Pondering Dave Winer's early Jan 2016 posts

My current bookmarks page of sites that I visit or feeds that I consume includes a link to DW's feed near the top of the list. I access his feed multiple times per day to see what new insights he has posted. I'm mainly interested in his thoughts and projects regarding web publishing.

I agree and disagree with his tech posts. I don't care about the other topics. I don't access his Facebook or Twitter pages, except in extremely rare occasions. I read the RSS feed from his blog.

Here is how I read Dave Winer's writings: feed page.

I use my custom "feed" command that is included within my Junco code that powers this site. The feed command also exists in the Parula code that powers my message board at ToledoTalk.com.

Here's how it works. The feed= is surrounded by two curly braces at each end. The line must begin at the start of a new line in order for it to work.

Scripting News - 2025-10-10T13:59:04Z

- 2025-10-10T13:59:04Z
Today's song: Oh My Love, by John Lennon. I was trying to remember this song. It kept eluding me. It's not one of his most famous ones. It is the clearest theme for what you experience when you fall in love. Clarity. Endless possibility. At home in your life. For the first time.

Cute paste for WordLand - 2025-10-09T13:39:02Z

Note this is for the 0.8 release of WordLand coming soooon. Not in the current released product.

A friend asked for this feature a few months back, before we had a Markdown mode in WordLand.

As I'm reviewing the product for first beta I realized I could now implement the feature he asked for.

How to..

1. Copy a URL to the clipboard.
2. Open WordLand, bring it to the front.
3. Go into Markdown mode by clicking the M icon. It turns green.
4. Select the text you want to be a link.
5. Paste the URL copied in step 1.

It creates the link for you, in Markdown syntax of course.

To see it in HTML, just flip the Markdown button off.

I call this feature Cute Paste. :-)

A video demo.

- 2025-10-08T20:01:15Z
WordPress news via FeedLand.

- 2025-10-08T16:58:42Z
The same energy that forced Biden off the ticket should get Schumer and Jeffries out of the top seats. Replace with people who can speak plainly about what's actually happening.

- 2025-10-08T17:17:11Z
I stop reading every piece that begins by wondering if the Dems or Repubs are "winning" the shutdown. Anything the Dems can do that has anything to do with governing is a win for all of us, including the Repubs, but esp the Dems. This is a new world, the old one is gone. Every day is a new reality.

- 2025-10-08T14:16:46Z
Fellow humans. If we're competing with AI, and to some extent it seems we are, consider that they have much better writing tools than we do. If we are to put up some kind of resistance to our cyber-domination, shouldn't we invest in better writing tools for bodied-intellects like us?

- 2025-10-08T13:44:52Z
I try not to run away from controversy when conventional wisdom is in the way of progress.

- 2025-10-08T13:29:33Z
The big deal with WordPress, as outlined in the Think Different piece is that the strong API makes WP into something quite different from what most people think it is. I think of it as an OS for writing on the web. Very analogous to what we use(d) PCs and Macs for before networks were everywhere. This came up in a thread on Bluesky about MicroPub which appears to be a redo of Metaweblog, with better identity system.

- 2025-10-08T13:43:15Z
The ActivityPub world, which MicroPub is part of (I guess), could benefit from reading Joel Spolsky's piece about Architecture Astronauts.

- 2025-10-07T16:41:25Z
Why we all should love RSS. It makes the web higher level without taking anything away.

- 2025-10-07T19:38:47Z
Thanks to Tanya Weiman for observing that this blog started 31 years ago. Probably the longest-running blog on the internets. Still making trouble. And as they say, still diggin. You can always tell how long it's been by looking at the bottom of any archive page, where it's constantly calculating, down to the second, how long this blog has been running.

- 2025-10-07T16:06:46Z
Try as hard as I can I still have distinct flows and more than one place where I edit. I think that's a consequence of working on WordLand. I have to use it for serious writing, otherwise how would I know if it works. Maybe I can find a way to merge flows, but not at the moment. I still have to do some copy/pasting.

The antidote to Bigco dominance - 2025-10-07T16:09:50Z

Fascinating blog post from Jason Shellen, tech entrepreneur, formerly with Blogger and Google. Here’s my perspective on part of the story he tells about RSS and Google Reader.

Netscape gave us RSS 0.91 and it was good enough to create a new powerful layer on the web. Then Netscape blew up and a bunch of repeated efforts to kill it from big companies. I’ll leave it to others to say why, but they tried over and over to extinguish the spark. Independent developers were stubborn, we kept using the original format, and in the end the independents prevailed.

Don’t ever think bigco’s are the answer. They almost always suck the life out of open systems. If you have something good going: work together. It’s the antidote to bigco dominance.

If you suck up to the bigco thinking they’ll let you in, maybe they will for a short while. But what you’ll be left with may not be worth the cost.

And just because you have a job at a bigco doesn’t make you hot shit. Maybe for a moment.

This theory has a name, it’s described in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and its lesson applies in tech and in the political disaster the US has become.

- 2025-10-06T21:06:32Z
I do all my shopping in ChatGPT. There must be a way to monetize that. For example, I want to buy a new backpack to carry my laptop and other mobile stuff. I should be able to set up anywhere there's wifi. I've got a modern MacBook Air, an iPad and two phones, one iOS and one Android. The main one is Android, I have to carry the iPhone because I use an Apple watch. I imagine there must be some improvements made in backpacks since I bought the last one, which was when I lived in Berkeley, in the late 00s.

- 2025-10-06T21:05:27Z
I've been evangelizing evangelism lately. Focus on goals and help others help us achieve them. It's a virtuous cycle, because once people figure out that they can get help by helping us, they will help us more. That is, when it works.

- 2025-10-06T14:15:25Z
Reason #29812 you know our current writing system is broken. When you want to post something that has more than the maximum characters they post an image instead of the text. I once wasted a few months making a writing tool for those kinds of posts, hoping that if it caught on we could have a shadow network that moved the actual text around the net between users.

- 2025-10-06T14:22:05Z
I did a video demo of pngWriter in Dec 2016.

- 2025-10-05T15:59:16Z
In 2014 I wrote a manifesto about web writing. A decade later later, I'm still trying to get writing on the web to work again. It was on a good track before the rude interruption.

Before we were so rudely interrupted - 2025-10-05T18:04:57Z

I've used this phrase a few times recently: "Before we were so rudely interrupted."

Or, "the big interruption."

I'm referring to 2006, when web writing was downgraded, to be 140 characters with no styling, no links, without the ability to edit.

That's when writing on the web started going in the toilet.

So when I say it again I may link to this post, because out here on the web, linking is always allowed.

Nightly email subs work again - 2025-10-05T15:15:42Z

Please try again if you've been waiting.

Report problems here.

It had been broken since Sept 14.

Still diggin! ;-)

- 2025-10-05T01:06:19Z
I test drove three different EVs today at an event at SUNY Ulster today. VW ID.Buzz, Rivian R1T, Kia EV9. I was surprised the one I liked best was the VW. It handled well, the others were sloppy, drive like the big cars they are. The Rivian had the best computer system, looked even nicer at first look than the Tesla. The Kia EV9 had a standard Kia computer system, far behind that of Rivian or Tesla. VW's computer was halfway between, it appeared they thought overall about the controls, but I was so impressed by the ride, and size, and the whole concept of it, and I always liked vans. I'm seriously thinking about swapping my Tesla for the VW. There are other disadvantages, I'm going to start reading up on it, until today I never gave it any thought, didn't think it would be a car for me. But I realllly liked it.

- 2025-10-05T01:24:18Z
Bluesky post: "The idea is to build a social network entirely out of replaceable parts. No silos, no centralization. Just the web."

- 2025-10-03T13:32:51Z
In yesterday's piece I suggested people start by creating a free site on wordpress.com to be their home on the open social web.

- 2025-10-03T13:39:43Z
People are surprised that I'm trying to build the for-real social web as opposed to the aspirational social web. It does require a lot of chutzpah. I feel that. Sometimes I put off doing things because while the coding is simple and straightforward, the immensity of it overwhelms me a bit. I don't remember feeling that way the first time around, possibly because we were doing it all step by step over approx ten years. Now it's all compressed into weeks. I know how to do it, and I've got or built the pieces I needed. But it just doesn't somehow feel right that the idea is actually becoming a thing. "This can't be happening." But we live in that kind of time. Who knows what monsters lie within. We may find out. Heh. Maybe that's where the goosebumps come from.

- 2025-10-03T14:43:23Z
With the advent of AI code development tools, maybe we should embark on a project to merge all programming languages into one syntax. To undo all the chaos and make humans more competitive with machines. The fact that there are so many development bubbles is a huge waste of resources. Makes us all net-net more stupid.

- 2025-10-04T00:49:34Z
Some day they will have AI actors delivering the nightly news and no one will notice.

Should tech run the world? - 2025-10-03T14:59:20Z

With all respect to the tech industry -- why is the traffic in the Bay Area so awful. Why haven't they done anything about it.

Wouldn't that be a good test before running the whole world? As programmer myself, I wouldn't trust the algorithm without a lot of QA. Seriously. Think about it

It's the strangest configuration for a metropolitan area, the center of the city is in the middle of the bay. (Same as Seattle, btw.)

The best answer the tech industry came up with was Uber, as far as I know.

I lived in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Menlo Park, Berkeley, Los Gatos and Woodside over 31 years and I did nothing to fix the problem either. My answer was to move to NYC where the transit system is pretty great. Then I moved to the mountains and got a Tesla.

BTW, the idea that the stars of Silicon Valley should run the world is not new. I first heard about it from Apple top level managers in the 1980s. They were not techno-fascists, but they did hugely underestimate what it takes to run the world, or even a small country in Africa.

Let the web be the web - 2025-10-03T13:57:28Z

Yesterday I wrote about preserving freedom by using replaceable parts to form a social web out of the web itself. Outside the silos. I'm getting comments on it. Nice to see other people thinking likewise. That's what we need to get a bootstrap going. People.

In other words the social web is the web. It's made of people. Somehow we forgot that, and gave up so much.

I was thinking I might have coined "let the web be the web" as an obvious ripoff of The West Wing slogan for the new President Bartlet. But a search reveals that it was used, but all in very good ways, so that's cool. However a Google Trends search shows up nothing. I'm going to look at this in a year or two and see if that has changed. 😀

It's such a sexy idea, I had to get ChatGPT to generate it.

- 2025-10-02T15:46:41Z
New motto: Let the web be the web.

- 2025-10-02T13:24:10Z
Latest news from WordPress. Always looking for more sources. 😀

- 2025-10-02T14:52:32Z
I have a problem in the development version of WordLand. Sometimes when I bring it to the front, there's an error deep in jQuery, an event has fired and the handler is pointing to a string or number, not a function. It dies, with no stack crawl, because it was responding to a focus event or blur or something like that. Something got overwritten. I have no idea where or how it happened, but once found it will be obvious. I've been trying to figure it out with Claude and ChatGPT and I can see it's going to take a few hours of concentration and learning to figure it out. But then I realized hey -- I bet I could use the Chrome debugger to find this problem. It has Gemini built in. It has access to the running code. I don't have to act as an intermediary, gathering data, pasting stuff into the AI bot. Now I'm looking forward to doing this.

- 2025-10-02T14:58:33Z
Someday soon you're going to read a post here, have something quick you want to say, click on a little icon, the editor opens, you write, post, and it's on your blog. I get a pointer. I can read it, and if I want, I can attach it to my post. The writing stays in your space, so you have an archive of all your writing. We let the web be the web.

- 2025-10-02T13:12:38Z
One of the things we can do to preserve freedom, is to resume using the open internet to communicate instead of the silos of Zuck and Musk et al. When you use the web instead of a silo you are helping build community outside, where free speech is the default. The more of us who communicate outside, the more people will be attracted. Your participation helps draw people out, where independent developers can create new tools for you without waiting for permission of big companies who own the network you're using. It's like voting. The more people do it, the stronger we all are. I've spent the last 31 years insisting on that freedom for myself as a writer and developer and sharing it with others. As people flocked to Twitter and Facebook, etc, you thought I was gone, finished, a loser. I know they think that about me. But honestly, I also knew the open internet would come back, because I knew its value, and I knew eventually the silos would reveal their real cost. They may appear free, but there's a price to pay. I hope you'll consider using the tools. If you want to get started, create a free site on wordpress.com. Just create it. That will be your home on the open social web. And btw, you don't have to agree with my politics to be part of it. That's kind of the whole point. ;-)

I have a very large head. - 2025-10-02T14:45:02Z

Normal hats don't fit. Not even close.

So I buy my caps from BigHatStore.com.

In prep for my trip to Ottawa later this month for WordCamp Canada, my first trip out of the country in a long time, I wanted to get a new hat.

They don't have a big selection of NBA hats, so there's no Knicks hat that fits my head.

And they didn't have any Mets hats for some reason.

I thought -- I'll get a Wisconsin hat! I went to grad school in Madison and loved it there. You know Fuck em Bucky! But they didn't have any Wisconsin hats either.

I was dejected, but noticed they did have Harvard hats.

So I got one.

Which reminds me of a joke a famous VC told when we were walking around on the Stanford campus in 2004.

It goes like this...

How can you tell someone went to Harvard?

Pause.

I give up.

They tell you!

Haha.

Or they wear a Harvard baseball cap.

I plan to tell that joke a few times, while wearing the cap. :-)

Don't focus on the Democratic Party - 2025-10-02T14:36:55Z

I don’t like the Democratic leaders in Congress, but that doesn’t matter. People say what they’re doing won’t work. I agree. But the elected Democrats swore an oath, to uphold the Constitution. With that constraint there isn’t much they can do other than try to force the Repubs to do the same, and that isn't likely to work. It hasn't so far, but it's all they can do without breaking the Constitution themselves. Think about it. All these minds, and we haven't come up with anything.

What brought this home was a comment by a Democratic congressperson saying on CNN last night no matter what they do Trump won’t obey if he doesn’t want to. It’s true. They could get Repubs in Congress to fund Obamacare, but Trump could ignore it. That’s reality. What do the pundits think they should do?

Here's the unvarnished truth. Whatever the answer is it can't come from the Democratic Party.

- 2025-10-01T13:35:45Z
A very small picture of the blogger's room at Dean For America in January 2004. A big chunk of political history happened in this room. I was there, in the runup to the Iowa caucus and on the night of the famous Dean Scream. Here's a picture of my digital camera in 2004. It wasn't cheap and as we know it was futuristic. That was possibly one of the first digital selfies.

- 2025-10-01T13:29:32Z
I started this site to hold some of the essays John Palfrey posts on Facebook, where they are out of reach of the tools of the open web. John is a longtime friend, for over 20 years, and we did some great stuff together in the early days of the blogosphere. I will happily turn the site over to JP any time he wants, and provide personal support if there are problems. I want him in my online web family, and Facebook simply does not make that possible. It's a silo, as we know and that means it's basically a world unto itself. If we want to solve the problems of the world, we have to step out into the open space where what we write is not so local or controlled.

- 2025-10-01T13:52:50Z
All the September posts in an OPML file.

Frum's dilemma - 2025-10-01T21:11:01Z

Listening to today's David Frum podcast, from a journalist who says he reps the facts-only brand of journalism. He says his guest invented podcasting in 2014, about 14 years after we started it.

He then says that anyone in tech in the late 1990s made hundreds of millions of dollars. I didn't make very much money on those terms in the 90s, but I did a lot of the creating in that period.

Both of which tell you more about who he pays attention to than anything resembling the truth.

Maybe the first thing journalism can do is let up on the arrogance, they represent their own point of view and nothing more. Humility.

Regardless I find that Frum is worth listening too, because he asks questions that are worth thinking about.

In today's podcast he asks if the Dems ever get control of government, should they use the new norms to punish the Repubs who so damaged our system. He says it's a tough question, I say he's made it unnecessarily complicated.

The same people are also breaking laws that are on the books. Let the reconstituted DoJ do their jobs. And if there's one thing I'd insist on, they get an AG who doesn't dream a lot about how everyone means well, and they kick off the prosecutions immediately on taking office. And if the courts have been corrupted, then you have to deal with Frum's Dilemma, but not until then.

And of course I'm not one of the people he can hear, but if you're one of the people he does listen to could you send this his way. Thanks! :-)

We like Twitter. So blogging must be dead. - 2025-10-01T15:12:33Z

I was having a conversation with Dan Knauss from the WordCamp Canada team. He said that people in the WordPress world don't think of it as a blogging community. I can see why they resist that, blogging has gotten a lot of bad PR in the last 19 years. The same bad PR that RSS got, and I felt that was so wrong, as wrong as what people said about blogging.

We like Twitter. So blogging must be dead. I understand -- I get it. But that's marketing, and only necessary because Twitter wouldn't let blogging be part of what they did. I'd be happy to talk about that during my keynote if people want to hear why I think that.

Anyway until 2017 I tried to fit in between the silos. 2017 is when I realized it was hopeless. I couldn't write for the web and for the silos at the same time, I had to choose, so I went with the web. Instant happiness.

Okay so you don't emphasize blogging in the WordPress community. This imho is a mistake.

Even if it was a community built around a style of sneakers or audio equipment I would say it's a mistake not to build a custom blogosphere just for the community. In the past we would have used Twitter for this, but I don't think anyone in their right mind wants to try to do that now. Esp a community, like WordPress, that has open web built into its bones.

I don't have a lot of time to write this morning, so let me leave you with this story. It took years to boot up blogging as a community. I thought everyone would want to do it as soon as they saw what it was, but there needed to be a critical mass before there could be a critical mass. Logically impossible, right, but somehow it happened anyway. But slowly, in fits and starts.

But podcasting, in contrast, happened much more quickly. The reason? We already had blogging to build on. We had a way to communicate without the press in the middle. That's the power of blogging. We build our own news system. Do things the journalists don't understand or are counter to conventional wisdom.

So imho it's only coincidence that WordPress happens to be a great blogging tool. It can be that and all the other things it is. It's going to be something else too, if I have my way -- it's going to define the basic software that powers the social web. Not peripheral, but central. That and RSS. Incredibly powerful combination, and I think ready to be a strong alternative to the silos. In order for that to work, we have to reboot the blogosphere, so we will do that. :-)

Cross-posted from WordCamp Canada.

I'd like to excerpt from and comment about three DW posts that he made over the past couple days.

• Jan 4, 2016 - Leave nothing but footprints
• Jan 4, 2016 - Why tech insiders must be on Facebook
• Jan 5, 2016 - Re Twitter easing the 140-char limit

Dave claims that he likes the open web, and he often rails against silos, such as Twitter and Facebook. In the summer of 2013, I discovered the #indieweb group via a poster mentioning the https://indiewebcamp.com in a comment to one of DW's posts. Maybe the word "silo" has been used for a long time to describe social media sites, but the term got popularized in my conscience by the Indieweb site.

I added #webmention support to my Junco code because of the Indieweb group. The Indieweb people "use" social media sites differently. They own their own domain names. They post articles and notes to their own blog sites. But rather than manually cross-posting their info their many social media presences, they use software that makes it appear that the Indieweb users are using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. just like everyone else, but that's not the true.

Indieweb users may never log into their social media sites, but their content gets posted to those sites, and the comments, likes, shares, etc. at those other sites come back to their personal sites. It's interesting.

Since I don't "use" Twitter and Facebook, having my info posted automatically at those other sites is unnecessary. I use Instagram but mainly as a notetaking app and a place to store photos. But lately, I rely more on Flickr. Again. I've been using Flickr for many years. I don't use Flickr to network with others. I use it to store photos that I then embed into my own web publishing apps and sites.

This past summer, I created my Waxwing app to be a simple image uploader that speeds up the process of using images within my web publishing apps. But I still use Flickr too.

I'm not interested in networking with people beyond my own message board ToledoTalk.com that I started in January 2003.

I could be considered anti-social because I don't use the hot social media/social networking sites, and that's okay by me. I'm fine with being labeled and called names. I won't get offended.

I like message boards, wikis, and blogs. If that's old school or archaic, then that's okay too because I subscribe to the theory that every human being is unique. Why would zealot fans of social media sites assume that everyone should enjoy using those sites/apps? And why do these zealot fans get irritated that some people have the nerve not to use those sites?

I don't care if these social media sites exist. More amateur content gets created. That's a good thing. They all have pros and cons. But I'm simply not interested in them. And I'm not alone with this thinking.

I'm not going to get upset because people use Facebook, and I won't waste my time trying to convince people to stop using Facebook. I don't care if people use Facebook.

I enjoy building and using my own websites. That probably puts me into a minority of a minority. Many Indieweb users also build or install their own software to manage their personal sites. Different breed. What's wrong with diversity?

What's odd is when the zealot social media fans try to convince us that we need Facebook and we must post to Facebook, etc. I don't know why they seem to be upset when people decide to delete their Facebook accounts.

Again, what's wrong with diversity?

I have many interests. I post to my niche sites. I read the web in my own way. And I have been doing these activities for 15 years or more. I don't need help nor guidance from anyone in this area.

I wonder if the zealot fans of social media are creating a new form of acceptable intolerance that's directed at people who don't share their fandom of
the hot social media sites.

Excerpts from DW's post titled "Leave nothing but footprints":

The universe just laughs at your ambition. Hah! You're a mere speck of dust, says the universe, a speck that exists for an infinitesimally short period of time.

Don't try to change the world. Instead, try to work with other people.

Observe. Think. Share your experience, but strive to not change a thing.

That emphasized part seems like an odd thing for DW to suggest. I vehemently disagree with it.

My wife and I will continue to help change a small part of Toledo for the better by volunteering with an organization that helps parents to educate their children before they start school.

It's why I created the website http://babyutoledo.com/ for the non-profit. I'm better with technical functions, and my wife is better at interacting with people directly.

The goal of Baby U is to end generational poverty. That's a lofty goal, but if successful, it would be a positive change for the Old South End area of Toledo. How can that be bad?

DW ended that piece with:

It's better to just be kind to each other. Your name may not ring down through the ages, but at least you will have lived a good life that you can be proud of.

That's all good, but why can't changing something for the better and being kind to each other exist together?

It seems that DW contradicts himself a little with his next post titled "Why tech insiders must be on Facebook." Some excerpts:

I know a fair number of people who don't use Facebook or don't understand Facebook, and I think these people are hurting themselves, if they want to be part of tech as it goes forward, and in some sense they are hurting the web, by trying to be part of a network that does not involve Facebook.

My head hurts when I read his opening, authoritative statements.

Again, DW rails against silos, and he claims to support the open web, but in this post he believes that a tech person will miss out on future tech and hurt the open web if they don't use Facebook. That seems senseless to me.

And what about his previous post:

It's better to just be kind to each other. Your name may not ring down through the ages, but at least you will have lived a good life that you can be proud of.

Maybe people who want to live a good life are too busy to use the hot social media sites, or maybe they don't want to be a part of the vitriol that can exist with Facebook and Twitter.

It's possible that I don't use Facebook and Twitter because I've been running a message board for 13 years. In the past, I enjoyed using my own playground for heated debates. I've toned down my rhetoric over the years, which means the site's overall tone has softened too.

I'm no longer interested in flame-throwing with other message board users, and really don't want that kind of activity to occur on a site that I fund. And that's why I will never permit traditional comments to occur on my publishing apps Junco, Grebe, Scaup, and Veery. At most, I'll accept Webmentions.

I still occasionally write about my disdain toward local politicians, but even this activity has decreased significantly in recent years because it's so boring. I guess that I care less about what local officials do because nothing changes. It's better to attempt change by getting involved with other orgs.

But why does DW care if people don't use Facebook? Just move on. Don't worry about it. He added:

This morning Scoble got on the case of Bijan Sabet, out of the blue, as he often does, with a rant about how Facebook is the best place to be.

Scoble is the king of the zealot supporters of Facebook. Wow. I hope that it's okay to call him names.

Scoble said:

Deleting Facebook is idiotic.

Anyone who deletes Facebook is anti social. Best video distribution system. Best conversations. Best content.

Best conversations? No way. Not better than ToledoTalk.com FOR ME.

And selfishly, I'm more concerned about ME and not what others think, regarding the benefits of Facebook. I know that Facebook provides benefits, especially regarding updates from favorite small businesses, non-profits, and other orgs. Baby University maintains a Facebook page. I don't maintain it.

I was planning to delete my Facebook account this week because I don't use it. After reading Scoble's intolerance, I'm convinced even more that I don't need a Facebook account.

I'll gladly be an idiot and anti-social by not having a Facebook account. I won't lose sleep. I won't miss anything because the World Wide Web is still huge without Facebook. I know how to surf the web. I won't feel cheated or handicapped. I won't feel anything because I rarely logged into my Facebook account anyway. I don't have the Facebook app on my phone.

We are the new cool, hip people :)

Bijan Sabet ‏added common sense:

I'm not using these products for business. I want to use products that I love. And I don't love FB.

Simple explanation. And I don't understand why Facebook fans object to someone else's way of thinking. Intolerance?

DW wrote in his blog post:

I differ with Scoble on why you should be on Facebook, but not that you should be there.

DW rambles on for a while about the music industry 50 years ago or something. I didn't understand the relation. He finally got back on point.

If you want to be current with tech as it goes forward, you must be in the loop on what's happening on Facebook, if only because every person you hope to sell technology to in the future is using it. They will judge everything in relation to what they have experienced on Facebook.

Ah, okay. Well, since I don't personally sell technology, then I assume that it's okay for me not to use Facebook.

I can read about Facebook tech and their innovations by what shows up on Hacker News or Techmeme. I don't need to use Facebook to be aware of what the company is doing. I stay current with the tech that interests me.

DW concluded with:

So someday, if you withdraw from Facebook, you will face a competitor who embraced it, and you will lose. That's why you should be there.

Idiotic, anti-social, a loser, that's all fine with me because I'll continue to try to be kind to others and live a good life that I can be proud of.

And I don't need any of the social media sites to complete those tasks.

I could understand a small business owner needing a Facebook page along with a custom domain name that hosts at least a blog site. It infuriates me that some small businesses only have a Facebook page, and they don't maintain a site on their own domain name.

But hey, different strokes. Whatever works. It's fine with me.

Excerpts from DW's post titled "Re Twitter easing the 140-char limit":

This feature is good because people don't click links. It also brings Twitter to parity with Facebook, which means it can compete in the news distribution business that it pioneered.

Facebook needs competition, and we need Facebook to have competition.

Maybe DW needs Facebook to have competition, but I don't.

And I'll use links. I need links. Since I truly believe in the open web, then linking will always be a part of my web DNA posting. I'm fine with going against the crowd and being in a small minority.

It sounds like DW is an open web poser.

I'll adopt what I like, and if that's not part of the mainstream, I can decide on my own whether to continue down that path. And regarding the open web, I'm fine with being outside the mainstream. Maybe I'm more independent that way.

And I don't care about an audience or readership. I write because I enjoy writing. I like text. I build and use web publishing apps because those are activities that I enjoy.

I have enjoyed reading the play and watching the moving titled Glengarry Glen Ross. Great writing by Dave Mamet. Great acting by great actors.

Quote by the Ricky Roma character that was played by Al

I subscribe to the law of contrary public opinion: if everyone thinks one thing, then I say, bet the other way.