Beta: Trackback for Radio UserLand. Following on the release of TrackBack for Manila, we're working on TrackBack support for Radio UserLand.

If you're a Radio user who's comfortable running beta software, please help us test TrackBack support for Radio by following these instructions on the Radio-Dev mail list. [Jake's Radio 'Blog] 
7:47:53 PM      comment []   trackback []  



John Robb resurfaces
JRobb is now here. He is nurturing Mindplex, a for-profit system of expert weblogs.
John was the former COO of UserLand software who makes the blogging software that we re-sell here on itown called itown Radio. No one outside UserLand knows why he left UserLand.

John was our contact at UserLand (UL) and got us into the business of selling blogging tools. He said that was the best way to make money on the Internet.
I was looking for a way to bring personal publishing to a broader mass to realize a dream with itown.com that I had had since 1995. I invested and found some fine folks (Seth & Bryan) to help me orient itown.com into a Radio Community Server.

I've been heisitant to comment on UserLand's situation for a variety of reasons but that strips blogging of one of its finer attributes: soultalk... sincerity even if we miss the mark at fairness occassionally... a "growing-up" in public kind of thing.

So in an honest critique in the spirit of what blogging is all about (honesty with discretion), I offer the following on UserLand and my experince with them:

Good points:

1. The UserLand software has performed admireably for which I'm grateful. The software has done as advertised in a wonderfully consistant way. Much of it do in my application to the efforts of Seth Dillingham of Macrobyte Resources.

2. The support staff at UL (Jake & Lawrence) plug away faithfully and hardily as best they can at a variety of tasks to which we all owe them and the company a daily hardy, "Thank you.".

3. Dave Winer inspires. Bearing with the occassional pop-off and rant, Dave, former head-honcho, yet still majority stockholder of UL, has provoked and nutured through his blogging many, many good things. If you have read him, you know of the range of good ideas he as brought into both the technology practicespace, technicalspace, and marketspace.

In many respects, he has set a new and better standard for a leader of a tech company. He has talked to his customers illuminating strategy and discussing milestones and setbacks.
It really is the way that customers would like to be attached to the companies from which they buy products and services.
I thank him for his conscious choices to be this kind of person.
In this regard, like Guy Kawaski author of The Macintosh Way, Dave is the author of The Blogging Way, and you will find it written over several years of weblogging. And a good read it is.

Less good points:
1. There is no support network for Radio VAR's like us. None. Not even a weblog.

2. What Mark Pilgrim seemed to object to in his "Winer Watch" was the abolition of John Robb's weblog without explanation. This seemed inconsistent with the philosophies of the company and founder. Sometimes, you have periods of time where commenting is just not appropriate. I understand that fact, and I respect that fact. But you ought to say something; and later, you ought to shed some light. Distrust is now quasi-in-play where trust was once established. That is never good for any of us or our efforts. Here's hope for a remedy to this situation (if I am being fair.).

3. John Robb has gone from selling content tools to becoming a content maker. That fact irks me a bit as an investor of the tools that he was selling. Perhaps that's what drew him to UL in the first place; I don't know. But he was in a position to be inspired by all the buyers of his tools with what they were doing and muse and focus his strategy for for-profit content generation.

Granted, he may not want to sell someone else's tools. And I don't know that I compete directly against his next effort; I may already. But when a content tool vendor jumps to making content, as much as I am for him and his good ideas, it feels swarmy at the moment. I'm sure that feeling will pass; it may be logically wrong.
Maybe it's a lack of closure on this episode that I suspect many of us feel. I think we are due some closure. It would be the blogging thing to do if blogging stands for any intrinsic characteristic unique to the philosophic adherents.

But I guess in the end, to treat UserLand as I would want to be treated, I must continue to give grace as they decide whether to fix the problems that most of us see and experienced or not. They are free to make those choices. I just hope that they will look at the problems honestly and comment to us that are vested in their platform. That's the blogging way.

With tongue in cheek and a sarcastic tone, maybe JRobb can have a Frontier/Manila/Radio expert on his network to whom I can pay for advice. Like I said, sometimes we say things to just work out the frustration... after all, bloggers don't have to be mature to blog. Some of us are still in process with a long way to go... count me on that list... (Hmmm, maybe I need to do a directory for that category of blogger.).

In the end, Long live The Blogging Way. May I infrequently foul its aspirations as well. [Harvey Kirkpatrick: itopik.com News] 
6:10:19 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Steve Hooker: Backlog RSS file of all the posts. Steve has released a new tool that you can use with Feedster's new backlog feature. "A tool to make a Backlog RSS file of all the posts that went to your front page." [UserLand Product News] 
5:40:01 PM      comment []   trackback []