RSS is the Molecular Unit of the Internet

Strip the web of all the graphics, all the CSS, and all the AJAX, and you’re left with a list of things, their detail information, and the forms to add more items to the list.

RSS is the list. The web browser is simply a presentation of it. Same as my feed aggregator, my email client, and my instant messaging client.

As such, the list as RSS should come first, it’ll be needed anyway, with all the various presentations simply parsing it out. The RSS file is the molecule of the internet, made up of atoms, er, items.

To add to the list, Web Services. The create, read, update, delete functions offered through web services are always needed by Web developers. Seems like the site itself should simply be another customer of its web services.

NPR off Audible Was Easy, NPR Off NPR Is the Hard Part

As broken by Tristan Louisthe Mac Observer (corrected by Doc), NPR is not renewing their contract with Audible.

This is a good thing. Podcasting and public radio are peas and carrots. They belong together. By not renewing the Audible contract, NPR removed the easiest obstacle preventing them from offering more podcasts.

After some conversations with a handful of people in public radio, the biggest challenge is their underlying organization and business structure. As Doc Searls states:

“NPR essentially wholesales programming to local stations, which retail them to listeners.”

Prior to the ease of podcasting, I listened to WNYC‘s On the Media, via KNOW. Today, I receive each week’s program automatically every Friday night – direct from WNYC.

As I mentioned in ‘Podcasting Rewards Good Conversation‘, the biggest win for public radio stations could be in the smaller markets – Wisconsin Public Radio for example. They’d no longer have to purchase programming at prices they’d rather not pay and can reach past their broadcast antenna for members passionate about their homegrown programs.

The Second Difference Between Consumers and Customers

“There’s no time of day that would be good for me. I don’t plan my days around a radio or TV schedule because, quite frankly, I don’t need to. I have an iPod and I can listen to what I want, where I want and when I want. And given that there’s already more good programming than I have time for, anyone who doesn’t make it easy for me by providing an RSS feed with enclosures simply won’t make the cut. Even in my car, unless it’s just a trip to the grocery store, I no longer tune in a broadcast station.” – Doug Kaye

Ruby on Rails is Agile Web Development

If you’ve been following along for a while, you know I’m on a quest to learn Ruby and specifically – Ruby on Rails. Back in May I started on Sam’s Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days. After the fourth time through day 15, I knew I needed some other assistance.

The inspiration to find the other assistance came from the How to set up a Ruby on Rails Weblog in 15 minutes quicktime movie. I ordered Agile Web Development with Rails, and in 2 days, I’m half way through the book with a better understanding of AJAX, web services, and a fairly useful project to show for it. Yes, you’ll start to see the changes.

Ruby and Rails?

Back in Day 1 of Teach Yourself Ruby I talked about the Principle of Least Surprise. This principle is how Ruby on Rails made web development fun again. I know that every two hours, I’ll have at a least one bug fixed and at least new featured added. Thanks David.

Call for Testers: WP-iPodCatter 0.9a

Hey all, I could use some help testing the new version of WP-iPodCatter

Changes in 0.9a:

  • All variables from the replacement wp-rss2.php file moved into the WP-iPodCatter section in WordPress admin Options tab.
  • Updated wp-rss2.php file
  • Support for itunes:block at an individual post level
  • Support for itunes subcategories
  • Support for itunes:explicit at overall podcast level and individual post level
  • Enter itunes:keywords manually or use wordpress categories
  • Preview cover images within WordPress admin area.
  • Turn your comments feed into a podcast using the replacement wp-commentsrss2.php file

I’ve got it running on my dev box and will be migrating it to First Crack podcast in the next day or so.

This link now directs to WP-iPodCatter v1.0
If you’re interested, download the zip file at: http://garrickvanbure.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/wp-ipodcatter.zip

Leave all bugs and oddities in the comments.

Winning on a Level Playing Field

Competitive bowling is an interesting game. Each player throws a ball the same distance to 10 identical pins. A player becomes a professional by knocking over all 10 pins consistently. This level playing field makes bowling one of the few sports where winning is screwing up less.

Watching some back episodes of the Amazing Race, I was reminded of bowling. For the unfamiliar, the Amazing Race pits a dozen teams of 2 against each other in a race around the world. At any moment, a multi-hour lead could vanish as all teams await the same train.

It doesn’t take the Bowling Moms to see the similarities between the two games. In the world of economics and game theory, it feels like complete information.

Seems to me, there’s 3 lessons for winning on a level playing field:

  1. Believe in the strength of your competitors.
    If all the competitors weren’t equally skilled, they wouldn’t be playing and the game wouldn’t be any fun. If Joy’s Law (“the smartest people work for someone else”) applies, then the most talent players aren’t even in the game. I remember a college football coach (though not his name) known for praising the losing team.
  2. Sharing is better than not.
    Bowlers and the Amazing Racers operate in parallel with each other, one player’s progression doesn’t necessarily mean a competitors recession. The next gutter ball or compass mis-read could even things out again. It’s actually in the players’ best interest to share information. The value of information is subjective – so sharing garbage and sharing wisdom costs the same. Sharing puts the focus on the game, not sharing puts the focus on what an ass the non-sharer is.

Tying 1 and 2 together, it’s nice to double check the competitors are trying to win the same game. Rob and Amber were trying to win Survivor a second time. Apple went for simplicity, Microsoft for ubiquity.

I should dust off my game theory books.

Like MTV, Radio Doesn’t Find Music Valuable

Long ago, broadcast radio gave up with introducing their audience to new music. I first became aware of it sometime during the summer of 1996 [1] , I’m sure the tipping point occured long before then.

Between Cumulus Media president/CEO Lew Dickey, Jr. promoting the talk radio proliferation on the FM dial, my conversation about Broadcast Radio and Podcasting with Noah Lamson, and the frequency of MTV actually showing a music videos, musicians are in a pickle.

Their traditional distributors aren’t interested in distributing music anymore – let alone new music.

This is unfortunate because I’m more reliant on and interested in new music in the past 6 months than the 6 years before.

[1] My first full-time job in UW-Stout’s tech department. The same radio station was on in the office throughout the day. Because radio listenership is measured by the quarter-hour, after an hour in the shop, you knew the playlist for the next hour – and every 15 minutes thereafter. A painful way to spent 8 hours in a college town