The Winer v. OpenSocial Update
November 4th, 2007 by EyeOnWinerDave’s response to Google’s announcement is amazing, sad, and revealing. From the moment Dave even heard about Google’s plan to create an open API for social networking apps, he went into full FUD mode.
10/31: He tries to undermine the whole API by parroting his common gripe: that he doesn’t get to keep his data. Of course, this is silly. Google released an API, not an application. One could just as easily say that Dave’s baby XML-RPC is “evil” because applications can be made that don’t allow you access to the data.
11/1: Noticing that his preemptive strike didn’t quell the excitement, he moved on to a “Not so fast, my friend” post, implying that OpenSocial has no users and is basically vaporware. He ended with this conceit: “Me, I’ve been around this block so many times and it’s boring. Let’s see some software then I’ll let you know if this means anything.” He also makes a veiled reference to the fact that he’s a old dinosaur who can’t learn new tricks, saying that Google is keeping “people like [him]” away… what sort of people are those? People who don’t do anything but XML-RPC.
Later that day he takes a generic shot a Google, complaining he doesn’t think it’s the way he used to think it was.
11/3: Flailing about, hoping something will make Google’s new venture a failure, Dave tries to go all Deep Throat on us, speculating as to what Google is like internally. This is the corporate version of an ad hominem… instead of debating the merits of the software the company produces, he’s going to criticize them because their employees are cocky… and that’s really just him talking out of his ass, too. In the end he comes as close as he can for begging for an “insider” to confirm his story. I’d guess he got plenty of emails from people who are happy to work at Google… but he didn’t publish anything, so I’d guess he hasn’t gotten a gripe email yet.
11/4: Instead of talking about why OpenSocial doesn’t do what it aims to well enough, he’s now complaining that it doesn’t do what he wants it to do… I wonder if Dave was disappointed when his new car wasn’t able to fly and wash his laundry. He writes: “[S]uppose I wanted to compete with Google, MySpace, Plaxo and LinkedIn, well, where’s the spec that shows me how to do that?” The spec, Dave? The “spec” that allows you to compete with other social networks is called “machine code” and there’s a LOT of different ways to come up with the “machine code” to do it.
My favorite part of this little rant is this: “[Google is] not very good at APIs. This one is a loser, for sure.” Wow. So not only has he admitted that he doesn’t know what the API is, but he’s already determined that it sucks… because… all google APIs suck? Pot/Kettle?
What’s going to be really funny is watching to see how much buy-in this “loser” gets.
(See, also, the comments to this post)
November 4th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
“Let’s see some software then I’ll let you know if this means anything.”
That is kind of him, because we all know that nobody else is able to determine this for themselves.. how selfless and considerate.
November 5th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Dave is working on adding a controlled comment feature to his blog… he has requested the following from Disqus:
You should be using RSS 2.0 (some people will say Atom, you probably should support that too).
Yes. They should support Atom as well. Since RSS 2.0 is frozen and Atom is under active development for new features and capabilities. But having Dave suggest it is a landmark occasion that standards advocates should celebrate as an act of great selflessness: a contribution to good will and harmony in the development world.
I’m being serious… reward behavior you WANT to see repeated. Pavlov, Maslow, etc.,
November 5th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
To quote Chris Rock from Bring The Pain:
November 5th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Atom is done:
http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/FrontPage
As for Winer, I’ll believe he’s doing the right thing regarding Atom when he stops fudding every project that uses it in preference to RSS. There’s no technical reason not to choose Atom over RSS; it boils down to preference and the libraries you have available.
McD: Your suggestion that we should give him a pat on the back, in the hopes it will make him a better person, is hilariously misguided. That’s one old dog who will never stop shitting on the rug.
November 6th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Today’s “I hate Leopard because I don’t understand it” post is pretty priceless, along the same lines. Especially the part about how they “removed features” from the firewall, even though, of course, that’s not what the article said, and firewalls don’t have “features” in the way he means (he’s talking about the GUI, I think). More of the same, only with Apple instead of Google.
November 6th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Advice for Dave Winer: never upgrade a computer you are happy with and getting good value from. Especially, the 1.0 release of a major upgrade… let the market discover the bugs.
I’d offer this advice to Dave on his blog but… he’s into incoming advice and he’s controls inplace. It’s a private club and not a forum for debate.
Leopard does appear to have some significant bugs… but Apple sends out automatic updates and has never failed to resove siginifcant issues in my experience. I support 3 non-techies with Mac’s and they request 1/20th of the support they needed when they all had Windows systems. 2 of them are remote and need assistance once a year on average.
My wife had a major laptop problem and Apple swapped the hardware for new after working with them on simple hardware swaps that didn’t fix the issue.
Apple deserves a lot better consideration from Dave but he’s the customer from hell for many companies: Audible as a prime example.
The recent Nintendo Wii issues came close but he got new hardware and the Nintendo CEO should be free to visit Berkeley without additiona security to keep Dave from bathing him in saliva.