December 2005
2006 - Here we come.
I have so much confidence that 2006 will be one of the best years for the web ever. There are so many great things happening.
I have no predictions, but I will state where I am looking for innovation.
We are on the verge of some great collaborative but distributed services built upon the ability to share information efficiently and in a more meaningful way than links and comments.
The combination of a scenario with structured blogging , shared feeds ala Jarvis’ take on SSE, read/write web ala Winer’s OPML editor and citizen journalism ala Dan Gillmor seems to be putting the entire news media business on a precipice.
Fall or Fly. Everyone needs to make their own choice.
I know mine, so I’ll be announcing some new experiments shortly on the subject of SharedNews , a term I coined describing wiki-like particpation in news feeds.
Can Media companies “get out of the way”
Jeff Jarvis mentions a post from a colleague of mine, Scott Anderson, about Big Media’s failure to successfully embrace online communities.
Jeff likes to quote Craig Newmark of cragislist, saying Media needs to “get out of the way” and enable the end users.
Of course he’s right, but that is a two-part show.
1. Recognize the need to get out of the way.
2. Get out of the way.
Obviously, there are intelligent people working for these companies who understand that. Scott Anderson proves that, so let’s assume the first step is or will be successful.
Part two involves actual action. These companies are huge ships to steer in a day when you need a PT Boat to be competitive.
Let’s assume that issue can be overcome. There is one final mine field. Wall Street.
Getting out of the way and enabling communities on the internet is the same disintermediation** that is making eBay, Craigslist and others successful. That success has a short term (at least) negative effect on the traditional “cut” for Big Media, like classified ads.
Since many of the companies are publicly traded, the shareholders are going to have to accept that there will be a short term hit from within on some of their traditional strengths in order to be a long term player.
No war was won without the winning side conceding some loss for the end goal of victory.
Will the shareholders accept that these companies may need to damage currently successful practices for a long term goal? I don’t know.
**Disintermediation and media both stem from the latin medius, or middle. Interesting, considering the strategy suggested here is to get out of the way. It seems to me that we are asking media to pick a side.
Interop intershmop
Don’t get me wrong. Interop among blog software tools is a valid goal.
I’m just thinking that it’s not that important when and if blogging and RSS transcend from being publishing mediums to higher level, ubiquitous communication tools.
Yes, it’s a mixture of both, but we’ve only begun to explore it’s potential.
For instance, structured blogging , will disrupt what we generally think blogging is good for.
Also, I consider instant outlining to be like a “blog on rails”. (Second reference to rails in last two posts).
What I’m trying to say is that the next generation of the web will continue on the line of aggregations, distribution, and duplication. The Homepage (including the blog home page ) will continue to decline.
More bloggers will include the whole content item in the description like Gillmor suggests so delicately.
File sharing will occur through enclosure tags with the ease of an email attachment.
Syncable feeds will even further distribution of data and resources.
No one will wonder if all their data is there. It will be out there (publicly and privately). It will be out there in spades. Just gather it up.
Shared RSS with SSE review
Let’s go over this once in totality.
I really firmly believe in threaded RSS or blog discussions in the future. More tightly coupled than the way blogs are today.
One suggestion has been a unique tag like “threadedfeed09876545464″ in a blog post and then subscribing to the RSS feed for that tag at Technorati.
That way all posts in the blogosphere with that tag will find their way to the anyone interested in this grouping.
It was suggested for people who wanted to keep up with all posts about a given conference or something like that.
RSS feeds should incorporate Microsoft SSE (Simple Sharing Extensions) in them. This was created for syncable apps like calendars but it can keep track of posts that are in reply to each other (or threaded).
Use the version to keep track of the drill down level of the thread and one level of the update element to keep track of the immediate “parent” post.
Threaded discussions. Add microformats or structured blogging and you have distributed classifieds, auctions, “wiki on rails”, shared news gathering, or whatever you can dream of.
Jarvis on Newspapers
I listened to Jeff Jarvis on Brian Lehrers’ show on WNYC today. Couldn’t get through the lines, so I added a comment on his related blog post.
I was able to listen in to the show from Stamford. We get WNYC over the air, but I was at my desk and streamed it. Then I tried to call in, was put on hold, but never chosen as a caller. So I come to the Blog to post a comment.
The above scenario speaks exactly to the point I was going to bring up.
The Newspapers (or Radio here) aren’t dying because of bad journalism, but because of an empowered web-user who is disintermediating the relationship.
One caller call this damaging. I say it’s wonderful.
ebay allows us to sell an item without a Newspaper classified ad. Future versions of Structured Blogging will allow us to do this without ebay.
SharedNews, a name I’ve given to two-way or public feeds will allow us to fully collaborate on everthing from news, calendars and events, jobs and merchandise. The two-way web is here, and it’s here to stay.
So, moving to the web isn’t enough for newspapers. They must embrace the empowered individual and full allow them into the conversation.
How long before we get this.
Udell’s co-location of data
I’ve been thinking about what Jon Udell said on the latest Gillmor gang about co-location of data and the benefits that we all receive by something like GoogleBase being in the middle.
While I get the point, I think I’m still optimistic that we can do better as a whole, distributed. When we begin syncing OPML files between clouds in a big way, why can’t that work as efficiently as something like DNS does. That info gets out quickly without a central repository.
Jon mentions indexing for fast retrieval and there I agree. No one want’s to search across thousands of sources. But if the flow of information is free and syncable, then you get to choose what service you use. It may be Google, or it may not.
Though it’s hard to imagine building an index to compete with Google, who say’s that’s the game. If we are all in sync, then services just index the relevant portion and could very well beat out the larger index for better service.
Where does the the better sport coat come from? The New York City tailor, or the department store? Hmmm?
Personalized feeds with SSE
Just posted this comment at Niall Kennedy’s blog, but I think it’s important enough to include here. Everyone wants a way to identify duplicate RSS items that are being sent to personalized feeds. It’s kind of like what Steve Gillmor and Dave Sifry say about using Attention to sync items between disparate readers.
Also incorporates Dave Winer ’s idea of syncing with OPML. Not just blogrolls, but directories of feeds and such.
Here is what I said.
Although SSE has syncing in mind, I think it has the the properties needed to “version” out an unlimited number of personalized or trackable items but also clueing in aggregators and search engines that the item is indeed the same content.
I have a little project at SkinnyFarm.com that uses SSE to create threaded discussions.
The system does not do the optional conflict resolution but maintains. . . well a thread.
Couple that with OPML sync and you could have distributed systems contributing in a fluid manner.
Much better than having to tag an item uniquely for Technorati to index. (No offense. I mean any central index.)
As I mentioned, there is proof of concept being born at SkinnyFarm.com. As always, a little rough on the edges. : )
Site “viewers” vs. visitors or users
I have a little pet peeve about media people that use the term “viewer” to describe a web site user. It’s so “TV”. It’s so passive.
If that’s all our visitor’s are doing, we are in trouble.
And that’s the point. I work for a Old Media giant and this isn’t just a matter of semantics. It’s hard to believe but there is still a mindset that “WE” are delivering the goods to “THEM”.
Those days are gone. Long gone.
I think I’d even prefer “customer” over “viewer”. Ahh well.