Re: [syndication] XML-RPC and the Need to Cash In

[Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>]

On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 08:03:08AM +0100, Julian Bond wrote:
> In article <20010824175609.B2251@mnot.net>, Mark Nottingham
> <mnot@mnot.net> writes
> >Perhaps it would be good to splinter a bit; to have a group that
> >focuses on evangelising and making it simple, and another that lives
> >on the cutting edge.
> 
> Don't break up the group and splinter it. Both groups will die.
> 
> Get a better mail reader that can thread the conversations. This list is
> not exactly high volume so it shouldn't be hard to track multiple
> conversations on it and hit the "read" or "delete" button as
> appropriate.


Heh. I can't help but think you illustrate Morbus' point perfectly;
you want people to use the technology proactively to solve their
problems; many are not comfortable with doing this, so the pool of
people available to contribute is diminished. 

I had the same thought, on a smaller scale, when you posted a
one-sentence response to a message by giving a URI and calling it a
blog, incurring a cost to the readers (both in effort and in knowing
what a 'blog' is - a term that is often more descriptive of the
publisher-side model than the reader experience), rather than just
typing or pasting it into an e-mail message.

Technology does provide some excellent tools for solving
communication-oriented social problems. However, it's not the end;
only a means. In this case, we have a social problem of trying to get
wide adoption of syndication. There have been peeks from some people
who are interested in doing that, but efforts lose momentum fast; it
could be that there just isn't enough in the way of resources to do
this (a pity), but I can't help but wonder if the issues raised here
have some impact as well.

Cheers,


P.S. Mutt is just fine for me, thanks ;)


-- 
Mark Nottingham
http://www.mnot.net/