Posts tagged as: evil
The second coming of the Web
Posted on Monday, March 27, 2006
at 7:15 AM (permalink)
I've been watching Danny Ayers' attempts to have Semantic Web people consider outputting RSS and OPML data or using OPML tools to visualize Semantic Web data. I respect and applaud his efforts, but I wasn't surprised by the universally negative reactions. I know that users of RDF based formats have tremendous disdain for RSS and OPML as being poorly defined, which they admittedly are. What I was shocked by was the tone and terms used in the responses. There is an almost religious sense of RSS and OPML as evil, and a possible source of spiritual contamination. Now Semantic Web people are extremely intelligent, as they'll be quick to admit, so what could have happened to them to cause such an adverse reaction to what is simply a set of formats for text files? It is easy to point to the creator of RSS and OPML as the root of this negative feeling, he certainly is mentioned often in the response to Danny's pleas. But that is just scapegoating. I think the visceral emotion exhibited, almost a form of terror, at the idea of having to co-exist with RSS and OPML, has a deeper cause that fits into the religious fervor with which it is voiced.
When Tim Berners-Lee first gave mankind the Web, he made a tragic mistake. He granted us free will to use less than perfect HTML. His tools, and the tools of those to follow him, allowed users to develop sinful habits based on ignorance and sloth. The result was a Web of corrupt data, in which misformed tags abounded. This great fall from grace by the users of the Web prevented it from ever attaining the state of perfection desired by all computer scientists, a completely machine readable database. So the disciples of Berners-Lee, with his blessing, developed XML as a way of wiping the Web clean of the sinful and broken HTML, and replacing it with perfectly specified and implemented data. Now, just as the second coming of the Web is in sight in the form of the Sematic Web (well, its been in sight for years, but we'll put that aside), here comes a poorly specified corruption of XML, what Danny jokingly calls "quasi-XML", that threatens to again lead mankind astray. Is it any wonder that Semantic Web devotees are reacting as if RSS and OPML are the work of Satan?
Do you find all of this over the top? Good. That is the point of satire. I find the reactions of Semantic Web people over the top as well. It's just data. Converting from one format to another is so trivial that even I can write the code to do it. Surely anyone who can code for RDF could import or export RSS and OPML. Why should anyone do it? As Danny keeps pointing out, there are millions of RSS users. In time many of them are likely to use OPML as a container for RSS. There is no reason why OPML can't be viewed as a bridge between these two sides of the Web. But then if I was in league with the devil, I would say something like that, wouldn't I? After all, my namesake was led astray by the devil once before.
Apple is trying to patent RSS autodiscovery, aggregation, and reading lists
Posted on Wednesday, March 8, 2006
at 6:25 AM (permalink)
I'm not a lawyer, but these two patents by Apple sure look like they are claiming ownership of RSS autodiscovery, aggregating multiple RSS feeds into one, and automatically updated reading lists. Time for some real lawyers to step in and comment on this. John Palfrey, as the representative of Harvard's RSS copyright, what do you think?
(via Dave Winer)
And Google expects cities to give them every keystroke typed by their citizens?
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2006
at 8:58 PM (permalink)
I've been saying that Google is out of control for months, but now it is hard to know where to begin in listing their present transgressions. I actually hope that they are trying to get all the evil stuff out of the way at once, so we won't be able to keep track. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that is naive. I fear that the truly evil act is yet to come. John Battelle reports on an exchange with a Google PR rep who acknowledged Google's practice of storing IP numbers of users with their search requests. Now connect that with the idea of Google providing free WiFi to a city the size of San Francisco. Will they record every byte passing to and from every computer in that city? You bet they will. Will they cross reference all of this data with IP addresses and user profiles? Of course.
It is interesting that all of this is happening during an election year. The Republicans and Democrats will finally have an issue they can agree on. The resulting legislation should be interesting. I used to think they would be the pin that popped the current bubble. Now I fear that they will drive our entire industry right off a cliff.
Don't be immature
Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2005
at 7:57 AM (permalink)
Google's purchase of 5% of AOL is now official, and the issue that everyone, including the mainstream media, is picking up on is Google's agreement to start giving preference to AOL content in its search. Of course, nobody is passing up the opportunity to remind people of Google's "Don't be evil" motto. Google's promotion of this mantra is a perfect example of the immaturity of the people running the company. Idealism is great for kids in college or grad school, but an adult businessperson would have warned them that capitalism isn't based on good and evil, it is about profit and loss. Eventually you have to do things that are legal, but maybe unpalatable. Google is now entering that phase, and instead of being viewed as pragmatic and maturing, they are being painted as evil, just for doing what every other website already does.
If I sound a bit cranky when discussing Google, it is because I'm really nervous about having them as the perceived leader of the industry in which I work. For the next few years at least we will rise and fall along with Google. It's funny. Microsoft was the industry leader for so many years, and they were always viewed as evil, at least within the industry. When Microsoft slipped it was an occasion for joy and schaudenfreud. Now when Google slips, it signals a loss in the potential for the entire Web.
As I write this I'm listening to Squawk Box on CNBC. The announcer just teased the next segment as follows: "It's become the golden stock of the technology sector. Google has been riding a wave of cheer and a mentality that says nothing can go wrong, but could the company's call to buy a stake in Time-Warner's AOL change this tune?" The press lives by building up icons and then tearing them down. If this pattern repeats itself with Google, we will all face the consequences.
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