Tuesday, May 7, 2002

Are you joking?: Reviewing Adam Curry's explanation of how the U.S. media is mischaracterizing the recently assassinated Dutch politician, Pym Fortuyn, markpasc.blog asks: Do you trust American news with important events? Um. That would be a big fat NO. I don't trust American "news" with even unimportant events. But obvious cases of this kind of spin (U.S. media are effectively "assassinating" the character of a man who has literally been assassinated) are great to shake up those people who do think they can trust American news. There's no time like the present to start asking questions about all this "war" news we keep hearing. Oh, and is Sharon really a "man of peace" just because pResident Bush says so? Can we trust Adam Curry? I don't think anyone has the "truth," but that's why it's important to hear other opinions and perspectives -- to remind us that we'd best not take anything for granted. 9:53:46 PM

Ant Colony Xanadu: Disenchanted's latest story about "backlinking" explains the history of referal logs and how they've recently come into the light. The story's strength is in how it summarizes the benefits of backlinking: At first glance it's compelling for three reasons: the first is that a reader can see related commentary without having to go beyond the core article, the second is that the writer can get a picture of the response to his work, and the third is that it's an easy way for an obscure voice to get a bit of publicity[~]like hammering a tap into a water line. I think the article is right that backlinking could really increase the value of both blogs and the web more generally. However, I don't really understand the value of the article's proposal for a new breed of tracking software that could be plugged-in, or built-in to the next generation of web browsers: when a surfer finds a page of interest they could summon their personal browsing history, check-off the pages they think are related to it, and then go on their merry way. How is that like backlinking? 9:29:01 PM

link back talk: David Watson comes to the rescue for Radio users who would like to add "autolinking" or automatic "backlinking" to their blogs. He's created a little webservice called "getReferers" that automatically generates a list of links to the sites who are linking to you. It then helpfully puts that list at the end of your page. Allowing your readers to see who is linking to you helps to put your comments in context (which, btw, is what everyone who likes the Instant Outliner concept is so excited about). Thank you, David! One question: Um, where am I supposed to paste your code? Does it go in the homepage template? By the way, I think the way JimsLog handles this referer feature is the best I've seen because it indicates referers by post. This makes context even better because you can quickly and easily jump to those links that are specifically related to an individual post you like. I wonder if this was what Sam Ruby was getting at when he said getReferers does "not appear to be distinguishing between pages which contain specific links to specific articles and pages which simply link to something on your website." Of course, above I just linked to the home page of JimsLog, rather than to a specific post. It doesn't really look like his "auto-backlink" method has a way to account for such general links. The "auto-backlink" method employed at diveintomark is sort of a half-way point between getReferers and what JimsLog is doing. (It seems Disenchanted.com (I'm sorry I keep spelling that wrong) doesn't have this problem because it deals in "stories" or "articles" which are one-per-page rather than the blog's multiple-posts-per-page format.) So, what if I put the getReferers script in my Item template? (I'm guessing it would still call for links to the whole page, not just links to that item, right?) 8:27:33 PM

protecting innovation: Lawrence Lessig's The Future of Ideas should be required reading for anyone who finds the Internet interesting, useful, and/or fun. BusinessWeek online's interview with Lessig does a fairly good job of summarizing the main arguments of his book, which is basically that if we don't all act fast and turn things around, the Net as we know it is going bye-bye. So what should we do about this? Lessig says: A: First in context of copyright, Congress should pass low fixed compulsory license fees for distribution of [music and entertainment] content on the Web. Those fees should not be tied to reporting every usage on the Web. They should be determined the same way they are now for radio -- according to a sampling that gives some idea of what music is being played. Second, Congress should repeal the 1998 DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which, among other things makes it a crime to circumvent copyright-protection technology]. We have no reason to believe that the market won't work well enough to prevent abuse. We don't need the federal government threatening prosecution. Finally, Congress needs to not pass new legislation, like the [recently introduced] Hollings' bill that would mandate a police state in every computer [by requiring that copyright-protection mechanisms be embedded in PCs, CD players, and anything else that can play, record, or manipulate data]. (See BW Online, 3/27/02, "Guard Copyright, Don't Jail Innovation.") As you can see, Lessig's suggestions are really about what Congress needs to do, but if we still live in a democracy (a kind of big "if") then Congress should do what we ask it to do. Write your rep. 7:37:45 PM

autolinking: JOHO points to jimslog, which also has figured out how to automatically show who is linking to its pages. Hi again, Dave Winer and Userland -- can we make Radio do this easily please? 10:21:05 AM