Blaglash.com

It’s not cool to suck Dave Winer’s dick.

Warning: I’m about to suck Dave Winer’s dick.

Late last year, Dave Winer released an application that changed the world.

And it had nothing to do with social networking, blogging, status updates, video streaming, or file sharing.

None of the so-called “world-changing” elements we see in web applications several thousand times a year.

What Dave Winer did was create a beautiful work of art.

A work of art so relevant and so in tune to the possibilities of our technologies that it couldn’t have possibly come from anyone but a geek.

But while this application is by all definitions a web-based thing, literally art is what it literally is.

The application is called Flickrfan, and I’m writing this blog because I think it is a beautiful work of art and I also think Dave Winer’s own explanation and Robert Scoble’s explanation don’t come close to explaining its full power (though Dave’s tone in particular taps the aesthetic).

Listen, the fact that this thing works on a TV with a Mac Mini and proves Apple TV sucks…

All that is nonsense to me.

It will be a long time before I ever buy any kind of hardware to hook my computer up to my TV, and while I’m thankful that Dave Winer also changed the way we think of TVs, I really think the focus on this element is unnecessary.

“Social living rooms” is a truly beautiful concept. Let’s run with it. But I’m going to digress again for a moment and explain to people like my mom, my girlfriend, my former professors at college, and my friends who fancy themselves as visual artists and photographers why this application is not just a geek toy that proves a point or makes their TV do a new thing or shows the suckiness of other manufactured hardware.

So Mom, Monika, Professor Gerber, and Bob, please listen to me for a second.

RSS feeds allow new content to be shown to you, if you let it, without you having to go out looking for it.

And I know you only have a few blogs you check every day and don’t need this information immediately.

Really, I understand.

But that’s why RSS is so cool - it has nothing to do with blogging, really. I know you’ll never subscribe to feeds in Google Reader and frankly I don’t blame you.

But RSS allows brand new content to flow in and out of your life without any searching and without the lifting of a finger.

I’ll lose you when I start rambling about APIs, hardware, and enclosures, and all of that is irrelevant.

What this new application does, Mom and the rest, really amounts to putting pictures you really like by photographers and friends you appreciate onto your computer as a screensaver.

Honestly, that’s it.

And I know you can do that, Mom, but what’s really neat is that if I upload a new picture (Shaun’s baby is growing so fast!) to my Flickr account, this picture will instantaneously be added to your screensaver.

Seriously! And you didn’t even have to download an email attachment or click a link I’ve sent.

Nothing.

And I just got back from lunch, Mom, and Otis looked really adorable in that picture. I just wish it wasn’t my shoe that he was eating!

And Monika, did I tell you that you looked gorgeous on New Year’s? I probably should have told you that.

And Professor Gerber, thanks for the International Phonetic Alphabet chart. It will always remind me of how much there still is to learn.

And Bob. Bob, your new installation is amazing. I’m so glad that so many people made it out to the gallery; it looked like a blast. I wish I could have been there.

But for now I’ll get back to work.

Thanks, Dave Winer, for the several-times-daily reminder of the people I care about.

And thanks, family and friends, for the memories.

Want to let me share pictures with you?