"And then I went to the island of empty chairs," Wish Bear said to Grumpy Bear
Professional annoyances Chris Saad and Marc Canter argue the obscurities of opening up social-network websites to outside programmers at a meeting of the DataPortability Workgroup. Can you suggest a better caption? Bonus points if you can work in an allusion to the Share Bears.
The Share Bears in the Land Without Portability
Caring is sharing, people, especially when it comes to your personal data. Leading developers from important social-network sites joining a "data-portability" advocacy group doesn't represent history in the making. It's a marketing campaign to make everyone feel sickly sweet, knowing that these websites are so…
News flash: Industry events dull
"The problem with most conferences is we don't have enough to do," laments seminar veteran Dave Winer, who admits to Web surfing, emailing and instant-messaging during presentations. In Las Vegas today, speaker Mike Arrington from TechCrunch forgot to show up. [Update: Arrington says he never agreed to do the event.]…
Free Web 2.0-to-English translation
The big brains presenting at tomorrow's Web 2.0 Summit have lots of good ideas. Too bad no one can understand what they're saying. I've got a plan to fix that.
SNS? Meta-network engine? I'm offering a free for all presenters, panelists and sponsors at the Web 2.0 Summit.Marc Canter tells Mark Zuckerberg how to run Facebook
Marc Canter, who once upon a time founded the multimedia-software company Macromedia, but now largely gets attention mostly for napping through conferences, has blogged an open letter to Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Canter misspells his name as "Zukerberg" and refers to him repeatedly as "dude," because that's…
Auren Hoffman's cynical ploy to set your profile "free"
Rapleaf is bragging that founder Auren Hoffman is an early signer of the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web. That blustering broadside, authored by Plaxo's Joseph Smarr, Macromedia founder Marc Canter, videoblogger Robert Scoble, and TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, wants to set your online profiles and…
Marc Canter smokes up in Amsterdam
Before we show these photos of the founder of what became Macromedia (the creators of Flash, which powers games like these) — before we show photos of the alleged pot fiend smoking a joint, we'd like to note that photographer Dave Winer, who just uploaded them to Flickr, labels them as "A sequence of photos taken in a…
Dammit Canter, we don't want your site
Can someone give software entrepreneur Marc Canter an advertising budget? Or at least a copy editor? Seeing him pimp his latest startup in everyone's blog comments used to be mildly amusing. Now it's just depressing.
Software shipper Marc Canter doesn't deny smoking dope at conferences or inviting lesbians to threesomes with his wife
Oh dear, I've gone and made longtime software developer Marc Canter (pictured here having a reasoned discussion) mad by printing someone's joke about him. Just as a refresher, here's what someone told me (and what I published yesterday):
Marc Canter's sex, drugs, and rock-and-drool
Ah, the many myths of conference-hound Marc Canter. Overheard this week:
Crazy uncle update: Sleepy, Grumpy, and Doc
Here's a hit of news for all you crazy-uncle-watchers out there.
People Aggregator video tour: Wagged edition
The homepage at Marc Canter's newly launched social service, People Aggregator (user/pass: paalpha/paalpha), promises a "video tour" of the site. Instead, it links to a video tour of Marc's porch.
People aggravator: Marc Canter gets lonely, spams for friends
PeopleAggregator, Marc Canter's startup that gives people another social network they don't need, launched last night with a huge round of unwanted invitations. Apparently, Canter (pictured) sent an e-mail to every person who's ever e-mailed him, inviting them to his confusing social service.
Arrington engages the Valley's crazy uncles
The Three Stooges of Silicon Valley found a Shemp. After Michael Arrington spoke at Dave Winer's BloggerCon, the TechCrunch blogger got sucked into Winer's little club — Winer, Marc Canter, and Steve Gillmor.
Remainders: An extra Friday post, because everyone loves topless Unix gurus
- A guide to Unix becomes the new summer beach read for a topless sunbather in Greece. [NSFW: Flickr]
- A journalist overheard explaining how to pad an article: "But one thing is clear: I have three more paragraphs to fill." "It remains to be seen whether I can meet wordcount."
- Yahoo's photo sharing site Flickr, it turns…
Blogger Dinners need booze
Dropped in on Dave Winer and Niall Kennedy's Blogger Dinner last night. A couple dozen bloggers attended the comfortable little affair at Henry's Hunan. I chatted with one — friend and blogger Nicole Lee — in a day-after dinner autopsy. Apologies to anyone we forgot to smugly name-drop.
Web 2.0 (TM): The shit hits the fans
What's happened since Tim O'Reilly's lawyers attacked Tom Raftery like a rabid shark attacking a kitten? (In other words, sent him a cease-and-desist against holding any "Web 2.0" conferences because O'Reilly's trademarking that name?) THESE THINGS HAPPENED:
Know your crazy uncles
Keeping the usual gang of Gillmors straight takes a full team of analysts, what with Marc Canter in the mix. So thank the Valley gods that a journalist charted them out for Valleywag.