Google ReWriter is on the way - Redux

I'm surprised and almost horrified that TechCrunch seems, not just surprised but horrified to learn Google May Add Comment Feature On Shared Reader Feeds. How could you not have seen the writing on the wall Duncan?

In January I wrote Google ReWriter is on the way and explained how the number one feed reader would evolve into a fully fledged web annotation engine -

".... blog posting, commenting and social bookmarking are various forms of the same thing - annotation.... we must shake off the page-centric mindset. The 'Wide Web was about reading pages, the Live Web is about annotating microchunks (e.g. permalinks). While we tend to categorize our annotation according to the point of submission, each form is essentially the same. Whether to your own blog, someone else's blog or a third party note-taking site it's the same mechanism. Different context but same mechanism.What sense does it make that I have to open my Performancing plug-in to blog, visit a blogger's web page to comment and invoke a del.icio.us pop-up to take a note? None! I should be able to perform each annotation from within my aggregator - a single unified interface to the Live Web. And I'm betting that's exactly what Google ReWriter will become."

In February I followed up -

".... how will we publish these microformatted comments? With our Google ReWriters (or other 2nd generation aggregator/annotators). We can already use Google Reader to annotate (tag) posts, just press 'T'. A new version will allow us to comment, just press 'C'. These comments will be microformatted and tossed back into our uniFeeds, there to be scanned and recombined back into the discussion flow by any microformat aware aggregator."

While it's surprising enough that TechCrunch didn't see it coming it's even more ridiculous is to see Riley pleading with Google not to go down this route and then rounding on link-bloggers. WTF? Robert Scoble's link-blog is one of the most useful data-streams in my life. Anyone who wants to put the RSS genie back in the bottle and rob the web of human filters should go work with the dead tree press!


Technorati Tags: scoble, linkblog, techcrunch, google reader, comments