I Believe In Open
And standards. And the ability of both to fuel communities and commerce. Which is precisely why I don’t own an iPhone – and won’t. TechCrunch gets at this…
Geeks and enthusiasts wearing WordPress t-shirts, using laptops covered in Data Portability, Microformats and RSS stickers lined up enthusiastically on Friday to purchase a device that is completely proprietary, controlled and wrapped in DRM. The irony was lost on some as they ran home, docked their new devices into a proprietary media player and downloaded closed source applications wrapped in DRM.
I am referring to the new iPhone – and the new Apple iPhone SDK that allows developers to build ‘native’ applications. The announcement was greeted with a web-wide standing ovation, especially from the developer community. The same community who demand all from Microsoft, feel gifted and special when Apple give them an inch of rope. When Microsoft introduced DRM into Media Player it was bad bad bad – and it wasn’t even mandatory, it simply allowed content owners a way to distribute and sell content from anywhere.
Wordle Fun
Kind of fun way of visualizing a feed. Here is the feed from Ideastorm visualized – you can seem big themes and words coming through. Not sure what the source of the words was to generate prominence.
push the button twice…
Yes… that’s it… Now move the little arrow around… Really… This is what a potential future President McCain had to say… during an interview:
“Do you go online yourself?” McCain, referring to his aides answered, “They go on for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need – including going to my daughter’s blog first, before anything else. … I don’t e-mail; I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail. I read e-mails all the time, but the communications that I have with my friends and staff are oral and done with my cell phone.”
Ok. Nice. Surely basic computer literacy should be a requirement for the highest post in the land? Lucky I don’t get to vote. Pay taxes, yes. Vote, no.
Off Blogging. Onto Email.
The whole Jason thing has ignited a fair amount of debate about blogging. No question, he has every right to communicate to fewer folks but the cynic in me says that isn’t really his intent.
By creating an “exclusive” email list Jason is essentially attempting to make his content more valuable and perhaps – just perhaps – increase it’s impact and distribution. I don’t buy that creating a mailing list of 1,000 people will make it more personal.
He makes some valid points when it comes to the blogerati:
[…] while blogging is clearly booming, there has been a deep qualitative change in the nature of the ’sphere. There are so many folks involved in blogging today, and it’s moving at a much quicker pace thanks to “social accelerants” like TechMeme, digg, Friendfeed and Twitter. Folks are so desperate to be heard – and we all want to be heard that’s why we blog – that the effort put into being heard has eclipsed the actual hearing.
Bloggers spend more time digging, tweeting, and SEOing their posts than they do on the posts themselves. In the early days of blogging Peter Rojas, who was my blog professor, told me what was required to win at blogging: “show up every day.” In 2003 and 2004 that was the case. Today? What’s required is a team of social marketers to get your message out there, and a second one to manage the fall-out from whatever you’ve said.
I simply don’t buy that this is the motive for many bloggers – for the heat seeking blogerati, yes. For the majority, we enjoy our conversations with a much smaller sphere of folks. We don’t think about standing out. Even about content that much. We just think about the conversation and connecting.
Jason’s first email does point to a broader trend – a widening gap between the authentic blogger and the “plogger” (publisher as blogger). Different motives, approaches, and behaviors characterize each.
On a personal note, I’ll be sad to see Jason stop blogging. I enjoyed his blog and found all the tips and thoughts helpful in understanding more about Mahalo. I can’t help wondering if there isn’t something else going on here given the strong link between the blog and Mahalo?
