Tag: Dave Winer

Centralized vs. Decentralized Weblogging Tools

Dave Winer raked Burning Bird over the coals today for falsely claiming that in order to set up a weblog with Radio, you have to use Userland as a host. This is of course, incorrect. In fact, if I wanted to I could use Radio to post to my web site which isn’t on a Userland Host and doesn’t uses a content management system produced by Userland (though the CMS does run on top of Frontier).

But both Movable Type (which Burning Bird uses), Conversant and a number of other CMSes are decentralized in a way that Radio is not — namely, they are not wedded to a desktop client.

I can post to my web site from anywhere in the world. I usually post on most days from both my home and work computers, and occasionally just about anywhere else I can find a web connection — because that’s all I need to post, is access to a web client (or e-mail client or news reader).

I was talking with someone today who is an educator and teaching an online class who was describing how important that is. This professor is teaching courses in-state and out-of-the-country. And regardless of where he is travelling, he can update his course, reply to student inquiries, etc. anywhere he has access to a web browser.

The promo. material for Radio says, “It’s an easy-to-use Weblog tool that runs on your desktop, so it’s fast, and ready to go when you are.” Except when I leave my desk — then I’m left out of the loop (or left trying to synchronize data among different desktops — ugh!)

Centralizing the client-side of web site creation by requiring a desktop client just doesn’t make any sense. Forget the websites on the desktop. I want my web site on my desktop, my laptop, the computer at the library, my 802.11b equipped PDA — if I can get a web browser or e-mail client running on it, I should be alb to post to and update my web site.

Practice What You Preach

Imagine Dave Winer’s reaction if this press release read,

“We are pleased to offer Weblog creators the ability to post headlines from NYTimes.com with Pyra’s software,” said Martin Nisenholtz, CEO of New York Times Digital. “Weblogs are an increasingly popular form of self-publishing within a highly influential community, and are therefore an important distribution channel for our high-quality content.”

I’m sure you can come up with a rant about dinosaurs, clueless old media, lockin and lockout, the importance of standards, yada yada yada.

I should add that I have nothing at all against exclusive deals. If I could arrange for an exclusive arrangement where only I got to run New York Times headlines I would do it in a second. It is not an issue of a particular business deal but rather about hypocrisy about the way to do business in general.

Winer Celebrates Locking Out Users

Userland is apparently tickled pink at its exclusive deal to syndicate New York Times headlines.

I guess all of that talk about openness, avoiding lockin, yada yada yada is just so much marketing gobbledygook.

Leave it to Winer to spend months railing about standards and RSS and then reach a deal with The Times for proprietary headlines.

What shall we call this? The OneWayWeb?

It is this sort of attitude, more than any of the technical limitations of Radio (I post from four to five different computers on any given day), that will keep me from give Userland my $40 for Radio.

Dave Winer Drops a Stink Bomb

Dave Winer announced the “bomblet” he was hyping on his site yesterday — a parternship deal with The New York Times to syndicate NYT headlines through Radio. Uh, sorry, this is a step backwards. According to his promotional page on the partnership deal,

The New York Times feeds are only available for Radio 8 users. If you haven’t got Radio yet, you can get a thirty-day free trial. If you already have Radio, you can be subscribing to fresh New York Times headlines in less than one minute.

So you can have a syndicated NYT feed, you just have to use Radio 8.

If City Desk or Blogger or any of his competitors reached such an exclusive partnership with the NYT, Winer would be throwing a royal fit on his web site, complaining about how it locks users into a single vendor (which it does). Why start ghetto-izing syndication just when it’s taking off so successfully?

The only thing Winer’s announcement means is that the NYT is still clueless (and reaffirms a lot of suspicions people had about working with Winer on things like RSS 0.92).

Dave Winer Spreads More Misinformation

Dave Winer certainly knows how to spread misinformation, usually by talking about things he knows almost nothing about. Today, for example, Winer vents about John Ashcroft, but adds that it would be okay “if they were clamping down on sales of automatic weapons at US gun shows.”

What an idiot. I’ve been to a number of gun shows and never seen an automatic weapon sold or bought.

Why?

Because since 1934 it has been illegal to sell automatic weapons without special permission of the U.S. Treasury Department. You can’t just walk into a gun show or shop and buy an automatic weapon. To buy an automatic weapon in the United States you have to undergo an FBI background check, then submit an application complete with fingerprints and photo to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and a signed affidavit from the chief local law enforcement officer in your area that the sale of this weapon is consistent with public safety.

If Dave Winer had ever been to a single gun show he might know that, but why let the facts get in the way of a good argument?