Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Gartner is using a group weblog to talk about SARS. * * DotCommunist: "I have nothing to add to the parallel monologues of the past few weeks." * * More Crimson Dave: "Where much of what the Berkman Center does is defensive—protecting the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment, in the context of the Internet—I represent the offense." At Harvard, they're talking about giving a weblog to every voter in New Hampshire who wants one. 5:10:37 PM

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We are all blog tools Doc Searls points to an intelligent article on the (non) use of weblogs as knowledge management tools for businesses. The argument for portability between different types of weblogs is strong if somewhat overstated as an obstacle to adoption. Again, though, this isn't all about technology. Writer Tiernan Ray says "What's needed is a uniform way for every blog tool to understand the blogs created by another tool." Such a tool exists--the blogger. I know he's talking in technical terms, but I think this is a key point about what weblogs can really do. This is how Dave Winer puts it in today's Harvard Crimson: "In the early days of the Internet much of the innovation happened at the great engineering schools: MIT, Berkeley, Illinois, Utah, Carnegie-Mellon. Now the Internet is entering a new phase, and the action is in the humanities, the liberal arts, business, law, education, journalism, design, medicine, even religion and certainly politics." The tech will continue to improve, and Ray lays out some ways that might happen. Businesses will figure out weblogs--if they remember to focus on the human factor that the technology empowers. 10:35:39 AM

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© Copyright 2003 Ed Cone.