ARTS & FARCES internet

I shouldn’t have to preface this by stating that I have a lot of respect for Dave Winer, but I will, just to make it clear. For what it’s worth, I think Winer and the rest of his team at UserLand are among the few innovative software developers around. But I am neither an apologist nor a shill.

When you blaze trails, you’re bound to get lost every once in a while.

That’s what I think happened with UserLand’s announcement yesterday that it was offering exclusive XML syndication of the New York Times to users of its Radio software product. They got lost. Or maybe waylaid.

Not because the New York Times is the epitome of mainstream media. It is, but that’s not the point. What bothers me about the agreement UserLand announced yesterday is the exclusivity of it. You shouldn’t be required to license Radio to be able to read the XML headlines of the paper.

You can bet the farm that if one of UserLand’s competitors entered into an exclusive deal with a major news source, Winer would be squealing about being locked in a trunk. And justifiably so.

C’mon Dave, open and free. No locks. No trunks. Remember?

Last night, legislation that would prohibit most telemarketers from calling numbers on a centralized list passed the Minesota House Ways and Means Committee. The proposed legislation now goes before the full House for a vote.

Companion legislation is currently working its way through the Minnesota Senate.

The bill calls for a US$1,000 fine for any telemarketer that calls any Minnesota resident who has enrolled on a state do-not-call list. Charities and politicians are exempt from the proposal as is any business communication where there is a pre-existing relationship. Additionally, the legislation would prohibit telemarketers from blocking caller ID devices or the display of false information on them.

What if a bunch of really smart people—or at least a bunch of smartasses—that really “get"the ideas behind Cluetrain and the net got together, virtually, and decided to lay new track?

Where would the track go? Would the trains run on time?

More evidence that business will never be the same.

About a week-and-a-half ago, I wrote that UserLand Software’s latest product, Radio Community Server (RCS) was a swing and a miss.

Problem is, I was looking at the little picture. All RCS does is allow you to serve a community of Radio-generated websites. But when the incremental cost to do that is US$0, that picture changes radically.

The big picture is that RCS is likely to have as great an impact on workgroup collaboration as networked personal computers did. Remember the first time you saw InBox. This is that all over again. (InBox was one of the first email programs for the Macintosh; it notified you of incoming email by scrolling the subject across the menu bar. This was when most people received 3 or 4 emails a day.)

Here’s the really big picture. I pushed hard for RCS to meet a price point that would allow individuals to sneak it in the back door of organizations. In a best case that would be under US$50, so the yearly license for Radio and RCS would be under US$100 and enterprising project managers could pay for it out of their discretionary budgets.

Isn’t this rich? The Bush administration’s acting assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs is seeking to bar a Nicaraguan official from entering the US because “...nations…were largely responsible for their own economic misfortunes and that they should not seek American financial support until they enforced official integrity and fiscal discipline.”

We cannot excuse the dastardly behavior of the likes of Mr. Byron Jerez of Nicaragua, or even attribute his behavior to the events that lead to putting that country in the tragic position of growing drugs for profit, rather than food for their own citizens. But, the following rationale from our assistant secretary is very rich, indeed.

Addressing the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Otto Reich had this to say: “When we are sure that there’s an individual or individuals who have stolen from the public treasury of their country, we are not going to let them into the United States of America.” (both quotes from the New York Times)