Watching news of my acquisition by NewsGator travel around the blogosphere was an amazing experience for me. I’ve seen other stories spread like wildfire before, but this was the first time I’ve seen it happen with news that involved me directly. I tried to add a “thank you” comment to every blog that posted about the acquisition, but after a few hours it had spread to hundreds of sites, and I just wasn’t able to add the personal touch to so many places. So, for all of you who blogged the news and had such nice things to say about me and my software, thank you. It’s incredibly rewarding to see such goodwill directed my way, and it’s especially gratifying to see that I’ve earned the trust of so many people (on the internet, you’re nothing without trust).
There were, of course, a number of flames about the acquisition, some of them very personal, but that’s to be expected. More importantly, there have been a number of comments from those concerned about the deal, and I’ll do my best to address these here over the next few weeks. But please bear with me if I don’t address your concerns right away – we’re still working out many of the details, and I don’t think it’s wise for me to talk about things that haven’t been settled yet.
In the meantime, I hope those of you with an opinion about the acquisition will keep blogging about it. I’m listening to the conversation, and so are my co-workers at NewsGator. We want to make sure we build what you want, and to do that, we need to hear about it! This to me is the coolest thing about syndication: the fact that everyone (even your competitors) can learn by listening to – and joining in – the conversation.
Unfortunately, that also makes RSS an attractive target for spammers, and based on discussions I had at Syndicate, it seems that very few people are even thinking about the threat of spammers yet, let alone doing anything about it. But that will be the subject of my next post…