I stopped in to see CEO Pete Grillo this morning and started talking about the discussions about “noise,” that constant stream of media that pushes over you when you subscribe to services like FriendFeed and twitter.
“Will you send me some of those links….please?” he said.
Sure, sure. But I told him I would also write a blog post with the links that I’d be sending him. I picked three topics that we hit on in our conversation this morning:
* What bloggers are saying abut the noise and such that comes with Twitter and other services.
* The breaking news about the rumors of a potential deal between Microsoft, Yahoo! and Facebook
* Link rot
Noise
I forwarded Pete this post by Robert Scoble, titled “Google News Has No Noise”;
a post by Corvida, the talented young blogger who now writes for Read Write Web and a post by Louis Gray, who discusses his workflow and how it helps him to process the conversations of the day and what in turn to post.
I’d far prefer to have an abundance of media than a trickle of processed news from just a few sources. I like to sample lots of music, too. Sometimes, finding the good stuff takes a while. But I’d far prefer to have lots of music choices than just a few.
Our angle on this is pretty simple. Saving a web page with iterasi is like putting that music you like in a safe place so you can get to it later. It will always be there. It’s an archive of your favorite, most relevant works that you may share with people. iterasi is a tool to save the valuable nuggets that do surface in that constant stream of media.
Microsoft-Yahoo!-Facebook
First off, as the day goes on, it has become apparent we have no idea if this rumored deal is for real. The story does reflect the continued concerns about what control the major players have over the future of the the “open web.” It’s a story for us to watch here at iterasi, raising all sorts of qestions about how our technology may be applied in terms of saving and sharing information.
Links for Pete: Scoble raises questions about why such a deal would prove ugly. His take: Microsoft v. the Internet. I also added Erick Schonfeld’s piece on TechCrunch about why the deal doesn’t make sense. Venture Beat says such a deal could mark thge beginning of the first Internet World War.
My take? This is great stuff to have filed in my iterasi account for the day that the rumor does come true, another rumor surfaces or they were just that…rumors. These posts are reference points, data marks to cross-reference. Further, the posts point to the expected demand for access to information outside the fortified walls of a socal network like Facebook.
Link Rot
A favorite topic that we discuss around here. I always think of Steve Gillmor’s view that “the link is dead.” Steve believes by not linking it is a gesture to follow the person, not the post. I’ve also heard him say that linking has been corrupted by the spammers. I see other reasons why linking can be such an issue. Often, the link is rotten. There is nothing there. Links change dynamically and the social spaces we now inhabit online are far different than in the days when all web pages were essentially static and the communities were few.
Links for Pete:
Bruce Schneir tells a sad story of a favorite hang out for wine geeks that got hacked. The database was erased. There was no back up. He goes on to explain why link rot is such a major issue in today’s social network centric world. Abi at nanopolitan laments about link rot as she often uses her blog as a reference. Often the links are gone. bjkeefe urges people not to link to Yahoo! News. Chris Miller sites problems he ahs had with MSDN.
Link rot and the way content can disappear so quickly is the danger when the network becomes the hard drive. iterasi is designed to keep an individual’s web pages forever. That means any web site that dynamically changes its links can be preserved. iterasi becomea a user’s own personal archive.
