Day: March 13, 2005

Susan Mernit interviewed me back in early February about RSS, for an article published in the Digital Edge. A publication of the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), The Digital Edge is for the New Media Federation, a group of folks from the newspaper biz focused on their digital businesses. (Sidenote: how much longer will we persist in separating information by its delivery method?) Anyway “RSS Providers Analyze Newspapers’ Opportunities” includes some of my words, which Susan was kind enough to include with the links intact — an ancillary benefit of an e-mail interview. You can read the article at the link just above, but I appreciated the line “One possible blueprint for online news’ future usage of RSS is visible at CNET News.com, a property of CNET Networks.” Of course, possibilities are a dime a dozen in this space right about now.

Two notes for those who actually care about details in this space. First, I traded emails with Susan for this article prior to the preview release of Newsburst making the rounds, so that part of the “possible blueprint” wasn’t mentioned. Second, with the exception of the CNET Mobile Feed Reader (BREW application), the RSS work across CNET Networks (many different smart people) has been done internally to date, contrary to the impression created by the article.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the brief companion interview with Simon Waldman.

My overall feeling – as I’ve banged on about repeatedly, is that we are seeing the start of a series of moves that will take us from a world of online publishing that is really printing without paper, to a media environment unlike any other we have previously operated in. And, exactly who will make money out of it, how they’ll make it, and how much they’ll make is still unclear.

Amen.

Reading Anil Dash’s post on Rules to the Game brought back similar conversations with coworkers. If you don’t have constraints, you’re just messing around. So it’s useful to know what the boundaries are, even if they are self-imposed? Is the limit time? Is the limit money? Is the limit the competition? Is the limit the organization/the people? Usually, in the workplace, the boundaries arise from some combination of the above.

My analogy: if you want to build something tall to see over the horizon, like a tower, you have to start by putting up walls. Those walls need to go up, not just spread horizontally, going only as high as you can reach without exerting yourself. You must choose the shape and size of your walls, and get out a ladder to keep building up. Once you’ve gotten out the ladder, you’re committed to that spot, and you’ve forsworn other choices. So make the best of your selection, be comforted that you know some of the physical limits now incumbent upon you, and keep going up. If you didn’t pick the best spot for a tower, at least you made a choice, and you committed to finishing the task in place. Rather than feeling limited, feel freed to continue. That’s my intent, if not always my action.