Interesting reads from 10-plus years ago at theobvious.com

http://www.theobvious.com

Open Question: What would you do with RSS
http://www.theobvious.com/archive/2002/09/20.html

Stories and Tools
http://www.theobvious.com/archive/2002/04/15.html

A MetaFilter Proposal
http://www.theobvious.com/archive/2001/10/26.html

September 11, 2001
http://www.theobvious.com/archive/2001/09/11.html

The Next Usenet
http://www.theobvious.com/archive/2001/03/02.html

The way I see it, we already have about half of the solution implemented. First, there seems to be an almost endless supply of content creators. Webloggers, personal home page publishers, professional journalists, community participants are creating millions of words of new content. Second, we have the protocol: simple HTTP, and addressable URLs. Third, we have (at least the beginnings of) a common data format in RSS.

We're missing the other half, which consists of two elements -- a common semantic space (i.e. "categories of content"), and the client- and server-side tools to easily create and distribute content. The tools will come, and will come in multiple colors and flavors. Whether it's Blogger, or Radio Userland, or Microsoft Word, or EMACS, or a server-side tool provided by Geocities, there will be tools for reading, writing, commenting on, and publishing, RSS-based content (ed. note -- there you go again).

Imagine a series of webservers that exchange RSS feeds in a similar way. Since RSS 1.0 is extensible via XML namespaces, it would be easy to add one or more categorization elements to each and every item posted, in addition to a categorization for a whole channel. Additionally, RSS could be extended to describe types of publishers, so custom syndication servers could have their own rulesets to enable them to redistribute RSS feeds matching particular channels, created by particular publishers, or classes of publishers. Thus, theobvious could become a syndicator of RSS feeds of indie tech pundit types, while Google becomes the syndicator of record for everything it could get its hands on.

Hacking the City
http://www.theobvious.com/archive/2000/11/07.html

The Beginning of Web Design
http://www.theobvious.com/archive/2000/07/24.html

Pyra's Killer App
http://www.theobvious.com/archive/2000/05/01.html

Just One Question for Dick Costolo
http://www.theobvious.com/archive/1999/12/27.html

My Ass is a Weblog
http://www.theobvious.com/archive/1999/11/22.html
A major miss-fire prediction from 1999 by Greg Knauss, but it's still an interesting read.

Say what you want about the Web, it's got its enthusiasms. Twice a year or so, like clock-work, a new technology or paradigm sweeps over the face of the Internet, promising to transform not only the medium, but the very fabric of our lives. "It's revolutionary!" proponents shout. "It's amazing! It's the next New Thing!"

Which makes the tumult that currently surrounds weblogs all that much more amusing. It's easy to be cynical, of course, but how can anyone not giggle into their sleeve when lists of links to the iBrator are described in terms that usually accompany the overthrow of a government?

Weblogs are a "revolution." They're "journalism." They're "art." They're, again and again, the next New Thing. To which the only possible response can be: come on, people.

This is not to say that weblogs aren't useful or fun. I read several every day, and have profited from the experience. I just love that Mahir guy.

But how can you not boggle at the level of self-delusion, of self-infatuation, it takes to declare that weblogs are going kill off traditional journalism? That the concept will be alive and well a decade from now? That weblog readership will increase a hundred-fold in that time? That they're an art form?

The only consolation a naysayer can find in all the current hubbub is that, inside of a year, the inevitable winnowing will be complete, and the weblog community will have matured into something efficient, useful and blessedly quiet. The remaining webloggers will go about their business, providing links and commentary, without all the noisy hoo-ha of revolution.

#history - #web - #programming - #rss - #forums - #design