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Thursday, August 24, 2006
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 Thursday, August 24, 2006
started 8/24/2006; 2:27:58 AM - last post 8/24/2006; 12:50:12 PM
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Doc Searls - Thursday, August 24, 2006 
8/24/2006; 6:27:58 AM (reads: 8309, responses: 8)
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River's edge 
| | I'm looking at some of the skepticism and pushback on the River of News concept. Ian Betteridge says, That's been around for about as long as there have been mobile devices and RSS. NewsGator's Mobile edition does it perfectly well. AvantGo sure did it. Matthew Ingram says I get the fact that he¹s working on something like mobile Bloglines, which Josh said changed his mind about the whole thing — I just don¹t see why he has to pretend that it¹s some kind of revolution. Paul Kedrosky says, what he's noisily done here is rediscovered the merits of a newswire. And as any journalist, broker, analyst, or fund manager will tell him, such things have been around as long as there have been terminals. Several folks source Josh Bancroft, who says, |
| | Yes, we're happy that you discovered why it¹s so cool, and yes, we have visions for how it could be made better in the future. But unlike podcasting, which was basically undiscovered territory, you¹re jumping into a world that has a ton of prior art. And we definitely don¹t want to turn you away from your newfound excitement, and willingness to innovate. On the contrary - I personally can't wait to see what you can come up with that makes mobile web browsing even better. |
| | Interesting... You coulda said the same thing to Steve Jobs when he came out with the iPod. |
| | Anyway, that's not my point here. My point is that Dave isn't just coming at this as a technologist. He's coming at this as a publisher. Specifically, he's proposing River of News as a new format for publishing. Or a new approach to it. |
| | His message with River of News isn't just for geeks like us. It's for the NYTimes and BBCs of the world, as well as for bloggers whose output is frequent and texty and newsy enough to work, as Paul Kedrosky says, like a newswire. But unlike the old newswires that went from AP and UPI to newsrooms at newspapers and broadcasters (or to professionals at workstations at brokerage houses), River of News goes directly from writer to reader. In other words, its a new, phone-friendly approach to publishing. |
| | There is also the matter of metaphor. (Bear with me on this one. It matters.) |
| | When we "develop", "architect", "design", "build" or "construct" a "site" with a "location" and an "address", we are doing more than borrowing the language of real estate and construction. We literally understand the Web in terms of real estate. Metaphors like The Web is Real Estate bring clarity to what we do, but they also bring limitations. If you're like most bloggers, you know how hard it is to convince some people that a blog isn't a "site" that requires a "designer"; but that it's a "journal" that you "write" and "post" or "publish". Some people can't get what you're saying because they continue to frame their understanding in terms of real estate, development and construction. They can't see that the Web is also a publishing system. |
| | Conceptual metaphors are what we think and talk in terms of. We unconsiously borrow the language of one subject to talk about another. Yes, we mix them all the time, too. But one usually prevails. |
| | Another example. Jon Stewart and a zillion bloggers have had fun with Sentator Stevens' description of the Net as a "a series of tubes". Yet most Net-savvy techies call the net a "pipe", and the Net itself depends on transport of packets. At a technical level you can't get away from the transport metaphor. Yet we experience the Net as a place — as something we build on, and publish on. Not just something stuff goes through. Even though that's what it is. So we're not just talking about what's true here. We're talking about how people understand something. |
| | "River of news" usefully combines three metaphorial frames: place, transport and publishing. Using all three, it proposes an approach to publishing that respects the fact that more and more people are going to want to get fresh newsy information on handheld Web devices. |
| | The River of News metaphor not only speaks a new kind of sense to the NYTimes and BBCs of the world. It speaks to a new blog sensibility as well. I'm starting to think about how I might want to change my blog to be more Webphone-friendly. Can I live without all the junk on the left and right margins, for example? (Probably. They're worse than useless to readers with Treos and Blackberries.) Alternatively, should I have a special feed just for Webphones? |
| | Whatever the answers, I'm not thinking about my blog, or what it does, as a "site". Meanwhile, that's how most big publishers think about what they do on the Web. That's why their sites are often so chock full of... stuff. They're all about being sticky and holding your eyeballs inside the sitewalls. That might be fine on a computer screen, which is big and placelike in the sense that it usually isn't moving around when you're using it. But a Blackberry or a Treo or a Nokia 770 is different. It's mobile. It's going somewhere. You use it in a much different way. |
| | Mobile feeds and systems for looking at them on phones may not be new. But getting publishing in alignment with the needs of Web users with cell phones is new. That's why River of News is a business hack. It's not a social hack, because the users are already there. The River of News idea calls attention to an opportunity opening up for everybody who produces news. Not just for those who consume it. |
| | Here's another thing. River of News is one more way that the Live Web is branching off of the Static Web. I've written and spoken about this before. If you read or heard that stuff, you'll understand why I see River of News as a Live Web development. |
| | I could say more, but I've probably already said way too much for readers on cell phones. Besides, it's 2:30 in the morning. See ya after breakfast. |
Blog on
| | I received a comment about my efforts to create a mobile feed from my web site. Here is the comment. |
| | Wierd url but it seems to work. What can I say? |
Fingered
| | Blogging With Thumbs is maintained strictly via my cellphone, a T-Mobile sidekick3. I use this site to post photos from my phone, and call odeo to post audio entries once every few days. My main blog can be found at wiphey.com. |
OrBitchz
| | I've always had good experiences with Orbitz, in part because it's been the only hotel search/reservation system that pays attention to my one necessity: high speed internet service. |
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Danny Ayers - Re: Thursday, August 24, 2006
8/24/2006; 10:03:49 AM (reads: 975, responses: 6)
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Forgive me, but you appear to be conflating several different things:
* presentation of web material on mobile device
* the "River of News" metaphor
* Dave Winer's invention
The idea behind the first of these, i.e. "getting publishing in alignment with the needs of Web users with cell phones" is far from new. Like other aspects of web publishing, the best approach is not to use hacks like re-presenting feed data, but to present the original in a way that is appropriate for mobile devices. There is a raft of best practice documentation on this, the baseline being that the best way to achieve interop across devices is to respect the standards of the web: HTTP, HTML and so on.
The River of News metaphor is marvellous, for the reasons you describe. But Dave Winer hasn't actually invented anything new here, and "He's coming at this as a publisher" - well, no he isn't. He's coming at it as a marketing man. There are two things being marketed, the lesser one being the mobile views, the big sell here is Dave Winer himself.
However, as those links you made demonstrate, this is old material repackaged. There's nothing wrong with that, especially if it means increased awareness of of the potential of publishing to mobile devices. But the way this latest implementation works is not web-friendly either in a social or technical sense. It's coming from Winer's own domain for starters, possibly violating the publishing rights of NYT and co. Technically speaking, the web-friendly approach would be as mentioned above, to follow standards. If Dave can persuade NYT to use RSS, surely he can persuade them to use HTML properly. Except of course he would have little to gain from that.
But even if you're looking at 3rd party sites, the specifications can be used to improve interop (e.g. here's your blog shown in another view by joining some web endpoints together, notably this one).
I'm really beginning to wonder about the A-list/Silicon Valley types. Wait till they hear about the invention of the horseless carriage.
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Charles Adkins - Re: Thursday, August 24, 2006
8/24/2006; 1:35:42 PM (reads: 745, responses: 3)
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Danny's on target here. Everybody has a right to market themselves, indeed, but Mr. Winer appears to continually draw the focus to his own achievements, and ignore the contributions of others, and in a most acrimonious way.
Your point about language and metaphor is well spoken. But Mr. Winer is hardly the first one to approach the web as a publishing platform, or think or talk of it in terms of flow. I (along with a large number of database pros I would imagine) have modeled enterprise datawarehousing and ETL systems in terms of capacity and flow and publishing and audience interests and needs and timeliness for many, many years.
The fact that the production and delivery infrastructures have grown so cheap and ubiquitous doesn't change the fundamental dynamics all that much--people produce content, systems deliver it, and humans, using whatever metaphorically apt ontological label you prefer, humans at the OTHER end read it and respond, or fail to do so.
The whole thing has become a lot more personal, and that dynamic is really one of the more interesting ones, to me anyway.
"River of news" is a neat moniker, a pithy slogan, and people like that, and so it's an easy story to tell, but then again so what?
(Especially so what if there's not all that much bandwidth left over for adverts, the monetary lifeblood of 'news' channels.)
Into what sort of behavioral contexts will this river of news flow? And if we follow it downstream, to where might it be taking us? Who needs a river of news and where? While standing in line at the supermarket? In your taxicab? In line at the theater? Riding your bike? at the gym?
I guess the on-the-go set can't get enough of this sort of water, but on a mobile screen its always gonna end up more of a trickle than a life-giving sort of river, isn't it? And in the midst of all the hype sure to follow, isn't it likely that the fundamental question which arises from this metaphor is just altogether missed -- namely a RIVER is something that supports human life. The history of civilization is closely tied to water, is it not? So the question is, is such a river of news life-supporting, in the sense of a real river, or is it not?
This is a much more interesting question to me than who got there first. And i suspect it will be examined well enough, once people start noticing that in a world full of information, that river of news is drowning out other significant life-giving signals, and covering the road to higher ground.
The river of news metaphor also seems to unfortunately confuse the quality of the content with the mode of delivery. News on my mobile, neato keeno, now i can REALLY keep up to date, anywhere.
But doesn't a human context require some sort of perspective? Isn't understanding more significant than immediacy? Isn't context as important as connectability? And doesn't a human context require a perspective a bit larger than the 3x3 inch screen on your mobile, while you are on your way to, or actually involved in, something else at the time?
Just wondering.
In this river of news scenario, it looks to me like, no matter where you are, you aren't really there, are you, cause your mind and attention is somewhere else.
But not to worry, Dave will save us. Next thing you know he will invent 'presence' (but spell it differently) and tell us to "BE HERE NOW", and unplug and step back. And when someone gently points out to him that this isn't really that new of a message, and he isn't all that special for having noticed it, more likely than not he will acrimoniously point out that NOW is NOW and that was THEN and so it is NEW and I really am discovering it....
oh well. i've fallen into ranthood, and gone on too long.
as melissa etheridge sang it, "somebody bring me some water,..."
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Doc Searls - Re: Thursday, August 24, 2006
8/24/2006; 4:29:57 PM (reads: 758, responses: 1)
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Take away your ad hominem case against Dave, and you've got A) a marvelous metaphor (your words there) and B) a call for publishers to follow standards faithfully as well as creatively.
As for my alleged conflations, I disagree. But is it worth arguing about?
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Danny Ayers - Re: Thursday, August 24, 2006
8/24/2006; 4:50:12 PM (reads: 677, responses: 0)
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Well well, it got up to techmeme, must be important.
I note Dave Winer's remark: "...the kvetchers and complainers who say we have no right to do anything new, or find a new angle on something that's been done before...".
I've not, nor have I seen, anyone say that they (the Winers) have no right to do anything new or find new angles. Personally speaking, I would love to see a new angle on something like mobile delivery.
River of News is a very catchy phrase. But applying it to newsreading on a mobile device is rebranding, not invention. I remember reading River of News-style material on a Palm years ago via Avantgo. The rebranding is not dissimilar to Netscape's "Rich Site Summary" becoming the technically near-identical "Really Simple Syndication", funnily enough.
It's an interesting coincidence they should refer to the myth of the Eureka moment, that's something Tim Berners-Lee mentioned in a podcast I blogged about only yesterday. Great minds clearly think alike (but not necessarily at the same time).
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Doc Searls - Re: Thursday, August 24, 2006
8/24/2006; 5:24:44 PM (reads: 885, responses: 2)
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>>"River of news" is a neat moniker, a pithy slogan, and people like that, and so it's an easy story to tell, but then again so what?
So two things happen. One: the neat moniker and pithy slogan raises interest and development in an area that publishers and users have both back-burnered up until now. Two: the publishers find a new and appropriate way to distribute editorial. And maybe some new business models to go along with it.
As with Danny, I want to get past the personality stuff (where conversational entropy commences immediately) and into the meat of what you're talking about. Because I think *that* stuff is interesting.
>>(Especially so what if there's not all that much bandwidth left over for adverts, the monetary lifeblood of 'news' channels.)
Okay. But how about if the publishers and broadcasters find creative ways to make money without milking the same old advertising teat they've been squeezing for the last eighty years? Can they do that? I think so. In fact, I'll be putting some of those thoughts up soon at Linux Journal.
>>>Into what sort of behavioral contexts will this river of news flow? And if we follow it downstream, to where might it be taking us? Who needs a river of news and where? While standing in line at the supermarket? In your taxicab? In line at the theater? Riding your bike? at the gym?
>>I guess the on-the-go set can't get enough of this sort of water, but on a mobile screen its always gonna end up more of a trickle than a life-giving sort of river, isn't it? And in the midst of all the hype sure to follow, isn't it likely that the fundamental question which arises from this metaphor is just altogether missed -- namely a RIVER is something that supports human life. The history of civilization is closely tied to water, is it not? So the question is, is such a river of news life-supporting, in the sense of a real river, or is it not?
Let's stop there for a second. Think about it: our current reference frame is cell phones and phone/PDA hybrids currently led by Blackberries and Treos. But the world is getting bigger than that. Manufacturing and service provision is getting more available and customizable than that, at many levels below the old Big Boys.
Right now there are new breeds of cell phone companies (one is Rave Wireless, which I consult) that cut their own deals with carriers, phone makers and customers (in Rave's case, universities), where the provided services are wide open to innovation and not limited to the silo'd stuff that the equipment makers and carriers normally provide. Rivers (or choose your metaphor) of text messages can be mashed up and syndicated out selectively to self-selecting groups. Among many other possibilities, some of them surely life-supporting.
>>This is a much more interesting question to me than who got there first.
Agreed.
>> And i suspect it will be examined well enough, once people start noticing that in a world full of information, that river of news is drowning out other significant life-giving signals, and covering the road to higher ground.
I think that's a stretch, but I get your point.
>>The river of news metaphor also seems to unfortunately confuse the quality of the content with the mode of delivery. News on my mobile, neato keeno, now i can REALLY keep up to date, anywhere.
>>But doesn't a human context require some sort of perspective? Isn't understanding more significant than immediacy? Isn't context as important as connectability? And doesn't a human context require a perspective a bit larger than the 3x3 inch screen on your mobile, while you are on your way to, or actually involved in, something else at the time?
I think those are all good questions, and I think River of News is one very helpful approach to answering some of them -- because I think behind it is an understanding of simple and direct relationships between writers and readers (not "content producers" and "consumers").
As a writer I am a source. As does every river.
That's why I made the points I did about how I'm re-thinking how I write and syndicate my blog. I have a relationship with readers that may need some adjustment, that may need to follow new and helpful paths of progress.
>>In this river of news scenario, it looks to me like, no matter where you are, you aren't really there, are you, cause your mind and attention is somewhere else.
This is always a risk in every situation in which we find ourselves.
Try to look at what's possible here in terms of writers and readers relating in new ways. Also remember that *every* metaphor is wrong in its literal sense. Time is not really money. Life is not really travel. News is not really a river. People don't eat their feeds. The Net is not really tubes. Yet we need metaphors to understand everything. That's just the way we'rel built. Which means we need to settle for a certain degree of wrongness all the time, about everything. Such is life.
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Danny Ayers - Re: Thursday, August 24, 2006
8/24/2006; 7:27:50 PM (reads: 786, responses: 0)
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There's rather more than an ad hominem case - this recent effort runs counter to publishers following standards.
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Danny Ayers - Re: Thursday, August 24, 2006
8/24/2006; 7:46:44 PM (reads: 1024, responses: 0)
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"the neat moniker and pithy slogan raises interest and development in an area that publishers and users have both back-burnered up until now"
Raising interest is great, but it's hardly been back-burnered. Work on mobile/ubiquitous access to the web has never been more dynamic. The treatment of information as a flow underlies many conceptual/architectural models around programming and media delivery (i.e. publishing). I find it really strange that it takes a little hack (state of the art maybe 2001) and a pithy slogan for this to appear on a lot of people's radar. It's as if the blogosphere ends at techmeme.
"publishers find a new and appropriate way to distribute editorial" - hopefully yes. "Appropriate" including aspects like following known best practices on the web, and respecting other people's copyright.
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Amy Bellinger - Witness
8/24/2006; 8:16:16 PM (reads: 934, responses: 0)
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