Winer's wrath

October 31, 2004

Dave Winer is not happy that Adam Curry is being credited with creating the art and technology for podcasting. Winer points out that his earlier audio blog posts should now be considered the foundation of pod-casting. He further claims that the fact that he previously wrote software capable of doing with Curry did means they should share credit. Curry has given ample credit to Winer already for RSS which is an integral part of the podcasting flow, but it is Curry who wrote the scripts that started the flow of podcasting. Indeed there have been audio blog posts for quite some time. There have been audio series on the internet such as interviews and conference programs. It's been possible for some time to download these and put them on portable music devices.

How dumb do they think we are?

October 31, 2004

In the just how dumb do you think we are category comes this factoid from xxxchurch.com. "The primary pornography consumer group is boys between ages 12-17." What?

Let's pretend for a moment this has the least bit of credibility. About half of the sources on the page of factoids are credited to a source, this one is not. So a product that is not available for sale to minors has it's primary audience in the 12-17 year old range? Huh?

Perhaps it's all the 12 year-olds in the local adult video store who drive this statistic. Oh, you say they aren't allowed. Then perhaps they have been ordering it via mailorder. Given the billions spent on this material each year then they must be ordering at least half a million dollars. It is most likely just delivered to their houses and their parents hand it to them... No wait all of these are stupid arguments. It's amazing that with all the problems in the world a group of religious fanatics is so focused on making sure others can't do as they wish. But the same fanatics will continue to support a culture that promotes violence.

When customer service fails

October 28, 2004

It is sad. It has happened again. What is it? The failure of customer service. I see it happen all the time in all sorts of organizations. Companies start out as small organizations. They will do anything for customers and build a loyal following. Then the organization grows and starts to put policies and procedures in place. This is absolutely necessary. Without these measures the organization will collapse inwards and no one will be served.

Down the line the organization grows and what was a team of ten becomes fifteen and even twenty. The original people who felt they company was a part of their flesh and blood leave. Replacements are hired. Employees start going to the job instead of going to their careers. And you end up with a situation like I once again encountered yesterday.

Of web policy and foreign policy

October 28, 2004

Today the news comes that the campaign website for George W. Bush is blocking traffic from outside the US. The change means that for "security reasons" those outside the United States cannot view the site. So the short version of the story is that the man wishing to be elected by the American people to lead (and defend) our country, cannot get security experts who can secure their websites.

But is it journalism?

October 26, 2004

Many a discussion recently has been held on whether blogs are journalism and their authors journalists. At the same time we hear from our new audio blogging, er podcasting compadres that it was wonderful that Jon Stewart gave the entertainers at Crossfire what for and called their bluff. In less than a half hour Stewart pointed out the problem. The entertainers on Crossfire are no more journalists that most bloggers.

Somewhere along the line it all broke down. There is an aspiration that many bloggers have to be recognized as journalists. They want to be a part of the club, to call the fourth estate home. But journalism is so much more than just telling the story one wants to tell. It's more than a collection of press releases and spun yarns. Dave Winer has been a poster boy for the power of blogs (and there are multitudes of ways in which blogs are very powerful). Those who say blogs aren't journalism often draw out comments on his weblog about how the writer "doesn't get it." Today Winer said:

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