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Updated: 18-12-2005; 18:32:03
Paolo's Weblog.
 Mercoledì, 28 maggio 2003
Alf Eaton has announced the RVW Specs.
RVW is intended to allow machine-readable reviews to be integrated into an RSS feed, thus allowing reviews to be automatically compiled from distributed sources.
He's also using ENT to describe the type of subject under review. Exellent!
Martedì, 27 maggio 2003
Following yesterday's post about software pricing and also the interesting comments, would you be interested in a developers' list to discuss modern pricing tecniques? Is there already something available? Does it make any sense?
On the long drive to Vienna we talked about weblogs and google. While nobody outside google actually knows how their ranking algorithms work, my feeling is that one of the most disrupting thing about weblogs are blogrolls. And not because they appear on many blogs, creating a huge mesh, but especially because they appear in every page of a blog.
Radio creates a page for every day, week, month, other blogging application are publishing one page for every single post. In my case I have about 800 pages in my site, and my blogroll is inserted on each single page.
So if I add somebody to my weblog, I will basically create 800 links to his blog. Multiply this by the number of weblogs and you will realize that it's quite a large number of links to count.
Now: what if google would ignore blogrolls? Technically it can be done, the guys at BlogStreet have been doing it for quite a while. When I publish a blogroll I actually want to link somebody once, not hundreds of times. Of course, links within posts are an entirely different thing and are usually the most valuable ones, at least to create reliability in search results.
Otherwise, google could simply read RSS feeds, Feedster is already doing it.
 Global Blogidays. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day. To the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty blogs." Blog today. Blog yesterday. Blog tomorrow. Frankly, even Shakespeare thinks we all need a vacation. So, here's my proposal: We all take the first two weeks of August off. All of us. Yes, you. You just remove your keys from the keyboard and find something else to do with yout time. Saturday, August 1 through Sunday August 17. [Joho the Blog]
We talked about this idea in Vienna. It could be an interesting experiment. Somebody should tell google to suspend ranking as well  . Lunedì, 26 maggio 2003
A person having admirable characteristics, such as fortitude and firmness of purpose: "He radiates the kind of fundamental decency that has a name in Yiddish; he's a mensch" (James Atlas).
Dave is rising some very good points on his pages today.
As a software developer this is something I've been thinking about as well for a while.
During BlogTalk I've heard quite a few people saying how much they were enjoying using weblogs for PR or to publish scientific works because they are so easy to use and require no technical knowledge. But of in many cases they would also like something more than Blogger or even Radio or MT can currently offer.
Now, I think that all these persons are not in really in love with weblogs: they have simply been exposed for the first time to a content management system that is easy to use.
They could use more power, their weblogs could evolve, their business will soon start to depend on an application that they are not paying or that they are paying only a few dollars.
We went from overpriced, millions of dollars, useless software to underpriced, almost free, useful software.
I do have customers asking for services but not willing to pay them. If a weblog software costs $50, why would they have to pay much more "only" for some graphic design or some customization?
A solution is badly needed and I think it has to start with software developers charging more for their services. At least until somebody will start opening open source supermarkets where anybody can just enter and take whatever they need without paying. Domenica, 25 maggio 2003
Back from BlogTalk. It was great. Really. Thomas Burg did an oustanding job organizing this conference. Honestly I would have never expected to enjoy it so much and have such a good time. Thank you very much.
And now, some pictures we took. Giovedì, 22 maggio 2003
It's half past midnight, we're nerding out with Marc and Matt, getting ready for BlogTalk.
Here's me debugging Matt's code while he's not smoking
Okay: a picture of Marc's office in New York on the Powerbook, a picture of Matt's kitchen in London on an iMac, both sitting in my office in Gradisca...
Martedì, 20 maggio 2003
Dave's new idea seems to work pretty well, it's inspiring and rises some very interesting question that all developers should think about. Thank you. Lunedì, 19 maggio 2003
Writing about an article on the New York Times, Doc Searls today writes:
read it now, before it scrolls behind the paywall
Excellent. We could all start adding this disclaimer whenever we link to the NYT. I don't think that they would care much, but it would be a service to our readers.
In the last weeks I've been posting here and there about topics, aggregators, K-collector and other assorted stuff.
Maybe it's the case to recap and try to explain a little bit better what we are up to.
Here we go
Sorry... still testing... but stay tuned, news coming shortly.
Testing testing, server ping testing...
After drawing a chart last week using OmniGraffle, I was trying different fonts and in my list there was Chris Pirillo's hadwriting font.
In my opinion it looked quite nice, so I slightly rotated all chart's boxes and published it.
Now... note how:
- My charts now look like they are hand designed (by Chris Pirillo!)
- After years of evolution in graphics application, I can finally create drawings that look like before software was used at all!
My friends at Socialtext are getting some very good press on the New York Times today. Read it before they archive it . Domenica, 18 maggio 2003
Sabato, 17 maggio 2003
 Are you getting ready for BlogTalk? We are. Hotel booking done, route to the location defined, just a little more work on some demos to do. In one week we're going to be there. Cool.
Within the aggregator that we are building it would be very useful and I bet others might find this useful too.
Details here. Venerdì, 16 maggio 2003
 The first beta testers have taken the orange pill, topics start flowing, it's going to be fun.
If you are a Radio user and want to try this out, click here.
PS: white background version of the pill here.
Aggregating, aggregators, aggregations, collection, k-collections.
Giovedì, 15 maggio 2003
My window view. Isn't spring great?
Brent Simmons had a great idea a few days ago: show how his excellent application works with a movie.
So, here I go: this is how topics are added to a post using the new k-collector client (QuickTime required).
Technorati API and Noah in one week... Congratulations to Dave Sifry, he's really doing his best to change the world
Mercoledì, 14 maggio 2003
Is it hype? Is it a revolution? Is it an evolution? Is it only software? All I can say is that it works and it has improved my work.
It is also creating an increasing number of debates which are definetly related to the "social" part of it. [ More... ]
Martedì, 13 maggio 2003
Matt has already written about k-collector today here and here. What can I add? Maybe a little drawing?
Dave: I just heard David Weinberger on NPRs Here and Now, talking about Emergence, Social Software and Wikis. He's good on the radio. I still think Social Software is a bad idea. Ray Ozzie thinks it's a good idea, btw.
I don't know if social software is a good idea or not. What I know is that the way I work today, with my weblog, instant messaging, email, wikis and most of all the network of wonderful people I have got in contact with in the last year, is totally different from what it was before and would not have happened without these tools. I would like to help others to enjoy all this. Then we can call it with any name. Lunedì, 12 maggio 2003
Doc Searls: I just did a search for a rare blood disease on Google and it corrected my spelling. I'm not sucking up when I say that rocks.
Since google's dictionary is based on words usage on the web, it can also correct a lot of mispelled names (well... at least bloggers' names )
My good friend Giuseppe Granieri has opened an international version of his blog aggregator I described back in March.
It's a very experimental and totally manual aggregator (meaning that you have to visit a page to notify each post) but I must say that the Italian version has so far been very successful and useful.
In some way it proves that if there is a good motivation (in this case visibility and participating to an interesting community), people do add useful metadata to their posts.
What is now totally manual will soon become automagic using ENT and a topicroll for Radio and Movable Type users. You can also subscribe to the RSS summary feed.
David Sifry announces the Technorati API 0.9. It sounds good. Very good.
Technorati is by far the most valuable blogging tool I have found so far. I wish I'll find some time to play with the new API soon.
Duncan Wilcox: if Microsoft really wants to blow away competition, they'll build an
outstanding [blogging] client.
Mercoledì, 7 maggio 2003
I have just subscribed to LinkedIn, a business oriented networking site: so far it seems pretty good, we'll see.
Anyway, checking my member profile page I realized that about 14 years ago my company started, I don't know the date, but it must have been sometime in these days since I remember that I had to wait to turn 18 to be able to incorporate a company.
It was called StudioIdea back then, and it was a one man band. Then in 1992 Monica joined in, and a few months later we got married. I guess you can call this a full time partnership.
Then Venture capitalists joined in, the company changed named to Evectors, then venture capitalists left and now the partners in this company are long time friends that have helped me for many years.
I see myself as a capitain on a boat. It started on a small boat, with only me rowing, then there were two, then 4, at some point we had a nice and shiny yacht with a crew of 20, then we had to scale back to a smaller size. But we have more or less always been going in the same direction. It feels good.
Thank you to all the people who for a long or a short time joined me on this cruise in the last 14 years. Martedì, 6 maggio 2003
During the last two weeks we watched The Godfather 1, 2 and 3 on DVD. It's always fun watching were my American friends picked up the few Italian words they know (and that we never use).
Since social software seems to be the current buzzword, it was interesting to see how in the first and especially in the second episode the young Vito Corleone is building his social network: by helping others.
The line "Some day, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me" is in some part of what a network is about.
We all do it, we help others hoping that some way we will be able to ask for help. People has always been doing it but new types of software are helping this process incredibly.
To me it happens every single day: I need something, help, an information, a connection, anything, and the first thing I do is check who is on-line in my IM client. An astonighing number of times I can get what I need simply asking somebody who can be in the next room or on another continent.
In the very same way I do receive requests every day and I do my best to help. Overall it works very well, and unlike in the Corleone family, nobody's keeping any accounting, even if most of the times I feel more confident asking something to somebody I have helped at some time than to a stranger.
Even if deep feelings like trust or friendship cannot be created by some code, there is a lot of software that today is helping us creating connections and keeping these connections alive, interfacing minds all over the world.
I don't think that there is much need for applications developed to create new connections, there's too much involved there, but there's definetly plenty of room to improve the tools that make existing connections more efficient and stronger.
PS: yes, I am Italian, but this is how far I live from Corleone and no, you won't find any horse head in your bed if you don't help me Venerdì, 2 maggio 2003
My reusable birthday cake is showing its limits
It looks like garden pictures posting season is open, I needed to test our new wide angle lenses so... here's a QuickTime VR view of the garden of our current home.
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