This “Down on” thing seems to be coming around a lot lately. First it was Pownce, then Apple, now it’s Mr. Dave Winer. Who is Dave Winer? Well for one thing, he’s practically the guy that inventing RSS (Check out paragraph 6 on Tim O’Reilly’s “Blogging and the Wisdom of the Crowds“), giving way to several technologies many of the folks taking time out of their busy day to bash him use everyday.
I’m kind of new to the area of social media (this blog is almost 2) and I’ve really just started getting into personal branding, social networks, and life streaming on a grand scale. So I can understand if I missed something. Is there a particular reason everyone seems to gravitate towards insulting this man? I’m not trying to be an a**kisser, simply curious. I mean this man is part of the reason we have RSS feeds, podcasting, and videocasting. I know that I definitely don’t share his political views, but then again being raised in Texas I don’t share political views with most of the internet and people I follow. I have seen nothing that is overly crazy, I mean aside from a “crazy” comment or two but really who isn’t guilty of that.
The reason I bring this up? There was an article posted on the website WinExtras entitled, Dave Winer – You Are a Pompus A**. The article picks out basically a single point out of one of Dave’s multi-point articles about the TechCrunch website and TechMeme. While the author of the article brings up a valid point on the statement below, he completely overlooks the main point of Dave’s article. The statement that the WinExtras’ author decided to focus all his attention on was:
Most of the authors don’t know the first thing about technology, never took a computer science class, have never written code, and don’t admit that understanding tech is a prerequisite for writing about it.
Granted, this statement does go a little over the edge. For one thing, I have yet to take a computer science class in college. All of my skill sets in technology come from hands on experience including but not limited to coding and administration. One thing I do understand is technology. When you’ve been around it as much as I have (close to 20 years in some form or other), it’s one of the side effects. But granted I’m willing to concede to the author over at WinExtras that this statement is a little “crazy” and over the line to some degree. But it does not change the fact that the article in question completely ignores the main point of Mr. Winer’s article.
I think this is how misconceptions get thrown around the internet. A single writer doesn’t like something someone else said and so that person writes about it and the next thing you know, it’s all over the internet. But when you get to the actual context of the statement it’s almost never as bad as the internet has blown it up.
Michael Koby 
The critical part you're missing is that, regardless of what Hodson called him, the fact remains that Winer -is- a pompous ass. Of gargantuan proportion. It didn't magically take WinExtra to pronounce it. It's a long-LONG-running fact. You really should look around. His claim to RSS fame is also hotly contested, btw. He's basically a once-got-lucky Nobody who thinks everything ever put online is his creation in some form or another. Don't buy into his hot air and hype.
he might be a pompous a**. But so can Arrington at times (ever followed him on Twitter?). My point is, Winer isn't the only one. If we're going to spend so much time on him because of his pompous-ness why not everyone else on the internet?Also, please show me where his claim to RSS fame is “hotly contested”, Tim O'Reilly is usually pretty sound so I tend to consider him to have some authority.I'm not saying he's not a pompous a**, I just wonder why anyone really cares that he is and why a big deal needs to be made of it.
he might be a pompous a**. But so can Arrington at times (ever followed him on Twitter?). My point is, Winer isn't the only one. If we're going to spend so much time on him because of his pompous-ness why not everyone else on the internet?Also, please show me where his claim to RSS fame is “hotly contested”, Tim O'Reilly is usually pretty sound so I tend to consider him to have some authority.I'm not saying he's not a pompous a**, I just wonder why anyone really cares that he is and why a big deal needs to be made of it.