BurningbirdRecovered from the Wayback Machine.
I’ve had a couple of weblogging buddies ask me where I’m thinking of moving to. The honest answer is, I have no idea. I’ll have to give notice at my apartment the first of June, and move by end of July. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.
I’d rather spend my time writing or walking or taking pictures or playing with technology or driving Golden Girl around the countryside. I’m in the mood of leaving the thinking to others most likely wiser than me at this time.
However, I only have a few weeks to make a decision so I need to get going. I could use the scientific method of sticking a map on the wall and shooting a dart at it, but with my luck it would continue hitting San Francisco. Or Antarctica. Or my butt.
Here’s a new one for weblogging — in 20 words or less, where should I go and why? And please, no answers of “…to hell”. I did that already when I went through puberty.
Winner gets an autographed copy of the weblogging book when it comes out. See, a prize. Only the best from Burningbird for my friends.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
Salon has a very interesting piece on blogging’s effect on Google. In it, Steven Johnson wrote:
There are significant political consequences to the Blogger Effect: Because the blogging community contains a disproportionate number of libertarians, it’s possible that Google searches on certain hot-button issues will start skewing toward libertarian-friendly pages. Given Google’s increasing prominence, this libertarian slant could prove to be more significant than the more familiar concerns about liberal bias in the major networks, and conservative bias on Fox News. No sensible person thinks “The O’Reilly Factor” is free of political slant (save O’Reilly himself). But the great oracle of Google is supposed to be above such partisan concerns.
We’ve seen blogging’s effect on Google with the recent impact on Operation Clambake, the anti-Scientology web site. Searching on Scientology, Clambake once showed up fourth in the list. Scientology attempts to get Clambake pages pulled from the Google database, weblogger respond, and the end result is that Clambake is now first in the page when searching on “scientology”. Webloggers pat themselves in the back for a job well done.
Yet consider the implications behind this: webloggers have a disproportionately large influence on Google and therefore the information that’s returned when people perform Google searches. And as more people are going online and using Google to find information, webloggers are skewing the data that they see.
We strut and gloat about our power while applying it on a whim. And that’s scary.
Don’t agree with Scientology? Googlebomb the church sites off the Google results front page (something the Church itself tried to do with anti-Scientology sites). Don’t agree with the “liberal” bias of online news sources? Googlebomb them off the front page.
Don’t like a political candidate? Bash them in your weblog and get other weblogs to link to you so that searches on the candidate name return your weblog first. Get all your weblogging buddies to link to other sites and articles that also bash the candidate until eventually page after page of Google search results point to material that says only negative things about the candidate.
Webloggers aren’t influencing decisions — they’re influencing the information that influences the decision, and that’s dangerous.
We’ve been given the go ahead from O’Reilly, the “…FRIENDLIEST and most WONDERFUL publisher we’ve ever dealt with” (sorry, a little editor tease there), to announce a new book on weblogging!
Among the authors is yours truly, writing the chapters on Blogger. I’m joined by Mena and Ben Trott writing about Movable Type, Scott Johnson who’s been dropping hints about the book, Rael Dornfest from O’Reilly, and Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing fame. Nathan Torkington is the editor that has to manage this wild and wooly crowd.
The book should be out in September. Start saving your pennies now.
The name of the book will either be Weblogging Essentials or Practical Weblogging. My preference of course is for the latter since I’m also writing Practical RDF.
Normally I don’t insert my body into the ranks of the weblogging intelligentsia when AKMA, Searls, Weinberger, Himmer, and so on become deeply engaged in cross-blogging about particularly heavy and philosophical topics. I’m usually happy to just sit back and watch the flow — brain pushups.
However, when the topic is “content” and the by-play between participants is so interesting, why I just have to jump in. My only worry is that the gang will take one look at my efforts and throw me back. My eyes are clear, and my scales are firm, so we can hope.
The thread root seems to be a posting that Doc made, in which he says:
That’s why it’s no coincidence that when Big Media (and .com wannabe Big Media) saw the Web, they took everything we used to call “art,” “editorial,” “music,” and “news” — and recharacterized it all as “content.” Because “content” is something you ship, something you distribute. It’s not necessarily something you share.
Doc has a very good point — is the use of the word “content” a way of demeaning what we write? Instead of literature, we create content. Instead of art, we create content?
Weinberger continues on this theme when he states:
Links not only literally make the Web a web, but the nature of those links determines almost everything that is interesting and important about it. Content is to the Web as zombies are to human culture.
Beautifully said. Powerful. And Halley responds in agreement, stating “People who use the word ‘content’ make my words into whores.”
Chris fearlessly drenches his feathers by jumping in, cannon ball style with:
Shuffling, whether off the mortal coil, or into the spotlight, it’s the motion, not the meat, mama. The medium ain’t worth a rat’s posterior. The eye is drawn to motion – ‘don’t move or he’ll see us’ is whispered child’s-voice breathlessly in a technicolour dream of Monsters Under The Bed.
When Wonder Chicken turns demented owl, there is no better read on the web.
AKMA, my favorite man of the cloth used the dastardly word and paid the ultimate price. However, he saves the theological bacon with a lovely posting, containing among other things:
If we distinguish web “content” from any other aspect of online textuality–MIDI background music (argh), Flash animations, “blink” tags, Java-scripted moving buttons, whatever–we deny the meaningfulness of auditory, graphical, kinetic stiumuli, a pretty mess into which I wish I hadn’t stepped.
By the way, AKMA, how’s the term DylanBoy for Mike Golby, who also added his thoughts to the fray with “stuff happens”.
If each of these postings was a unique note, this symphony would be a keeper.
Being the curious sort, I did a Thesaurus search on content. Following is a summarized view of the results:
Of well-being and affections
Existence in space, being both the dissenter and the noncomformist
Averse acquiescence, uncontradicted
Cordial and cheery to the marrow, from the bone
These dainty comforts, scraps from the album
Odd, but when you look at “content” this way, I don’t mind being a content creator.
