This weekend, I added Webmention support to this blog. What is it? From the Webmention W3C recommendation:
“Webmention is a simple way to notify any URL when you mention it on your site. From the receiver’s perspective, it’s a way to request notifications when other sites mention it.”
Think of it …
As of today, this blog has a “now page”. What is a “now page”? It’s a really good idea by Derek Sivers. From nownownow.com:
“a page that tells you what this person is focused on at this point in their life.”
Back then in the good old days of Unix, we called it a .plan file. Today, it’s not easy to…
While refactoring my blog, I discovered the IndieWeb community. From the website:
“We are a community of independent and personal websites based on the principles of: owning your domain and using it as your primary online identity, publishing on your own site first (optionally elsewhere), and ownin…
When I started blogging in the early 2000s, RSS emerged as an open standard for spreading the news. New post? Blam, everybody interested got a notification in their favorite newsreader. Back then, building a proper RSS feed was more of an art than an exact science: Crafting proper XML while taking a…
One of the web 2.0 startup hypes du jour is called Flattr. It’s a micro-payment service that enables readers to allocate a monthly budget they can use to “flattr” blog posts and other content by clicking a simple badge. The monthly flat-rate is then distributed to the “flattred” authors as a way of appreciation.
More on that in this short video.
A lot of people are jumping on the Flattr bandwagon, and of course, rewarding creators is always goodness.
But I’m not convinced.
Why? Because IMHO there’s no need for a middle man handling the “Thank You” transaction between a blogger (or other content creator) and the reader (or other content consumer).
Instead, here are ten (10) better ways to accomplish the same thing (supporting your favorite creator). They can involve money or not - you choose - and in each of them, everybody wins.
Dear reader, my name is Constantin Gonzalez, and welcome to Constant Thinking!
This blog is about useful technology for the quality geek. As the name implies, I’m constantly thinking about technology, trying to figure out where it leads to, and how to get the best out of it. I try to learn, create and share useful technology stuff every day.
I’ve been playing with computers since the early 80’s, and with Unix and the Internet since the early 90’s. I’ve created and installed websites since 1994, started working for Sun Microsystems in 1998 and as of now, I’m now a Principal Field Technologist at Oracle through their acquisition of Sun. My job is to provide Technical Expertise to customers in Germany, and help with other customer projects in rest of the world. My focus areas are SPARC processors and systems, Solaris and Cloud Computing.