OK - so we got some legitimate press coverage out of our announcement - and it was from Matt Marshall, the same SJ Merc writer who ‘broke’ the story on Monday.

I guess he felt obligated to do a follow-up which includes (I guess I’m not surprised) some negative feedback he went out and sought from others. You see neither Konstantin Guericke or Chris Tolles were AT our announcement - so their entire knowledge of our launch was via Matt’s impressions. That’s pretty weird to me - get quotes from people who weren’t there - but no quotes from folks who were.

At the end of the day Matt doesn’t see why people will want to use our system. And he doesn’t see how software can be for both people and business - at the same time. Oh well. He’s certainly welcome to his opinion.

Anyway - I’d be happy to correct some of Matt’s misnomers and reply to both Konstantin and Chris.

Error #1: Yes it’s true that large players like Yahoo or Tribe could create a network on our system, but that would be absurd. Matt makes himself sound foolish geting this wrong. Yes - we’re pitching media companies - but the message was clear - The GoingOn network can CONNECT to other existing networks, not just HOST networks. Our APIs and schemas will be completely open and anyone can use them to interconnect social networks together. Not just to our network. Any network to any network. Please go read my posts here Matt - which go into detail as to what those APIs will do (come on Matt - you gotta RESEARCH when you come at people like that!)

Error #2: Nothing was spoken of micro-content publishing or end-users contributing to a group voice - community based blogs. These new kind of blogs are totally coolio and it’s criminal for Matt to leave them out of his light-on-facts account of our system. So the error here is from brevity (while he spends as least, if not more space on critics lambasting us - who never ever were there!)

Error #3: Dating? - who the fuck mentioned dating? What’s up dude - you’re worse then Karl Rove!

Error #4: You quoted two people who hated it - but nobody liked it? You couldn’t find ONE person - not one - who understood what we announced? Again - that’s just bad journalism, one-sided biased bullshit. We’ve had to invent entire new schools of thought to counteract writing like that!

Error #5: You have the gall to claim that we’re not the first people to talk about interoperable - and then you bring up Sxip Networks. Oooops - you forgot to say that we’re supporting Sxip Networks and UTILIZING Sxip Networks to get some of our interoperability. I blogged that here. Matt, did you not HEAR that we’re supporting Sxip? I sure thought I mentioned it. Let me repeat this - one of the ways that the GoingOn Network achieves it’s interoperability between systems - will be in supporting and utiliazing the Sxip Networks system. So to contrast them to us - or claim they did that feature first - is just plain wrong. We ARE a Sxip Network - dude.

Error #6 - now let’s see plenty more to talk about:

- no mention of subscribing to compound feeds of ALL the stuff you do and the complete access control we provide over those compound feeds.

- no mention of the UI - which I worked my dam ass on!

- no mention of open standards we’re supporting like ourmedia.org, OpenEvents, LID, OpenID, XRI/XDI, Media RSS, Microformats - dude - this is what makes the DIFFERENCE between DLAs and Portals 1.0. Open ain’t just a word, it’s a bunch of specs and standards that exist or will exist - real soon now.

- no mention of the incredible hussling Tony and his team are gonna do with this system (translate: unique business model)

- and (most criminal of them all) no mention of the hilarious dog and pony show Tony and I put on. It was one of the funnest events I’ve ever done!

I can’t wait to see what Dan Farber, Denise Howell, Steve Gillmor, Mary Hodder, Doc Searls and JD Lasica have to say.

Here’s me giving the pitch:

[photo Dan Farber]

Tony’s favorite lines from what I said were:

“I got a Republican partner now - I GOTTA ship!”

and #2 is when I gestured for all those ads and marketing dollars to come on in, and then I started smacking my lips and chanted “yum yum yum yum yum”.

Maybe Matt was just a bit freaked out about how confidant and happy Tony and I were about announcing this system. It’s gonna rock.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 22nd, 2005 at 1:29 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.