I remember [Beth Kanter] doing the first fund raiser over Twitter and thinking: we all talked about changing the world, but she's doing it right now, 140 or less characters at a time.

Dimitri Glazkov is a software engineer who's heavily involved in creating a better Web with code and function like Google Gears. Dimitri was kind enough to give us some time for an email ping pong interview.

Nate Ritter: Tell us about yourself and what you do. What is your "bread and butter", so to speak, and what are you passionate about?

Dimitri Glazkov: I am a software engineer at a company in Birmingham, AL, developing a content management engine for higher education and government Web sites across the country. My passion is building a better Web. A while back, I became convinced that a better Web starts with _not hating the Web_. And so began my quest into semantic markup, microformats, REST, and everything around them.

NR: If a better Web starts with not hating the Web as it is, what are some of the biggest irritation points you see with web development today? How should/can we fix them on our own sites?

DG: Web development today is so diverse and widespread, from highly skilled professionals to grandmas putting "special coding" into their Flickr comments, and that's actually not a bad thing. The irritation is probably more of a frustration, with our current technology limitations, pace of its developments, and the frequent and often deeply consequential attempts to "fix the Web". But from my point of view, building a new shiny-silvery Web inside of a box on a page is _really_ how you break the Web.

NR: Let's pretend you can see into the future. What does web technology do for us way out there? What are your predictions for web technology?

DG: The Web has been and always will be defined by openness. Participation and social networking are just its logical extensions. It's pretty clear that the next frontier will have something to do with breaking down the barriers, imposed, knowingly or not, by the first generation of the social networking sites. The technology will have to play an important role in that charge. OpenID and OAuth are steadily gaining strength, and I am sure we'll start seeing the next generation of sites that value and appreciate user's freedom as well respect of content ownership. Also, as new features demand new capabilities, the browser becomes the weakest link. Looking at HTML5 spec and Javascript 2, my bet is on that changing really soon.

NR: You're saying the barriers imposed are mostly the lack of data portability, right?

DG: Yep, and general lack of a solid security model in today's browser platforms. Instead of protecting us from malice, we end up being protected from ourselves, or not at all. Mm.. should I really be handing over that gmail account password?

NR: Great point. You were a part of the first ever NetSquared conference in 2006. Would you share some of your experiences about the conference?

DG: It was mind-boggling. There was such a diversity of people, beliefs and opinions. Though we did get our round of suits talking down from a podium, the atmosphere was very informal, engaging, charged with ideas and inspiration for change. We had a lot of fun at our session, too and I felt like we were part of something important.

I am pretty sure we're also past the point where an organization may choose _not_ to use citizen journalism. It's like trying to choose not to use water while floating in the middle of a river.

NR: Citizen journalism was and will continue to be an important part of the NetSquared conference. How do you think citizen journalism is changing and how do you think it's changing the organizations who use it?

DG: Citizen journalism has already grown way beyond the boundaries of its original definition with the help of Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, FriendFeed, and other similar tools. Citizen journalism now begins at changing your IM status message. We are getting pretty good at aggregating and focusing that flood of content. I am pretty sure we're also past the point where an organization may choose _not_ to use citizen journalism. It's like trying to choose not to use water while floating in the middle of a river. Yeah, there's probably some orgs that don't yet realize that, but they'll either have to adapt quickly or learn first-hand what happened to the mastodons.

NR: What happened to the masatodons? ;)

DG: Nothing good. I mean, having your skull'n bones under a glass in an archeological museum sounds kind of cool, but still being around sure sounds better.

NR: What are some of the best technology-enabled social change examples you've experienced?

DG: I could probably reach for the sky and babble about presidential candidates having a Flickr account, but... You probably know Beth Kanter. I met her at that first NetSquared conference and have been following her efforts with Cambodia4Kids. I remember her doing the first fund raiser over Twitter and thinking: we all talked about changing the world, but she's doing it right now, 140 or less characters at a time.

NR: Do you have any current or future projects you're working on you'd like to share with us?

DG: Gears. That's an open-source project, led by Google, which aims to both level and elevate the playing field for Web developers, and allow them to step beyond the today's line in the sand. I am proud to be a part of the effort that's as open and pioneering as Google Gears.

NR: What does Google Gears let us do today that could help, say, Beth Kanter, do a better job of fund raising? How does it enable us to change the world?

DG: Gears could allow Twitter to finally build a site that handles traffic more gracefully by offloading some of the work onto the client, rather than keeping it all on the melting-hot server side.

NR: Dimitri, thank you for spending the time to give us all these great philosophical and anti-mastodon musings. I appreciate the work you're doing, as do we all. Thank you for helping us get a handle on what we can do better to make the Web awesome and collaborative.