This is as days pass by, by Stuart Langridge

Well, I'm at d.construct. I've done my talk, and I'm now watching Simon Willison demonstrate some really cool Flickr stuff. I had no idea that all the Flickr site tools (Organizr and whatnot) actually use the Flickr web services API! This means that those tools can't do anything magic that punters can't do; openness gone rampant. Cool. Both Simon and Andy Budd have (rightly) hammered on about how part of the whole "Web 2.0" phenomenon is openness in data; your data on someone else's server is still *your* data. Flickr are obviously trying hard here, but lots of people seem to be doing it, what with web-service APIs and RSS feeds and whatnot. No more lock-in -- it's a pipe-dream, but it's a good pipe-dream, and we're closer to it than we used to be. Biscuits are nice here too, I have to say. This is weirdly different from LugRadio Live; they're both "grassroots" events, but this is *like* a formal conference -- there's one talk track, everyone's sitting down and watching the talk -- whereas LRL is like an expo where there happen to be talks going on in some of the rooms. Speaking of LRL, we've got a date and venue pretty much nailed down. It's going to be fantastic. You thought last year's was good? You ain't seen nothin' yet.