# DW's Textcasting Explainer Copied

=> http://textcasting.org

Dave Winer's _post about text_ requires *client-side JavaScript* to be enabled in order to read the document. WTF??? That's some hilarious and sad irony. Here's a copy ... in true text format.


## Textcasting

Like podcasting, for text.


## Podcasting is great

We can do the same for text.

# Let's do it!

In textcasting, the equivalent of an MP3 is a document. It's a very simple definition of document, one that lots of software can support.

* Optional titles
* Markdown support
* Links
* Simple styling
* Enclosures (podcasting)
* Unlimited length
* Editable

To support it you don't have to support every feature. But you shouldn't make it impossible to peer with a service that supports the full spec. For example, there was a time when the leading feed reader app required posts to have titles, and the leading microblogging site said they couldn't have them. That meant not only didn't they share data, they couldn't.

We're at a good moment where there is no dominant feed reader or microblogging site. It's a fluid situation. New entrants could compete on the basis of how compatible they are with their competitors. The users would like to hear about that. It's a good time to get in at the beginning of something that could be even bigger than podcasting, for text.

I am Dave Winer, I created blogging, feeds and podcasting. I did it once, I'd like to do it again, only better this time because we know more, the networks are much more capable than they were twenty years ago, and so is the software. And we have the experience with pitfalls we will avoid this time, hopefully.

```dir:2022/12/15
```