Gadgetopia

Roger Ebert’s Journal: Fanzines beget blogs: Roger Ebert has a blog now, which is crazy cool in and of itself. This week he talks about how the old world of fanzines preceded the current crop of blogs and perhaps even the Web itself.

I have always been convinced that the culture of sf fanzines contributed heavily to the formative culture of the early Web, and generated models for web site and blogs. The very tone of the discourse is similar, and like fanzines, the Web took new word coinages, turned them into acronyms, and ran with them. Think about it. Science fiction fans in the decades before the internet were already interested in computers, big-time — first with the supercomputers of science fiction myth, and then with the earliest home-built models. Fans tended to be youngish, male, geeky, obsessed with popular culture, and compelled to circulate their ideas. In the reviews and criticism they ran, they slanted heavily toward expertise in narrow pop fields.

Ebert rules.

(Roger Ebert emailed me, not once, but twice. Have I mentioned that recently? Seriously. Twice. Two friggin’ emails.)

Harvard Weblogs: What makes a weblog a weblog?: This post is five years old, but it’s important and touches on a point I’ve always kind of wondered about — what makes a blog? When do you have a blog as opposed to a regular Web site?

At Berkman we’re studying weblogs, how they’re used, and what they are. Rather than saying “I know it when I see it” I wanted to list all the known features of weblog software, but more important, get to the heart of what a weblog is, and how a weblog is different from a Wiki, or a news site managed with software like Vignette or Interwoven.

There’s a lot of technical information about templates and calendars and such, but in my mind, the differences is in perspective and tone, and Winer hits it on the head right here:

The personalities of the writers come through. That is the essential element of weblog writing, and almost all the other elements can be missing, and the rules can be violated, imho, as long as the voice of a person comes through, it’s a weblog.

When people read a weblog, they’re getting the voice of an actual person, not some nameless, faceless organization. That’s really the trick.

Federated Media’s $50 Million C-Round Confirmed — No Plans to Buy Up Blog Partners: FM raised a bunch of new money, and this TechCrunch article has some good information about how they work behind-the-scenes.

After turning down a $100 million buyout offer, Federated Media Publishing has opted instead to raise $50 million in a C round led by Oak Investment Partners. As was reported two weeks ago, the rumored valuation is $200 million. While the company is not confirming that number, publisher Chas Edwards quips, “We have to be worth at least $101 million.”

[…] In 2007, according to Edwards, Federated Media sold $22 million worth of ads across its network, up from $4 million in 2006. It generally splits the ad revenues with publishers, taking 40 percent for itself.

I just unsubscribed from the Freakonomics blog feed, and that bums me out. I loved the book, but the simple fact is that the feed sucked.

Two problems:

1. Bad: They only put abbreviated parts of the feed in each post. So you couldn’t read the whole thing in your feedreader, and kept having to click-through to the New York Times to read all the posts.

2. Worse: All they did for the excepts was take the first X words from the full post. This sucks on its face, but it’s worsened by the writing style of the authors. They tend to start off with something irrelevant, then work around to their point. This means that all that was in the feed was something completely random that got cut off and gave me no indication if I wanted to click-through to read the rest of it.

   If you’re going to abbreviate your feed and make people click through, write explicit excerpts that are designed to give your reader the information they need to decide whether or not to click-through.

I’m sad because the blog didn’t live up to the book, largely for nothing but usability reasons. Too bad.

Action Streams: An interesting new plugin from Movable Type that will aggregate your actions from 75 different social networking services and publish them as a feed from your MT install.

The Action Streams plugin is an amazing new plugin for Movable Type 4.1 that lets you aggregate, control, and share your actions around the web as well as a list of your profiles on various services. With the Action Streams plugin you keep control over the record of your actions on the web. And of course, you also have full control over showing and hiding each of your actions. The Action Streams plugin, by default, also publishes your stream using Atom and the Microformat hAtom so that your actions aren’t trapped in any one service.

(Note: If you’re reading this in RSS, it refers to an audio widget only available on the HTML side. Click the post title to go to the page which contains the widget.)

Okay, here’s the first one. I hope it goes well. (And I’m purposely not calling this a “podcast,” because I have no idea just how to get this into RSS. Maybe with the next one…)

Comments are open. Be gentle. (I’ve already been notified by Karla that some of my complaints have been addressed already in various podcasting platforms, so it’s just more evidence of how much of a noob I am…)

Andy Olmsted: A blogger in Iraq left a pre-written post with a friend in the event he died. He did.

This is an entry I would have preferred not to have published, but there are limits to what we can control in life, and apparently I have passed one of those limits.

I promise I don’t have a cleaning fetish, but, still, my first two posts to FM’s annual Holiday Gadget Guide have been about vacuums:

• The Dyson DCO7
• My Roomba

Even if you don’t like house-cleaning, they’re both pretty interesting.

Disclaimer: FM sells the advertising on Gadgetopia, and Blend designed and implemented the Holiday Gadget Guide site.

The Blogging Scholarship: This is admirable.

Is Your Blog Worthy of a $10,000 Scholarship? […] Do you maintain a weblog and attend college? Would you like $10,000 to help pay for books, tuition, or other living costs? If so, read on.

We’re giving away $10,000 this year to a college student who blogs.

But how do they define blog? In some cases, the differences between “blog” and “site” are not clear.

Your blog must contain unique and interesting information about you and/or things you are passionate about. No spam bloggers please!!!

proof of purchase: An interesting blog written entirely on scanned receipts of purchases this guy has made.

i am a middle class 20 year old with hopes, dreams, fears, and a visa check-card

Reminds me a little of PostSecret.

I’ve recently switched to Google Reader from Bloglines. There’s a lot of nice functionality, but here’s something I think is really neat: the “Next” bookmark.

This is a bookmark I have in my sidebar. When I click it, I get the permalink of the next item in my feeds. So, if I click it now, it might take to to a Metafilter post, or a Gadgetopia comment, or whatever the next item in my list of feeds is.

The thing is, it doesn’t take me to that item in Google Reader. It pushes me to the permalink URL of that item, so I get the actual page of the post at MetaFilter or the actual comment at Gadgetopia. (Funny how I felt the need to italicize “actual page.” As if that’s so odd now.)

I don’t know I like this so much — it’s just neat. You can just hit this bookmark, and you’ll get whisked to a page that is probably something you’re interested in. It’s like a contiuous “I’m feeling lucky” button.

And you just keep hitting it until you get this.

Seriously. That’s what you get when you don’t have anything unread left in your feed. Clicking the bookmark on that page takes you here.

Bad Lingo: Blog-Media Cliches: We are guilty of so many of these, yo.

• Best. [ultimate thing or experience.] Ever/Evar.
• [undesirable counter-example], not so much.
• [Argument], wait for it, [rhetorical flourish].
• etc.

How Top Bloggers Earn Money: Here’s what a lot of people have been waiting for: how much money the top bloggers in the world are making.

Answer: a lot. Way more than me, that’s for sure. Some of the numbers are just nuts. Good for them.

NCAA criticized for ejecting reporter who blogged at game: Before you go and do something like this, you really have to ask yourself, “Am I firing the first shot in a war I can’t win?”

Media groups blasted the NCAA yesterday for ejecting a Courier-Journal reporter from the press box at Sunday’s University of Louisville super-regional baseball game after he posted live updates on the newspaper’s website.

“This is appalling, but in no way am I surprised,” said Lucy Dagleish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “The television networks pay a lot of money for the rights to live reporting, and the NCAA makes a whale of a lot of money. This is all about money and not about the First Amendment.”

Reminds me of the Digg revolt that happened last month. People, people — make sure your fight is one you stand at least a small chance of winning.

If it’s obvious that you’re going to lose, perhaps you should look further down the road and figure out how you can adapt and thrive in the the new reality. As an example, I give you the TV show “American Heiress,” which I blogged about a few weeks ago.

Casey Serin: The world’s most hated blogger?: I’ve read this guy’s blog before and I agree that he’s more or less an idiot. He bought millions of dollars in houses with little planning, and then the bubble burst. So he started a blog about his troubles and has really found a niche: people hate him so much, they keep reading just so they can lambaste him in the comments.

Financial exhibitionism, coupled with a lack of penitence for stiffing his creditors, has transformed [Casey Serin] into a celebrity among fellow bloggers. But unlike other online celebrities, Serin’s stardom comes from a unique source: “haters” who patronize his blog solely to learn what financial missteps he’s made today.

The irony:

Since launching his Web site last September, Serin has discovered that it can be profitable to outrage and annoy the thousands of people who visit his blog every day. He estimates he was making up to $1,000 a month through Google ads and believes he’s on track to make even more through Yahoo’s ad network. His notoriety has led to appearances on Suze Orman’s and Robert Kiyosaki’s advice shows, and he says he’s working on a book and advice packet that he’ll sell online.

My take on him: he’s just lazy. He has little in the way of work ethic, and is trying to do anything but get a job. Or, maybe he has one already…

From the really odd department —

I’ve seen some posts around the blogosphere about people using blog comment threads as chat rooms. It happened to me once as well — some kids in a high school somewhere were using the comments of the Line Rider post as a discussion board.

Well, today I have something that I think tops them all. Someone named “Monica Christina Littrell” posted a complete set of wedding vows, apparently for her own wedding…

Brian & Monica’s Vows

Brian’s vows: Monica, I started to love you the very first moment I kissed you. Today I marry you as my best friend, my lover, my partner in life and my one true love. When you smile at me I feel beautiful, you make me laugh like no one else can. […]

First of all, congratulations Brian and Monica — you seem very much in love. Or are you? A little Googling makes me think that Monica may be more than a little…obsessed with Brian Littrell, formerly of the Backstreet Boys, and now a successful contemporary Christian artist.

Reviewing the prior comments on that entry reveals some serious oddness. For the record, I looked Littrell up in Wikipedia (link above), and it turns out he’s married to Leighanne Wallace. Someone should tell Monica before she picks out a dress.

Ah, soap operas. If anyone wants to put some more time into figuring this one out, I’d be fascinated to know the true story of Monica and Brian.

The Blogging Church: Really interesting idea for a book.

The Blogging Church offers church leaders a field manual for using the social phenomenon of blogs to connect people and build communities in a whole new way. Inside you will find the why, what, and how of blogging in the local church.

Filled with illustrative examples and practical advice, the authors answer key questions learned on the frontlines of ministry: Is blogging a tool or a toy? What problems will blogging solve? How does it benefit ministry? How do I build a great blog? and Who am I blogging for?

Via 43 folders which has more to say on it.

I’ve read two things on blogs lately that I find very cool. These are two situations in which blogs were used to connect people, and to do things that matter outside of this little, fake world we bloggers have created for ourselves.

• 4 Generations
  Blogger A writes about how a friend “received” a water buffalo for Christmas. Actually her Dad “donated” a water buffalo to a Chinese family in her name by giving $250 to a charity. However, in the fine print, it turned out there was no actual water buffalo, it was just figurative.

  Blogger B reads this, and he happens to live in China. So he comments on Blogger A’s post and says for the same donation he will buy an actual water buffalo, take it into the country, and donate it to an actual Chinese family.

  Donations are gathered, and Blogger B goes out and does just what he said he would. Better yet, he films it. It’s about 10 minutes that will make you happy to be alive.

• The Astoria Notes
  A blogger decides to post a series of letters he received under his door from his downstairs neighbor named Sophina years ago. It sounds like she was a little crazy, and she would send him these odd, rambling diatribes about how much noise he was making. He kept them all these years, photographed them, and posted them to his blog. It’s a pretty funny read.

  A few days later, he’s contacted by a teacher in Florida who teaches English to kids “who really struggle with reading.” He asks if he can turn the blog posting into a reading assignment for his students, since he thinks they’d be interested in the subject. Permission is granted, and the teacher gives the kids an assignment to read the letters, then write theoretical letters of response to Sophina.

  They do, and the teacher gets the kids to read them, and posts the audio.

Fundamentally, I believe blogging is about connecting with people, which is what separates it from mainstream news reporting. Consequently, I love both of these stories.

If you have or have heard other stories like this, I’d love to hear about them.

A while ago, USA Today created On Deadline, which is their “news blog.” It’s essentially news stories, reiterated in a more informal tone, with links to other papers, and comments are open.

That last part has been pretty entertaining. Since On Deadline has huge readership, it’s read by a lot of people who don’t usually post on the Web. These folks aren’t jaded and cynical about flame wars like us dorks, and there are some real trolls in there that love to stir the pot.

The result: every single post about anything even remotely political becomes a massive flame war. Consider this post about an 81-year-old man who sent a letter to the editor that could have been construed as a threat to the president, and was consequently visited by the Secret Service:

Bush is in cahoots with the Bin Laden family. That is why when no other planes were flying on 9/11, the Bin Laden’s were still allowed to leave and Cheney made sure they got out safely.

[…] Here we have yet another example of an abuse of police power in America. Many think we solved a major problem in disposing of Hitler some time ago. Think again.

[…] It’s pretty nauseating reading the liberal comments here. If I had a dollar for every time a liberal with an IQ under 120 called the President an idiot or half-joked about killing him I’d be a millionaire.

[…] NeoCon agenda: Eliminate the Constitution. Invade countries that have not attacked us. Establish Big Brother tactics (the Patriot Act) to spy on decent Americans. Play the fear card (LEVEL ORANGE). Get rich. NeoCon: SS

And it goes on and on. The comments are moderated, but short of profanity, I think the moderators will let anything through.

I watch “On Deadline” out of the corner of my eye, and when anything with any political angle comes across, I’m all over it. The comments are always entertaining, often hysterical, no matter what side of the aisle you’re on. No matter if these folks learn that flame wars can never be won, there’s such a depth of readerships that new commenters will always be there to take their place.

Someone should link to this site from the Wikipedia entry on flame war. It’s an absolute case study every day. In another sense, it’s a perfect example of the futility of political debate on the Internet. No one is changing their mind — they’re just slinging mud and enjoying it.

Bribing Bloggers: This is a really interesting post from Spolsky about the ethics of bloggers accepting free stuff from vendors. Apparently Microsoft offered to send Joel a new Ferrari laptop pre-loaded with Vista, for free.

[…] I’ve decided that from this point forward I’m not accepting anything, full stop. Even if my moral logic is faulty, and there’s nothing wrong with accepting gifts, I personally feel that it’s not worth the reduced credibility. Who are the most trusted reviewers out there? Consumer Reports, probably. They don’t take anything from vendors. They even buy everything they review at retail, which is what I’m going to do.

I’ve taken some free stuff, but not much. And I agree with Joel that it does kind of force you to post on it.

Some time ago, I reviewed a book for Packt Publishing on phpMyAdmin. Luckily, it was a great book, and I wrote about it in those terms.

However, they have sent me one other than I didn’t like at all, and I told them so. I never wrote about that one. They also sent me the latest edition of the phpMyAdmin book, and I couldn’t find anything new and noteworthy to post about, so I mentioned that to them as well.

Just recently, they sent me their Drupal book. I haven’t had enough time to look through that one, but I’ll probably write about it because I have a post forthcoming on Drupal in general.

(Look through the above paragraphs: I just gave Packt several inbound links, which I would have had no reason to do if they hadn’t sent me something for free. Also, I didn’t link to the book I hated, and I can’t bring myself to out of some feeling of responsibility and obligation to Packt.)

Oh, who am I kidding? I still want free stuff.