Scripting News for 2/8/2007

NBC has the first network news show to go HD. 

Too much hype 

Note at 6PM Pacific: Yahoo Pipes missed its own opening day.

Back to the drawing boards for one of the most over-hyped non-events in the history of the Internet.

Pipes investigation 

I see that Yahoo has a new web app, called Pipes, that looks to me like a feed construction kit.

It takes RSS inputs, processes them in ways that are specified by the user, and produces feeds as its output.

How useful is this? Not sure. In all the years that I’ve used RSS apps, I’ve never wanted this functionality. But then I never wanted Feedburner either, and that’s proven very popular.

One of the first things I want to know is what is the quality of the RSS output they produce? Did they, like Apple did with iTunes, add a lot of proprietary stuff to their RSS? Ive been looking for some output on the web, but so far haven’t found any. I’m optimistic because Yahoo has been an outstanding RSS comunity member.

Note: the server is back up, although slow, at 8:20AM Pacific. The RSS they generate looks fine.

At 10:40AM it’s down again.

From a quick persual of the functionality last night and the fact that the server isn’t responding right now (5:45AM Pacific), it seems this app uses lots of CPU on the server.

I agree with Nik and Richard that this is an application platform, and that Pipes users are likely to be fairly technical scripting-level users.

Clearly it should take OPML as input, that’s the usual way of exchanging lists of feeds.

I’m interested in knowing what other Scripting News readers have learned from experimenting with Pipes.

Speaking at Public Media 

Good news, I’m speaking at the Public Media conf on Feb 23 in Boston, as outlined here and here, I guess it was compelling. Thanks to Doc Searls for his help.

It also looks like I may lead a discussion at Microsoft’s Mix 07 conference this year, after not getting an invite in 2006. This time I knew there was a problem in advance, and apparently asked the right question of the right people, privately.

My proposed topic is “Let’s design the perfect podcast player.” No one makes it now, not Apple, not Microsoft, but a lot of people who listen to podcasts have an idea of what they want. It makes for a good, spirited, productive discussion.

BTW, the conference ends on my 52nd birthday, which is a once in a lifetime thing because my birthday is the 2nd day of the 5th month. Yeah I was a math major. And because I’m a programmer I’m superstitious.

Scripting News for 2/7/2007

What bloggers do 

NY Times: “Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do — expressing their opinions in provocative and often crude language.”

Some people use “crude language” when they talk on the phone, and others would be offended if they heard such language. Same with bloggers. I would never say that all reporters are liars and spinmasters, even if I felt it was true, because I know it’s not. The Times coverage of blogging has always been a weak spot.

I wish the Times editors would call reporters on stuff like this.

When will they call off their war with bloggers?

Apple is now a media company 

Yesterday we learned that Steve Jobs has yet another pulpit, the web, and he used it very well to get an idea to circulate. The piece was clearly written, persuasive, short, and from what I can tell, very carefully read by all who commented, and many people commented!

Now the morning after it hits me how new this is, because Apple usually communicates through bigpub reporters like John Markoff at the NY Times and Steven Levy at Newsweek. This time he went direct, Markoff’s article appeared this morning, more than 12 hours after the essay was published, and makes clear how much better this system is than the old one.

First, the Times has a problem — they get in the way of the story, and that reduces our trust in them. Judith Miller, writing for the Times in 2003, was the classic example. They ran a series of stories, authored by Miller, that supported the Bush pretense for the war in Iraq. The stories were fabrications, the paper was used, its readers misled. They acknowledged that they did it, and even today they ran an editorial saying that more discussion was needed at the time we went to war. Yet (and here’s the key point), the Times has not reformed itself, it still has the institutional arrogance that causes it to distort stories, even when it’s obvious that they’re doing it.

A recent example, when Markoff used the term Web 3.0 in a recent front page story, without explaining where it came from, it was not in use in the industry. As far as I know, he was the first to use it, and the last. It didn’t catch on. And is that really the job of a Times reporter? Shouldn’t they be covering the news, as opposed to making the news?

And in today’s piece, titled “Jobs Calls for End to Music Copy Protection,” Markoff explains that “the subtext clearly pointed to the prospect of change.” Maybe it did, butI can’t find it in the Jobs piece. At least Markoff is honest that the justification for the title of his story was not found in the Jobs article, but where did he find it? In the subtext. What does that mean??

To be clear: Jobs all-but called for the removal of DRM, but did not go that far. Whether that’s important or not, we’ll find out. But it’s not for a reporter to infer intent when there’s no evidence to support that inference.

The other day I wrote about point-of-view making it possible to see things that you otherwise might not see. Well, because we saw the Jobs piece, and got a chance to study it for hours before it was spun by the Times, we could see how they add their color to the story, and thereby dramatically change the intent of the story they are reporting.

Perhaps Jobs wanted to communicate more precisely this time, without the filters of other media companies. To me the clear subtext of the Jobs piece is that Apple is today a media company. When the CEO goes direct to the people he wants to influence, without using other media to carry the story, something not too subtle has changed.

An experiment begins 

I’ve spent the last few days working on the archive of the DaveNet site, addressing a lot of old issues, and learning about S3, and refreshing my knowledge of the CMS that’s under all the stuff I’ve been doing for the last umpteen years. There were a bunch of broken pages, the content was unnecessarily dynamic. Now all that’s fixed and hopefully it’s situated in a place where it will not break in the future and I won’t have to worry about it, and it won’t cost much to host, etc. (I have an idea of making a proposal to Amazon to pay it a onetime fee for hosting the content for perpetuity, that way I can remove a concern for my heirs, and feel that my writing may survive me, something I’d like to assure.)

That led me to something I’ve always wanted to try, to put each story that appears on Scripting News on its own page, and now that’s done. If you click on the blue arrow next to a headline, it will take you to a static page where just that story appears. It’s still a bit rough, and the page is spartan (which I like) and it has a couple of advantages.

1. It should make the stories stand out more in search engines.

2. Techmeme will be able to access these pages, since there is nothing blocking it. The stories site has no robots.txt, at least for now.

I kind of like having my own Techmeme-free space here. But I’m curious to see what will happen now.

I have not yet updated the RSS feed to point to the individual story pages, but I think, if the experiment proves a success, that I will.

Scripting News for 2/6/2007

Interesting essay by Steve Jobs on DRM. “If the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system?” 

Brother printer with HTTP server 

Based on a recommendation from Julian Milenbach, I bought a Brother HL-5250DN printer, and so far I’m quite happy with it. You can set it up to connect via USB 2.0, which I tried for a few days with good results, but it can also connect via Ethernet, which I’m using now, and that’s much more interesting. The cool thing which is becoming almost routine, is that it has a built-in HTTP server — and it works quite well. Weird thing, the printer has an email address. Not sure what this means. Can you mail jobs to it? Oy!

Mike Arrington was over to watch the SuperBowl on Sunday, and I demo’d my Denon receiver with its built-in HTTP server. Following up by email he encouraged me to write it up. It’s hard for me to write a feature story like the ones Mike does on TechCrunch, I prefer to write things as they occur to me, and so the story is here, but it’s in chunks spread out over days.

It’s hard to explain why it’s so exciting to be able to control a consumer device like a stereo through a web browser. I have explained it verbally, often to very technical people, but the only thing that makes the point is a demo. The idea of an HTTP server in a stereo sounds like a gimick, people say they get it but you can tell they don’t because they can’t put it all together to see that you could use a laptop (or a cell phone for that matter) to control the stereo. I think you have to live this stuff for years to see how exciting it is. But the really coooool thing is that there’s someone at DENON who sees it too, someone with the resources to get it into the product.

Every picture tells a story 

Yesterday, I showed some graphs produced by Google Analytics that tell a story about the readers of Scripting News. Perhaps I didn’t provide enough detail to support one conclusion I drew: We don’t get a lot of new readers here.

I know that for a couple of reasons, and it’s supported by Ian, who works at Coremetrics, a company that is in the business of analyzing web traffic.

1. Even though it shows that 46 percent of the traffic are first timers, that’s based on a four day sample, of which two days were weekend days. Traffic patterns change on the weekend, esp for a business oriented site like Scripting News.

2. I could compare it to the graphs for the XML-RPC site, which I also host, a relatively high flow site. Its traffic is almost entirely new people. It’s not a blog, it’s a reference site, with several popular specs that are widely pointed to.

Over time the graph for Scripting News will likely skew even more toward repeat business.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this, I’m just sharing something I’ve learned. I’ve deleted some personal comments about this, which are completely ridiculous. These no doubt are the people who edit my Wikipedia bio.

Why I have a bio here 

One reason is to counteract the mischief of the idiots who keep defacing my bio on Wikipedia.

Taking care of business 

Apple is a big successful company with lots of customers and lots of employees. Microsoft is also a big successful company with lots of employees.

The iPod is a publicly released product. Vista was in public beta for many months.

Yet, Apple is warning iPod users to not install Vista, which shipped last week, until they get a chance to adapt their software so that it doesn’t destroy the user’s music and podcasts.

From outward appearances it seems someone isn’t taking care of business, and it seems that’s Apple, since you didn’t need a special agreement with Microsoft to test software with Vista. Apple can hardly plead poverty, they make enormous amounts of profit from Windows iPod users. Further, it’s so typical of Apple to ding users of Windows, to use them as pawns in their psychic battle with Microsoft, which serves no one, except perhaps them. Putting the users in the middle is bad business.

Now, it could be that a bug surfaced in the final shipping version of Vista, one that wasn’t in earlier test versions, in which case it’s just a bug, and no one is to blame. If not, it seems someone screwed up. Lots of people, actualy.

Scripting News for 2/5/2007

I’ve added a brief bio to the sidebar… 

The best part of the Useless Account writeup on TechCrunch is the useless windoid that pops up as you click the link. :-) 

BBC: “Technology giant Apple has reached a deal with the Beatles to end the dispute over the use of the Apple name.” 

YouTube has all of yesterday’s Superbowl commercials. My favorites were the Coke ads, I had seen one of them at the movies last week. I also liked the Salesgenie.com ad, it was straightforward and corny, that’s what I liked about it. 

Newly re-discovered, favorites from the Bonzo Dog Band. Tubas in the Moonlight. Ali Baba’s Camel. Hunting Tigers. Wonderful stuff! 

A picture tells the story 

On Friday I started using Google Analytics to track flow on this site. Already it’s generating useful information, confirming something I believed was true.

Most of the traffic for this site is repeat visitors, and most of it is self-generated.

In other words, some time ago a bunch of people started reading Scripting News through the day, bookmarked in some way, refreshed it periodically.

The site doesn’t get a lot of people pointing into it, there aren’t a lot of ways to discover it.

Aggregators and feed readers don’t generate any traffic because the feed contains the full content.

You can see this in the relatively low (for the traffic) Technorati rank.

Who does he think he is? 

I think many times when you know something that other people don’t — it’s simply because you’re standing some place where you can see something that you can’t see if you’re standing somewhere else. It’s not because one person is smarter, or somehow better than others, it’s just a point of view that’s making seeing possible.

For example, no doubt people in public radio would think some of the stuff I wrote on Saturday is arrogant, who does he think he is, what makes him so special, why does he think he’s so smart. He really isn’t that smart, he doesn’t know anything about public radio, why should we listen to him?

I’m like the guy who can see a truck coming, and you’re standing in its path. Why do I see it? Because it hit me a number of years ago, and to the extent that I saw it coming, I ignored it, no one else seemed worried, so why should I? Bad strategy. The truck is coming anyway, might as well factor that into your thinking. And maybe I’m wrong, in which case listening won’t hurt, might waste a little time, but then we waste so much time worrying about who he thinks he is and why should you listen, that a little more wasted time doesn’t seem so bad.

In 2000 I naively thought the music industry wanted to know why its users were suddenly so excited about their product. The idea that I could program my own music was incredibly enabling. People were talking about music in the supermarket and on the subway. Now we live in a world where our lives have their own personal soundtracks. We’re all John Travolta when we walk down the street, Stayin Alive in our own little worlds where we program the music not some DJ in a booth somewhere far away. I went to one of their conferences and gave a talk, and told them how I, as a user, was rediscovering their product. To say they didn’t want to hear it is an understatement. They called me names, shouted at me, held me responsible for their businesses. I tried to tell them money wasn’t the issue, empowerment was. But they didn’t want to hear.

They saw a truck coming, and they planned to hold their ground. Now, seven years later, it seems someone should ask, as Dr Phil might: How well did that work?

I love public radio. I’m going to put that up on the screen while I talk. I love everything about public radio. That’s why I want to see it kick ass in the new world where the former audience is using the public airwaves to communicate with each other. I want the pros in public radio to teach us how to do it, so there will be 100,000 public radio stations in the U.S. by the end of next year. Far-fectched? At one point people thought 100,000 blogs was a dream.

Scripting News for 2/4/2007

1995: “SuperBowl beer commercials are aimed at people who are drunk.” 

Cuban: Upload porn to YouTube 

Mark Cuban says Google is lying when they say they can’t prevent copyrighted content from appearing on YouTube and Google Video.

His proof is that you can’t find porn on those sites, he assumes people are uploading it, but Google is keeping it off, somehow. Presumably if they can do that, they can keep people from uploading full-length movies.

To help prove his point he asks people to upload their personal porn collections, and see if they get through.

Scripting News for 2/3/2007

Meraki Networks 

Really interesting NY Times piece about a company with a mesh network approach to covering cities with free wifi. Turns out that putting transmitters on light poles isn’t practical, which reflects what I learned trying the free wifi in Mountain View. It’s as practical as lighting a city with outdoor lights. Tends to leave big shadows in buildings. Instead, the startup, Meraki Networks, propses to create a mesh of homes that share their Internet connections.

Public Radio conference 

There’s a conference for public radio stations at the end of the month in Boston. I want to speak there, and there’s a chance I might, but in case not, there are a few ideas I wanted to insert in the flow, after blogging, podcasting, and extrapolate towards what I think will happen in the 2008 election, and the role public radio can play.

First, I’d like to offer hearty congratulations to public radio for doing such an excellent job of embracing podcasting. Their programming makes the most sense, imho, for podcasting, they have few of the licensing problems that commercial media have. As the Internet is used more to distribute content, whether streamed or via MP3, the role of the local broadcaster is diminished. There is nothing to be done about this, no point struggling against it. There’s no way we’re going back to the terrestrial broadcast model, the producers of the shows need distribution less and less, that’s just a fact. In other words, there’s some mopping up to do, and I think it will be done, and there is no shortage of controversy here, but that’s not what I came to talk about.

The political system in the US has yet to make the big transition that the Internet will cause. The candidates are still raising huge amounts of money to buy time on the commercial TV and radio networks. All this activity basically routes around non-commercial public media, which may play a small role in introducing the candidates to sources of money, but of course it doesn’t get a dime of the political advertising bonanza. However, this is good, because public radio, unlike commercial media, doesn’t have the conflict of interest that comes with it. As with podcasting, public radio can be the first to embrace the new model. There’s nothing in the way.

The new model, which I think of as a glass turned upside down, reverses the roles of candidate and the electorate. Instead of candidates putting up a superficial image that has nothing to do with who they are or what their policies will be (famously, Bush’s promise of no nation building, an example) the voters decide what their issues are, and then go shopping for a candidate. I believe the entire political system is going to re-form around this simple idea. It’s like the New Hampshire or Iowa process, gone national. The voter is the decider, the politician a vendor, the voter is the policy-maker, the politician an implementor. The voter is a customer, and the voter is a thinker and organizer. In this mix, money plays a smaller role than it does today. Maybe even an unimportant role. This is my hope, but we’ll see how it plays out.

What this means for public radio is that it should be seeking more programming from today’s listeners, because that’s where the new ideas will be coming from. The staff should do more facilitation, editing, training, outreach. The voice of public radio should be, surprise, the public. I believe this will happen whether or not public radio embraces this concept, but as with podcasting, it works so much better when we work together.

I am not advocating an instant change, nor is one possible or even desirable. My weekly listens include many public radio shows (there would be more if shows like Fresh Air and Morning Ediiton were available as podcasts). I love the flashback shows, and story of the week. But the most futuristic of the public radio podcast offerings is This I Believe, the show that gives a voice to the listener, and that’s all it does. We need more public radio like that.

Now, if I can give a speech at the conference, I’ll elaborate on these thoughts. If not, this is my stake in the ground. I don’t doubt for a minute that this is the theme of media for the 2008 election. I’ve given the idea to every candidate that has been willing to hear them. Now I’d like to give them to the media. Thanks for listening.

PS: Hey, Fresh Air is now available as a podcast. That’s a big deal.

Our wonderful legal system 

In America we love our lawyers so much, these days when kids have a playground fight there could be a lawsuit against the kid who prevails. And be careful who you choose to represent you, because they could sue you for their own malpractice. I’m sure it’s happened, somewhere.

That’s why I’ve become a fan of a website written by a lawyer called Overlawyered. Great stuff. Today they explain how having a “Super Bowl Party” can get you in trouble with the NFL. You can have a Big Game Party, no problem there, but Super Bowl is a trademark of the National Football League.

About panels at conferences 

Concise explanation of why they suck.

“Panels are competitions between people who, deprived of a chance to say what they have to say, resort to pitching products.

“Everyone walks out into the hall grumbling about how everything is happening in the hall.”

Q.E.D.

Scripting News for 2/2/2007

Sylvia speaks up for the TechCrunch conference. 

Chris Pirillo would like to market Vista for Microsoft. 

Erik Wingren responds to criticism here about Snap. 

What to do when a publication whose business runs on a page-view model, who has at least one reporter you respect, takes an unfair swipe? Call them on it, and feed their business and give them an incentive to do it again? Or ignore it — people may believe what they say. In the end, I decide to say nothing. There are people who cut corners, to whom making a buck is more important than their own integrity. Ultimately you can’t win a battle with them, so they get a pass.  

Scripting News for 2/1/2007

Good morning everybody! 

It’s been a lazy day with a little programming. Continuing to migrate static sites over the S3. Went to the movies, was entertained by excellent acting. 

Another exciting thing happened. I got my BART EZ Rider card. Now I’m itching to use it. Blogger’s breakfast in SF on Sunday? 

Jason Calacanis called last night to ask if I’d help with the conference he and Mike Arrington are planning for the fall, and of course I said yes. I was around when Demo was founded, and I seem to remember it was was always supposed to be non-commercial. It was the answer to the now-defunct Comdex trade show, where you had to walk through miles of old boring stuff to find the new cool stuff. The goal of Demo was to turn it all around, and have the products move around and you get to sit in your seat drinking coffee, munching on M&M’s and snarking and snickering with the people to the left and right. Back in the old days no one paid to present, for better or worse it was Stewart Alsop’s judgment that determined who presented. I have some ideas how the format can evolve, considering that it is almost 20 years later, and Comdex is long-gone. No matter what, it should be fun to help Mike and Jason put this together.