August 25, 2006

28 Comments »

1. The problem that people have with Dave’s latest “River of News” idea (it’s not the first concept he’s called “River of News” - he’s also referred to a single-stream RSS aggregator by that name) is that it looks an awful like stuff that’s been done before, and Dave hasn’t explained it well. Doc’s explaination of what it is and why it’s important is much better.

   But the problem that I have is that it’s simply not a good way of browsing news web sites on a mobile device. What you get at the top of the page is the latest news, not the most important news - compare and contrast the BBC’s mobile site and BBCRiver to see what the difference is. With a site like the BBC, which delivers hundreds of stories per day, the most important story is likely to be one, two, or three pages down - and as user interface design has shown again and again, the more you make people scroll, the more readers you’re lose.

   If you’re checking news on a mobile device, you want to see the big story that happened a couple of hours ago at the top of the page - not the 10 minor stories that haved appeared since then and pushed it on to the second page on your Blackberry.

   Comment by Ian Betteridge — August 25, 2006 @ 10:33 am

2. Completely agree. Why does it take someone to do this out of frustration? Don’t these media companies understand that they are not serving these niches very well? And I would imagine these are not niches that you want to ignore. Who uses PDA’s and Blackberries the most? I have no stats, but I would bet it would be executives, business travelers, etc: people that advertisers tend to want to target, and media companies covet.

   Comment by Dan — August 25, 2006 @ 10:48 am

3. Um, so how come you’re suddenly not Mr. “If it’s not a full feed, i’m not reading it”? An aggretation of partial, headline only feeds doesn’t make them magically more useable.

   Comment by John C. Welch — August 25, 2006 @ 10:49 am

4. John: it’s not the New York Times page that interests me the most. It’s finally getting TechCrunch in a readable form.

   Comment by Robert Scoble — August 25, 2006 @ 11:46 am

5. The baaaaaastard also came up with podcasting as well!

   Comment by Robert Paterson — August 25, 2006 @ 12:04 pm

6. […] Was Robert Scoble in seinem Weblog berichtet ist Balsam für alle, die Produktentwicklungen jeweils “erleiden” müssen. Bis ein Funktionsmuster da ist. Bis ein Prototyp da ist. Bis alle Erprobungen abgeschlossen sind. Bis die Seriereifmachung durchlaufen und die letzte Review vor der Produktionsfreigabe erfolgt ist. Bis alle Roadshows durchgeführt und der hinterste und letzte Product Manager und Verkäufer im Kernteam das Produkt richtig verstanden hat. Bis die Blockbuster-Zielmarke im Auftragseingang erreicht ist. […]

   Pingback by Innovation Wings ‘Times’ » Blog Archive » Scobleizer lernt Innovation — August 25, 2006 @ 12:24 pm

7. I don’t know about this post. I’m not really familar with all of the specific technologies discussed, but it all sounds like someone watching TV, and seeing one of those new inventions like a new food chopper or something, and saying to their significant other sitting next to them, “I told you. I’ve been saying for years that we need something like that. They stole my idea.” Ideas are great, but execution is everything.

   Someone posted in another blog about how one of Dave Winer’s ideas was a limited version of something he created ten years before. And Dave’s idea was revolutionary, while his wasn’t, and he chalked that up to Dave’s standing in the community. While that may have played a role, it’s also likely that his idea was better, and that the limited-ness of the idea was a benefit.

   People become important in a community (and gain better visibility) because they understand a community’s needs. Their ideas are more likely to please because they understand the subtleties of a community and how to cater a broad idea into something valuable. That’s a major part of execution that the couch sitting TV watcher doesn’t get. [Add a spring that makes it pop back out, and you’ll sell millions. Don’t and it won’t float. Same idea, different results.]

   Comment by MyNameIsMatt — August 25, 2006 @ 12:30 pm

8. MyNameIsMatt said: “People become important in a community (and gain better visibility) because they understand a community’s needs.”

   Yeah, maybe. But it also has something to do with their willingness to shout about something the loudest and longest. I find many entrepreneurs and innovators to be overconfident and boorish. But honestly maybe these are required qualities. No joke. It doesn’t necessarily make them great people though.

   Comment by Richard Querin — August 25, 2006 @ 1:16 pm

9. “The baaaaaastard also came up with podcasting as well!”

   Forgive me, I might be totaly misunderstanding the whole concept. But Podcasting is radio without the tuner. It’s nothing new and Dave, bless his heart, didn’t invent it.

   Unless you’re bieng sarcastic in which case I agree entirely.

   Comment by Chris Brennan — August 25, 2006 @ 1:37 pm

10. Richard Querin said: “Yeah, maybe. But…”

    I’m not sure I agree with the shouting loudest and longest part. As a pundit on TV or a Wall Street analyst, sure. However, if you pick out the biggest and best blogs, I don’t think you’ll find those kinds of people, or if you do, then they’re also probably right more often than not. Thinking back to Scoble’s posts on A-list bloggers, they’re not A-list because they’re elistist, but because they provide value.

    Entrepreneurs are definitely overconfident and boorish because the odds are they’ll fail, so they better be that way if nothing else. How else can they explain why they continue in the face of such obvious failure ahead. Still, I don’t think that means they have to be abnoxious, and the successful ones are usually too busy being successful to really say something loudest and longest (unless you’re in an establish community with a strong culture like in Microsoft or old media where changing can be harder than not, even if it’s right).

    Comment by MyNameIsMatt — August 25, 2006 @ 2:15 pm

11. Yeah, let’s not give Dave too much credit for podcasting. He helped structrue it and gave us an easy way to automate part of it. But people have been doing digital audio long before Dave and the MTV guys gave it a cute name. Or, did people think Mark Cuban was always rich?

    Comment by David Geller — August 25, 2006 @ 2:24 pm

12. I’m not an innovator but I have-on a few occasions-correctly seen the future with “frustrating” clarity. Accordingly, I think you might enjoy my article, “How Digital Downloading, Podcasting, and Video I-Tunes Will Destroy The Entertainment Industry” which I posted today (August 25, 2006) at writingforfilm.com/Articles.

    Best Regards to you and yours.

    Comment by Brooke A. Wharton — August 25, 2006 @ 3:08 pm

13. I’m still failing to see the outstanding innovation of multiple feeds aggregated into one. It’s convenient, but hell, 600 headlines? What good is it?

    Comment by John C. Welch — August 25, 2006 @ 3:41 pm

14. There’s innovation and there’s innovation…

    Comment by Danny — August 25, 2006 @ 4:27 pm

15. Dave Winer invented one thing, and then acts like a complete dinkus for the rest of his life. Being right about one thing and wrong about 3,000 other things — how innovative.

    What’s even worse is that the old-timers keep sticking up for the old coot, somehow trying to hedge against their obsolescence.

    Comment by Rex — August 25, 2006 @ 4:39 pm

16. Danny, that’s the coolest thing i’ve ever seen.

    Comment by John C. Welch — August 25, 2006 @ 5:25 pm

17. Rex: one thing? Let’s see. More Outliner. XML-RPC. SOAP. Edit this Page. Blogging. RSS. OPML. World outline. News aggregator.

    What have you done? If it’s even one cool thing I’ll talk you up too.

    Comment by Robert Scoble — August 25, 2006 @ 5:50 pm

18. Dude, your proving Rex’s point. XML-RPC was forked off of SOAP. I think even Winer himself would admit this. (and actually I think he basically road the coat tails of a couple of MS people that were doing the actual heavy-lifting on this technology)

    Comment by LayZ — August 25, 2006 @ 6:13 pm

19. yeah if tech savvy folks in Valley take a while to get it, think about corporate IT and then a few years later, business executives?

    The sad thing is corporate America is under pressure to innovate and could use a lot of tech innvoation, but I find a growing chasm between innovation as the Valley defines it and usable innovation - see my post below.

    http://dealarchitect.typepad.com/deal_architect/2006/08/cio_view_of_inn.html

    Unfortuantely a lot of web 2.0 community say the CIO just does not get it ..the fact is there is 10X more money in corporate IT than consumer IT…we have to reduce the latency between innovation in Valley and Main street

    Comment by vinnie mirchandani — August 25, 2006 @ 6:16 pm

20. … and podcasting.

    Comment by Michael Markman — August 25, 2006 @ 6:29 pm

21. Reuters, Bloomberg, and Thompson have been selling real-time streaming headline news to the financial community for at least fifteen years.

    Most traders read several scrolling headline views at once, one containing the unfiltered stream, one filtered based a basket of stocks or commodities, the list of instrument tags dynamically determined by the trader’s current holdings. They also have a top stories view and usually a view for their favorite sports.

    Traders can take this real-time streaming news with them on their Blackberry using the Reuters Wireless Delivery System, http://about.reuters.com/productinfo/wirelessdelivery/.

    Comment by Steve Wilhelm — August 26, 2006 @ 1:21 am

22. It’s not his innovations that frustrate the rest of us, it’s the fact that Dave innovates with existing technology and then claims he invented it. Example: RSS; did he do most in the field to promote and get RSS excepted? Yes. Does most of the credit for getting RSS “out there” belong to Dave? Yes. Did he invent it? Nope. Does he tell the world he did invent it? Hell yeah! No wonder people get frustrated!

    Cheers,
    Gary
    http://www.garyshort.org/

    Comment by Gary Short — August 26, 2006 @ 3:34 am

23. LayZ: actually SOAP was forked off of XML-RPC. Go study the timelines.

    Comment by Robert Scoble — August 26, 2006 @ 11:37 am

24. […] I’ve never had a conversation with Tim O’Reilly but there seems to be a sentiment against him. I like his conferences and events but his Foo Camp event comes across as a filtered who’s who event. This worked in the old world but not now. Last year Ross Mayfield hosted BarCamp which was open to all. To me the open Bar Camp model works. We’ll see how long the Foo event lasts. The new model is open unconferences or at least syndicated. At least produce some podcasts and videos to folks who can’t attend. In a world of ’shared media’ the Foo Camp model fails. […]

    Pingback by Foo Camp is a Failed Model - Robert Scoble hosting a nofoo get together « John Furrier — August 26, 2006 @ 1:00 pm

25. Dave Winer doesn’t frustrate me because “he shows me a world I didnt know could exist”, but people he loudly proclaims to have recently invented a world that I’ve been living in for the past decade.

    Comment by Dan Guy — August 29, 2006 @ 12:36 pm

26. Dan: really? You had RSS in 1996? OPML in 1996? SOAP in 1996? XML-RPC in 1996? Edit this page in 1996? Damn, why didn’t I know you in 1996?

    Comment by Robert Scoble — August 29, 2006 @ 6:36 pm

27. I’ve added some stuff to opmlmanager.com which enables anyone to create their own rivers of news for mobile browsing.

    For more info: http://www.justplain.org/2006/09/02/mobile-browsing-with-opmlmanager

    Comment by Pieter Overbeeke — September 3, 2006 @ 4:51 am

28. It’s ok - we’ll wait for you to get it Robert :)

    Comment by Chris Saad — October 8, 2006 @ 4:01 pm

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