Last week I suggested that the World Live Web will surely eclipse the World Wide Web (in significance if not bytes). And Doc Searls clarified that it was in fact his son Allen who coined the term World Live Web.
Yesterday Doc notified us that "The World Live Web" is the subject of his column in the December issue of Linux Journal. Its a terrific read elucidating many of the notions I've been grappling with.
One effect of the search engines' success has been to concretize our understanding of the Web as a static kind of place, not unlike a public library. In the midst of that library, however, there are forms of activity that are too new, too volatile, too unpredictable for conventional Web search to understand fully. These compose the live Web that's now branching off the static one.
The live Web is defined by standards and practices that were nowhere in sight when Tim Berners-Lee was thinking up the Web, when the "browser war" broke out between Netscape and Microsoft, or even when Google began its march toward Web search domination. The standards include XML, RSS, OPML and a growing pile of others, most of which are coming from small and independent developers, rather than from big companies. The practices are blogging and syndication. Lately podcasting (with OPML-organized directories) has come into the mix as well.
Using those insights as a lense to look back at my own experiences of freelance web development is quite an enlightening exercise. When I started out, during the height of the dotcom boom, it was extraordinary how many of my customers, especially the local community councils, had no idea really of why they needed a website. They just knew that they wanted one. And you could sum up what they thought they wanted thus -
- A domain: a private, fenced off plot of their own on the new frontier
- A homepage: a manuscript, a monument to the people, their history, their past.
- A webmaster: a scribe to shield them from the complexity of publication.
Whereas, what they actually needed was -
- An address: Which is easier to find - a ranch in the desert or an appartment in the middle of town? A top level domain is an unnecessary conceit in most cases.
- An online community hall: A virtual meeting place, a means of communicating the present and the future.
- An editor: the software, not the person!
With those lessons in mind I'm setting out to get my local communities back on the web - the new web, the live web. They'll take up virtual residence at blog subdomains, located by directory 'signposts'. Their editors will be the text messaging facility on their mobile phones and they'll communicate news, schedules and updates through live feeds.
A test version for my local town of Newcastlewest is reachable through the Open Irish Directory via the Community, Home & Family -> # By Region -> Munster -> Limerick hierarchy. Here's how it looks using Taskable (click for larger version).
The World Wide Web documents the past, the World Live Web broadcasts the present and the future.
This is a great idea. Combine this model with Yahoo's forthcoming RSS+SMS functionality (http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008706.html, currently US-only), and you have a way of publishing and receiving community-driven RSS feeds using only mobile phones.
Does your blogging platform have a built-in 'post via SMS' feature that facilitates publishing like this?
Posted by: Emmet Connolly | December 06, 2005 at 02:29 PM
Well FeedBeep.com does the same thing Emmet and works in Ireland but its not free.
No, my blogging platform doesn't support 'post via SMS', not directly but it can be done indirectly with SMS->Email. Do you know a gateway or blogging system that would support it directly?
Posted by: James Corbett | December 06, 2005 at 03:04 PM
Can't say I do, that's why I was curious. Had a quick scout online just now but most solutions seem to involve the SMS to email gateway.
It's worth investigating further. Given the relatively low uptake of broadband and extremely high adoption of mobile phone services in Ireland, SMS would indeed appear to be the most suitable medium to try to popularise something like this.
Posted by: Emmet Connolly | December 06, 2005 at 04:09 PM
Yes, I had a good look around for SMS->RSS services too and couldn't find anything specifically for the purpose. So that the moment I'm just using the "mail [email protected] message text" syntax with Vodafone (sending the SMS to 51745). That means I have to act as an intermediary for the moment but I don't mind that during the bootstrap phase.
You've seen how the WordPress plugin produces OPML output Emmet and I'm using TypePad for the purpose. I believe Dave Winer is also doing other work to integrate his OPML editor with WordPress so this thing is only going to get easier.
How about getting some Galway based associations and clubs onboard? :)
Posted by: James Corbett | December 06, 2005 at 04:29 PM