Wednesday, December 24, 2003

Wired: "If we're still in the race in a few months, I think you'll see a tremendous amount of development." Wouldn't it be great if Dean and Clark went after Viacom, ClearChannel and Time-Warner, instead of the tiny companies that make blogging and social networking tools. [...]How sad to see two leading Democrats fall for, even feed the lie that they can create user-oriented software for free. [Scripting News] It's not a surprising combination, young software developers and "outsider" candidates that give them room to create a software-mediated political network. But it is also another manifestation of unfortunate bubble memes. Dave Winer is right that user-oriented software is unlikely to be created for free. I've used a lot of end-user applications, for pay and "free." WIth a couple of exceptions (Evolution, TexShop), all of the best are for pay: NetNewsWire, OmniGraffle, Radio Userland, Keynote, and some of the apps that come with OS X (Safari, iTunes). Of the exceptions, Evolution is a special case in that its development was tightly controlled and lavishly funded. The critical question is that good user-oriented software needs developers who think about users, who listen to users, who stay attentive to users. Those developers must earn a living. If not from the use of their software, from what? Occasionally, development is a side-effect of other activities: teaching, research, and now political campaigning. But those are hardly sustainable long-term models for funding, and the incentives are not quite right for user orientation: what I as a side-effect developer do to satisfy the needs of my main activity is only accidentally what users need. It may be for a while, but it is unlikely to stay that way. 9:45:37 AM