Put me in the crowd that likes Dave Winer. If that divides me from individuals or cliques who dislike him, then so be it because I don’t care about popularity contests. Sure, Winer says some inflammatory things from time to time (sometimes he has gotten me wound up too) and he gets his feelings hurt too easily on things, but an honest, historical, overall assessment of Dave Winer reveals that he has been a creative developer, a tireless blogging evangelist who points to some pretty interesting things as well.

I used to have him linked here and to be honest I don’t remember why I removed his blog because I always found it provocative, but after this post I’m going to fix that and add his blog back as well as put his site back in my aggregator. He probably doesn’t care because he’s one of the few Google PR8 bloggers out there (the only one?) and to my knowledge he has never linked anything I’ve done. Incidentally, that’s not my measure of why I link to anybody, anyway. I link to stuff I like and that’s what Dave Winer says he does too. I think that’s what all bloggers should do, frankly. Link to stuff you like.

Apparently Dave lives in my neck of the woods out here in Seattle and hopefully he’ll read this entry and know that others care more about what he does than what he says. And he has done some cool stuff on the web! Dave, if you are reading this (I’ll send you an email pointing to it since you don’t have trackbacks or comments on your blog), please give me a call sometime and let’s get some lunch or coffee. You are too close for us not to meet for a few minutes. If you want to come over to my office my wife and I will be happy to buy you lunch. You are an interesting guy and I’d enjoy the opportunity to pick your brain over lunch someday.

Readers are probably asking what prompted this blog entry. Well, I just saw him post this at Scripting News:

So there’s this question out there — should we just overlook that the story being passed around is wrong, and getting wronger every day, or should the bloggers and podcasters care to have the real story get out there? I’m tired of fighting for credit, but I’m equally tired of inventing stuff and popularizing stuff, which is really hard work, and having other people make the money and get the credit. More than tired, exhausted. And I’m already getting trashed for the work I’ve done here, believe it or not.

Dave, I’m a software developer too and I have created things in an industry that has been copied and become financially sucessful for others; it’s the nature of the beast that we won’t always get credit for everything we do with the general populace. One thing I know for certain is that the people who can’t come up with original and/or innovative ideas on their own and must imitate others know where to find true inspiration. It’s not about getting credit, though, that really matters, in my opinion, it’s about solving problems for others of which I think you are good at doing. For example, you solved a good problem recently with your audio.weblogs.com pinging debugger. Your response in the comments there about how glad you were that it helped people says it all.

On the subject of finances — getting paid for your efforts — well, that’s more of a sales-oriented thing I think. If people like you (the salesman), they will want to help and pay you to do the things you love. This is a very subjective thing that varies from person to person. If people dislike you then they will want to fund your competition to be spiteful or just subconsciously. Adam Curry has that salesman magnetism and is good at spinning hype around him (and I don’t say this negatively) so he’s a great friend for you to have in this podcasting venture. Dave, I think this is a solid opportunity for you to prove to your detractors that you can roll with the changes and you don’t have to have the spotlight on yourself along equally with Adam on this venture even if it’s a 50/50 venture. I’ve heard Adam say several times that he isn’t the wizard behind the curtain and concedes to you that honor. Anybody who actually listens to the podcasts will hear this same affection, appreciation and loyalty Adam has for you. If some lazy reporters can’t make this connection then you can just smile knowing that the general media is human: they make mistakes.

Now, as to your detractors: fuck them. Stop worrying about what people who dislike you think. Go out and keep creating, building and focus the energy on the positive instead of the negative. So you have some sort of tiff with O’reilly? Go write a book on podcasting with Adam and sell it to a rival publisher. Wage wars in the stores, not in the court of public opinion. If the book is good and useful, it will sell and if it sucks it won’t. At the very least, you could go on a book tour with Adam and promote podcasting along with the book. John Dvorak is a good example of someone people love to hate — but they read the guy in droves. He doesn’t give a damn what others think about him, or at least doesn’t let on very often that he does, he just writes his opinion. Maybe you need to get some more of that Dvorak super thick skin?

And John, if you are reading this (he’s read other blog entries here) podcasting may indeed not yet be ready for prime time, but what’s so great about prime time anyway? I don’t watch much TV or listen to much prime time news or radio. Some of the stuff I enjoy most is homebrewed and podcasting is filling that diet very nicely, thank you.

Lastly, Dave, answer your damn mail! LOL I sent both Adam and you an invitation to be on my established weekly web radio show (we’ve been broadcasting since May of 2000) and neither of you responded. I’m thinking it was because it was on ridiculously short notice or became fodder for your spam bins — it wasn’t spam, it was a genunine offer and if either or both of you want to come on then you have an open invitation. I could act all offended and say, “I hate those pretentious pricks Winer and Curry because they blew off my invitation” but you know what? I know people are busy. I’m busy, you guys are busy, that’s life on the web and it takes me much more than one unanswered email to get pissy about something.

Therefore my answer to your question at Scripting news is to roll with it and not make a big deal out of it. If Adam Curry is a real friend he will continue to give credit where credit is due. Keep creating. That’s where the real satisfaction comes from, Dave. Eventually you’ll hit something that you love doing that will line your pockets at the same time, if you haven’t done so already of course.

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