So for a whole bunch of reasons far too random to detail here , I ended up sit in a eatery attach to a Bay Area chicken feed skating rink last week , watching skaters slip and fall while chatting with longtime Apple revivalist and Mac columnist , and current speculation capitalist , Guy Kawasaki .
If you ’ve never heard of Kawasaki , I ’d like to explain , but asInigo Montoya might say , there is too much . permit me sum up . He pioneered the construct of product evangelism , whipping up enthusiasm among drug user and developers for Apple ’s products . Later he wrote columns for firstMacUserand thenMacworldfor years ( more on that in a bit ) . And now he ’s got investments in a lot of interesting companies .
One of the big topics of conversation during my sit - down with Guy — which bump in the late afternoon , so I ca n’t say I lunched or dined with him , though ( full disclosure ) he did buy me a Coke — was his web site speculation , Alltop . Alltop basically aggregates the tardy and greatest intelligence on various topics ( hundreds at last count ) on a single page . So , for example , if you happened to be interested in the Mac , mac.alltop.comwill provide you with a slew of links . iPhone rooter likewise can see the tardy oniphone.alltop.com . ( Yes , Macworldand its site appear on both of those pages , which are handpicked by the Alltop staff . ) peck another topic , be itbeerorgardening , and you ’ll see links for those topics , too .
I asked Guy the typical question a tech - savvy individual would have about Alltop , which is : in a worldly concern full of RSS feeds , why would anyone apply it ? But of course , not everyone uses RSS . If you ’re tech savvy enough to set up an RSS proofreader and fill it with your favored sites , congratulations . But if you ’re not — or , more to the item , if your mommy or papa isn’t — the Alltop ingathering are pretty easy to bookmark and browse . ( And if you ’re someone like me , who is cagy enough to use an RSS reader but who gets so distracted that you often find K of unread items , you might appreciate Alltop for its stern limits : only five link per site , period . )
There ’s another Mac slant at Alltop , which is that the fellowship ’s peak mover is Will Mayall , who some Mac oldtimers will call back as one of the writer of Claris Emailer and the LetterRip posting - list software . Alltop ’s a tiny company with a lot of smart mechanisation behind the scenes , pull info from RSS feeds and republishing them as Page of link . The caller generates revenue by place advert toward the top of its pages .
Anyway , the very day I was shoot the breeze with Guy , Glenn Fleishman of TidBitsposted an article about Apple ’s App Store filtering policies that name - check into both him and me . So I asked Guy about the place with Apple ’s App Store filtering processes , figuring he ’d have an interesting take .
It was interesting , but also jolly simple . “ rent it be open , ” he enunciate . His point is that Apple does n’t postulate to exert a huge amount of control over the iPhone app market . The beneficial way to shake up developers and drug user is to have a wide - open market for software , he said .
It ’s mirthful that during this App Store furore , people ’s minds have turned to Guy Kawasaki , but it ’s happened all over the place . iPhone developer Fraser Spiersasked for someone like him , saying that Apple should “ loudly and conspicuously hire an App Store Evangelist . rather someone with an already high-pitched profile who does not already work for Apple . In fact , it might even be best if this someone was not pay by Apple but an independent developer to whom Apple would give deep access to oeuvre with the App Store team . ” And Ars Technicaquoted a Chicago - free-base developeras saying , “ We need Guy Kawasaki back . ”
I do n’t think Guy ’s get going to be conk back to Apple anytime soon . He seems glad investing in smaller tech company , travel , and address . ( And playing chicken feed hockey . ) But I ca n’t refuse that Apple engage someone like Guy to play as an out - there gospeler for iPhone development would be excellent .
Before I say au revoir to Guy and off the route , we reminisce about his days as a columnist for monthly Mac magazines . He fondly recalled an old article where he compared using a state - of - the - art Mac to vanish in an F-15 jet . I extract to him how I ’d love to get the text of all of Macworld ’s ( and MacUser ’s and MacWEEK ’s ) issues from the break of day of time on the Internet in searchable form .
Well , that Clarence Day is n’t here yet , but I ’m glad to present two of Guy ’s honest-to-god columns : Here ’s “ The F-15 vs. the Quadra 800 ” from the July 1993 issue , and here ’s an interesting and prescient article , “ The Goal of a New Machine , ” wherein Guy suggests ( in the summer of 1993 , as the Newton was being free ! ) that what he really wants is a combination of cell headphone and computer . It ’s an even well read 15 years later , when you keep the iPhone in creative thinker .
