At Philly Future Howard asks a good question, Blog Service Downtime: How Much Is Too Much?. Blogger.com, Bloglines, TypePad and others have suffered growing pains these past few months and this week users of TypePad, suffered an outage that due to its scope, caused concerns across the web. One I share with Dave Winer is how this underscores the importance of interop between blogging tools.

As is typical, the negatives get shouted loud and clear and sometimes hard realities, and positives that should be heard get lost in the uproar.

Building systems that people rely on is hard. Building systems that touch the public even harder. I’ve been there (indeed I *am* there) myself. But as Brent says, building weblog systems is especially difficult, “It’s not just hard work, it can be tough on the psyche too – you’re talking about weblogs, which people feel are an extension of themselves. It’s not some boring abstract thing, not at all, it’s about people’s passions. Their lives, really.”

The folks at Six Apart have handled this outage admirably in many ways:

1. No one lost data.

2. They are back online!

3. Six Apart, and Anil Dash in particular, was fantastic at reaching out and being communicative about what was going on, as it was going on. A rare thing for any company. A lot of grace under pressure.

Read Anil’s in-depth interview with Niall Kennedy for example. Niall is community manager for Technorati, which has dealt with, and has solved, scaling/performance issues themselves, so the interview is from one who has faced similar circumstances. Frank and informative.

Personally, while I am a do-it-yourselfer, I have recommended TypePad as a great blog hosting service for folks who need more than what Blogger.com provides. I’m even more likely to do so now.

Update: Correction: I had incorrectly stated Six Apart was giving a 45 day refund. They gave that option to users who suffered with TypePad’s previous service outage. I hope they consider something similar this time around.

The weather’s great and drinks will flow and blood will spill (ummm… lets skip the blood okay, its already been one of those weeks…)… Get details from Scott at Philly Future. I hope to see you there.

I have a bit of a broader definition then Dave Winer who coined the term: Stop Energy is not reasoned, it never takes into account the big picture, it is the mirror image of Forward Motion. In the Stop Energy model, everyone, no matter how small their stake in a technology, has the power to veto. Nothing ever gets done, and people who want to move forward are frustrated in every attempt to move. Unfortunately, Stop Energy is the rule, not the exception.

Stop Energy, to me, is defined by one or more persons using fear, uncertainty and doubt to draw energy from one or more persons attempting something positive – especially when there is room for more than one effort or approach – and especially when solutions are not agreed upon.

That’s what I saw spring up in response to Structured Blogging‘s announcement of plugins for WordPress and Moveable Type. There maybe interesting arguments as to why it might not fly – but in this instance – the only way to find is by trying.

I’m biased of course. I think microformats and ideas similar will enable community empowering tools in the future. So I think the work of Shelley Powers and others holds a lot of promise. I can’t wait to experiment honestly.

The mainstream just got a whole lot more boring. Maybe I’ll get a subscription. Who knows? Jeff Jarvis is going to the fans farewell at 56th St. New York.

Break up Time Warner… or not?

Steve Case: Washington Post: It’s Time to Take It Apart:

…Although I played a key role in bringing AOL and Time Warner together six years ago, it’s now my view that it would be best to “undo” the merger by splitting Time Warner into several independent companies and allowing AOL to set off on its own path. Here’s why.

…Time Warner has proven to be too big, too complex, too conflicted and too slow-moving — in other words, too much like a classic conglomerate — to seize new opportunities….

Om Malik: Ed Tu Steve Case?:

How can he be suggesting the break-up strategy by looking at the past, when the future is finally beginning to align with Time Warner. How many time does one have to point to at Rupert Murdoch and predict the future? Time Warner, despite AOL is the only company which has it all, and can basically benefit if it plays its cards right.

…In short, Time Warner reminds me that childhood tale – where five sticks when bound together, are unbreakable. When separated the sticks can be broken into little pieces. I hope Time Warner folks don’t pay attention to these forces who want to break up the company. Last company that followed the advice of carpet baggers, AT&T, ended up as a footnote in history. Michael Armstrong’s vision of a four-play – phone, TV, broadband and wireless- was right, but he did not have the desire to stand up to the Wall Street and a few individuals. Now everyone is indulging in four play. I think TW learn from that.

Reuters: Yahoo offers Movable Type for bloggers:

Yahoo Inc. and Six Apart Ltd., creator of Movable Type — the most popular software used to create professional blogs — said on Sunday Yahoo will be the preferred supplier of Movable Type for small businesses.

The partnership is the latest in a string of deals by the world’s largest Internet media company as it seeks to embrace so-called “social media,” the new generation of Web sites that encourage Internet users to share written text, photos and videos.

Smart.

The following are just some items that caught my interest that I’m not talking about at Philly Future. Before I run off, let me recommend catching “Walk The Line”. A powerful movie on many, many levels. Richelle and I saw it the day before our anniversary, and it fit. See Hurt at VH1. It’s getting harder and harder to find this online, which is a shame, considering that this video, and his cover of the NIN original, moved me more musically, than anything in years. How does it make you feel when you watch and hear it?

• Salon celebrates its 10 year anniversary. Wow. Think about it folks.
• Salon adds a video blog.
• An breathtaking shot from space of Europe at night
• Yahoo! buys del.icio.us.
• Related: Business 2.0 The Flickerization of Yahoo!
• CNet: Is Wikipedia safe from libel liability?
• BusinessWeek: The MySpace Generation
• RawStory: Diebold insider alleges company plagued by technical woes, Diebold defends ‘sterling’ record
• Washington Post: N.C. Judge Declines Protection for Diebold
• Executive Wants to Charge for Web Speed: A senior telecommunications executive said,,, that Internet service providers should be allowed to strike deals to give certain Web sites or services priority in reaching computer users.
• LATimes: A Journey That Ended in Anguish: Col. Ted Westhusing, a military ethicist who volunteered to go to Iraq, was upset by what he saw. His apparent suicide raises questions.
• LATimes: On Their Own in Battered New Orleans:What Bush said would be one of the largest public reconstruction efforts ever is becoming a private affair, leaving the tough choices to residents as their risks increase.
• Capital Hill Blue: George Bush on Constitution: “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper”.
• I’ve been part of one too many projects mis-managed like this – haven’t you?
• BBC: Russian squirrel pack kills dog. Yikes!
• dedicated to the art of mocking public works via Metafilter.
• Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli divorcing.
• BTW – did you know that Shel Siverstein (yes that Shel Siverstein) wrote the lyrics to “Boy Named Sue”?
• Oh and I feel grrreeaat 🙂

There is only so much time in a day, and paradox1x, my personal site, has taken a hit since, well I have a day job that is unrelated to discussions I am involved in on matters related to the future of newspapers, actually, the future of news organizations. You can follow much of it here, which is already a couple days behind (some great articles and talks I have add to it right away) since the conversation is distributed across many blogs and email, and there is so much to think about and do.

I’ll be back with a link dump here later in the week. But until then, I’d like to invite you into the discussion. It has to do with journalism. It has to do with democracy. It has to do with technology. It has to do with community. It has to do with money. It has to do with blogging. It has to with trust and relationships. I’m sure you’ll see a reason to join in. Don’t be shy.

And yes – consider this a call out to my old EditThisPage friends 🙂 The new (well it’s not so new) Philly Future misses its old community. Come on by.

Speaking of email – if you are forced to use a webmail solution – how gmail handles conversations can be a lifesaver.