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Dave Winer’s ‘help’ with book

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Wow. Generosity itself. Dave wants to try and “salvage” O’Reilly’s weblogging book, by putting together his own mailing list rather than let O’Reilly go through the usual editing process.

According to the intro page at the list, Dave writes:

I was hoping this book would start like the WebMonkey survey of blogging software and go deeper into the relative merits of each of the products. I think ultimately it’s going to be difficult to get this book into shape in time, probably would have been a better idea to have just a couple of authors who really understood all the products (Radio, Blogger and Movable Type) and give them more time to really get it right. The products all took years to develop. A quick treatment like this is bound to miss the spot. This book really does miss the point, at least as far as our software is concerned. Perhaps this new mail list can do something heroic and rescue the chapters. Not sure what to recommend to O’Reilly at this time.

I’m sure that Tim O’Reilly, who knows very little about the publication business and books and writing and that sort of thing will be extremely grateful for Dave’s support.

I hesitate, though, at chopping the Blogger chapters down to, “Don’t use it. Use Userland Radio, instead” next to a graphic of a coffee mug.