In the 30-something years since Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, waves of change have swept through the mass media. In the last week, I’ve discovered one thing that hasn’t: The New York Times still sets the agenda for what the world knows about at any given moment.
Perhaps you’re thinking about Donald Trump, the electoral college and the riot/insurrection or whatever else you want to call what happened in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. That story would likely dominate the front page in any country with a free press. Where the Times really makes its mark is in the less spotlighted areas.
Witness last Sunday (January 10, 2021), when the paper ran a story by Steve Lohr on a relatively new project from the very same Tim Berners-Lee (paywall) I mentioned in the lead paragraph. Google News flagged this story for my attention. I didn’t get it read right away. The next day, when I posted here, I noticed that traffic here at Notes had bumped up considerably, and the people were coming to read this story I’d written at Inrupt’s launch two years ago! (Thanks to all of you, BTW.)
If you want to know more about Inrupt, Lohr’s piece is a good place to start, but here’s a rough timeline.
The Solid Project opens at MIT in 2015
Monthly Solid World presentations of working apps begin in April 2020
The story spreads
Google News not only showed me the Times story, but had one of those lovely “full coverage” links, indicating that multiple media outlets were covering Sir Tim and his startup. The curious thing is that most of the stories predate the Times piece.
Oh, but within a few days, we also see stories covering Inrupt in places like the India Times, a reprint in the Charlotte Business Journal, TelecomTV, the youth citizen-journalism site Unilad in the UK, EMTV in Papua New Guinea
Two days after the Times runs its story (hmm…coincidence?), Berners-Lee speaks at the Reuters Next conference sponsored by the Thomson Reuters news service and covers many of the same points.
Then comes the commentary
- Hacker News commentary is voluminous as you’d expect, somewhat pessimistic, but pretty constructive. Unlike, say, Slashdot.
- Danil Fineman needs to work on his English, but summarizes the articles well
- An unnamed conservative at FreedomHeadlines gets the history wrong, but is otherwise hopeful
As for me, I’m optimistic but realistic. Reviewing my original thoughts on Berners-Lee and Inrupt, I regret suggesting that Sir Tim was trying to cash in. Inrupt has so far succeeded in building up the Solid Project, at least to the point where The New York Times and Reuters are bringing the message to a broad audience. I’m looking forward to hearing more about Inrupt’s pilot projects at the British National Health Service, Flemish government and the BBC.
The idea behind Solid is important. Using both old and new web standards to share what we want — and only what we want — with giant corporations and governments is something we have a right to expect. I look forward to getting some practice using my Solid pod.
What do you think?
Michael McCallister: Notes from the Metaverse 