Amazon DevCon is happening right now and happily the Amazon Web Services Blog is blogging it in
“near-real-time” (hat-tip to Greg
Linden for linking to it). I haven’t browsed through all the notes from day 1 yet,
but I feel compelled to post about Rael Dornfest’s speech on the subject of “remix:
beyond rip, mix, burn”. Some real gems in this…
–> Rael: “Remixing requires good source, inspiration, skill, trial and error,
magic, and some combinatorics.”
I had to look up ‘combinatorics’. The Wikipedia definition is too complex
(but no doubt correct). I like this simpler, user-friendly, definition of
Combinatorics: “The branch of mathematics dealing with the number of different ways
objects can be selected or arranged.”
–> Rael on data remixing:
“Remix your data. Scraping begat XML which begat APIs. Hacks led to standards which
led to business opportunity. Syndicated ecommerce. Google/Amazon/Alexa, Amazon/eBay for
buying and selling, etc.
Creative commons, Salesforce, Blogger/Typepad, Technorati, Feedster, Bloglines.
Delicious, feedburner, typekey. Glued with JavaScript, Perl, Python, PHP as glue.
Lesson: There are parts of the platform that you don’t have to own.”
–> The following has got to be the most concise attempt yet at explaining how blogging is
impacting on journalism (and there have been a lot of non-concise attempts!): “Blogging
[is] remixing journalism”
–> On RSS:
“RSS reinvented syndication, [it’s] not a remix. RSS is still an approximation of
something, not sure where it will go. Tiny compared to where it will be. Everyone
monetizes RSS. Perhaps a bubble already.”
–> Finally, here’s the speech in a nutshell:
“Rules for remixing:
* If it ain’t broke it soon will be
* Need to focus on why it is broken, how is not enough
* Look to the alpha geeks
* If you are an alpha geek, look to the consumer
* Remix even if you have no ear for music
* Keep it open and hackable
* Think of the end-to-end
* If it ain’t broke, it soon will be”
Information Remixing
Note that a lot of Rael’s speech referenced hacking, as befits a conference for Web
Services developers. But the highlights I’ve picked out are just as relevant to
Information Remixing, which is I guess my forte.
I frequently talk about remixing
(ref: a search of my blog
for the word “remix”). For example, take this excerpt from a post I wrote nearly a year ago:
“We can mix and match RSS feeds as we (the “consumers”) see fit. Perhaps future
generations of tools like Blogdigger Groups will allow us to mix and match microcontent,
much like a DJ scratching a rap song on top of a Beatles melody.”
In 2005 we’re starting to see tools that make such remixing of data possible – and
that’s exciting. e.g. did you know that in PubSub
you can create custom RSS feeds using combinations of topics, people, sites, data
types, and other things.
Future of RSS – One Scenario
Here’s a prediction from me on the future of RSS: in the not too distant future, more
people will subscribe to topic/tag/remix feeds than feeds of actual people. Is
that a scary thought?
