the iCite net > news / blog > a permalink

news and thoughts on and around the development of the iCite net
by Jay Fienberg

Public time: blogs / RSS most important contribution to the web

posted: Jan 30, 2004 10:39:29 PM

A shared sense of time, I think, is a foundation achievement of a culture. It is a means to translate events into story (and eventually, history) and a framework for the relationships between all ideas. Before blogs and RSS, time on the web was hard to share in a widespread, public way.

Recently, I have been reflecting a lot on RSS (see my Why do you read sites via RSS? post), and I believe, at its core, RSS is an event data model. That is, RSS, more than anything, tracks events in time.

The marriage of RSS and weblogs has been so fruitful because, at their core, blogs are event logs. Blogs, not unlike web server logs, track events in time.

I believe weblogs and RSS are the most pervasive, public, system of time on the web to date. And, their combination has made an important contribution to the "human voice" on the web by providing a common time frame reference against which fragments of writing coalesce into larger stories.

That is, part of what makes the voice human is its modulation of urgency and importance. Impersonal corporate writing consistently is over-important (and untimely!), for example. Besides actual word usage, timing, or timeliness, is a quality of human communication. Blogs add timing to what is otherwise just text.

So, blog sites stand like clocks in town plazas, under which people gather to speak and listen. And, RSS has served as a conduit to carry the echos of those clocked events.

There are many Internet and web mechanisms for communicating time, and even all web pages have timestamp metadata that is not too hard to access. But, blogs and RSS basically hit you over the head with time information. I think many of us, probably unconsciously, check blog post timestamps before we read the post.

Time on the web is non-linear and non-contiguous. I think time is really like that in general, but one way we relate to others and the world is by conceiving of events as being in a linear and contiguous progression.

Blogs and RSS have been evolving a common cultural context of the web by giving so many people a shared, public, way to recognize (and respond to) the "new" dynamics of time on the web.

permalink | comments {0} · trackbacks {12}

also available as: rss · rss2 · rdf · atom

Comments and Tracbacks

trackback from: the iCite net development blog
posted: Mar 12, 2004 12:25:20 AM
title: RSS reading: between web push and email pull

RSS-type feeds represent time, and, in this context, affect a kind-of timeliness in RSS-type interactions.

trackback from: the iCite net development blog
posted: May 25, 2005 9:24:06 PM
title: Aggregators not on my time

I've said here a number of times that I see RSS-type feeds as basically inventing a certain kind of time on the web (e.g., my post on Public time). What I've described here, I hope, suggests a different kind of time available to us.

Trackback awaiting approval
posted: Mar 14, 2006 8:51:41 AM

Trackback awaiting approval
posted: Mar 14, 2006 9:06:41 AM

Trackback awaiting approval
posted: Mar 14, 2006 5:46:46 PM

Trackback awaiting approval
posted: Mar 14, 2006 6:24:08 PM

Trackback awaiting approval
posted: Mar 15, 2006 12:05:34 AM

Trackback awaiting approval
posted: Mar 15, 2006 9:03:13 AM

Trackback awaiting approval
posted: Mar 18, 2006 7:38:50 AM

Trackback awaiting approval
posted: Mar 20, 2006 2:01:39 AM

Trackback awaiting approval
posted: Mar 20, 2006 2:52:56 PM

Trackback awaiting approval
posted: Mar 27, 2006 1:09:56 AM

Note: All comments and trackbacks are moderated. Spam is deleted. Other comments are approved as promptly as possible.

Note: Older posts no longer accept new comments or trackbacks.

« prev post
You + others = social, wherever you are

» next post
Configurating my Mac

blog newsfeeds

brief content:

 XML  ·  RSS  ·  RDF  ·  Atom 


full content:

 XML  ·  RSS  ·  RDF  ·  Atom 


blog archive

2006:
jan · feb · mar · apr
may · jun · jul · aug 
sep · oct · nov · dec
		
2005:
jan · feb · mar · apr
may · jun · jul · aug
sep · oct · nov · dec

2004:
jan · feb · mar · apr
may · jun · jul · aug
sep · oct · nov · dec

2003:
may · jun · jul · aug
sep · oct · nov · dec

first post: 
April 30, 2003

highlight views:
Spammers' Choice
		

Jay elsewhere online
Jay Fienberg - the official home page

Wrong Notes - the music blog of the Ear Reverends

Fine & Full, aka, a fine and full burger

Sociomobilepoetextologia (moblog, currently inactive due to lack of proper mobile)

to enjoy roll
sites I like to read when I start from here

· Anastasia Fuller
· Andy Baio
· Biz Stone
· Boris Mann
· Bre Pettis
· Chris Dent
· Danny Ayers
· Dare Obasanjo
· David Czarnecki
· David Weinberger
· Don Park
· Evan Williams
· Greg Narain
· Jason Kottke
· Jim Benson
· Lucas Gonze
· Marc Canter
· Matt May
· Matt Mullenweg
· Michal Migurski
· Nancy White
· Rebecca Blood
· Reg Cheramy
· Richard MacManus
· Sam Ruby
· Shelley Powers
· Tim Bray
· danah boyd


powered by blojsom


Entries by blojsim