Articles by Dave Winer

Early Notes on GoogleApps

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

Now, what Google announced is really exciting! I'm not kidding. It's even better than I hoped. Yes, it's only Python, but IBM's PC-DOS was only BASIC and Pascal when it first came out, and it didn't matter. Yeah, I preferred C, but I coded in Pascal because that's what you had to do to get an app running. What you're going to see here that you've never seen before is shrinkwrap net apps that scale that can be deployed by civillians. That's a mouthful, but that's what's coming. Why? Because here is a standardized platform that can be stamped out in the billions of units. Maybe Google can't do it, but the perception is that they can. Who is willing to stand up and say Google hasn't nailed scaling? What PCs did in the 80s, Google is doing now. PCs took the black magic out of owning a computer.

New York Times and Burnout in the Blogosphere

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:30:00 EDT

The NY Times had a story yesterday, much-written-about in the blogosphere, that said that bloggers were working themselves to death. This was one article about blogging I was glad to be left out of, even so, it could have been about me, a number of years ago, when my lifestyle almost did kill me.

The Next Step in Digg Clones

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 08:15:00 EST

So here's the idea... Imagine Digg in the old days, when there were just 25 people using it. Maybe that wasn't enough. Maybe it didn't really get interesting until there were 100 users or 250 or 1000. It was good, the articles were gems, things we weren't finding on our own, there were huge numbers of them, but they were prioritized, and the community had a heart of gold, people were doing it for love. The maturity level was high. But then something happened as Digg grew from 100 users to 100,000 and more. I'm not going to characterize it other than to say that it stopped being interesting to me as it grew. The stories weren't what I was looking for.

Contrary Opinion: MySpace and Google, Where's the Beef?

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:00:00 EDT

Imho, Google has a long way to go to build the base of users and developers connected using the new protocol that is the subject of all this chest-thumping. Do they exist in any tangible form? How much of a moving target are they? It's like proclaiming the new owners of A-Rod's contract as the winners of the 2008 World Series. Only in tech, a persistently immature industry, could such an idea be aired seriously (assuming Mike is actually serious). I hope that the Facebook people, many of whom have never been in the middle of a tech PR war, don't overreact. Me, I've been around this block so many times and it's boring. Let's see some software then I'll let you know if this means anything. But Google is keeping people like me far away, which suggests that there may actually be no 'there' there.

Google Trying to Undermine Facebook

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:45:00 EDT

Standards devised by one tech company whose main purpose is to undermine another tech company, usually don't work. In this case it's Google trying to undermine Facebook. And I don't think it's going to work. What would be exciting and uplifting, a real game-changer -- Internet companies giving users full control of their data.

Why Facebook Sucks

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:30:00 EDT

Another topic Scoble and I talked about today was Facebook. I said I don't like Facebook, never have, and I finally figured out why. It's another one of those user generated content things, only this time I'm building up an address book that I can look at, but can only do things with it that Facebook lets me do. Why exactly do I need Facebook to get in between me and my address book?

Forrester is Wrong on iPhone

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 08:45:00 EDT

Forrester analyst Vidya Lakshmipathy claims that the iPhone's approach to the web eliminates the need for 'stripped down sites crammed onto the small screens of devices meant for phoning, not browsing.' I would love to agree, but I came to the opposite conclusion. 7/25/07: 'I think what Apple has attempted is noble, but it's not going to work. The screens have limited resolution, and even if they didn't, even if they could cram a billion pixels into every square inch, there's the limit of how much detail our eyes can see and how big our hands are.' I'm glad to have the opportunity to elaborate.

Should Every Application Be a Platform?

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:15:00 EDT

The idea then came up again with the push to integrated software in the early 80s. Mitch Kapor and Lotus were selling the idea of an all-in-one package, Symphony, which was a word processor, database, spreadsheet, graphics and communication program, with a macro language tying it all together. Bill Gates proposed a different approach, let each app stand alone and share its data with other apps through a common scripting language. This idea was so good that I started a company in 1988, UserLand Software, to create such a scripting language for the Mac, which then had a rich user interface and a totally underdeveloped scripting interface. Today, the Macintosh has a rich tradition of interapplication communication, made possible by this simple idea that every app should have an API.

An iPod with a Radio? Apple Is Chickenshit!

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Tomorrow Apple is going to announce something new, people say it's an iPod of some sort, and there are rumors that its big innovation is that it supports digital radio, with a tie-in to the Apple site that sells music. Okay, that's all speculation, let's get that objection out of the way. But in case it's true, let me be the first to say: Apple is chickenshit!

Microsoft Search Engine Meeting: There Are Two Sides to Every Story

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 17:30:00 EDT

A few years ago, along with a bunch of other bloggers, I was invited to a Microsoft event to discuss their search engine. Having been to many such Microsoft events in the past, I thought the format was they would talk, and then we would talk, and then they would talk and we'd talk and so on. So when it came our turn, I gave them a lot of ideas, I thought that most of them were pretty good, but even if they weren't, my intention was to help them.

What Is Web 3.0?

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 10:45:00 EDT

My talk went well, and I did talk briefly about how we should think about Web 3.0. I know other people have said it's the Semantic Web, and maybe that use of the name will stick. I'm with Tim Berners-Lee who says Web 2.0 is really what the web itself is about. He always intended it to be a two-way medium. First, I think of Web 2.0 as the Two-Way Web, the Read-Write Web, the Web of User-Generated Content. It's Flickr and blogs and wikis. It's everybody creating the medium for everyone else.

Will CNet Survive Web 2.0 and the Blogosphere?

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 07:45:00 EDT

Mike gets stories that CNet doesn't get, that no one else gets. Look at the piece he did on Mitch Kapor's product earlier today. Compare that against the nonsense that passes for tech news done by the pros. They put reporters on the stories who have no idea what they're writing about, and you can tell. Or old school guys who only quote their friends, and haven't found a new trend or product in years. All they know is that Apple, Google and Microsoft are important and that little companies are not. So it's a long time before a CNet hack gets to tell Mike how to do his job, even if he does act as a mouthpiece for a crappy Microsoft campaign (I wish he wouldn't do that).

iPhone Sales and the Product Itself Disappointing

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:30:00 EDT

Today's the 25th of July, the iPhone shipped on June 29, that's the day I got mine, so we're getting pretty close to the end of a month with the iPhone. The tech press usually doesn't review products after a month of use, but that's when you really find out if it was worth the initial hype. The NY Times reports that iPhone sales are disappointing, I'd like to add that the product itself is disappointing. I still own and use a Blackberry for its email and web capabilities, both of which outshine Apple's product. Because the iPhone doesn't have a search command, and apparently doesn't store messages locally, it makes a poor choice for a mobile email client.

Why Feedburner Is Trouble, Day 2

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:45:00 EDT

Saturday's post about Feedburner was much-discussed, and that's good. The most common rebuttal from people who didn't agree was the user's ability to opt out. If you don't like it you don't have to use Feedburner. But that's not any kind of a rebuttal at all. Let me illustrate. First, I don't use Feedburner, never have, never will. However, if Google, the new owner of Feedburner ties Feedburner to Google Reader, that still hurts people like me, because my feed, that isn't served through Feedburner, doesn't work as well with Google Reader.

Why Feedburner Is Trouble

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:00:00 EDT

So now someone at Google 'owns' Feedburner and all their feeds. And they could, if they wanted to, change the feeds to another format, overnight, without asking anyone. Reader software might have trouble working with it. They would say 'Oh but the new feeds work better with Google Reader, and that's the one most people use.' And by the way, more and more that's true these days. But what about other feed suppliers? Do they have to change to work with Google Reader? They will say no, but there may turn out to be practical reasons why they must.

Instant Indexing by Google

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:30:00 EDT

I just searched on Google for 'flatdown opml' and it returned the article I wrote 15 minutes ago. In 1997 I wrote about Just-in-Time Search Engines and how important they would be. Back then I was thinking about overnight indexing. Now we've got instant indexing. Knock that one off the to-do list, it's done.

Web 2.0 - It's Time to Open Up Networking, Again

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:30:00 EDT

Last week I had a meeting with a serial entrepreneur who's working on a new company whose product is a calendar for social networks, or a social network of calendars, depending on which thread you pick up. It's basically a good idea, a no-brainer, because time and networking relate to each other. I have relationships with individuals, or any group of people I choose to meet with. Of course systems can work better if there's a way to express those relationships.

What To Doo With Yahoo?

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:30:00 EDT

The big win for Yahoo was My.Yahoo, it was the perfect example of send them away to get them to come back. Any comeback for Yahoo must include revitalizing this service, quickly, because this is yet another area where Google is gaining ground on the sleeping giant. Scott Gatz, the exec who made My.Yahoo what it is, is still at the company. I'd also suggest decentralizing the company more. Some analyst told them they needed to gain economy and synergy from their acquisitions by centralizing and eliminating duplication, but this makes no sense. Their goal isn't to economize, the goal is to grow. That's the only thing that matters.

Apache Question

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 13:45:00 EDT

The server that runs this site is running Windows 2000 and Apache for Windows. My CMS is the OPML editor. I use a desktop tool to communicate with the editor on the server via XML-RPC. When I save the document locally, it sends a copy to the server, where it renders it in HTML and writes a file in a folder that Apache serves from. There are two applications running on the server, one writes into the folder and the other serves from the folder. The first is the OPML Editor, the second is Apache. (There actually are other apps on the server, but I don't think they're part of the problem I'm describing.)

Google Gears

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 16:30:00 EDT

Google is going to announce a toolkit today that lets you run web apps on a disconnected machine. Something we had working in Radio in 2001. The key is something called a desktop web server. Nothing revolutionary about it. A database and CMS that runs on the local machine. I suspect that their approach will be heavier on the database and lighter on the CMS, since they like Ajax apps (as do many others, of course), where the content rendering happens in the browser, in Javascript.