Category: Uncategorized

Why is Open Source software so powerful? Theories abound. Here are a few:

a) Small business, the biggest and most important future market for software services, can afford open source and thus helps drive its development trajectory. MySQL, an open source database, is in many instances faster than Oracle and runs on a simple $1000 PC.

b) Businesses that adopt open source sidestep the chief risk associated with traditional software — that their vendor fails and leaves them stranded in unsupported code.

c) Open source has far more potential contributors and advocates, since only a tiny minority of the global pool of programmers can afford to use incumbent players’ expensive tools (and only a fraction of these join in each tool’s development.)

d) For the same reason, open source often addresses obscure low/no-margin, network-ennabling, mass-market market needs long before they come to the attention of big developers. This gives OS the first mover advantage as demand for these technologies catches fire; this may explain why variations of open source software like the Apache web server and the Linux operating system now power a majority of the world’s web sites.

As ever, on the button.
However:
Is news always and only news?

I am absolutely on board for your view of the WTC coverage, but isn’t this a case where straight hard facts and speed were the essentials?

In the case of the local water company digging up a road for three months, shouldn’t I have the opportunity at the end of the story to e-mail the chairman? Or place a vote urging them to do the work during next summer? Or even contact like-minded people so we can go and picket his house?

Of course, in this case, opinion is more important than fact. So what if the road is being dug up for 3 months? ARE YOU CRAZY?!? IT’LL MEAN CHAOS! I take my kids to school on this route and it already takes 30 minutes. How on earth can I visit my old mum in the retirement home if there’s a 14-mile traffic jam outside the flats?

Yes, web news pages are over-designed, to serve the tastes of web designers, not users. Even the BBC is a cluttered mess. But we can’t completely ignore the interactivity and present flat facts, that’s not the nature of the medium.

Simon Crane has spent 15 years as a UK editor and journalist.

I agree … and I don’t.

As far as design is concerned, we are all guilty of over-design. I remember launching a web site aimed at a fairly easily definable group, many of whom congregated on a particular list.

Once the site was up, I put an invite on their list – come to the pub, I’ll pay for the drinks all night and you can tell me what’s right and what’s wrong with our new site.

About 30 people turned up – not a very large group, but enough to give me some pretty clear and consistent comments. Overwhelmingly, what they didn’t like were the graphics that slowed the site down. They wanted information at speed. We stripped the site to virtually text only, put any photos and graphics on to clearly marked pages and aimed for a maximum of a five second dowload time for any page unless it carried a health warning.

The site was instantly successful.

But it wasn’t just the speed that made it successful – it was also the information.

The truth is that many (most?) people do want their information edited – that’s what they pay for in newspapers. And they want it to be accurate and reliable.

The trouble with many blogs (including the Kottke one mentioned by Nick Denton of the Guardian) is that they are inconsistent, links are broken, and they can take you inadvertently to places you don’t want to go.

It may well be that your final line – ‘We can learn a lot from blogs’ – is the key. What blogs need is a touch of professionalism to help sift the content and ensure that the information is top quality – what we need is a touch of amateurism to ensure that we don’t become obsessed with style to the detriment of speed.

Keith Perch is a Regional New Media Director for Northcliffe Electronic Publishing.