Friday, March 15
I, Cringely | The Pulpit
There are so many things I like about this site, which is still in beta test. For all the web logs and pictures from family vacations that one might throw on a web page, this thing actually DOES something, and it does something that is useful for more than 20 million people. Think of it as a business. Aolhistory.com needs no updating, no refreshing, it just sits there -- probably with a little banner ad -- generating revenue for Bruce Forkush for years to come. I think the guy is brilliant. I also happen to know he isn't much of a programmer. And that is where we get back to the beauty of the Internet for collaboration.
While Bruce Forkush knew he wanted a history button for AOL, he didn't know how to program one. He didn't know javascript at all, and still doesn't. Instead, like Blanche DeBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire," Bruce relied on the kindness of strangers, using various web resources to gain programming help for his project.
