MXNA (was: ColdFusion and the Web Application Market

On May 7, 2004, at 9:29 AM, Michael Dinowitz wrote: >  As an aside, what's MXNA? You're kidding right?? It's a news aggregator for a large number of blogs (currently 242) relating to Macromedia products. It also provides a web service API and other tools. And I believe it publishes a list of new Tech Notes as they appear (one of the things you are asking for). Sean A Corfield -- http://www.corfield.org/blog/ "I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true - I no longer know how to use my telephone." -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Nope, not kidding. Never heard the term before and I'm not really a blog user. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> Nope, not kidding. Never heard the term before and I'm not > really a blog user. You might want to keep current yourself.  There's a lot going on with blogs--particularly the tech ones.  There is a lot of information dissimiated via blogs today--like product announcements, tech-notes, bugs, fixes and new project ideas.  This might be why you feel left out. Paul Kenney paul@pjk.us 916-212-4359 ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

It's not really an issue of me being left out as my agents gather all the information for me automatically. It's an issue of the community missing out. Many times we put tech notes into an issue of Fusion Authority and people are amazed that it exists. Important information should be distributed in many ways. Blogs, like websites are mainly a tool of 'go there'. Yes, I know blogs can be timed for delivery, but most people are using the most sucessful application on the net today; email. A RSS reader, even one built into a mail program is just another program to run and search through for information. -- Michael Dinowitz House of Fusion http://www.houseoffusion.com Finding technical solutions to the problems you didn't know you had yet ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

On May 7, 2004, at 3:51 PM, Michael Dinowitz wrote: > It's not really an issue of me being left out as my agents gather all > the >  information for me automatically. I would have hoped that your agents would be scouring MXNA since it is a wonderful and official Macromedia resource that publishes Tech Notes etc. >  Many times we put tech notes into an issue of Fusion Authority and > people are >  amazed that it exists. How many people read FA? Out of approx 300,000 CF developers, I wonder how many people read each different type of resource? I get about 15,000-20,000 distinct visitors a month to my blog so I'm sure MXNA gets more than that, as do many other blogs. I can't remember how many subscribers you said are on cf-talk so I don't know how that compares as a resource. It would also be interesting to find out how many distinct visitors the ColdFusion Support page on macromedia.com gets a month (since that's where new Tech Notes are published). >  Blogs, like websites are mainly a tool of 'go there'. Well, not really, not with RSS. Most RSS feeds provide enough of the information that you don't need to go visit the site (many provide the entire text of the article including images). > Yes, I know blogs can be >  timed for delivery, but most people are using the most sucessful > application on >  the net today; email. Email delivery is becoming less and less important due to the onslaught of spam. I for one am much happier with RSS as a delivery mechanism for technical information than with email (note: not for *discussion* - email is good for that). Regards, Sean

> Email delivery is becoming less and less important due to the onslaught > of spam. I for one am much happier with RSS as a delivery mechanism for > technical information than with email (note: not for *discussion* - > email is good for that). Welcome to religious war 101. You support Blogs, I don't. This can go on and on with you touting the superior delivery ability, etc. and me disagreeing. Point is moot. You have your religion and I have mine. You religion has their members and mine had mine.

On May 10, 2004, at 10:47 AM, Michael Dinowitz wrote: >  Welcome to religious war 101. You support Blogs, I don't. This can go > on and on >  with you touting the superior delivery ability, etc. and me > disagreeing. Point >  is moot. You have your religion and I have mine. You religion has > their members >  and mine had mine. I completely understand if you do not find weblogs useful, and I agree that we should consider making more information available through other mediums.  However, I will also say that if you don't read weblogs, and were completely unaware of MXNA, no wonder you are not happy with the state of the Macromedia community since many of us have really shifted our emphasis from mailing lists and forums to weblogs (which we consider to be more practical in many regards).  The Macromedia weblogs and MXNA represent a very significant contribution to the Macromedia community, and anyone who wants to follow the community really needs to be watching the weblog scene to get anywhere near the full story. One of things I like best about weblogs is their versatility.  I completely understand if you are not crazy about the thought of surfing through hundreds of different weblogs every day, and I think most weblog junkies would agree.  That's why there's RSS.  You might want to consider configuring one of the agents you mentioned to start watching various RSS feeds.  You can also grab all the data available in MXNA and/or Fullasagoog (another aggregator you should check out -- MXNA is heavily based on Fullasagoog code) via web services. Christian