A twitter conversation with Dave Winer
I had a short twitter conversation with Dave Winer yesterday about my blog post, RSS needs better PR.
RSS needs better PR sia.tw/wzJZVk
— alex kessinger (@voidfiles) February 1, 2012
If what RSS needs is better PR then give it better PR.:-).blork.ly/zLuoQz
— Dave Winer ☮ (@davewiner) February 1, 2012
@davewiner I'm tryin man.
— alex kessinger (@voidfiles) February 2, 2012
@voidfiles -- really? you're all doom and gloom -- so negative. honestly, that's not really good PR. Now that you're the new boss of RSS.
— Dave Winer ☮ (@davewiner) February 2, 2012
@davewiner RSS/Atom sure. I am stoked about feeds in general. if that didn't come through I need to try harder. No one can replace you dave.
— alex kessinger (@voidfiles) February 2, 2012
@voidfiles -- when you say people are not doing feeds, I honestly don't see that happening. if you really see it you should substantiate.
— Dave Winer ☮ (@davewiner) February 2, 2012
@davewiner Sure, two examples Spotify, and Rdio. Both publish too FB, but no RSS, or ATOM. Could possibly cook something up with API though.
— alex kessinger (@voidfiles) February 2, 2012
@voidfiles -- I see. Like Google-Plus -- no feeds. That's Silicon Valley. They're all locking users in, it's how they do business. Not new.
— Dave Winer ☮ (@davewiner) February 2, 2012
@davewiner I agree, that is why if we make it about being a medium, ala public airwaves, you might be able to shake up it up.
— alex kessinger (@voidfiles) February 2, 2012
@voidfiles -- nope -- what shakes things up is software that excites people. feeds are not exciting. same with mediums. make great apps.
— Dave Winer ☮ (@davewiner) February 2, 2012
RSS needs better PR sia.tw/wzJZVk /cc @brentsimmons
— alex kessinger (@voidfiles) February 1, 2012
I get where he is going, and I totally think that people have to build things otherwise it’s all just talk, but the I don’t think you can devalue the power of changing the conversation. I still think that if we can change the premise of the conversation around feed reading from being about dead things, to one of media, then we can inspire more people to make cool things.
The Cluetrain Manifesto is an old book, but I think it’s still a good book. It talks about how companies don’t have a unidirectional communications platform any longer, and then the medium is more of a person to person place, a media argument if I ever saw one, and so companies need to be prepared to engage in a conversation with there public. I bring this book up because Dave Winer is a signatory on that book.
I will try, and be more positive. And I have a number of ideas for cool feed based hacks.