I was a bit late to checking out Windows Live Writer. The reason: the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin for WordPress. I didn’t see the point in authoring in a tool and then having to edit it in my browser.
Then I found the instructions for how to do the UTW tags from Live Writer: here.
Now I write and post all from Live Writer. Cool.[tags]UTW, WordPress, Live Writer[/tags]
Tags: Live-Writer, UTW, Wordpress
My money was on it being called Contentious Gang — tune it to hear Jason Calacanis get raked over the coals for being charitable (among other things).
On the recent Gillmor Gang (MidTail Gang), you can catch me disagreeing with Jason Calacanis on rollups. He argues that only “loser” entrepreneurs sell their companies into rollups.
I argued that this is simplistic — that sometimes a rollup is the best choice for a company to make. He conceded that in a weak market (and again, if you are a loser), this might be the way to go.
Interesting that Jason articulates his point purely in terms of the entrepreneur: if you are strong, you find a way to win or fail trying.
Failure is a part of being an entrepreneur, but successful companies are made up of more than just the entrepreneur(s).
What about other stakeholders? What if the options are: “fail” or “rollup”? Your employees all get jobs and maybe the investors get to let their money ride.
I think that this will always feel like losing to the entrepreneur. This will never be the grand vision he or she was working towards. But winning and losing is not so black and white.
Am I defending a loser mentality? No, I think I’m just defending pragmatism.
Disclaimer: I have never been a part of a rollup nor am I seeking one out!
Tags: acquisition, Calacanis, Gillmor, Gillmor-Gang, Startup
Read J. LeRoy’s great post on IM, titled Infuriating Messenger 2.0 — he has some great rules about IM. We (mostly) all ascribe to reasonable telephone and email etiquette, but for IM? It is all over the map. This makes me think about a couple of things about these 3 mediums:
What I like about email? One thing I like about IM is that it speeds up the asynchronous
And Jim admits that we are first cousins. That’s his story . . . 😉
A busy week, but I made it.
The first session (that I saw) this morning was led by Phil Torrone. People giving / talking about tools. Many questions about how to do specific things and what tricks people have to get it done (regarding blogging and podcasting). Clearly this stuff is still too hard.
Now (OK — two hours ago), Jay Rosen on Citizen Journalism. Very good topic / question: how do we do “users know more” journalism?
This is often mapped into “open source” journalism. One person suggests it needs a new name to help with the constant argument of “what is journalism?” Not a bad idea. I don’t like the term “open source journalism” because of the double meaning of the word “source”. “Users know more” doesn’t mean that the source of a story (e.g., an involved party) is “open”.
People are struggling (and Jay Rosen) has to keep bringing people back to the topic: how to do “users know more” journalism. I understand that after the talk he said that none of his questions were answered.
An interesting discussion just the same.
Tags: BloggerCon, BloggerConIV
Many people would like to see an online Office product. Bill Gates says that what people really want are online documents. That is, if Office is available everywhere (with a full-desktop license or through some other interface) then the users need to get to their documents from any machine.
Setting aside this storage requirement (and the services to support it) for a moment, making Office available everywhere requires one of two things:
Isn’t that what Softricity’s SoftGrid product does? From their site:
All applications are instantly available anywhere in the world – from a user’s desktop or a browser . . . whether the machine is the user’s own computer or a device shared by many users; or whether the user is on a high-speed or dialup connection — or even completely disconnected.
In addition, they claim that they can rapidly pull just the part of the application needed by the user (again, from their site):
. . . the Softricity client rapidly responds and “pulls” only the code necessary to start the program from a central Server — typically 20-40% of the total code. This happens without any degradation in functionality or response time; applications launch within seconds, based on application size and connection speed.
So, Office 2007 + Softricity = Office Live?
Is this the real reason Microsoft is buying Softricity? Is this the Office Live strategy? Mr. Ozzie, is this your online strategy? Robert, do I have it right?
Yesterday I wondered about the overlap between Softricity and FlexGo. So, alternatively, Office 2007 + FlexGo = Office Live.
Tags: FlexGo, Microsoft, Office-Live, office12, Office2007, Ozzie, Softricity
Actually:
Disagree all you like. But, if you haven’t taken the time to grok the actual argument beyond the low hanging fruit, then just move along. There is nothing to see here.
I’ve finally gotten around to listening to the discussion about links and the link economy between Steve Gillmor and Doc Searls (part I, II). Definitely worth a listen.
Good thing, too, since I stepped into an argument about this on Jim’s blog and found him taking issue and posting about it. Jim’s initial point was regarding a recent Seth Goldstein post, Attentrons on the cutting room floor, and specifically the statement:
Strong web bloggers no longer link.
Jim concludes that non-linkers are not blogging, that they are actually columnists, and says:
I [. . .] recognize that sometimes bloggers feel that it is no longer necessary to provide links to source information so that their readers can get context, further information, or view those that came up with the original idea credit.
He goes on to say (in response to me and, to some “elite”, of which I am not one):
The notion that links are merely to build readership is rather frightening to me. It says to me that conversation is important until you reach a point where you can pontificate. That blogging is a culture to grow TechnoPriests. What a drag that would be.
What I should have said is that as a new blogger, linking is required to get into the conversation. I do this not to build readership as I flipply suggested, but to be a part of a community — if readership was truly my goal, I would go on a snark hunt or something.
While there must be those who refrain from linking due to their own elitism and to withhold credit, suggesting this is the motive behind the whole “non-linking” crowd ignores the argument being made. To be fair, I don’t think Jim is ascribing these motives to all non-linkers; however, I cannot agree with the claim that not linking is not blogging. And if he turns out to be right (i.e., once the definition of blogging is finally complete), I suspect it won’t matter. Things are changing, blogs are evolving, tools are getting better. Coupling RSS, gestures, and discovery engines will bring more of the right information without relying on the sacred link.
In terms of the arguments against links, I boil this down to a few points:
Steve Gillmor makes his points in his podcasts as well as on his blog — he doesn’t need me to make them for him. Read his latest, Back in the U.S.S.R, on this very topic.
A lot has been said about Google complaining to the government about IE7 (from NYT).
Don Dodge says that Google’s honeymoon is over. Perhaps this is true. Their complaining about the way search is handled in IE7 does seem disingenuous.
In the past I’ve said that Google’s goodwill will wane. From Dave Winer’s Geek Dinner for Scoble with relevant excerpt here:
Google has enjoyed a great deal of popularity as an answer to Microsoft’s dominance. They have a stockpile of goodwill and trust from people simply because they are not Microsoft. This is not permanent. The bigger they get, the more profitable they are (if that’s possible), the more people they piss off with their own kind of over-reaching, the more this is going to wane.
Google has some great products, of which search is #1. But, please Google, don’t try to lock in your users by complaining. Do it by making your products better.
Kevin Burton suggests that the Vista IE7 delay can be eliminated by tossing IE7 and adopting Firefox. I would be surprised if IE7 is on the Vista critical path, but the idea of Microsoft replacing IE7 made me laugh.
At first, I thought he was kidding, but he is serious (see the discussion between Robert Scoble and Kevin in the comments for that post). Fundamentally, Kevin’s idea is an interesting one, but that ship sailed a long time ago. Too many developers have products that rely on IE (e.g., NewsGator uses the IE browser control) with large installed user bases. Microsoft cannot just leave those developers and users in the lurch without a migration path.
Kevin suggests that since Firefox is a whole new application, that existing applications wouldn’t break. Good point, but remember, IE6 is considered a security problem. Abandoning IE7 doesn’t solve the IE6 problem for Microsoft.
They own the problem by winning the first Browser Wars and then letting IE stagnate.
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