UserLand Software
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UserLand Software is a U.S. software company founded by Dave Winer in 1988.[1] UserLand sells Web content management and blogging software packages and services.
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[edit] Frontier
In 1992 UserLand first released Frontier, a scripting environment with an object database and a companion language called UserTalk for the Macintosh. When Apple bundled its own scripting language, AppleScript, with new systems, Frontier's initial market all but collapsed. In response, UserLand came to re-position its software as a Web development environment in 1995[2] and launched a Windows version in 1998.[3]
Userland distributed Frontier as freeware starting with the "Aretha" release of May 1995,[4] yet began charging for licenses again with the 5.1 release of June 1998.[5] It eventually placed the software under the open source GNU General Public License with the 10.0a1 release of September 28, 2004.[6] Frontier is now maintained by the Frontier kernel open source project.
Frontier is the kernel for two of UserLand's products, Manila and Radio Userland, as well as Dave Winer's OPML Editor, all of which support the UserTalk scripting language. Frontier was once a popular Macintosh scripting solution and content management system in its own right, and Manila began as an application bundled with the scripting language.
[edit] Manila
During the Web boom of the 1990s, Frontier became the technology behind Manila, a content management system that allowed the hosting of web sites and their editing through a browser. UserLand ran a free Manila hosting service, EditThisPage.com, which quickly began being used mostly to run weblogs, which Winer helped popularize.
[edit] RSS
UserLand also ran one of the first Web aggregators, My.UserLand.Com, which allowed users to follow numerous weblogs from a single web page using an XML format created by Netscape and Winer, called RSS.
After Netscape abandoned its My.Netscape RSS project, Winer continued to promote and develop a version of RSS that he later called "Really Simple Syndication." Other developers promoted a competing version of RSS based on RDF.
[edit] Radio UserLand
In 2001 UserLand combined My.UserLand.Com's aggregator and Manila's blogging functions to create Radio UserLand, a lower-cost client-side tool that let blogs be uploaded to UserLand's servers as part of the annual software license fee.
Radio Userland is a client-side weblog system incorporating an RSS aggregator, which was one of the first programs to both send and receive audio files as RSS enclosures (see podcasting). UserLand was an early adopter of the RSS syndication method, merging Winer's Scripting News XML format with Netscape's original RSS.
[edit] Really Simple Syndication
When Netscape ceased development of RSS, Winer and Useland continued to promote the hybrid format, defining it as Really Simple Syndication. [7]
Userland's proselytizing for RSS included developing XML feeds for the New York Times company.[8] The original feeds used a variation on standard RSS, and the feeds were only publicized to UserLand Radio bloggers. The Times later broadened its support of RSS, but the original relationship is still visible in Times RSS feed addresses, such as "http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/userland/HomePage.xml"
[edit] References
- ^ Winer, Dave (1988). "Outliners & Programming". Userland. Retrieved on 2008-08-15.
- ^ Winer, Dave (1997). "The Story of Frontier". Userland. Retrieved on 2008-08-08.
- ^ Userland (1998-01-30). "Frontier 5.0 is shipping!". Frontier News. Retrieved on 2008-08-08.
- ^ Winer, Dave (1995-05-09). "Being Free". DaveNet. Retrieved on 2008-08-09.
- ^ Walsh, Jeff (1998-06-29). "UserLand releases Frontier 5.1, drops freeware model". InfoWorld. Retrieved on 2008-08-09.
- ^ Winer, Dave (2004-09-28). "Introducing Frontier 10.0a1". Kernel Scripting.
- ^ The earlier name RDF Site Summary no longer fit, since Winer had convinced Netscape to remove RDF syntax from the RSS format. RDF supporters created what they called RSS 1.0, inspiring Winer to rename his version RSS 2.0. The "fork" in the RSS definition created years of animosity in the developer/blogger community.
- ^ Accessing the NY Times archive through their RSS feeds - Backend.Userland.Com
