I am in their Honourable 50 list, beyond the Open Media 100.

eWeek writes:

Microsoft has decided that subscribing, via RSS, will become the third leg of its information-access triangle. The other two legs are browsing and searching. With the addition of RSS, once a user has found information they are interested in, they will be able to stay updated easily as the information changes.

To understand the significance of Microsoft's announcement, it's helpful to forget what you think you know about RSS. What we've seen with blogs and Podcasts doesn't really hint at what a subscription technology can do when implemented in the operating system itself.

In that context, think of RSS as a means for the OS to look at XML data, process it and present the information to an application for presentation to the user. For example, a Longhorn user might use Outlook to subscribe to a public calendar, select specific events they are interested in and then get updates as the specifics change. Users might subscribe to other sorts of lists as well, or to search results, documents or whatever else developers decide to support.

Jeff Nolan reports from the SNRC/Accel Symposium [where] the topic was "Next Generation Media Networks: the future of content delivery".

Balan [of Qwest] hits the key question: why do telcoms want to get into this game when they don't have any experience with content networks? The answer is that the traditional voice business is a commodity market with lower cost of entry and the slice of the pie is getting smaller. On the data side of the business, bandwidth wars between telcos and cable providers have begun and will continue. Telcos look at video as a service to replace lost revenues and pay for plant upgrades. The technology has been around for 5 years, and new compression and band plans make video over twisted pair very competitive. The inclusion of video in telco offerings ensures that telco remain in the consumer markets. Balan also points out that cable and telcos have managed to piss off at least 20% of their customer base, so video is the ideal swapping strategy to bring customers to replace defections.

He talked in some detail about the various fiber options, but the net takeaway is that fiber is great for new construction, but not so good for retrofit of older structures. Fiber is great for video, offering up to 20mbs.

Interesting slide on services, what caught my eye is EPG (enhanced program guide), full line up HD, network-based PVR and control applications (home automation). Most of the other items were the usual suspects, e.g. a la carte programming.

[via Richard MacManus] Rands In Repose writes:

Stop thinking of a web application as a collection of pages.

The back button is not a bug in Ajax, it's a flaw in the browser metaphor.

I hearby serve notice to the following browser controls: forward, back, home, reload, and that URL field. You need to die... unless I need you. These controls are (rightfully) designed around the idea of the web as a collection of pages, but an application is collection of objects where you, the user, are guided by a well designed interface to get your job done. We don't actually need to kill these controls because they do serve a purpose, but the web application developer should be able to choose when they're available because the developer is designing the application and they are incented to do what's right for their users.

No. The perfect web application will never be a direct replacement for your favorite native application. The medium, the technology that is the Internet, will always change the content that it delivers, but web applications are still in the dark ages. Take a leap with me and think about web applications that do not compromise in user interface, that do not settle for interaction models designed around a clumsy metaphor. All the richness of the best desktop application belongs in web applications.... all you gotta do is want it.

Paul Golding writes:

Email is like placing a letter in someone's in-tray, whereas texting is like tapping them on the shoulder and saying look at this, whilst placing a message on a slip of paper in their hand. With email, a great deal of emotional emphasis is placed on sending. With texting, the emphasis is on the receiving. The technical reason for this is that texting has always been push-based. Therefore, a sent message is immediately brought to the attention of the recipient who will have their device with them at all times. This immediacy quality is missing with email, which is why the perception remains that emailing is to an "in-tray", not to a person.

For someone to need mobile access to their email, it is the information in their email messages that has to be important and sufficiently time-critical to warrant on-the-move access. There are very few people who need such access to their email, which is why there are so few mobile email users, by which I mean so few Blackberry users. I am using this as the yardstick for mobile email because most people have now heard of the Blackberry and it has been on sale for many years. If rapid access to email were really that critical, there would be a lot more users.

Om Malik writes: "Yahoo Unlimited is an ad-supported personal radio network."

Dear Abhishek,

Even though the world you will grow up in will be quite different from the one I grew up (separated as we are by 37 years), there are some things which are eternal and will be as applicable to your life as they were to mine. These are learnings from my life so far, which would be useful for you as you grow up.

Make No Little Plans

This quote (via Atanu) by Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect, sums up what I think should be your philosophy for life. “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big."

When you are ready to make your mark in the world, keep these words in mind. Too often, we are happy with the mundane, the ordinary. All around, we see mediocrity. People are happy being good. Good is the enemy of Great. We get into a groove, a comfort zone, and stay there. Don’t. We live only once. Dream big. We are where we are today only because a few in our past dared to think different and envision a world that could be.

Think like an entrepreneur. Take risks in life. It does not matter if you fail. Success is always built on failure. I have failed many more times in my life than I have succeeded. So did my father. But that did not us stop us from thinking big. We learn more form failure than success. What you have to build is the capability to realise these dreams. Without a dream, there is nothing to look forward to. The goals you set for yourself must have an element of impossibility in them – only then will you stretch yourself and in doing so, discover attributes in yourself that you did not know existed.

I remember the time in the summer of 1986 that I decided to go on Himankan, an annual IIT trek in the Himalayas. I was one of the more physically unfit people you could find then! I just decided to do it because I thought I could not. It was a trek where, once you started, there really was no turning back. The first couple days were some of the most difficult I had ever lived. Every step that I would take was a challenge. We would walk through beautiful terrain and I would barely notice, wondering instead when we’d reach the next camp. Some time during those first days, the mindset shifted. I had done the first two days – so I could do the next ten also. I relaxed, and became more at ease with the world around me. I became confident that I would complete the trek. And I did – with increasing ease.

Life will constantly through up choices for you. Take the paths that you think are more difficult.

Tomorrow: Advice for Life (continued)