The Atom Publishing Protocol Summarized

The slides from Joe Gregorio's XML 2004 talk about the Atom Publishing Protocol are online.  It's an excellent summary, and makes a good case for the document literal and addressable web resource approaches.  The publishing protocol is where Atom really starts to get exciting.

Software Patents Considered Harmful

This post by Paul Vick is, I think, a very honest and representative take on software patents -- and in particular the over-the-top IsNot patent -- from the point of view of an innovator.  I find myself agreeing with him wholeheartedly:

Microsoft has been as much a victim of this as anyone else, and yet we're right there in there with everyone else, playing the game. It's become a Mexican standoff, and there's no good way out at the moment short of a broad consensus to end the game at the legislative level.

And we all know how Mexican standoffs typically end.  Paul, my name is on a couple of patents which I'm not proud of either.  But in the current environment, there really isn't a choice: We're all locked in to locally 'least bad' courses, which together work to guarantee the continuation of the downward spiral (and in the long run, make all companies worse off -- other than Nathan Myhrvold's, of course.)

Web Services and KISS

Adam Bosworth argues for the 'worse is better' philosophy of web services eloquently in his ISCOC talk and blog entry.  I have a lot of sympathy for this point of view.  I'm also skeptical about the benefits of the WS-* paradigm.  They seem to me to be well designed to sell development tools and enterprise consulting services.

Why Aggregation Matters

Sometimes, I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall trying to describe just why feed syndication and aggregation is important.  In an earlier post, I tried to expand the universe of discourse by throwing out as many possible uses as I could dream up.  Joshua Porter has written a really good article about why aggregation is a big deal, even just considering its impact on web site design: Home Alone? How Content Aggregators Change Navigation and Control of Content. 

Prediction is Difficult, Especially the Future

My second hat at AOL is development manager for the AOL Polls system. This means I've had the pleasure of watching the conventions and debates in real time while sitting on conference calls watching the performance of our instant polling systems. Which had some potential issues, but which, after a lot of work, seem to be just fine now. Anyway: The interesting thing about the instant polling during the debates was how different the results were from the conventional instant phone polls. For example, after the final debate the AOL Instapoll respondents gave the debate win to Kerry by something like 60% to 40%. The ABC news poll was more like 50%/50%. Frankly, I don't believe any of these polls. However, I'll throw this thought out: The online insta polls are taken by a self selected group of people who are interested in the election and care about making their opinions known. Hmmm... much like the polls being conducted tomorrow.
I'll go out on a limb and make a prediction based on the various poll results and on a lot of guesswork: Kerry will win the popular vote by a significant margin. And, he'll win at least half of the "battleground" states by a margin larger than the last polls show. But, I make no predictions about what hijinks might ensue in the Electoral College.

Update 11/11: Well, maybe not...