May 2009
26 posts
Lessons from the changes in Twitter →
Interesting changes in the Twitter community in the last 24 hours.
Here’s what happened, from my point of view.
1. At some point yesterday afteroon I logged on and saw a message on the Twitter…
Opting-out of TechMeme →
I appreciate all the flow that TechMeme has sent to scripting.com over the years, but it’s time to say a tearful goodbye. I think we’ll do better independent of the community that TM…
The NY Times/Twitter feed →
Today I was thinking about what, in an ideal world, to do with the Twitter feed of the NY Times.
It has 852,709 followers. That’s potentially quite powerful.
This is what I came up with. …
Why open formats are so important →
If you look at the archive of Scripting News for May 1999, ten years ago, you’ll see how important open formats are.
At the time, a large company, Netscape, had done deals with major…
Google this is your wakeup call →
I’m reading various reports on Google’s announcments about search today, and it sounds scattered and totally uninspiring. And I might add, disappointing.
Google is today a big company, and it seems…
Mark this day →
Mark this day on your calendar.
After years of saying that instead of emulating print newspapers, Internet-based news should present the newest stuff first. I don’t want sections, I want flow.
PBS could become a cause for the web →
Writing about open formats got me in the heady mood of the 90s. Back then we believed the Internet would be a free speech engine of democracy. I still do, to this day, but it doesn’t…
Door-slams by MSM journos →
I’ve gotten lots of angry emails from mainstream journalists about things I’ve written here or on Twitter, esp in the last couple of years, as things have spiraled down in newspaper-land. I…
Rebooting the News #9 →
This week’s Rebooting the News podcast is up.
Jay and Dave talk about paying for the news, Ted Nelson as inspiration, “Giant Pool of Money.”
As usual, subscribe to this feed in your…
Tomorrow's inspiration →
For the last couple of months I’ve done a podcast every Sunday with Jay Rosen. Three Sundays ago he had a great idea, every week let’s choose someone to honor as a source of inspiration to the new…
Tweeting behind the firewall →
I just added a new feature to 100twt.com tonight, with the help of Daniel and Jason at Disqus: You can now comment on the tweets of people in the Top 100. That’s just the first toe-dip…
Tweets of the rich and famous →
After a week of watching the amalgamation of the 100 most followed twitterers, a few observations, and no conclusions.
1. I still hope that by amalgamating this group it will change it, make the…
Nothing from nothing →
Amazon's new URL-shortener →
In March, I observed that Amazon had already done some URL shortening on its own, meaning that a link like this:
http://amazon.com/wii
actually works. Now, apparently they’ve gone…
RSS is dead? My ass... →
I’ve been programming like a bat out of hell, in one of my most hectic spurts of creativity in a very long time. Not much time for blogging.
One of the results is a site where you can…
Gadget talk with Scoble →
I was browsing FriendFeed yesterday and saw Scoble had started a thread on the new Kindle, which was being dismissed by the tech press as a “Hail Mary pass” to save the news industry….
Tricks your mind plays →
It’s confusing when your mind plays tricks because it’s playing many roles.
1. It is the subject of the trick (it’s doing the tricking).
2. It is the object of the trick (it’s being tricked). …
New iPhone →
It was raining on Friday, and I went for a long walk up and down the hills, very vigorous — but I got soaked and so did my iPhone. After taking its last picture and uploading it to…
Rebooting the News #8 →
This week’s podcast with Jay Rosen is up.
Topics: Jay opted out of Twitter’s Suggested Users List, he explains why and we discuss. His choice for Inspiration of the Week is Josh Marshall of…
Conflicts of interest in tech →
It’s Jay’s week for the source of inspiration, so I’m bringing a different topic to our weekly potluck of speculation about Rebooting The News.
Obviously we’re going to talk about Twitter’s…
Maybe it should be social from the start? →
Seeing the first-time Twitter user experience reinforced an idea that’s been lurking in the background. Since the magic of Twitter is, theoretically, in its limits, perhaps they should…
What a first-time Twitter user sees →
I’m doing some work with a Twitter app that wants my username and password so I needed an account to test with. I created one, and accepted the 20 users that they suggested. This is what I saw: …
Posting to twitpic and posterous? →
I’m having the damndest time figuring out the APIs to these two web services. I just want to post a picture. I already have code that does multipart forms, for Flickr and the now-defunct Pownce….
DiGiorno pizza is tasty food →
We don’t have ads on Scripting News, but from time to time I put in a plug for a product I really like.
A few weeks ago I got a fantastic toaster oven, and I’ve been looking for food it cooks…
Impressive →
Jay Rosen: “I got put on Twitter’s official suggested users list last night. I asked them to take me off it today and they did.”
Breakage in the new Twitter UI →
I happy to report that I have the new Twitter user interface on my account and it’s nice.
However, apparently the “status” param is no longer recognized. …