Dave Winer’s software development process:
- Change the name of the latest iteration of Frontier/Radio/Manila/OPML Editor.
- Write a couple UserTalk scripts that add minor new functionality.
- Release the product as if it were entirely new code.
- Hype the product as if it were entirely new code.
He’s getting sloppier with each release — as Etienne Deleflie explains, FlickrFan uses an OPML icon, calls itself the “OPML Editor” and uses the name “PhotoFan” elsewhere.
People who’ve been around for a while, aside from Robert Scoble, are on to his comical ineptitude at developing usable software. Here’s a review of FlickrFan from a blogger named HMK:
Fantastic idea, crappy implemention.What a fantastic idea – Streaming Flickr photo feeds to either a screen saver, HDTV or a digital picture frame. Simple, but effective. Stupendous. Can’t say enough good things about it.
But boy, does the implementation suck. And I’m not talking functionality here – I’m talking about everything else.
- Installation
- Look
- Feel
- Usability
- …
While I understand that it’s very tempting to whip up a working prototype in a non-mainstream scripting language in no time, such a prototype shouldn’t be released.
Dave, hire a group of smart students for 2 months and let them do a real, polished, native application for MacOS, Windows & Linux. Think about the leverage such a native application would provide for FlickrFan.
I fondly remember the days when you did real, polished applications for real users.