MS KeyStone Part 4

Example # 2 – photo blogs

took a bunch of pics, added them as enclosures
users says – this is interesting, i want to subscribe

According to MS there are so many other ways of visualizing

screensaver app with downloaded enclosures – title / tag / caption

diff way of viusalizing a photoblog – we are not limited when we tap into the subscribe action

developers can focus on what they are good at, let MS new extensions to RSS do the hard stuff. Its enabling, to MS is freeing ot the dev community.

other examples they could show
rss a photo library, or any list or data set

what is dave doing – lists, structured, outlines, etc.

lists of content – music, video playsits, event calendars, wishlists, new products, to do lists
top 10 lists, rankings, etc.

subscribe to a feed- more and more comes in, sub model doesnt always work for all lists (uses the example of a hierarchy where rankings change)

extensions to rss – id list as a list
set pivot points so you can slice the data
allows whoever is consuming the feed, and their aggregator, to know it is a list and should be diff
describe data in a feed allows who is consuming the feed to do rich things with that feed

RSS feeds from amazons wishlists
2 interesting scenarios
1. a wishlist
every time he changes or adds to the list it knows what to do (how to present or rank it, what categories it fits in, etc.)
when something removed or bought – rss doesnt know, needs to be told
If there is a lot of traffic in a list things are lost
allows publishers to make feeds as a list
adding the tag (new MS extensions) it marks the feed as a list
when an items postion moves, the state reflects what is on the site
rss understands feeds of seqential or time based data but also allows to capture
something mark was alluding to
wishlist – interactive data – add the price, sales rank, comments, RSS makes it possible to intro other metadata (photo, book, DTDs)
how does the client know what it is looking at
simpler than hierarchies

Pivots (display of data)
user should be able to filter based on pivots
website controls the pivots and the data
user can control views – how they see the data

tuned to the data available – no cds, no cd list (no emptys)
simple list extensions avail under CC license – sharealike license (MICROSOFT IS RELEASING SOMETHING UNDER THE CREATIVE COMMONS!!!!!!!!!!!!)

makes most sense from publishers POV, is flexible and licensing of iP around standards
build up on the standards and share their additoons

MS is encouraging others to build upon it easily (MS is giving something back – to me this is an olive branch, a price of admission, they want to play in the space… and as one presenter said later in the week, we arent ‘Early Adopters’, we are the LUNATIC FRINGE.

The MS guys now put up a video on the screen with ex-special master in the MS antitrust case and Creative Commons leader – Lawrence Lessig. He is psyched that MS is CC’ing something (didnt Gates/Ballmer say that CC was akin to communism????)

Lessig throws in a dig about how happy they are playing video recorded on a MAC and the crowd whoops it up.

blogs.msdn.com/ie
code in devs hands PDC 2005 – sept
list extensions avail today (Dave Winer and a few others dont get to comment on this for a little while and start to hit it here and here. Seems like there is a deal brokered here)

summer – longhorn beta 1
content devs can use now AOL AOL AOL

more details at the ie team blog
Someone yells out where can we comment on it – SCOBLE nails it with a “See the WIKI on Channel 9! “(didnt get a chance to hang out with him, DAMN!)
teamrss@microsoft.com

MS KeySTONE Part 2

We are the first audience to see longhorn IE7.

In the browser window (in the chrome), when the browser finds an RSS feed it will identify the feed in the browser window. This gives preview of the feed.

Sitting in front of 2 Firefox guys – the commentary is hysterical (and will not be repeated)

some sites have a lot of content, and you can still add the page to favs, or add the rss feed to your opml list. Thru the browser you can can browse and subscribe to a feed.

Search is also enabled in the rss implementation (what the PubSub guy calls ‘prospective search’). You can, with IE7, subscribe to results of search in MSN search – lets say ‘gnomedex’ and have it updated every time there is new news about gnomedex thru the MSN search (not earth shattering… but still cool)

MS wants to make RSS a part of the users everyday activity

platform independent? – amar subscribes to the sites, not ie subscribes to site. (note – but is it portable?)

common feed list (not sure if this is OPML or not)- any app with browser, agg, can have access to the subscriptions, all exposed to Windows APIs -> this is the killer ALL EXPOSED TO WINDOWS APIS

Synchronization is built in.

RSS bandit – agg writtent by Dare Abesanjo (another cool person to meet!)
synchronize the rss bandit feedlist with the system feedlist

common feed list, and the disc of sites

all apps (ALL MS APPS) participate in the common feedlist

Microsoft Keystone

The following is my recording of theKeySTONE presentation at this years Gnomedex. I am not a typist so these can never be construed as quotes.

Dean Hachamovitch and Amar Gandhi from the Microsoft IE7 team are giving the second keynote/presenation. We are still off wifi. Dean’s profile from the gnomdex.com website:

Dean Hachamovitch – Who turned Clippy off in Office? The same guy who helped invent autocorrect and red squiggles (among other things) while spearheading Office user interface development in the 1990s, and then re-invigorated Microsoft’s online casual games business during the dot-com meltdown. In a nut-shell, he’s Chris Pirillo’s kind of geek. He’s now the General Manager of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team and driving Internet scenarios for Longhorn. Dean will talk about:

* How the future of the web is no longer just “browse”
* Why “really simple” is a good idea
* What Longhorn will deliver to make this easier for end-users, developers, and publishers

Hysterical – These guys are wearing Longhorn RSS t-shirts (click here).

Dean just showed the photo of the MS Campus (ITS THE DEATHSTAR)… his office is by the Crater. “its an artist rendering based on what some of you have written in your blogs”

Syndication is powerful, syndication is amazing

Syndications history within the halls of Redmond:
1997 – active desktop and channels
2002 – Don Blox
2003 – hired Scoble
“Scoble is actually a platform”
2004 – Scoble gets a camera – Channel 9 starts

MS is trying to get on the cluetrain
MSN Spaces has 14 million users

It all started with Browsing and then Searching

browse (limited)
Search (a lot of upside to go)

The next big leap is SUBSCRIBE
It is an evolution. Subscribe is not just a feature – a new approach to how we acquire, process, analyse and use information. Browse and search didnt go away, but they are specific (think 3 leg stool)

When veryone gets it they will subscribe, they will still browse and search
(my note – but subscribe is the marketers dream – the right message and the right time to the right person – and the citizen media guy’s dream – ON MY TERMS)

subscription is powerful – like TiVo – i am never surfing the same way again (my note – and I dont surf the same way now – more immediate, more on demand, more on my terms).

We (Microsoft and the devs) believe in subscribe deeply

users -> Longhorn -> Developers
are all betting big on RSS for devs and end users

Right now there are not enough who see it and get it (both sides of the user/dev continuum)

MS is betting on three things – making sure throughout windows the experiences are rss enabled and so that “RSS is EASY” (my note – hello dialtone)

    providing a platform in windows
    easy for devs to rss everything
    more than the browser and the aggregator – RSS everywhere
    more scenarions in the future than today

MS has been in discussion with Dave Winer and others

Today – blogs and news “you guys already get it” – this is for everyone else

Amar giving view at longhorn

more to come… (due to the length of these posts, I have split them up and numbered them. Sorry, but they were getting huge).

Daves Presentation

His presentation was fun by itself… if connectivity was on point it would have been truly great.

The conversation was excellent.

I am so sorry I tripped Dave when he walked in the room.

I really cant wait for the next Bloggercon (this time I am going).

Dave Winer Keynote Part 2

Dave has open sourced his new outliner/OPML editor and wants to open it up to the world

Throw some tools in the mix – play and present probs with solutions.

Uses that are possible include groupware, project management, front end to your blogging software, making structured lists, writing outlines, narrating your work, telling a story, participation.

When you are narrating the work, you are more organized and you will use it more. Dave uses his experience at Userland as an example of how well it works in a team/proj/dev environment.

Features up to us

Dave wont force his vision on others

Dave Winer Keynote

Dave Winer takes the stage to a ton of applause.

Today he is talking about software, and his common theme of Developers and Users partying together. He will be doing his keynote in Unconference style (his fav thing). It is patterned after the blogosphere – no speakers, no panels, no audience, not top->down, just a conversation. Dave believes that regardless of how smart the speakers are, the smarts are with us (collectively?), not up there on the stage.

Note – connectivity was problematic the first day of the event, sometimes to the point of distraction. While Chris warned the event space time and time again about how serious the guests would be they seem to have underestimated demand and usage. There are more than a few guys here with multiple machine, and a couple of videobloggers and podcasters who, while not streaming will be uploading some big-ass files. Slashdot down due to the overload from this IP – too many agg’s hitting the same site at once.)

Dave –
Unconferneces are like blogs, there is no need for an editor to approve our discussion or transmission of ideas – its a conversation between 400 people. The same thing is true of the web as a dev environment. Its the platform with out the platform vendor. In Dave’s opinion, the Internet lets us break free from the big companies as described in his:
Bill Gates VS the Internet post form a couple of years ago. The Intenet is like the Timex watch ads from back in the day (takes a lickin and keeps on tickin).

With connectivity up and down, Dave takes some time to talk about the issues we will be discussing and how MS people are gonna show they ‘get it’ , and how we can all participate in the internet environment – no one gets to decide how we work. Competition prevents domination(there is a little controversy to this later, as some say Dave broke a non-disclosure agreement in a previous blog posting, but it seems BS, and Dave discusses it here.

At this point Dave asks if we can get some discussion from the crowd, and… Chris is doing the DONAHUE! (both Chris, his fiancee, Mom and Dad have done an incredible job running, managing, and keeping the discussion going. They are runnign thru the space taking questions with a wireless mike).

A large bunch of us just killed our wifi connections so Dave could pull an IP address and start the demo. He just demoed the first half of his new OPML editor/outliner. I am in the beta group for this last week and it seems so cool. It aint aesthetically pretty, but it is elegant and simple and more importantly FULL OF POTENTIAL. Oh yeah, and Dave releaseed it under the GPL (yeah Open Source!). Someone just asked if there was a spellchecker, Dave – in a amusing tone told us we can add one. It seems like he is really making this as open and extensible as possible (even though he admits it wont be ready for release for another 3-4 weeks. Dave feels this is the next thing after RSS

Instant outline is like instant messagin
A way of extending outlines, and LISTS (this subject will get bigger with the MS announcement)

Dave points out that this is competition without control (none of the big players created the big tech they take adv of now)

More to come…

Dig the LONG TAIL

While everyone else is bemoaning the Long Tail in buzzword bingo, this is something you HAVE TO READ.

Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. “… shifting from Mass Culture to Massively Parallel Culture.” and “Whether we think of it this way or not, each of us belongs to many different tribes simultaneously, often overlapping (geek culture and Lego), often not (tennis and punk-funk).”

This is the best thing I have read all day

Good Enough is Not Enough

Seth is preaching the gospel.

Why do we settle. Why do we go 90% and then stop because we figure “the client will love it” or “the client wont appreciate more than that” or “we can move on to other stuff – this will get the job done”.

Jeff Einstein talks about how “time is out only real inventory”. But we use time as an excuse. We needed more time, we had other things to do, we ddnt have enough time, etc.

Good enough. Close enough. Why bother.

I am probably the most guilty of this in the world. Expedience, pragmatism. Sure we are doing kick ass work – but are we really going all the way? Are we limiting ourselves? I used to joke about how my teams can work miracles, given enough time.

Andy Law, in his book Creative Company, wrote about how Jay Chiat used to say “Good Enough Is Not Enough”.

Then why do we settle? Why do we follow the “conventional wisdom”?

Theres a reason why Seth was voted the top marketing blog of 2005 by Marketing Sherpa.

Instant Outlining!

The thing I am really looking forward to at Gnomedex is the density of demos at the event. Dave Winer’s debut of Instant Outliner. Adam Curry is bringing something new. Dean Hachamovitch is keynoting and presenting on Longhorn.

Check out John Robb’s comments on Dave Winer’s instant outlinerhere

It connects IM, weblog publishing (a weblog is essentially a published outline), RSS (if RSS items are brought into the outline), and outlining in a new way that radically improves team productivity.

I have been searching in vain for some groupware for the boutique ad agency I work for for about a year now. MS Project is too unwieldy and most of the open source apps dont fit the bill. Shrinkwrap? too expensive.

Cant wait to see what Dave & co. is cooking up.

Gaping Void Rocks

Gaping Void ROCKS

Hugh Macleod’s GapingVoid is a great site. The commentary is awesome and the cartoons are always great.

Above is hysterical. We have been having lots of discussions internally and with clients about the use (and overuse and flashturbatory use) of Flash in our projects and the web in general.

Don’t be that guy.