized Inside The Beltway way of doing things in Silicon Valley, and we won. Of course a new aristocracy pops up but their power is as thin as the people whose power got popped in every bubble that came before.

The Internet destabilizes every hierarchy it contacts. It erases every barrier to entry. The only way to win is to point off-site, in every way you can think of. Win by offering better value, not by locking users in. People will become instant refugees to escape your clutches. Think you're immune? Think again.

Update: Papa Doc approves.

Update: Cross-posted at Huffington.

Update: Micah Sifry and Patrick Ruffini agree Obama's use of the Internet deserves more attention.

Signs of life at Twitter

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:37:54 GMT

It's great to see Twitter preparing for the onslaught of traffic that's certain to come with tomorrow's Apple event in San Francisco. Update: Something interesting is going on between Twitter and Summize re the WWDC tomorrow.

McCain gets a free ride?

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:16:25 GMT

I was just talking with Nicco about next steps with NewsJunk and the conversation turned to a piece that ran today in the Daily Mail in the U.K. about John McCain's first wife.

It appeared on NewsJunk earlier today and it's been one of the most popular clicks, but there's been nothing about it in the American press.

http://x.newsjunk.com/E0

I'll likely catch hell for promoting the piece cause it's kind of smutty, not a very high-road thing, but then McCain is running for President and there is a legit issue -- if Rev Wright was such an important story, because it raised questions about the judgment of a leading candidate, why isn't this story, which does the same thing for McCain, creating waves here in the U.S.?

IRC for Hillary Exit Speech

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:56:10 GMT

Are you watching Hillary's speech this morning?

irc://irc.freenode.net/#exitHillary

Come join the IRC channel!