Hmm, Marc Canter gives us another status report on Open Standards (for personal publishing).
I'll be honest, I pretty much ignored the first two. Hey, most of the world ignores the first two of anything. But now he's starting to get somewhere.
I've been reading his stuff over and over. There's a lot there. But what I really want is a killer demo [MARC's NOTE: ME TOO!] . A prototype. Something I can use today to create a killer new type of blog. [WHY JUST THAT? THERE ARE PLENTY OF BLOG TOOLS. How 'bout something complementary for your digital lifetyle?]
Also, I think Marc focuses way too much on protocols and vendors. Let's look at it another way.
When you read the San Jose Mercury News, do you care that they used Adobe Photoshop and Quark XPress to produce your newspaper? I don't. [But Robert, as Dave Winer has shown - somebody has to worry about the innards. My expertise is authoring tools. The trick is to get us - "down the pyramid - for "rest of you."]
I feel the same way about weblogging. I really could give a rats ass who's weblog tools you used to put a picture on your page, or write your words.
Now, when I was a vendor, I felt the other way. I wanted everyone to know that I used Radio UserLand to build my blog.
It's definitely a problem, since there are two conflicting goals happening here.
I'm also trying to absorb what Ryze is doing and what all the other guys in the personal publishing/identity space are doing. Obviously something is happening, but to me it isn't as big a deal as when I first saw ICQ. At least not yet. [I AGREE - that's why we gotta focus on what the ACTIVITIES are between people! Everyone says that about Ryze. "Once you get there - now what?" But it's that new way of spontaneously forming communities - that's got me excited!]
Maybe I'm missing it, though, and it'll all look different in the morning.
On the other hand, I want the ability to easily publish a weblog with words, easy to add photos, and other cool things. I think this weblog thing has a long long way to go before it will feel "finished." It's still way too hard to get a digital picture up on my weblog, for instance.
Marc, don't despair, it takes me a while to "get things" and eventually it'll click just what you're doing and how I can add some value to it. I definitely am spending some time thinking about what I want my weblog (er, personal portal or whatever this stuff becomes) to be in the future and Marc is probably one of those who'll give me tools to fulfill my dreams -- I can't wait to see what comes out of his head next. :-)
This is an area I wish Microsoft were investing in. [Or ANYBODY investing in!] Instead they are doing MSN Groups, which really come short. It's funny, I still own a few of the largest MSN Groups and MSN's management has never asked me how to improve what they do.
Is anyone from the MSN groups listening? If you are, I'd be happy to outline what I'm thinking about here.
By the way, Kevin Lynch over at Macromedia has a bunch of photos on his weblog. That tells me that he's probably working on a photo tool for webloggers. Hmmm. Kevin's weblog is definitely inspiring. I have more than 4000 images shot on my Nikon and I want to share those with you in the same way that Kevin is sharing images on his weblog. Right now it's too time consuming to bring pics into my PC, cut them down, put them in the right place, upload them, and then put in the right HTML. There's gotta be a better way.
[The Scobleizer Weblog]
Robert is right - I do focus a lot on the tools, rather than the content - but I can't help that - I'm a tool guy. I also agree that Kevin et al clearly are working on some sort of image tool. Cool!
And it's OK that Robert ignored my first two reports - without some meaty, actual code to play with - it's all just the ramblings of a mad-man anyway. But we're working here - with no money - trying to get something out the door, to start the process of putting our money (well more like virtual chits) where our mouth (at least MY mouth) is.
I usually stay content agnostic (at least I did during my first life) so that the tools we build can be applied across a wide range of applications and usages. Imagine if we had made Director into a tool JUST for cartoon animations or visualizations?
So I will still stay relatively content agnostic, with the exception of a devastatingly precise focus on end-user's experiences - and the activities that happen BETWEEN PEOPLE - which obviously is ALL about content.
The content nowadays IS the people themselves. Despite years of dogma, I've recently awoke to the realization that no one (except for me and maybe Jonathan Peterson and a few other idealogues) care about rich media presentations. Everyone else actually cares about what it is they're doing.
So blogging - yes. Cruising around and meeting people - yes. IM, email and message boards - yes. Collecting, maintaining and listening to your music - yes. Same for photos and video. Dealing with your devices and your cell phone - yes. And folks like to use their technology to get in touch (eVite), stay in touch (eGroups) and sell things (eBay.) These are all crucial activities that humans want to do - and it's TOO HARD for them to put it all together and get it to work right - now!
There are so many incredible things that can be done - unfortunately we don't all have our own Jason DeFillippos, Dave Sifrys or Pete Kaminskis to call up and create our own "on-line" communities - like Blogrolling.com, Technorati and SocialText.
So imagine if there was a tool that could create and maintain complex, on-line communities - with the push of a button. And I don't mean JUST message boards! Hhhhmmmmmm.
Scott has an incredible product that is picking up the mantle of leadership in not only Outlining, but digital lifestyle products in general. So why is he tied to the Mac? I don't understand why he can't do NoteTaker - for the PC Windows environment? Does he need funding to get there?
You HAVE to be platform independent, and not only make money off of little Billy Gates - but other new worlds, as well, like Linux for the Desktop and gaming platforms. Let alone Interactive TV.
