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June 12, 2003
InfoWorld Ads in RSS
As noted by Dave and Sam, InfoWorld announced today that they will introduce ads in their RSS feed. Before I comment, I should disclose that I write for InfoWorld and am on the masthead as a contributing editor. Believe it or not, I thought about this before I knew InfoWorld was going to do it and my thoughts haven't changed.
I view this pragmatically: I'd rather see ads in RSS than not see the RSS at all. I'd rather have InfoWorld and other news sources, including the NY Times show up in my aggregator than have to go to each and every site and search for what interests me. These guys aren't going to just give this content away and as RSS gets more and more popular they might choose not to play. That would be a shame, both for me personally and for RSS as a technology.
One of the words frequently associated with RSS is "syndication." Syndication means that you redistribute content that was created for one venue to others. In the case of most blogs, that is done without restriction or fee. Grab my RSS and go to town. In most other media, syndication comes for a price. If you want to syndicate InfoWorld's content, the price is to look at their ads. Some sites, like Slashdot.org will let you see their site ad free for a fee. Maybe their RSS feed is next?
06:17 PM | Recommend This | Print This
Intermountain eXchange: What's New in Networking
A month or so ago, Pete Kruckenberg, Jim Sorenson and I had lunch and discussed the idea of creating a regionally based conference on next generation networks. There's a national conference called Next Generation Networks but we saw a need to sharing between regional players since much of what can and should be done is regionally flavored. From that lunch grew an effort to create and host a conference called Intermountain eXchange or IX. Today was the first meeting of the program committee
The Intermountain region can be loosely defined as the states bordering Utah plus Montana. These states all have common problems in deploying networks. Chief among them is sparse population. Its not hard to imagine broadband networks being built in Denver, Boise, and Salt Lake. But those places are easy. There are things working in rural areas as well.
IX1 will be held in the Fall of 2003 on the University of Utah Campus for 1.5 days. The format would be single-track and a combination of panel discussions, presentations and keynote addresses. The goal is to help attendees exchange information about things that are working on a regional basis. For example:
- UEN is GigE connectivity for wide area networking fro Salt Lake to the Uinta Basin. Many others probably don't know that possible or that carriers will provide it.
- The Utah Valley Community Network is connecting municipal networks in Utah County. Their experience is relevant.
- UTOPIA is creating a 500,000 subscriber government backed wholesale FTTH project in Utah.
These are just Utah examples, but I've heard of other interesting things in Idaho (like Syringa and IdaCom), Colorado, and elsewhere. We'd like those projects and people to be participants as well. The objectives for the conference are:
- Discuss why broadband matters in the Intermountain Region
- Educate about regional developments in broadband and wide are networking.
- Share success stories, case studies, and ideas
- Develop a common vision and understanding of what is possible.
- As an outcome, define a path for future regional efforts
We're looking for both attendees and people who'd like to present on interesting networking projects in the Intermountain region.
10:49 AM | Recommend This | Print This
OSCON 2003
I'm going to be at OSCON, the OReilly Open Source Convention in July. I'll probably arrive on the 8th and leave Friday afternoon, although I haven't made my flight plans yet. This is a big conference with multiple tracks. Its held concurrently, if that's the right word, with the PERL, Python, and PHP conferences and also covers Apache,ÊApplications, Emerging Topics,ÊJava,ÊMySQL,ÊPostgreSQL,ÊRuby, andÊXML. Last year I have a great time and I'm really looking forward to this one.
09:05 AM | Recommend This | Print This
Network World Compendium on Weblog Panel
Network World did a nice job of covering Rock and Paul's comments from my panel at the Weblog Business Strategy conference. Rock and Paul are pioneers in using blogs in large organizations. They're both facing challenges and using blogs to help solve the problems. Their work will be worth following over the next while.