Google ReWriter is on the way

My predictions for 2007 were dominated by Google Reader because it's one of the products best placed to dominate the Read/Write web. The addition of support for tagging and link blogging were the warning shots but the coming months will see Reader evolve into a fully fledged Reader/Writer (let's call it ReWriter). Google ReWriter is the first product that will tie the major pieces of the Read/Write web together - RSS/ATOM (feeds), OPML, Social-Bookmarking/Tagging (folksonomies), Attention and Microformats.

To understand how we must first realize that blog posting, commenting and social bookmarking are various forms of the same thing - annotation. Secondly 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 entry 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.

Another prediction I made for 2007 - that Comments will die - is something that follows naturally from the above arguments and a point I'll flesh out in part 2...


Technorati Tags: google reader, doc searls, live web

Comments

[Aidan Finn]

"To understand how we must first realize that blog posting, commenting and social bookmarking are various forms of the same thing - annotation."

I think this is the case only some of the time. Social bookmarking is always annotation. Some blog posts can be thought of as annotation (the kind of blog post that link to some resource, with possibly some brief commentary about it) but not all. But what about the creation of original content? Blog posts that aim to inform rather than to propogate (annotate) links. Stuff like howtos and tutorials and essays. I'm not sure how those kinds of post are annotation.

[James Corbett]

Well, one of the definitions of annotation is - "A critical or explanatory note; a commentary" - so I would argue that all blogging is annotation since everything we write is an attempt to 'explain' whether that's to explain something about the world or something that's in our head. Some definitions for 'explain' -

1. To make plain or comprehensible.
2. To define; expound: We explained our plan to the committee.
3. a. To offer reasons for or a cause of; justify: explain an error.
3. b. To offer reasons for the actions, beliefs, or remarks of (oneself).

[James Corbett]

To finish that point... "Stuff like howtos and tutorials and essays" come under the umbrella of annotation when you consider the above definition. Afterall we're all building upon the ideas of others regardless of whether we give proper attribution or not. You might call it the null annotation or annotation without attribution.

[Simon McGarr]

hello there.
I rarely comment here, as its well away from what I can follow.

However, I have to take issue with your comment above. Original thought is not the same thing as annotation. And if you want to expand the meaning of annotation as broadly as above, you've rendered it meaningless to justify the original assertion.

I also object to the jargon, but I think that's probably just because I'm not used to it.

[James Corbett]

Thanks for the input Simon. Sorry about the jargon but I'm a techie and was never great at English (failed it for the Leaving Cert) so perhaps you can help me find the correct terminology.

Also, can you point me to some truly original thought on the web? Something that doesn't build upon the thought of others?

If annotation isn't the correct word could you suggest another? According to the definitions of annotation I've read I don't see how it can't fit what I'm describing. I actually think it's our the general use of the word annotation that is too restricted. According to the thesaurus here are synonyms for annotate - "comment, commentate, construe, define, elucidate, explain, expound, footnote, gloss, illustrate, interpret, note, remark". I don't see how these discount original thought even if you can find it!

[kevin]

Good stuff here James. I'm completely with you. I don't think there is such a thing as an original thought. Whether we are able to recognize the input stream for our ideation is another matter, but accepting that ideas don't emerge without stimulus is a good first step.

Google ReWriter makes perfect sense. I too see the elements of this in Google Reader, but find myself resisting. Why is that?

[Richard Hearne]

Hmm... without original thought their would be nothing - everything must have a genesis, and I think it would be a bit far fetched to claim that everything is based on one original thought.

Would you consider a new interpretation of an existing paradigm original? Is this post original?

Your post itself is very insightful, and you might well be right. I have often wished I could comment directly form within Reader. Thankfully Google rarely sit on their laurels in the segments they like.

Of course the fly in the ointment is that publishing content is not as simple as just creating that content and hitting 'GO'. Think of everything else going on in the background - will Google provide all the ancillary services in your control panel?

The other major issue is that as Google keeps more and more Internet use within their own properties you will find an increasing group that don't want Google controlling the web. We're an independently minded group of beings you know.

I think you'll be proven half-right :)