Novell Acquires Ximian: "Networking software specialist Novell (Quote, Company Info), once a staunch proponent of proprietary software, continued its waltz into the open source sphere Monday with the announcement that it has acquired Ximian, a specialist in Linux desktop, management and groupware technologies.
'That's actually a pretty clever move,' Nicholas Petreley, Linux analyst with Evans Data Corp., told internetnews.com.
He added, 'The downside is that Novell has not historically done very well with its strategies. It could be that, even if they have the most brilliant idea on the planet, they're not going to be able to execute it effectively to make it work. On the other hand, if they can get some good leadership in there, I expect they can present a challenge to Microsoft Exchange and Outlook, and they can also leverage some of Ximian's other strengths to break into other areas, such as Mono, the .NET clone.'"
Gee, I wonder if this will lead to a change in Microsoft's stance on Mono...
Monday, August 04, 2003
Economist.com | Holographic data storage
Economist.com | Holographic data storage: "After years of development, researchers are on the verge of using holograms to store data in memories that are both fast and vast
The notion of holographic memory dates back to 1963, when Pieter van Heerden, a researcher at Polaroid, first proposed using the method to store data in three dimensions. In theory, it is a great idea. Existing media store data in only two dimensions. Adding a third would make storage devices far more efficient. But despite massive spending over four decades, a complete, general-purpose system that could be sold commercially has eluded both industrial and academic researchers.
It is still elusive. But it is getting closer. The first commercial holographic memory should be on the market next year, and more are expected to follow. When that happens, there may be a ballooning of computer storage capacity that will make existing disks look like leaflets compared with the Encyclopaedia Britannica."
The notion of holographic memory dates back to 1963, when Pieter van Heerden, a researcher at Polaroid, first proposed using the method to store data in three dimensions. In theory, it is a great idea. Existing media store data in only two dimensions. Adding a third would make storage devices far more efficient. But despite massive spending over four decades, a complete, general-purpose system that could be sold commercially has eluded both industrial and academic researchers.
It is still elusive. But it is getting closer. The first commercial holographic memory should be on the market next year, and more are expected to follow. When that happens, there may be a ballooning of computer storage capacity that will make existing disks look like leaflets compared with the Encyclopaedia Britannica."
searchDomino.com: Domino blogs: Collaboration's next frontier?
searchDomino.com: Domino blogs: Collaboration's next frontier?: "Lotus is getting into the blogging game, too. Lotus marketing manager Ed Brill, who uses DominoBlog for his own personal blog, said Lotus is contemplating a white paper about the benefits of blogging in Domino, including the software's replication features.
Lotus, which developed its own Notes/Domino blogging templates for Brill's marketing department, has not officially endorsed DominoBlog, BlogSphere, FreeDom Blog (from www.freedomblog.com), or any other blogging templates for use with Domino.
Brill noted, however, that two IBM Lotus business partners, Connectria Corp. and Domino Developer Network Inc., are now offering blog-hosting services. "
I would gladly move to a Notes R6-based blogging tool if I found one that combines simplicity, structure (e.g., content categorization), and seamless blogger API support (e.g., ability to use an IE favorite to blog in context a la BlogThis!).
Lotus, which developed its own Notes/Domino blogging templates for Brill's marketing department, has not officially endorsed DominoBlog, BlogSphere, FreeDom Blog (from www.freedomblog.com), or any other blogging templates for use with Domino.
Brill noted, however, that two IBM Lotus business partners, Connectria Corp. and Domino Developer Network Inc., are now offering blog-hosting services. "
I would gladly move to a Notes R6-based blogging tool if I found one that combines simplicity, structure (e.g., content categorization), and seamless blogger API support (e.g., ability to use an IE favorite to blog in context a la BlogThis!).
ongoing · Unflash
ongoing · Unflash "At Antarctica, for version 3.0 of Visual Net, we added a Flash-based user interface to our traditional HTML flavor. For 4.0, which ships sometime before end-of-year, we’ll be backing it out and sticking to dynamic HTML. It’s the right thing to do, but the choice wasn’t a slam-dunk.
...
A few months back, for good reasons, we had finally decided to give up on supporting the pre-V5 browsers. In parallel, I (partly because of ongoing) had started to become aware how much you could do with DHTML, and how sophisticated you could get, and how portable it could be. I became convinced that it could give us a high proportion of that Flash eye-candy.
(Just to be clear: When I say “Dynamic HTML” I mean sophisticated modern HTML combined with a lot of Javascript and (especially) CSS; you can do an amazing variety of things very cleanly just by twiddling class= attribute values.)
And in fact, our latest trial deployments (not quite based on the released code-base) look remarkably good, if I say so myself. The only things that I really miss from the Flash versions are the animations and the nice partial-transparency tricks (which you could do if IE supported PNG properly).
I’ll admit to having hated Javascript based on the “View Source” effect. For some reason, most JS code out there in production is hideously ugly and egregiously unreadable, I had concluded that that’s just the way it was. If you keep your JS in a separate file so it only downloads when changed, there’s no reason to compactify it, and it ends up substantially more readable than some other scripting languages I could name. There’s some weirdness all right, but as trade-offs go it’s not a bad one.
Now, if the browsers supported SVG..."
...
A few months back, for good reasons, we had finally decided to give up on supporting the pre-V5 browsers. In parallel, I (partly because of ongoing) had started to become aware how much you could do with DHTML, and how sophisticated you could get, and how portable it could be. I became convinced that it could give us a high proportion of that Flash eye-candy.
(Just to be clear: When I say “Dynamic HTML” I mean sophisticated modern HTML combined with a lot of Javascript and (especially) CSS; you can do an amazing variety of things very cleanly just by twiddling class= attribute values.)
And in fact, our latest trial deployments (not quite based on the released code-base) look remarkably good, if I say so myself. The only things that I really miss from the Flash versions are the animations and the nice partial-transparency tricks (which you could do if IE supported PNG properly).
I’ll admit to having hated Javascript based on the “View Source” effect. For some reason, most JS code out there in production is hideously ugly and egregiously unreadable, I had concluded that that’s just the way it was. If you keep your JS in a separate file so it only downloads when changed, there’s no reason to compactify it, and it ends up substantially more readable than some other scripting languages I could name. There’s some weirdness all right, but as trade-offs go it’s not a bad one.
Now, if the browsers supported SVG..."
I.B.M.'s Fragile Chip Business
I.B.M.'s Fragile Chip Business "I.B.M. has moved steadily away from technology manufacturing, a cyclical, capital-hungry business, increasingly focusing on services and software. I.B.M.'s hardware businesses — server computers, personal computers and chips — account for 31 percent of revenue these days, down from 43 percent in 1999. As the disappointing second quarter suggests, the semiconductor business accounts for very little of I.B.M.'s revenue — about 3 percent — but it can hurt the company's earnings when things go badly.
I.B.M.'s technology group, consisting mainly of the semiconductor business, lost $111 million before taxes last quarter, reducing company earnings by more than 4 cents a share. Most analysts expected the technology group to show only a relatively slight loss for the quarter, perhaps $10 million to $25 million.
"It was a major miss for the microelectronics division," said A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. "There have been doubters before about I.B.M.'s semiconductor strategy. And the doubters, at least for now, seem to have a valid concern."
Two weeks ago, Michel Mayer, the second-ranking executive in I.B.M.'s technology group, was moved out of his job and has not yet been reassigned."
Don't panic yet; I'm sure Macs and PlayStation 3s will make all the difference; maybe IBM Global Services can find a way to displace Windows PCs in the enterprise with PlayStations...
I.B.M.'s technology group, consisting mainly of the semiconductor business, lost $111 million before taxes last quarter, reducing company earnings by more than 4 cents a share. Most analysts expected the technology group to show only a relatively slight loss for the quarter, perhaps $10 million to $25 million.
"It was a major miss for the microelectronics division," said A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. "There have been doubters before about I.B.M.'s semiconductor strategy. And the doubters, at least for now, seem to have a valid concern."
Two weeks ago, Michel Mayer, the second-ranking executive in I.B.M.'s technology group, was moved out of his job and has not yet been reassigned."
Don't panic yet; I'm sure Macs and PlayStation 3s will make all the difference; maybe IBM Global Services can find a way to displace Windows PCs in the enterprise with PlayStations...
What: Mob Scene. Who: Strangers. Point: None.
What: Mob Scene. Who: Strangers. Point: None.: "Many people were asking the same question. The telephone-wielding crowd was the latest incarnation of something called flash mobs. Called into being on short notice by Web sites and e-mail distribution lists, flash mobs meet at an appointed time, engage in some organized spontaneity for a few minutes, then rapidly disperse. The activities are innocent, if mysterious, and tend to bring together loose groupings of surprisingly conventional looking young adults.
Brimming with such a lack of purpose, the fad has found a home in Berlin and across Germany.
...
As might be suspected, New York is the acknowledged place where people first used the latest technology to gather and delight in pointlessness. In June, more than 100 people gathered in the rug department of Macy's, claiming to a bewildered clerk that they were looking for a "love rug" for their suburban commune. The concept quickly took on a life of its own, propelled by e-mail, cellphones and the Internet.
...
The lack of apparent purpose only broadens the appeal of flash mobs. Still, woven among the cheerful inanity of like-minded Web sites like cheesebikini.com and flashmob.info is some discussion of their importance. Howard Rheingold, who has published a book entitled "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution," thinks flash mobs are part of a larger trend. "Right now, it's just people wanting to do something silly and it's not hurting anybody, so what's the harm?" he says on smartmobs.com, a Web site that is dedicated to his book. "But it shouldn't come as a surprise when this becomes a major outlet of political activism soon as well," he says, perhaps hopefully."
Brimming with such a lack of purpose, the fad has found a home in Berlin and across Germany.
...
As might be suspected, New York is the acknowledged place where people first used the latest technology to gather and delight in pointlessness. In June, more than 100 people gathered in the rug department of Macy's, claiming to a bewildered clerk that they were looking for a "love rug" for their suburban commune. The concept quickly took on a life of its own, propelled by e-mail, cellphones and the Internet.
...
The lack of apparent purpose only broadens the appeal of flash mobs. Still, woven among the cheerful inanity of like-minded Web sites like cheesebikini.com and flashmob.info is some discussion of their importance. Howard Rheingold, who has published a book entitled "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution," thinks flash mobs are part of a larger trend. "Right now, it's just people wanting to do something silly and it's not hurting anybody, so what's the harm?" he says on smartmobs.com, a Web site that is dedicated to his book. "But it shouldn't come as a surprise when this becomes a major outlet of political activism soon as well," he says, perhaps hopefully."
A Magazine's Radical Plan: Make a Profit
A Magazine's Radical Plan: Make a Profit "Despite significant circulation and advertising gains and a passel of journalism awards since he acquired the magazine from Mortimer Zuckerman, The Atlantic continues to lose millions of dollars a year. So Mr. Bradley, the consultant, advised Mr. Bradley, the magazine owner, to take several steps that are both radical and simple, at least in the publishing industry: charge readers more while shunning the cult of big circulation.
In 2004, The Atlantic Monthly will cut its rate base, the number of copies promised to advertisers, to 325,000 from 450,000 (the magazine's actual average circulation exceeded 500,000 last year). And readers will be asked to pay almost twice as much to subscribe — about $30 instead of an average of about $16. The changes come after the magazine decreased its frequency to 10 times a year from 12, so the per-copy price is even higher."
Renew today, before they double the price! In the meantime, watch for an excellent James Fallows article on Rupert Murdoch in the latest issue -- which is not yet posted on the magazine's Web site.
In 2004, The Atlantic Monthly will cut its rate base, the number of copies promised to advertisers, to 325,000 from 450,000 (the magazine's actual average circulation exceeded 500,000 last year). And readers will be asked to pay almost twice as much to subscribe — about $30 instead of an average of about $16. The changes come after the magazine decreased its frequency to 10 times a year from 12, so the per-copy price is even higher."
Renew today, before they double the price! In the meantime, watch for an excellent James Fallows article on Rupert Murdoch in the latest issue -- which is not yet posted on the magazine's Web site.
WSJ.com - Six Degrees of Exploitation?
WSJ.com - Six Degrees of Exploitation? "It's not what you know. It's who you know.
Turning that old maxim into a commercial concept, several new companies are developing software to help employers mine their employees' acquaintances for new business prospects. The programs scan workers' contacts from their computerized address books, instant-message buddy lists, electronic calendars and e-mail correspondence. They then make maps of all the relationships they finds among the employees and all their contacts.
The goal is to identify people within the company who have potentially useful contacts elsewhere and could make a personal introduction, say, linking a salesperson with a potential customer, an attorney with a prospective client or a fund-raiser with likely donors.
New York-based Visible Path, and Spoke Software Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., are both rushing to get final versions of their so-called relationship-mining software out later this year. ZeroDegrees Inc., of Santa Monica, Calif., just unveiled a test version of software with a similar concept that can be used by individuals who want to share their contact lists with selected others.
Antony Brydon, president of Visible Path Inc. says programs like this wouldn't have worked well until recently, because people remembered the phone numbers of their closest friends and never wrote them down. Today, with cell phones and 10-digit dialing in many cities, almost everyone stores contacts in computers, he says, where software programs can easily mine them.
The software companies trace their origins to the academic field of social-network analysis, which merges psychology and statistics to create social maps that show how people are connected. They cite the sociological theory that no more than six degrees of separation exist between any two people in the world and say their maps help discover those often unknown links.
The business-oriented software programs are variants of the increasingly popular Web-based social networks such as Friendster.com, a dating service, and Ryze.com, which aims to help people network for business purposes. But those services build from the bottom up, with members submitting contacts to the network, rather than top-down with search-engines pulling contacts from their e-mail and other desktop sources."
(The "HailStorm" model didn't die; it just went quiet until a more receptive target audience evolves -- shouldn't be long now...)
Turning that old maxim into a commercial concept, several new companies are developing software to help employers mine their employees' acquaintances for new business prospects. The programs scan workers' contacts from their computerized address books, instant-message buddy lists, electronic calendars and e-mail correspondence. They then make maps of all the relationships they finds among the employees and all their contacts.
The goal is to identify people within the company who have potentially useful contacts elsewhere and could make a personal introduction, say, linking a salesperson with a potential customer, an attorney with a prospective client or a fund-raiser with likely donors.
New York-based Visible Path, and Spoke Software Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., are both rushing to get final versions of their so-called relationship-mining software out later this year. ZeroDegrees Inc., of Santa Monica, Calif., just unveiled a test version of software with a similar concept that can be used by individuals who want to share their contact lists with selected others.
Antony Brydon, president of Visible Path Inc. says programs like this wouldn't have worked well until recently, because people remembered the phone numbers of their closest friends and never wrote them down. Today, with cell phones and 10-digit dialing in many cities, almost everyone stores contacts in computers, he says, where software programs can easily mine them.
The software companies trace their origins to the academic field of social-network analysis, which merges psychology and statistics to create social maps that show how people are connected. They cite the sociological theory that no more than six degrees of separation exist between any two people in the world and say their maps help discover those often unknown links.
The business-oriented software programs are variants of the increasingly popular Web-based social networks such as Friendster.com, a dating service, and Ryze.com, which aims to help people network for business purposes. But those services build from the bottom up, with members submitting contacts to the network, rather than top-down with search-engines pulling contacts from their e-mail and other desktop sources."
(The "HailStorm" model didn't die; it just went quiet until a more receptive target audience evolves -- shouldn't be long now...)
Joel on Software - Rick Chapman is In Search of Stupidity
Joel on Software - Rick Chapman is In Search of Stupidity "The personal computer software market is Microsoft. Microsoft’s revenues, it turns out, make up 69% of the total revenues of all the top 100 companies combined.
...
Is this just superior marketing, as our imaginary geek claims? Or the result of an illegal monopoly? (Which begs the question: how did Microsoft get that monopoly? You can’t have it both ways.)
According to Rick Chapman, the answer is simpler: Microsoft was the only company on the list that never made a fatal, stupid mistake.
...
If you ask me, and I’m biased, no software company can succeed unless there is a programmer at the helm. So far the evidence backs me up. But many of these boneheaded mistakes come from the programmers themselves."
I skimmed In Search of Stupidity at my local Softpro; it got a bit depressing when I noticed the number of Lotus references in the index, and I put it back on the shelf when I glanced at a sentence that included "... Lotus Notes R4 preposterously..."
Thanks to Bob Balaban for the pointer.
...
Is this just superior marketing, as our imaginary geek claims? Or the result of an illegal monopoly? (Which begs the question: how did Microsoft get that monopoly? You can’t have it both ways.)
According to Rick Chapman, the answer is simpler: Microsoft was the only company on the list that never made a fatal, stupid mistake.
...
If you ask me, and I’m biased, no software company can succeed unless there is a programmer at the helm. So far the evidence backs me up. But many of these boneheaded mistakes come from the programmers themselves."
I skimmed In Search of Stupidity at my local Softpro; it got a bit depressing when I noticed the number of Lotus references in the index, and I put it back on the shelf when I glanced at a sentence that included "... Lotus Notes R4 preposterously..."
Thanks to Bob Balaban for the pointer.
If You Liked the Web Page, You'll Love the Ad
If You Liked the Web Page, You'll Love the Ad: "The technology is not yet foolproof. The online edition of The New York Post, which is owned by the News Corporation, ran an article last month about a murder in which the victim's body parts were packed in a suitcase, and Google served up an ad for a luggage dealer.
'We are working with Google to fine-tune this program,' said Suzanne Halpin, a New York Post spokeswoman. 'We take it on a case-by-case basis and do our best to remove inappropriate ads.'"
'We are working with Google to fine-tune this program,' said Suzanne Halpin, a New York Post spokeswoman. 'We take it on a case-by-case basis and do our best to remove inappropriate ads.'"
IT-Director.com | Open Groupware.org Completes Office Produc
IT-Director.com | Open Groupware.org Completes Office Produc: "The seed technology for the OpenGroupware.org project comes from SKYRiX software AG. SKYRiX 4.1 Groupware Server code provides a good starting point with facilities for:
Project and document management including version control and support for a hierarchical organisation of objects and documents.
Fully integrated e-mail system with email filters and search.
Shared calendars including times zone support, notification via e-mail and the ability to capture conversation notes. "
Project and document management including version control and support for a hierarchical organisation of objects and documents.
Fully integrated e-mail system with email filters and search.
Shared calendars including times zone support, notification via e-mail and the ability to capture conversation notes. "
Boston Globe Online: Software helps blogs flourish
Boston Globe Online: Software helps blogs flourish "You know something's gone mainstream when it's offered as a new feature on America Online. AOL is about to bring ''blogs'' (weblogs or online journaling) to the masses in an upgrade it announced on Friday. AOL 9, which will be rolled out this summer, will offer ''AOL Journals'' to the company's 25 million subscribers so they can engage in the growing pastime of self-publishing online.
Blogs are being hyped as the Internet's next big thing. They've proliferated thanks to software that automates the entire process, making it a breeze to instantaneously publish text, images, and links. Practically anyone can set up a decent-looking blog and start sermonizing in minutes.
Blogcount.com estimates that there are roughly 2.4 million to 2.9 million active blogs. Sounds impressive, but Jupiter Research says that only about 2 percent of the Internet community has created a blog; about 4 percent read them."
Re AOL: either you know "something's gone mainstream" or you know something has "jumped the shark"...
Blogs are being hyped as the Internet's next big thing. They've proliferated thanks to software that automates the entire process, making it a breeze to instantaneously publish text, images, and links. Practically anyone can set up a decent-looking blog and start sermonizing in minutes.
Blogcount.com estimates that there are roughly 2.4 million to 2.9 million active blogs. Sounds impressive, but Jupiter Research says that only about 2 percent of the Internet community has created a blog; about 4 percent read them."
Re AOL: either you know "something's gone mainstream" or you know something has "jumped the shark"...
Sunday, August 03, 2003
Publications -- musing on Microsoft and other topics
Publications -- musing on Microsoft and other topics FYI I finally got around to setting up a skeletal Web site for my company, and posted a page with an index of (and a set of links to) articles and reports I've published.
washingtonpost.com: Microsoft Millionaires Grapple With Wealth
washingtonpost.com: Microsoft Millionaires Grapple With Wealth: "How much money are we talking here?
All told, about $30 billion in options on software company stock, nearly all of it from Microsoft, were exercised in greater Seattle from 1995 to 2002, said Roberta Pauer, an economist for the Washington State Employment Security Department.
If $30 billion were distributed evenly to the 3.3 million people in the Puget Sound area, it would come to nearly $10,000 each. Nearly all of it, though, went to the people employed full time by Microsoft in the late 1990s."
Came across this via Slate's excellent daily paper summary
All told, about $30 billion in options on software company stock, nearly all of it from Microsoft, were exercised in greater Seattle from 1995 to 2002, said Roberta Pauer, an economist for the Washington State Employment Security Department.
If $30 billion were distributed evenly to the 3.3 million people in the Puget Sound area, it would come to nearly $10,000 each. Nearly all of it, though, went to the people employed full time by Microsoft in the late 1990s."
Came across this via Slate's excellent daily paper summary
If You Pitch It, They Will Eat
If You Pitch It, They Will Eat: "The McDonald's Corporation wants to be everywhere that children are.
So besides operating 13,602 restaurants in the United States, it has plastered its golden arches on Barbie dolls, video games, book jackets and even theme parks.
McDonald's calls this promotion and brand extension. But, a growing number of nutritionists call it a blitzkrieg that perverts children's eating habits and sets them on a path to obesity.
...
"If it's going to hit the bottom line, they'll listen," [Dan Acuff, a leading children's marketing consultant] says. "You'd like them to have a conscience, but conscience and bottom line are not in the same paradigm in the corporate world."
So besides operating 13,602 restaurants in the United States, it has plastered its golden arches on Barbie dolls, video games, book jackets and even theme parks.
McDonald's calls this promotion and brand extension. But, a growing number of nutritionists call it a blitzkrieg that perverts children's eating habits and sets them on a path to obesity.
...
"If it's going to hit the bottom line, they'll listen," [Dan Acuff, a leading children's marketing consultant] says. "You'd like them to have a conscience, but conscience and bottom line are not in the same paradigm in the corporate world."
Wired News: Chilly Forecast for Smart Fridge
Wired News: Chilly Forecast for Smart Fridge: "The MMS Fridge by Electrolux lets users with cell phones that have multimedia messaging service, or MMS, remotely snap a picture of their fridge's interior. The refrigerator comes installed with Web cameras to capture the image of all the items inside the fridge, said Electrolux spokesman Tony Evans.
The adoption of MMS in Europe -- where the service is most common -- has been sluggish. London research company Datamonitor doesn't expect the MMS market to be worth more than $4.9 billion in 2006, which is almost half the $9.1 billion that simple short-text messaging, or SMS, raked in last year. Nonetheless, Electrolux plans to sell the MMS Fridge in some form, although it hasn't set a date for its release."
Also not on my Amazon wish list...
The adoption of MMS in Europe -- where the service is most common -- has been sluggish. London research company Datamonitor doesn't expect the MMS market to be worth more than $4.9 billion in 2006, which is almost half the $9.1 billion that simple short-text messaging, or SMS, raked in last year. Nonetheless, Electrolux plans to sell the MMS Fridge in some form, although it hasn't set a date for its release."
Also not on my Amazon wish list...
Saturday, August 02, 2003
W3C Publishes XForms Version 1.0 as a Proposed Recommendation
W3C Publishes XForms Version 1.0 as a Proposed Recommendation "The W3C XForms Working Group has released its "XForms 1.0" specification as a Proposed Recommendation and welcomes public review through August 29, 2003. XForms is W3C's new generation of Web forms which separates purpose, presentation, and data. XForms is designed to be more flexible than previous HTML and XHTML form technologies, enabling validity constraint checking and integration into other markup languages such as XHTML or SVG."
[via The XML Cover Pages]
.NET Framework 2004 to include JDO-like Objectspaces
.NET Framework 2004 to include JDO-like Objectspaces "Microsoft has published their 2003-2005 developer tools roadmap which mentions that .NET 2004 will include Objectspaces, an object oriented transparent persistence framework, much like our own JDO. Might this development finally convince the J2EE vendors (especially Sun) that transparent persistence really matters?"
John Robb on KeepMedia
"KeepMedia is a back issue archive service for magazines (that aren't making much money from archive sales and are trying this out). There are good magazines in the service like Business Week, Forbes, Esquire, Fast Company, US News and World Report, and lots of trade/professional magazines. It costs $4.95 a month. The pros are: 1)you can read the articles that you were not able to read in the restricted versions online, 2) it is much less expensive than a subscription to these magazines, 3) the articles are ad free, and 4) you can share these articles via e-mail. The negatives are: 1)you can't link to the articles via your weblog, 2) the articles are a week or a month out of date, 3) there isn't an RSS feed, 4) there isn't filtered search driven RSS or e-mail, and 5)it doesn't include many publications, which will force you to go to numerous locations for archive information (which is a chicken and egg issue). Your decision: is it worth it?"
[via John Robb's Weblog]
O'Reilly Network: I like RSS, But I Have Reservations. [August 02, 2003]
O'Reilly Network: I like RSS, But I Have Reservations. [August 02, 2003]: "Here's what's really true and important about RSS: It increases the rate at which information flows by and it decreases the number of times you read a web page twice.
RSS makes the web more addictive; it helps make sure we only get new-to-us information, and that we get that information when it's fresh.
RSS is impressive; it's a simple spec that makes a lot of impressive new functionality possible.
I'm just not sure that the side effect, of accelerating the rate at which we turn into into information junkies, is necessarily a good thing. "
RSS makes the web more addictive; it helps make sure we only get new-to-us information, and that we get that information when it's fresh.
RSS is impressive; it's a simple spec that makes a lot of impressive new functionality possible.
I'm just not sure that the side effect, of accelerating the rate at which we turn into into information junkies, is necessarily a good thing. "
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