I just got around to reading Dave Winer's "First Essay of the Year." If you know Dave and can parse out his self-serving comments, he has some very good thoughts. For instance The Web uniquely wants to be used by everyone, not just for the purposes of big companies and their profits and paranoia. This is a foundation that I think we agree on.
Agreed. I wouldn't just differentiate on big companies though.
I thought Jeremy Allaire's commentary on the essay more relavent and better stated. Allaire writes The question it really provoked for me, and one that has been lurking in my mind for the past few months, is whether weblogging as we know it will truly become a mainstream form of personal communications and sharing, rather than it's current perceived niche as form of personal or independent Internet journalism.
Jeremy lists his personal perspective as to why weblogging is revolutionary -- publishing to the web is simple and your content is well structured and shareable. In order to gain mainstream acceptance he asserts weblogging, as it is known today, will need to Break out of the calendar journal or narrative metaphor
and Embrace richer forms of expression through graphics, audio and video.
It would appear that 2003 is shaping will be the year of the two-way web and, as I like to think about it, the universal canvas.
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