Priming The Pump

C.G.P. Grey recently announced that he will be posting his videos to iTunes and RSS in addition to putting them on YouTube. His move is part of a growing trend as more and more creators move away from relying solely on proprietary platforms like YouTube. Having videos on YouTube is great; having YouTube be the only place the videos live is scary, and it puts a lot of power in YouTube's hands.

More and more I'm hearing bloggers, video producers, and musicians talk about going back to more open, agnostic systems like RSS and blogs. There's been a lot talk of reinventing blogging (*cough* Dave Winer *cough*) and of creators owning their own content. Microblogger for one, hopes to be an active participant in the push to open up the internet.

Together, we seem to be priming the pump for a resurgence of a more open internet, and that's exciting. With Facebook pushing harder then ever to trap other people's content inside its walled garden, and Twitter closing the doors on what developers can do with its API, a resurgence of the open internet is exactly what we need. We need to push for companies to use open standards, and open access to data, and we need to use them ourselves. Its time for the pendulum to swing back this way.