“Music and Red Couch answers about blogging, RSS, and who knows whatnot.”
Dave answers questions sent in by Shel Israel. He discusses his history with blogging and the origins of RSS. He started blogging in the late 1990s as a way to communicate with a community he had created, and saw blogging as a way to bypass the traditional media that he felt did not accurately represent the software he was developing. Dave was an early pioneer of RSS, working with Netscape to create a standard format, and he describes the process of collaborating with them to establish RSS as the dominant syndication format. He reflects on the challenges of establishing standards and the importance of being open to adopting others’ ideas rather than stubbornly pushing one’s own.
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[MUSIC]
(00:10):
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
Like this.
(00:41):
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
(01:11):
[MUSIC]
Hmm, that's sexy.
(01:33):
That's sexy music.
Hey everybody, it's Morning
Coffee Notes with your host
Dave Winer coming to you from
Florida.
Hey man, it's a good day.
It's the 14th of April and that
was Run DMC playing an old
favorite title.
I don't even remember but it's
an old rock and roll favorite.
It's an old rock and roll sort
(01:55):
of major, some big hit and this
is, I noticed this.
I was like, I have a, what is
it?
Hold on a second, let me just
get this up here.
[MUSIC]
Hey little bit, walk this way,
it's the name of the song.
And, hold on, give me a sec,
(02:16):
don't go away.
Don't go away anybody.
Don't go away, instead of
everybody, now we're going to
say anybody.
Don't walk away anybody.
So the music goes like this.
The music is from, I believe it
's 1989.
(02:37):
We'll find out later.
It was a early, Run DMC of
course is a hip hop band or
rapper.
I don't even know what you call
it.
And I wasn't listening to this
music back then when it was
coming out.
But I noticed it in Billboard,
top 100 of Fill in the Blank.
It was in 1989 or 1986, which I
(02:58):
picked up in CD form at a
discount rack
and a Tower Records or a Ware
house Records or Walmart or
Tower Target.
Probably it was Target.
Anyway, so the occasion of this
podcast, this is what this is,
it being April 14th, is it
(03:19):
really the 14th?
That would mean tomorrow is the
15th and I haven't paid my
taxes.
Oh well.
Well, okay, anyway.
Okay, so we're going to get
(03:40):
serious now because I got an
email from Robert Scoble,
who's the Scoble-izer and this
is a forwarding of an email
from
Shel Israel, who I've actually
known for a long, long time.
Shel says, "Dave, I hope you're
doing well.
It's been a long time since I
've seen you live and in color.
Although I read your blog
(04:00):
regularly and Robert talks
about you often."
Aw, that's sweet.
Anyway, I like to email
interview you for the book.
I go, "Oh shit, I hate email
interviews.
Why? Because I'm a writer."
And it's like, I can't do it
without writing it.
And writing it means, well,
they've just asked me to write
it.
A lot of questions here.
(04:21):
It's like a chapter of a book,
basically.
Seems, I don't know that they
're not thinking that it is,
but there's a lot to say about
all these things that they ask
about.
So what I did was I said, "Ha,
I'm going to pull a fast one on
you guys
and I'm going to do this as a
podcast."
And of course, since I know
that Scoble and Shel sort of,
like they get the blogging
(04:42):
whole thing,
the whole blogging religion is
that I'm also going to kill two
birds with one stone
and I'm going to do make this a
morning coffee notes, right?
That's how we do things here in
BloggerLand.
Anyway, so we are planning to
use your answers in two
sections.
They have a book that they're
doing together.
It's got a huge advance on this
book and all kinds of
incredible things
(05:04):
that the publisher is doing for
them, which of course they
totally deserve.
Anyway, so they want to know
the first chapters on how blog
ging started
and then chapter four is called
Direct Access,
which is about people who use
blogs to disintermediate.
That's a good one.
Disintermediate the press to
communicate with their
audiences.
And of course, audiences are a
(05:25):
word that we're actually trying
to strike
from the English language now
because it implies this sort of
,
you know, when people talk
about grassroots or top or
bottom up,
or it reveals that they have a
picture in their mind of top
and bottom.
And of course, the top is the
most powerful people
(05:47):
and at the bottom are the like
regular powerless,
normally powerless people who
are now getting the tiniest
little bit of power, right?
Well, and of course, with
people who talk about
grassroots
and audience and stuff like
that, of course,
they don't put themselves at
the bottom, they put themselves
(06:08):
at the top.
Duh, right?
I mean, of course, in your own
mind, you know, you are like
the center of the universe,
right?
You know that, right? Nobody is
to tell you that.
It's a great theme from a Kurt
Vonnegut book.
I think it's The Sirens of
Titan,
where a robot comes down to
meet with the main character
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and informs him that he is the
only sentient being in the
universe
and that everybody else is just
a robot sent down here to test
him.
And it was funny.
We developed the whole, this
whole theme pervades the whole
book.
And why is it funny? Well, why
is anything funny?
Because it's the truth we all
(06:51):
believe deep down inside that
the world, the universe,
why bother with the world? The
universe revolves around us.
And so, but of course, we know
that it doesn't really revolve
around us.
And that's the key to evolution
.
That's how we can get along
with each other.
It's like, because otherwise we
're all just fighting to prove
(07:12):
that you belong to me.
And I'm better than you. I
dominate you.
You're in the audience. I'm a
fun stage, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah.
Hey, you know, what I say is
there are no winning strategies
,
because in the end we all lose.
We all lose. When you die, like
, you know,
they ever heard the phrase,
like, you can't take it with
(07:32):
you?
Well, what do you think that
means? You're a loser.
So have fun. You know, can you
make losing fun? Sure.
So that's what you ought to do.
Anyway.
So, Shell says, I would
appreciate all the time you
choose to give us
in answering these questions.
Well, since it's a morning
coffee note,
it's probably going to be 40
(07:53):
minutes give or take.
It seems to be how long these
things usually are.
And let's see, we've been going
for, like, about exactly eight
minutes right now.
So I would guess Shell, I would
think probably about 32 minutes
or so.
Anyway, so first question,
might as well get right into it
.
You've been blogging longer
than anyone else we know. Why
did you start?
(08:14):
Well, good question. Why did I
start?
I started, big picture why I
started was because my career
as a software developer
had come to a sad ending. And I
couldn't, and the reason why
was,
it wasn't that I wasn't willing
(08:35):
to put in a lot of effort to
make software
and that I didn't believe in
the products that I was making.
And I hadn't, it wasn't that
other developers weren't making
good products
because they were, it was
actually that the press couldn
't, or wouldn't,
or didn't carry the message of
our products.
Basically, they would write
(08:56):
stories, I was a Mac developer
then,
and they would write stories
about the software business and
they would say,
well, you know, the Mac, not
actually, they would write
stories about the computer
business.
And they'd say, you know, the
Mac doesn't have much of a
future
because there's no new software
for it.
So, I'd call up the reporter,
but I knew many of them, I was
in Silicon Valley,
(09:17):
and they were, of course, many
of them were in Silicon Valley.
And I knew them, and I'd call
them up and say, what are you
talking about?
I mean, you use a Mac and there
's lots of new software for the
Mac, don't you know that?
And they go, well, yeah, I
wouldn't know that.
So, why do you say that there's
no new software for the Mac?
And well, everyone knows there
's no new software for the Mac.
So, it's this kind of delus
(09:38):
ional thing that was going on,
it still goes on in the press.
They sort of get caught up in a
piece of mythology, and they
report the mythology, not the
facts.
In other words, if you call
them up and say, wait a minute,
which you just said there was
wrong,
but it's what everybody knows
is true, then the facts, no,
let's not,
a few facts interfere with the
(09:59):
storytelling.
So, our reporters have a
pattern, they all sort of like
tell the same story that the
other guy said.
One guy gets to go first in an
area like whether it be podcast
ing or aggregators or RSS or
blogging,
or like go through the whole
series of different stories
that have come out in the last
(10:20):
X years.
There really isn't a whole lot
of variety in terms of what the
reporters report.
So, that was a big picture why
I started blogging.
A small picture was, well, I
was doing a project for with,
when I was at Wired,
when I was writing at Wired
(10:40):
magazine, I was contributing
editor at the website HotWired.
And I was doing a project
called 24 Hours of Democracy,
which was a response to the
Communication Decency Act.
And if you look this up, I've
told this story like a dozen
times,
if you look up Communication
Decency Act or 24 Hours of
Democracy with my name,
(11:02):
you'll probably get more
details than I can, that I'll
tell you here.
But basically, we had a mail
list and we had sponsors,
and like AOL sponsored us, they
were very, very generous.
And now there are a bunch of
others, I don't remember who
they all were.
And the mail list was like all
(11:24):
mail lists, very active at the
beginning,
and very positive, lots of good
things getting done.
And then it got very flaming.
And sort of like, well, that's
what mail lists do, right?
I mean, as soon as people feel
like, I've got so much invested
in this,
it has to go the way I want it
to go, then the mail lists sort
of don't work very well.
And so, but I was the leader of
(11:46):
this little community.
It was a very temporary
community.
It wasn't intended to be
anything very long lived.
We took, I think, maybe 40 days
or so, 45 days to plan it, to
get ready for the day when
basically,
it was a website where
basically anybody could write
an essay for us and we would
(12:06):
publish it.
And we would link all these
sites together and get all
these cool,
it was sort of like a moon
mission, which I love.
The idea of a technology moon
mission where you have a fixed
date and everybody's excited
about that.
And sort of like, there's no
time really to argue, of course
, then people make the time, of
course, to argue.
And anyway, so to make a long
(12:27):
story short, I needed a way to
communicate with this group of
people.
And they were flaming out on
the mail list.
So I decided to help with that.
Let's use the website.
And I had a website going for
this.
I was working within a content
management system that I put
together.
It was called ClayBasket.
ClayBasket's view of the web, a
website, was that it was like a
(12:49):
productivity application,
like a spreadsheet or a word
processor.
Actually, it was an outliner.
That was sort of, you know, I
tend to view everything as an
outline.
And I just started putting in
these links in reverse order.
And very quickly, I remember
the moment.
I don't remember exactly what
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happened, but I remember the
moment looking at this and
saying,
"You know, this is an
interesting way to do things."
I think I'm going to come back
to this after this project is
over.
And that was the weblog.
It was reverse chronologic
links to other pages, on-site,
off-site, tying a community
together.
It had all the basic elements,
(13:31):
maybe not all the basic
elements from a technology
standpoint.
I noticed that later on in the
questions you asked, "Well, why
not stick with DaveNet?
Why start blogging when you
already had DaveNet?"
Which was an email circulated
newsletter that started a
couple of years before I
started blogging.
And the answer to that is, well
(13:53):
, first of all, it's a
completely different
distribution mechanism.
And as it turns out, one that
wasn't going to survive
because email has become so
dysfunctional now because of
spam.
But on the other hand, I
actually think of DaveNet as
being a blog.
I mean, it has, you know, what
's important about a blog?
(14:14):
Is it the form? Is it the fact
that it's reverse chronologic
and it has links and all the
rest?
Yeah, I guess it's important,
but what's more important to me
?
And when I sat down to actually
write my definition of what a
weblog is,
when I started my fellowship at
Berkman Center,
the conclusion I came to was it
(14:35):
's not about the form.
It's about the unedited voice
of an individual.
In other words, it's not an
organization talking.
It's not trying to be anything
more than just a person.
You know, I came up with a way
of saying, "Come as you are. We
're just folks here."
That it's informal and we're
interested in what you have to
(14:56):
say.
I don't want to be too much of
an impolish if you make a
spelling error or grammar error
.
I actually prefer if people
make spelling or grammar errors
.
Not on purpose, okay?
But I don't care if there are a
few errors and mistakes because
to me,
that's the reminder that it is
just a human being speaking and
that's what I like.
I don't like sterile writing.
(15:17):
I don't like thinking that, you
know, sort of reflects lowest
common denominator, political
correct.
I like interesting ideas that
stimulate new ideas.
I don't believe in talking just
for the sake of, you know, of
hearing your voice or whatever.
So anyway, hopefully I've
answered the question.
It was to route around the
press, big picture, to create
(15:38):
my own platform for speaking.
That was the big picture.
The small picture is it really
worked well for tying together
communities.
And those are actually, I don't
know, that one is bigger or
smaller.
Okay, number two, why did blog
ging happen?
Why didn't we all use GeoCities
or Macromedia's Dreamweaver or
MSN's free websites or
(16:00):
something else?
Well, good question.
And the answer is, I'm going to
answer a different question
because people ask me,
I think what you're asking me
is this, is that, you know, why
aren't personal websites,
what's the matter with personal
websites?
Well, then I say that blogs are
personal websites now.
That's what a personal website
(16:22):
is in 2005.
GeoCities and didn't become, I
think, what everybody thought
it was going to become,
but Blogger did and MovableType
did.
And, you know, the whole blog
ging world sort of became what
GeoCities,
I mean GeoCities had a sort of
(16:42):
gimmick to it.
They said, we'll sort of create
a grid, just like, you know, a
logical grid,
just like you have in the
physical world.
You know, and it's hokey.
It was wrong.
And basically the internet has
its own sort of grain.
It has its own lay of the land,
(17:05):
its own kind of geography,
not kind of an after-earth
geography, terrestrial
geography.
It's not the same thing.
I mean, all the geography that
we have, with the exception of
time zones, is melting.
I mean, the geographic dist
inctions, I have friends that
live in Europe,
and they stay up until five in
(17:27):
the morning, and we hang out.
I mean, you know, if I liked it
, I wouldn't stay up until five
in the morning,
but they do, so, you know, it
kind of works out okay.
So that was not a great idea.
Dreamweaver built, I hate to be
critical of somebody else.
I mean, it's a good piece of
(17:48):
software, right?
But I don't think it was really
, like, clear on who it was for.
And it was, again, it was a
mistake, it was a mistaken idea
that early on was very popular.
People thought that it would be
desirable to turn the web into
a word processor,
(18:09):
or into a design environment.
And Dreamweaver kind of falls
somewhere in between the two.
But in fact, the web is its own
thing, and it's more, if
anything, like groupware.
You know, in the '80s, Shell
remembers this, I'm not sure Sk
obel does,
but in the '80s, everybody, the
Holy Grail, the elusive Holy
Grail was groupware.
Everybody wanted to do group
(18:29):
ware, right?
Well, guess what? We're doing
it.
It took a while.
And all of our conceptions of
groupware, well, turns out we
're wrong.
And then when the finally the
moment came, when it was time,
when the world needed,
really needed groupware, okay.
And that was, by the way, the
epiphany that I had going from
Claybasket
to the content management
system in Frontier, which came
(18:50):
very shortly after that,
was that I was wrong, the web
is not a productivity app, okay
.
It's groupware.
And that turned out to be
exactly right.
That's, and the ideal groupware
is, as David Weinberger says,
"Small pieces loosely joined. A
blog is a piece."
Okay.
A person, therefore, is a piece
in the whole sort of picture of
(19:12):
the web.
And the blogging tool evolved
from that premise.
It started off being everything
that it is today,
and it isn't today everything
that it's going to be five
years from now.
It started off in an
evolutionary sense.
Doug Engelbart calls us a boot
(19:32):
strap.
And a bootstrap says you build
tools, you use them,
and you use them in turn to
design the next tools.
And that's sort of the magic of
blogging,
is that without the blogs
themselves, we couldn't have
done anything like RSS.
Couldn't have done it on a mail
list.
Couldn't have done it with a
(19:53):
standards body.
Couldn't have done it with the
tools that existed before blogs
.
Yet it's incredibly relevant to
blogs.
And so it's a bootstrap.
This is Doug Engelbart's vision
in sort of inaction.
And Doug's brilliant guy, Doug,
I met him once.
I had dinner with him once.
It was a wonderful, wonderful
time to me.
(20:14):
I felt like the student meets
the teacher.
And I don't get too many
experiences like that,
but that was certainly one of
those experiences.
Anyway, so it's a bootstrap.
And that's why it sort of works
,
because it isn't based on like
the sort of head trip
that GeoCities and Dreamweaver
(20:36):
were based on.
Okay, so we've got a number
three.
What was, by the way, what is
the role of Weblogs.com?
Because Weblogs.com is very
much there and doing its job.
It's kind of quiet.
People don't pay a whole lot of
attention to it.
But without Weblogs.com, you
wouldn't have a tech neurati,
for example.
(20:57):
A lot of the real-time services
, Pub/Sub, Feedster, things like
that,
they use the results of Weblogs
.com.
But Weblogs.com is sort of like
the peering point of the Weblog
world.
Sort of like on the internet
itself.
If you think of sort of, and
(21:17):
people do talk about this,
Internet Web 2.0 or Internet 2.
0,
I actually called it two years
ago, I called it Internet 3.0,
because I thought this was the
third incarnation of the
internet.
Basically, first being the pre-
web internet with email and FTP,
Gopher, all that kind of
academic stuff, right?
But then very much formed the
(21:38):
flavor of the net.
And then the second one was the
web,
and the third one was the two-
way web,
which is the web basically
turned into a publishing
environment for everybody.
Everybody can use it.
Whereas in the first web, it
was sort of the web modeling,
the internet modeling, the
print publishing world.
And the web, probably a
necessary step.
(21:59):
Technologically, not necessary,
but perhaps from a social and
human standpoint, necessary,
perhaps.
So, the role of Weblogs.com is
to be the peering point.
It's the place where everybody
says, "shows up."
And if you want to find out who
's changed, who's updated,
what's available, what's new,
(22:19):
that's where you go.
And it has like the peering
points on the internet itself,
it is open on both ends.
It's open basically. Anybody
can ping it.
Anybody can say, "Here I am.
I want to be part of this
little network that you're
running here."
And anybody can find out who is
on that network,
because both ends are open.
So, you've got the ping on the
(22:40):
one side,
you've got changes.xml on the
other side.
And when Technorati says they
know about 8 million Weblogs,
interestingly, interestingly,
that's the same number of Web
logs that Weblogs.com knows
about.
And we just don't push it.
And probably it's a mistake.
Probably should have raised
lots of VC money
and started a company around it
(23:01):
or whatever.
But frankly, it didn't really,
like,
it initially didn't need that.
And today it probably doesn't
need a company,
but it certainly needs more
than what it has.
Right now, Weblogs.com is
getting about half a million p
ings a day.
Should I say that again?
Half a million Weblog updates
every goddamn day.
That's 10 per second.
(23:22):
Think about it.
That's a lot of growth.
Believe me, it wasn't doing
that a couple years ago.
Anyway, so, like, next question
.
Oh, we got that one done
quickly.
We're only up to question
number four, and there's a
bunch more.
So what made you initially
interested in RSS
and in Weblogging software?
I think I've already answered
the second part.
But RSS started, I know this is
(23:47):
very controversial,
but the people who make it
controversial,
like, didn't do it and weren't
there.
So, you know, I was, and I did
do a lot of what made RSS
successful.
And when I was doing that,
nobody else was doing it.
So, sort of kind of gives me a
certain, like, sort of
credibility,
I think, here that maybe other
(24:07):
people don't have.
I started working in that area
in December 1997.
And Adam Bosworth from
Microsoft had been coming down.
He'd come down to see me, I
think it was like three times.
It's pitched me on XML.
He thought for some reason I
would be a good guy to work
with XML.
(24:29):
And I resisted.
I said no the first X time.
I don't remember the number of
times he came to visit,
but I absolutely said no.
Because, and you know, I think
for the right reasons in
retrospect,
is that I thought it would be a
corporate battleground.
You know, it was sort of like
(24:50):
an attempt by the big
technology companies
to try to regain the control
that they lost
when the internet sort of wiped
out their entire landscape
in the few years that preceded
that.
I think before 1994, I would
say, was the sort of crucial
year,
they were like busy working on
(25:13):
all of their huge,
I mean, I mean just
unbelievably complicated
and convoluted protocols for
application integration.
That was the big deal.
So there was Olay and OpenDoc.
Those were the two things that
were sort of competing for
attention.
There was Taligence and Pink
and Blue and Cairo and Mappy.
(25:39):
And basically IBM, Borland,
Microsoft, Apple, Novel.
I'm sure I'm leaving some
important people out.
Sun wasn't really in there
actually.
Sun kind of was quiet in those
days.
And then I remember when I got
my first glimpse of the
internet,
I wrote a piece called Bill
Gates vs. the Internet.
I mean, I had an epiphany.
(26:00):
I said, "Geez, everything that
they're trying to do now
is completely going to get
wiped out by this."
And then I got a sort of whiny
email back from Bill Gates,
saying, "Yeah, come on, you're
full of shit."
Turns out it was true.
It did wipe out everything, did
level the playing field,
set everything back to a very
rational place
(26:21):
where basically anybody could
compete
and you didn't have to be a
huge company
or work at a huge company in
order to create relevant
software.
And this is, of course,
something that people that
worked at the big companies
didn't like very much because,
you know,
why had they gone to the
trouble to climb this big, huge
corporate ladder
and kiss all that ass and make
all those compromises
if in the end it wouldn't end
(26:42):
up meaning anything.
So to me, XML looked very much
like the idea of XML
was to sort of get back all the
power that they lost
in the rise of the Internet.
Internet 2.0, you might think
of it as Internet 2.0.
And so I didn't want to do that
.
I said, "I like what I'm doing
."
And I saw the Internet as the
(27:03):
platform without the platform
vendor
and I was free, nobody was in
my way.
Why would I want to get
involved in that mess again?
And Adam kept pounding on me,
kept saying,
"No, no, no, it's not what it's
going to be.
I'm making sure," Adam would
say, "I'm making sure that
Microsoft won't play those
games."
And I'd go, "Yeah, yeah, you're
a good guy, Adam,
but you know what, you're not
(27:24):
going to be at Microsoft
forever.
Somebody's going to push you
out and they're going to take
over what you're doing
and they're going to turn it
into battle, battle now."
Of course, exactly what
happened.
I mean, totally, always has to
happen.
If a big company guy says, "
Adam means well.
Adam is a brilliant guy, but he
's not as powerful as the people
who really play the
(27:44):
organizational politics at a
big company like Microsoft.
They can make happen what they
want to make happen.
Usually, it's like they can
stop things from happening.
It's not like they make stuff
happen.
They just get things really
complicated
and make a lot of them sort of
have meetings and fly all over
the world.
And of course, at the end, they
have to redo it when they bring
IBM into it
and they have to redo it when
(28:05):
they bring Sun into it.
But bringing in all these other
partners now,
all of a sudden, you end up
with bookshelf size
specifications
that are impossible for anybody
to implement, which is the idea
.
Anyway, I have no time for that
.
I want to build things.
I don't care so much about the
formats and protocols other
(28:26):
than what you can do with them.
So I have this impatience that
says, "Hey, come on, let's get
on with it.
This works. This is good enough
. Let's go."
And so XML looked like there
would be a lot of, like,
whatever, breaks put on it.
Well, anyway, I went for it
anyway.
And in the end of 1997, it was
really a very simple idea.
I went looking for data that I
(28:48):
could XMLize.
And I found a few things.
Like, I had the changes to my
website.
I created an XML file that was
updated regularly every day.
And it would contain a list of
URLs of files that had it
updated in that day.
And so if a search engine
(29:09):
wanted to avoid crawling my
entire site,
they could look for the
existence of this file.
And if they found it, then I
would be telling them,
"You don't need to look at any
other files.
These are the only ones that
change today."
And, you know, it would still
be a good idea.
And since almost all the
content on the web these days
is managed content,
(29:31):
it would be very easy to do
this.
It wouldn't have to be done
manually.
Every time I tried to raise the
issue with a search engine,
guys,
they treat me like I'm a, you
know, like, "Oh, what do you
know?
What do you know about search
engines?"
Or, "Who the hell does he think
he is?"
I don't know. They never listen
.
So I stopped pushing it.
And I also said, "Oh, wow, you
(29:51):
know, I've got a blog."
That looks like something I
could XMLize.
I didn't call it a blog then.
It was 1997.
I don't think we called it a
weblog then.
We called it a news site.
I think that's what it was.
But it was a blog.
And so I produced a format
called "Scripting News Format,"
which was to the best of my
(30:11):
ability an XMLization of my web
log.
And I said, "Cool, now who
wants to do something with this
?"
So I announced it.
I put up, I kept it updated so
that my content system would
regenerate it
whenever I updated my site.
And there were a couple of
trials.
People tried stuff out with it.
(30:32):
But it wasn't until, like, over
a year later, in early 1999,
I got some emails from people
at Netscape
asking me questions about the
feed and how it worked.
And then they sent me a link to
a page
that showed what they were
doing with it.
And I thought, "Wow, it's cool.
They're doing something with it
."
And I thought at that time, I
(30:53):
had the wrong idea.
I thought they were building on
my format.
It turns out, yeah, their thing
could read "Scripting News Form
at,"
but they were really creating
another format altogether
that just did pretty much
exactly what mine was doing,
but did it differently.
And I got angry because, "Geez,
why can't we be compatible out
(31:14):
of the box?
Why does the second guy coming
into the damn market have to be
incompatible?
Why don't you be compatible?
Why don't we have a standard?
Why don't we just do it the
same way?
Huh? What do you think?"
And, no, they said, "No."
So I sort of went for a walk
and thought it over and said,
"This is a really, really key
(31:35):
point
because anybody that gets to
this place,
you have incredible power if
you just change your point of
view.
And say, "Okay, what if I throw
out what I've done
and I just adopt what they're
doing?"
And maybe then we can have a
standard.
(31:56):
In other words, it's infinitely
better to have one way to do
something than to have two.
And if you can swallow your
pride and say,
"Okay, it doesn't have to be
the way I designed it.
I can adopt somebody else's
design.
As long as I think it can work,
why not do it?"
And so that's what I did.
I took their format, which was
(32:19):
called RSS,
and I adopted it.
And then at the same time, I
also updated scripting news
formats
so that it had all the features
that RSS had.
In other words, it was strictly
a superset of RSS.
And they saw that happen.
I wondered what they would do,
and they did the right thing.
(32:40):
What they did was the exact
inverse of that.
They looked at scripting news
format and they took all the
features that were in that
weren't in RSS and put it in R
SS.
And at that point, I did the
thing that --
the word that I don't like so
much, I said,
"Let's deprecate scripting news
(33:00):
format.
Now let's just go forward with
one format called RSS."
And that was RSS 091.
And I built an aggregator
called my.usland.com.
And it was the first River of
News-style aggregator,
which I still think is the most
useful kind of aggregator.
And Netscape had something that
(33:22):
was quite similar to what my.us
land.com is.
That was my.usland.com.
And that was like May of 1999,
maybe June.
And then very shortly
thereafter, they just evapor
ated.
The whole team that was working
on RSS there just left the
(33:43):
company,
laid off or went to work in
other parts of --
I think they were at that point
owned by AOL.
They had sold out to AOL.
And then RSS was on sort of
precarious grounds.
That's why I only claimed to be
a co-inventor.
People call me the inventor.
When they do that, that's wrong
.
I'm a co-inventor of RSS and
(34:04):
ended up being the only one
that was still in the game
after the initial work was done
.
And if I had it to do it over
again, I think I would have
done it differently.
But hey, that's just whatever
it is.
Anyway, let's see where we're
at in terms of time.
Because I'm starting to feel a
little tired here.
34 minutes.
(34:25):
Yep, yep.
Maybe I'll answer one more
question and then I'll do
another podcast,
maybe tomorrow, to answer the
rest of these.
I'm looking at the rest of the
questions now.
Yeah, well, let's see.
I think I've answered five and
(34:47):
six.
I have not answered seven.
Yeah, I'll tell you what.
What I'm going to do then is I
'm going to do another episode
here
because this is white to me out
for some reason.
Okay, maybe we should play the
(35:08):
rest of it.
Let's see what I've got here on
this.
I've got this new $49 MP3
player here.
It's real cheesy.
But it works.
And it's kind of nice after the
iPod because it's so simple.
It's so easy to use.
Let's see if we can get that
song back here that we had
(35:28):
before.
John Kruger Mellencamp.
Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom,
doom.
Michael McDonald, right?
We don't want to listen to that
.
Don't pass me by.
Oh, it's the Beatles.
(35:49):
Don't pass me by.
Don't make me cry.
Bill Gross.
Oh, yeah, I have to listen to
that Bill Gross thing.
Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom,
doom.
Don't you love this part?
This is what they call dead air
.
Oh, this is the Honey Drippers.
Oh my God, this is a great song
.
Okay, let's just do the
(36:10):
beginning of this song.
Let's see if we can get it to
cue up here for us.
Okay, all right.
Hold on, I need to turn the
volume up.
Oh, there we go.
Oh.
Okay, everybody, we'll see you
next time.
Bye.
This is Morning Coffee Notes.
That's a day.
(36:31):
I knew you were my man.
April 14th.
I want to tell you how much I
love you.
2005, www.morningcoffinotes.com
/com.
Come with me tomorrow.
RSS.xml.
(36:52):
To the sea, sea of love.
I will tell you just how much I
love you.
Come with me to the sea.
(37:20):
Oh, I love you.
I love you.
Oh, I love you.
I love you.
(37:46):
[no audio]
[MUSIC]
(00:10):
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
Like this.
(00:41):
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
(01:11):
[MUSIC]
Hmm, that's sexy.
(01:33):
That's sexy music.
Hey everybody, it's Morning
Coffee Notes with your host
Dave Winer coming to you from
Florida.
Hey man, it's a good day.
It's the 14th of April and that
was Run DMC playing an old
favorite title.
I don't even remember but it's
an old rock and roll favorite.
It's an old rock and roll sort
(01:55):
of major, some big hit and this
is, I noticed this.
I was like, I have a, what is
it?
Hold on a second, let me just
get this up here.
[MUSIC]
Hey little bit, walk this way,
it's the name of the song.
And, hold on, give me a sec,
(02:16):
don't go away.
Don't go away anybody.
Don't go away, instead of
everybody, now we're going to
say anybody.
Don't walk away anybody.
So the music goes like this.
The music is from, I believe it
's 1989.
(02:37):
We'll find out later.
It was a early, Run DMC of
course is a hip hop band or
rapper.
I don't even know what you call
it.
And I wasn't listening to this
music back then when it was
coming out.
But I noticed it in Billboard,
top 100 of Fill in the Blank.
It was in 1989 or 1986, which I
(02:58):
picked up in CD form at a
discount rack
and a Tower Records or a Ware
house Records or Walmart or
Tower Target.
Probably it was Target.
Anyway, so the occasion of this
podcast, this is what this is,
it being April 14th, is it
(03:19):
really the 14th?
That would mean tomorrow is the
15th and I haven't paid my
taxes.
Oh well.
Well, okay, anyway.
Okay, so we're going to get
(03:40):
serious now because I got an
email from Robert Scoble,
who's the Scoble-izer and this
is a forwarding of an email
from
Shel Israel, who I've actually
known for a long, long time.
Shel says, "Dave, I hope you're
doing well.
It's been a long time since I
've seen you live and in color.
Although I read your blog
(04:00):
regularly and Robert talks
about you often."
Aw, that's sweet.
Anyway, I like to email
interview you for the book.
I go, "Oh shit, I hate email
interviews.
Why? Because I'm a writer."
And it's like, I can't do it
without writing it.
And writing it means, well,
they've just asked me to write
it.
A lot of questions here.
(04:21):
It's like a chapter of a book,
basically.
Seems, I don't know that they
're not thinking that it is,
but there's a lot to say about
all these things that they ask
about.
So what I did was I said, "Ha,
I'm going to pull a fast one on
you guys
and I'm going to do this as a
podcast."
And of course, since I know
that Scoble and Shel sort of,
like they get the blogging
(04:42):
whole thing,
the whole blogging religion is
that I'm also going to kill two
birds with one stone
and I'm going to do make this a
morning coffee notes, right?
That's how we do things here in
BloggerLand.
Anyway, so we are planning to
use your answers in two
sections.
They have a book that they're
doing together.
It's got a huge advance on this
book and all kinds of
incredible things
(05:04):
that the publisher is doing for
them, which of course they
totally deserve.
Anyway, so they want to know
the first chapters on how blog
ging started
and then chapter four is called
Direct Access,
which is about people who use
blogs to disintermediate.
That's a good one.
Disintermediate the press to
communicate with their
audiences.
And of course, audiences are a
(05:25):
word that we're actually trying
to strike
from the English language now
because it implies this sort of
,
you know, when people talk
about grassroots or top or
bottom up,
or it reveals that they have a
picture in their mind of top
and bottom.
And of course, the top is the
most powerful people
(05:47):
and at the bottom are the like
regular powerless,
normally powerless people who
are now getting the tiniest
little bit of power, right?
Well, and of course, with
people who talk about
grassroots
and audience and stuff like
that, of course,
they don't put themselves at
the bottom, they put themselves
(06:08):
at the top.
Duh, right?
I mean, of course, in your own
mind, you know, you are like
the center of the universe,
right?
You know that, right? Nobody is
to tell you that.
It's a great theme from a Kurt
Vonnegut book.
I think it's The Sirens of
Titan,
where a robot comes down to
meet with the main character
(06:30):
and informs him that he is the
only sentient being in the
universe
and that everybody else is just
a robot sent down here to test
him.
And it was funny.
We developed the whole, this
whole theme pervades the whole
book.
And why is it funny? Well, why
is anything funny?
Because it's the truth we all
(06:51):
believe deep down inside that
the world, the universe,
why bother with the world? The
universe revolves around us.
And so, but of course, we know
that it doesn't really revolve
around us.
And that's the key to evolution
.
That's how we can get along
with each other.
It's like, because otherwise we
're all just fighting to prove
(07:12):
that you belong to me.
And I'm better than you. I
dominate you.
You're in the audience. I'm a
fun stage, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah.
Hey, you know, what I say is
there are no winning strategies
,
because in the end we all lose.
We all lose. When you die, like
, you know,
they ever heard the phrase,
like, you can't take it with
(07:32):
you?
Well, what do you think that
means? You're a loser.
So have fun. You know, can you
make losing fun? Sure.
So that's what you ought to do.
Anyway.
So, Shell says, I would
appreciate all the time you
choose to give us
in answering these questions.
Well, since it's a morning
coffee note,
it's probably going to be 40
(07:53):
minutes give or take.
It seems to be how long these
things usually are.
And let's see, we've been going
for, like, about exactly eight
minutes right now.
So I would guess Shell, I would
think probably about 32 minutes
or so.
Anyway, so first question,
might as well get right into it
.
You've been blogging longer
than anyone else we know. Why
did you start?
(08:14):
Well, good question. Why did I
start?
I started, big picture why I
started was because my career
as a software developer
had come to a sad ending. And I
couldn't, and the reason why
was,
it wasn't that I wasn't willing
(08:35):
to put in a lot of effort to
make software
and that I didn't believe in
the products that I was making.
And I hadn't, it wasn't that
other developers weren't making
good products
because they were, it was
actually that the press couldn
't, or wouldn't,
or didn't carry the message of
our products.
Basically, they would write
(08:56):
stories, I was a Mac developer
then,
and they would write stories
about the software business and
they would say,
well, you know, the Mac, not
actually, they would write
stories about the computer
business.
And they'd say, you know, the
Mac doesn't have much of a
future
because there's no new software
for it.
So, I'd call up the reporter,
but I knew many of them, I was
in Silicon Valley,
(09:17):
and they were, of course, many
of them were in Silicon Valley.
And I knew them, and I'd call
them up and say, what are you
talking about?
I mean, you use a Mac and there
's lots of new software for the
Mac, don't you know that?
And they go, well, yeah, I
wouldn't know that.
So, why do you say that there's
no new software for the Mac?
And well, everyone knows there
's no new software for the Mac.
So, it's this kind of delus
(09:38):
ional thing that was going on,
it still goes on in the press.
They sort of get caught up in a
piece of mythology, and they
report the mythology, not the
facts.
In other words, if you call
them up and say, wait a minute,
which you just said there was
wrong,
but it's what everybody knows
is true, then the facts, no,
let's not,
a few facts interfere with the
(09:59):
storytelling.
So, our reporters have a
pattern, they all sort of like
tell the same story that the
other guy said.
One guy gets to go first in an
area like whether it be podcast
ing or aggregators or RSS or
blogging,
or like go through the whole
series of different stories
that have come out in the last
(10:20):
X years.
There really isn't a whole lot
of variety in terms of what the
reporters report.
So, that was a big picture why
I started blogging.
A small picture was, well, I
was doing a project for with,
when I was at Wired,
when I was writing at Wired
(10:40):
magazine, I was contributing
editor at the website HotWired.
And I was doing a project
called 24 Hours of Democracy,
which was a response to the
Communication Decency Act.
And if you look this up, I've
told this story like a dozen
times,
if you look up Communication
Decency Act or 24 Hours of
Democracy with my name,
(11:02):
you'll probably get more
details than I can, that I'll
tell you here.
But basically, we had a mail
list and we had sponsors,
and like AOL sponsored us, they
were very, very generous.
And now there are a bunch of
others, I don't remember who
they all were.
And the mail list was like all
(11:24):
mail lists, very active at the
beginning,
and very positive, lots of good
things getting done.
And then it got very flaming.
And sort of like, well, that's
what mail lists do, right?
I mean, as soon as people feel
like, I've got so much invested
in this,
it has to go the way I want it
to go, then the mail lists sort
of don't work very well.
And so, but I was the leader of
(11:46):
this little community.
It was a very temporary
community.
It wasn't intended to be
anything very long lived.
We took, I think, maybe 40 days
or so, 45 days to plan it, to
get ready for the day when
basically,
it was a website where
basically anybody could write
an essay for us and we would
(12:06):
publish it.
And we would link all these
sites together and get all
these cool,
it was sort of like a moon
mission, which I love.
The idea of a technology moon
mission where you have a fixed
date and everybody's excited
about that.
And sort of like, there's no
time really to argue, of course
, then people make the time, of
course, to argue.
And anyway, so to make a long
(12:27):
story short, I needed a way to
communicate with this group of
people.
And they were flaming out on
the mail list.
So I decided to help with that.
Let's use the website.
And I had a website going for
this.
I was working within a content
management system that I put
together.
It was called ClayBasket.
ClayBasket's view of the web, a
website, was that it was like a
(12:49):
productivity application,
like a spreadsheet or a word
processor.
Actually, it was an outliner.
That was sort of, you know, I
tend to view everything as an
outline.
And I just started putting in
these links in reverse order.
And very quickly, I remember
the moment.
I don't remember exactly what
(13:10):
happened, but I remember the
moment looking at this and
saying,
"You know, this is an
interesting way to do things."
I think I'm going to come back
to this after this project is
over.
And that was the weblog.
It was reverse chronologic
links to other pages, on-site,
off-site, tying a community
together.
It had all the basic elements,
(13:31):
maybe not all the basic
elements from a technology
standpoint.
I noticed that later on in the
questions you asked, "Well, why
not stick with DaveNet?
Why start blogging when you
already had DaveNet?"
Which was an email circulated
newsletter that started a
couple of years before I
started blogging.
And the answer to that is, well
(13:53):
, first of all, it's a
completely different
distribution mechanism.
And as it turns out, one that
wasn't going to survive
because email has become so
dysfunctional now because of
spam.
But on the other hand, I
actually think of DaveNet as
being a blog.
I mean, it has, you know, what
's important about a blog?
(14:14):
Is it the form? Is it the fact
that it's reverse chronologic
and it has links and all the
rest?
Yeah, I guess it's important,
but what's more important to me
?
And when I sat down to actually
write my definition of what a
weblog is,
when I started my fellowship at
Berkman Center,
the conclusion I came to was it
(14:35):
's not about the form.
It's about the unedited voice
of an individual.
In other words, it's not an
organization talking.
It's not trying to be anything
more than just a person.
You know, I came up with a way
of saying, "Come as you are. We
're just folks here."
That it's informal and we're
interested in what you have to
(14:56):
say.
I don't want to be too much of
an impolish if you make a
spelling error or grammar error
.
I actually prefer if people
make spelling or grammar errors
.
Not on purpose, okay?
But I don't care if there are a
few errors and mistakes because
to me,
that's the reminder that it is
just a human being speaking and
that's what I like.
I don't like sterile writing.
(15:17):
I don't like thinking that, you
know, sort of reflects lowest
common denominator, political
correct.
I like interesting ideas that
stimulate new ideas.
I don't believe in talking just
for the sake of, you know, of
hearing your voice or whatever.
So anyway, hopefully I've
answered the question.
It was to route around the
press, big picture, to create
(15:38):
my own platform for speaking.
That was the big picture.
The small picture is it really
worked well for tying together
communities.
And those are actually, I don't
know, that one is bigger or
smaller.
Okay, number two, why did blog
ging happen?
Why didn't we all use GeoCities
or Macromedia's Dreamweaver or
MSN's free websites or
(16:00):
something else?
Well, good question.
And the answer is, I'm going to
answer a different question
because people ask me,
I think what you're asking me
is this, is that, you know, why
aren't personal websites,
what's the matter with personal
websites?
Well, then I say that blogs are
personal websites now.
That's what a personal website
(16:22):
is in 2005.
GeoCities and didn't become, I
think, what everybody thought
it was going to become,
but Blogger did and MovableType
did.
And, you know, the whole blog
ging world sort of became what
GeoCities,
I mean GeoCities had a sort of
(16:42):
gimmick to it.
They said, we'll sort of create
a grid, just like, you know, a
logical grid,
just like you have in the
physical world.
You know, and it's hokey.
It was wrong.
And basically the internet has
its own sort of grain.
It has its own lay of the land,
(17:05):
its own kind of geography,
not kind of an after-earth
geography, terrestrial
geography.
It's not the same thing.
I mean, all the geography that
we have, with the exception of
time zones, is melting.
I mean, the geographic dist
inctions, I have friends that
live in Europe,
and they stay up until five in
(17:27):
the morning, and we hang out.
I mean, you know, if I liked it
, I wouldn't stay up until five
in the morning,
but they do, so, you know, it
kind of works out okay.
So that was not a great idea.
Dreamweaver built, I hate to be
critical of somebody else.
I mean, it's a good piece of
(17:48):
software, right?
But I don't think it was really
, like, clear on who it was for.
And it was, again, it was a
mistake, it was a mistaken idea
that early on was very popular.
People thought that it would be
desirable to turn the web into
a word processor,
(18:09):
or into a design environment.
And Dreamweaver kind of falls
somewhere in between the two.
But in fact, the web is its own
thing, and it's more, if
anything, like groupware.
You know, in the '80s, Shell
remembers this, I'm not sure Sk
obel does,
but in the '80s, everybody, the
Holy Grail, the elusive Holy
Grail was groupware.
Everybody wanted to do group
(18:29):
ware, right?
Well, guess what? We're doing
it.
It took a while.
And all of our conceptions of
groupware, well, turns out we
're wrong.
And then when the finally the
moment came, when it was time,
when the world needed,
really needed groupware, okay.
And that was, by the way, the
epiphany that I had going from
Claybasket
to the content management
system in Frontier, which came
(18:50):
very shortly after that,
was that I was wrong, the web
is not a productivity app, okay
.
It's groupware.
And that turned out to be
exactly right.
That's, and the ideal groupware
is, as David Weinberger says,
"Small pieces loosely joined. A
blog is a piece."
Okay.
A person, therefore, is a piece
in the whole sort of picture of
(19:12):
the web.
And the blogging tool evolved
from that premise.
It started off being everything
that it is today,
and it isn't today everything
that it's going to be five
years from now.
It started off in an
evolutionary sense.
Doug Engelbart calls us a boot
(19:32):
strap.
And a bootstrap says you build
tools, you use them,
and you use them in turn to
design the next tools.
And that's sort of the magic of
blogging,
is that without the blogs
themselves, we couldn't have
done anything like RSS.
Couldn't have done it on a mail
list.
Couldn't have done it with a
(19:53):
standards body.
Couldn't have done it with the
tools that existed before blogs
.
Yet it's incredibly relevant to
blogs.
And so it's a bootstrap.
This is Doug Engelbart's vision
in sort of inaction.
And Doug's brilliant guy, Doug,
I met him once.
I had dinner with him once.
It was a wonderful, wonderful
time to me.
(20:14):
I felt like the student meets
the teacher.
And I don't get too many
experiences like that,
but that was certainly one of
those experiences.
Anyway, so it's a bootstrap.
And that's why it sort of works
,
because it isn't based on like
the sort of head trip
that GeoCities and Dreamweaver
(20:36):
were based on.
Okay, so we've got a number
three.
What was, by the way, what is
the role of Weblogs.com?
Because Weblogs.com is very
much there and doing its job.
It's kind of quiet.
People don't pay a whole lot of
attention to it.
But without Weblogs.com, you
wouldn't have a tech neurati,
for example.
(20:57):
A lot of the real-time services
, Pub/Sub, Feedster, things like
that,
they use the results of Weblogs
.com.
But Weblogs.com is sort of like
the peering point of the Weblog
world.
Sort of like on the internet
itself.
If you think of sort of, and
(21:17):
people do talk about this,
Internet Web 2.0 or Internet 2.
0,
I actually called it two years
ago, I called it Internet 3.0,
because I thought this was the
third incarnation of the
internet.
Basically, first being the pre-
web internet with email and FTP,
Gopher, all that kind of
academic stuff, right?
But then very much formed the
(21:38):
flavor of the net.
And then the second one was the
web,
and the third one was the two-
way web,
which is the web basically
turned into a publishing
environment for everybody.
Everybody can use it.
Whereas in the first web, it
was sort of the web modeling,
the internet modeling, the
print publishing world.
And the web, probably a
necessary step.
(21:59):
Technologically, not necessary,
but perhaps from a social and
human standpoint, necessary,
perhaps.
So, the role of Weblogs.com is
to be the peering point.
It's the place where everybody
says, "shows up."
And if you want to find out who
's changed, who's updated,
what's available, what's new,
(22:19):
that's where you go.
And it has like the peering
points on the internet itself,
it is open on both ends.
It's open basically. Anybody
can ping it.
Anybody can say, "Here I am.
I want to be part of this
little network that you're
running here."
And anybody can find out who is
on that network,
because both ends are open.
So, you've got the ping on the
(22:40):
one side,
you've got changes.xml on the
other side.
And when Technorati says they
know about 8 million Weblogs,
interestingly, interestingly,
that's the same number of Web
logs that Weblogs.com knows
about.
And we just don't push it.
And probably it's a mistake.
Probably should have raised
lots of VC money
and started a company around it
(23:01):
or whatever.
But frankly, it didn't really,
like,
it initially didn't need that.
And today it probably doesn't
need a company,
but it certainly needs more
than what it has.
Right now, Weblogs.com is
getting about half a million p
ings a day.
Should I say that again?
Half a million Weblog updates
every goddamn day.
That's 10 per second.
(23:22):
Think about it.
That's a lot of growth.
Believe me, it wasn't doing
that a couple years ago.
Anyway, so, like, next question
.
Oh, we got that one done
quickly.
We're only up to question
number four, and there's a
bunch more.
So what made you initially
interested in RSS
and in Weblogging software?
I think I've already answered
the second part.
But RSS started, I know this is
(23:47):
very controversial,
but the people who make it
controversial,
like, didn't do it and weren't
there.
So, you know, I was, and I did
do a lot of what made RSS
successful.
And when I was doing that,
nobody else was doing it.
So, sort of kind of gives me a
certain, like, sort of
credibility,
I think, here that maybe other
(24:07):
people don't have.
I started working in that area
in December 1997.
And Adam Bosworth from
Microsoft had been coming down.
He'd come down to see me, I
think it was like three times.
It's pitched me on XML.
He thought for some reason I
would be a good guy to work
with XML.
(24:29):
And I resisted.
I said no the first X time.
I don't remember the number of
times he came to visit,
but I absolutely said no.
Because, and you know, I think
for the right reasons in
retrospect,
is that I thought it would be a
corporate battleground.
You know, it was sort of like
(24:50):
an attempt by the big
technology companies
to try to regain the control
that they lost
when the internet sort of wiped
out their entire landscape
in the few years that preceded
that.
I think before 1994, I would
say, was the sort of crucial
year,
they were like busy working on
(25:13):
all of their huge,
I mean, I mean just
unbelievably complicated
and convoluted protocols for
application integration.
That was the big deal.
So there was Olay and OpenDoc.
Those were the two things that
were sort of competing for
attention.
There was Taligence and Pink
and Blue and Cairo and Mappy.
(25:39):
And basically IBM, Borland,
Microsoft, Apple, Novel.
I'm sure I'm leaving some
important people out.
Sun wasn't really in there
actually.
Sun kind of was quiet in those
days.
And then I remember when I got
my first glimpse of the
internet,
I wrote a piece called Bill
Gates vs. the Internet.
I mean, I had an epiphany.
(26:00):
I said, "Geez, everything that
they're trying to do now
is completely going to get
wiped out by this."
And then I got a sort of whiny
email back from Bill Gates,
saying, "Yeah, come on, you're
full of shit."
Turns out it was true.
It did wipe out everything, did
level the playing field,
set everything back to a very
rational place
(26:21):
where basically anybody could
compete
and you didn't have to be a
huge company
or work at a huge company in
order to create relevant
software.
And this is, of course,
something that people that
worked at the big companies
didn't like very much because,
you know,
why had they gone to the
trouble to climb this big, huge
corporate ladder
and kiss all that ass and make
all those compromises
if in the end it wouldn't end
(26:42):
up meaning anything.
So to me, XML looked very much
like the idea of XML
was to sort of get back all the
power that they lost
in the rise of the Internet.
Internet 2.0, you might think
of it as Internet 2.0.
And so I didn't want to do that
.
I said, "I like what I'm doing
."
And I saw the Internet as the
(27:03):
platform without the platform
vendor
and I was free, nobody was in
my way.
Why would I want to get
involved in that mess again?
And Adam kept pounding on me,
kept saying,
"No, no, no, it's not what it's
going to be.
I'm making sure," Adam would
say, "I'm making sure that
Microsoft won't play those
games."
And I'd go, "Yeah, yeah, you're
a good guy, Adam,
but you know what, you're not
(27:24):
going to be at Microsoft
forever.
Somebody's going to push you
out and they're going to take
over what you're doing
and they're going to turn it
into battle, battle now."
Of course, exactly what
happened.
I mean, totally, always has to
happen.
If a big company guy says, "
Adam means well.
Adam is a brilliant guy, but he
's not as powerful as the people
who really play the
(27:44):
organizational politics at a
big company like Microsoft.
They can make happen what they
want to make happen.
Usually, it's like they can
stop things from happening.
It's not like they make stuff
happen.
They just get things really
complicated
and make a lot of them sort of
have meetings and fly all over
the world.
And of course, at the end, they
have to redo it when they bring
IBM into it
and they have to redo it when
(28:05):
they bring Sun into it.
But bringing in all these other
partners now,
all of a sudden, you end up
with bookshelf size
specifications
that are impossible for anybody
to implement, which is the idea
.
Anyway, I have no time for that
.
I want to build things.
I don't care so much about the
formats and protocols other
(28:26):
than what you can do with them.
So I have this impatience that
says, "Hey, come on, let's get
on with it.
This works. This is good enough
. Let's go."
And so XML looked like there
would be a lot of, like,
whatever, breaks put on it.
Well, anyway, I went for it
anyway.
And in the end of 1997, it was
really a very simple idea.
I went looking for data that I
(28:48):
could XMLize.
And I found a few things.
Like, I had the changes to my
website.
I created an XML file that was
updated regularly every day.
And it would contain a list of
URLs of files that had it
updated in that day.
And so if a search engine
(29:09):
wanted to avoid crawling my
entire site,
they could look for the
existence of this file.
And if they found it, then I
would be telling them,
"You don't need to look at any
other files.
These are the only ones that
change today."
And, you know, it would still
be a good idea.
And since almost all the
content on the web these days
is managed content,
(29:31):
it would be very easy to do
this.
It wouldn't have to be done
manually.
Every time I tried to raise the
issue with a search engine,
guys,
they treat me like I'm a, you
know, like, "Oh, what do you
know?
What do you know about search
engines?"
Or, "Who the hell does he think
he is?"
I don't know. They never listen
.
So I stopped pushing it.
And I also said, "Oh, wow, you
(29:51):
know, I've got a blog."
That looks like something I
could XMLize.
I didn't call it a blog then.
It was 1997.
I don't think we called it a
weblog then.
We called it a news site.
I think that's what it was.
But it was a blog.
And so I produced a format
called "Scripting News Format,"
which was to the best of my
(30:11):
ability an XMLization of my web
log.
And I said, "Cool, now who
wants to do something with this
?"
So I announced it.
I put up, I kept it updated so
that my content system would
regenerate it
whenever I updated my site.
And there were a couple of
trials.
People tried stuff out with it.
(30:32):
But it wasn't until, like, over
a year later, in early 1999,
I got some emails from people
at Netscape
asking me questions about the
feed and how it worked.
And then they sent me a link to
a page
that showed what they were
doing with it.
And I thought, "Wow, it's cool.
They're doing something with it
."
And I thought at that time, I
(30:53):
had the wrong idea.
I thought they were building on
my format.
It turns out, yeah, their thing
could read "Scripting News Form
at,"
but they were really creating
another format altogether
that just did pretty much
exactly what mine was doing,
but did it differently.
And I got angry because, "Geez,
why can't we be compatible out
(31:14):
of the box?
Why does the second guy coming
into the damn market have to be
incompatible?
Why don't you be compatible?
Why don't we have a standard?
Why don't we just do it the
same way?
Huh? What do you think?"
And, no, they said, "No."
So I sort of went for a walk
and thought it over and said,
"This is a really, really key
(31:35):
point
because anybody that gets to
this place,
you have incredible power if
you just change your point of
view.
And say, "Okay, what if I throw
out what I've done
and I just adopt what they're
doing?"
And maybe then we can have a
standard.
(31:56):
In other words, it's infinitely
better to have one way to do
something than to have two.
And if you can swallow your
pride and say,
"Okay, it doesn't have to be
the way I designed it.
I can adopt somebody else's
design.
As long as I think it can work,
why not do it?"
And so that's what I did.
I took their format, which was
(32:19):
called RSS,
and I adopted it.
And then at the same time, I
also updated scripting news
formats
so that it had all the features
that RSS had.
In other words, it was strictly
a superset of RSS.
And they saw that happen.
I wondered what they would do,
and they did the right thing.
(32:40):
What they did was the exact
inverse of that.
They looked at scripting news
format and they took all the
features that were in that
weren't in RSS and put it in R
SS.
And at that point, I did the
thing that --
the word that I don't like so
much, I said,
"Let's deprecate scripting news
(33:00):
format.
Now let's just go forward with
one format called RSS."
And that was RSS 091.
And I built an aggregator
called my.usland.com.
And it was the first River of
News-style aggregator,
which I still think is the most
useful kind of aggregator.
And Netscape had something that
(33:22):
was quite similar to what my.us
land.com is.
That was my.usland.com.
And that was like May of 1999,
maybe June.
And then very shortly
thereafter, they just evapor
ated.
The whole team that was working
on RSS there just left the
(33:43):
company,
laid off or went to work in
other parts of --
I think they were at that point
owned by AOL.
They had sold out to AOL.
And then RSS was on sort of
precarious grounds.
That's why I only claimed to be
a co-inventor.
People call me the inventor.
When they do that, that's wrong
.
I'm a co-inventor of RSS and
(34:04):
ended up being the only one
that was still in the game
after the initial work was done
.
And if I had it to do it over
again, I think I would have
done it differently.
But hey, that's just whatever
it is.
Anyway, let's see where we're
at in terms of time.
Because I'm starting to feel a
little tired here.
34 minutes.
(34:25):
Yep, yep.
Maybe I'll answer one more
question and then I'll do
another podcast,
maybe tomorrow, to answer the
rest of these.
I'm looking at the rest of the
questions now.
Yeah, well, let's see.
I think I've answered five and
(34:47):
six.
I have not answered seven.
Yeah, I'll tell you what.
What I'm going to do then is I
'm going to do another episode
here
because this is white to me out
for some reason.
Okay, maybe we should play the
(35:08):
rest of it.
Let's see what I've got here on
this.
I've got this new $49 MP3
player here.
It's real cheesy.
But it works.
And it's kind of nice after the
iPod because it's so simple.
It's so easy to use.
Let's see if we can get that
song back here that we had
(35:28):
before.
John Kruger Mellencamp.
Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom,
doom.
Michael McDonald, right?
We don't want to listen to that
.
Don't pass me by.
Oh, it's the Beatles.
(35:49):
Don't pass me by.
Don't make me cry.
Bill Gross.
Oh, yeah, I have to listen to
that Bill Gross thing.
Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom,
doom.
Don't you love this part?
This is what they call dead air
.
Oh, this is the Honey Drippers.
Oh my God, this is a great song
.
Okay, let's just do the
(36:10):
beginning of this song.
Let's see if we can get it to
cue up here for us.
Okay, all right.
Hold on, I need to turn the
volume up.
Oh, there we go.
Oh.
Okay, everybody, we'll see you
next time.
Bye.
This is Morning Coffee Notes.
That's a day.
(36:31):
I knew you were my man.
April 14th.
I want to tell you how much I
love you.
2005, www.morningcoffinotes.com
/com.
Come with me tomorrow.
RSS.xml.
(36:52):
To the sea, sea of love.
I will tell you just how much I
love you.
Come with me to the sea.
(37:20):
Oh, I love you.
I love you.
Oh, I love you.
I love you.
(37:46):
[no audio]
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