Weblogs and Wikis are authoring tools that enable everyday people to write to the Web. However one part of the Writeable Web is often overlooked: weblog comments. Often some of the best nuggets of content can be found buried in a comment attached to a weblog post. I’ve even coined a phrase for this: Microcontent Wiki, which … Read more

A few days ago John Robb complained about his Google PageRank being zero after he moved to his new domain. I was in the same situation, but this morning I noticed my weblog has a new Google PageRank of 5/10. I see John Robb’s PageRank is back too (6/10). Another new blogger who had 0/10 … Read more

Dave Winer, on political campaign blogging: “The first candidate that helps voters publish their own stories and ideas and drive the campaign is the one who really captures the energy of the Web.” I agree, the essence of the Two-Way Web is that everyone has the right to publish. That could almost be “the lost amendment” of the … Read more

Soon I’m going to shut up and do some actual work on my Web of Ideas application. But I have to note a few interesting things that have surfaced recently on the topics of ideas and microcontent. Firstly, Erik Benson has just released his own Ideas Database. As to be expected from Erik, who created … Read more

Today, August 25, is Elvis Costello’s birthday. It’s also my birthday 🙂 Co-incidentally, we also share the same surname. Elvis Costello’s real name is Declan MacManus. How cool is that! That’s why I affectionately refer to him as Uncle Elvis. Hey, maybe I’m the Elvis Costello of Weblogging… only less cruel 🙂 No, better to … Read more

Yesterday I wrote about Sparrow Web, a 90’s web application developed by Xerox Parc. I discovered that Sparrow Web was like a Microcontent authoring tool. It divvies up information on a webpage into discrete chunks. So when you edit content in Sparrow Web, you’re editing a part of a webpage not the whole webpage (as in a Wiki). Today I … Read more

I’m doing some research into an Ideas Database web application, prompted by my recent Web of Ideas post (and its sequel). I have a Movable Type sandbox blog set up as a base for development. I’m planning on using XTM (XML Topic Maps) and/or ENT (Easy News Topics) as the engine for ideas, with MT as … Read more

Actually in New Zealand, we don’t have “grade schools” (they’re called Primary and Secondary schools here). But I wanted to subtly reference Jon Udell’s influential article called “Grade School CMS”. i.e. I’m just being a smart ass 🙂 Things I want to do with my weblog: 1. Contribute formal articles on the subject of the … Read more

A little while ago I wrote on the topic of “Smart Clients”, a Microsoft catchphrase for non-browser-based web applications. In my article I mentioned an interesting browser-based RSS News Aggregator being built by Lucmo. Today I read the following post in the Lucmo weblog: “The Read/Write Web blog writes that Lucmo is in “beta” — … Read more

Whenever I read about the Semantic Web, I am reminded of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. One of my favourite chapters of Moby Dick is chapter 42: The Whiteness of the Whale. Here’s an excerpt: “Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man’s soul … Read more

I have moved to a new domain name. Please update your records: New weblog address: http://www.readwriteweb.com New RSS feed: http://www.readwriteweb.com/rss.xml ps the reason I am re-posting this, and my XML as Literature story below, is that my PC crashed tonight and I lost some of my recent posts. Not to mention MS Outlook data and other … Read more

Dave Winer says there are 2 ways to approach XML: “…people who think of XML as a programming space, and people who think of it as a literary space.” The first group “love XML for its technical intricacy”. The literary people however “use XML because it is a convenient way to move info between apps”. … Read more

Excellent, I now have Radio Userland’s Trackback enabled. There have been some interesting suggestions for other new Radio features too, so hopefully some of those ideas will get implemented soon. I especially like the idea of modular templates, suggested by John Robb. Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)

Lawrence Lessig on US Presidential candidate Howard Dean’s blogging efforts: “Neutrality aside, though, Governor Dean has earned a special respect. Of course there are issues on which I would disagree with anyone. But I have been struck in reading these posts, and the passion they inspired. They revive a feeling I had as a kid … Read more

The problem with blogging is it’s easy to get distracted by ideas you can’t do anything about. My previous post illustrates this. In it I railed against Microsoft for wanting to build its own proprietory platform for Web applications. I wrote about it because I’m concerned about the future of the World Wide Web, in particular the Web browser. But … Read more