Kos notes that only 55% of his readers use Microsoft's Internet Explorer to view his blog. Mozilla's Firefox has a 25% share of his readers. That, and the quickness with which bloggers broke open the "Jeff Gannon" story, makes Kos excited about applying the open source way of pooling resources to other areas of life like journalism, politics, etc. It kinda gets me excited, too. [Link][comments?][Karma: 49 ( + / - )]
Kos nicely sums up how the blogosphere corrects itself when blogs go wrong. Basically, if the audience doesn't like what it reads, they will strongly object to the blogger to try to get her to change her ways, or they will stop reading the blog and the blog will either die or continue but become irrelevant. Kos also gives an explanation as to why traditional media is attacking blogs. It's the same reason why the music and movie industries are attacking file sharing programs - they're scared of this new, innovative, blow-them-out-of-the-water competition. Since traditional mammoth corporations are way too big to quickly come up with the next big thing, they throw their money at legal and marketing solutions to attack and discredit their competition. [Link][comments?][Karma: 47 ( + / - )]
In today's Philadelphia Inquirer, Jeff Jarvis explains how blogs are changing traditional communication tools, such as Big Media, for the better by creating a means for anybody to hold conversations with these erstwhile hierarchical establishments. [Link][comments?][Karma: 5 ( + / - )]
Ralph referred me to The Nation's article about how blogs have affected this year's presidential campaign by enabling people to build democratic, rather than hierarchical, grass roots groups. Here's a good quote: The new political technology works because it gives individuals a way to pool their time, attention and resources around causes they may hold in common--and to do it without needing to become a professional activist or wait for approval from any authority figure. "It's not about the technology or the blog," says Mathew Gross [moderator of Dean's campaign blog] now. "It's about having a conversation and treating people with respect." [Link][comments?][Karma: 6 ( + / - )]
The Associated Press Managing Editors' National Credibility Roundtables Project conducted a survey that asked people's opinions of blogs. The respondents said that what they like about blogs is what I call blogs's open-source characteristics. Read a story about it from the Camden (Maine) Village Soup here. They said that the ability for readers and other bloggers to act as fact checkers give blogs more credibility. Blogs are newcomers to journalism, allowing bloggers to see stories that traditional media don't see because they're programmed to seek out stories that sell. Newcomers can be sources of new energy and perspective to any group. Finally, the vast number and different types of blogs help diversify the news process. All of the above are (I think) traits of open source. [Link][comments?][Karma: 11 ( + / - )]
In his reaction to fellow blogger Billmon's assertion (originally published in the L.A. Times) that the blog world is selling out, Atrios gives his take on the history of blogging, along with a little advice on writing a well-read blog. I wouldn’t worry about the commercialization of a few blogs. Commercial blogs represent a small fraction of what’s out there. And I don’t even think that all commercial bloggers are shills for The Man. Besides, there are many more blogs out there that contribute to our collective knowledge and make blogging worthwhile. You get to see others’ points of view and may pick up some new tidbits of information that can help strengthen your own opinions or make you realize that your opinions are ill-founded. Even if a blog doesn’t have any readers, the act of writing (reacting to events and things read, thinking about those reactions, and organizing thoughts into a logical argument) helps the blogger become a more thoughtful, confident, articulate person. [Link][comments?][Karma: 4 ( + / - )]
In his C|Net article, Dan Bricklin offers a counterpoint to criticism aimed at the DNC Convention bloggers. Some people were disappointed with the results, but Bricklin argues that the real achievement of the bloggers was their experimentation with the tools they used to blog the event. Blogging events must be a difficult task. Bricklin says that you have to "learn how to do it." I wrote a travel journal on my recent trip to Spain and Italy, adding entries during breaks in hotel rooms or on the train. I had time to reflect on what I did and to massage my thoughts. I'm sure if I blogged each event of my trip as I was experiencing it, my entries would have been pretty crude. ("Crap, just 'bumped into' an anti-war demonstration. Christ, they started with the firecrackers. Better leave.") To blog an event the way most DNC convention bloggers did, with instant but shrewd commentary, takes a lot of practice. You have to learn to write something interesting and worth reading on your feet. [Link][2 comments][Karma: 5 ( + / - )]
Joe Trippi, former manager of Howard Dean's presidential campaign, in an interview in Mother Jones, compared the campaign’s use of blogs and the Internet to Open Source. Trippi’s point was that the blog created a feedback loop between Dean and his supporters. The supporters gave Dean suggestions and ideas, and Dean used some of those ideas in his campaign. The story was Slashdotted here and it got a lot of emotional responses. Many people did not appreciate Trippi comparing Dean's campaign to Open Source, especially since Dean did so badly in the primaries. The Slashdotters would like to be compared with a more successful project. The way Dean’s campaign worked can be compared to a messy Open Source project. Anyone who ran a project the way Trippi did might be heckled out of the Open Source community. If he really did it the Open Source way, Trippi would have published the campaign’s plans to the community for a review and QA cycle before executing the plans. Instead, the community threw out a bunch of ideas, Dean and Trippi picked a few to use, and then executed the plan. That’s the equivalent of someone sending a bunch of code to an Open Source project leader, who adds the code to the software, and then releases the software without letting the community test it. There’s a good chance that the software would be quite buggy and not work. Update: When I said, "...and then releases the software without letting the community test it..." I meant releasing the software to the general public, bypassing the Open Source community. Update 2: And anyway, I doubt that many Deaniacs had ever managed a political campaign before. Their advice might have been pie-in-the-sky and not of practical use to Trippi. Conversely, Open Source projects are usually made up of members who've actually coded software and can give practical advice. [Link][3 comments][Karma: 8 ( + / - )]
David Hornik, in CNet, implores the software industry to quit their yakking about the business potential of blogs and start developing the software needed to keep the social networking ball rolling. Hornik attends social networking panels and it seems like all they talk about is the potential of blogs to generate ad revenue and the utopia social networking software will create. Are the developers actually studying how groups effectively communicate with each other (much research has been done on this subject; I’m reading about it right now) or are they just going to create what they think is a bright, shiny killer app, plop it down, and expect people to use it to its best potential? If they want to sell social networking software to business, they’ll have to gather requirements and research the benefits that the business world can get out of it. [Link][comments?][Karma: 15 ( + / - )]
Interesting quote in this NY Times Learning Network article: "Mr. [Jeff] Jarvis characterizes the blogging way of life as a routine rather than an obsession. 'It's a habit,' he said. 'What you're really doing is telling people about something that they might find interesting. When that becomes part of your life, when you start thinking in blog, it becomes part of you.' [Link][comments?][Karma: 15 ( + / - )]
Lately, the buzz around blogs has been focused on blogs in the workplace. Even Bill Gates has jumped on the bandwagon, if only because he wants to take over the reins (see this Reuters article). He possibly wants a piece of the action because people can use blogs and RSS feeds to easily get information without having to use a Windows-based system. This opinion piece in CIO Magazine suggests that project blogs (or "plogs") can be an effective collaboration tool - especially when managers practice "mushroom management" (keeping employees in the dark and shoveling crap on them). Of course, blogs used in the workplace may never be as truly free as personal blogs, simply because of intellectual property concerns, but perhaps a compromise can be made to allow employees, management, and customers all contribute to a product. [Link][comments?][Karma: 12 ( + / - )]
Salon ran Arianna Huffington's nice little ode on the blog today. (To see the story, you either have to be a paid Salon member or watch an ad, although I was able to read it without having to see the ad.) In it she praises the collaborative nature of blogging and how that collaboration, along with a little arguing (which can help to strengthen one's argument), enhances journalism. [Link][comments?][Karma: 7 ( + / - )]
It's like blogger dave eubanks read my mind. Or I read his. In this post, he lists a great many of the issues I'd like to discuss in my thesis. Now if only I could definitively answer his question. [Link][comments?][Karma: 10 ( + / - )]
Daniel Oppenheimer in the Valley Advocate talks to and about David Neiwert, journalist and author of the blog, Orcinus, in this article. Neiwert talks about how blogs can level the journalistic playing field. Everyone can participate and no one has special placement on the Web. However, he also warns that some spin doctors use blogs in too insular a fashion, which results in name calling and ass kissing. And that just doesn't help anyone. [Link][comments?][Karma: 8 ( + / - )]
Katy Butler in today's Salon describes her experience as an active Howard Dean supporter. She says that after she started posting regularly to Dean's Blog for America, she lost her sense of reality. She says: "I'm not sure exactly what day it happened, but sometime during that September and October, I forgot that I'd stood at that truck near a Borders bookstore on a windy May evening for something bigger than candidate Dean. I got fascinated by us -- the campaign, its explosive growth, the money, the story, and the growing likelihood, given the polls and the traffic on the blogsite, that our candidate might actually win." The Zogby polls, which showed that Dean was experiencing some type of popularity, contributed to this enthusiasm. It seemed that people who were not frequenting Dean's Web site were also interested in him. Eventually, his poll numbers in Iowa dipped. Butler says, "We were talking less and less to strangers and more and more to each other" [meaning, Dean supporters]. Perhaps the growing insularity contributed to the drop in poll numbers? This break from reality can also be seen in the speech Dean made after the Iowa results came in. According to Butler, who was there in the audience, neither Dean nor Senator Tom Harkin addressed the disappointment of Dean supporters. Rather, they acted as if Dean won. I understand why Dean would want to keep up the enthusiasm, but he can't ignore the reality of the loss. It seemed that Dean and his supporters (me included) got too carried away with the blogging phenomenon. In hindsight, of course there was a big chance that our enthusiasm wouldn't be shared with other, non-Internet-using voters. I think Internet sites tend to mostly attract people who are looking for them in the first place, especially after the rise of search engines. Blogs seem like a good way to spread the word around, but it's easy to get too comfortable in the "me too" environment blogs and online bulletin boards tend to create. [Link][2 comments][Karma: 9 ( + / - )]
Ralph alerted me to a great essay by Stavros the Wonder Chicken, who argues that blogs are punk rock. Very interesting argument and one that I agree with. I'll have to see how this might fit into my thesis. In an ideal world, form should equal content, or at least attempt to, and there's no doubt that the homespun-ness of blogs affects their content. So if blogs are punk rock, what are traditional diaries? Can they be punk rock too? I'll have to see what materials early diarists used, whether they crafted their own journals, etc. Or does the introspective nature of the traditional diary lend itself to another musical genre? Or none at all? Hmmm... [Link][comments?][Karma: 2 ( + / - )]
An article on TechUser.Net discusses "Why Personal Websites Matter." Here here! [Link][comments?][Karma: -1 ( + / - )]
The Scobleizer Blog is written by a Microsoft employee who talks up the company. He started the blog before he was hired. According to an eWeek article, he forwards negative comments he receives on to Microsoft. Steve Ballmer encourages employee blogs. Perhaps because of those handy non-disclosure agreements? Are these unofficial blogs a source of meaty information, or just a cheap way of preaching the gospel of the company? [Link][1 comments][Karma: 8 ( + / - )]
[Link][comments?][Karma: 8 ( + / - )]
Russell Smith of Canada's The Globe and Mail wonders why anyone would read these laundry lists of people's lives. The San Diego Union Tribune offers an Associated Press article by Janet Pak that distinguishes between online journals and blogs: "... [U]nlike blogs, which are dated musings on certain subjects and often carry links to similar blogs, online journals are designed to be more like a coffeehouse, where a community regularly gathers, building friendships and connections as they share personal details." Are these the only characteristics that distinguish a blog from an online journal? These differences seem arbitrary to me. And aren't blogs communities, too? The blogs I read make me feel like I'm part of a community of people with similar interests. To me, the difference is that online journals are more free-form, where blogs are a bit more organized. [Link][1 comments][Karma: 9 ( + / - )]
Rebecca Blood wrote an interesting history of blogs and makes a distinction between the filter-style and journal-style blogs. Journals facilitate self-discovery by providing us with a spot to informally explain one's self in writing. Writing helps us to reflect on our thoughts and to expand upon them. Ms. Blood notes that early in her blogging "career", she discovered that she was more interested in certain topics than she thought she was. She could quickly see that the links and journal entries she posted pertained to these topics. This feedback loop between a writer and her blog is one of the aspects of blogs that really interests me. While traditional diaries certainly allow writers to learn about themselves, they do so in a more gradual manner than blogs. Additionally, journal-type blogs teach others about who we are in an almost instantaneous manner. A writer can post her throughts as soon as she thinks them and know that someone will read them (and maybe comment on them) almost as quickly. Does having an audience help a writer to learn about herself differently than if she wrote in a paper diary? Is the discourse between blog writer and reader different from the discourse between two people talking with each other? Do blogs allow us to refine our discourse in a way that oral communication could never allow? Will blogs change communication and thought similarly to how the invention of writing changed them? |
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